One of my big concerns with reaching our big goal (paying off a ton of credit card debt) was…what’s gonna happen next? Will we really be able to keep our money saving ways once we paid off debt and our #yearofno was over?
But in my next couple of shopping trips, I discovered a funny thing. Now I’m actually more protective of our money than I was before! Maybe that has something to do with the fact that every dollar I save…is a dollar I save!
Now I’m not saving money so I can ship it out to a big corporation. (Not that I have anything against big corporations, per se. It just isn’t much fun when you aren’t getting anything in return.)
We’ve been talking about this a bit in the Facebook group. If you’ve always wanted to be part of a group that gets it…no need to explain your frugal ways or the reason your celebrating saving $2…this is the group for you!
Join us at Living That #YearofNo Life.
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
Each Friday I love to look back at our week and see what ways, big and small, we managed to save money. This weekly series has been going on for quite some time. That means there’s a huge collection of money saving tips on the blog!
If your idea of a good time is reading through hundreds of money saving tips, then not only are you my people (!!!), but you can totally do that here!
And if you want to grab your super cheap copy of the 500 Ways to Save Money ebook, just click here.
Or, if you’re ready for the new stuff…read on!
From Scratch
My big family always celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with a fun party. This year I volunteered for cupcakes and a fruit pizza. I’ve never made a fruit pizza before, but I had a craving and wanted to try it.
All the recipes I found called for rolls of premade cookie dough. But when I went shopping, I learned that it was going to cost me more than $5 just for the cookie dough!!! That’s crazy. So I found a better recipe that was simple, but let me use ingredients I had on hand.
For the cupcakes, I really wanted to put some Lucky Charms marshmallows in the center. But since I couldn’t find them sold separately, I grabbed a bag of green and brown M&Ms that was on sale instead.
I was pretty happy with how they turned out! (I hadn’t put the yellow bananas on yet, but you can see the rainbow pattern…right??)
Free Ice Cream
Did you get your free ice cream on the first day of spring? We did! Unfortunately, our daughter had an eye injury, so it was the perfect pick-me-up after her doctor’s visit.
No Easter Dress
Speaking of our daughter, when I asked her if she’d like to look for a new Easter dress, she said no. She loves the dress she got last year and can’t wait to wear it again.
Then she told me it could be one of the 5 ways we saved money this week…and so it is. 😉
Rubber Band
While I do like liquid soap, I’m not a fan of all the waste it creates. The pump always pushes out way more than little 4 year old sized hands need…not to mention that little boys can’t resist pumping…and pumping…and pumping.
But I found a solution! Just take a rubber band and wrap it around the neck of the pump. Not only does it pump out less soap, but it also makes it tougher to pump. And that means kids don’t have as much fun with it.
Blogging
Running your own blog is kind of nuts. There’s no boss to tell you what to do…which is good and bad. You know that you need to educate yourself on how to do things, but there are so.many.courses. that it’s hard to know when to spend and when to save.
I have always tried to make my blog pay for itself, which means I don’t really take courses unless the blog makes enough money to cover that course. It can be a bit of a catch 22, since some courses will make you much more money than they cost, but I just hate debt so much. (There’s something you probably already knew.)
So the only course I’ve taken so far in 2018, I’m happy to say, was completely worth the money. It’s called Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers – Everything You’re Missing. I love that Carly keeps her courses affordable, and this one is only $79! That’s a steal considering that most bloggers charge $297 for an education like this.
Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!
Now I’m off to make a grocery list and menu plan so I can go spend a lot less of our hard earned dollars at the grocery store today. What are you doing to save this week?
By request, I pulled together a list of our favorite snacks for trips. This habit was one of the first things we started when we began our debt free journey two years ago, and it’s so important!
Click over and grab the free printable so you don’t have a reason to grab that convenience food the next time you run errands.
Pop over and let’s talk about your money saving ways this week in the Facebook group!
I must have missed the post about you finishing with debt. Congrats. I know you must be thrilled.
Oh you know I am!! Thanks. 🙂
Sounds like your daughter is following in your frugal footsteps, which is great!
And that course sounds like a steal…I’ll have to give it some consideration.
I’ve spent a lot more money this week than normal. There’s just been a bunch of one time medical expenses (mostly for my wife).
That definitely happens. One thing I noticed particularly in the past couple of years is the cycle of money. It’s best to have some savings, but you have to accept the fact that your savings is going to actually be USED sometimes, too. Hope she is better soon and you can move on with the fun stuff!