Four Frugal Things — Free Movies & Reusing What You Already Own
1) My daughter came over to last night to finish watching the last few episodes of The Haunting of Hill House, which was deliciously spooky from beginning to end!
We realized that we needed a “palate cleanser” before bedtime, (so spooky!) so we decided that a few minutes of the original Spy Kids movie would do the trick. Both star the actress Carla Gugino, so it would stay on theme. Unfortunately it wasn’t available on any of our paid streaming services for less than $3.99.
What am I, a Rockefeller?!
We finally found it through the library’s free Hoopla app. A good reminder that this service is available through the taxes we already pay to support our local libraries.
Everything Hoopla has to offer:
Your public library at your fingertips.
Borrow and enjoy audiobooks, eBooks, comics, movies, TV, magazines, or music everywhere you have a screen-your computer, your phone, your car, even your TV. All you need is a library card. hoopla syncs across all your devices, so you can stream titles immediately or whenever you’re in the mood. Most titles can also be downloaded to your phone or tablet. hoopla offers more content, in more places, than any other digital library platform and it’s all FREE thanks to your public library!
2) I accepted a $9 offer on a wool Pendleton jacket I’ve had up on eBay for at least five years!
Begone, stale inventory!
It doesn’t help that my original photos were actually pretty terrible. Even this quick snapshot shows the color better. Oh well, live and learn!
3) My daughter has to follow a gluten-free diet, so I keep one of these $4.99 Trader Joe’s frozen pizzas in the freezer for spontaneous meals. They’re okay and crisp up nicely, especially when baked on my recently garbage picked pizza stone.
Last night we decided to get fancy and added some spinach, broccoli, feta and additional mozzarella cheese. I helped myself to a small wedge and it was amazing, dare I say just as good as a standard high end frozen pizza — and certainly cheaper than takeout or delivery!
4) I am once again setting out the Halloween decorations that a neighbor gave to me around 20 years ago. She was famous in the neighborhood for her over the top Halloween display, but was moving and looking to unload. I split everything with another neighbor.
They’re neither animatronic nor flashy, but do the trick. Everything fits in a single bin and stores easily the rest of the year. I don’t want to be someone who has to create elaborate storage systems for her excess of Stuff.
Decorations shouldn’t expire or break down, so there’s no reason to replace what’s already been purchased. The messaging that we need to annually replace our holiday decor is fed to us by corporations who profit from mindless consumerism.
Just because other people replace their perfectly good stuff doesn’t mean you need to. It’s okay to starve out unethical corporations.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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One of the advantages of living in a condo high-rise is no Halloween decorations are necessary, because there are no trick-or-treaters! I used to put a few stickies in the window, but they didn’t even really show down on the street, so I stopped. The single-family houses in my neighborhood tend to go all out on Halloween decorations, so I enjoy that.
I am wrapping up my third day with my friend in Indiana. Today we went to a third Goodwill. I bought a nice Wilton loaf pan and a new roll of Papyrus wrapping paper suitable for any occasion. I used the credit I got for returning the too-big pants.
I used the Panera gift card I earned from giving blood to treat us both to lunch. We both felt so sorry for the poor employees there who were valiantly covering the kitchen, the drive through, and the counter even though they were severely understaffed. Clearly several people had not shown up for work. That’s why, when I got two half-sandwiches instead of soup & sandwich, I didn’t complain, just enjoyed.
We ran several errands, including the post office, CVS, and the voting precinct — unfortunately a day too early for her to vote. (My own vote was mailed in weeks ago — yay for vote-by mail!) We also went to Target for a few groceries and odds and ends. No great bargains were found.
I will head back home tomorrow morning, with plans to stop for gas while I’m still in Indiana, the land of cheap gas! It’s under $4!
1. Saved $130/year while renewing our digital newspaper subscription (originally $260), just by asking nicely.
2. Went to brunch at my niece’s house and she sent me home with enough leftover quiche for two breakfasts.
3. Purged hundreds of recipes from three locations: our recipe binder, Internet favorites on our laptop, and documents (Word and PDFs), also on our computer. Found some former favorites that we’ll put back in the rotation but mainly got rid of recipes that we’ll never try, we’ll never miss, we don’t enjoy anymore, were duplicative, etc. Plus we often just compose meals now vs. follow recipes. I was inspired to do this after my niece showed me her binder of just 20 favorite dinners, printed and placed in sheet protectors. She was inspired to do this as she was tired of accessing recipes from a device.
4. Almost bought more dog food from Chewy before checking a pet store near our home. Identical price, although we’d save $4 using Chewy’s Autoship. Since my husband and I have decided to return to our former habit of making in-store visits and avoiding deliveries, this was an easy decision.
5. Spent a half hour getting the names of the previous homeowners permanently off various mailing lists so I don’t keep getting their junk mail and having to recycle it over and over again.
With leaving work at the end of the year, I’m in big time budget & cash flow optimization planning. One category that’s gone up much more than expected is travel. We love traveling & plan to devote a lot of my retirement time to travel, so that’s fine, but the cost of airfare has skyrocketed, which means we are paying a lot more than expected per trip. We have a kid in out of state college, which compounds the problem.
1) Went through & tallied up everyone’s miles & points again. Saw that DS19 had enough miles to book a one way flight home when school is done in May on United.
2) Also saw that DS19 had enough miles to book one way of his flight for spring break on Southwest, so took advantage of that, and then booked out of pocket for the second leg of the trip, which was $285. I used to be able to get almost a round trip flight for that price! Anyway, much cheaper than the alternative of paying cash for both legs.
3) Went through DH’s United credits & saw that one was expiring soon. Did my standard trick or booking a refundable trip with the credit (plus you must add cash) & will cancel as it gets closer. This has a 75% or so rate of extending the credit.
4) Made lunch out of leftovers.
5) Reached out to HR about an option on using the last of my PTO to extend my last day. They were vague about it, but sounds like I can work with my manager on it. Fingers crossed.