What did you do to save money today? Oct 5-11

[Pooki]

In honor of one of my favorite weekly threads that used to be on the BB, I'd like to revive the "What did you do to save money today" thread. Every day post what you did to keep your budget on track, whether you saved with coupons, you walked to your destination, kept the lights/heater down, or even if you just stayed home and out of the stores! I always had it in the back of my mind to make sure I had something to contribute to this thread every day, which was a wonderful thing because it kept me trying to find any way to save!

DH and I are starting to attack our debt viciously and save up as much cash possible for when we move back to the states in June 2010. One thing I do is any extra money I save, whether from couponing, or avoiding getting a Baskin Robbins shake, I'll take the money that would have been spent and apply it to an extra CC payment, and hopefully soon enough, our house savings. I keep track of the money saved, and weekly I'll apply that money. For this past week, I've already saved $103.03 (majority of that is from canceling premium cable channels, I pocket the difference each month now), so at the end of the week I'll have that much more of a payment!

We are stationed in Japan at the moment, so its already Sunday evening for me. I stayed home all day and was lazy, so no going out. Yesterday I went grocery shopping (I do the envelope system with my grocery shopping) and hit up the case lot sale they were having, but I forgot garbage bags! I have a ton of grocery bags I've been collecting for my dog's outdoor "deposit", so I'll just use some of those up as garbage bags until payday. I suppose that will save me about $1 worth of bags, lol, so I'll put that towards my extra payment.

One other thing I was pretty excited about was from yesterday. I had to get my DD's Girl Scout stuff (bought their "kit" and saved $4.25), so we stopped by the store next to it and checked out the Christmas display. I stumbled across a Razor scooter that was hidden amongst other boxes, and it was the only one in the entire store!! We live on base, so the stores' selections are quite limited, but the scooter was on my list for DS's Christmas gift, and I was going to order the scooter over the internet. Now, I have the exact one that I wanted, and don't have to pay for shipping or tax! I think it was meant to be $6.25 worth of shipping going towards my credit card.

 

[cepmom]

thanks for starting this thread! I think it's fun to see what little things we can do to ave $$....it all adds up! I'm working all day today, so that will be easy ~ no time to go shopping so lots of money to be saved this way!
I started babysitting my friend's little one so I find myself home much of the day while my kids are in school instead of shopping. DH usually gives me $80 a week so I can keep cash in my wallet, but the past few weeks I have spent hardly any of it. It's just due to spending more time at home! I love that the $80 he would have given my stays in the bank now and can go directly into our savings account instead of my wallet.

 

[alexedan]

Hi Heidi! I am relatively new to the BB and don't remember the original thread but it sounds like a good one. Every little bit counts. Night before last we went out for dinner and spent about 25$ more than anticipated. Yesterday I packed lunches which we ate in the car to save money. Also went to FL while out of town to get in on their 48 hr sale for coffee and Bounty. This nice store man saw me with coupons and pointed out that voila frozen dinners were BOGO free and had pull out coupons available for 2$ off of each bringing the cost down to 50 cents each! That means I can feed my fam of 4 for 1$!!!! I bought 4.

 

[semo233]

Nice concept.
It is 7:30 am here, so not much today!
Yesterday was my daughter's birthday party and I did the following

bought the smaller cake because I always over buy - saved $7

Bought $5 gift cards to Starbucks for 3 winners of a game - it saved me about $2 per prize because I was going to make a little gift bag for about $7 - saved $2 per bag - $6 saved

She had a mall party and we bought pizza. Three pizzas came to about $45, but I brought the drinks, so I think I saved at least $10

Not having 8 twelve year olds running around my house - priceless!

 

[hsmamato2]

Let's see..... bought some organic/gourmet snacks for our packed lunches for next week at ocean state job lot they were about $1 a package- bought some new stickers at the Dollar Tree to make my simple scrapbook pages for family memories- ate leftovers last night from 2 previous crockpot meals-(mmm-lentil soup) in that vein,made 3 meatless meals last week-

 

[annsteere]

Got a coupon for 50% off any purchase at Dunkin Donuts. At that price I bought 5 bags of coffee and stuck them in my freezer.

Saved over buying regular price: $20.

Too bad I can't say "saved over buying coffee at the coffee shop." That would really be a nice, big number.

 

[annsteere]

I made cards for two baby showers out of supplies I had sitting around.

I count the supply cost as the cost of the first cards I make out of them, so these two cards were free. Plus, they turned out very well.

Do you notice that figuring out how much you saved is a pretty flexible number? For example, this was $1.25 cheaper than cards at Party City, $2 cheaper than cards from the Dollar Tree, $3 cheaper than Target and $4 cheaper than the Hallmark store.

If I weren't so frugal everyday, I could really "save" lots more money

 

[karynnix]

I was just thinking about this thread yesterday! I have not been to Walmart all week. I am DETERMINED to eat what we have on hand this week, and not buy more unless it's something we absolutely need. I have probably saved $50 by not going and buying things that I really don't need.

I also cancelled our newspapers. It's not much savings ($17.86/month), but it's an expense that we can do without right now.

 

[iamgrumpy]

Got a coupon for 50% off any purchase at Dunkin Donuts. At that price I bought 5 bags of coffee and stuck them in my freezer.



Where did you get a coupon like that? I am so jealous!!!

 

[kkheburn]

This week we are using up the stuff that is in our pantry. I have made a list of what we have and I only have to buy a few things at Walmart. Im hoping to keep it under $20. We went to the library yesterday and got our movies there. We try and do a family movie night on Saturday so it saved us a few bucks on getting there instead of Red Box.

 

[Julia M]

DD's birthday party was last night (and well, his morning-they're still here!!)

She wanted a party at a local bowling alley, which would have ran me at least $110 with just the lane rental and shoes. Or a movie party, which with 8 girls would have been $72 just to get in. Of course, none of these included favors, food, etc.

Instead, I told her honestly I didn't have the mone for those events and she could have a slumber party. We made goodie bags for a total of $19 for 7 good bags. I bought body gel, lotions, lip gloss, etc at Target's 75% off Dollar Aisle, and gift bags that were 50% for a bundle of 10. Ironically, it's a vanilla scent, with cupcake design......looks like it was MADE for a birthday party!! Dinner was pretty cheap, because I made spaghetti, salad and bread, and dd made her own cake (she's 14). I rented some movies from Blockbuster ($12) and bought donuts for this morning ($8)

So, a total of $39, and the girls (based on how loud they've been and how much laughing has occurred) had a good time.

Julia

 

[Nik's Mom]

I made a grocery list and only bought items from that list today. My grocery budget is $150 a week, but with my list in hand I only spent $100!

 

[roadtripper]

Well, this was yesterday, but instead of going out to dinner, I cooked a lot of food, which will jump start the week for us, too. Bought a lot of good stuff for the kid's lunches while I was at it. I probably saved over 100.00 by not going out to our favorite watering hole--they make a yummy (pricey!) grown up drink, and we planned to treat some friends, also-- instead, we hosted.

 

[tinkarooni]

Oh boy, this is an oldie but a goodie. Thanks so much OP for bringing it back, I forgot how much fun the first one was.

Today I canned a years worth of applesauce with $6.00 worth of apples from a local orchard. (We have apple trees but they are still young).

Yesterday I participated in a neighborhood garage sale with some friends and made $300 and than donated the rest to Goodwill for a big fat tax write off.

My husband is outside stacking wood for the winter.....I should get off the Disboards and go help him.....Oh one more....I haven't left the house today, no gas!

Who's next?

 

[PaulaSue]

I didn't go "home" today. Besdies the $20 plus in gas I saved $$ on the food out and other stuff we would have bought going to visit. Oh it is so hard not to go home to visit today but Dh said I have to crack down on the spending with our trip soon, etc...

 

[sherry7]

I've been trying to cut back as well. I'm reading the Dave Ramsey books, and he's very inspiring.

I'm going to do Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, since the weekends tend to blend together for me anyway.

On Friday evening, I skipped taking the toll road home from work. The other way only takes 5 minutes longer, and the distance is actually shorter. Saved $1.

On Saturday, I stopped at Sam's Club for gas, since I was passing by anyway. I have to use premium gas, and it's 17 cents a gallon cheaper there.

On Saturday, I took advantage of the Super Double Coupon sale that Kmart was having. I got a bunch of personal products and cleaning supplies for free, or nearly free.

On Saturday, I went grocery shopping, mostly for meat. I got 2 boneless pork loins for $1.99 lb, and had the butcher slice them into chops for free. (The pre-sliced chops were $2.39 lb.) I bought 2 pre-stuffed roasting chickens for 89 cents lb (in the oven right now!). I bought chicken tenders for 99 cents lb, but need to cook them soon since they expire tomorrow.

Today, I ran into the grocery store for donuts, and found them for $1 a box. This will help prevent from stopping at the convenience store in the mornings. However, the savings were offset by the ADORABLE Disney princess Kleenex I bought...not such a great deal at $1.50 per box.

I blew $5 in the grocery store parking lot. Some of DS's classmates were doing a car wash for charity. DS was with me, and all of kids were yelling at him to come get the car washed. DS was thrilled when a pretty girl told him she liked HIS car. (Excuse me, but the snazzy little sports car is MINE...DS isn't even allowed to drive it, lol.) It was worth $5 to see the big smile on DS's face though. However, like all charity car washes, they did a terrible job and left soap residue on my baby. I had to drive straight to the car wash and spray the soap off it, before it spotted my paint.

 

[Kitzka]

DH and i were planning on having a gronw up night out. DD was at a birthday party and we decided instead of going to the movies, getting dinner out and maybe going for a drink or two, we would walk around the mall and window shop (didn't buy anything), order food from the returant to go and then watch a movei at home (that we already had).

OUr savings was about $20 on the movie tickets, $10 on movie snacks, $15 on the tip from the returant and $30 on drinks.

Today at the grocery store i only purchased things that were on my list except for veggies i had planned on getting some veggies to make a chicken pot pie but frozen veggies were much cheaper today so i got 3 bags (or 4 meals worth). I saved about $15 in coupons (things i was going to bbuy anyway) and sale items.

lara
PS_what a great thread. everyone needs to save some money these days...

 

[delmar411]

hmm. let's see...today I'm going through the kids toys w/ oldest DD and she's going to help me match sets of Little People so we can put them on CL. While the kids do enjoy them in moderation, what they have isn't anywhere near moderation! I already banished most of the buildings out to the garage and that did nothing to help the problem.

So we should be able to clear space and make some money off this project. I'm going to turn this into a bit of a math/finance lesson for older DD too.

So I guess I'm saving money with every toy reality check I give myself!

Also I'm doing a pantry/freezer inventory and doing a meal plan off it. I'm looking to get most of the stuff out of the freezer so I can do a meat run to get us through the winter.

 

[2manypets]

We're eating what ever's left over in the pantry. Saved $102 at the grocery. Also didn't need as much gas as was allocated. Saved another $50. Of course, I immediately made an online payment to CC debt with the overage.

 

[rentayenta]

Today 10/5, what I am doing to save money is cook dinner. We are jonesing to go out but I stood my ground and said I am cooking. I am making chicken cordon bleu minus the pork, broccoli, and mashed potatoes.


I figure by cooking instead of dining out I saved a minimum of $60 for the 5 of us and thats if we went somewhere moderate like Chili's or Olive Garden.