As an exercise in accountability, I’ll be using the space to periodically share my frugal wins (and fails). Join me in the comments by posting yours!
- After enjoying a free local youth comic/art festival last week with 2 of my sons, I learned that one son had left his flannel hoodie behind, a Christmas gift from us. Instead of chalking it up to (yet another) lost hoodie, I emailed the festival organizers to see if they had found it and was rewarded for my efforts. After a quick drive down to the library and a good wash, he has it back in his hands and hopefully holds on to it this time.
- A friend alerted me of an “ultimate clearance sale” at Kohl’s this week. We each have 3 sons and look out for one another by sharing resources. I’m not a regular Kohl’s shopper but was intrigued enough by her excited texts to make the 5 minute trip after work one day. After spending 45 minutes combing through the men’s section and picking out a handful of items, I took stock and had a little talk with myself. None of my kids are asking for any particular clothing item at the moment, AND after tracking down a couple more of their sweatshirts in lost and found at school, I realized that I was just creating problems that didn’t exist. This is one of my challenges – I think I’m being frugal, but I’m really creating reasons to spend money. Thus, I set the items back on the rack and walked out of the door with all of my money.
- I’ve been on a repairing kick lately and have ordered replacement parts for 1) a solid wood bench that tipped over one too many times, thus needing a new leg. I found the leg online and after spending $25 on it, I realized we could have fashioned a leg out some of the miscellaneous wood we have sitting around. I wouldn’t call it a frugal fail, as it’s better than buying a new bench or throwing it in the garbage over one fixable issue. 2) My son’s trick scooter has long been missing a wheel and axle so I spent $12 ordering these parts from the manufacturer and my husband has solidly fixed it. 3) Our used Yakima rooftop cargo rack – I purchased this item via FB marketplace in the fall for a swift $75 and was exuberant as it costs upwards of $800 new. I knew that the lock was not working at the time of purchase and have since been on a journey of getting the lock cores replaced. After a trip to REI, where an associate will help identify the key core “code” for free, I walked out with a code and plans to order it directly from Yakima. Yakima did indeed send me the key cores for free, but they transposed 2 of the numbers and sent the wrong core…twice. So, finally after a couple of months working on this fix , I have the correct key cores in my hands and plans to work on it this weekend.
- We’re getting back into the habit of making pizza from scratch on Friday’s after getting lazy and buying Domino’s or Papa Murphy’s the past few months. This requires me to plan ahead and make dough and sauce from scratch on Thursday night or Friday morning. Today, I consider myself winning as I remembered to make the dough and plan to make the sauce on my lunch break. I’ll also make chocolate chip cookies and cut up the veggies for the pizza toppings. This saves us about $25 weekly with a little planning ahead.
- I sold a couple of items on eBay this week and transferred roughly $70 to my personal savings account.