My Frugal Year

There just hasn’t been much shopping to be saving these days, which is good. This means my stocking up has been working. We haven’t had to do a lot of those annoying little trips that add up.

Since my last update, I’ve spent $132.36 at the grocery store and saved $35.62. Not the greatest savings ratio, but not the worst either.

We’ve been to the museum once more time since getting our membership. That was such a good idea. A year’s worth of entertainment for the family for $80. Love that. We’ll be going back again soon – they have some new exhibits coming in.

Another fabulous frugal thing is free theater tickets. Through my job I occasionally get great tickets to shows. My husband and I had a date this week and we got to see the touring company of Phantom of the Opera for FREE. That saved over $140 right there. Not that we would have spend that had we not gotten the complimentary tickets, but still – great deal.

So…, where are we? Let’s see, since last update:

Spent $132.46
Saved $35.62
Transferred to savings $35.62

Year to date savings $238.40.

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Have a frugal day!!

Yes, I know…it’s been a while. I’ve been overwhelmed with school work, work work, home work, family work and just a lot of work in general. I have, however, dutifully saved all my receipts to keep track of what the heck I’ve been spending/saving.

I just have time for a quick update today, so I’ll make it short and sweet. Since I last posted:

Spent: 291.92
Saved: 99.51
Transferred to savings $99.51

Year to date savings: $202.78

Don’t forget about great printable grocery coupons you can get free online!

I will post more over the weekend!

I love lazy Saturdays, don’t you? It didn’t start out lazy. There was an early board meeting for a non profit group I’m involved with, but the rest of the day was just hanging out with the family. I like days like that. We didn’t go out or do anything really. We were just all at home doing our thing. Reading, playing on the computer, watching a movie. It was nice.

No spending today, which is good since I made the Costco run the other day. Since today was a lazy day that means tomorrow needs to be a productive day. I plan to do some de-cluttering in the basement. It’s my plan to be nice and ready for a good weather weekend to come along and finally do this garage sale I’ve been meaning to do. Garage sales are a great way to get rid of stuff that’s just clogging up your home and to make some nice extra cash. Nice way to beef up the savings account! The only problem is that it’s January in Colorado. This means any given weekend there could be a blizzard or 70 degree weather. Makes it tough to plan. The best I can do is get everything organized with price labels and when the weather cooperates, throw a Craigslist ad up and a few signs and get it done.

So, we’ll see how much I actually get done tomorrow!

Some deals and coupons for today:

Betty Crocker Coupons

Nestle Toll House Coupon

Enter to Win $100 in Grocery Money – Carnation

$10 off at Old Navy – Expires 1/20/09

Costco is a great deal. I enjoy shopping there. The store is always nice and clean and the stuff is quality. The deals are really good too, compared with the grocery store on a lot of items. I got my handy little Costco coupon booklet in the mail last week, so that helped even more! Now not every price there is better than in the grocery store so you have to do your comparisons.

Some things are hands down a better deal. Garbage bags, for instance. I used to get the Hefty 33gal at the grocery store. Right now for 33 bags of the 33gal. size, it’s running anywhere from $11.99 – $12.99 at the grocery store. I just got the Kirkland brand 33gal size – 90 bags for $11.99. That’s a great deal. Almost three times as many bags for the same price. And seriously – how long will it take me to go through 90 bags that size? A long time, I’d guess.

I was still driving the little Mazda today. Man, that thing is cheap to run. I put $10 of gas in it and it’s almost full. Won’t have to fill it up again for a while.

So…today’s totals:

Spent:
$10 on gas
$141.14 at Costco
Saved today:
Costco coupons $18
Transferred to savings $18
Year to date savings $89.29
and that doesn’t even count what I save shopping for certain things at Costco over the grocery store. This is going well!

Another no spending day. Just work and taking my daughter to the orthodontist. I did find some cool savings stuff online that I want to share though.

$120 in coupon savings from Proctor & Gamble

Save $1.50 on Coffee-Mate

$10 in coupons from EatBetterAmerica

Save Money – Print Grocery Coupons Anytime

Save on cable:

Get 50 Free Digital Camera Prints and only 9 cents per print at Snapfish by HP!

Print REAL coupons from your computer at CoolSavings! Just click here!

Happy savings to you!

Being stuck at home will certainly put a damper on spending! My husband had to take the good car today. The “other” car…bless it’s little engine…doesn’t do snow. Seriously. I love my Subaru Forester. That thing gets through anything. The other car is a 1988 Mazda 323 that’s been hit by a garbage truck. It’s not pretty. But my goodness, it’s frugal. Hardly costs anything to run and insure. It’s just these pesky days when he needs the Subaru and it’s snowing, I’m stuck. Luckily I was able to do some work remotely and I have a very understanding boss.

So there’s a frugal topic for you – cars. They can be money-sucking beasts or they can be useful tools that can be used in a frugal manner. I suppose we could replace the old Mazda…but why? It runs. It gets us from point A to point B. It has great gas mileage and doesn’t need premium fuel. Our self-esteem isn’t wrapped up in how cool our vehicles look. Nope, we’re in no hurry to replace it. It’s a rare occurrence that it creates a transportation problem like it did today. 99% of the time, I could drop my husband off at work or the Light Rail station and go on my merry way. So it didn’t turn out to be a big deal. And I couldn’t do anything about the urge to shop.

I guess that’s a good day all around!

Snowy Day in Colorado

And here’s a happy freebie for ya! Get a coupon booklet with $27 in savings for cleaning products!