Today's Frugal Habits

I will admit we aren't the most frugal people on the block. When I stop to think about things we do that are frugal, I can come up with several. Here is a peek into some of our frugal habits today.

We made our own coffee at home this morning. Right now we are using Trader Joe's coffee that we received as a gift over Christmas. It is really good. I consider this frugal simply because so many people run to the nearest coffee shop to get their fix of caffeine.

I made a list for the grocery store. I almost always make a list. Do I always stick to it? No. Generally, that is because I forget to put something on the list and then remember at the store that I do need it. Today, I didn't purchase anything that wasn't on the list. I used a few coupons, but otherwise bought generic and used my Target Cartwheel coupons.

We ate all our meals at home. Dinner was homemade pizza. I made the dough from scratch for two very large pizzas. The sauce for one pizza was from a jar, which we recently started using, but we have found it is too salty! The other pizza had leftover barbeque chicken that I had frozen in the freezer and made a point to thaw this morning. I was able to use barbeque sauce, onion and cilantro already on hand. I did buy shredded cheese. One of my goals this year is to get in the habit of shredding our own cheese. I think it is healthier without extra preservatives.

I sent my husband to get a haircut. I didn't technically send him, he knew he needed to go. :) Usually we have coupons from Great Clips, but we were out. I was able to find a competitor coupon for a $9.99, and Great Clips honored it. I noticed this on a sign in their store the last time I was there. That just means more coupons available if I keep my eyes open for them.

My husband is also working on getting ALL the lotion out of the bottle before we open a new one. The last step is to actually cut the bottle open to get the very last of it out. We do this with liquid makeup, hair styling products, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and even laundry detergent. The first time I did this with some gel my daughter uses on her hair, I was shocked at how much was left that she could use. Probably enough for 3 days. Effectively this saves us from buying one bottle of hair styling product per year, which saves $16. Doesn't seem like a lot by itself, but if we use up everything we buy in full it saves us from buying more. We get the full value of our purchase as well.

We kept the thermostat at 69 degrees. I realize this isn't really low, but it was really tempting to increase it with the blowing winds and colder temperatures we were experiencing today. So I counting that as frugal for today. We do have a programmable thermostat which is set to drop to 62 degrees at night in the winter. I should probably try to drop it a bit more this winter to offset the need to have it a little higher in the day time hours.

We did do some shopping today, so I cannot say we spent nothing today. I purchased a pair of Smartwool socks for my sister. I spent about $20 for one pair. I know this seems crazy expensive, but these are socks made of wool that can be worn all year long. They will last years! So well worth it. We also bought three books of stamps today. The rate of First Class stamps is increasing tomorrow from $0.46 to $.049, which is a 6% increase. I bought three books of stamps to cover our needs for at least the next year...maybe more. I also bought some items from Joann's. I made sure to use a 40% off coupon on my most expensive item which was two yards of fabric normally priced at $7.99 a yard.  This fabric and part of the rest of the purchase is actually a business expense that will be reimbursed. I helped the buyer out really. :) I suppose the other frugal part of this portion of our day is that we did all of these errands in one trip, so only one time out today in the car.

It's a Saturday night and we are staying in. My husband and I have a $5 bottle of wine and have purchased a movie rental. I like to say the movie was free, but we couldn't find a free one we wanted to watch. Instead we found one for $4 to digitally rent. We could watch it as many times as we want in the next 24 hours, but the likelihood of watching it more than once is slim!

In other frugal news...we used microfiber rags to do our dusting and cleaning. No disposable wipes, just reusable clothes that can be washed again and again.

What frugal thing did you do today? How much did you save?