A speedy Five Frugal Things

We're enjoying a quiet night at home & it's so good to switch gears from the Christmas hustle & bustle to a little blog reading:)

Here's my 5:

1) I'm filling some cute cosmetic bags with little gifts for my sis/mom. Walked around Walgreens looking specifically for nice clearance soap, nail stuff, etc. This helped me get way more bang more my budget.

2) Used a 25% off coupon for Christmas cards & hand delivered some locally.

3) Bought like new used $1 books from the Library for some gifts.

4) I'm going to make hole-y sock/lost partner mitten puppets with my girls over break. Also plan to make homemade play-dough & use our cookie cutters.

5) Bought a huge container of organic spinach at rock bottom clearance. I've froze a ton & we've been eating lots this week too. Love finding cheap produce!

1. My son always pours too much OJ in the morning. I saved the extra in a jar for his breakfast tomorrow. 2. Filled my outside pot with free pine branches scavenged from where we cut down our Christmas tree. Looks great! I’ll add lights later today. 3. Got free Christmas lights from a neighbor that had too many 4. Found a new to me surplus grocery store near our Wednesday night activity! Great prices!,, 5. Got new Clark shoes for me at a silent auction fir $8!!!

1. I fixed my washing machine! I tried because I had read about you fixing your appliances. It was a VERY simple fix (clearing out a clogged piece of tubing) once I got the machine apart.

2. I am returning shoes that didn't fit, a jacket that didn't fit, and bras that didn't fit. Can't wait to get that $$ back!

3. Made dinner tonight from what we had on hand instead of running out to get food or anything else to supplement.

4. We are making our long holiday trip overnight because traffic is lighter and, since the dog and I both sleep the whole way, we make far fewer pit stops and consume fewer treats.

5. I asked a friend at our holiday destination to borrow an academic book from her library for me to use while I am visiting. I don't need to own the book, so it's a big savings!

1. Eating out of fridge, freezer & pantry...trying to cut my grocery bill way down this month to make up for some of our Christmas spending. 2. Sold a few items on Facebook garage sale sites to make up the extra $ i needed in my Christmas budget. 3. We had a White Elephant gift exchange at my work's Christmas Luncheon. Instead of opening a new gift, i "stole a gift card" someone had as the gift they opened & nobody ended up stealing it from me, so I got to keep it. Will come in handy (better than just an item I probably won't use). 4. Making all of our holiday goodies myself, saving me lot of money from buying them. They taste better too! 5. Used all of our extra Christmas cards from years past plus all leftover gift tags so I didn't have to buy any this year.

1. Ate leftovers for lunch. 2. Served leftovers for dinner last night. (I made a FULL crockpot of soup on Sunday... for our family of 4.) 3. I put half of the above soup in the freezer already. I didn't wait til it was near it's expiration to do this as I often do. 4. Tonight we're going to look at Christmas lights at a zoo 45 minutes away (free with the zoo membership we got for Christmas last year!) We are packing food for dinner instead of eating out. 5. My dishwasher has been failing to clean dishes, so we've been washing them all by hand for quite a while. Now that I'm pregnant with our third child we are motivated to do something about the dishwasher situation. We debated whether we spend $70 for my husband to buy parts and fix it himself or to get a new one. We opted for the frugal fix. Even though my pregnant/tired self was leaning toward just getting a new one. ;)