Post Your Wins

[bjl584]

I keep an old car around as a hobby. It's got some age-related problems which I've been meaning to fix, and can be expensive. An electronics rebuilder wanted $250 to fix the instrument cluster and a car stereo refurbisher wanted another $250 to fix an unknown problem with the stereo system (wouldn't play through front left speaker). So I found a wrecking yard that had more than one of my cars (rare! -most yards don't do older than 10-15 years). $47 later I walked out with a complete instrument cluster that I was able to get good parts off of, which fixed mine. That included $10 for a speaker amp that I swapped with the one in my front door, and it fixed the problem. I spent $13 on lunch to celebrate. It was a beautiful day and most of my time in the yard was wandering around looking at all their cool old wrecked cars!!

I used to frequent a junk yard back when I was driving my old beater car.
The car had a dented front quarter panel, and I ended up finding a replacement for $10.
The color didn't match, but at least it wasn't dented.

[disneysteve]

We bought a new bed yesterday. After we got home, I got an email from DOSH, one of those cash back shopping apps which I have but never pay any attention to. It said our purchase earned me $40 cash back. It's not much on a $5,000 purchase but I'll take it. It can go toward the new sheets.

[QuarterMillionMan]

[scfr]

I'm now getting 2 round trips to work before recharging my Prius Prime instead of 1. When I first started commuting from this house, I only got about 75% of the way home on day 2, so I had been recharging every day when I got home.

With the more moderate temperatures now, I'm not using climate control. I'm not using the radio or the display screen. And I'm watching my "eco driving score" and being more careful about acceleration.
Now I can make 2 round trips with a comfortable amount of battery charge to spare. I haven't tried running the EV battery all the way down (and don't plan to) but based on my mileage and remaining charge I estimated my range is 29 miles instead of the published estimate of 25.

[disneysteve]

Pretty much all of my ebay sales count as wins, but tonight's is worth singling out. Last week I listed my childhood GI Joe dolls and accessories. The auction ended tonight with a winning bid of $305. Considering that my goal has been to earn at least $200/mo profit, I'll make more than that on this one sale.

[james.hendrickson]

So here is a massive frugal win.

I was in the grocery store last night and saw they were selling soup for 10 cents a can. At current prices, that was an obviously unbeatable deal. I bought three cases worth. That was like $7.20 for 72 cans of soup.

The thing was the soup was Campbells, which is a great brand. It also wasn't expired. The trouble was the labeling was Christmas themed - and its March, so nobody is buying Christmas themed soups.

They had three more cases for the same price. I'm kinda kicking myself. I could have had lunch for months for $21.60. Or, I could have flipped the cases and sold them for like 30 or 40 cents a can.

Bottom line - big frugal win.

[disneysteve]

The trouble was the labeling was Christmas themed

Good for you. Such a stupid reason but that's the marketing world we live in. We love grabbing some candy 75% off or more the day after Halloween or Christmas or Easter or whatever. I really don't care if my candy wrapper is red and green or orange and black or pastel colors. What's inside is exactly the same. If I can get it for a fraction of the regular price, I'm good with that.

[james.hendrickson]

Good for you. Such a stupid reason but that's the marketing world we live in. We love grabbing some candy 75% off or more the day after Halloween or Christmas or Easter or whatever. I really don't care if my candy wrapper is red and green or orange and black or pastel colors. What's inside is exactly the same. If I can get it for a fraction of the regular price, I'm good with that.

Disneysteve - it was 10 cents a can. Normally Campbells retails for 99 cents. That's like the frugal equivalent of finding a leprechaun, a dozen four leaved clovers, AND the pot of gold all on the same day.

[kork13]

We drove by a fruit/veggie stand, and came back later to see what they had. Inexpensive apples & alot of fresh stuff. But we also picked up 2 hefty bags of slightly-worse-for-wear strawberries off of their discount table.... Walked away with over 4lbs of strawberries for $2. We had to sort through them & tossed a fair amount that was too-far gone, but still ended up with over 3lbs of viable strawberries. The best half of it will be snacked on, the other half has already been made into our homemade jam.

[bjl584]

"Win" on taxes today.
I owe $3700 total to state, local, and federal.
I budgeted and planned for owing around twice that, so I now have an extra $4000 in my savings account.

[disneysteve]

"Win" on taxes today.
I owe $3700 total to state, local, and federal.
I budgeted and planned for owing around twice that, so I now have an extra $4000 in my savings account.

Good job. I'm sure that was a nice surprise.

Still waiting for our taxes. Also sitting on a bunch of cash just in case it's needed.

[disneysteve]

Some time ago I signed up for Dosh. It's one of those shopping apps that gives you cash back for certain purchases. Quite honestly, I never pay any attention to it and I'm sure we could probably be earning a lot more from it, but we still manage to make money since it's automatic once you sign up and link your credit card.

Every time you make a purchase that qualifies you for something from Dosh, you get an email. We happened to have a few transactions recently that qualified and as of yesterday, we had $123.51 in our account. I transferred it to our Paypal account. Nice little bonus for truly doing nothing but signing up.

[Fishindude77]

So here is a massive frugal win.

I was in the grocery store last night and saw they were selling soup for 10 cents a can. At current prices, that was an obviously unbeatable deal. I bought three cases worth. That was like $7.20 for 72 cans of soup.

Good score on the soup, but we wouldn't eat that much in five years.

[bjl584]

Good score on the soup, but we wouldn't eat that much in five years.

I'm not a huge fan of canned soup.
Most of them are salt overload

[james.hendrickson]

I'm not a huge fan of canned soup.
Most of them are salt overload

Yeah and ten cents a can is an unbeatable deal.