The Frugal Five: #83

 The Frugal Five: #83

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- Treat Yourself for Free or Cheap

Keeping to a budget is hard!  This becomes harder when there are children in the house.      I pick up cake, brownie, or muffin mixes when they go on sale.   Then I can use them throughout the month to treat our family.   If you are not finding mixes on sale, no worries→ Google a recipe and make something from scratch.     

In addition, I Google free events.  

Pro-Tip→    Look for steeply discounted items with holiday packaging.    A few weeks ago, I found discounted name-brand coffee creamer for less than the generic coffee creamer, so I checked the date and picked up several.   

2- Replacing Soda with Sweet Tea 

The price of soda has increased to the point of me questioning why I buy it so often.    I lived down south for several years and love sweet tea, so I boiled some water and added sugar and tea bags.    In a few minutes, I had yummy sweet tea.    My lunch beverage is taken care of and for a bargain. 

3- Picking up Free-bees and Deals

Free-bees come and go with the sale cycles and the abundance of available coupons.     I was able to pick up a few deals this week before they passed, but unfortunately, I did miss a great deal because I didn’t check the expiration dates of all of the coupons/rebates.   That happens on occasion and it reminds me to be diligent.     

4- Using Grocery Sacks as Trashbags 

Years ago, I saw one of my friends use grocery sacs as a trash bag in her small trashcans.    This practice helps the environment by reusing a single-use item, and as a bonus, it is also economical.  

5- Planted my seeds this week 

I am participating in the community garden again this year.    To minimize our costs, we get together at a seed-planting party.   This is where we plant not only the seeds that we plan on using in our garden, but for the plants in the community bed and extras for whatever.     In addition to planting seeds for the community bed, I also planted seeds for our backyard garden.   

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.