May Frugals

Well, I did manage to stay home yesterday and get all of our meals made at home. I didn't get to the deck, though, as DD was very fussy, and I was trying to get some other projects completed. I did get to cross some things off my to-do list, though, and if DD is in a better mood today, I think we will go to Target. They have diapers on sale plus you get s gift card for buying them plus I have some awesome coupons from the company since I wrote them about a negative experience we had with the last pack. So cheap diapers and another gift card for my Christmas jar!

I am planning to make DH some party sandwiches for lunch with meat, cheese, and buns for the freezer.

I got an email from an online consignment shop stating I have a $15 "valued customer" credit there, so I will probably do a little shopping later. The credit can be used for shipping, too, so I should get some free clothes out of the deal, which is nice since I probably won't have much money to buy things for myself for quite awhile!

Otherwise, same old stuff here. Eating at home, shopping only sales/coupons for things we truly need, playing outside with DD and taking her for rides in her wagon at night.

For inexpensive entertainment this week - free workshop at a science museum, meetup and club hikes, Costco movie tickets, family hike at the free country parks, taking the dog to the dog park, brunch at a coffee shop, low cost clubs at school for the kids, and walks around our local park little lake with fountains, floating gardens and a free municipal rose garden next door.

For groceries we have been stockpiling loss leaders, especially meat and frozen foods like pizzas for the kids, buying produce from an ethnic market, and buying day old bakery from the clearance racks. Last month I was over budget on groceries and this month so far I am under. Theoretically, we should save money shopping at Costco but in real life it never seems to work out. Whenever we go to Costco for groceries I go over budget and never seem to catch up.

I received my $100 gift Visa card in the mail for switching to U-verse. I also got a $50 replacement check for a $50 refund check I forgot to cash before it expired. This one we remembered to deposit right away.

I was sent some wrong merchandise by an Amazon vendor and received that refund yesterday. It is money I had coming but when I wasn't tracking our expenses as closely as I am now, I used to not be good at cashing checks or returning things on time so I was glad to have returned the item before the refund period expired.

I received and paid the bill for the house repairs today. $1200 which was less that all of my 4 estimates by a minimum of $300 and a maximum of $3000 so I am very pleased with the end cost. Dh and ds spent about 2 1/2 hours smoothing things out and spreading a $10 bag of grass seed for a savings of another $200. Its so nice to have this done and paid for!

The coke rewards site offered a couple of frugal wins, little as they may be. I entered 4 caps and received 20 bonus points after which I realized I could purchase a $5 gift card to McD's for 150 pts. My guys will use this for a fun lunch out this summer along with some B1G1 sandwich coupons that I have.

I played some sweeps this morning-no instant wins but who knows about bigger prizes down the road.

We're having the hood cleaned at the restaurant tonight so I made sure we have leftovers for dinner tonight. Quick and easy and no dinning out!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rosemary

...yes, I did note this morning that it was an activity that required a meditative mindset... but I don't know if I need quite that many hours of meditation this month! :)

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What kind of shovel are you using, Rosemary? I need to start on ours. It's awful.

Um... I'm using the shovel that I bought in 1995 when I bought a house in the Phoenix area. I subsequently used the shovel to install 25 tons of landscape rock in my yard there. So it's very blunt and not great for digging. Not too great for picking up rock, either. I'm moving about 3-4 carts (well, one-fourth carts, as rock is heavy) of the gravel per day, so that I have time to get my other yardwork done as well.

Frugals today - returned a couple of nonfood impulse purchases to Costco. (Mostly) stuck to my grocery list. Split a couple of large items with a friend.

Let's see. I went to the store yesterday for the diaper deal and only walked out with the things I had planned to purchase. I was sorely tempted to buy some things I saw on clearance, but they were not things I needed. So even though they were a good deal, I left them on the shelves!

DH found a new home for one of our bookcases. A co-worker of his was looking for one and was thrilled to have it. She kept offering to pay for it, but we didn't want any money for it--we just wanted to bless her with it. So when she came over to pick it up, she brought a ham from her freezer. She and her husband buy all their pork from local farmers each year. She didn't need to bring us anything, but it was a nice gesture and one that I really appreciated. Now I have less clutter AND a free ham in my freezer! :-) Now I just need to finish going through our books. DH said she likes crime/detective stuff, and we have a ton of those kinds of books we can pass along to her.

This weekend, our town is participating in Stamp Out Hunger. I am so excited to donate to the cause and have prepared a box full of non-perishable food to share that I got for next to nothing using coupons. DH and I like to be generous and are happy that we still can be even on a tight budget.

I went to Rite Aid to pick up a couple of sales items. While there I noticed several things marked 75% off. I bought:5 boxes of sugar for 69 cents, 18 jellos for 19 cents each (these will go on the salad bar at work), and pudding that dh likes for approx. 80 cents.

All told, today probably was not a frugal day, what with a lengthy (40-mile round trip) run to a store for an open-box price on something we wanted -- and then another 40-mie round trip when we figured out they had left out the power cord. :treadmill: Good thing I get 50+ mpg highway...

I did take the opportunity to do the week's grocery shopping, which means the car will not have to move Friday or Saturday or, likely, Sunday. We'll be eating out of the freezer and pantry for most meals this week, so I picked up a few items I don't see at our local stores and still kept the bill down.

The real frugal, though, came in discovering that our local library system has an agreement with Zinio, a publisher of electronic-format magazines, to lend copies of magazines to one's Mac or Windows PC, iPad/iPhone, or Android phone/tablet. Free! I can think of at least three magazine subscriptions (some electronic; some still paper) which are not going to be renewed next time they come up!

SteveinMN--that use of Zinio should be a great source of savings for you!

Not much is new here--same old, same old. It was too cold to take DD outside yesterday, and it is supposed to be chilly today, too. So I think I will instead take her to Aldi's to get some milk and fruit to tide us over until our big shop next week. We should easily be able to stay under the $10 I have budgeted for this, even if I get her a treat! Then I think we'll make a stop at Kohl's. They sent me a $10 off $10 coupon for signing up for paperless statements. I can pair that with a 20% off coupon and get some free items. I am thinking maybe some jammies for the kids or some Christmas gifts if we find some good stuff on clearance.

Friday nights we tend to order out for pizza, so last week I bought a frozen pizza with a coupon to heat up instead. It only cost $3 as opposed to the $20 we usually spend ordering one. I'll make some veggies to go along with it, too. Should be healthier as well as cheaper!

I had been living with the sum total of two appropriately modest long skirts, to cover my three days of teaching a week at a religious school. These two skirts had comprised my entire skirt wardrobe since November. I was checking out buying two new skirts, which each cost about 100 Israeli Shekels (about $30 USD). However, I caught myself in time and checked out the one and only charity store in town, and bingo! Two new-to-me skirts for the total of 10 Shekels each...or $3 a skirt! $6, not $60...Whoo hoo, that's how teachers do it! :)