Frugal Friday or How I Saved My Family $600+

Here are a few ways I've saved our family some money this past week.
The last one is a biggie too.  ;-)

* No take-out or eating-out this week.

* Doing laundry during off-peak hours only.

* 1 trip to Weis(PMITA)Markets this week where I picked up 6 discount sticker meat packages, 4 packs of tortillas for $1 each after sale and coupon, $50.93 reg. retail worth of frozen pizzas for $26.88 OOP after sales/points/stacked Qs and 4 containers of Weis brand OJ and Grapefruit juice for 39% off during a sale. (Having all that pizza on hand will help me not get take-out on nights I just can't cook due to exhaustion.)

* I took a small chunk of leftover Xmas roast and with the addition of potatoes, onions, red bell pepper(from the freezer)and spices I turned it into Roast Beef Hash. This along with a large quantity of cheesy scrambled eggs was dinner on Monday night.

* Regular readers will know that our oven/range crapped out on Christmas day which led to the hilarity of having to transport large amounts of food back and forth to my brother in-law's place so as to cook it.

By Xmas evening Hubs was browsing new ranges on his phone and had picked one out that the local big box hardware store could have delivered by New Years for $550 + tax and $75 delivery fee.

Instead I figured out that the lower heating element needed replacing, found the part # and jumped on the internet and ordered it.(You wouldn't believe the price range between websites for said part!) I did splurge an extra $1.60 and have it mailed Priority rate instead of parcel post rate.
The part arrived in 3 days and on New Year's eve between my 2 kids and I(and a You Tube video)we got the new element installed.

And while we had the range pulled out from the wall I got behind there and cleaned.
Now this baby works good as new, both inside and outside!

Cost of part w/shipping.....$16.70
Labor........FREE
Savings from not buying a new range(+ tax and shipping).....approx. $641.00

This past week was an epic frugal win week at Chez Sluggy.

Sluggy

Some Frugal Wins Lately

Here are some of our Frugal Wins this past week.......

*  Who would have thought that having your spouse break his leg in a major way would lead to frugality?!

While this accident did lead to a tad more Eating-Out/Take-Out Spending it also has meant less money spent in other ways.
We have a Christmas eve tradition in our family of enjoying a meal out at our local Chinese restaurant.  This generally involves inviting the brother in-law and nephew, as well as friends of College Boy along for the evening.  We spring for a full spread-appetizers, sushi rolls and dessert if wanted as well as everyone's drinks(not alcohol)and entrees. Cost hovers in the $100 area for the night.

This year, since Hubs is unable to go out to the restaurant we ordered take-out from the place instead.  No extras were ordered just entrees and additional family and CB's friends were not invited to partake, just us 5.  With tip the meal ended up costing $60.  Since I spent over $50 on the order I also got a $5 off your next order coupon from there.

*  I got 5 Kohl's rebates sent in on Friday from my Black Friday online shopping.  At $12 a pop that comes to $60 in money coming back to me.  These were small appliances that are $7 after rebate-I gifted 3 different ones to Daughter and the BF for when they eventually get their own place again and I bought 2 toaster ovens for spares.  Our toaster oven is on it's last legs plus College Boy will be doing an internship his last semester and living goodness knows where for it(not at school)so I picked another toaster oven up in case he needs something to cook in wherever he is located for that 14 weeks.  It just made sense to take part in this appliance deal at that price.

*  This arrived in the mail last week.....

A coupon for a free 12 pack of Coke products.  I consider this a freebie as it was "bought" using coke points I acquire from drink bottles the BF throws away(He buys those bottles.)  Unfortunately this year the Coke folks limited each registered user to 1 redemption of this free 12 pack reward. boo!  In past years there was either a 5 reward limit or no limit at all.

*  I got a cash back summary for my online Christmas shopping from the site I go through when I shop via websites.
A grand total of $7.13 in cash back.
Whoopee, right?
Granted I didn't buy much online this Holiday season but every little bit helps.

*  Gasoline taxes are set to rise 8 cents per gallon here in PA on January 1st.  We already have the highest gas taxes in the nation so yeah, I am not thrilled about this.  I had 70 cents in gas discounts at Weis(PMITA)Markets that expired Dec. 31st so College Boy and I took both of our cars up to fill the tanks using that lower price.  The discount was good for $1.779 per gallon for 20 gallons and between the cars we were able to squeeze in 18.5 gallons, saving $12.95 on gas.  I told the Daughter that she and the BF should fill their car/truck tanks before Saturday, but when I went out on Thursday I saw that all the stations in town had already jacked up the regular gas price by 8 cents a gallon.
bleh.

*  I got all my medications filled before January 1st when our high deductible kicks in for 2017.  If it's a choice between paying ZERO OOP or the full Usual & Customary price on drugs after Dec. 31st, I'm all about the free rxs.

*  We've only used non-essential electricity this week during the cheaper off-peak hours.  This includes running dishwasher, washer and dryer and taking showers and some lighting.  This weekend will see bed linens/towels washed/dried as weekends are also off-peak times.

That's about it from Chez Sluggy for frugal wins lately.
What good things have you been accomplishing?

Sluggy