A Year of Savings

Okay, I didn't post every day, or even catch-up every few days as I'd intended, so I decided I will do an end-of-the-month post to talk about what frugal happenings there were in the previous weeks.

So for January, in addition to my previous posts, we have:

Purchased unfinished cabinetry, stained and finished it ourselves (okay, mostly Greg did it).

Installed said cabinetry ourselves (yeah, Greg again).

Continued using drying rack. Combined small laundry loads in the dryer. (I don't want to wash them together - sorry, Marilynne embedded into me a need to sort my laundry - but I saved several separate usages of the dryer by not being quite so OCD.)

Participated in a pantry/freezer challenge and didn't buy groceries except for milk and lettuce for a few weeks.

Made sure that leftovers from our meals have been packed so they're convenient for Greg to take for his lunches. (You know men, if it's not right there in the front of the frig, all together, then "there isn't anything to take"...)

Signed up for several freebies to be mailed to me at this website. So far I've recieved some free cat food.

Made my own Valentines using some of my scrapbooking "stash".

Signed up to work a few extra hours at the gym to make up for the two days I'll be gone next week.

Used my huge evergreen Christmas wreath with a wooden snowman for a porch decoration instead of tossing it after the holidays. (Let's not talk about how last year's wreath hung on the garage until, um, June...)

Used gift bags from my stash for the twins' birthday gifts. I "stash" these bags, but rarely use them. No, they weren't child-oriented, but they hid the gifts, and Garett loved his with the cars on it. I also used scrapbooking stash to make tags for the gifts, and to scraps of scrapbook paper to make them a "happy birthday" banner.

I'm thinking there were a few other things I had intended to list, but they're not coming to mind and it's time for me to leave for work, so we'll call this good.

My friend PennyAnn Poundwise lists the $$ amount she saves each day - I have no idea what I saved (except that it was $100's on the cabinets), but I will say this challenge makes me think twice - "is there a less expensive way to do this?" - before I spend.

Okay, I'm off to sell some ridiculously overpriced popcorn. LOL.