Frugal Accomplishments for the Past Week

Here is my list of frugal activities for last week, for the weekly roundup of "what did you do to save money" last week at The Prudent Homemaker -- check out Brandy's posts and all the comments for some great ideas!

- I made roast beef in the crockpot some time last week; the liquid used in the recipe is beef broth, but it only uses a little bit from a can. I've previously saved the leftover broth in the fridge, thinking I'd use it for something -- but never got around to doing so. This time, I put the leftover broth in the freezer! I'll have it for something in the future. I also saved the bone from the roast and put that in the freezer, to be used later for making homemade broth (also in the crockpot).

- Finally had nice weather in Minnesota! I got the plants potted up in containers on our deck. (We shall see how they do ...) Used leftover spinach leaves and radish greens for compost mixed in the soil to feed the tomatoes and strawberry plants, as per the advice of a master gardener at the plant sale this spring. I keep my potting soil in a large tin in the garage -- one of these Christmas-themed ones that probably originally held flavored popcorn. I got it several years ago at a thrift store as "payment" for helping them sort donations.

- Cleaned out the garage (a chore I usually try to complete in April) in time for the free city cleanup day on Saturday, where I was able to donate/recycle batteries, a metal planter that doesn't fit our deck (I tried to Freecycle it but got no takers), Venetian blinds we removed from my daughter's window in favor of curtains, and a small bicycle my mom had found at a garage sale. When our neighbors down the street with a slightly older daughter moved, one of the things they gave us was a bigger bicycle for my daughter!

- The city cleanup day also had free refreshments: hot dogs, chips, and drinks.

- My mom came to visit this weekend and brought rhubarb from her plants and a dish drainer she wasn't using -- I think my dad won it at some event. (Mine was plastic, almost 20 years old, and needed replaced.)

- Went to a city park with a splash pad to play on a hot day.

- Took my daughter to Toys R Us; she had a coupon from the birthday club plus birthday money from two aunts to pick something out. We also happened to be there at the right time to get a free Lego police car build and a Lego poster. She likes Legos and has recently started getting into decorating her room with posters.

- Gave daughter birthday presents purchased earlier in the year on sales, including a Barefoot Books Book of Princesses for which I paid only shipping after receiving the voucher for filling out their survey earlier this spring.

- Switched out winter for summer clothes (finally!) and loaded up a box of my daughter's outgrown stuff to send to my sister for her girls.

(Last) Week's Frugal Accomplishments

I haven't posted in a while, and last week shaped up to be more frugal than this week has so far. I enjoy reading the posts and comments on this topic at http://theprudenthomemakerblog.blogspot.com

Last week, I

- was better about meal planning/deliberately using up leftovers.

a) Turned some lunchmeat that needed to be used up into filling for turkey and cheese crescents with a can of crescent rolls that was in the fridge.

b) used blueberries (that had been in the freezer from a previous summer) that hadn't been used up in a recent blueberry pancakes meal, to make blueberry muffins

c) used some of sauerkraut that had been sitting in partially used jars in fridge to make German casserole (pork sausage -- from our freezer, sauerkraut, apples and onions are the basic ingredients)

d) used cream cheese that had been purchased on an earlier sale and in our freezer to make the cheesy enchiladas that someone else posted in these comments a while back (sorry, I don't have access to the recipe right now -- I did write down who it was but can't remember off the top of my head!)

- also used things on hand for food for end of the school-year celebrations and other events

a) brought strawberries and raspberries in the freezer from last summer as ice cream toppings for end of the year church youth choir party

b) used rhubarb from freezer and other ingredients on hand to make rhubarb coffee cake for potluck at final Girl Scout troop leader meeting of the school year

c) used strawberries from the freezer and Jell-O and sour cream that were on hand to make strawberry Jello salad for a church funeral luncheon

(I'm trying to increase the pace of using the strawberries and raspberries from the freezer somewhat, before it's time to go picking again and replenish with this year's crops!) I also did a little bit of chest freezer organization, so it's easier to find (and use!) the things that are in there. Right now, I'm using empty Girl Scout cookie boxes (the cardboard boxes that held several boxes of cookies) to contain the pork and beef from our meat purchase last year, so everything is not piled on top of each other. Some smaller items are in the plastic dishpans from the dollar store that we used for a Girl Scout activity. Now that the other cuts of meat are easier to find, I'm hoping to use them more -- and not just focus on the hamburger as much just because it was easy to get to!

Also, acquired a free banana from quarterly meeting snacks at work (kid ate it); used graham cracker snacks passed out at church celebration for lunchbox snacks; and fed child on Sunday by delivering her to a classmate's birthday party after church. :)

She found a free kid's book in husband's Cheerios box; I registered her for before-school childcare for next school year during the timeframe when the registration is free (even if we need to change our timeslots later); and we found free downloadable printable invitations for her upcoming birthday party.

Earned $33 from this spring's consignment sale. Read free Kindle and library books, and watched a code for a free Redbox DVD rental for the family ("To the Arctic").

The 6-year-old and I also harvested dandelions, and made dandelion fritters, before I mowed (with a reel mower -- no gas expense required). 

Last (Couple Of) Week's Frugal Accomplishments

I didn't keep up with this last week, so here are my frugal accomplishments for the past couple of weeks. (This is a roundup hosted at http://theprudenthomemakerblog.blogspot.com.)

Earned $3.00 from an online survey.

Replaced six-year-old's broken tennis shoes on MLK weekend, using a 25 percent off coupon.

Used oil company credit card discount and/or grocery points rewards programs for discounts when filling car with gas.

Purchased complete set of Magic School Bus DVD's (a favorite of the six-year-old) while on sale on Amazon, for gift-giving occasions throughout the year (Easter, birthday, Christmas -- haven't decided how they will be divided up yet). This is my second "gift closet" (actually, it's a box) purchase of 2013.

Used coupons printed from Swagbucks at the grocery store, which will give me the discount stated on the coupon, as well as Swagbucks credit for each coupon used. Paired with grocery store sales. Also used a printable coupon from the grocery store (somehow, they had deleted my online account; when I reactivated it, they sent me a coupon.) This is also the grocery store with the gas points rewards program.

Took six-year-old grocery shopping with me; she got a free apple with a card received from the grocery store during one of their community events held last fall. (It's good for a free apple or banana for a child each time they shop with their parent through the end of February.)

Packed some lunches and breakfasts for work/school. (Sometimes, I just don't get my lunch packed ...)One of the few restaurants close enough to my workplace to go for lunch is McDonalds: used a coupon for a free fries and drink with 20-piece chicken nuggets meal at McDonald's. 20 nuggets is really too much for me for one lunch, so I saved half and microwaved them for lunch the next day, thus splitting the cost of the meal in half between two meals.

I usually ask for honey for the sauce when I order chicken nuggets, and they always give me way too many packets. Saved the extra packets. Used a couple of them in hot tea when I felt the possibility of a sore throat coming on.

Successfully fended off the beginnings of a sore throat/cold with honey in hot tea, orange juice and a couple of straight tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. (I would have also used a free sample of Emergen-C, but it had solidified.)

Accepted leftovers of a pasta salad from a work meeting of some other department; ate for lunch the following day.

Used whole tomatoes from the freezer, a gift from a neighbor, in place of "stewed tomatoes" called for in a recipe for vegetable beef soup.

Used strawberries, picked last summer and frozen, to make strawberry muffins, which we ate with the vegetable beef soup, then packed in lunches and for breakfasts.

Used frozen shredded zucchini (also from last summer) to make zucchini bars, with cream cheese frosting (used the last of the cream cheese in the refrigerator purchased at Christmastime sales). Used as desserts/snacks.

Used the last of the molasses in a bottle to make molasses crinkles cookies with the six-year-old, letting her practice reading by reading the recipe out of the Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook (the original edition, which I have had since my childhood -- complete with the falling-out pages that we need to carefully tuck back between the covers).

Used three frozen bananas from the freezer -- each the last one from a bunch, which were going to turn bad before we could eat them, so I put them in the freezer --- to make Money Saving Mom's recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins. Have been eating them for my breakfasts.

And, the biggest frugal accomplishment of the past couple of weeks: completed refinance of the mortgage! Will save $160 a month in payments and, because of the timing of the refinance, will not have to make a mortgage payment at all for February!

Frugal Activities 1st Week in January

I've been inspired by the weekly posts at http://theprudenthomemakerblog.blogspot.com/


- Received a free 13.75 lb. turkey from work (they handed out them out prior to the holidays, but on a day I was out of the office; a coworker kept it for me)

- received a free shampoo sample; used an earlier free sample to wash my hair

- read a library book (that will be discussed at a church book group -- free entertainment and socializing), and 2 (and a half) free Kindle books

- New Year's Day free entertainment of sledding down the hill in a nearby park

- used a gift card received from credit card points to put gas in my car

- used the last of the fall apples in the fridge to make apple crisp

- cooked fall squash that had been sitting on my countertop in the crockpot; used one batch for a meal last week and put the rest in the freezer

- packed my lunch for work almost every day; drank tea I brought from home and brewed with water heated in an electric teakettle at work (some of the tea was a pass-along from my sister, who received a tin of tea bags from a coworker; teakettle was a wedding gift several years ago)

- used CVS Extra Bucks credits to buy 2 gallons of milk, a loaf of bread, a package of spaghetti and a package of onion soup mix for 12 cents

- cashed in Walgreen's Balance Rewards points for juice, toilet paper, and cottage cheese for $3.60

- ate mostly from the pantry/freezer except for our planned weekend meal out: blueberry pancakes and apple crisp for New Year's Day; a roast in the crockpot, with carrots cleaned out of the fridge, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple crisp; squash-stuffed shells pasta with peas; leftovers; creamy cauliflower soup with blueberry muffins

February First Goal Post (and Carla's Challenges)

Happy Groundhog's Day! Evidently, Punxsatawney Phil saw his shadow, leading to a prediction of six more weeks of winter. Here in Minnesota, it was so foggy this morning that seeing any shadows was unlikely, and it seems like winter has already ended, we have had so little snow.

The year, however, continues apace, and it's time to look at another month of goal-setting. I'm trying out the challenges from Carla at My 1/2 Dozen Daily this time, and this post is my starting one for that, as well as incorporating my own personal goals for the month.

Carla is running both a Low(No) Spend Challenge and a Declutter Challenge for the month.

While I don't know how Low I'm going to go in the spending this month (there are a couple of purchases I've been putting off), I do have financial goals for the month. (And I think I'm "officially," for me, starting this challenge on Monday, because that works better for me -- and that gives me a couple of days in this week to achieve my unaccomplished January goals :). )

So, here are Carla's rules:

1. Choose a financial goal for the month!

My January goals to finish up:
             1) create a monthly budget

             2) changing direct deposit allocations into checking/savings (need to do because our bank is changing its accounts and we will get hit with fees if we keep our current configuration)

February financial goals:
            1) tally up taxes info (get in order and get totals for charitable contributions, educational expenses, extra income from online surveys, etc.)
            2) set tax appointment
            3) set up automatic deposits into Roth IRA

and, if I get really ambitious in February (although these parts of this year's goals may need to move to March)
            4) reallocate 401K
            5) open a savings account for the kiddo

2. How will you achieve your goal this month?

I have all the records for the tax stuff, but they're all thrown into one big folder and not sorted. I need to sort them logically (and, um, probably start keeping the 2012 ones in better order for next year... ) and just do the calculations. I also keep lists on Remember the Milk, which also helps in the tallies.

I need to complete the monthly budget -- again, I have the information (saved via documenting our spending on Spending Diary, thanks to Sharon at Midlife Mom Musings); I just need to work with it -- in order to figure out the proper allocations for changing our direct deposits. Then, it's just a matter of paperwork and potential phone calls to the bank...oh, joy.

Getting a tax appointment set up is another phone call -- but we're still waiting on a 1099.

Setting up automatic deposits to the Roth IRA is more phone calls/paperwork. Both DH and I are taking less in our dependent care FSA's this year, and there were some slight year-end raises, so I think the small amount of extra money from that can get shifted into IRA funding.

3. How will you allot your spending this month?

I don't know yet, because I haven't done the budget. :)

4. Track your purchases!

This, I already do through Spending Diary, and it is pretty darn helpful.

5. Are there any “exemptions” for the month?

The aforementioned "stuff I've been putting off," which includes a haircut, some stuff for the house that will help in the ongoing organization--file folders, for instance, and possibly some clothes for me, plus a family trip to a children's theater. I would also like to make a couple of book purchases. These are all things that fall under my other goals, for which the broad categories are "Family and Friends" and "Health and Beauty" along with "Crafting/Creativity and Faith/Spirituality." My fourth category is "Finances and Organization" -- and I think Carla has that covered. :)

Now, for Carla's Declutter Challenge:

The "Week One" is a Personal Space Challenge, for which I'm taking on: my bedroom. It will involve a closet purge, and a "top of the dresser"/"stacks on top of the cabinets" purge and organization. Photos forthcoming.

And, my own February goals. (This month's theme goal for me, since it holds Valentine's Day, is "Family and Friends.")

Family and Friends

Parenting

• Work on building N's cooking skills, let her choose recipes
            1) Make at least one batch of cookies and one batch of muffins
• Read-aloud books using lists as suggested in Read-Aloud Handbook, Honey for a Child's Heart, Ambleside Online
            2) Read at least two books from "book lists"
                 - start read-alouds of Laura Ingalls Wilder books?
            3) Reward successful completion of school read-a-thon mid-month. Might let her pick out a new book at a bookstore. (I have a coupon that would make this free.)
• Encourage Bible reading/devotions

             1) Figure out something age-appropriate for Lent, beginning February 22

Family Fun

• Attend children's theater production
• Kid's church choir performance
• Plan family Valentine's Day meal and/or activities
• Plan family Mardi Gras meal and/or activities

Extended Family

• Re-extend dinner invitation to husband's cousin and actually get a date settled on the calendar
• Order Girl Scout cookies 

Friends (and also Extended Family)

• Read Facebook updates at least three times a week; post at least once a week
• Attend at least two women's group/friends events

Personal

• Read through Bible chronologically
         1) Follow reading plan here
• Read at least one book "off the shelves"(a book that I already own and that is on my shelves, thereby accomplishing potential decluttering and achieving a "should do")
       1) I'm thinking The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
may be a good candidate for this
• Update and improve style
       1) Purge wardrobe; any replacements or updates should follow style guidelines for body type and coloring
       2) Admit that I can probably only squeeze one more application of skin-treatment facial cleanser out of that bottle, if I squeeze really hard and hold my tongue the right way, and actually buy a new one (see "exemptions" to spending challenge above)
      3) Get haircut
      4) I might have to buy socks and underwear.

It's a short month, with a lot of goals -- which is why I'll probably be doubling up some of them to accomplish in a "two-fer."

   

Super Savings in the Bathroom

Working on the finances and saving money is a pretty common January goal. I got a couple of nice little boosts on that in the past week. First, I finally received the Disney bath products package I won through 5MinutesForMom (I also won the Disney cold and flu pack giveaway over there, so maybe that's why it took two and a half months to ship stuff, hmm?)

This worked out well, because we had been running low on kid bath soap. We do like to use "kid stuff" separate from the adult stuff (it just makes it nicer and more fun for everyone in our family if we have separate bath products) -- but I seem to have a heck of a time finding it my regular shopping stops. Now, we're set for quite a while on both soap and shampoo, and we used the Disney Princess strawberry-scented bubble bath right away for a weekend bathtime. (I don't think there were any branding conflicts with the Barbie Puppy Swim School Pool being in the same tub ...)

We've also tried out the Mickey Mouse apple juice as the send-along beverage for an ice skating excursion. The taste got good reviews, but it seems harder to open for a young kid than it first looked.

I also had one of those "once in a while" great deals days at CVS: My favorite brand of toothpaste and DH's favorite brand of soap were both on sale, as was liquid hand soap. The toothpaste came with an Extra Care Bucks deal, and so did three Hallmark cards -- such as the 99¢ ones. Plus, I had coupons for the toothpaste and the hand soap, and I had previous Extra Care Bucks on hand.

So, I purchased:

1 tube of Colgate at $2.77
1 package of Irish Spring at 99¢
1 container of Softsoap at 99¢
3 kids' birthday cards* at 99¢ apiece
- $1,00 coupon for Colgate
- 40¢ coupon for Softsoap
- $4.00 ECBs
Total Out of Pocket: $2.88
plus, gained $1.00 ECB on Colgate and $3.00 ECBs on cards
With the ECBs, I came out $1.12 ahead on the deal

(By the way, regarding the title of this post: thank you so much, Magic School Bus DVD, for avoiding the explanation of the normal final stops in the human digestive system, so that I then have to tackle the topic during bathtime for my little tactless scientist. That was sarcasm. We shall see if similar thanks are in order to The Read-Aloud Handbook's science recommendation
on the topic.)


*(A category in my "cards on hand" that was running dangerously low. The other category that needs replenishing is, sadly, sympathy cards.)

How I Can Shop So Frugal-ly

(Please sing the title of this post to the tune of "that you and I should get along so aw-ful-ly," part of the lyrics to "People Are People"  by Depeche Mode. In large part because I used to regularly annoy my sister by chanting those lyrics to her and creating a 1980s earworm. She can thank me later.)

I'm in a season right now of not doing as much grocery shopping as I have been -- truly, constant subzero temperatures make it unpleasant to contemplate getting out of the car any more often than necessary, and nearly frozen fingers have a hard time flipping through coupons. This has given me time to think about why, in "normal" seasons of life, it currently works for me to do the things I do (soundtrack here: The Temptations) -- grocery-shopping-wise, anyway.

First of all, my overall grocery shopping strategy for the past couple of years has been the "stockpiling" method, in which you purchase items at a low price, based on the store flyers' loss leaders and coupon matchups for sale items, and plan your menus based upon what you acquire/have on hand as a result. It's a method that's been discussed fairly frequently in the blogosphere, so I won't go into great detail. If you want a quick summary, check out this post from Get Rich Slowly; if you want a more in-depth tutorial, read this 31 Days to a Better Grocery Budget series from MoneySavingMom.

I will, however, make a couple of quick notes on this: shopping this way "forces" you to eat more seasonally, since the produce that is actually in season is much less expensively priced. This ties in nicely with a conscious seasonality, which is one of my broader life goals anyway. Also, the resources I use for coupon matchups are the coupon database from CouponMom.com -- a free resource, and the oft-referred-to Grocery Game doesn't even index the stores in my area* -- and PocketYourDollars.com -- which is relatively local to me, and does provide detailed listings of sales and coupon matchups for my regular grocery stores.

Two key words in that preceding paragraph describe my grocery shopping strategy: "local" and "stores." I am lucky that local, for me, is the Twin Cities, Minnesota, area. This means that it's a major metro area, with a lot of stores, including at least one that does coupon doubling (on certain days, with certain rules, yadda, yadda). That means I have a lot of choice about where I spend my grocery dollars.

I'm also lucky that no one in my immediate, living-in-my-house family, has any food restrictions that require the purchase of more expensive food. It's only when we're feeding extended family that we have to worry about whether this particular "modified food starch" might be code for gluten-ous wheat, or whether something  has been "prepped in a plant that also processes peanuts."

So, I have choices in what and where I purchase. Not only that, but I have choices within choices -- that don't require additional trips out of my way. On my way to or from work, I (can) go by two different CVS locations, three Walgreens, and locations of both of the mainstream grocery stores -- including the coupon-doubling one -- that I shop at. This is lucky because a) I'm not using any extra gas, b) I can take advantage of various stores' savings programs, and c) the Walgreens two blocks from my house has horrid pharmacy service.

I am also lucky in that the Twin Cities area has two major newspapers -- which means two sources of Sunday coupon inserts. We subscribe to the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, but also purchase the Sunday (St. Paul) Pioneer Press, which means I generally have two copies of that week's SmartSource, RedPlum, sometimes Procter & Gamble, etc., inserts -- not to mention the ability to print coupons from websites. (And heck, no, I don't clip all those coupons -- I just file the dated inserts in sheet protectors in a binder, and clip when needed according to the weekly coupon/sale matchups from the aforementioned sites.)

So, my current ability for frugal shopping essentially boils down to what used to be the mantra for the real estate industry (you know, before "foreclosure" and "short sale"): "location, location, location." I'm lucky that way.

*(or at least it didn't when I checked into it a couple of years ago)

Socks as Patch Material

Lately, my daughter has been wearing out the knees of her pants. (I suspect this has a lot to do with spending time on her hands and knees being a horse, specifically a race horse.) The pants still fit and, even if I had ever approved of the "holey jeans" look, it is the middle of winter. In Minnesota.

On the other hand, there are some knit socks she has outgrown that are in fine shape -- but I don't have a younger child to pass them down to. And, since they are mostly Children's Place socks acquired during their sales, they are of a similar knit fabric -- and colors -- to her knit pants.

Solution: socks as material for patches. Granted, the pair in this photo doesn't exactly match the shade of pink of the pants -- which is why my mom's idea to use a teddy-bear shaped cookie cutter as a template for the patches worked so well.

(Note: my mom actually did the sewing required to apply these patches. Technically, I do have the skills to do it myself...but it's unlikely that the pants would still fit by the time I got to it.)

I've linked this post to Frugal Friday at LifeAs Mom -- where lots of other frugal tips are shared every week.

Organizing, Bit by Bit

As part of the whole "new year, get organized, save money" thing, I've been going through bits of paper with various online accounts and passwords, organizing them in a much more findable manner, unsubscribing to those that are no longer relevant, and taking note of various offers that are still useful.

This is a process I'm doing a bit at a time -- a few per day -- so I'm not sure how long it's going to take overall -- but it's been something on my goals/to-do list for a couple of years now, so it's good that I'm actually getting it accomplished. (I just tacked this year's goals onto my list from last year, since much of it was the same.)

A few things I've discovered this week are:

• A Delta SkyMiles account, which I had assumed was inactive (the last time I flew was in at least 2005, pre-kid) wasn't. Evidently, my points from the transfer of my Northwest miles into Delta miles are still good -- at least until Oct. 31 of this year. It was annoying difficult to find out how much my accumulation was worth in terms of actual flying-type stuff (tickets, etc.), but I'm guessing not much. Still, unless I fly somewhere this year (which, based on the pattern of the past few years, seems unlikely), I do have enough points to redeem for some nice merchandise.

• Evidently, I can get a free set of address labels every six months through my university alumni association. Since we just used a bunch on Christmas cards, I ordered some.
• 
  
• And, I have noted that, if I ever get caught up enough on the bit by bit organizing to need new photos (right now, I am so far behind that I just back them up, and rarely order prints for myself), my hooray.com account offers 20 free prints per month.

Check out lots more people's organizing projects at OrgJunkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing!

CVS Shopping Trip: Milking the Deals

I had my first grocery/drugstore shopping trip of the new year today -- a stop at CVS on the way home from work to pick up "nighttime diapers" (Huggies GoodNites) and some other stuff.

The four-year-old has been asking for the past few days if she can go to bed without a nighttime diaper -- I told her if she is dry in the morning for a week, we can try it. I would love to be done with these things, too -- but not enough that I want to be dealing with a wet kid/bed/blankets/stuffed animals every morning.

I will also be glad when we've moved past the subzero temperatures that make it hard for my still-almost-frozen fingers to flip the coupons in the organizer, even after I get into the store.

Still, I think it was a successful shopping trip. In addition to the Huggies (which earned me a $1 Extra Care Buck), I purchased several other items. We're stocked up on dish soap for a while, since Palmolive was on sale for 88¢ and I had two coupons for $2 off 2.

I also used coupons I printed via Swagbucks for Kleenex and Filippo Berio olive oil (among other coupons). Using those coupons should add some Swagbucks (which I redeem for gift cards) to my account in the next few weeks -- in addition to the manufacturer's discount which came with the coupons. In the case of the olive oil, that was $1.00 off 2 -- and the CVS deal was buy one get one free. Plus, Filippo Berio olive oil is part of the ecoupons this month via Upromise, which means that, when I purchase it, $1.00 will be added to my Upromise account (for the diapered daughter's college savings).

Yep, I think I pretty much milked that deal for all it was worth.

And, I paid about $30.00 out of pocket for about $70.00 total worth of stuff. Total savings on the receipt was $40.67 -- which will get swept into the extra payments applied to the car loan toward paying it off, this year's main fiscal goal.


psst: The Swagbucks link is a referral link, which means if you click on the link and join, I get points credited to my Swagbucks account. It doesn't cost you anything. Thanks in advance if you decide it's right for you.