This is a series in the style of The Frugal Girl’s Five Frugal Things, where I post weekly about what I’ve done lately to save money and make things stretch in order to further our financial goals, which currently include us paying off a decent hunk of debt. I encourage you to play along and post your own weekly frugal wins in the comments section below!
Another super busy week as I’m busy ramping up the seed starting production on the flower farm and selling Valentine’s Day bouquet subscriptions, and also because I’m still doing that part-time marketing job for the guy I go to who helps keep my back in check after an injury I got several years ago. (Seriously, if you live in Utah and suffer from any kind of chronic pain or lingering injury, this guy is a MIRACLE WORKER. He actually has clients who fly in from all over the country to come to him because he’s so good at actually getting rid of your pain for good. You can check out his website HERE.)
Honestly, seeing how busy I’ve been during these winter months makes me a little nervous for the actual growing season to start…I’m thinking it might be a little insane!
Here are some of our frugal wins for last week, though:
Note: There may be affiliate links to books, products, or services mentioned.
Matt built himself a simple but sturdy wood desk from a sawhorse and board
Okay, so we could have gone a more frugal route on this, but we also could have gone a much less frugal route, so I’m still counting it as a win! Years ago, Matt built us a simple side table using a sawhorse so that we would have a place to work on our laptop in our apartment at the time. I’ve always liked the simplicity of the design, and I also like that it doesn’t tend to get as cluttered because it simply doesn’t have much surface area. I also like that it’s not plastic and is very durable.
Well, that old table had been reappropriated ages ago by our son Mathias for his “workshop,” and he would have been seriously devastated if we’d tried to take it back, as he works at that desk literally every single day for hours. So we spent $80 on materials to make a new one, and now Matt and I both have separate places to work on our respective computers.
I checked in with all my monthly subscriptions to opt in or out
You all know that I’m all about intentional spending, not just about saving every cent I can. Which is why I allow myself a few treats totally guilt-free, just because they bring me joy. Sometimes those treats take the form of subscriptions, but I’m 1) very selective about any subscriptions I take on in the first place, and 2) I ask myself every month — is this something that will bring me genuine delight and/or make my life easier/better, or am I getting it just to get it?
For this month, that meant I said YES to my Book of the Month subscription because they had Kristin Hannah’s latest release as one of the picks, and she’s generally a writer I genuinely enjoy a lot, and that meant I said NO to the monthly selection options for my Ellie subscription because none of the picks *quite* had everything I was looking for. Several came close, so I was super tempted, but now that I’m really minimizing everything in my home, everything has to really earn its keep, which sometimes means holding out until better fits come along.
Note: If you want to try Book of the Month for yourself, you can go through my referral link and get your first hardback for just $5, and shipping is always free. (Just as an FYI, they also have monthly audiobook selections, too!) You can skip as many months as you like as part of your subscription. I personally only purchase about once every four months or so, but it’s a great way for me to get my hands on the latest releases at a great price and to keep me super excited about reading, esp. as my library doesn’t have much selection.
I counted stems for some floral arrangements I need to do
My last cut flower gardening classes I’m teaching are this week, and I always demonstrate how to do a floral arrangement and also a hand tie market bouquet on the last class, which necessitates that I buy flowers from elsewhere since I don’t currently have any that are ready on the farm. The past two years, I’ve just made a trip up to our nearest Trader Joe’s (which is about an hour and a half away), and then decided how my arrangement was going to look based on whatever they had. I did the same thing this time, but I was a lot more selective this year. In the past, I just bought whatever I liked most and didn’t bother with trying to estimate the exact number of stems I’d need. This year, since I teach two different classes and therefore would need to do double the arrangements, I didn’t want to break the bank, so I was very selective in what types of things I chose to put in, and I also went in and counted all the stems so that I wouldn’t overbuy.
I’d say that it worked, because last year, I believe I spent around $70 for flowers for two different demos, and this year, I spent $80 for four. Not bad!
I’m looking into entering another business pitch competition
I got an email this last week from someone who had seen me compete at the statewide pitch competition last October who let me know about another opportunity I could enter for April. If it was as huge of an ordeal as the last one, I probably wouldn’t have really considered it (both for the time and stress it would cost me), but this particular competition, if I’m selected as a finalist, would be far less of both. The application process is much more intense, but if I’m chosen to compete, it could be a really awesome thing for our farm.
Time will tell.
Our utility bill went down by $40
So I totally can’t take credit for this frugal win, but I’m including it anyway. Our gas prices have gone up a ton in the past couple years (as have everyone’s, I know), and I haven’t been keeping our house quite as cool this year as last year because we have our 9-month-old baby now, and I don’t want her to be cold at night. Luckily, we’ve had a much milder winter than in the past, and that has meant that our monthly bill for our gas/heating went down by $40. (We’re on the budget billing program, so we’re just billed a set amount each month for the year, and it’s adjusted up or down according to our usage. Before, it got adjusted WAY up after last winter’s frigid months, and now we got adjusted back down. I’ll take it!)
Other Frugal Wins
- I uploaded a couple receipts to Ibotta and got cash back (almost ready to cash out again!)
- I also used my browser’s extension of Rakuten to get cash back while purchasing my regular monthly grocery order online
- I bought some discounted chicken at Sam’s Club
- I accepted free vases from a neighbor
What’s been happening in your neck of the woods? Any great frugal wins on your end?
