I’ve got to say, even though I didn’t think I’d make this a regular feature, I’m really enjoying keeping a bit of a tally on some of the frugal hacks I’ve been taking! It’s fun to look back at the week and see that I haven’t behaved like a Rockefeller all week. These little ditties don’t have to be big to be important when it comes to my bottom line!
With that preamble, here are five ways I’ve been frugal-minded over the past week or so.
1. We were able to keep our HVAC system turned completely off for the past month.
There are many things I love about springtime in Northern Virginia, but one of the top features is how temperate the weather can be when it wants to. For the past month – maybe a bit more, actually – we’ve been able to regulate the house temperature purely by opening and closing some of our windows! Between that and LeeLee’s trusty desk fan in his office (our home doesn’t have ceiling fans), we’ve been able to keep the house at a very comfortable temperature for a month-plus. Sadly, our streak was broken just this afternoon, when I broke down and turned the air conditioning on after the mercury outside hit 92 degrees. But don’t fret; the thermostat is still set at a moderate 75 degrees, and once things cool down to that level, I don’t expect a lot of fluctuation over the coming days and weeks.
2. We won free tickets to “The Tonight Show”!
LeeLee and I have a little weekend trip to New York planned next month, and when the lottery for “The Tonight Show” opened up I threw my hat into the ring at once. Lo and behold, after years of attempts, we won! And guess what? The tickets are free of charge. Talk about your win-wins! While New York is not known as a frugal vacation spot, we try to shave costs when we can on these trips; I’m expecting some 99-cent pizza dinners in our future, as well as free breakfast at the hotel. I think I’ll write a post about our frugal New York trips sometime soon; you can actually see a lot of the city without breaking the bank!
3. I picked up a buy-one-get-one deal on CoQ10.
I take CoQ10 on the advice of my nutritionist to help regulate my blood pressure, and the bottles of supplements are not cheap. So imagine my pleasant surprise when our local Harris Teeter had a BOGO the other day! I was running very low anyway, so after comparing the BOGO price with what Amazon had it listed for, I deemed it a very good deal indeed and snapped up two bottles. That’ll lower the blood pressure! ;)
4. I passed my unsuitable coffee over to LeeLee.
The other day, I got so excited to find one of my favorite Cuban-style ground coffee canisters at the grocery store and I snapped it up right away. Unfortunately, when I got home I remembered it was a very finely ground espresso, which my beloved French press doesn’t deal with well. No matter! LeeLee prefers the ease of a Keurig (with compostable paper filters, not the plastic cups), so I just passed the full canister over to him and he’ll be set for a good long time.
5. Speaking of LeeLee: He sent a very frugal parcel through the mail from us to … us!
We were in Nashville over the weekend for a half-marathon I was running with a friend – we’d made a couples trip out of the adventure! – and after we arrived we realized LeeLee was very low on contact-lens solution. We stopped by the local Publix (my favorite grocery store) to pick up some snacks and meals for the room, so while we were there we picked up some more solution. Unfortunately, it didn’t come in a travel size, so LeeLee begrudgingly bought the full size … which only came in a two-pack. The hiccup? We carried our luggage on the plane rather than checking, and so did our friends. What to do? I’m not proud of this, but I was all set to just eat the $17 we’d spent and leave the bottles behind. But LeeLee went to the front desk, asked if they could ship it back home for us, and the answer was yes! So he packaged it up and dropped it off, and the parcel will be joining us back here in no time. Even better? This service was gratis! Now that’s Southern hospitality.
What have been some of your frugal wins in the past week? Sound off in the comments!
:)