1 Week Down!

I have survived one week of Frugal February.  Thus far, things are going pretty well.  Out of 5 work days, I walked to work 3 times, rode my bike once, and drove my car once (today).  Here are some things I have learned so far.

I enjoy walking to work.  I may need to incorporate walking to work in my regular routine at least once per week going forward.  Walking in general is an awesome frugal activity.  It is good exercise.  It is fun (must be those exercise endorphins).  It is exciting since you never know what you might encounter.  It is inspiring (see photo below for your inspiration).  Best of all, walking is FREE!

View of Lake Coeur d'Alene from Sunday's walk 

 Another thing I learned is that when I share with people my little frugal experiment, they like to chime in with their frugal tips, which I love! In fact, it made me think maybe I can turn this blog into more of a frugal tip page after the month of February is over.  Some tips I received this week include from my father who mentioned if I pay my six month car insurance premium up front instead of on a monthly payment plan, I could be saving some decent dough.  If I remember right, the average savings is somewhere around $50, maybe more.  Yes, difficult to do as most of us don't have that couple hundred dollars ready when our six month premiums are due but if you do what my dad does and pay that monthly car insurance to your savings account, then in 6 months you'd have it ready to pay upfront and would all ready have the extra money saved in your savings account.  Now that's a good idea!  Not sure if I am ready to tackle attempting it right now but its a good point nonetheless.  Next tip I got was from my massage therapist (don't worry I didn't pay for a massage, I won a free massage this month!).  Somehow we were talking about coffee and I mentioned how I buy cheap coffee since I tend to put around 2 TBS of Coffee-mate French Vanilla creamer in mine so what's the difference if its Folders when I do that?  Anyways, her tip was make your own vanilla creamer for about a third of the cost as Coffee-mate by buying half and half creamer instead and putting a little imitation vanilla flavoring in it.  Or you could skip the vanilla flavoring and sprinkle some cinnamon on top.  Genius!

In progress crafts (homemade Valentine gifts) I worked on tonight. Will share more details later. 

Third thing I have learned:  Blogging and crafting take more time than you think.  In fact, its time to turn in for the nite so this post is over.  I encourage you to share your own frugal tips with comments on this post.  Thanks for reading!