Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

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floridacatlover
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Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:21 am

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by floridacatlover »

Five frugal things (plus one for tomorrow)

1. Visited local college art gallery with a friend. Free entry, free parking and I didn't have to pay the .50 toll (college entrance was before the toll booth). I did spend $8 for lunch and a soda at the college cafeteria.
2. Bought 160-count CVS tissues for .34 (mostly tax). I had a $2 CVS coupon on any household item from my email. Stopped at CVS on the way home from the college so no extra gas.
3. Bought 4 Hallmark Easter cards at Publix for $3, so .75/card. Not as cheap as Dollar Tree but I saved a trip. Hallmark cards are usually so expensive but there were so many inexpensive nice Easter cards. (Maybe Hallmark is learning.) One card was $2 and the other three were .99 each but I had two B1G1 coupons from the card display.
4. Shopped at Aldi for produce and paper products.
5. Carried $1 Chanel-type, cream-color purse on Easter Sunday. I purchased this last year at a rummage sale and have only used it a few times. Perfect condition, quilted "faux leather" with a leather and gold chain handle.
6. Will replace my dead DustBuster with the handheld part of mom's cordless vac. Not the greatest but will suffice for awhile. (I checked YouTube on repairing my DustBuster and it does not seem possible to replace the belt on this model.)
frugalmom
Posts: 1710
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:52 pm

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by frugalmom »

Dgflorida wrote: Sat Mar 31, 2018 4:03 pm I have five frugal now.
1) fixed 2 pairs of hubs shorts. They were too loose on him since he lost weight.
2) made more toilet paper tube seed starter pots.
3) finished a new flower/vegetable bed
4) saved shower water for my garden
5) hooked up my irrigation line.
I keep bugging my dh to start the garden-he is still planting flowers "for me" but I said I do not want flowers as we have so many already,give me something to support the family and eat! Like watermelon,cucumbers,etc! He said we have to get a rototiller to prepare the ground bc of the weeds? The ground was too hard he said when he pulled the weeds! Oh and he was cutting bags with a scissor and he called me to hurry up come home that he cut his eye! I am carpooling the kids and said WHAT!? He got dizzy and somehow he does not know what happened the scissor went up and he was bleeding all over. Like I am frantic and trying to stay calm and get the kids back to their homes and then he calls ok I washed my eye out and it is not my eyeball which he thought it was but right on the lid but he was bleeding everywhere so he panicked thinking it was the eyeball-thank goodness it was not! Sheesh-well that made us decide not to cancel his cell just in case something like this happens and he needs the phone. Aiyiyi-he gave me a heart attack!

I love the idea of toilet paper seed starter pots (that is one thing we have plenty of-tp rolls-lol! You do not need a bottom to it? I was thinking of egg cartons? But do you need something deeper? I used the water from the rain and garbage cans fill up quickly so we use this water for the garden. It sits under the gutters(the rain barrels are too expensive so we use cheap garbage cans we never used for garbage).
Last edited by frugalmom on Sun Apr 08, 2018 2:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
frugalmom
Posts: 1710
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:52 pm

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by frugalmom »

floridacatlover wrote: Sun Apr 01, 2018 3:35 pm Five frugal things (plus one for tomorrow)

1. Visited local college art gallery with a friend. Free entry, free parking and I didn't have to pay the .50 toll (college entrance was before the toll booth). I did spend $8 for lunch and a soda at the college cafeteria.
2. Bought 160-count CVS tissues for .34 (mostly tax). I had a $2 CVS coupon on any household item from my email. Stopped at CVS on the way home from the college so no extra gas.
3. Bought 4 Hallmark Easter cards at Publix for $3, so .75/card. Not as cheap as Dollar Tree but I saved a trip. Hallmark cards are usually so expensive but there were so many inexpensive nice Easter cards. (Maybe Hallmark is learning.) One card was $2 and the other three were .99 each but I had two B1G1 coupons from the card display.
4. Shopped at Aldi for produce and paper products.
5. Carried $1 Chanel-type, cream-color purse on Easter Sunday. I purchased this last year at a rummage sale and have only used it a few times. Perfect condition, quilted "faux leather" with a leather and gold chain handle.
6. Will replace my dead DustBuster with the handheld part of mom's cordless vac. Not the greatest but will suffice for awhile. (I checked YouTube on repairing my DustBuster and it does not seem possible to replace the belt on this model.)
That sounds like a fun visit to the art gallery!
frugalmom
Posts: 1710
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:52 pm

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by frugalmom »

Some things I did frugally over the week:

1. I got the FREE Little Caesar's pizza for March Madness bet they lost so gave everyone free lunch pizza with a drink! My dh and I and my son went and we all got it free -they did not check even anything-they just handed it out to everybody since there was a never ending line! So it was an individual pizza each but it was pretty big still, so we had it also for dinner bc we could not finish it for lunch. There were so many people that when they ran out for a bit,they were giving away the large 5.99 pizzas to some!

2.Leftover baked potatoes turned into country hash browns in the morning.

3. Preston made 700.00 at a sneaker convention (and I was complaining why would you pay 26.00 to go to buy more shoes!? He convinced me he wanted to also sell shoes-they go around with their boxes of shoes! I was worried someone was going to mug him or something! I let him go with his friends-I did not want to go bc I did not want to spend money on that so I waited in a tech company's parking lot(free versus convention parking 15.00 I think) since it was a Sunday and they were closed-I caught up on my reading! He also made another 145.00 yesterday selling some shoes and two shirts. Now he wants business cards! :shock: He even made a nice slick IG site. He just bought another from someone which is cheaper and will be hiking it up bc it is limited editions and selling it for more.

4.Got a free Starbuck's 10.00 gift card from Starbucks.

5. Got more free Monopoly winning pieces (more donuts or bagels and other stuff-not the great prizes though like a million dollars or something!). My son's fiance wins stuff all the time-free ties,hats,shirts,tuxedo,etc! She is lucky!

6.Free Kindle book Hard Core Poor

7. Using our garbage can "rain barrels" under the gutters to catch the rain(it fills up quickly I am surprised!) and dh uses it to water the garden.

8. MY dd needed a baby shower gift for a friend's brother. A few years back my sister cleaned out everything and gave me her baby clothes that other people gave her but her kids never wore bc they had so much and she asked if I wanted it! Figuring we would have babies to give gifts for i said yes! Sure enough, it has become great gifts! They were expensive items too like a Ralph Lauren sun outfit with price tags still on! Calvin Klein onesies! So my dd who is a broke college student(one more month to go for this one! Yes, I have two daughters in college and technically a son graduating with his masters this year too-but he pays for his own college) appreciated the gifts to give her friend's brother and found a bag in the house as well as a blank card.

9. I have been pretty good about not spending or going out to eat esp during basketball practices. We eat before we go or bring a sandwich or something and he eats when he gets home late but leftovers.

10. We are all around more simple-we were actually simple to begin with(at least that is what people think of us-esp family!) but trying to be even more simple! So like salad dressings, use olive oil and lemon or balsamic vinegar instead of using salad dressings or make my own tartar sauce-dik recipe but mayo and capers for me tastes good. Or making my own thousand island with ketchup,mayo and a bit of relish(IDK if that is the real recipe but it looked like it to me so I just made enough for my own salad bc I am the only one who likes this dressing so no use buying a bottle!). The only bottle I do buy is Wishbone Italian dressing bc dh likes that and occasionally Catalina for our Doritos Taco salad. Whatever I can make at home and know how to do I do that instead of buying a bottle or jar.

11. OH and I was carpooling kids to school but ended up really being me carpooling bc the others have a job. So I got rave enough to ask for 20.00 to cover gas at least for the week. One kid used to go on Uber and pay 9.00 one way so that is 18.00 a day! So I think I am reasonable! My brother says it is too cheap and I should have charged more for my services too-but I know it is hard for everyone else paying the bills too so I just asked for enough to cover one tank of gas(I fill up twice a week but some of that is also for going to SF for practices so that is on me)-at least it helps cover some of my gas expense. I am trying to work on my budget where I can cut and go line by line.

12. By the way a bit of bad luck(as usual-that is why things never work out for us!)-my dd who got hurt in a car accident(other guy at fault) we had a hard time at first getting their insurance to pay even for damages to the car bc hard to get a hold of! they are those like fly by night insurance operations they advertise on the radio it does not matter how many tckets,get this cheap insurance type deal! Well my dd is still in pain with her back-BUT the guy's insurance is going out of business!!! Lawyer says now they have to go through MY insurance-like what!? Although he assures me my insurance won't go up which I hardly believe that(but legally they cannot-it seems it goes up every year as it is!). I told my dd your luck is like dad's luck which worries me-never works out for us-it is always some random thing that won't work out-like what company goes out of business all of a sudden when we are suing!? So if she does not go with claiming against our insurance she will have to pay out of pocket all those MRIs,CAT scans,chiropracter(in the thousands already)! WE just don't have any luck(well except Monopoly pieces :shock: ! :?
Dgflorida
Posts: 4381
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:10 pm

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by Dgflorida »

Frugalmom wrote I love the idea of toilet paper seed starter pots (that is one thing we have plenty of-tp rolls-lol! You do not need a bottom to it? I was thinking of egg cartons? But do you need something deeper?

There are good videos online showing how to make the starter pots. I tried sitting them in egg cartons and they didn't fit well. I have quite a few multi pack pots from previous years, about the size of small yogurt cups. I put dirt in the bottom of the little plastic pots and then sit the seed starter pot part way in the soil. Part way in the soil hold the starter pot upright. I fill the starter cup with soil and then put the seed in. I water the starter pot. When the cardboard is wet, I know the starter pot soil is wet. I don't wet the outside soil. The starter pots have a folded over bottom as will show in the video. Each tube makes 2 starter pots with fold over bottoms. Just keep the cardboard wet color and the starter pot soil will be wet and the seed will sprout fast.
frugalmom
Posts: 1710
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:52 pm

Re: Five Frugal Things You Did This Week

Post by frugalmom »

Dgflorida wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:13 am Frugalmom wrote I love the idea of toilet paper seed starter pots (that is one thing we have plenty of-tp rolls-lol! You do not need a bottom to it? I was thinking of egg cartons? But do you need something deeper?

There are good videos online showing how to make the starter pots. I tried sitting them in egg cartons and they didn't fit well. I have quite a few multi pack pots from previous years, about the size of small yogurt cups. I put dirt in the bottom of the little plastic pots and then sit the seed starter pot part way in the soil. Part way in the soil hold the starter pot upright. I fill the starter cup with soil and then put the seed in. I water the starter pot. When the cardboard is wet, I know the starter pot soil is wet. I don't wet the outside soil. The starter pots have a folded over bottom as will show in the video. Each tube makes 2 starter pots with fold over bottoms. Just keep the cardboard wet color and the starter pot soil will be wet and the seed will sprout fast.
Thank you! I can see how that works now! Someone on facebook showed how they did their garden since they are renting in those kiddie plastic swimming pools-thought that was a good idea!
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