In the interest of soaking up the last few rays of summer break, this week’s frugal Friday post is going to be short and sweet. In fact, let’s jump right in!
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
Half Price Cooler
Kroger had a big sale on all their summer stuff. I love it when you find clearance while there’s still plenty of season to use things in!
I was able to grab this nice sized cooler for just $12. It’s perfect for holding picnic fixings for our family of 7. We already have a small drink cooler and our large sized cooler. I like that this one is easy to carry to the picnic blanket.
Coolers are one of our favorite ways to save over the temptation of fast food!
Grill
Why is it that you can’t seem to get more than a year or two out of a grill these days? At first, Hubby thought he could patch our grill back together by buying parts online. But then we realized that the extent of the damage was such that we’d be better off buying a new one.
Trouble was, there wasn’t money in the budget for it.
So when my parents decided that their grill was too small for feeding our large family at big gatherings, they gave us their old one. And boy are we thankful for it!
There’s nothing better than grilling in the summertime when it’s too hot to cook!
Two Wins and a Fail
On our recent trip to Washington DC (read all about it in Things to Do in Washington DC With Kids!) was so much fun! I was thankful that we planned so much of the trip before leaving home.
Although we could have made the 8 hour drive in one day, we decided to break up the drive. That extended our vacation in places that were cheaper to stay (DC is one expensive city!).
Before leaving home, we booked two hotel nights and found good bargains on both of them!
But we decided to leave the last hotel stay up to chance. We thought we might hit the beach on our last day of the trip, but weren’t completely sure what we wanted to do yet.
So when night fell and everyone was ready to stop, I started looking for a hotel room.
Be aware if you take I-68 through Maryland, there is almost no cell service! We had to stop at a fast food restaurant to find wifi so that I could even search for hotels.
Turns out nearly every hotel within an hour of us was booked! Except for one very nice (read $$$$) hotel.
So we spent nearly twice as much money on our room that last night than we did at the other places. I’m now convinced that we shouldn’t leave hotel booking to chance if we can help it!
Picnic
While picnicking in DC is nearly impossible, we did a lot of PB&Js for the rest of our trip. It saved us a lot of money. Plus, we chose to stop at parks where the kids could move whenever possible.
Buy Online
While we didn’t visit many attractions that weren’t free to see, the ones that we did pay to visit all had discounts if you bought your ticket online instead of at the door.
It always pays to check the website of a place before you visit! Many places offer coupons or at least bonuses on their web pages.
Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!
Now we’re heading out the door to squeeze in just a little more fun before school starts in a week and a half (booooo!).
If you still need to shop for school supplies (like I do!), don’t forget these easy tips for saving the most on back to school supplies!
How did you save this week?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Oh How I wish I had known you were coming here. California Maryland on the ocean is awesome and you can get a room last minute for under $150 nice places. I could have helped you out.
There are also places near Harper’s Fairy an Econo lodge more that sufficient not supper nice around $180 and Harper’s Fairy is awesome and free to visit.