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The Frugal Five: #41

 The Frugal Five: #41


With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.    


With the New Year upon us, it is time to set goals for how we will be spending our money.    This can look like shopping carefully, DIY projects, wasting less or just doing without.     Let’s see how we can save our pennies this year.   


1- Hunted Down Cheap Gas Prices

Gas prices in my area have gone up again this week, so I went on the hunt for cheap gas prices.     I watched my local honey holes that typically offer the best deals and waited for my gas tank to register low fuel.   Then I selected my local Kroger, which has the lowest price that week, and used my fuel points to lower the price by $0.80 per gallon.   Each time I shop for food, I maximize my fuel rewards by shopping on the 2X days, which results in more savings.   This trip's reward points saved me $8.80.   A little bit each week helps to save big for the year.    


2- CVS Savings


I received a $8.00 off of $40.00 coupon from CVS last week and it came in handy.    I was able to pick up the following: 

  • 2 Scope Mouthwash (1 liter)- CVS Sale, Coupon, Store Coupon, ECB

  • Whole Blends Shampoo- CVS Sale, Coupon, Store Coupon, ECB

  • Whole Blends Conditioner- CVS Sale, Coupon, Store Coupon, ECB

  • 2 Colgate Total (3.3oz)- CVS Sale, Coupon, Store Coupon, ECB

  • 2 Neutrogena Hydro Boost Hydrogel Mask- CVS Sale, Coupon, Store Coupon, ECB

The price—>  I paid the tax on the items.   Not bad for saving some dough.   


3- Cleaned out my Pantry 


I had a little extra time on my hands this week, so I cleaned out the pantry.    It was an eye opener because I thought I was doing a great job with food rotation, but I wasn’t.    I found  a few items that needed to be added to our meal plan ASAP due to expiration dates.     For the next few weeks, we will be utilizing our pantry staples a little more and looking for stock up savings.   


4- Homemade Dessert


When I was cleaning out our pantry, I discovered that my son had stopped eating his Rice Krispy cereal and a pack of Marshmallow.     I added a little butter from the refrigerator and we had a delicious dessert or after school snack for the week.    Price→ No additional $. 

5-  Tree Down 


The past few weeks our area has experienced high levels of wind and although we had air channels cut into our tree line, one of our huge trees didn’t make it.   The good news→ it didn’t fall on our home.    The bad news, we have another tree to take down.   The good news—> we will get more firewood for next winter.    Since the fallen tree is not posing any threat, we are not going to address it until the summer.   

 

Do you want to see what we did last week?   

Just click on the picture for the link. 


Please leave a comment below with your ways of saving money this week.


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