Frugal Things This Past Week

These are the things we did frugally this past week:

1. One day last week, I was running errands for almost 4 hours. Knowing that I would not be home for lunch, I packed some turkey pepperoni, a mozzarella cheese stick, and a bottle of water. I stopped at a beautiful local park on the way to do an errand and sat and ate lunch.

2. I went to the library and took out two books to read.

3. Hubby has been craving the bacon macaroni goulash that I haven’t made since before my surgery. So I made him a big pan from scratch and he ate many meals  from it. I just fixed myself other things that were on my diet.

4. I went to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. When they checked me out, the prescription cost me $90. I was shocked. I had never paid more than $50. for it. I asked the pharmacy tech why it was so expensive. She advised me that I was in the Medicare gap. Well I knew enough to know that was not possible. I have only gotten a couple of prescriptions this year and you fall into the gap after many, many expensive prescriptions. But rather than argue, I paid for it and came home and called my prescription drug plan. They laughed when I told them what the pharmacy tech told me. The woman I spoke to said you aren’t even near the gap. She told me the reason was that the drug now had a generic and since they didn’t fill it generically, it cost me $90. for the branded drug. I asked her how much the generic would have cost me and she said $10. So I contacted the pharmacist and they said since I hadn’t opened the prescription, they would take it back and credit me. It took me two days of messages and phone calls to get the doctor to write the generic and then to the pharmacy to get it taken care of. I finally picked it up on this past Monday and they credited me the difference of $80. It was worth the aggravation to save that $80.


5. We had another stone fall off the house and Hubby said there were 3 more loose ones. So he cemented them back into place and grouted those and the ones he had done prior. So they are all fixed for winter.


6. I have been reading a new book that Hubby purchased me early as a gift for my upcoming birthday. It is eye opening. 

7. We had Hubby’s family birthday party which I made from scratch except for dessert which I purchased. He enjoyed every minute of it.

8. We enjoyed watching the Buffalo Bills win their third game. They are undefeated so far. 

9. Our garage door had gotten really dirty. So Hubby scrubbed it with Dawn liquid soap and water and it looks new.

10. I washed the SUV in the driveway again. It won’t be long before we will have to pay for car washes to get the salt off. 

11. We have had no A/C or heat on at all. Even though we just had a stretch of 80 temps, we were very comfortable in our home without the A/C. This has paid off. I just got our electric and gas bill and it was only $ 70.99, the lowest bill we have ever had in the 10 and a half years that we have owned this house. The meter charges and supply charges alone were $51.+. of that.

12. We will need to have our snow tires put on again before the end of October. So I am keeping my eyes open for a discount coupon. 

13. We cancelled our YMCA gym membership effective the end of this month. We were not using it enough to justify the $48. per month charge. Between our treadmill and recumbent bike, we can get our exercise without having to leave the house and that will be a good thing this winter.  I walked a mile and a half outside in the neighborhood this morning. It was crisp(52) and sunny!  

14. I donated another bag of clothing to Goodwill. I am slowly but surely getting rid of all clothing that no longer fits me.


15. I ran one full load of clothing and hung it to dry.


16. I only ran the dishwasher twice this past week.

What did you do frugally this past week?