Thrifty Thursday-Win for Our Inconvenience Edition
A new month and new opportunities to thrift. I am inspired by my January H&G budget of ending at $326 for the month. I know we had a lot of meals on the road and I was still stocked up for December to a certain extent, but this is the lowest I can ever remember spending. Does saving money and not feeling like anything was diminished in life give you a giddy high? I know my results are from doing a lot more cooking from scratch, using up leftovers meticulously for lunches or as parts of a new meal, and using up other products to their absolute ends like tooth paste, dish soap, and cleaners. February is almost as expensive with buying $120 worth of All State Choir tickets, and two overnight trips. Being sick has some frugal advantages, but I would not recommend as a money saving tactic. Looking for the thrifty wins is pretty essential. Here are a few for the week.
- The hotel for last Saturday night had a major booking error-forgot to enter the rooms for the second show choir group and had to scramble to free up 14 more rooms. We got bumped to another hotel. As an apology for the inconvenience, which it was to a certain extent, they covered our new hotel room! Unfortunately, no complimentary breakfast with the new room as it was more a full hotel with dining room and bar, but they provided us a few Starbucks gift card as well. The room was supposed to have cost $88 (as I had some Orbitz points towards it). We stopped for a late breakfast/early lunch on route, but only spent $12 so saw a $76 savings to the trip. It wasn't a big deal not being at the same hotel since I set hair at home on Friday night.
- I didn't know the values of the cards for Starbucks, so looked them out. They gave us 5 worth $10 each! That will be a help in the coming months with treating my older daughter for all she does for us when we attend events for the youngest. I;ll also use for my coffee for some work related meetings.
- I packed sandwiches for DH and I to eat when we got to Iowa, and a portable breakfast for DD2 with the muffins made earlier in the week, tucked away in the freezer for her. She had to be at the school at 4;00 a.m. for a 4;30 departure.
- Another hotel win was changing our Nashville trip to stop midway instead of driving straight through. Well, we were a day off and thought we needed to be in Nashville Wednesday night, instead of Thursday night so technically at first we overbooked. We now will break the trip on the way down into two 7.5 hour stints, and will be able to meet up with friends on Wednesday instead of arriving in Nashville exhausted. The rate for the same hotel chain is $100 less off the highway on route than in Nashville. This brings us a little closer to our original estimate for the trip.
- I worked from home last Friday, and then took both Tuesday, and yesterday as sick days, though I worked intermittently between coughing fits and naps, saving about 8 gallons of gas for the week. I'll save another 2 1/2 or so today as I'm staying home one more day, though working.
I hadn't spent anything on groceries for the month, but knowing I was going to be down for a few days, I picked up Chinese take away and a few easy items on my way home Monday. I'll count towards groceries rather than eating out since it came from the grocery store, so $55 for H&G on my end. DH made a stop last night for some needed items and some comfort food items, with a damage of $51. so we're at $106 for the month without any real shopping to show for it. I still am not great health wise and we are in the Midwest snow-sleet-snow winter storm swath. School is closed today, again, 6th day in the last nine, so not sure when I'll do a big shop, but at some point this weekend it will be needed. However, I've loads I can cook from scratch, and with DH stopping for some essentials like TP, I could stretch longer. With being sick, I fear spreading any germs by doing too much cooking but maybe I can walk DD2 through some things. A big pot of vegetable noodle soup sounds nice. How are your thrifty days treating you?
There is an end to the sickness..it's just around the corner. Hope you feel better soon!
ReplyDeleteI'm giving myself the weekend. I'll work from hoe again today-not worth the risk of having a coughing fit while driving, and spreading this stuff.
DeleteHope you feel much better sooner rather than later. The hotel mistake was at the least financially a benefit, but I know it was a pain in the rear also.
ReplyDeleteIt created another challenge, but DD1 helped with that.
DeleteI haven't been great at thrifty days this past week. It seems like almost every day some new expense crops up that I have to deal with. Admittedly, once in a while it's a meal out, so I can't play a total victim. But it just seems like I keep running out of things one after the other. Hopefully, spending calms down this week.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to look at how we can maximize life and spend so very little-but not being cheap. i didn't aks for the Starbucks cards, and getting one was nice let alone five. Now, I will use them for some of life's niceties, treat others, and still not spend so much.
DeleteSounds like you guys are hunkered down which is good as you have the crud. You do save money when you don't go any where.
ReplyDeleteanother day hone, but will work. I could really do 50% of my job remotely. I managed two Skype meetings and two webinar meetings so far, plus two different conference calls, where I mostly listened as my coughing would have been real annoying.
DeleteAn unusual snowstorm avec freezing temperatures means we all stay at home--schools cancelled M-W, two hour delay today. All but eldest have strep throat, so other than the $200/each for walk-in clinic, we aren't spending any money. We will file a claim for the walk in clinic when the bill arrives.
ReplyDeleteYikes-no strep here. My throat was aching over the weekend, but it let up by Tuesday night, The coughing and congestion continues.
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