It is SIXTY degrees and sunny today!! Hello spring and warmth. I have seriously missed you.

My weekend is going to be spent outside – what about you all? Gardening, biking, walking the doggo. All the outside things, thankyouverymuch.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. Since the kiddo’s school changed locations, a bit farther away from work and home, we’ve been settling in to carpooling with another family. Now that we’ve been at it for a few weeks, things seems to be sorting themselves out.

The cost and time savings of carpooling has been great, allowing our work schedules to be pretty much normal. But even more than that, I’m reminded about how much local community matters. I’m all about online community, clearly, but that in person stuff matters a whole lot, too. (Okay, apparently I said something very very similar to this two weeks ago, but oh how it is true)

2. I started out reading Octavia Butler’s Patternist series on audiobook, but after I finished book one, I realized that the library didn’t have the other three on audiobook, only ebook or hard copy.

After sitting with it for a couple of days, I decided to check them out as ebooks instead of buying them with Audible credits. I regularly pause Audible to save money, and only have a few credits available there, so listening to all three books that way would have cost me quite a bit. I don’t normally switch mediums partway through a series, but I’m very glad for the savings.

3. Speaking of new book reads, I’m partway through Machiavelli for Women and holy cow you need to read this book. Just uh be ready to be ragey and want to throw the book across the room.

Shoutout to WPF Insider Ashley for first recommending the book. Super excited to be talking about it for book club this month. Excited / angry? One of those books.

4. On the library and book thread, the kiddo got his first library card last weekend! He was absolutely thrilled, and I’m glad we waited to get him his own until he was really getting the hang of reading and would be properly excited about it.

He checked out two Dog Man books and Captain Underpants. Not my favorite reads, but they’re starting to turn him into a reader, so I suppose I can’t knock them. If your kiddo likes those or similar books, I’m definitely looking for other recommendations.

5. I mentioned it on Twitter, but yesterday marked six months since we said goodbye to our Sasha dog. We still all miss her. A lot.

It really is unfair that dogs live such short lives. Ten to fifteen years with them simply isn’t enough.

Ps. For those who missed it, we launched our newest WPF community space recently: Woven by WPF. We’re using Mighty Networks for the platform, which means we pay to host the community there.

That also means there are no third party ads and no Facebook algorithm or other nonsense. It’s really a lovely space and it’s been like a breath of fresh air. If you’re a woman or non-binary reader of this blog, I’d highly recommend you check it out. It is a paid space at $5 a month, which means it tends to be a kinder more intentional space than Facebook as well.

For less than a Starbucks a month, you can support WPF and be part of a wonderful community online, while loosening (or cutting) the tether that is Facebook. Sign up here.