Money Mondays: Six Things I Did to Save Money this Weekend

This post is by Bernie Carr, apartmentprepper.com

I am always looking for ways to save money so I can increase my prepping budget.  Some days I am able to net pocket change, but some days I succeed in saving a few dollars.  Here’s a snapshot of what I did this weekend:

Six things I did to save money this weekend:

Dehydrated herbs

I do not own a food dehydrator, but found another way to dehydrate herbs without one.  I had a couple of bundles of parley that would have gone to waste if I allow it to wilt in the fridge.  I decided to try dehydrating it using my Nu-Wave oven.  Now I have dried parsley for use in multiple recipes.  It actually worked.  In a future post, I will show how I did it.

Cash saved:  $2

Made croutons out of leftover bread

I really like croutons in my salad and would have bought some, except I had a quarter of a loaf of bread that was starting to dry out.  I decided to make croutons.

It’s a win-win:  I avoided wasting the bread, and I get croutons without having to buy them.

Cash saved:  $2

Make my own mouthwash

We ran out of mouthwash to I decided to make my own with ingredients I already have instead of buying it from the store.  It is really easy – see the directions here.

Cash saved:  $5

Use the public library

I had a couple of new books I’d been wanting to read and considered just ordering them online.  Instead, I searched online to see if the public library carried the books.  Even if you local library does not carry it, most libraries have an inter-library system hold system.  Just place it on hold on a book you want and as soon as it becomes available, the book will be sent to your local library.

Cash saved:  $24

Transferred a prescription

I found out my plan has a bulk online pharmacy so I transferred a prescription from my usual pharmacy to the online store.  It was easy to arrange – just tell the online customer service details such as medicine’s name, prescribing doctor and contact info, what pharmacy you a transferring from and they will do the rest.  Of course this only works if you do not need the refills on the same day.  The online pharmacy sends prescriptions via priority mail so there is a lead time of a couple of days.

Cash saved:  $15

Made my own clothing repair

I do not have a sewing machine  and one of my shirts needed a new buttonhole sewn in.  The tailor shop around the corner charges $15.  I checked You Tube and found a video outlining the steps without having to use a sewing machine.   I followed the instructions and did it myself.

Cash saved:  $15

Total saved:  $63

It did not take that much time do these these 6 things – at most, around two hours.  The longest. most labor intensive task was sewing the buttonhole, but the library hold and the prescription transfer only took a few minutes each and netted the most money saved.  All in all it was gratifying to be able to save some dollars to add to the emergency supply fund.

What about you – what did you do to save this weekend?  Please share!

 

© Apartment Prepper 2016

 

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