Frugal Friday File, week 33...

Successes:
1.  As my fuel tank was approaching empty, I was near a gas station that is usually lower than most others.  Saved: 25¢ per gallon x 20 gallons = $5

2.  Wednesday morning there was another gift code from Shutterfly in my inbox.  Usually they are for discounts on stuff I don't need, but this was for 4 sets of return address labels.  I've been wanting some pretty return address labels.  Since the gift code was good for one day only, and I had a pretty full day, I was pushing it to get them designed and ordered before the end of the day.  I used one of my photos as the background and personalized the font style and color.  Normally their price for 1 set of 24 is $9.99...yikes!...I got 4 sets of 24 for free.  I did have to pay shipping which was a whopping $6.45, but I used a prepaid credit card that I received as a refund when we cancelled a service.  That covered it with no out of pocket expense.  

3.  RE: 'Keep Trying' from last week (the child gate to keep Rudy from sneaking off to chew up my kitchen and laundry room rugs).  I found the receipt and was practically out the door to return the gate, when hubs thought of where our old, way-too-narrow child gate might be (attic), and I thought of a way to combine the old one and the new one by dismantling one and using zip ties to make a free-standing screen out of them.  Rudy could definitely knock it down if he wanted to, but that would alert me to him heading for the rugs, so I'm good with it.  I'm counting this as frugal, because if I had returned the gate, I would have ended up purchasing another more expensive option.

4.  Went to preview auction.  Three items I was interested in turned out not to be what I was looking for after all.  Left early without purchasing anything.

5.  Paid bills on time.

Keep Tryings:
Spent more on groceries this week than normal.  The iron level requirements for blood donation have changed recently, and Carey has been one point under the new standard the past two times he has tried to donate blood.  I'm trying to feed him more red meat this week to see if it makes a difference

Frugal From the Kitchen This Week:
Saturday:  leftovers
Sunday:  *chicken
Monday:  salad with salmon filet
Tuesday:  *friend's night out
Wednesday:  King Ranch Casserole
Thursday:  steak, baked potato, salad
Friday:  ???

(*not-frugal takeout or dinner out)