Today I noticed that I'm a month ahead on AS's healthcare premiums. Meaning I just paid for August but still had a line item for it. I think at some point it changed from the end of a month to the beginning and I probably ate the cost and didn't realize it was already there in the budget.

So anyway, that was $228 out of the blue! I put $28 in our grocery budget because we're badly over budget from stocking up on various things and from forgetting to pick up our CSA veggies one week (grr). $100 I put in our shared spending because we have a growing wish list that we're waiting to get the money to buy. And the other $100 I stuck into savings. I'm going to try and put at least a bit into savings every time we have an influx of unallocated money.

Speaking of groceries, we've used Instacart several times for weeks when we were really tired or our weekends were super booked. I have to say, it shaves hours of chores out of our Saturday! It's not exactly frugal; there's a $6 delivery fee and I definitely feel like I need to tip the person at least 10% since they're not just delivering; they're actually doing the shopping for us.

But the good thing is if the delivery and tip puts us over budget, we can go through the cart and see if there are things we don't need. At the grocery store, we sometimes go over budget because we only estimate costs of things before we get there, or we throw in an impulse item. This way, we can really see what things cost and scale back or eliminate impulse purchases to stay within budget.

Long story short, last time we ordered I saw an offer to sign up for an account, with a 2-week free trial. After that, it's $149 per year, with unlimited free deliveries. At $6 per pop saved, it would take 25 deliveries before it was worth it.

But, that means that if we used it every week, the delivery charge would average out to less than $3 per delivery. And, we've been using it for one store each week and still going in person to the other stores, so the delivery charge wouldn't add up. If we kept this membership we could potentially do almost all our grocery shopping online. For not having a car, it's a huge time-saver for not much extra money. And like I said, with clever adjusting we could probably still stay within our existing grocery budget.

Bonus: They just emailed me today that they're now doing liquor-store deliveries! I'm definitely going to look into that and see what the prices are like, but I saw that our favorite boxed wine is a good price on there.

We got Chase Freedom offers in the mail this past week for spend $500, get $150 back. Also, if you add an authorized user and they make a purchase, you get another $25. My dilemma: I read the fine print and it specifically says people who open credit cards only for the promotional offers are not eligible.

Now I know for a fact that they'll still give it to me, but having actually read that in the fine print, I'm having misgivings about signing us up for it. It's such a good easy deal that I'd definitely sign all three of us up and get $525 for spending $1500! So tempting, but not sure if I'll do it.

We have the kids' first sleepover this weekend-- a 6YO and a 7YO staying Saturday afternoon through Sunday mid-morning. So...wish us luck! I think we'll order pizza for dinner, but if so we're gonna cheap out and not order from one of our two favorite gourmet pizzerias. I was thinking Pizza Hut. I do love their spicy breadsticks.

We haven't planned much in the way of activities but we already know what food and treats we'll be giving them, so that's a start. I'll talk to my kids tonight and see if they have any elaborate ideas that we need to start planning now, or if they just want to hang out and play with the girls.

Speaking of the kids, the older one (AA, 6) wanted some "special time" with me last weekend. I knew exactly what would thrill her; she's brainy and silly, but she's also a super girly girl. So I hired a car and took her to get a manicure, then to a coffee shop for soda. She adored it, as I figured she would. I went in the hole on my spending money for it, so I can't do it all the time! The car was covered by our carshare budget, but the mani cost me $12 and we ended up spending almost $18 at the coffee shop because she wanted to bring back drinks for the rest of the family.

I can tell my kiddo is going to appreciate the finer things in life, so even more reason to make sure I give her a good financial education as part of her upbringing!