Free baseball tickets, eBay listings and a victory over United Healthcare – it’s been a busy week on the frugality front! Here’s what’s been happening.

1. Remember that fight I was having with United Healthcare? I won!
It’s true – the nearly yearlong battle I was having with UHC has finally come to a resolution, and two checks for $190.99 apiece have arrived to my home (and were directed immediately to my bank account). This took a considerable amount of legwork from both my company’s benefits team AND a patient advocate, but lo and behold, I came out the victor in the end. So many other patients would have given up and/or forgotten about it, but not me! And I hope not you, either, if you find yourself in a similar situation.

2. I earned two free Washington Nationals baseball tickets!
Our wonderful public library system (which I wrote a love letter about in these pages a full nine years ago!) is a great resource any time of the year, but its summer reading program is the cherry on top. Not only does it offer challenges for kiddos, it also has an adult reading program component for us grown-ups – with prizes! It reminds me so much of when I was an elementary-school student knocking back slices of pizza in the Book It! program. Thanks to a recent trip to the beach, I got ahead on my reading and have already won my first prize – five books read earned me two Nationals tickets for use later in the season! LeeLee and I got our calendars out, selected a date, used our voucher code, and voila – two seats are now ours. Take me out to the ballgame!

3. I returned two Amazon purchases with plenty of time to spare.
I must admit, one of my frugal flaws is a failure to return purchases that don’t work out. I have every intention, but the follow-through isn’t always there. Well, I am proud to report that I have a pretty good little streak going, and it is paying off (so to speak). I recently ordered two pairs of shorts that I was CONFIDENT I’d ordered before in the exact same style and size only to realize after arrival that I was in great error. So off they went to my local UPS Store, and back $50 came to my bank account!

4. I’m turning a Frugal Fail into a Frugal Win!
Remember a few weeks ago when I confessed that I found an extra pair of walking shoes in my closet after I’d gone out and purchased a new pair? Well, I got to thinking over the weekend: My new walking shoes will last me about a year, and while I could save the other pair until I need them, I could make use with that money now! So I’m going to list them on eBay and turn my failure into success.

5. I bought some veggies on BOGO last weekend and am actually using them.
This should be table stakes, I recognize, but it’s not always for me. But this week, I am proud to report that my extra bell pepper and baby bella mushrooms aren’t going to waste! Through salads, fajitas and more, I am using my abundance wisely. And healthily! And most important, tastily.

What frugal wins do you have going this week? Tell us in the comments!

:)

Now, somewhere in one of my more recent Five Frugal Things posts, I made mention of Rotation. I promised to address it in greater depth later, and friends, later is now! (Wow – that’s meta!)

Rotation is a time-honored tradition within my family, stretching back generations. I was first introduced to it with my mother and my Aunt Lynn, my wonderful godmother, back when I was a child. From well before my time stretching on into the present day, Mama and Aunt Lynn were forever putting things into Rotation, shuttling items back and forth from house to house, even including others into the act where appropriate.

The rules to Rotation are simple: If you have something – a home furnishing, clothing, artwork, etc. – that somebody else needs, and you can spare to part with it (on a temporary or permanent basis, though Rotation is usually semi-permanent at best), put it into Rotation! Does one of your lamps actually work better in your friend’s house? Could your friend use it? Put it into Rotation!

One of my favorite Rotation stories is the tale of the bookcases. My father built several sturdy, solid wood bookcases eons ago, in probably the late 1970s, and they lived at our house, in his office, for years. In the mid-1980s, Aunt Lynn and Uncle Jim needed some bookcases, my dad was redoing his home office space anyway, and voila! Into Rotation they went, down the street to Lynn and Jim’s house. And there they lived happily for about 15 years, residing in various spaces throughout the home, until I needed some bookcases for my first apartment, and – voila! – into Rotation they went again, over to me. Those bookcases now live upstairs in LeeLee’s office, but I’m certain their Rotation travels haven’t ended just yet!

And Rotation has certainly carried on into this generation as well. My friend Denise and I are constantly placing items into Rotation – in fact, I’ve got a bag for her now, filled with a 1,000-piece puzzle, a book, and a brand-new bottle of dish soap with a fragrance that was too strong for me. We’re constantly shuttling items back and forth, for a moment or for keeps, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Do you have a version of Rotation? Sound off in the comments!

:)

I took a week off of ol’ FFT last week due to a confluence of work and life craziness, but I couldn’t stay away for long! Here’s a rundown of how I’ve been trying to maintain some semblance of frugality … and one way I totally failed, because honesty is the best policy.

1. We’ve been enjoying leftovers every which way.
Since the start of my Leftover Revolution earlier this year, we’ve been pretty dang good about using our dinner leftovers for a second dinner each week. And when the leftovers aren’t quite enough to yield a whole dinner, we’ve been incorporating the ingredients into salads, rice bowls, or lunches (which aren’t quite as hearty as dinner around here). In fact, the main photo for this post is one of our leftover-yielding dinners: Crock-Pot Hoppin’ John, which has the dual benefit of being a make-ahead slow cooker meal AND a leftover producer that gave us two meals apiece!

2. I continue to fight my medical insurance company to ensure they reimburse me for a vaccine.
I don’t think I’ve written about this here yet so here goes. Last September, LeeLee and I went on a trip to Europe (on points, I might add!), and before we went our doctor encouraged us to get the new covid vaccine, which was just being released. So we went to our local CVS and asked for the vaccine, and our pharmacist told us that because it had just come out, many insurance companies weren’t coding it properly yet so we’d need to pay out of pocket. Normally we’d just wait a few weeks, but since we were traveling internationally we knew we needed it and fast. So, safe in the knowledge we would be reimbursed, we went ahead and got one vaccine apiece, for the ripe old price of $400 all in. (Four hundred dollars. For a vaccine that was supposed to be free.) I immediately filed my claim with United Healthcare and naively waited for it to go through. Nearly a year later, I am still waiting, only now I’ve pulled in a patient advocate and the entire benefits team of the company I work for. I WILL get this reimbursed! Four hundred dollars may not be a lot to some people, but it’s a great deal of wealth to me. And even if it were four dollars – it’s the principle of the thing! I want what I’m owed and I will see that I get it.

3. I’m still doggedly scanning every grocery receipt into Fetch.
I know I’ve talked about Fetch before, and while it’s certainly not going to get me rich any time soon, it IS a good way to get a little kickback for shopping I’m doing anyway. A few seconds to scan yields anywhere from 25 to 1500 points, which I can turn into gift cards along the way. Not a bad payoff for very little work!

4. I fixed the rogue thumping noise coming from my microwave.
When the microwave started making a thumping, grinding sort of noise coming from the turntable area, I feared the worst, but Google came to the rescue again! After a search, I quickly realized that the culprit was in fact gunk (that’s the scientific word) on the little carousel wheels that help the turntable rotate. A few minutes of elbow grease and order is restored. And the microwave purrs like a kitten again!

5. And – last but not least – my Frugal Fail.
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I boasted about my walking-shoe return? After I returned the ill-fitting Hokas, I purchased another style, which was much needed (as I’d literally worn the soles off my existing walking shoes). I got a reduced price and felt fine about it. ALL THE WAY UNTIL I was putting some cooler-weather clothes away in my closet and found a brand-new pair of walking shoes tucked away, still in the shoebox, just waiting to be worn. I PROMISE you I’d looked in my “shoe stash” and came up empty! But there they were, smirking at me from their snug little box. So much for that. On the plus side, now I won’t have to buy new walking shoes for a long, long time. Silver linings!

What have been your frugal wins (or failures – be brave and tell us!) this week? Let us know in the comments!

:)

All right, people. This is about to get real!

We here at The Kitchen Recessionista are no stranger to recessionary times – and for that matter recessionary behaviors. Over the years we’ve seen all manner of financial situations arise that we may not like, but not to worry – we’re made of sturdier stuff. We can – and will! – not just survive, but thrive!

So when it came to pass that one of LeeLee’s projects has temporarily stopped bearing financial fruit, we jumped into action. In full disclosure, as usual I had an afternoon freakout the day we were made aware of this drought, but by the next day we were both back in fine form and ready to face everything head-on.

This isn’t a 911 crisis. We’ve certainly survived on much less for much longer. But when one gets used to a source of income and then that income is placed on Pause, it ought to spark a moment to reflect. Which is just what we’ve done. And with that, we’ve made a few cuts, some of which I’ll log here (and some of which are ongoing and, I hope, will be logged next week).

1. I downgraded a fitness membership.
Over the past year or so I’ve really gotten into stationary rowing, and I’ve found a great home at Row House for such things. After analyzing how many times I go on an average month, I realized I could stand to downgrade to a lower plan, so I called up the front desk to do just that. Now, one unanticipated consequence of this was that they charged me on my new contract a mere TWO WEEKS after they charged me for my existing contract, but a polite (yet pointed) email to the gym got that rectified. Still, I’ll be keeping an eye on my bank statements for the next few weeks. Anyway – that’s a solid $30 a month saved without any change in my behavior. I’ll take it!

2. I combined a few of my gift cards for ease of use.
We all have these gift cards that are made up of odds and ends – a few dollars here, a $20 there. I combined some of my Visa gift cards to make them a bit more usable, AND I combined three Starbucks gift cards via the app to keep all of my coffee money in one place. Easy peasy!

3. I ordered some new shorts on eBay.
I am unapologetic about this fact: eBay remains one of my go-to shopping spots for summer fashion. There’s a certain style of shorts that I really like and that fits me well (at least, I think so! :)), but it is a few seasons old now and thus not easy to find on store shelves. No matter: eBay to the rescue! I can often find the perfect size, style and color for $10 or less, and that’s just what I did for two pairs of shorts this week. They’ve already arrived to the house and after a wash will be ready to wear!

4. My basement doorknob is showroom-new after a second repair.
Remember last week when I was bragging about fixing my basement doorknob? Well, that joy turned to sadness a few days later when the latch began to stick again, and I worried I’d have to have an expert come in to analyze things further. But then, a light bulb went off: Why not try a little WD40? I know, I know, many repair folks say not to use the stuff, but I say if you’ve got it, flaunt it. And that’s just what I did. And lo and behold, it worked like a dream! The doorknob now purrs like a kitten and opens so smoothly, I just can’t tell you. I’m thrilled.

5. I have put our cleaner service on hold – maybe temporarily, maybe forever.
In terms of money saved, this should probably be No. 1 on the list, but I’m including it at No. 5 because it is the most recent frugality of the week. Way back in 2017 or so, LeeLee and I gave each other the gift of a monthly cleaning service for Christmas, and while there’s been the occasional scheduling issue or broken trinket, it’s all been pretty stable for all these years – except for recently, when the company raised their prices (totally their prerogative) and the quality of service went down concurrently. This week, after the team was a full three hours late and scooted through in record time (and I don’t place the blame with the team — they’re woefully overscheduled!), I decided this was a luxury we could no longer afford, so I wrote to the owner to request that we put our service on hold indefinitely. This will save us more than a hundred dollars a month right off the bat! And I feel we can keep things tidy enough. Time will tell. ;)

What frugal things have you been up to this week? Let us know in the comments!

:)