Friday, April 14, 2017

Frugal Friday 188

Happy Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely/made extra money this week:

- Last Friday, we met my sister in Bloomington for the day. We enjoyed lunch at Trojan Horse, walked Kirkwood St, and Aunt Lu spoiled the kids by buying each of them a special new book. Annabeth chose the complete George and Martha book and Owen chose a book with pictures of real babies - his favorite thing. Lu also brought me a bag of hand-me-downs - Thank you!

- I ordered Annabeth's 1st grade math and reading/phonics books from AOP. They always have everything 20% off in April so we buy during this month each year. I also added a friend's book to our order since our total qualified for free shipping and hers would not have. I saved $36 by shopping during April.

- Saturday morning Mark and Annabeth colored Easter eggs. We took the eggs to the Riley Easter celebration and also enjoyed boiled eggs at home this week.

- Saturday night Annabeth and I enjoyed a Premier Family Event at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. We saved $10 on ticket prices because we are members but this event was still a bit pricey. That being said, it was well worth every penny! We were in a group of around 75 people and enjoyed a catered dinner, face painting, jugglers, circus games, a 40 minute show from the Peru (IN) Amateur Circus, and we had the whole The Circus Starring You exhibit and Chocolate Slide to ourselves. I will be checking the museum website for more special events as this was a great way to spend an evening with my Nanners Girl.

"Her life was a circus, so she decided to join the ride." - Queenisms

- I handmade invitations for an upcoming event. I printed the invites at home and then used a stencil we had to color a design on them. I always put a sticker on the back of all of the mail I send out and we happened to have perfectly themed stickers on hand so I used those. We had gotten them free in the mail. I LOVE making cards, invitations, and stationary - I wish we had an event every month so I could dream up things to create!

- I designed and ordered Owen's birthday shirt from one of my favorite Etsy shops - Kinsey Collection. I ordered three shirts (both kids' birthday shirts as well as a first birthday gift from a friend) from this shop last year and she kindly gave me a 10% discount on Owen's shirt this year!

- Mark worked a shift at his part-time job and some extra hours at his regular job.

- I received my latest PinchMe box. I had three free samples this month: green tea, after shave cream for Mark, and a toothpaste sample. Are you interested in free samples as well? Join me at PinchMe!

- PinchMe's new sample day was Tuesday. My profile did not match any samples so they offered me a free one year subscription to a magazine. I already get InStyle magazine for free so I added People's Stylewatch.

- Our sweet friend Cindy Campbell gave Annabeth a bag of crafts a few weeks ago. She spent part of Tuesday afternoon making cross magnets and chose to give to our neighbors as Easter gifts. I was so excited when she chose to make the crosses and to include the memory verse John 3:16 with them. Thank you Cindy for the fun project - it was a real blessing to our sweet neighbors!

- Wednesday morning I picked up coffee (for me) and cake pops (for the kids) for free thanks to a gift card from Christmas.

- We did not grocery shop this week. Our grocery budget has gone out the window the past few months and we have been spending WAY too much at the store! I used to always go 2x/month and would use up nearly everything that we had on hand before going again. We have gotten away from that and have been going even when we have plenty of food on hand. By not going this week, we used up a lot of items that needed to be eaten.

Happy Savings to All!
Even more importantly, Happy Easter to All! He is Risen!

1 comment:

Abbi said...

He is Risen indeed!
Your circus outing sounds and looks like fun. We have had circus on the brain lately as we are working to put on a science themed circus for our homeschool co-ops end of year program.