Pinching Pennies # 2

Photo Credit: Adapted with permission katerha Flickr via Compfight cc

Here is this week's installment of a few ways we pinched pennies. It helps me stay motivated as we power through our 10th year of debt repayment on a single income.

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Cashback for groceries

Because we were almost out of aluminum free baking powder and also running low on coconut oil, I placed a Vitacost order. Vitacost does not have an affiliate program, so I get nothing for saying it, but I really prefer Vitacost over Amazon for ordering natural and organic products. They have a great generic brand and often have good coupons and promotions that make the cost less than Amazon. Shipping is fast and packaging and customer service are better than Amazon!

With a buy-one-get-one-half-off promotion and some coupons I had received in the mail, I purchased 2 54-oz Vitacost organic coconut oils and 3 16-oz bags of Bob's Red Mill Baking Powder for $32 with free shipping. It shipped the next morning.

Ebates also offered 3% cashback so by just clicking through Ebates first and using my credit card, I got another 4% off on top of the other coupons. I have been using Ebates for years and years and even though I don't buy much beyond practical items and gifts online, I have earned hundreds (to put toward paying down debt) just by buying things I was going to buy anyway. But please unsubscribe from their emails. Those are too annoying!

Waiting for something to come into our lives

When our finances were super tight after we moved to PA and I stopped working, there were many things we had to wait to purchase because we did not have anything extra after paying our minimum loan payments.

Slowly, I noticed how often if I just waited long enough (sometimes years), the thing I needed would somehow come into my life. Between our parents decluttering, freecycle, or random conversations with friends or neighbors, we would receive everything from furniture to office supplies to kid's gear to maternity clothes to canning supplies.

Or, even if it didn't come into my life, if I waited long enough, I would realize that I didn't need it anymore!

Recently, a few friends and family have asked us if we need anything for our new baby (due any minute). Every time, I say that we have everything we really need, except our 8-year-old nonfancy baby monitor is literally falling apart at the seams. I always figured that either someone would hand us down an old one in better shape or we would just keep running our current model into the ground despite the static and need to keep adjusting exposed wires!

Then a grandparent offered to get us something we needed and was happy to gift us a new baby monitor. Hopefully, it will get a ton of use and will still be in good condition for us to pass off to someone when we no longer need it.

Friendship scrapple

Food is very central to my personal identity as a homemaker so I talk about it a lot. And I've made no secret about how much my entire family loves scrapple.

For those outside the northeast, scrapple is a pork product made when you boil pork bones to make a broth, reduce the broth, add cornmeal, spices, and all the ground up pork scraps, including organ meats, then let it set in a gelatinous lump in a loaf pan. It is a great way to use every last portion of an animal that gave its life so we could have meat. And it tastes great sliced and pan-fried until crispy.

As much as we love it, it is not everyone's cup of tea. So when non-scrapple-loving friends received homemade scrapple from friends who raise their own pork, they knew just where to send it. I happily received it this morning and we will enjoy every delicious, nutritious bite!

Simple Birthdays

My firstborn child is turning 8 and we are celebrating in our usual frugal fashion. He will have a family birthday party with immediate family and grandparents. I will make dinner at his request and Daddy will make him a birthday cake of his choosing (raspberry cake with chocolate frosting, this time).

There will be no decorations, paper products, games, or party favors--just lots of attention from loving grandparents and the excitement of opening a few presents with siblings enjoying all the fun.

This is how we celebrate all of our birthdays and despite attending plenty of bigger birthday parties for other kids, no one has ever suggested doing anything differently yet.  Because all of our parents are in a good position to enjoy giving gifts to our kids (the only grandchildren), we don't even get our children a present. My dinner and Daddy's cake have always been enough.

Free sunshine

Finally, after a long winter, the sunshine has returned and I am back to hanging our laundry on the line. I estimate it saves us about $10/month in electricity so it is not "worth it" in terms of my savings given my time spent. However, I do it and love doing it about 9 months out of the year.

What's not to love? It gets me outside to hear the birds singing, the children often join me for some easy time outside, the clothes smell and feel amazing afterward, and I know it saves a lot of wear and tear on our clothing. And the icing on the cake is that it keeps a little extra money in our pockets during the warm months when there are so many fun things to do that cost extra.

That's all for me!

What frugal successes have you had this week?