– On the last day of the semester I brought my home brewed coffee to work in my .50 cent Starbucks reusable coffee mug and was given the above pictured amazing Dunkin Donuts donut and a Ghirardelli chocolate.

– Then for lunch that day I was given Papa John’s pizza, cheese and fruit at our last faculty meeting.

– The dean gave all of his faculty a bag of white chocolate pretzel cookies and a lotto ticket for the holidays.

– I really wanted to buy lunch between finals earlier in the week but I decided to bring food from home instead.

– A month ago, I bought chemical free, amazing smelling soaps to give to my colleagues for the holidays. They were only $1 each from Dollar Tree and I printed little thank you notes to go with them. I love giving gifts and my friends loved them.

– I returned a couple of items to Publix today and used the gift card to buy a few things we needed including dog food, cat litter (that had a $2 off attached coupon) and rice to use for rice warmer Christmas gifts. The dog food was labeled BOGO but it didn’t ring up right. Turns out the sign was old so they gave us both bags for free as per Publix Promise.

– The prescription I picked up at Publix was also free.

– We used an old gift card that was gathering dust to buy 3 Awesome Christmas presents. I won’t say what they are in case they read this but the items were on sale from $35 to $15 and frankly I want one.

– We are out of Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap but instead of paying $10-15 to replace it we are using up what we have and also using other chemical free bar soap in place to delay this purchase. It is also motivating me to go through our bathroom cabinets to find items to get rid of or use up.

– I combined a whole bunch of my face makeup container remnants. You would not believe how much is left over in the packaging once they appear “empty.” I used a spatula and put them in the small glass container in front (see above picture) that my aunt gave me to reuse.

– I am watching the documentary minimalism on Netflix.

– I sewed 6 rice warmer heating pads that can be used for your neck, belly, etc using a pair of PJ pants that I bought at Goodwill and rice that I got for free from returning something to Publix.

-I made a lot of returns that had been sitting around the house waiting for the semester to end.

-We have been doing an unofficial eat from the pantry challenge the past couple weeks leading up to Christmas. I LOVE it because we are finally clearing out

Not So Frugal-

-I wasn’t able to return a few items because I waited too long. Oh well!

-I paid very little for Christmas gifts this year mostly using gift cards or making them. However, there were a few bigger gifts I purchased. At great frugal prices but still spending money.

-We also decided to do Christmas at home this year instead of traveling and taking our usual 10 hours of driving around to all of the relatives. Thanks to our fuel efficient car this isn’t expensive as far as gas goes but it’s tiring. Instead I bought some great food for a fancy Christmas dinner and dessert. It will last for more than one meal and will be worth every penny but it’s fancier than our usual meals.

Extra Income

– My dad is planning a yard sale. I’m using it as motivation to get rid of junk! Even if the sale never happens we hope to move in the next few months and if we don’t love it or use it or need it then there is no point in keeping it. Maybe this will motivate me to take some clothes to the Plato’s closet type store for dress clothes.

-I just posted my first sewing pattern for sale on Craftsy

Chemical Free

– We once again have gnats in our kitchen. I wish we could figure out where they are coming from but I honestly think it’s just the area we live in. I refuse to have the house sprayed for bugs so we use an alternate solution. We have a small cook pot and we boil water. For some reason the flies are drawn to it and drown. This is chemical free and costs very little.