Something frugal, and something not that frugal

Shall we begin with the not so frugal thing about this week?

Well, I caved and bought this mook (a Japanese term referring to a book magazine with gift, usually a pouch or a tote). Do you recognize the character? She's Lilla My from the Moomin tribe! The cartoon is originated from Finland.

 

The mook is not very expensive, but surely it's not a need, but a want. The bag is made of nylon, has no zippers, but I like the way the colors combined and the cartoon on it. So much for saying to 'pay thyself' first...hahaha.

Moving onto the frugal things this week:

We went to the movies, but we chose to eat at a food court, that cut down our dinner to about US$4.5 for me, US$8 for DB. We bought bottled water because we were both coming from work, usually if it's on the weekend I'd bring my own.

I checked the travel insurance price last week from our usual provider, they offered 10% off throughout the year for their members. Today when I looked at it again, they are offering 35% off for members - YAY. It pays to wait, but I really wouldn't recommend you to wait to buy it at the last minute since the companies take time to process before they issue a green light to your insurance policy. I would suggest if you know you're needing it anyway, go check in with them every now and then, and pounce when a special offer (than usual offer) is there.

I took some time off due to a dental appointment this week, and managed to squeeze in an hour brisk walk at the park, that's gonna be the single entry in my March exercise goal, lol. The said dental appointment meant a surgery date pushed earlier (end of 2015) than the old date (2017 / 2018, which was way too far away). I have doubts about this dental operation, since it's not necessarily a life-threatening situation, and they told me they'll give me 2-3 days off after the operation. Seriously! I must have underestimated it based on my one time experience with removing a wisdom tooth. Well, at least, the operation should save me from seeking private dentist. I also scrapped plans for the dental checkup-and-wash in March, one that I have to pay for, since I have an upcoming visit to a dentist covered by my employer in May anyway. BONUS: I made progress on the Mrs. Moneypenny book (!) instead of the book I'm supposed to finish, but sorry, not sorry!

Tomorrow we'll be dining out WITH coupons, you guessed it. The other day I told DB that since we usually eat out (because we aren't sharing a home together), we might as well: (1) eat more frugal sometimes; (2) when we eat fancy / more up-scale, relatively speaking, we might as well do some hacking, that includes Super Monday deals, going on days / to places that let you multiply the points / miles on your card (travel hacking); (3) make use of coupons from newspaper and flyers. DB agreed. 

I applied for an equivalent to Nectar card in the UK - a moneyback card from a supermarket chain, I don't know why I didn't apply it sooner, I should have! I don't shop at supermarket much, if at all, but it makes sense to have it ready when I do shop there, no matter how infrequently and how small the amount usually was. I had this "ding!" moment when I was paying for the cheese fondue pack at the cashier a few weeks ago. The card took more than 3 weeks to arrive in the mail, but I'm happy that I made a sensible decision :-) Note: supermarket and grocery store are not the same thing (for me).

Upgrading my existing credit card to the "elite" status had been on my mind for months but haven't got around to actually ask about it in detail. To be honest, apart from accumulating miles quicker, it doesn't really offer that much benefits (unlimited access to airport lounges throughout the year? I don't travel more than twice a year and twice a year, the maximum amount of how frequent I can use the airport lounge with my current card, is enough for me). Second, the annual card fee was much higher than the current one, and can only be waived if I had a 150,000 spending, which is rather impossible. Don't think I'll be making the upgrade in this case.

A friend sent me some goodies from the mail - she ordered a matching set of a perfume for both of us, how sweet of her! Her parcel totally made my day week.

The past week had seen me really busy with work so this weekend will be all about catching up with blogs! This week had been not very good, hope you have a good weekend.