30 Days of Less-part 2

Do you remember that I said that I was participating in Mary's 30 Days of nothing? I wrote about it here, but I thought that I would give you all an update and some of the ideas that I've been using.

• I finally filled up my car again on Tuesday-the first time since Sept. 2-for $58. 21 days on 1 tank of gas. Quite the savings over other months. How I did it: I was walking the kids to school until I cut my foot, we take HD's work truck to church and other family outings, and I was very aware of running errands all in one trip. Full disclosure though, neither of my kids are in sports right now so there is no back and forth to games and practice.
  
• This savings won't be seen until our new water bill comes, but when I'm around the house by myself doing chores, I don't wear clean clothes. When you only go through 1 or 2 pairs of shorts/jeans in a week that comes to roughly 1 LESS load of laundry a week. Don't get me wrong, I shower and dress when I need to go out, but on the days that I'm home and doing housework there is no need to put on clean clothes just to get them dirty.
• I have been cooking from the pantry and garden, looking to see what we have and making due with that. Some of the combinations have been a little odd but no one is going hungry, and that helped me save gas because I wasn't running to the store for that 'one thing' that we needed for dinner. I also found a yummy recipe (that I will post later) for making your own homemade refried beans. So easy and WAY cheaper than canned.
  
• I found out, entirely by accident, that buying Starbucks whole bean coffee is way more economical at an actual Starbucks store, rather than buying it at the grocery store. Normally we buy 2 lb. of whole bean Kirkland brand (roasted by Starbucks, by the way,) at Costco for about $9.99. When we run out and can't make a Costco run we usually just grab whatever at the grocery store. (This is where I insert that good coffee is not on the chopping block around here. It is the one thing that HD will NOT go without on a daily basis.) When I went to bible study last week, at a local Starbucks, I remembered that we needed coffee so I figured I'd grab a bag to get us through until this week. A full pound of whole bean there was $9.99 whereas at the grocery store you can get only 12 oz. for $10.99 or $11.99. Worth it for the savings if you don't scrimp on coffee and can't get to Costco. The real beauty of this is that I also had a gift card in my wallet that I only thought had a couple of bucks left on it but it actually had a lot more and I was able to get my drink, the coffee, and still have $9.00 left. Cool!

I have to say that I bow to the Queen on this one. Mary has successfully fed her family on $2oo this month. She has 10 kids, y'all. They do have a monster garden and have eaten a lot of fresh veggies, but she is now determined to cut $200 out of her monthly food budget by what she has learned this month. Go read through this month of posts and see just how she did it and give her a big pat on the back.

What I would like to know is what things have you cut out recently to save money, or what do you go without on a regular basis because you think it's just not worth it?