The kids have been counting down the days to this wonderful day of the year. As the number shrinks smaller and smaller, the excitement grows and grows. And now here we are. The last day of school before Christmas break!
I’m hoping to find some fun, frugal things to do on our days off of school. Got any good suggestions? We also have two birthdays to fit in before the end of the year. It’s a busy time of year for this Medium Sized Family!
Since we’ll be having extra family time for the rest of the year, this is probably the last 5 Ways post of 2016. But fear not, because it will return next year! As always, you can read through the archives to get your 5 Ways fix.
Here are the 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week.
Sambucol
A friend introduced me to Sambucol a few years ago, and it’s changed our lives! That’s not an exaggeration. Our kids used to bring germs home from school left and right. It would travel through the whole family, and we’d be laid up for weeks. Just as we’d get over one round of germs, another would hit our home.
Don’t get me wrong, the kids still bring home germs. But now I give Sambucol to the sickie. The elderberry attacks the germs and stops their ability to reproduce. We’ve cut colds that used to last for days and travel through everyone in the family down to a one evening thing for one child. It’s amazing stuff.
It’s also kind of pricey. I’ve bought it at CVS (the most expensive option, but convenient to my home). Amazon has a decent price. But I recently learned that Walmart has it for just $9. That’s a big savings, especially when you buy a handful of boxes per year.
Sambucol really should just go ahead and make me their spokesperson.
Museum Visit
My littlest guy is three, and we spend most of our days at home together. We needed to get out of the house, and I decided a visit to our local Children’s Museum was in order.
My Mom was able to get a pass to this museum that applies to all of her grandchildren. Any of my siblings can use the pass to take our kids. So we had a fun afternoon for free!
We got to see the Christmas train display and he got to play with younger exhibits that his older siblings usually try to rush hi through. It was nice quality time!
Paid Up Front
Our specialist has a program where you receive a discount on services if you pay for them upfront. I took advantage of that for sure! Luckily, we have the money waiting in an HSA, so it was no problem to pay this bill.
If you get bills that catch you off guard and you wish there was money sitting around waiting to pay them, check out my new post How to Build a Sinking Fund and Get Out of the Debt Trap.
Groupon
I often forget that Groupon actually sells gift items and not just discounts to other companies. But we have been able to find some great gifts through Groupon this season! We got a big discount on a photo gift and also found a toy we’d been trying to find. Be sure to give them another look if you’re still shopping. Don’t forget to start at Ebates to get cash back!
Simple Christmas
My Hubby is a bit of a Clark Griswold. This year, he didn’t put out as many lights as he normally does. I won’t claim that it’s entirely #yearofno related, but it has saved money on our electric bill.
We have simplified our Christmas in many ways this year. Check out Celebrating a Frugal Christmas in the #YearofNo.
That’s 5 ways of saving that get us closer to debt freedom!
I’ve got some exciting plans in the works for January. With all of this talk on emergency funds and sinking funds, it would be great to have a way to fill those funds up, don’t ya think? You’ll want to join me for my brand new series, Secure Your Savings and Find Peace in the New Year.
To stay up to date with this series, be sure to join a brand new mailing list. This is a totally separate list from my newsletter. You’ll only receive emails related to the Secure Your Savings series. So get signed up now! Let’s kick off a successful 2017.
How have you saved this week?
Never heard of Sambucol. Will have to give it a try. Colds are no fun.
It’s always interesting to read ways that other people are saving money. It really does all add up, doesn’t it?
It is fun to read about what you’re family is up to! One idea for cheap family fun that I want to try is factory tours. There is a chocolate factory and a gourmet popcorn shop that offer factory tours near us, so we might give one of those a try over break.
Oops, I meant “your”. 🙂
Oh, that’s a great idea! I’ll have to look for some within driving distance.
I don’t feel like we’ve saved much this month, but I don’t feel guilty.
We (I as hubs doesn’t do our holiday shopping) cut back on the number and cost of presents for our kids, so that did save us money.
I also spent about the same, but bought some experiences for my nieces and nephews instead of more stuff.
I have been making do with multiple holiday decorations for years and finally gave myself permission to buy some new ones. I spent about $100 but feel like it was money well spent.
Swagbucks, Bing, MyPoints, Checkout 51, ReceiptPal and Meijer’s mPerks have all been high on my list for making/saving money. (I also love Ibotta, ReceiptHog, SavingStar and MobiSave but haven’t been able to use them as my old Android phone died and my “new and improved” Android phone isn’t compatable with any of them. (Again, making do and not spending money on a new phone.) I <3 the Meijer mPerks gift card deals – this week one is buy two MasterCard gift cards and save $15. I bought two $25 MC gift cards and paid the $3.95 fee for each. However, at the end of the transaction, I only owed $42.90 for the $50 in cards because of the mPerks offer. I then used the $50 to buy other discounted gift cards for presents, e.g. a $25 Fandango card for my niece for $20. Savings on top of savings make me SO happy!
P.S. I had one kid throwing up last week and one today, so I’m heading to Walmart for Sambucol this evening!
I LOVE elderberry! It makes a huge difference, I completely agree… I went from colds every few weeks one particularly stressful year teaching, to ABSOLUTELY ZERO after I started taking the elderberry extract. I swear by that stuff, haha!
*applause* on the continuing thrifty innovations!! Thank you for sharing your great ideas with us at #FridayFrivolity — pinning and tweeting. 🙂
I wish I’d known about it back in my teaching days!