Tag: frugal things we do

These are the things we did frugally this past week:

– I cooked all meals from scratch. Dinners were salad with sliced chicken, fajitas with chicken, onions, and peppers, lamb chops cooked in the air fryer, beef and veggie kabobs, spaghetti and meatballs for Hubby and meatballs on zucchini noodles( 2 nights) for me, and breakfast for dinner.  We did not go out to a restaurant or get fast food.

– I scanned my receipts into Fetch for points.

– Hubby used discounted Home Depot gift cards to purchase items to do the basement pantry. 

– I dry cleaned some wool items in my dryer.

– I hung all of my washable clothing to dry.

– Company got BBQ sauce on a dining room chair ulpholstered seat. I have not been able to remove it. Hubby removed the material and I am soaking it in a bucket of water and oxy clean. If it doesn’t come out, I will take it to the dry cleaners. If they can’t get it out, I will recover all of the seats.

– I picked up Dinosaur Fruit Bites for West with a Free Coupon from Top’s.  

– I exercised for 30 minutes a day on the treadmill and 30 minutes a day on the recumbent bike in my own home.

– We paid for our lawn fertilizing and all of our monthly yard work that the company does for all of 2020. We get a great discount by doing this in February.

-Hubby had to have a crown put on a tooth. We got the emergency visit free and 20% off the crown with our discount plan. This dental plan has way more than paid for the cost this year.

– We got a $11.21 check in the mail that we were not expecting.

– We received our tax return and invested it. 

What did you do this past week to live frugally?  

These are the things that we have done frugally recently:

– Hubby and/or I have made all our meals from scratch. I have been eating a lot of eggs and ground chicken because they are the only things that didn’t make my mouth hurt. No restaurant or take out was consumed.

– I listened to a free podcast while folding laundry and changing sheets.

– I still managed to get my exercising in on the treadmill and bike while listening to upbeat Rock and Roll music from the 1960’s using my earbuds.

– I started exercising my abs using a video I found on You Tube. 

– I found more clothes that no longer fit me. I will be giving them away. I think everything that I have outgrown has been found except for coats that are in my garment bag. I will go through those this week.

– Received a check for $15. and will deposit it at the bank into our savings.

– Did our income taxes and was happy that we are getting a small refund rather than have to pay.


– I was in need of some cold medicines, pain killers, and cough drops so I purchased them at Walmart using some coupons. In my area, they are so much cheaper there than at our drugstores. I scanned my receipt on Fetch.

– I also purchased what I deemed necessary, just in case, the Coronavirus is found in our state. Because if that happens, we will be quarantining ourselves. I realize it’s a long shot but you have to be prepared.

– I spent a lot of time resting last week using my Kindle to read myself to sleep. It has been a rough few weeks between my sore mouth and a horrible cold that is still hanging on. 


– I gave my neighbor, who has two young boys, a box of Lincoln Logs and a large box of matchbox cars that West no longer plays with. The boys loved them and she sent me a picture of them playing with them. It got them out of my house and will give them a lot of enjoyment.

– I mended some pj’s.

– I have done no grocery shopping since my small shop on January 22nd. We have 100% been eating from our stockpile. 


– We had our Buffalo Chicken Wings this past weekend in honor of the Superbowl. But we didn’t order them and have them delivered. I cooked them in our air fryer oven and made up the Buffalo wing sauce to put on them. We had unused sauce leftover so I refrigerated it for the next time we make them.


– After not eating much last week because of a loss of appetite due to my cold, I was craving a good hamburger. So this weekend, I cooked them up for us. I had mine in a lettuce wrap and loaded it up with sauteed mushrooms. It really tasted so good! 


– We are also trying to use up all of our store bought cleaners. Once they are gone, we will make our own.


– I have been working on genealogy for both of our family trees. I found something new after many hours of searching. I was so excited. It is such good entertainment. 

So what have you done recently frugally?

These are the things we have done frugally since the last time I posted on this topic:

– Received $ 21.45 in checks. They will be deposited into one of our savings accounts.

– Cashed in for a $25.00 Amazon gift card for rebate points. This will be used to pay for any food ordered at Amazon.com this month.

– Donated 2 bags of clothing to Goodwill. Got a receipt just in case we can itemize for 2020, although that is doubtful.

– Replaced 5 CCF light bulbs in basement with 5 LED bright lights which gives me much more light to organize and clean down there. The bulbs were purchased on sale a couple of months ago.

– All food has been made from scratch at home. No restaurant food was consumed. 

– I picked up a free can of organic black beans from Top’s with their digital coupon. No extra gasoline was used because it was on the way home from picking up prescriptions.

– I donated food that we no longer eat to our local food bank. I got a receipt just in case we itemize this year.

– Exercised every day but one when I was not feeling well. All exercising done at home. We no longer pay for YMCA membership for us.

– Talked with my sister using free long distance. Priceless! 

– I washed 2 loads of clothing per week using cold water. I hung them to dry. 

– We had a lot of salads for dinner and lunch so that our produce got used up.


– I sliced up a # of red, orange and yellow peppers and onions to use in fajita’s. We eat our fajita’s in a bowl – no tortillas. Almost all of the peppers are gone before they spoiled. I used our homemade fajita seasoning.


– I purchased a birthday card at Dollar Tree to go with West’s birthday gift. I can’t believe he will be 10. Time sure flies.

– We took our son and his family to the airport on New Year’s Day so that they could stay in the Florida Keys for a few days on a houseboat. Then they went on a Caribbean cruise. We picked them at the airport last night. We packed a small dinner in case we needed something to eat while waiting for them in the free cell phone lot. We picked them up at dinner time. We ended up bringing it home but we were prepared in case hunger pangs hit. 

– I have already purchased two gifts that are needed in 2020. One was on sale 20% off and the other was on clearance. 

– I purchased 2 large bottles of vitamins for us using coupons along with a sale. January is the cheapest month to buy them.

– While I was digging through boxes in the basement, I found Christmas cards that I had made 9 years ago. After I received them, I looked all over and couldn’t find them. So I figured I had thrown them out. I guess not! I will use them next Christmas.

What have you done frugally in the past 10 days or so? Please share with all of us. Remember we learn from each other. 

These are the things we have done frugally this past week:

1) I am using an old field notebook, which I put in my purse, to track every penny I spend when I run errands, get gasoline, go out to dinner or for some other form of entertainment. That way I won’t forget an expense and I can easily put them into Quicken when we get home.

2) I purchased 5 rolls of Christmas wrap, 2 sets of gift tags, 2 cookie boxes, 2 sets of dinner napkins, 4 Pantene gift sets, and some Lifesaver Gummies at the after Christmas 50% off sales. I didn’t go hog wild; just got things that were needed. 

3) I cashed in some Fetch rebate points for $ 20. worth of Walmart gift cards. I used some of it for the after Christmas things that I purchased at Walmart. Most of the after Christmas things were purchased at Dollar Tree.

4) Hubby loves lamb chops. I went at opening on the day after Christmas to get him some($ 7.99 a lb.) on the mid week sale at Aldi’s. We are grilling a couple today. They will be so good.

5) Hubby has been wanting a new Dell computer. His is old and starting to give him problems. He has been watching prices for a few months now. He finally pulled the trigger when he saw the best price ever two days before Christmas. He won’t get it until January 8th but that didn’t matter because it was a necessity not a Christmas gift. 

6) My treadmill has been coming up with an error code. It was going to cost us $ 274. for a repair person to come out to our home. YIKES! I asked my son when he came out for breakfast to look at it. He owns a treadmill and is pretty knowledgeable. He did and recalibrated it. Then he told me to get a silicone kit to lubricate it. Between the calibration and the maintenance, it is working perfectly; no more errors. Yeah! He saved us a lot of money. Most importantly, I can continue my 30 minutes a day on it.

7) I am still going through my books to see what I will keep, give away or sell. I want them all out of the bookcase in my pantry.

8) I won a 4 piece chicken nugget in the Wendy’s Instant Win Game. When I get the coupon for it, Hubby and I will share it for a snack. 

9) Hubby buys all of his clothes at LL Bean. He has been losing weight and will need new clothes soon. So I jumped on a deal for a $ 50. giftcard for $ 40. at Amazon.

10) I had a Top’s supermarket point that I cashed in. I was able to get a $ 50. Home Depot card for $ 40. I have now cashed in for 3 of these cards. Hubby will be getting the materials for the walls in the pantry soon.  So those discounted cards will save us money.

11) We are working on using  up items from restaurants and fast food that were extras with our meals or in our bags. We don’t go out to dinner very often and rarely go out for fast food, so you can imagine how old these are. We were saving them for when we travel in the car but we haven’t done that a lot lately. So before they are no good, we are trying to use them all up. 

12) We got our heat and electric bill for the past month and it was right on target even though we did a lot of cooking and baking for the Thanksgiving holiday. It also pays to close off two bedrooms when they are not in use. 


What did you do this past week to save some dollars?

These are the things we have done frugally this past week:

– On the way home from the hair salon, I stopped at Aldi for 6 more pounds of butter at the rock bottom price of $ 1.99 a lb. It was on my route so I didn’t make a special trip. I now have enough to last us one year.

– I filled up the SUV using $ .40 off a gallon that I earned shopping at Top’s.

– We raided my gift closet for Christmas gifts for my hairdresser, the mailman, the UPS man, and the Fed Ex man. These were gifts that I knew they would enjoy and that I had purchased during the year at sale prices. I wrapped them in paper that I purchased on an after Christmas sale over 4 years ago. The cards to go with them were purchased then also. 

– My hairdresser gave me the above hair products as a little Christmas gift. I was thrilled because I buy these products.  

– We have a wine shelf in our pantry. It is pretty full right now of unopened bottles of wine. Drinking wine is not on our diet. So I am gifting a bottle of that wine to our host and hostess at the Christmas party that we are going to. I had purchased gift bags for bottles last year, so I grabbed one to put the wine in.

– For those that don’t know, Jordan’s Skinny Syrups has Keto Skinny Syrups now. You can find them here:
Keto Skinny Syrups  . This is my referral link. If you place an order, you get $5.00 off your first order. You can also get free bottles by signing up for their newsletters. They give you codes once in awhile to do that. I have gotten a number of free bottles.

– I did 3 loads of wash one after the other. Two loads got put in the dryer with my wool balls. One load got hung. I used cold water. 


– I stopped today also at Dollar Tree to pick up some more wrapping paper. They had rolls at my store that were a dark green plaid in the Christmas bins that could be used all year to wrap gifts. I already had 3 rolls but I picked up 7 more rolls today. I was not taking the chance that they would be gone when things go to 50% off. When you shop look for rolls like that that can be used all year round. 

– I have already started a savings fund for next year for a very major expense that we are going to have. We are tightening our belts! More on that when I post my goals. 

That is about it for this week. What have you done frugally this past week?

These are the frugal things that we have done over the past week:

– We got our electric and gas bill and it was $35.00 lower than last year with the same average daily temperature. Cutting little things( like using lights only when it is dark out), keeping the heat down, washing large loads of clothes, etc. all adds up in the long run.

– I purchased a $50. Home Depot gift card for $40. through a Top’s supermarket gift card promotion the morning that Hubby was going to Home Depot. Hubby had to get a few things to make a repair in the house. 

– I purchased a 4th turkey at Aldi’s. Top’s had sold out of their Plainville turkeys. Since I had nothing worth $25. to buy at Top’s, I purchased a Honeysuckle White at Aldi’s.  Eating out of our freezer paid off by letting me have room for these. One turkey was used for Thanksgiving. The others I will cook once a month over the winter. The meat will be eaten the first night and the rest will be food savered and frozen in meal portions. The turkey portions will be used instead of chicken.

– I have a crockpot of turkey soup cooking today. We had side dishes left over that I food savered in portions and froze for future meals.

– When I went to get the turkey, I purchased 6 more lbs. of butter for $1.99 a lb.

– We purchased beautiful gray carpeting for my pantry in the basement on clearance and used a coupon code for 35% extra off thanks to my son alerting us to this deal. He had purchased the same carpeting for his office and we loved it. 

– Beside carpeting the pantry, we are hoping to sheetrock it and paint it too. We just need to find someone with a truck to help us get the sheetrock. These will be Hubby’s winter project. But first I have to move all of the stockpile which will be quite a lot of work but it will be worth it.

– I baked a pumpkin and apple pie for our Thanksgiving dinner instead of buying frozen ones. 

– I read a book on my Kindle that was free.

– We are researching for a better deal for our cellphone for next year. We are looking at a Spectrum plan for $ 14.99 a month but since we have such lousy cable service, we are a bit leery. If anyone has Spectrum for cellphone, could you let me know how the service is.

– I have been using our treadmill and recumbent bike for exercise. That is one of the reasons that we cancelled our YMCA membership. Why not use what you already own!

– I sewed a button back on one of Hubby’s shirts.  

– When we decorate for Christmas, we will use decorations that we have used for years. Nothing new will be purchased.

– I purchased a new pair of slippers for Hubby from LL Bean going through Rakuten for 2% back. His were so worn out. I used a 25% off coupon code which saved us $19.75 and used $ 6.36 left on a discounted gift card that I bought at Raise to help pay for it. I also got free shipping. LL Bean sent me a $10. reward card for making this purchase.

– All of our Christmas shopping was done a few weeks ago. I was not going to buy anything on Black Friday either in the stores or online. However, Jordan’s Skinny Syrups had their sugar free coffee syrups on deep discount(40 & 50% off) so we stocked up. We use these every day in our coffee.


– Hubby printed out an 8×11 and 2 wallet sized pictures from Alexa’s 7th grade school picture for us. He also printed out 1 – 8×11, 2- 4×6’s and 4 wallet sizes that he gave to my son and daughter- in – law when they visited us. Doing it this way instead of buying them at school saves a fortune. 

– I purchased two pairs of sneakers a long time ago at a deep discount(less than $10. each). This week I broke into the second pair to use as house shoes only. They are so comfortable.  

– I have been watching Thomas DeLauer on You Tube to get Keto meal ideas. 

– We are going to a large Christmas party in a couple of weeks. I am going to be taking a cold appetizer but I haven’t a clue what to make. Does anyone have a really delicious cold appetizer that they make that everyone loves? Would you be willing to share the recipe with me?

– I redeemed rebates for a $20.00 Walmart gift card.

– We finished the jigsaw puzzle that we had been working on for entertainment. 

– We so enjoyed having our son, DIL, and granddaughter here for Thanksgiving which was Priceless. My granddaughter is now 3 inches taller than me. She has grown into the most delightful and smart young lady. I value every moment spent with her. We didn’t do anything special. We just enjoyed being together.

What did you do frugally this week?

These are the things that we are doing frugally this week:

– Cashed 2 rebate checks at the bank totaling $ 12.21.

– Withdrew $500. in cash for certain expenses during the month of December. Cash is the easiest for me for groceries, gasoline, etc. to keep within a budget.

– Hubby wanted antipasto for dinner last night. We love to order this out in a restaurant and share it. But I had the fixings so I made it. It costs a lot less to make it than eating out and we could stay home in our nice warm house. We put our Italian dressing on after we put what we want in our bowls in case there are leftovers. We don’t like soggy leftovers. We had lettuce, red onion, prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, black and green olives, provolone cheese, and pepperoncini. It was delicious and there was some leftover for lunch today.

– I received a box of freebies from Samplesource. We use Bona products for our hard wood floors so I was happy with the hardwood floor Bona. I have never used the other one but we have tile on our bathroom floors so I will be trying it out this week.

– I wrote to Turkey Hill to let them know how much my grandchildren love their ice cream. They sent me these coupons and I was so delighted. We have double coupons up to $.99 here at both Top’s and Wegman’s  so all of the $.50 and $.75 ones will double. The eggnog will come in handy for Thanksgiving if I can find it.

– I purchased 2 more turkeys. One at Top’s for $.48 a lb. and one at Wegman’s for $ .48 a lb. I am all over cheap poultry. I will be purchasing one more soon.

– Remember back in August when our A/C went out. Well I thought Hubby had purchased the switch we needed to fix it but he hadn’t. He said he needed to take the bad switch out and look for a part # on it. So he waited until yesterday and did that now that we are using heat and not A/C. He found the part # and we found the part on Amazon for $ 8.49. It is a good thing he didn’t order the one he was looking at back in August. It was the wrong one! I used a free to me Amazon gift card to pay for it. When it arrives later this week, Hubby will install it. The company who wanted to install it was going to charge us $239. for the part and labor. We said no thanks! What a rip off that would have been! 

– I brought a bag of cans and bottles to Fast Cash to get the deposits back. I received $ 1.25. 

– Hubby made homemade teriyaki salad dressing. 

– We had West stay with us for the weekend. We stayed in all weekend because it was so cold. No eating out. One night I made grilled chicken breasts and he loved dipping it in SF honey mustard sauce. But he said the best part of the meal was the ice cream sundae I made him for dessert. He had vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and pastel sprinkles. It was definitely cheaper than buying one.

– I picked up 12lbs. of butter this week for $1.99 a lb. I got 6 yesterday when I shopped at Aldi’s. Then today on the way home from the bank I stopped at an Aldi’s for 6 more. Aldi’s has a limit of 6 each trip. I use 30-32 lbs. of butter a year so I always buy it when it is at a rock bottom price this time of year. It freezes really well. I will be getting more.

That is all we have done since last Friday when I posted our frugal things. Have you done any frugal things in the past 4-5 days? Please share so we can all learn from you.

These are the things we have done frugally this past week:

– I filled the gasoline tank on the SUV using points to get $.20 off per gallon.


– I washed two load of clothes and towels in the HE washer using minimal detergent. I dried the towels in the dryer using our wool balls (less drying time). I hung the clothing to dry. Only one piece of clothing needed to be ironed.

– I cooked all meals at home. We had homemade pizza, 3 nights of chuck roast with gravy( potatoes for Hubby and broccoli for me), SF BBQ Chicken with and Italian tossed salad, Teriyaki Chicken with Green Beans, and Taco salads.

– Hubby snow blowed 11.5 inches of snow. This is one job that we don’t have to hire someone to do.

– My sister called and we spent some quality time catching up on things. That was priceless.

– Hubby’s sister called and caught things up with him. That also was priceless.

– All of our Christmas shopping is done and wrapped and paid for with cash. 

– I told you that I was looking for a new tablet. I had been checking the Black Friday deals. However, I found one on the best deal ever. I ordered a Samsung Tablet which not only had a great price of $201.99 but I got a Free $50.00 gift card for ordering it. That $50.00 will be used in the future for something we need. 


– I baked some brownies because West is coming to visit.

– I quickly vacuumed the car since we had salty and sandy boots in it this week. I like to keep the car as new as possible.


– I was able to get off another drug which will save us $40. a year.

– I got 4 free books on Amazon Prime sent to my Kindle.

– I have been using the recumbent bike and the treadmill(which we managed to fix ourselves) to get my exercise this week. It is too cold and icy to walk outside. 

– I watched some You Tube shows while exercising. I love learning new things. 

– We not only watch food portion sizes but we watch household goods portion sizes. By that I mean, we don’t use any more shampoo than we need to wash our hair. We have found that a quarter size bit of shampoo is perfect for washing our hair. Using more would be a waste. We use just the right amount of dish liquid for the size of the job we are doing. We are mindful of these things and others like toothpaste, lotion, moisturizer, etc.

– We have been working on a 750 piece jigsaw puzzle for entertainment.

– I have been planning our meals out of our fridge and freezers. We had ZERO waste this week. Throwing food out is a huge money waster. 

That is it for this week. Comment and share what you did frugally this week. We would love to know.    

These are the things we did frugally this past week:

– Saved money on tolls on our trip by using our EZ pass.

– Purchased Halloween candy at 50% off. It is the next year’s supply: for Hubby, the grandchildren and baking.


– Baked cinnamon bread to take to our family in the Albany area


– Took all of the Christmas gifts except for one to our family to save on postage


– Returned an item of clothing that was defective. The company paid the return postage.

– I have been looking for a good buy on reusable produce bags. I finally found one at 40% off at Amazon. The set had 9 of different sizes. Our state has banned plastic bags as of early next year. However some of the stores are going to begin the ban at the end of this year so I wanted to be ready.


– My tablet is extremely old and is not being updated so many apps I can’t use. So I will be on the lookout for a good deal. Hopefully, there will be one on Black Friday.

– I picked up a nice size frosting bucket from the bakery at Top’s free for the asking. I use these for  storing dry goods in the basement. It saves me from buying more of the large ones. 

– I received a $3.00 rebate.  


– I purchased a $ 60. jacket at Kohl’s for under $15. using Kohl’s cash that was given to me for a mistake they made and a coupon.


– I saw that Aldi’s has Butterball turkeys for $.87 a lb. This will be my buy price for Thanksgiving unless I see something better in the future. We love Butterballs.


– I washed two loads of clothes in the HE washer using cold water. I hung them to dry.


– Hubby turned the heat down to 60 while we were away.

– I got a cut, shampoo, and blow dry at the hairdresser. No color or highlights this time. That saved me many $$$’s. 

– We have been very careful about using up food in the fridge so as to have zero waste.


– I cooked a dozen eggs in the pressure cooker to use for breakfasts and sliced up on salads.

– Some of the apples in our fridge needed to be used up so I made homemade apple sauce with stevia to sweeten it.


–  I watched “Hamburger Hill” on amazon prime videos.

– We just finished our last regular size tube of toothpaste so I am using up some of the many, many travel size tubes that the dentist has given us.

What did you do frugally this week?

These are the things we have done frugally this past week:

– Since we are paying thousands of dollars to have our garage floor repaired and epoxied professionally, we have decided to paint the ceiling and walls ourselves. This won’t be done now until spring when it warms up. But I know what color paint we want for them, so I am actively keeping an eye out for this Sherwin Williams paint to go on sale and for a coupon. I will buy it when I see a good deal.

– I purchased a new long sleeved top for just about $11.00 after a coupon code. Then I paid for it with rewards points. I have only 2 long sleeved tops for winter so I am looking for good deals for a couple of more. I am also looking for a sale on the jeans I love because the new ones that I purchased not too long ago are getting baggy on me.

– I spent very little at the grocery store this week. We are eating mostly from our stockpile. 

– I printed off nice storage labels online and as I use them in the basement, I am laminating them with the machine I bought very cheaply many years ago.

– I washed sheets and clothing with the HE washer and laundry egg. The clothing was hung to dry and the sheets were dried with the wool balls. 

– I have purchased two more Christmas presents so my list is getting crossed off little by little. I used some of the $200.+ that I found in my dresser drawer to pay for them.

– I purchased Tim Horton donuts for breakfast one morning for West and Hubby to eat. I used a coupon that was worth $2.00 off. West was here for 4 days this past weekend.

– We bowled on the Wii. West beats me most of the time. It was fun and cheap entertainment. My son won the Wii many, many years ago. Since he already had one, he gave it to us. We have had lots of fun using it.


– We ordered pizza one night from Domino’s per West’s request. I did a deal they had online.


– Now that the heat is on, Hubby has programmed it to 63 at night ( 10PM – 7AM) and 67 the rest of the day. We have sweaters and sweatshirts to bundle up in.

– I read another book on my Kindle.

– For some reason Better Homes and Gardens has been sending me a free magazine each month. I never ordered it. So I enjoyed that this week. 

– I have been purging and organizing which so far has cost us no money. 


– Having a part of a loaf of bread that got hard, I made bread crumbs.

– We have been eating up our produce in salads for lunch. 

– I sewed a button on a sweater. 


– Meals have been quick and simple.

– We baked two loaves of pumpkin bread. 

What have you done this past week frugally?