The Frugal Five: #77

 The Frugal Five: #77

With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.    

This week I am exploring how to keep costs down during busy weeks.    Keeping dinner on the table instead of eating out is one of my strategies to get the job done.    Here are some of my tips and trips.   

1- Reduced Prices are Good, but FREE is best! 

Walgreens has been on fire this month for picking up free items.    I have been able to get laundry rinse and refresh, oral care (toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, and toothbrush), makeup, crafting beads, charm, hand lotion, chapstick, photos, pepper, and beef broth.    Although Walgreens has been wonderful, other stores have also contributed to my stockpile.   I received store reward coupons from Bed and Body Works, Michaels, CVS, and Meijers.     For reduced prices, I use coupons, shop the reduced-priced items, and look at the sales each week.     The key is to only buy what you need or can use in the next year.   For example, the items I picked up from Bed and Body Works, and Michaels are next Christmas presents for my friends.       

2- Using Dried Beans

We have been using up the proteins from our freezer because the deal cycle hasn’t matched our being able to take advantage of the deals.     To keep our grocery budget down, we are stretching our protein of the week → ground beef, with beans and lentils.    The beans and lentils were already in our pantry, so we could do this at no additional cost.     We added both lentils and beans to our chili and enchiladas.    Since we used them in several dishes, we cooked our dried beans and used the entire pot.    

3- Reduced Price Pots  

My husband loves live plants and I enjoy a beautiful home.     Therefore, we invest in nice pots for our plants.     For example, we brought back a plant to remember our Hawaii vacation and replanted it in a wonderful black pot.    This week we found 2 pots that were significantly reduced at Krogers this week.   We currently do not have plants for them, but considering similar pots would cost a minimum of $25.00 at Lowes and got them for less than $5.00, we got a great bargain. 

     

4- Waste Not Want Not 

Each week Americans throw away a lot of food that they have already purchased.      I find this very wasteful, so I look at what is hanging out in my pantry, freezer, or refrigerator and on my counter to see what needs to be used up.   This week I found 4 very ripe bananas which my son will not eat as is, so I made banana chip muffins.  In addition, I found a variety of different raw vegetables that were not being eaten because they were not cut up, so I took a few minutes to cut them up.    The family ate them for snacks and took them with their lunches.   In addition, I added them to my dinners.        

5- Protein of the Week

Since we have not had great deals on the proteins we typically use, we have been hitting our freezer hard.   No worries, that is what it is for, but this week the sales are not exactly what we want, so we picked one protein that was on sale→ 80% ground beef, and used it as the centerpiece of our meals this week.   We made cowboy soup, chili, and beef enchiladas.   

What Free-bees have you been able to pick up this year?    My entire year is attached below.    

Here is my list: 

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.