Life has been kind of crazy the last little bit and it's going to continue to be that way this month as I run from appointment to appointment all the while trying to squeeze time out of my schedule to get things done around the house that I need to get done. I've got a vet appointment to get one of the cat's their shots this month, then I have a bunch of orthodontist appointments to get to, tire change overs to get done (we have to get winter tires off of the cars by May 1st), new tires to get for the car (which I'm sweating THAT bill and trying to figure out how to make it work out alright...at least the truck came with newer winter tires on it and he gave us the summer tires for the truck as well), a psychology appointment to go to for Alvah and sometimes I have two appointments in one day (actually that happens twice in the coming weeks looking at my schedule). Yeegads!
So, yeah, let's get to the money saving things that happened this week so I can get to bed at a decent hour ;).
1. My sister-in-law Facebooked me out of the blue and pointed out that I had unclaimed monies through the unclaimed monies site. I went and checked it out and it turned out that I was owed 49.00 from an old credit card company, so I filed my claim and got the check this week, which I was really grateful for the extra money in the bank with it being so tight lately (thanks for telling me about that, Ana!).
2. I got overly excited about a wooden egg this week (seen up top there). My daughter has been going through all of her old toys and things and figuring out what she didn't want and putting it into the donation pile. Well, I looked in the box the other day and was thrilled to see she had a wooden egg she was getting rid of! I honestly don't remember when she got said wooden egg, but after making sure she didn't want it, I totally claimed it to use as a darning egg. That thing will make darning socks a lot easier compared to the plastic play ball I have been using for years :).
3. I made sure to use up left overs and worked really hard to stick to the menu plan this week. Actually, I had it well planned out, I guess, because everyone seemed to eat what was on their plates without complaint, so yay for that!
4. Shopping got done as soon as we got paid this week as we were running low on boy food and basically that is what I got, although there was some cool things I was able to get. I got two big 32 oz containers of Tilamook strawberry yogurt that I am going to funnel into some tubes for the daughter's lunches for the next little bit (and to eat for breakfast myself with some granola on top :) for 1.63 each as they were on reduced 50% off. I also got a couple of packages of thin cut pork chops on sale buy one get one free, so for both packages I paid about 6.00. I was also able to get some reduced sodium soy sauce on sale this week and was able to stack the sale with a coupon so was able to get a bottle for 2.50. Not too bad, I thought.
Funny enough, my husband had picked up a sandwich at Carrs one night for his lunch at work and had gotten two Monopoly pieces so he gave them to me. I opened them and ended up with two freebies; a can of tomato sauce and another powdered gravy mix. So, I redeemed those when I went shopping this week. Out of the tickets I got this week I ended up with coupons for a free bottle of aspirin (which is iffy on whether or not those will be in stock when I go to redeem the coupon), another powdered gravy mix (we're going to drown in that stuff, I swear *laugh*), and a free spinach salad (which I hope they have when I go, as that sounds like a great free lunch one day :).
5. My daughter's favorite nightgown started to just plain fall apart. To assuage her sense of loss as I tried to fix it (so far I'm failing...it's a light weight nylon material that snags if you look at it wrong and it is giving me hives dealing with it!), I gave her an old free Harry Potter t-shirt that I got a long time ago when I bought "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" book when it came out (you had to be one of the first like 100 people to get one when you bought the book and I was one of the last people to get one and that was only like 1/2 an hour after the store opened in the morning...ahhh the crazy days of waiting for those books to come out *laugh*) and told her to use that as a nightgown in the meantime. She has been so thrilled with the shirt and had been trying to figure out how to keep it a bit longer as she's come to realize that she prefers sleep shirts to nightgowns. I told her to just keep the shirt. I think I made her month doing that and hey, it was a free t-shirt, so I'm not out anything ;).
7. My mother-in-law gifted me a pair of shoes that she had bought for herself but were a bit too narrow for her. Turns out I'm the only female in the family with the same shoe size, so I lucked out and got a nice pair of slip ons out of the deal :). Thanks, Stacey!
8. I got the kids Spring pictures from the school (they send home a packet of them and if you want to buy some you keep them and send them a check and if you want you can send them all back and not buy them) and I found that my daughter's school picture this Spring was great to go with my son's fall school pictures which turned out wonderfully. So, I went online and purchased my daughter's picture through the website and printed off both her's and my son's pictures on my printer at home. Doing it this way saved me a TON of money (each school picture packet was priced at 50.00 nearly) and this way I know I'll have enough pictures to send to family and friends as needed :).
9. With Spring coming up quickly I dug out the materials we didn't use last year to fight the spider mites when they hatch in the soil to prevent them from getting into the house in any great numbers. I'm thrilled we didn't use the diatomaceous earth last year as that alone will save me a good 50.00 from having to buy the bags this year.
10. I pulled out the spring/fall jackets for the family this week and started to look over winter gear for any tears or anything that need to be repaired before storing the jackets away for next winter. Since I bought the kids jackets that were big on them last year I think we'll be good for another year before having to purchase new winter jackets. Here's hoping anyway. One nice thing was being able to actually slip on my fall jacket again. When I had the bicep tendonitis and frozen shoulder for the longest time I couldn't even BEGIN to get that jacket on and off, so I have to say it's going to be quite a while before I'm not getting a thrill being able to slip the jacket on and off without extreme agony :).
And there you have it folks. Some of my adventures this last week. How about you? How did you do?
Sounds like you did great last week. I laughed about the days of waiting for Harry Potter books to come out. I remember those, and I was in my 50s! My son and I had two friends his age (early 20s), and they would go for the big event to buy the books, then go home and read them in one night. My son and I would read a chapter a night before his bed time, so our friend had to wait weeks before we could all discuss the plot. Drove them nuts.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest money-saving accomplishment was not to buy any groceries this past week. And if I had been tempted near the end of the week (I needed milk), the weather made sure to put me off from venturing out to get said item. Sleet, rain, then freezing rain and snow was not conducive to driving in.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow is payday so I'll get a few items that I need, but I'm still being very careful not to spend overly much as we're focussed on setting money aside for some minor renovations on our house.
Other than that, it's been a rather quiet week.