Frugal Friday

Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. 

~ Benjamin Franklin

It's Frugal Friday and I work hard at the above statement, though not always successfully. I find there are many ways I can waste my time so I'm working at cutting some of those things out of my life. 

The number one time waster can be social media. I'm not going to chop it altogether because I use it for business and ministry, as well as keeping in touch with family and friends, but I'm trying to limit my time spent there. I never feel good when I look back on my day and see how much time was spent scrolling through posts. So I'm working on giving myself a time limit a couple of times during the day so I don't lose track of time.

This week was a pretty good one on the saving money end of things.

Here are ways I've saved this week.

$ I have a baby shower to go to on Saturday. We are often invited to a lot of different events and it can add up. This time I decided to make a gift. I stopped at one store where they had a sale on baskets and purchased this cute elephant basket for $5. Then I bought some fabric and made a set of 12 burp cloths. Normally, the entire gift basket and cloths would cost me $50 and I made this for $20, including the basket. I think it's a better quality because the burp cloths are large and are double sided. I'm also going to put in a set of homemade thank you cards so she has those if she wants to send thank you notes.

$ A gentleman from church gave us some fresh caught bluegill fish on Sunday and so I used that for dinner one night.

$ Another friend announced on Facebook that she had a like-new office chair to the first taker. The chair I use is falling apart - the back is lopsided and starting to come apart at the seams. I was thinking a while ago that I really needed a new chair. Problem solved!

$ I took a meal to a friend this week and while it would be easier to go out and buy a loaf of bread to go with it, as well as dessert, I made my own. It's a lot cheaper and tastes better.

$ I made a batch of granola yesterday morning. A small box of good granola in the store can cost as much as $6. For less than that I made the equivalent of 4 boxes.

$ When I went to Joann Fabric's the other day to get the material for the burp cloths they just happened to have a sale of baby print flannel for 50% off! Score!

$ I was tempted to purchase other fabric when I was there but I didn't because I want to use my stash up.

$ Had a couple of Etsy sales which are always nice.

$ Bought the last two books I need to read for consecration with a $25 gift card I got for my birthday.

That's it for this week. What are some ways you've saved this week?