My Recent Frugal Accomplishments

This list of frugal accomplishments I recently did is shorter than my standard.list, but I wanted to share them with you nonetheless. Ok, maybe not so short- it seemed a lot shorter before I broke it down into different categories and added a few things that I'd forgotten.

Frugal Transportation

I am a beneficiary of our national insurance and because of that I get a 40% discount on my public transporation fare. Originally I thought it only worked when I paid using an application but then found out it also works on the bus card. Before I went on my vacation recently, since I needed to buy the bus tickets there with my bus card and not my phone, I went to the bus card office and got that recognized as eligible for a discount, which made my bus far to my vacation (the most expensive bus fare in my country, pretty much) with a big discount!

For my vacation I bought round trip bus tickets, locking me in for certain times (if I didn't do the headache required to change the date) but that added more of a discount to my ticket.

I passed my driver's test and got my local license... which will mean saving money because I'm no longer spending money on lessons and tests, and will hopefully save money by hurting my body less carrying heavy things by bus so needing less physical therapy thereby spending less?

Frugal Fun

On my vacation I decided to spend no money on entertainment there and instead brought along flippers and a snorkel so I could go snorkeling without the fees at official places. And when I discovered my snorkel broke, instead of buying an expensive one near the beach I found one cheaply at a toy store. 

I took my kids to a movie and got a discount for 2 kids becausee of their disbility cards. I found out that in the future I could get a discount for another 2 people as chaperones.

Frugal Shopping

I bought dirt cheap snacks and taco shells from the scratch and dent store.

My feet need specialty sneakers because of my overpronation (thanks to my EDS) and locally they are ridiculously expensive. I've been buying them on Amazon because they are literally a tenth of the price there that they are here, but the last two pairs of shoes didn't last as long as I'd have liked them to... Unfortunately with my feet issues, my physical therapist said I'd likely need to switch shoes every 3 months or so. (I wear out the outside of my shoes, and then when that wears down my gait gets even more messed up and it messes up my shoes more and they cause pain.) So when I looked for shoes to buy, I searched review sites for shoes that are good for overpronation and found a pair that was considered to be the best shoe for the least money, so even though it was a couple bucks more than the cheapest ones I got before, I'm assuming it'll be a better investment.

I bought my boys glasses and contacts and paid next to nothing for the glasses and got a really significant discount on their contacts because the store I went to works with my insurance. I had price compared and even cheap contacts sites cost more than what I paid.

I bought makeup for myself from a discount makeup store. 

I got gluten free bread that was on sale.

I got some free past prime produce.

Frugal in the Kitchen

I stretched ground beef with grated zucchini for meatballs and hamburgers

Made From Scratch

• Homemade cheese
• Ground rice flour flour in my grain grinder (best purchase ever ten! years down the line)
• All purpose gluten free flour mix
• Homemade pizza, gluten free and regular
• Flax egg replacement
• Egg free mayo

Foraged:

• Sea beet
• Mallow
• Lambsquarters
• Garland chrysanthemum
• Olive leaves
• Cleavers

Zero Waste

I used soft apples to make apple crumble.

I took dried out beef and made it into beef veggie soup.

I took a bunch of leftovers including beef toast, tongue, potatoes, drippings, and some soft veggies and made them into soup. 

I made fried rice with leftover rice.

What frugal things did you get up to recently?