Frugal Things This Past Week

While we have been a bit house bound the past few weeks, these are the things we have done frugally:

– I have done very little grocery shopping. I did a quick trip to Aldi’s for fresh strawberries, creamer, peppers, and frozen veggies. I spent $8.85.

– I did our Federal and State income taxes and filed them. One week to the day I filed, we received our Federal refund. We got $1500. more this year (we owed a bit last year) due to President Trump’s tax cut plan. We have never gotten as large a refund. Everyone that I have talked to here is telling me that they are getting larger refunds than before. That is not what the Governor thought would happen in NY. I quickly invested that money once we received it.

– Hubby’s snow boots have pretty much worn out. He found a pair of snow sneakers on sale at L.L. Bean for $119. regularly $ 149. I thought I had gotten a coupon code a few days before but in my haste to order, I couldn’t find the e-mail. A few minutes after I ordered them, I found it. So I called L.L. Bean to give them the code which was for 25% off. They told me the code had expired at midnight the night before. I asked the representative if they would honor it. She sent me to customer service and a very nice woman there refunded the $32.31 which was 25% off plus the tax. As I have always told you, it NEVER hurts to ask. All they can say is no. But I have found that most of the time, they say yes.  

– I purchased a very pretty bracelet for my granddaughter for Valentine’s Day. I used credit card points to pay for it. I am giving my grandson an equal value amount of cash. It is very hard to pick things out for him and he enjoys shopping for himself.  

– I have cooked all of our meals from scratch and from the stockpile with the exception of one. Hubby took me out to dinner last night since the two days of ice we have had finally started to melt. I was craving prime rib and some peanut butter pie. I had my prime rib with some French Fries and gravy, tossed salad, and garlic toast which is great for dipping in the prime rib au jus. I was too stuffed from dinner to eat dessert. So I had them wrap a piece of peanut butter pie for later in the evening. 

– I have been taking this house bound time to reorganize our home with an eye towards getting rid of anything we would not want to move. I know that we will have a move sometime, either sooner or later, in our future. I actually have been the one pushing Hubby to move and he really was not keen on the idea. However, I caught him online looking at homes in the area we were thinking about moving to last week. I have been doing that for a few months now to get a feel for prices and what we would want.

– I filled up our SUV using $ .30 off per gallon in Top’s gas points. I paid $ 2.19 a gallon.


– Hubby used the DVR to save all of the Harry Potter movies that were on cable last weekend here. He wants to watch all of the movies starting with the first one. It was the cheapest way for him to watch them. This way he can watch them at his own leisure. 


– We have been doing whatever we can to keep the gas and electric bill down knowing that with the two weeks of really frigid cold we had during this billing cycle that the gas bill will be really high.


– By staying home except for 1 trip to the market, dinner out,  doctor appointments and medical tests, we have saved a bit of gasoline by not doing the usual running around.


– I downloaded some free books to read on my Kindle. It’s too cold to go to the library.


– For entertainment we have been playing cards, watching movies, doing jigsaw puzzles and I have been learning things on You Tube.


Please feel free to share with all of us what you have been doing frugally lately? Did you get any good deals? Tell us in the comments.