11 Recent Frugal Wins

• I cut Indy’s hair and trimmed Belle’s. He wanted a taper fade and he got… a haircut. But it doesn’t look half bad, he’s content with it, and it saved me both a trip to/from the hairdresser and a bill. Belle needed a little trim to tide her over. She wanted me to try something different, and neither of us is completely convinced it worked (I followed a YouTube tutorial), but it bought us another month before her back-to-school haircut.

• Whipper snipper cord. Our edge trimmer/whipper snipper/weed whacker (insert whatever else these things are called) was on the last spool of cord. We were at Home Depot and saw the price of the refills, and John realized he could buy a giant spool at Dollarama for a fraction of the price and just manually wind it onto the existing spools we own.

• Fish filleting knife. Indy’s big fish taught us that a) we don’t really know how to fillet a fish and b) the knife we had was never going to properly fillet a fish. To be fair, we found the knife left behind at a fishing spot, so it had cost us zero dollars, and we’ve used it (and run it through the dishwasher) for a few years. But it was time to up our game. John checked out a brand-name fillet knife at one store and it was almost $50. He found the same fillet knife (same brand and everything) for $4.50 at Dollarama.

• I got a $5 cash deposit. Our investing platform—Wealthsimple—has a monthly Millionaire Series. Throughout the month, there are weekly draws, culminating in someone winning $1 million. Alas, we didn’t win any of the big prizes, but by logging in and spinning a wheel, I got $5 cash and John got $8. It’s not a million, but $13 for a single tap of our fingers isn’t half bad.

• Wealthsimple bonus. I can’t even remember what promotion this stems from, but there was a sign-up bonus and for every month I keep an account open (or a certain amount in an account… I can’t remember), I get $65.53, up to a total of $786.36. Yes, please. And that amount gets deposited into a chequing account with a reasonable base interest rate. Double win.

• Booking tickets for “cheap” night. We’ve heard a lot of positive feedback about seeing The Odyssey in IMAX. Close friends said it was one of the best movie-going experiences they’ve ever had. I’ve never been to see a “real” movie in IMAX. I’ve seen a few short nature documentaries on IMAX screens at aquariums and museums, but that’s it. So I’m really excited. What’s less exciting is the price tag. Wowzers. IMAX tickets are not cheap. But we can save a little over $40 by going on Tuesday (which happens to be the day we wanted to go anyway). This might be the only time I go see an IMAX movie with the kids, so I’m happy to fork over the cash. But I love parting with less of it than originally planned.

• Grocery order on John’s account. I’ve reached the end of my welcome bonus vouchers for curbside pickup ($15 off the first three orders over $75). So now we’re taking advantage of the same opportunity via John’s account. Between the two of us, that’s $90 in savings. Plus, we almost always buy things that are already on sale!

• Gratitude practice. Some people might think this is a stretch, but I figure I’m boosting my mental health by doing a daily gratitude practice in August. And mental health has direct impacts on physical health, and both sides of the coin can involve spending money (and rightly so; therapy for the win!). But my gratitude practice cost me the price of a single piece of printer paper, which is a great deal if you ask me.

• Insurance for the windshield. Ugh. At some point recently, we got a chip/crack in our windshield. There’s no way to repair the issue; it will require a completely new windshield. Whomp, whomp. This is the first time we’ve had to replace a vehicle windshield, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in terms of insurance. Turns out it’s covered under our comprehensive coverage. So aside from a relatively small deductible, we didn’t have to cover the cost of a new windshield ourselves. Hooray.

• Free activities! We continue to do a lot of free activities this summer. Most recently, I thought about this during our trip to Ettinger Falls. Admittedly, there is the cost of gas associated with driving there, but other than that (which kind of feels like a sunk cost of just… living life), it was free! Adventure! Swimming! Climbing! A nature walk! And no entry fees.

• Free costume. There are annual themes at the summer camp where Indy goes/Belle works. This year it’s time travel, so the week started with cavemen and at some point got around to medieval. It’s optional, and for the most part it’s the leaders—not the campers—who go all in on costumes. But I figured a crown would be pretty easy to source. (Belle got a Cinderella tiara and wand from Dollarama, which she used week after week!) We used to have a dress-up crown, but at some point I must have downsized it. Belle told me lots of kids were showing up to camp with Burger King crowns. That I could do! The day before Indy headed to camp, we went to Burger King, bought him a single soft-serve (a little over a dollar), picked up a few of the free paper crowns (so he’d have some to share)… and that was medieval done and dusted.

Your turn.

• Tell me all about your frugal wins.
• Best free activity you’ve gotten to do lately?
• Have you ever seen a Hollywood movie on an IMAX screen?