Frugal Friday - Disney Edition

 Happy Frugal Friday!

Last week we had a 7 day adventure with Mickey Mouse and the Georgia Mountains!

We planned our Disney trip with a lot of help from our friends Joe and Michelle Dillon. We love supporting this fellow LEO Family and you can book with them for FREE here Vacation Planners. 

(For Southern Indiana/Louisville friends wanting to book with a local planner contact our friend Amanda Williams. Her services are free too! Amanda.williams@magicalvacationplanner.com)

We originally booked our trip at the beginning of March 2020. We have been planning and saving for this trip for several years, we had a few setbacks as we had a flood in our kitchen and then Annabeth had the opporunity to dance in Chicago so we pulled from this trip savings for that trip. By March we were finally ready to book and planned for 4 park days, 5 nights at the All Star Movies Resort. Within two weeks, the world shut down due to COVID-19. When Disney finally reopened, they decided not to reopen the All Star resorts right away so we were automatically upgraded to Pop Centrury Resort. Disney upgraded us for free which was a great deal since Pop Century runs higher price per night than All Star Movies. 

Our awesome vacation planners also credited our account when Disney ran a sale. We were credited about $250. Between the credit and the upgrade we came out about $400 ahead of where we would have been without the sale/room upgrade!

Other ways we saved on vacation - 

- We asked family and friends for giftcards for the kids' birthdays. They each came to Disney with at least $75 to spend on the souveniers of their choice. Thank you everyone! 

- We packed our own food so most days we ate at least two meals from our packed groceries. We did not have the meal plan so we were able to choose to just buy our favorite meals. 

- We have always made pressed pennies as the kids' souveniers on vacation so over the past year we've been saving all of our quarters and pennies. Fun Fact: Disney uses a credit/debit card machine at each Pressed Penny location. We used our cards there and used the loose change to pay the Florida Tolls and for small items in the stores. 

- Annabeth found an Anna-Safe sucker but none of the stickers would ring up so the store gave us the $4.95 sucker for FREE!

- Mark and I chose Buy One, Get One Free candy bars as our treat. The stores actually had a great deal of little candy souveniers buy one, get one free. 

- We chose most of our gifts/souveniers from the 70% dated 2020 items. I like having the year on ornaments and things anyway so this was a great deal! Bonus buy for being there at the end of the year! :) 

- On the way home, we stopped in Dahlonega, GA with an Air BnB in the mountains. This was much less than staying at a local hotel and much more fun to be in a cabin! We eve had our own deck overlooking the mountains.

- Our last stop was Amicalola Falls State Park. We paid the $5 parking fee and had a great fun day at the falls and hiking. 

- Mark hiked the Approach Trail into the Appalachian Trail - a lifelong dream. 

We had the most wonderful week away - the cleanest park on earth, low heat most days, low crowds, socially distant lines to wait in, and SO much magic and fun. Now we look forward to saving for the next vacation. 

Frugal Friday 370

 Happy Frugal Friday!

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

- Mark has been wanting a large tool chest for his workshop space. He has been saving for one from the hardware store but something else always comes up. Imagine his happiness when one he wanted was at a neighborhood garage sale for just $30! This saved us $100+ !

- This was actually a few weeks ago but we are SO thankful! A friend mentioned that she had purchased store brand allergy meds that didn't work for her. They are the ones that 3/4 of us take so she gave us about 2.5 months of meds! This is a HUGE savings for our family! Thank you Jeanette!

- Saturday Mark and Owen went to McCordsville for the day and worked on an Eagle Scout Project. They were gone from 7-5 and were able to finish nearly an entire, large, bridge job. Owen was SO proud to help the big boys and adults all day.

- Annabeth had to do school on Saturday, she had a full day of doctor visits on Friday. After school, we had a little date day and shopped at the Farmgirl Merchantile and at Mom and Cub Boutique. We found several Christmas gifts at Farmgirl and she found three clothing items at Mom & Cub (under $20 for all three!) 

- Sunday we went to church, something that I will never take for granted again after the churches were closed last spring. We are SO thankful to worship in person. After church, we had lunch at Mark's parents. They generously sent us home with leftovers which we enjoyed for four meals during the week. (And we're just finding out this morning that our church is now closed again through December 15 :( ) 

- Monday Mark was off work so we got many projects around the house done. One of them was deep cleaning and listing our last two toddler toys for sale - the toy grill and toy kitchen. We were able to sell both on Facebook within one hour. While I do feel a little sad about not having any little people to need those toys, the kids are very excited for their Big Kid Reading Corner! We moved the bookshelf from Owen's room to the new Reading Corner and used the funds from the sale of the toy kitchen to buy each of the kids a bean bag chair. 

- We spent a TON of time outside! We always spend at least one hour a day outside but in the winter it sometimes is hard to get past that hour. This week has been so gorgeous though - with a few days up to 80 degrees here. We eneded up spending 3+ hours a day outside several days this week including a great park meet up with homeschool friends.

- We had some produce that we aren't going to be able to use. I donated it to the Pink House Little Free Pantry. I love donating to that particular pantry because if fresh items aren't collected right away the pantry manager shares them at the Franklin Library FLP. 

We are looking forward to a big adventure in the week to come. We'll see you here in TWO weeks for a huge Frugal Friday!

Happy Savings to All! 

Frugal Friday 369

 Happy Frugal Friday!

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

- Mark worked many hours of overtime and I worked my Usborne Books & More Business.

- Last Friday, a bakery donated a huge aount of food to Mark's department so all were able to bring things home. He brought home donut holes, cupcakes, dinner rolls, and bagels. We served some over the weekend as we had company and then froze the rest.

- Saturday afternoon my Mama and I window shopped in downtown Franklin. We enjoyed looking through two little shops and didn't spend any money. 

- Saturday evening we had all of our parents over for a chilli dinner and Trick Or Treat. The kids LOVED trick or treating in our neighborhood and it was so fun to watch them choose their two pieces of candy to eat at the end of the night. 

Happy Halloween from the Woody, Annie, Daddy, and Mama

- Sunday evening Mark and I had a car date. We had to run to the grocery for one item but since my parents had the kids, we stopped for a milkshake and took a drive. It was a wonderful $10 recharge!

- Cassidy texted one night to let me know that Ibotta was giving away FREE Thanksgiving dinners from Walmart. I quickly hopped on and placed an order. There was a $35 minimum so I made sure to check out additional items that had $4.50 in rebates. Because it was the middle of the week and I redeemed so many rewards Ibotta gave me an additional $5. I referred a friend and earned an additional $10. In short, THEY PAID ME OVER $3 for $36 worth of items! Join Ibotta to save money too! 

Our FREE Thanksgiving themed meal.

I also purchased yogurt and laundry detergent and thanks

to Ibotta is was ALL FREE!

- We borrowed the materials we needed for school from the library. I love our amazing local libraries and we enjoy borrowing books, CDs, DVDs, etc for both school and pleasure from the library every week!

We had a nice, low key week. We are looking forward to a nice, long weekend!

Happy Savings to All!