It’s another frugal Friday, and we’re celebrating with another post in the popular series, The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week. If you are dedicated to frugal habits, you can go back and read all of the other posts in the series right here.
Next week it will be time for a check in on our yearly goals and our BHAG of paying off a significant amount of debt in this #yearofno. You can read about all of that in this post.
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
Simple Easter. We celebrate a fairly simple Easter in our home. We have many family traditions that we enjoy such as Resurrection Rolls and going to Mass together. We also enjoy some candy and egg hunts.
But I try to keep our clothing fairly simple. Our daughter does usually get a new (to her) dress that I find at a secondhand shop. The boys don’t really care what they wear.
There are no big gifts given. We want to keep the day largely focused on the gift that Jesus gave to us.
Old dye. Each year I manage to grab a pack of Paas dye on a clearance rack at any store. I never pay very much for it. Then I toss it into the big tub of Easter decor and baskets and put it away in the attic.
The next year I find it and part of me always wonders if the dye will work after I mistreated it so, by exposing it (sort of… I mean, it stays in the packaging) to the extreme temperatures of our attic.
It’s never been a problem, though! If you’d like to see how our eggs turned out this year, check them out here.
Free diapers. I shop at CVS pretty frequently. I love it! For one thing, it’s close to home (unlike most stores). For another, they are constantly passing out deals on diapers.
Not only do they offer coupons regularly at the scanner for diapers, but they also many times have deals where you can get $10 (for instance) in Extra Care Bucks (which work basically as CVS money towards most purchases).
That’s money that I can use towards my next diaper purchase. Plus I can stack any coupons I have with this. So I was able to get several packs of diapers for free this past week.
Bread ends. No one here is a fan of the bread ends. Which is unfortunate since we go through so many loaves of bread each week!
But I’ve found a great way around that. I always rip up those ends, bag them up, and put them in the freezer.
What do I do with them next? So many things! If a recipe calls for breadcrumbs, I can use them as is. Or I put them in a mini food processor (that easily fits in my dishwasher) and grind them to fine crumbs, depending on the type of recipe I’m using.
I can also sprinkle them with oil and Italian Seasonings to make croutons in the oven.
When the bag gets full, I make homemade stuffing or bread pudding. (This bread pudding recipe is amazing!)
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Low key spring break. When the weather turned chilly in our area this week, I started to wonder why in the world we didn’t go to the beach for spring break like many of our friends did. But the frugal side of me is happy that we made the #yearofno decision to keep our spring break simple.
In fact, I didn’t make any plans at all for our spring break, and we still had plenty to keep us busy. We were invited to several different fun activities that cost us little to nothing. We’ve had a pretty great break, even if we didn’t go anywhere.
Sometimes, simple time to veg at home is what we really need.
There’s the latest 5 ways our family has saved money this week!
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What frugal tips did you discover this week? Share your money saving ways with us!
Jamie, so many people overlook the small savings because they seem insignificant. But when you add them up throughout the year they become a huge savings! Great job with your weekly savings tips.
I’m a firm believer in small change creating big savings! Thanks for reading.
We are not bread end fans either (though, I do call it “the butt” to myself, cuz giggles xD ). But making croutons from them?! Oh man, why have I not heard this before! I adore croutons, but hate buying them because I can just eat the whole bag in one go, not a problem. I mean…uh…I don’t eat them straight out of the package as a snack, no, no, that’s not at all what happens xD
Oh, I have to closely monitor bags of croutons here. My kids like to make salads with a couple of veggies topped with an entire bag of croutons. Sometimes we call that piece the low down piece (thanks to one of our kiddos when they were little). haha!
I love bread butts! 🙂 haha I always take one for the team and eat the bread butts myself 😉 Saving them in the freezer for later use is actually awesome too – if my husband gets to the butt before me he throws them out!
Bread butts! That cracks me up!
Great idea with the clearance dye. I always shop clearance at the end of the season. You never know what kind of great buys you might find!
Jamie you are funny – I just bought my clearance egg dying kit for next year, too. Never had a problem either! I like your idea for the heels of the bread as we call them – I usually end up making the sacrifice and eating them as a sandwich! 🙂 Have a great weekend!
Good to know other families are surviving the year old egg dye, too! haha You know, sometimes I’ll just flip the bread end to the inside and make a sandwich from it anyway. Don’t tell the kids!
My mom does the same with bread leaves.
She keeps them for the days when she runs out of bread or for some recipe.
Great tips!
The bread ends! Best tip I’ve heard in a long while. I’ll be saving those from now on. Thanks!
Hi Jamie, Great ideas! I love the Extra Care Bucks at CVS! Also use the bread heels to make bread crumbs. Thanks for sharing! Blessings, Janet
I will use the bread ends tip from now on. Thanks.
Glad you found it helpful! Thanks for visiting.
This is so funny, I’m reading this while eating my egg,cheese and sausage sandwich on the bread heals. I actually like them because my bread does not get soggy from the heat and cheese. Since there is only two of us there are not enough heals.
Thank you for sharing your tips with us on the Art of Home-Making Mondays at Strangers & Pilgrims on Earth! 🙂
Staying homes seems to be the easiest way to save money! 🙂
My small wins come from when I purchase meat from my local bulk store. They are already at a great price, but when I can find the special “Chef’s Sale” sticker, it makes me that much happier! I can usually purchase the meats I need for a fraction of normal grocery store prices! Visiting from Friday Funday Link Up Party!
That sounds like a great deal! I should look for something like that in my area.
#FFBH first time here and loving the tips. In Australia we call them ” the ends” and they are used to make bread and butter pudding.
Yum! Thanks for visiting!