10 Ways We Saved Money Today

It's been a busy (yet financially productive!) day today.  Here are all the ways we saved money today...

1. First we ran hubby's van over to Discount Tires and got the tires rotated for free.  We always buy our tires here because their service is so wonderful!
2. Then I took our trusty pole saw and hacked down a few more dying palm fronds from our trees (see tree above).  When I called the tree guys they wanted $199 PER VISIT to trim these trees...if I had to pay that much every month or so just to lop off some dead palm fronds we would be bankrupt!  The $40 pole saw was a great investment.
3. Next, we have been talking about getting a new stove.  Our old stove still works great but the drawer under the stove was a mess--it wouldn't slide in or slide out and was stuck sideways and was quite an eyesore--so yesterday evening when I was watching YouTube I checked "how to fix drawer under stove and found this video.  The fix seemed pretty simple so we gave it a shot this morning and we didn't even need to buy new parts, one of the drawer slides had fell off so we screwed it back on, and it works perfectly now.  No need for a new stove now :)
4. We have had the SIL's car in the shop for a few days to figure out what problems it has (the car is a 2001 but she loves it and still wants to keep it in tip top shape).  Unfortunately, the bill to fix everything that is wrong with it would be around $2,000 (!); fortunately we have a great relationship with the guys who own the shop so they are both fair with their prices and quite generous (they didn't charge us anything for a multi-hour evaluation of the car!).  We suggested she just drive it until it dies as it still runs fine even though the water pump leaks, the AC is OK and not great, etc.
5. We went to the Palms Casino Buffet for lunch today.  The couple in front of us paid $38 for their two buffets and we paid $2.75.  We did this by using a buy-one, get-one-free coupon, using hubby's player's card (he plays poker so he has a higher rated card which gets bigger discounts at restaurants), using hubby's comp points (earned while playing poker), then paying the remainder of $2.75.
6. We have managed to keep both the air conditioning and the heating systems turned off so far.  The weather has been pretty great over the past few weeks, not too hot and not too cold, and if we need it, we just use a portable fan or small space heater so we don't have to use the whole-house systems.  Hopefully we can keep doing this for at least another month or so in order to save money on heating.
7. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 tablet which is really old in tablet years (it's from 2015!).  I bought a new tablet a couple months ago but ended up returning it because it was just too big (10" as opposed to the 8" S2).  I just love this smaller-sized tablet but Samsung hasn't released a better 8 inch tablet since then and my tablet has a battery that drains very quickly so I have been looking at all of the 8" tablet options, of which there are very few and none that I like, and so I decided to just try putting a new battery in my old tablet.  I hopped on Amazon and ordered a new battery for my tablet and will see if this $20 investment will add more years of life to it.  Again, the "how to" part of replacing the battery can be found on YouTube.
8. We have been shopping loss leaders like crazy.  We will be hosting about 25 people in a few weeks for the daughter's wedding.  Some people will stay in our guest rooms and the others have booked their time shares/hotel rooms near by, but we will be providing meals for a few days while everyone is here.  We used to have a catering business so cooking for a crowd is no big deal but buying enough food (mostly meat and vegetables for Asian dishes) can get really expensive, really fast.  Each week we pick up any super cheap loss leaders/sale items at the store that we can find and are stockpiling these items until everyone arrives.  There is a huge difference in price between 49 cent a pound chicken legs and buying full-priced chicken, for example.  We also stretch our meals by making a lot of rice and noodle dishes which are mainly a lot of the cheaper item (rice or noodles) with only a little bit of meat and vegetables needed.  I also bake all kinds of inexpensive, but very tasty, desserts.
9. Also last night while watching YouTube, I came across this video on how much it actually costs to work and live like the average American.  This video makes me want to be even more frugal and as financially free as possible.
10. Finally, we are making small home improvements instead of going all out.  On the one hand, I would love to have all new paint and flooring done before everyone comes here in a few weeks but that would be a huge expense on tops of the expenses we will be covering for the wedding.  Instead I will be shampooing the carpets, scrubbing all of the cabinets, and maybe doing a bit of touch-up painting...basically anything to make the house look great if it can be done for very little money.