Recent Frugal Wins: Pumpkin Soup, RESPs, and Toilet Paper

Maybe this is compensation for buying a new mug and tea towels?

FUN, NOT FRUGAL

But, no regrets.

I continue to do at-home manicures. Of course, the cheapest option would be to do nothing to my nails, but I genuinely love it (the finished result, not the actual painting my nails; I find that part tedious). Much like doing a box hair colour vs. a salon colour, nails are clearly an optional cosmetic decision, but the do-it-yourself version costs a fraction of the outsourced version. About an hour after I painted my nails, I got a compliment on my nail colour from a cashier at the grocery store!

We contribute to a Registered Education Savings Plan for each of our kids. When you make contributions, the Canadian government will also toss a bit of money into the account. Yes, please! $84 of “free money” toward our kids education is $84. And that $84 will get invested, within the savings fund so it’s going to gain interest, etc. (If you live in Canada and don’t have RESPs for your kids and are interested in opening an account, let me know! We can each get $400.)

Extra TP in the order. I set up a curbside grocery pickup and ordered three packages of toilet paper. It was on sale (win one), and then, for some reason, what I had ordered was substituted for a larger package of the same brand of toilet paper. I have… a lot of toilet paper in the house!

We refill our water cooler bottles. After years of being able to access a free natural spring, we now have to refill our water cooler bottles at a refilling station. There are a few perks to the change, but the big drawback is cost. It’s $2 per refill instead of free. BUT, refilling our own bottles is significantly cheaper than buying new bottles of water each time.

Packing lunchboxes. This is a necessary evil in my life. The kids mostly pack their own; I just need to make sure we have food items in the house they will take and eat. But it saves… a lot of money over buying prepackaged meals.

Used old bananas. This is an oldie but a goodie that shows up a lot. I made a double batch of banana muffin batter and now have a stockpile of muffins in the freezer, which are perfect for adding to school lunchboxes.

I stretched some cans of pumpkin into a big batch of soup. I bought two cans of pumpkin on sale a few weeks ago to make pumpkin soup, but I stretched that even further by adding some potatoes ($3.99 for a 10 lb bag) and carrots ($1.25 for a 3 lb bag). I also added a container of frozen chicken stock made from the carcass of a rotisserie chicken.

I keep finding ways to save on curbside grocery pickup. When I do curbside grocery pickup, I always transfer any groceries that are in paper bags into my own reusable bins so I save the bag fee. Also, I have been able to use a $15-off deal FOUR times now (when you spend over $75). That really adds up over time.

I earned bonus points on things I needed to buy anyway. I needed some eye drops and wanted to replenish our Magic Bag stockpile. Neither item was on sale, but I used a 20x-the-points coupon, which translates to dollars to spend on future purchases.

Your turn.

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