Five Tiny Frugal Things
by Katy on July 8, 2025 · 10 comments
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My father’s sweet dog Buddy passed away last week and everyone is understandably sad. I went ahead and printed a nice photo of the family with Buddy and placed it in a curb picked frame for him. The total cost was 39¢ for a Walgreen’s print.
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I sprayed out and repaired my yard debris wheelie bin, which was both revolting and deeply satisfying. The lid was a repeat repair, but I’m happy to do the work if it keeps it in circulation and out of the landfill.
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Tonight’s dinner was what we jokingly call “after school snack for dinner.” Think carrot sticks, hummus, crackers and cheese. We did add a salad a couple hours later, but a frugal affair either way.
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My sister and I have been watching episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer through her Hulu account.
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I have zero-point-zero plans to buy anything from Amazon during Prime Day, or really any other day. Morally bankrupt billionaires don’t deserve a penny from me.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
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Hit Goodwill on Sunday half off color day, I found heavier hand weights for $1.49 for 2.
Goodwill puzzle prices often puzzle me. Some are 1.99, others 4.99. Looking at them I do not see why there is a difference, a new unopened was 1.99 while a beat up box one was 4.99. Anyway I bought 2 puzzles for 3.99. For that price I won’t care if there are missing pieces. These will get passed on to my fellow puzzle peeps if intact.
My puzzle peeps shared puzzles, I will put them back into rotation once I do them.
Mosquitos are horrible here. As part of our taxes we get sprayed at no cost as part of our tax base. They sprayed and it was marginally better.
Several meetings at work resulted in free lunch so yay!
Hubs is going to retire so he put in early for his free work phone. This should keep us with a spare and be good for the next couple of years.
1) Skies are overcast, but it is starting to brighten up. Forecast for rain this afternoon. One load of laundry on the line and one more to go. Praying it gets dry and I can get it in before the rain starts.
2) Have an appointment with my psychologist at 11. Will pick up a can of cream of mushroom soup, a package of flour tortillas, and any prescriptions ready for pick up while I’m out. Will also stop at our mailbox and pick up yesterday’s mail. Mailbox is down the road far enough we have to drive. Wasn’t wasting gas just to go to the mailbox. Also have to put a letter in the mailbox to go out today.
3) A friend of ours went through cancer treatment and is cancer free; however, before he can return to work, he has to get all of his childhood immunizations again. He’s had 2 rounds, and one round to go. He has to go to Philadelphia (where his cancer treatment was done), which is about 4 hours away and has to stay for several days. His wife normally goes with him and my husband babysits their dog at their house while I keep things going at our house. Anyway, wife and dog have doctor/vet appointments during that time and can’t go. DH is going to Philly with the husband and I am staying with the wife. She is currently having some mobility issues and can’t really take care of herself right now. I will be rummaging through the freezer/pantry to see what I can fix for meals while the boys are gone. I don’t like cooking in someone else’s kitchen, so I want things that can either be baked, nuked, or eaten cold. I’ll go to their house after church the Sunday before so I can pick up the necessary baking dishes I will need so I can haul them back with food in them and won’t have to bring mine back home.
4) Is it me or does your nose run every time you eat/drink as you get older? Using 1,000 sheet toilet paper for tissues. Ultimately cheaper than buying tissues. My dad, my mom, and, early in our marriage – my husband, used handkerchiefs; however, my gag reflex will NOT allow me to wash those.
5) Other than my appointment and the laundry, today is dedicated to filing and putting stuff away in the spare room. It currently looks like a bomb in there. You would think that after 23 years of secretarial work, filing would be kept up to date – it’s my WORST skill.
Living in a rural area, I am jealous of all your curb pick opportunities.
The flooring installers finished yesterday, and my hallway and computer room (wood-look)LVP floors look like the real thing! And it’s a close enough match to the LVP (on final clearance, $1.99 a sq. ft.) installed in the living/dining room by Lowe’s. But the new install used commercial-grade planks and I used a 15% off coupon, making it even cheaper ($1.66 a sq. ft.)
1. To save $, I had them keep the existing carpet in the closet floors. Since no one walks in the closets, the carpet held up these past 15 years and still looks new.
2. Got them to put some new door handles on the hallway closet doors, which are bifold doors. These were non-working door handles purchased for $3 each from Habitat ReStore. Brand new, still in the pkg. They look fantastic, and I will go buy more for the other bifold closet doors throughout the house. Thank you, ReStore!
3. Frugal fail: these guys don’t speak much English and didn’t understand me when I said to please keep the hallway carpet, I want to reuse it and make it into floor mats. They threw everything away and the trashmen got there before I could rescue the rugs. (“Carpet” was actually a lot of Walmart throw rugs fastened together. I loved the pattern! Too bad…)
4. Was able to pull some leftover LVP planks out of the trash. Workers thought I was crazy. But, hey, that’s how I got the mini-bathroom refloored (using the leftover planks from Lowe’s).
5. Bookshelves going into the computer room were purchased from Aldi. Frugal surprise: the “greige” shelf colors pick up the light tan colors of the LVP. They look enough like the floor coloring to look like it was planned that way.
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Note: Please notice how many things in this big overhaul I purchased from Amazon: zero. Not one red cent! And even during Prime Days, that’s the same amount I plan to spend, not buying from Bezos. Ever. Like Sen. Warren says, if he can afford to rent Venice for his (tacky over-the-top) wedding, he can afford to pay his fair share of taxes. But he got off scot-free from paying his rightful share of taxes. I believe that if he did, we wouldn’t have to gut Medicaid, ruin rural hospitals and take away SNAP (food stamps) from the poor. C’mon, Jeff, pony up and help out needy Americans! Ditto, the other billionaires.
I loathe Amazon and while I have said that multiple times, I am disgusted with the wedding extravaganza. Yes, folks have a right to spend their money as they wish, BUT, Nomadland turned me off the Bozo Amazon train. He made that money off the 12 hours days of hard work of old folks with no insurance, no retirement, and living in company supported rv parks, that were just a copycat of 1930’s company towns, where folks lived in company houses and bought from the jacked up prices of goods at the company store. How older folks were treated during the Great Recession by Amazon still makes me mad.
I have been sitting on a $50 Amazon gift certificate someone gifted me ages ago. I don’t know what to do with it because I haven’t shopped Amasucks in years. I briefly considered canning jars because I need another 30 or so, but they cost three times as much for the reliable brands there and I would rather give the money to my locally owned hardware store. I’ll probably eventually buy something from a carefully selected marketplace seller so at least some of the money will be routed into a small business and not just to the billionaire. Any other ideas?
1) I made a huge pasta salad using some garden veggies for dinner. There is enough leftover to serve as a side dish with tonight’s dinner.
2) Today was “culling of the overgrown and failing veggie starts” day at my part time nursery job. I saved a few big ol’ tomato plants, as well as stripping all the green tomatoes off the plants that were going into the compost. I’ll let them ripen on the counter, except for a few that will go into a green salsa.
3) I also harvested the basil plants that were about to flower before tossing them into the work composter. I brought home the tops and made a huge batch of pesto, which I froze in ice cube trays.
4) My son’s girlfriend received a notice that her license was suspended because she didn’t pay a $52 late fee on a small ticket she received and paid by mailing in a check to avoid card processing fees. She was just going to pay it, but I convinced her to pull up the canceled check on her banking app. We could clearly see it was deposited BEFORE the due date. One phone call and three transfers later, the fee was reversed and her license is valid again.
5) My wife borrowed a metal detector from our son so she could find an S-hook that had gone missing from the porch swing when it was stored behind the house over winter. She found it and the swing is operational again, thus saving us the $5 replacement cost for a new hook.
I love to repair, it gives such satisfaction. Well done!
1. The $15 mirror from FB marketplace turned out to be so much better in our bathroom than the set of 2 I had purchased for $150. I’ve already received the refund for the expensive set. Good save!
2. Asked for, and received, a price adjustment on an item I bought for my granddaughter’s birthday.
3. Printed free color copies at library for decor for same birthday. DIL sent me the file and I printed it for free. DIL is also borrowing mini clothespins from me for same project. DIL didn’t grow up in a frugal home but she does very well to watch their money and I’m always glad when she remembers the free things (like color copies at my library) and asks for them.
4. For free compost from the city.
5. Dropped vintage items that I couldn’t sell at the salvage yard. Didn’t get any money for them, but it saves them from the landfill and builds relationship with the salvage yard owner, which is always useful.
1. Made a huge batch of broth with saved herb and vegetable trimmings.
2. Moved money from checking account to Ally savings account to earn higher interest.
3. Got $1 off a multi pack of toothpaste at Target.
4. Received small, covered ice cube trays and new-in-package men’s underwear from Buy Nothing.
5. Redeemed a $20 email gift card on a Chewy order.
1) The staycation agenda for today is mostly free activities. We are going to a pet store (we don’t own any pets, the kids want to look at the small animals for sale), then go look at a railway crossing (son is very into trains at the moment), meet my husband at his work for lunch (not free but low cost since his company subsidizes the food sold onsite), and then a playground with a splash pad to end the day.
2) We got a new driveway a few weeks ago, it cost a lot but one small savings is my husband and I just sealed it ourselves last weekend, it wasn’t really that difficult and it looks good.
3) We’ve grown about 15 strawberries so far and 6 radishes, not bad for a not very well maintained garden!
4) Husband and I had a miscommunication and we each ended up purchasing 2 large packages of raspberries, I love raspberries but they start to mold very quickly so that was a lot to get through. I added copious amounts on my oatmeal each morning though and gave some to the kids for every snack and we made it through all 4 packs without losing any. Kind of a good problem to have given my love of raspberries.
5) I had a XL size jar of bonne maman jam that we got at Costco. The jam was good but I really wanted the jar, we finally finished the jam so now I have another nice big jar for storing things.
Same regarding Prime Day!
1. The teens asked for an electric knife sharpener. I wasn’t too keen (I usually just sharpen them on the bottom of a mug) but I do want to encourage them to cook so I relented and got a pre-loved one on Vinted. I use Vinted a lot at the moment, they still have the subsidised postage rate for the moment which is very good, most items cost just 2 Euro in postage. I guess they want to encourage people to use the app!
2. I have started to partially substitute eggs with flaxseed “egg” for baking (1 tbsp ground flaxseed meal soaked in about 2-3 tbsp water for about 5 minutes = 1 egg). E.g. the oat bread I make usually needs 4 eggs, however, now I use two real eggs and 2x flaxseed “eggs”. Much cheaper and healthier. I will try and increase the flaxseed “eggs” to 3 next.
3. I found a bottle of perfume for a fraction of the price it would cost new in the local charity shop and bought it for my daughter.
4. Tidied up a cupboard in the kitchen, threw out some ancient spices that smelled off and now have a good idea of which products need to be used up soon / replaced / not restocked for a while.
5. Solar/wind laundry drying all the way! The weather has been very good.
No Amazon Prime Day for me either. I cut the cord with Amazon two years ago, and send kudos to everyone else here who has done the same. May Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, various others, and You Know Who himself all roast in a special circle of the Inferno dedicated to conscienceless billionaires.