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Happy Friday!  It’s time to recap the week and talk about our frugal wins.

I’ll admit, we had a bit of an expensive week.  Three of our kids went to camp (which added up to a pretty tidy sum of money).  But we had decided that these camp experiences were important and worth the investment.  So it wasn’t money wasted, but carefully spent.

Those camps didn’t fall under #yearofno, because they weren’t frivolous spending.  Besides, we’re making up the #yearofno rules for ourselves as we go!  😉

For the entire 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week series, pop over here.  You’ll find tons of different ways we’ve saved money over the past 39 weeks there.

But enough about our spending.  Let’s talk about the…

5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week

Auditing a Class.  Hubby is extremely interested in higher education.  I often joke that he likes to collect degrees!

But for his next bout with learning, he’s decided that the knowledge is more important to him than an official certification.  So he decided to audit a class with Coursera.  If you’re getting a free education, you’re unlikely to regret that time investment!

The League and the Lantern book.  I entered a contest at Tidbits of Everything, and I won a copy of The League and the Lantern for my kids!  Am I on a winning streak, or what?  In the past year, I’ve won this book, $100, an adult coloring book, a copy of Better Than Before, and a quarter of beef.

What’s my secret?

I am actually entering giveaways when I find the time to do it.  How many times do you poo-poo even entering because you won’t win anyway?  Next time you have the chance to enter a giveaway, give it a try!

Flowers.  Hubby and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this week.  He got me roses at the grocery store rather than a florist.  He told me that once he learned how cheaply he could get a dozen roses from Kroger, he decided that he’d never go to the florist again!

Doesn’t every couple celebrate their anniversary by saving money?

Smoothie popsicles.  Silly me forgot to pick up a pack of popsicles at the store on my last trip.  Our kids live off of popsicles in the summertime.

Rather than running out to the store, I decided to use what we had on hand.  I have bags of berries in the freezer, which are either fresh raspberries that I picked in our yard, a great sale that I took extra advantage of, or small bits of leftover berries that had been neglected and I froze before they went bad.

I mixed those berries with a cup of yogurt, a dash of milk, and a little bit of powdered sugar.  Then I froze them in these molds.  This mold is great either for freezing popsicles, or for making your own (cheaper) GoGurt style of yogurt.

Or this style is great for bigger popsicles.  You can use pudding, juice, smoothies, Koolaid, or pureed fruits to make delicious popsicles from what you have at home.

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Drive away from temptation.  Whenever I have a choice between driving a more residential road versus a more commercial route, I choose residential.  As long as you aren’t adding much to your gas mileage, avoiding the temptation to stop for “just one thing” will save you more money every time.

Those are the 5 ways we’ve saved money this week!

These things probably helped us pay for camp rather than paying towards our BHAG debt goal this time.  But I’m ok with that.  Learning that you can be independent of Mom and Dad for a few days is well worth the cost.  (Not to mention the other great benefits of going away to camp!)

Did you catch this post about breaking up your paycheck?  It’s a simple thing we did that really helped us get ahead in our finances.  I’m giving you details about how we break down our paychecks, plus a free budget worksheet so you can plan out everything.  (Even weird 3 paycheck types of months.)  Read it here.

How was your week?  Did you have any great money saving wins?  Tell us about it!