Post Your Wins

[scfr]

DH & golf shoes

I should probably call this one a "qualified win" or a win with a couple question marks after it, because I don't actually know if it will wind up saving money in the long run.
I've shared before how I've purchased youth size shoes instead of women's size to save $$.
DH, who loves golf and is a golf shoe fanatic, has borrowed a page from my book and purchased women's golf shoes. He says that women's golf shoes get marked down more quickly & steeply than men's. I'd bet that he likes the styles better too; understated is NOT his style. Patent leather accents? Yes, please.
The question is: will we save money, or will he just have more shoes?

[Thrif-t]

See this table, I picked it up off the side of the road for free and painted it. Now we have a new end table

[james.hendrickson]

See this table, I picked it up off the side of the road for free and painted it. Now we have a new end table

Liking that one a lot, nice move.

[disneysteve]

A nice score on our Buy Nothing group today. Someone posted a Duluth Trading Co. backpack this morning and specifically said adults only because it is embroidered with the Basil Hayden logo, a brand of bourbon. I responded and said we'd love it and we are Basil Hayden fans, and I included a photo of two different bottles of Basil Hayden in our bar. She thought that was great and said I could have it. I checked her profile and she works for Beam Suntory, the company that makes Basil. When we PMed to set up the pick up, I explained that we're big bourbon enthusiasts and active with the local bourbon group, which she is familiar with. So in addition to the backpack, she said she'd fill it with some other promo items for me. I picked it up and she had put in two really nice metal water bottles, a Christmas sweater, and two tank tops from their various brands.

When I got home, I looked up the backpack on Duluth's site and it retails for $120. So even without the other swag, we got a brand new high end backpack for free.

[disneysteve]

Two more Buy Nothing wins today. We're in the process of reorganizing my wife's sewing room. She found someone giving away a kitchen base cabinet. We just got that and found a spot for it in the room. I found someone giving away a bunch of curtains which my wife will use to repurpose the fabric for other projects. We were able to pick up both while we were out.

I also had two items we were giving away picked up today, so I suppose those count as wins also. Getting rid of old stuff we don't want to make more room for new stuff we do.

[bjl584]

I cut down a large tree at our cabin over the weekend.
Tree cutting service wanted $500 to drop it.
Me and my neighbors did it for free

[scfr]

A couple more DIY wins:

The gym in our apartment complex re-closed due to COVID restrictions. DH has done a great job creating kind of funny but effective home gym workouts using a step stool (we have a nice wide wooden 2-step one that is really stable) and gallon bottles of water.

I successfully gave our dog her first-ever bathtub bath, using homemade dog shampoo (I halved the recipe I found on the AKC web site (1/8 c nontoxic dish detergent + 1/4 c white vinegar + 1 c warm water - not suitable for face as great care must be taken not to get it in the eyes b/c of the vinegar). When we had a house we had a Booster Bath and I bathed our dogs outside w/ a garden hose & purchased shampoo (living in Texas this was possible year-round with some adjustment to avoid the coldest days). Since we've been in an apartment we've been going to a DIY grooming salon. I have quite mixed feelings about no longer going to the DIY groomer b/c I really want to support local businesses, but the quality/cleanliness/regularity of hours of the shop has gone down hill since an ownership change, and the shop owner and customers have not been consistently following COVID19 guidelines so I decided we just can't risk going there any more. Our dog's coat is so much nicer now, and we think it's because of the simpler shampoo. Bathing her in the tub wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, so I think it will be DIY in the tub from now on

[disneysteve]

There is a certain type of material my wife uses to make the bags that she sews and sells. It's kind of pricey, but the biggest issue is it comes from overseas and the shipping is expensive. She was looking to order more yesterday and was complaining about the $16 shipping fee. That was for 9 yards of material. I suggested that she check if the shipping cost changed if she ordered a larger amount of material. Sure enough, it didn't. So instead of ordering 9 yards, she ordered twice as much for the same $16 shipping fee. It was a bigger monetary outlay but at a much better unit price which helps her profit margin on the bags.

[disneysteve]

The crew that mows our lawn also always comes twice at the end of the season to clear our leaves. I honestly don't recall how much that ran us but let's say $50 each time, so $100 total. Over the past year, we've had to take down the last two trees on our property. Along with eliminating the risk of damage to the house, we got an added bonus. No leaves to be cleared this year (or ever again). Once they did the final mowing for the year, that was it.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I bought a Breville toaster oven Prime day in October for $320 (20% off with coupon from $400) and $50 coupon. Well they beat it NOW and i Called BBB and got it reduced to $320 sale price plus extra 20% which saved me $64 extra bucks. So cha-ching for 10 minutes of a phone call.

[disneysteve]

These are 2 things that I knew were going to happen, but I'm counting them as wins anyway.

1. I ordered a set of hearing aids for my mom a month or so ago - $500. She tried them and didn't like them as much as the ones she had (which were broken). She was able to find a place to fix the ones she had (and for free, another win) so she decided to have me return the new ones. I had ordered them online from Walmart.com but they could be returned to the store. I took them over on Friday. There was no wait at Customer Service (another win), they scanned the return form I printed online, and I was on my way in a couple of minutes. I got an email that the return has been processed so that $500 credit will be on my next CC bill.

2. I have an education stipend at work. Last month, I submitted a reimbursement request for a conference I attended (virtually) in September. I got a message that because it was more than 6 months after the date of the expense, it needed special approval. What happened was I paid back in January because it was supposed to take place in April. It got postponed until September due to Covid. I didn't get the proof of attendance until October so I couldn't put in the request before then. I hadn't heard any more about it so the other day, I emailed our medical director to check on the status. He wrote back and said he had just signed off on it and I got an email today that it's been approved. So that $820 will be paid to me next pay day.

Again, both things that I knew would happen eventually, but having them confirmed as complete is a win to me. And it's just over $1,300 coming back into my accounts.

[disneysteve]

Big win today.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about getting the bourbon promo items in our Buy Nothing group. Today, the same woman messaged me and said she had a bunch of stuff for me and our group if I was interested. I went over and she had a ton of stuff - glasses, mugs, shirts, phone chargers, bottle openers, etc. My wife and I set aside some items that we want for ourselves. The rest will get split up among the people in our group. I just spoke to the guy in charge of the club and he's going to put together some goodie bags for folks.

Just to give you an idea of the value of stuff, the glasses we are keeping a couple of sets of for us, called Glencairn glasses, retail for about $40 for a 6-pack on Amazon. She gave me 29 6-packs, so nearly $1,200 worth of glassware alone. It does have a brand name etched on them, but we certainly don't care. Neither will anyone else in the group.

[Fishindude77]

Put another deer in the freezer this week, nice fat doe yielded approx. 50 pounds of boneless prime steaks, roasts and burger.
Just about the healthiest, best red meat you can eat in my opinion.

[bjl584]

Scored a nice deal on a vacuum cleaner on cyber monday
Our vacuum just broke last week.
Kohls had a nice Bissel for half off and we had $90 in Kohls cash.
We got a brand new vacuum for $40 out of pocket.

[disneysteve]

On 10/28, my wife took some of the bags she makes to an area yarn shop to sell on commission. She brought a total of 17 items. She got an email today that 5 items sold in the first week. Total sales of $160; $116 after commission and CC fees. And the owner said to let her know as soon as she has more stock!

We took 13 new items to the store last Wednesday.

Just got an email for a PayPal payment for another $207.67 after commission and CC fees. My wife is very happy. Now she just has to keep making more bags. She was waiting for some supplies that came yesterday.