A Little Bit of Friday Frugality (is that a word?)

It's frugal Friday, folks, which means it's time for me to report on all the ways I saved money this week. Well, I am taking it a step further and telling you how I MADE money this week. I am so proud of myself.

While we wait for my tutoring jobs to kick in (we laugh because I am currently employed with THREE tutoring companies, but I am getting zero hours) we are getting super creative with our money, trying to make it stretch as far as possible. And Dave says that we have to be intense about this. Get serious. Get angry, he says. And he also tells us to sell stuff. Well, every time I read that or hear that, I think, "we have absolutely nothing to sell." Or nothing that I am willing to sell--such as my china or silver--the two nice things we own:). Then I read this blog post over here, and I decided to try to sell my books. At first I just tried to sell books that I don't want anymore. And then I started thinking about the fact that I am not teaching anymore, won't be back in the classroom anytime soon, and plan to use classical curriculum with my own children, so I have no need for all my old college books. This is when the money started rolling in. Remember at the end of each semester when it was time to sell back books? I loved that part of the semester. This was that same feeling. And I just went crazy, and sold almost all of the books in our home. This is why we have a library, right? If I want to read it I can check it out. And one day, when we are debt free, which we are hoping we will be in just a few short years, I can buy all of these books back through Amazon. For a fraction of the original cost.

So, I packed all of the books up into an empty pampers box, covered it in packing paper, and attached the provided shipping label. Then came the hard part--getting it to the post office. This box was full of things like, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The COMPLETE works--that's a lot of book, and that was just one of many in the box. I managed, however, to get the box down the stairs and into my car. Then when we got to the post office, I loaded the box in the stroller and carried Ada in. At this point I was stuck and didn't know how to hold Ada and put the box on the counter at the same time. The sweet mail lady suggested I sit Ada on the counter, she would make sure Ada didn't fall off, and I could lift the box. Well, the second I let go of Ada and the mail lady put her hand on Ada's back, Ada went crazy crying at the top of her lungs in a very quiet post office. So...the sweet mail lady came around the counter, unloaded the box for me, and I carried a screaming, trembling Ada out of the post office. And now I just wait for my check. With every week that passes I get thriftier and thriftier.

For more great money saving tips, check out Frugal Fridays.