Five Frugal Things | I mended a sweater and I am quite excited about it.
1. I asked for a ThredUp discount.
Sonia found me a $14 Ann Taylor cashmere sweater, and when it arrived, we discovered it had a small hole in it.
ThredUp does not, as a rule, sell clothing with imperfections, so I emailed them and said I'd be willing to keep the sweater if they gave me a discount.
They gave me an additional 30% off for their error which made the price of the sweater $9.80.
This is a win/win...no shipping required, they don't have to figure out what to do with a hole-y sweater, and I got a good deal.
2. I mended the sweater hole.
I've never done this before, but I watched a few quick YouTube tutorials, grabbed some pink thread, and gave it a go.
I'm pretty impressed with how invisible the fix is, and I don't think anyone will notice it when I wear the sweater.
3. I sold another book on eBay.
Slowly but surely, my stack of books is getting smaller and smaller!
4. I splurged a little to avoid takeout.
I did not have a menu plan ready yesterday by mid afternoon, which spells trouble for me.
So when I picked up Sonia from her tutorial, we stopped by a non-Aldi store where I spent $10 on chicken sausages.
I also bought asparagus and potatoes, which made an easy dinner of mashed potatoes, sauteed asparagus, and chicken sausages.
$10 just on sausages is more than I'd pay at Aldi, but it's also a lot less than I'd have spent on takeout!
5. I...
drank coffee at home, made avocado toast to use up my perfectly ripe avocado and some slightly dry bread, sent leftovers to work with Mr. FG, and washed my Converse.
That's a good job on that sweater. I've mended a few that I was quite happy with the mend, and I've made a couple of mends that I can only describe as failures. I had no idea that ThredUp would give a discount if you wanted to keep a flawed item. That's good to know -- I just ordered five sweaters from them!
1. As said above, I ordered five sweaters. I purged many of my sweaters last year, as all of them are older, and some were really showing their age. I found a $10 coupon on RetailMeNot and used it on my order, too.
2. I bought a bag of chips that my husband wanted from a snack machine and it gave me my money back. I had put in a dollar, but the machine flashed that I had two dollars of credit, just as I pushed the button for the chips, which meant someone left money in it. There was no way to know who that was, so I got a bag of chips that someone else paid for.
3. I used my pressure cooker to make a big pot of stew in 25 minutes of pressure time, saving time and electricity.
4. I washed dark clothes and hung them out, but turned them inside out so that they wouldn't fade.
5. I emptied a new bag of dog food -- half into a re-used fish food bucket and half in a re-used 2-gal. freezer bag to freeze for later -- and put the empty dog food bag down in a wastebasket to use as a trash bag.
1) We went for a stroll on Sunday as the weather was very nice. Along the way I picked up some chestnuts which I will bake one of these days as an fall evening snack.
2) I was given a beautiful bouquet two weeks ago and it was now at the end of its life. However, part of it was a chain of Japanese lantern flowers which still looks nice. I used it for some additional fall decoration.
3) We used coupons for cinema tickets instead of paying the full price. Additionally, we had dinner before going to watch the movie so we only bought small snacks.
4) I had worn out the shirts I wear for sleeping. Before buying new ones, I shopped my wardrobe and found a few older shirts that I do not wear in public anymore as substitutes.
5) I used on old apple for delicious muffins and made the muffins when the oven was heated up after I roasted vegetables. I mended the fraying seam of a top and made plans for mending my socks thanks to Battra92's last comment. I made enough food for dinner so that we had enough leftovers for lunch. I brought a reusable water bottle to our weekend strolls so that I didn’t have to buy some water on the way as it was kind of warm.
1. Only bought a few necessities from the grocery store this week. Have been using up things from the freezer and pantry.
2. Made sure to pack a nice lunch every day, so wasn't tempted to eat out.
3. A friend with a grove gave me a giant Florida avocado, which has ripened and I am now enjoying it.
4. I did buy some no-carb bread and low-carb pasta online this week. And while they are fairly pricey, I waited until I had a free shipping and other discount coupon, so that helped.
5. My husband had my car serviced for me, and saved money by not doing some of the pricey extra services they suggested. He had our service records and knew those particular services didn't need to be done for quite a while. Our bill was $66; if he had done everything they suggested it would have been about $500.
I don't know if it is any good, but apparently Aldi is selling "no carb" bread. https://www.aldireviewer.com/loven-fresh-keto-friendly-zero-net-carbs-bread/
Thanks. This is way cheaper than what I have bought in the past. We shop at Aldi all the time so I will look for it.
1. Trimmed my own bangs instead of going to the salon.
2. Found a brand new pair of dress shoes $8 for one kid at the secondhand shop and another pair for just $14 at DSW after signing up for their rewards.
3. Made a homemade card for my cousin’s birthday.
4. Have been pretty successfully eating down our freezer this month.
5. Not so frugal: had professional family photos taken. But did manage to avoid buying any new clothes for anyone for the pictures and we still all coordinated well. (Except shoes but the boys needed those for the holidays this year anyway)
Love the sweater mending! I haven't been brave enough to do it myself, but I take every sweater-hole to the local dry cleaners who fixes them for a few bucks. Sure beats throwing out a perfectly good sweater!
I'm so impressed with your sweater fix!!! Way to go!! And I really love that color.
1. My husband and I went on a date last night and used gift cards for the dinner part of the evening. Part 2 of the night was attending a workshop on preventing child sexual abuse that my daughter's school offered for free. I'm thankful for that free resource.
2. This will be frugal someday... My (hoarder) 5yo daughter agreed to sort through her toys and box up what doesn't get played with to make room for new stuff at Christmas. I was shocked she agreed to it, but she did a great job! She packed 3 boxes! We're planning to have a yard sale next summer and she wants to put some of them in it.
3. I had to bring fruit for a gathering over the weekend and chose 3 kinds that were on sale at Aldi. I brought the leftovers home and we've been eating them.
4. I waited until today to turn on our heat. It would have been legit to do it late last week, but we held out. Waking up to 59.9 degrees was what did me in.
5. Yesterday afternoon I picked all of the tomatoes my heart desired before our first big frost hit last night. I'll wait for the green ones to ripen. Hopefully today I can get the ripe ones chopped and frozen.
1. Sold my son's 5T wardrobe on Facebook Marketplace for $50. This isn't much less than I spent on all the clothes
2. Listed 6 costumes for sale on Facebook Marketplace- sold 2 already
3. Bought wood for my husband to make us huge shelves for the kids toys in the basement- cost was $100, but buying the shelves from a store would have been much more
4. Made enough black bean, sweet potato chili for my lunches all week- didn't have to purchase any ingredients
5. My sister gave us a hose reel saving us at least $20
As usual I feel I haven't done anything out of the ordinary to save money. But here goes.
Your water repair is excellent.
I has rained here and we are in a horrible drought. Water was collected for the garden.
I line dry all of our washing and this week I did have to use the clothes drier for the first time in months. It was one load only.
I cooked a huge family birthday dinner. It was still speedy but far cheaper than going to a restaurant. Meat has become very expensive and I had bought a leg of lamb ahead of time. I am glad I did because they same size leg was over $40 this week.
While others are trying to not use the heating I am trying to not use the air conditioning. But we have very humid days and sometimes it has to be used.
1. Still eating the minestrone for lunch that I made - and froze - a couple of weeks ago.
2. Found fabric in my stash, in case I need to recover seat cushions as part of the Dining Table Replacement Project. I can't actually reupholster, but I can staplegun fabric around an existing hard cushion.
3. Used airline credit from a previous reroute, to buy tix for Thanksgiving. This decreased the price by 75%. I'm visiting a frugal relative so I expect the rest of the vacation to be not expensive.
4. For the upcoming weekend jaunt to another city for a show: carpooling with my friends to destination, staying with our other friend at destination, the show tix were just $35, and we'll pack snacks for the drive there and back. My friends are not particularly frugal so the rest of the weekend may be spendy; I have planned appropriately.
5. Took home leftovers from an event: a whole rotisserie chix, a quart of shredded lettuce, and a pound of Canadian bacon. I don't know why no one else wanted them but score for me!
1. I also shopped my closet for two sleep shirts for cooler weather.
2. WE HAVE NOT YET TURNED ON THE HEAT lows are in the mid to high thirties
3. Bought a 3.99 free 8x10 from a free coupon code.
4.packed all lunches from home
5. Stuck to LIST ITEMS ONLY at grocery this week.
Full disclosure. I had two frugal fails this week. ARG
Most of us have frugal fails each week too! You are not alone.
My fail this week was letting a lb of shrimp go bad. I defrosted it for Monday's dinner, then Life Happened repeatedly and by Sunday it had spoiled. Note for next time: cook the darn things for a snack, and defrost another bag of shrimp when it comes time to cook.
You guys must be polar bears! Either that or your house is super well insulated!! We had to turn our heat on when it got into the 30s at night. Fortunately, we can switch it off and on as needed, because our weather is fickle. It was almost 80 yesterday!
Here is my frugal hall of shame activity: I was at the grocery store and somehow managed to walk off without the receipt and when I tried to go back the cashier was too busy to print a duplicate (and I am not sure she could have), so no Ibotta or Fetch rewards. My friend, who had done the driving, was still shopping so for about half an hour I sat in the open café area waiting. I noticed an abandoned partially consumed energy drink with the receipt still attached, so I took off the receipt and dumped the can, mentally chiding the person for leaving it on the table. About 10 minutes later this really young girl in the grocery uniform walks over and says, "Excuse me, did you take the receipt off a can? My co-worker needs it because she gets reimbursed for lunch and she left it there to go back to on her next break. She thinks she saw you take it but is afraid to ask you." I was so mortified! I also felt like warning the girl about the dangers of leaving drinks unattended...
Haven't done anything specifically frugal, but I did just spend a ton of money on donors choose and on anonymous gift cards for DC2's teachers this year. Spending less than we earn means we can give, which is a really good feeling. We couldn't do that if we were living paycheck to paycheck.
1. I cut open all of the paper salt and pepper packets we have collected for a while from take out and put them into our shakers to avoid wasting it and recycle the paper packets. It was almost one and two tablespoons of pepper and salt respectively!
2. Finally brought home and thoroughly cleaned some cloth napkins inherited from my mom's house so we can transition to using them instead of paper ones to save money and create less waste. (They had been sitting in a drawer for who knows how long and were a bit stained...gotta love Oxy Clean!)
3. Used a coupon on top of my membership to get an extra discount on a book my husband wanted for his work as an artist. We held off buying it in hopes a coupon would pop up and it did!
4. Fought the temptation to buy new makeup I did not really need just because I had a coupon for that store. I forced myself to go home first and look at what I had yet to use up. Amazing how we forget that we already have what we need and it often lasts a lot longer than we think it will.
5. Went apple picking and picked enough apples to get a discount so they were cheaper than the store and we got exercise and fresh air. Can't wait to make applesauce and pie.
#4 -- so true, especially if it is a "bargain" -- i am guilty of that
I performed a repair on a really nice cream sweater of DD's in hopes that it would sell at a garage sale. It remained in my inventory for a few years & I was sure the reason was my less than stellar repair. Lo & behold, it finally sold at one of my sales this summer. I couldn't resist telling my friend (in a hushed voice) that I had repaired a snag on the sleeve. A proud moment for a person with limited sewing skills...
Well, I am trying . . .
1. Bought groceries on the weekend to supplement what we had in freezer, etc. Ate the last of the frozen chicken thighs with sauce, salad, and the last of brown rice my husband scrabbled together, which were already on hand. We are gung ho to eat in and use up all the food. Also taking lunches every day to work.
2. Checked my VONs J4U specials and got a loaf of free brioche bread (yum), a free yogurt I love, and a free "Roar" electrolyte drink, supposedly organic. I just need to pick up the free nut/seed bar. The brioche bread is like eating CAKE - toasts up caramelly and yummy. 🙂
3. Was given Masa to make tortillas at school -- folks lent us their tortilla press, electric grille, and directed us. I brought a stick of butter from my refrigerator, along with some sugar and cinnamon I mixed up from pantry. Only bought quesadilla cheese for the, well, quesadillas. Fun and yummy and cheap. Kids loved it.
4. My new JCPenney card, came with 2 x $10.00 gift certificates and some other deals so I was able to buy almost $40 dollars worth of baby clothes for $11.00 for the daughter of a friend. Not as amazing as Kristen's CVS haul, but I will take it 🙂
5. Not even going to the library lately -- just reading from the stashes of books we ALREADY own. I had paid a few late fees so it seemed like a good time to exhaust my own collection. I do miss the beloved library . . .Looking forward to sending some of these to friends or donations after I am done.
6. Daughter won free tickets to "Anastasia" at the fancy theater and asked me to go with her -- so fun and have the sad, beautiful theme song in my head non-stop. But fr
I've got some oddball things this week to add to the frugal list....
1)DH opened up an account at a new bank and was gifted a $1000 life insurance policy for free. The banks out here offer those as me and the kids have them at a different bank. Strange, but ok....
2) I am totally Christmas shopping. I earned a $25 Swagbucks GC in 3 days. I'll gift it to the youngest for his stocking.
3) I ordered magnets from Shutterfly with a 40% discount code. They are index card size and very heavy.
4)Nobody likes a chicken cooked in a crockpot. So, I took it apart and made enchiladas. They didn't complain too much about dinner.
5) Whole chickens were marked down to 50 cents a pound. I got 7 of them. DH smokes a few for people at work to showcase his skills and they pay him back for his purchase. They keep telling him to open up a restaurant.
1. Skipped our monthly Costco grocery shopping trip. I’m trying to clean out our pantry and freezer by mid-November.
2. Handwashed some of my cashmere sweaters, one of them is from ThredUp. No more spending for dry cleaning them.
3. Buying diapers at a pharmacy is not exactly frugal but I had no other choice that day. At one pharmacy the price was crazy, it took me less than a minute to drive to a different pharmacy where the price per same box was $6 less.
4. After 6 months of back and forth a medical bill mistake was finally resolved. $300 less than the original bill.
5. Our county has a program where each child gets a free monthly book from 6 months of age through 5th bday. My kids loved the books we got so far.
Such a beautiful shade of pink!Diane
My comment was meant to say: Such a beautiful shade of pink! No wonder you wanted to keep it.
If you have an account at Ally they still give you 3 free Webroot licenses. I keep a small amount there just for that. They just sent me an email to remind me they renew year to year.
Trying to find a no pull collar or harness for our new pup. Tried several from Amazon which did not work (at all) so I mailed them back using Kohls service. I was unable to find them at local pet stores.
Seen our financial advisor as we near retirement who suggested some tweeks in our holdings to earn more $ and save some on taxes. We just started using their services about 5 years ago and are really pleased with them.
Made use of some old foot stools that I just have not thrown out. Using them for pup training.
Our other dog died so I have a large box of pee pads and our local adopt a pet had taken in a litter of parvo pups and needed them so they are off to good use.
Slowly gathering things I want to sell on Ebay or marketplace.
Great job on the sweater repair!!!
My five frugal things:
1. My youngest came home from college for the Columbus Day long weekend. She, my husband and I went to Red Robin for dinner with family friends. I used a $50 gift card and paid less than three dollars... including tip.
2. Started knitting hats from the alpaca yarn I got on sale a few weeks ago at a fiber fair. Turns out that the pattern overestimated (by a lot) the amount of yarn needed. I now have options to make more hats or fingerless gloves (which my girls love) to match hats. Hats for everyone for Christmas!!
3. Hemmed a pair of Woolrich hunting pants for a friend's husband in exchange for two huge jack o lantern worthy pumpkins.
4. Was gifted two boxes of gently used school binders in widths from 1-4 inches. Using them to organize recipes, quilt, knitting and crocheting patterns, craft project plans, and Spanish class notes and documentation (taking for work). Clutter contained!
5. My daughter wanted a crocheting project to take back to college with her. She finds it relaxing and a great way to destress. I used coupons good on sale items to buy four skeins of velvety yarn from Michael's. It's enough for her to make a nice lap blanket. Spent $16.
All my items are less about saving money, and more about not spending quite so much! I have a hard time resisting a bargain, but I'm trying to get better. My new mantra is "shop less, shop less, shop less". It's not going too well . . .
1. Kristin's sweater repair is much better than, but reminded me of, one I did a few years ago. Found a high-end designer wool cardigan with "signature" buttons at a thrift shop, and mended a snag in the arm. A few days later, I saw someone on tv wearing the same sweater (different color). When I'm tired of the sweater, I plan to remove the buttons and put them on something else!
2. Coincidentally, found jeans by same brand as above at the Goodwill today. Not my size, but a quick text to my cousin and she was thrilled to have them for $5.99 (v. $198 new, or $64 on poshmark).
3. High-end consignment store took a few of my items today. While I was there, picked up $70 owed to me from previous sales. Then took the leftovers and a few other items to a different consignment store, where they took a few more items and paid me $45. Dropped all the "rejects" (still nice and in good condition) at the thrift store benefiting the local animal shelter. BTW, ThredUp may be good to buy from, but I've never had a good experience selling to them. I've tried twice and they've rejected most items, including NWT, and last time they paid out $6 for 10 items. 🙁
4. At the last minute, pulled a purse out from the box I was taking to consign. It was pricey, I bought it a couple years ago and only used it once. Decided to give it another try, have been using it today and very glad I did! Would definitely not have gotten my money back if I'd sold it, but now I'll be using and enjoying it for awhile.
5. Found some brand-new, current magazines at a thrift store. These are the "special interest" seasonal kind that are more like books and sell for around $13 or $14. Brought home 3 for 25 cents each! 1 on healthy living, 1 on holiday baking, and the other was the People "Friends at 25" issue.
6. While out and about, stopped at the fanciest jewelry store in town. Recently took a chance and purchased some earrings on ebay, and wanted to make sure they were as advertised. They graciously had their appraiser take a look for no charge; earrings were not only what they claimed to be, but the salesperson estimated their retail price, which is about 7x what I paid! Even if that number is extremely inflated, and realizing I would never get that at resale, I still think I got a good buy and certainly didn't overpay! They also offered me a bottle of water, offered to clean my rings, and let me admire and model some lovely estate pieces while I was there. 🙂