Frugal Frugal ~ 4-5-2019

This week I was able to work three days and packed lunches and drinks all three days. I've had five no spend days this week, which helps me to meet some of my goals. 

Cloth napkins are always included with my packed lunch from home. In fact this month marks one year that I've been paper towel free in our home. I've not bought any paper towels since April 2018. 
At that time we switched to cloth only and it has saved me a lot of money. By my calculations I've saved close to $200 in the last year by not buying paper towels. 

Last week eBay had a $3.00 off coupon available, so I checked my Amazon wishlist to see if a book I'd been wanting was available on eBay. 
I found this Thrifty cookbook for $3.99 with free shipping, so I ended up paying 99¢ for a book I'd been wanting, and I used a $1.00 eBay card I earned from the Checkpoints app. 
Tuesday evening Bailey and I had a movie night. We made pizza at home and watched the Ruth Bader Ginsburg film, "On The Basis of Sex". 
We thought it was a good film, which tells the story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg brought a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn a century of gender discrimination. 
Here is a trailer of the film if you're interested:

Trailer Credit
This week I was able to pick up some free toilet paper. It was several rolls that were taken off early to put on a new roll. The custodial staff sets them aside rather than throw them away, so I picked up a few to take home with me. 
My daughter had her oil changed this week and only paid $20 for the supplies. Her uncle uses synthetic oil at his shop, which is what her car requires. 
This week I made a call to Verizon, my cell phone carrier to see if I could get a block on International calls. I've been getting robocalls from France and the Congo and want them to stop. 
Last month I accidently hit the redial button on one of them and was charged $6.00 for my mistake. It was my fault, so I paid the fee, but when I was speaking the the Verizon representative he decided to reverse the charge, so now I have a $6.00 credit on my account. 
It pays to ask sometimes if a company will waive a fee for you. You never know if you will save yourself some money if you don't ask. Even though I didn't ask in this case, I have asked in the past and had a fee or two reversed before. 
If you're interested in stories from the Great Depression you can look on YouTube for several good films about this topic. 
One film I watched this week is from the U.S. National Archives, which I really enjoyed. It gives you information about a time when the economy was really bad and can give you ideas on ways to cope if that were to happen again today. 
The comment section is good to read as well because people are thinking this kind of collapse could happen again. 
I've been reading about food prices increasing due to all the rain and flooding we've had this year. 

YouTube Credit
On Thursday we picked up some groceries from Walmart. Ingredients we picked up include salt, bread, and American cheese. We also picked up a bottle of chili powder on mark down.
We received a check from a class action lawsuit this week for Premiere Protein Shakes, which we bought in 2016. The check was for $17 and some change and was included in a payment I made this week. 
That's all the news from here this week. How was your week? Any frugal wins for you? We'd love to read about it in the comment section. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Third Frugal Week of July 2017

     

Last Friday we both went to Starbucks and got a free sample of Teavana's new teas. She got the Pineapple Black Tea and I got the Strawberry Green Tea.

On Friday we went to 13 yard sales and 2 church rummage sales. Three of the yard sales either decided not to set up or had already closed up for the day. 

One of the items I found 81 pencils for 75¢ total. One of the teachers on my Facebook page said to get someone to cut them in half for me, which I thought was a great idea. I can't have too many pencils for when I'm subbing. 

I took my kitchen fan apart and cleaned it with hot soapy water to get it good and clean. It cools so much better when it's cleaned well, which helps it cool more efficiently, which saves me money. 

Pictured above is the cell phone I bought new in January 2012 and blogged about here. This was a good phone for me helping me to earn money for over five years. 

I endured many comments from students about my phone and how I needed to upgrade. One of them even went so far this year as to call my phone a throwback phone. LOL

One of the hinges even broke on it this past winter and made it unable to stay open to use the keyboard, but I continued to use it as it still worked fine. 

This week I finally went with a smartphone, but did not have to pay any actual money for it. It is a iPhone 4, which my daughter was excited for me to finally get as she wants to Snapchat with me. LOL

I didn't pay any money for the phone, but traded for it at McKay's Used Books like we did when we needed one of those expensive graphing calculators. 

We bought ten board games at a yard sale the weekend before and traded them and received $51.95 in trade credit. The phone cost $49.95, so almost an even trade. 

I even worked out a deal with Verizon, so this phone won't cost me anymore than the cell phone I had before. That was the one thing that held me back from getting a smart phone for so long. I didn't want to pay more for it each month. 

We stopped by a new spice & tea store in Chattanooga and my daughter checked in on their Facebook page, which entitled her to one free item. She picked this Spiced Ham seasoning, which I think will go well in some of our 15 bean soup recipes. 

Today is Saturday and we are going to more yard sales. 

What are your plans for the weekend?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Doing Away with our Landline

Today I turned off our landline with Verizon in an effort to save more money. The contract, which was supposed to only be for 15 months, somehow managed to be longer than that and my phone calls to protest were unfruitful. Well the contract has finally run out, so I decided to have it turned off, which will save us around $25 a month. We weren't using the phone, which hasn't even been plugged in for months. So we will save a little bit of money and as you know, every little bit helps.

I was going to switch our cell phones to Straight Talk from Wal-Mart, but had heard some negative comments about Straight Talk, so we are going to stay with Verizon and just try to lower our monthly costs. All of our phones are no longer under a contract and are now month to month. Verizon gave us a $15 per month discount for that reason in February.  

I do not need a new cell phone as mine is working and suits me just fine. If I did need  a new one I would buy one on the second hand market to avoid getting into a new contract.  When the day comes that I am no longer subbing, I will do away with the plan we have now and look into something even cheaper. 

So, $25 plus $15 means the cell phone bill should be $40 cheaper next month, and since I share a family plan with my Mother, should be $20 cheaper on my part next month. I also "charge" my daugher $25 a month for her smart phone on her financial journal, which she works off, so in the end I should be paying around $50 per month for my cell phone. 

On a side note, the customer service representative from Verizon did everything in her power to try and sell me another service. I help firm though and declined all of her offers. :)

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.