Ten days ago I set out on a challenge to not spend any money for two weeks. I was doing great up until this morning. A cold I was fighting off turned nasty and I sent my husband to the drug store for some meds. I thought we could do it without spending money since I had $10.50 in CVS Extra Care Bucks, but when my husband got to CVS it was closed. He had to get to work and couldn’t wait for it to open just so he could use the ECB’s. So instead he went to Walgreens and spent $10.12 on a box of nasal decongestant.

If it hadn’t been for my pesky illness I think we could have made it all the way. And of course we’ll continue to try to not spend anything until our challenge ends at midnight on Friday. We even managed to have a great “frate” on Friday. It’s a term I made up that combines “free” and “date.” We made the rounds with coupons in hand and scored lots of free stuff.

First we hit up Bi-Lo with two coupons for free soda that I got from completing a survey on my last Bi-Lo experience. I told you about this deal in last week’s edition of Free Stuff Friday. Then we checked out the Redbox up the street. I used coupon code “BREAKROOM” to rent My Sister’s Keeper for free. But since we really weren’t in the mood for a sad movie we drove to the nearby Blockbuster Express and used coupon code “GV9TA4″ to get Duplicity with Julia Roberts for free. Finally we paid Taco Bell a visit and got two free Fresco tacos thanks to these printable coupons. It was fun to see what all we could get without paying a penny and even though being sick forced us to spend money, I think buying medicine is a good reason.