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Spring break!  Which doesn’t mean a whole lot when you’re working on getting out of debt.  The kids are off school and life is slow and simple.  I love turning off the alarm clock for the whole week!

You could add “take a nice little trip during spring break” to the list of things I’d like to do once we’re debt free.  But my list has gotten as long as Santa’s.  Once we’re out of debt, we’ll prioritize the things we want the most from our lives.  Until then, I’ll have fun in my little fantasy world!  It gets me through the journey to debt freedom, so it’s fine by me.

Like we do every Friday, let’s reflect on our money saving ways this week.

The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week

Paid Off Credit Card Debt

Did you miss my announcement?

After 15 months of work, we finally got our BHAG credit card paid off!  It was the best feeling.  We have 2 more cards to go, but with the scary monster out of the way it feels much more doable.

If you want to read more about how we managed to pay off such a huge chunk of debt, read about it in That Feeling When You Paid Off Credit Card Debt.

Balance Transfer

If you like to credit card hop looking for 0% offers, make sure you read the fine print.  Most cards charge you a 3% balance transfer fee.  If you owe thousands of dollars on a card that’s charging you a 22% interest rate, it’s probably worth paying the fee.  Just make sure you do everything you can to pay it off before the rate increases.

I haven’t done this lately because I hope to have these cards paid off in a short amount of time.  That makes it not worth the fee.  That said, I got checks from Discover card to use in a balance transfer.  The first page was 0% interest with a fee attached.

But the second page of checks was more interesting.  They offered a rate of 4% with no fee.  That’s worth doing!  I’m not opening a new account (I hate to add to my pile of credit cards).  With no fees, I’ll save hundreds of dollars in interest.

It pays to read that junk mail.

Shoes

I have this whole thing with shoes.  Not in the typical girl way.  I don’t actually care for them.  I think they’re expensive, and I HATE that no one can ever seem to find a matching pair when it’s time to get out the door.

In the warmer months I want simple, cheap shoes.  That makes the expensive gym shoes last longer.  So I get a knock off version of Crocs from my local Meijer store for the kids.

For $8 they have shoes that usually last the entire summer.  They’re easy to slip on, so I don’t even have to help the little ones put them on.  And they’re brightly colored, so they don’t get lost.  (Well, not as often.  They aren’t miracle shoes.)

A better deal is when you can find a set of shoes at a yard sale.  But don’t settle for the $1 flip flops.  Those break in a week.

Swings

File this one under “spending money to save money”.  I shoo my kids outside every chance I get.  The first place they head for is the swing set.  They spend a ton of time there.

Last year we had to have new swings.  The old ones were beyond repair and not holding up to our growing boys.  I was excited about finding some that were just $14!

Lesson learned.  Fourteen dollar swings don’t hold up to rough housing boys.

This year I read the reviews a little better and came up with a slightly more expensive swing.  It already feels like it will hold up better.  I spent more with the hope that I won’t be buying another swing this time next year.

Sleepovers

Many of our family friends are out of town enjoying their spring break.  But we’ve got a few good buddies that stayed home like we did.  The thing my kids seem to enjoy most of all is having a buddy over to stay the night.  That’s the kind of frugal fun I can get behind!

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

One thing that I won’t be adding back to the list of things we spend money on (even once we’re debt free!) is fast food.  I’ve finally settled on some great recipes that the family loves.  They’re simple and frugal enough to keep us out of the drive thru lines.  Check them out here:

How did you save this week?