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Five Frugal Things | Are you shopping on Prime Day?

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1. I sold a Duplo squirrel.

Sonia and I packed away the Duplos for storage while tidying her room, and I decided to sell this squirrel. It’s sort of an unusual Duplo piece, and it didn’t fit tidily into the box.

Duplo storage

So, I put him up on eBay, sold him, and shipped him off to a new home!

Only $6 in my pocket, but that’s $6 I didn’t have, and one less thing I need to store.

2. I soaked some wilted cilantro.

I wanted to some for our burrito bowls last night, but mine was looking pretty wilted.

So I snipped the ends off, put it in a cup of water for a few hours, and then all was well.

cilantro

3. I fixed a reusable bag.

This is one that folds up into a little bag, which is attached to the actual bag.

The seams on this had frayed, so I did a little zig-zagging.

mending reusable bag

Beautiful? Nope.

Functional? Yep!

4. I fixed a hand-me-down shirt.

Apparently one of my girls had cut the tag out of this shirt rather messily, which left a small hole. 

shirt mending

So I sewed that up before I put it into a bag for one of my nieces.

mended tshirt

It took just a minute, and now it won’t just end up on someone else’s mending pile!

5. I’m not planning to buy anything on Prime Day (which is today).

If I had a $10 Prime credit from shopping at Whole Foods, I’d buy something. And I might do the“Buy a $25 gift card, get a $5 credit” thing.

But aside from that, there aren’t a whole lot of can’t-pass-up deals for me.

Prime Day feels a little like Black Friday to me: a lot of hype, not that much in the way of amazing bargains.

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Share your own Five Frugal Things in the comments.

(Also: Are you shopping on Prime Day? If there are can’t miss deals you think we should know about, share in the comments!)

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Shannon

Sunday 21st of July 2019

1) Today, I'm headed to Kohl's to return/rebuy clothes my husband bought without a coupon - should save $40+ dollars

2) Combined a sale at Kroger with an Ibotta rebate to buy 20 veggie burgers for $6, normally $17.50

3) We have 3 first birthday parties this month. I happened to find some toys at Target on clearance that my kiddo has and loves, so they should make good gifts. Spent about $50 on $100 worth of toys.

4) Followed my meal plan and avoided fast food this week.

5) There are 2 second and charles locations near me and each location has different buyback criteria for books. I took 4 boxes of books to the first location - they bought back 2 boxes worth. Took the remaining 2 boxes to the 2nd location and they bought back 1 box worth. Ended up with $40+ in store credit to use and only 1 box of books to recycle.

Rachel R.

Thursday 18th of July 2019

1. I made my daughter's cupcakes & party decorations for her birthday party. I found clearance plates/napkins & thrift store tea cups for her party. We rented out the library party room for $10.

2. We used summer reading program coupons for an lunch after church.

3. I froze grapes & bread that were about to go bad. I've been using clearance spinach from our freezer in smoothies.

4. Did some deep cleaning in a hallway closet & discovered a lostswimsuit/forgotten cleaning rags. Got rid of misc. clutter.

5. I bought supplies to do some freezer cooking (breakfast egg wraps, twice baked potatoes).

Monica

Wednesday 17th of July 2019

1. I did do some Amazon shopping for Prime Day, but it was for items that I had sitting in my cart for a while, things that I needed. I'm switching my internet from one provider to another and will be losing a streaming box, so I got the Fire Stick to use with our TV at a really good discount. I also managed to NOT buy a bunch of things that I didn't need lol. 2. Started doing the "click and collect" service with our local grocery store where I build my grocery list and a staff member puts it together for me and delivers it to my car. I'm 9 months pregnant so I appreciate that I don't have to waddle down the aisles AND I don't impulse-buy skittles to make me feel better about waddling down the aisles lol. It's just whatever's on my list, nothing more! 3. I had been really unhappy with my vacuum's performance lately and was about to buy a new on on Prime Day, but I decided to take the whole thing apart and discovered a major hidden clog. I gave it a full cleaning and it works like new again! 4. Made my husband a birthday cake from scratch instead of store-bought. 5. I'm using up all my produce this week on my son's summer camp lunches. I'm lucky in that he loves veggies but I bought a bit too much cucumber that would have gone bad otherwise.

Becca C

Tuesday 16th of July 2019

1. Made radish green pesto pasta for one dinner and radish green soup for dinner another night with radish tops from our garden. 2. Picked and froze a big bag of black raspberries from our yard. 3. Went to Target and got only what was on our list. Woohoo! 4. Made a homemade card and from scratch cake for a birthday party instead of buying them. 5. Went to a local lake one day and a splash pad another day for free fun summer entertainment.

Suz

Tuesday 16th of July 2019

Just thought of a frugal something that I'll throw out there - last week I sent in an old backpack to Jansport, which has a lifetime warranty on their bags. Our backpack had gotten hardy use (4-5 years of heavy textbook use) and had developed small holes and the zipper was fluky. They have a really easy warranty policy - no need for sales slip etc. - you do have to pay to mail it to them (cost us @$10), but that's the only cost. They will either fix and return it, or send you a free new one (you indicate what colors you would prefer). They couldn't fix ours so - we just got our brand-new backpack in the mail, in our first color choice. Definitely love a company that stands behind their product like this!

WilliamB

Wednesday 17th of July 2019

That's an extremely quick deterioration for a Jansport backpack. They usually last through decades of hard use without a problem. Glad to know they stood behind their warranty.

Susan, did they send you the same type of backpack you had before?

Nan

Tuesday 16th of July 2019

I’m sorry- I know they have that policy but to me it is a warranty for a newer backpack that has not held up. I could never return a 4 year old backpack regardless of the warranty but that is just me. I really can’t speak for others.

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