Here's how we've saved this week:
- Cooked all meals at home including potato soup, loaded mac and cheese with broccoli, bean and cheese quesadillas, whole wheat banana muffins, pizza, and smoothies.
- Took advantage of two free meals at church (a potluck on Sunday and pizza for our kids worship service on Wednesday) and shared dinner with Mom on Sunday evening, and she generously gave leftovers for my lunch on Monday. So a total of four free meals.
- Purchased bananas at the cheapest location and used savings apps for cash back on them. These were snack for preschool one day. The other day we made trail mix using ingredients we had on hand (popcorn, raisins, pumpkin and sunflower seeds).
- Kept grocery spending to about $20 for the week, with coupons. There was a good deal on almond milk, but we opted to skip it, since we still have half a gallon of regular milk in the fridge, and we have powdered milk, powdered coconut milk, and evaporated milk in our pantry right now. I did purchase some kefir and yogurt, which we don't normally purchase, since I've been on antibiotics. The hope is that these will help to maintain the "good" bacteria in my body, keeping the "bad" ones in check.
- Washed all clothing in cold water, but towels and sheets in warm. Everything was hung to dry.
- Continued to recycle and compost.as usual. We even encouraged recycling and composting at little man's birthday party on Saturday, which really cut down on the waste. I am trying to get better about composting our brown paper, such as toilet paper tubes and paper towels (though we use so few of them), newspapers, and flour/sugar sacks. The added browns really help the compost, and they break down quickly.
- Combined errands as usual for the most efficient route and to save on fuel.
- Carpooled to school daily, saving on gas.
- We have added one trip each week to get little man to speech, but Benny is combining errands or a fun trip for little man in with this, so it's not too bad.
- Gratefully accepted a scholarship to fund part of little man's preschool.
- Continue to advertise the upstairs rental and are hopeful to have the space filled for the summer.
- Benny found some new gaming stuff he can sell online, so he is working to post this.
- Sold a few more items on eBay, so shipping these soon.
- Tutored twice this week for $35, which is going toward home equity line payoff.
- Benny picked up a few extra hours at work, so that money will also go to home equity line payoff.
- Little man got some money for his birthday, so this will go toward his savings.
- My quarterly haircut was on Thursday. This is a splurge for us, at $35, but I only have it cut four times a year. It's worth it to me with curly hair to pay for a good cut.
- To accommodate paying for my haircut, I regularly cut Benny and little man's hair. I cut Benny's hair on Sunday using the clippers we've had for 10 years, and we hope they'll still keep going strong for 10 more.
- Little man received some unexpected gifts for his birthday, so we opted to save what we had purchased for his birthday for his "big brother" gift when the baby comes, and for Easter. This will save us on these expenses later.
- Made some Valentine's cards, and will work to make more at home with little man to give to his preschool classmates next week.
- Used handmade thank you notes to write all of little man's birthday thank you's on. Most of these can be hand-delivered, saving on postage.
- Found some magnets at school that I wasn't using to use to hang little man's artwork, so we didn't have to purchase these. We will decorate the magnets one snow day as a craft project.
- Plan to line up a babysitter (hopefully for free) to keep little man so Benny and I can have a date afternoon soon.
What about you? How did you live and save green this week? I'd love to hear from you!
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