Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Bwahahaha!!!  On TIME for a change!  Dealing with a major computer lag (which doesn't bode well), but still it's Friday and this is getting done!

It's been a week for sure.  We had multiple appointment this week, including getting my daughter's spacers on her bottom teeth, but those got done (and I didn't forget any this time).

I've also been attempting to get a little blog series done for the blog here that will hopefully help people, maybe to save a few dollars here and there.  It's not much, really, but hopefully it might help to jog someone's imagination to help them in times where they need it. IF my computer ever gets done updating and things so I am not typing about fifteen words ahead of my laptop, that would help it get done a lot more quickly, but we'll see how it goes.  Hopefully I can start getting that up on the blog next week before school lets out and I have the kids to contend with 24/7.

Saving money has been really important this week due to...well...no money really *laugh*, so let's get down to some ways I saved money this week.

1.  Grocery shopping in the stores went very careful this week, but I think I did pretty darn well overall, so let's break it down.

The first shopping trip I went on was Monday because we needed milk.  My mother-in-law sent me a 10.00 Fred Meyer gift card for Mother's Day, so I went armed with that.  I got two gallons of milk and some 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke (on sale 3 for 5.00) for the son.  I also picked up my bag of cat food and my free cat treats from My Magazine Sharing Network (the Kroger based product testing outfit I signed up for) and the free Doritos from freebie Friday (my friend gave me hers as well, so I grabbed those while I was there too :).  All totaled after coupons and gift card were applied I paid 1.58 out of pocket at Fred Meyer (I didn't take pictures of the milk or the soda that day, sorry to say, so imagine those if you will).

I then went to Carrs and got one 12 pack of generic store soda for the son (he goes through a "I want a can" phase every once in a while) and for the husband's lunches.  I also got some of my Monopoly freebies while I was there.  I got a free bag of chips (which were wicked hard to find as the home was empty and I finally found them on an end cap), a free gravy mix, a free Greek yogurt and a free bottle of water.  I spent 2.50 at Carrs that day (after a personalized price was applied) and got another huge stack of Monopoly tickets.  I honestly thought that the game was over, so I was thrilled to get another stack of tickets.  The gentleman behind me asked if I'd like his Monopoly tickets as well and I said, "Sure!" and so I waited until his order was done and got his huge stack to add to mine.  Overall, I ended up with a bunch of freebies and I won a 5.00 gift card from the Monopoly game as a whole.  Not the million dollars I was hoping for, but good enough *laugh*.

When the Carrs ad came out on Wednesday, I have to say I got terribly excited and dragged my poor husband to the store with me in my excitement over sales stacked with, oddly enough, some personalized coupons that Just 4 U gave me.  I had a 1.50/3 coupon for the Safeway brand of pasta and it is on sale this week for .89 per box, so you bet I jumped on .39 per box pasta!  Let me break down what I got really fast here...

• 1 Container of apple juice:  On sale 1.50.  Had 1.00/1 personalized coupon.  Final Price:  .50.
• 4 Cans crushed tomatoes.  On sale .79 each with a coupon.  Had a personalized coupon for 1.00/4.  Final Price:  .54 per can.
• 1 container ice cream.  1.49 on sale with a digital coupon.
• Angel Hair Pasta.  On sale for .89 per box.  Had personalized coupon for 1.50/3.  Final Price:  .39 per box.  Fourth box was free with a Monopoly coupon.
• 3 small cans tomato sauce:  Free with Monopoly coupons.
• 2 bagels:  Free with Monopoly coupons.
• 1 box of cereal:  On sale 2.50.  Had personalized coupon for 1.50/1.  Final Price:  1.00 (I don't buy cereal for anyone other than the son for the most part, so this was actually a treat for the daughter as she loves frosted flakes).
• 1 container Greek yogurt:  Free with Monopoly coupon.

All totaled I spent about 6.54 on groceries that day (I don't know the exact cents, sorry, as I can't find my receipt at the moment as I had to go to customer service later to get some coupons applied correctly...computers are fun).

Today I went back to Carrs for 5.00 Friday with the express purpose to use the 5.00 gift card I won to buy cat litter (on sale for 5.00 as, you guessed it, part of 5.00 Friday).  And that's what I did.  I also got three free things of gravy mix while I was there (still have some freebies to redeem yet before the contest ends at the end of the month) and I got another 12 pack of soda as the son came down with a terrible cold today and I know he's going to need the extra hydration.  All totaled I spent 3.14 on groceries today after the gift card was applied.

All totaled I spent 11.26 on groceries this week, to be fair with gift cards helping out, but still I didn't think I did too bad all things considered.

2.  I mended one of many holes in my jeans this week.  I need to un-barricade my sewing machine before I can get too far on the mending front (donations to the used store are currently taking up that corner of my den), so that is on my "to do" list this week, but in the meantime, I'm doing the best I can with plain hand sewing.

3.  I repaired my daughter's rain boots with shoe goo.

4.  When my husband realized he needed a special tool to change out a sensor in our truck he shopped around until he found the best price and quality available for what he needed.  By doing so he had to put off repairing the truck a bit longer, but was able to save over half of what he would have had to pay to find the tool locally.

5.  Despite running to the store multiple times this week, by carefully combining errands together (made one trip after an appointment so was able to save gas that way, another trip I had to take to get the son's medications refilled anyway, etc), I was able to make a half of a tank of gas go pretty far.

6.  I made a beef roast early in the week, but it was a pretty cheap cut of beef and so decently chewy.  My husband took the leftovers and put them through our meat slicer and made thin sliced roast beef deli meat out of it.  The slicer was able to cut through the connective tissue enough that the deli meat was pretty tasty!

7.  I took a survey in an ongoing autism research study that I've been a part of for years now (I am helping them to track the frame of mind of parents of autistic children as they grow up and such).  I really feel good participating in autism research, even though my part is minor, because, to me, it helps to reinforce that progress is, in fact being made :).

8.  I received a new product testing opportunity from Smiley 360 this week.  This time I get to test out razors!  Which is great, because I needed some :).  The "kit" I received is seen up top.  I am going to use the tissue paper that came with the kit (second kit in a row that came with the tissue paper, woohoo!) as wrapping paper later on.

9.  I realized that the little bit of Bisquick I had left was going out of date to the point the baking powder in it was starting to go, so I made some slightly flat pancakes (for dinner one night when I didn't have a lot of inspiration and had forgotten to defrost some meat), took some strawberries out of the freezer and some Cool Whip and made strawberry shortcakes for dessert one night (some very dense shortcake, but it still tasted good).

10.  I delivered some copy of the kid's school pictures to my mother-in-law.  Since I can't afford to get her anything for Mother's Day, I figured that pics of the grand kids would definitely fill the void.  I didn't get an opportunity to mail my mom her copies of the pics yet, so they will be late, but I know she'll appreciate them even if they are a bit late :).

11.  My daughter knows we don't have any money to really celebrate Mother's Day in any real fashion this year, so she asked me what I'd like her to make me when she realized we weren't going to be doing anything out of the ordinary for Mother's Day (I love that kid...she knows me well and knows I love home made stuff).  I asked her to just draw me a picture.  She's still working on it and I know I'll love it :).

And there you are folks.  Some of the frugal adventures that happened this week.  How about you?  How did you do?