Mannnn, these are always hard when it gets down to finals week! I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.
1. I used a $10/$50 coupon at Safeway
I filled out an offer in the app to get this coupon, and then I carefully picked out items that were on sale, so as to maximize my savings.
Because if you go to Safeway without being careful, you can easily spend a whole lot on a bag of groceries. In that case, it would be better to go to Aldi, even without a coupon!
I bought some frozen pizzas for $4 each (for Zoe), some Starbucks coffee grounds on sale, some frozen shrimp on sale (good for me when Zoe’s not home for dinner!), and so on.
2. I kept up my inadvertent streak of packing food
I didn’t really start out my school phase purposely shooting to maintain a long streak of not buying food at school or at the clinical sites, but so far… my streak is unbroken.
(I did get a free chicken sandwich once at the Chick Fil A at college, but that doesn’t really count!)
All that’s left this semester is a final exam on Wednesday, so we can pretty much already assume I’m gonna keep my streak up through the end of this semester. 😉
One packed lunch at a time, one packed dinner at a time, I have probably saved myself quite a lot of money.
3. I fixed my clogged printer
I was trying to print some brochures for my presentation this week, and suddenly the blue ink stopped printing altogether.
I remembered that this had happened before, so I went into the printer settings, ran some cleaning cycles, and ta-da, the blue is printing again. Yay!
I also ordered some refill bottles for the colored ink in the printer; this is the first time I’ve ever ordered refills and I’ve had the printer for multiple years.
I love the big tanks in this printer! You buy a bottle of ink and pour it into the tank to refill it and it is so so so much cheaper than the stupid little cartridges.
(This is the printer model that is closest to what I own, although Canon makes several different models with the big ink tanks.)
4. I made another French toast casserole
I was doing a little perusal of the contents of my kitchen freezer and I noticed a fair number of bread odds and ends; a few whole wheat heels, some baguette slices, and a partial loaf of cinnamon raisin bread.
So I cubed all of that and made another 8×8 pan of French toast casserole for Zoe and me.
5. I shipped two eBay packages
Both sales were items that had been sitting in my eBay shop for quite some time; patience is the name of the game when it comes to eBay!
Of course, I packaged both items in padded envelopes I had saved in my stash.
Alyson
Sunday 15th of December 2024
1. Shipped presents myself rather than shipped from the store. I thought I was being really frugal, but ended up saving only $3 overall. 2. Won a $25 Amazon gift card at my virtual work party. 3. Bought ice cream at the grocery store and ate it at home to celebrate my son's choir concert rather than ice cream at the shop, which is $5 for a cone (x 4 people). 4. Bought one Advent calendar for three kids to share. It saves money and they get excited when it's their turn. 5. Rather than buy lunch or coffee, I ran errands with my BFF to catch up.
shh
Friday 13th of December 2024
I:
1. Shopped at Aldi. 2. Made a French toast casserole from three different types of bread, including hamburger buns, and eight eggs approaching their "best by" date. 3. Prepped leftover heavy cream (used in the casserole) to go in the freezer rather than letting it go bad as I normally do. I am honestly proudest of this one! 4. Remembered to freeze some hamburger meat on its "best by" date. 5. Deleted something small from my Amazon cart to stay within our per person limit on Christmas purchases.
shh
Friday 13th of December 2024
Thanks for introducing me to TPW's French toast casserole. It is amazing!
AW
Wednesday 11th of December 2024
I think what you have is still great!
My Frugal Finds * Batch run errands and saved on gas. While batch running errands ... - At Dollar Tree, got a few coco bombs for my girls's stocking stuffer and a set of chocolate stirring spoons to go with the mug I got my friend for Christmas. - Got a few decorative fall items from Hobby Lobby 90% off sale that I was meaning to get like a couple sprigs of berries, a bag of pumpkins, and a bag of nuts and pinecones to finish decorating my fall wreath. - Went grocery shopping and stock up on necessities at Walmart while my husband was already there. Also got a tin of cookies and coco bombs for my neighbor. * Went an extra day to volunteer at church to help decorate it and while there, my friend said I could get whatever extra food was leftover that wasn't given out the day before. I filled up on so much extra baked goods like pastries, muffins, bagels, sweet breads, toast bread, etc. and placed them in my garage since it's like a built in fridge already since it's cold outside. * Met with my dear friend and learned how to make her raisin filled cookies. Bonus was her serving me lunch and sending me home a big tin of cookies we made together. * Husband made homemade cut out sugar cookies with the girls and used frosting and sprinkles we already had. Made great memories with the girls. * Put up a real and fake tree this year and decorated them with things we already had. We usually only have the fake tree up and all the decorations go on it but this year, we'll be dividing the decorations between the two trees. * Used the same Christmas decorations from last year for this year. * Went to see the free Christmas lights display downtown at night together with my family. It was so crowded so we may plan a trip again on a not so popular night. * Went to see the Elf interactive movie at the library. While there, also returned borrowed items, picked up reserved DVDs, turned in our ornaments we made for their Christmas tree, and looked for the hidden red truck in their trees so we can put our name in the raffle to win their 5 foot stuffed stocking. * Went to a company sponsored event where we were given free tickets to see Moana 2 for the entire family. Afterwards, the girls each got a free bundtlet from Nothing Bundt Cake for completing their reading log. * Continue to listen to music, read books, watch movies, and play games at home. Also used up and ate the food up we had at home. Used Ibotta and Fetch. Mended clothes, toys, and decor.
Lazy Budget Chef
Wednesday 11th of December 2024
Here' s my five!
1. My husband made soup using the Thanksgiving turkey neck and gibbets our hosts offered us otherwise they would have thrown them away.
2. Put up the Christmas tree I bought last year on after clearance Christmas sale because our old tree made us sick.
3. I wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents using cloth gift bags I sewed from historical costuming scrap fabric. They look glitz under our tree - for FREE!
4. Switched over the summer clothes in my dresser to winter (small house.) I made some tough love decisions to donate some items that I like but are much too big for me now and did a little closet shopping of pairing old stuff (that fits) in new ways. I always feel like I have more stuff than less when I do this because the clutter stuff seems to hide the other good stuff I have and don't use because I grab the clutter stuff first. Charity run t shirts I'm talking to YOU.
5. It was time to change the scented wax in my warmer. I poured the melted and spent wax from my wax warmer into an old candle jar with a wick to eventually make a new candle. The candles aren't very pretty and can burn weirdly due to the different types of wax in the candle jar but are perfect for storm related blackouts.