July Frugals [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

Stella

7-1-12, 2:04pm

iforonwy that is some serious frugality! Good job!

I actually put the money we saved on Friday by not going out to eat in the savings account. Weekends are our least frugal time, but it hasn't been bad. The girls and I brainstormed ideas for Sunday family days for summer and fall and now have a schedule worked out through September. July's Family Day cost is $100 for the month, and that doubles as Isabella's birthday present. She wants to go to a waterpark. She was originally going to go horseback riding, but she wouldn't be able to go on a trail ride until she's 8, so she decided that can be next year's birthday.

August's family day cost is going to be $15 for archery. Septemeber is $150 because of the State Fair and Fall Fest at our church, but those are once a year things. By having it all planned, mostly free stuff with a few more expensive things thrown in, it will keep us within our budget and balance things out. I tried to plan outdoor stuff for the most part for summer and fall so we can save some indoor stuff for the winter. Today we are going to the beach.

fidgiegirl

7-1-12, 2:26pm

Welcome to the boards, iforonwy. Hopefully we'll be hearing more of those kinds of powerhouse frugals :)

We are organizing the garage today. I am a longtime believer in organization as a form of frugality. We almost had some near-misses when DH went on his fishing trip where we had to send non-preferred stuff or even almost needed to go buy some things because we couldn't find some of his items. So in the garage, we hope to have our stuff locate-able so we don't have to go buy a thing. We have also tucked a few things away in the loft space, like the dog barrier for the car. Current dog doesn't need it anymore, he just stays in the back all on his own. But a future dog might, and they are like $100, so we put it away up there out of the way.

rosarugosa

7-1-12, 2:39pm

Stella: I think it's great that you come up with so many low/no-cost recreational activities for your family. Some things will cost money of course, but if you exploit all the less spendy options before throwing money at the question, you will get so much more for your money - and your life.
We took another hike through Breakheart this morning; it was wonderful as always, and we were quite excited to get a good close look at a deer, see Indian Pipe toadstools, and identify the trees with the interesting leaves as Sassafras. Then we went to Lynn Woods. Anyone in our area will know that Lynn is not exactly synonymous with vast acres of unspoiled nature, so perhaps it isn't too surprising that this was our first visit although we've spent most of our lives within 5 miles of the place. Well what an amazing surprise! The park is huge asnd contains 3 reservoirs. We only saw two other people the whole time we were there, and it was much more unspoiled than Breakheart. No swimming areas or snack stands, etc. means that nature is pretty much the only attraction. Near the main entrance, there is a gorgeous rose/perennial garden with arbors, benches, wonderful stonework - and we were the only ones in the garden. It seemed like a magical secret garden in the woods - as we went up the little stone steps into the garden, I felt like a character in a fairy tale! I can't believe that I never even heard of this garden while living so close for so many years. You can be sure this was only the first of many visits, and DH and I were so happy to discover it together :)

DarkStar

7-1-12, 5:40pm

I cleaned up and organized my storage closet that doubles as a pantry space. I've got enough rice, other grains, beans, and pasta so that I don't have to buy any of those staples for a long time. Now that I have a better idea of what I really have, I'm resolved to eat down the pantry before buying anything besides fresh veggies, eggs, and cheese at the Farmer's Market. And I'm going to try to eat less cheese and eggs, using them more as supplements to dishes. That should save me a lot in groceries over the next few months.

I made a scrumptious dinner of eggplant in black bean and garlic sauce and refried rice today. Reheated some for lunch.

Rosemary

7-1-12, 5:52pm

Wow, I'm not the only one getting organized. I spent about 3 hours last night cleaning and organizing part of the kitchen and will work on it some more in the coming week. I put all the beans and grains in old pasta sauce jars that I had saved and labeled the tops. They're in deep drawers and very easy to find now, rather than having random bags in a jumble.

Otherwise -- minimal driving and no spending this weekend. It's been really hot, but the mornings have been pleasant. DD and I went for a bike ride to a park yesterday and in the afternoon we all used a movie gift card to see Brave. We hardly ever go to the theater as a family because of (a) the lack of appropriate and entertaining movies and (b) cost. But free, we can do. Today our only outing was to the library. Some friends came over to pick berries and so DD had playmates for a while.

We're making progress on emptying the freezer, too, so grocery spending has been very low. And I made 2 more batches of low-sugar jam - varied mixtures of black and red raspberries and red currants.

cdttmm

7-1-12, 7:33pm

Wow -- awesome start to the month, everyone!

Stella: I love the MN State Fair, it is one of the things I miss most about my home state! One year I'll remember to plan far enough in advance to take a vacation specifically for the purpose of going to the Fair!

rosarugosa: You are right, I do not associate Lynn with acres of unspoiled nature! (I used to run after school tutoring programs at a number of schools in Lynn -- perhaps we should have included nature walks as part of the curriculum!) I have some friends out that way who love to do outdoor stuff, so I'm going to suggest we check out Lynn Woods next time I'm in the area.

+1 for organizing as a form of frugality! I listed some miscellaneous items on Freecycle yesterday -- no takers just yet, but I'm hoping that this stuff will soon be gone, which will make things a bit more organized around here. I also put together a stack of books to pass along to the library book sale.

Used the Gas Buddy app on my iPhone today and discovered that I would be driving by a gas station where gas was 6 cents per gallon cheaper than my usual gas station. Filled up and saved myself a little over a dollar. Stopped at CVS to get my iron supplements and got a $1.00 extra bucks coupon on my receipt. Used it immediately to buy Gatorade that was on sale for...you guessed it, $1.00! I never buy Gatorade anymore, but free Gatorade I will accept. :~) At Whole Foods the cashier was nice enough to point out that there was a coupon in this month's coupon booklet for 50 cents off the crackers I was buying. I don't generally buy much in the way of prepared foods so I rarely remember to look for coupons, but I've been experimenting with eating gluten-free so I had picked up some gluten free crackers to have in the house. I took the rest of the coupon booklet home with me and found about 5 more coupons that I might end up using.

Dried a load of laundry on the line today -- easy since it was 95 degrees out again today.

But the biggest win -- I made it through our heat wave (and it was officially a heat wave because we had temperatures above 90 degrees for 3 days) without once turning on the A/C in the house!!! Woo-hoo!!! The house only got up to 75 degrees today so it's not only been comfortable for humans, but also comfortable for all the pets. The dogs, of course, spend much of their time lying on the tile or hardwood floors, which I'm sure help them keep a little cooler.

danna

7-1-12, 10:15pm

lizii

7-2-12, 3:43am

July 01----Happy Canada Day 145 years old.....
Welcome iforonwy

--spreadsheets all up to date, accounts balanced, and my net worth climbs some every month..yeah
--company for supper tomorrow and I have everything in the house to make a lovely meal
--sold stuff on Kijiji today for a total of $65.00
--made fresh spring rolls with shrimp for supper all from stuff that needed to be used up and bought previously
my challenge this month is to only buy stuff I use.
--only running the A/C when needed which has been pretty good considering the temps and humidity.

Hi Danna,

Tonight I watched the July 1 fireworks from my apartment by opening the vertical blinds and watching them reflect in the windows of homes on the next block up from where I live.

No need to go outdoors to watch the usual display. What surprised me was there were no kids setting off firecrackers in the neighbourhood this year. Fireworks are prohibited here, but kids always managed to buy them, maybe in a different area, and someone always ended up having an accident by holding them in their hands instead of throwing them down on the ground. Many kids had suffered bad burns by doing this, so it was great to have a safe July 1st celebration with no injuries this year.

When I was raising my kids, the neighbours would gather to watch a display by our local firemen.

iforonwy

7-2-12, 5:51am

Thank you for the welcome. It's a return for me as I used to post on the old boards. I discovered YMOYL back in about 2000 and started to log all expenditure and we tried to live off one income. Good job that we did as DH retired early (ill health) in 2002. We then had some very good luck regarding an inheritance and so I was able to "retire" in 2003 and we downsized. We then lived off DH's retirement pension incomes until mine kicked in in 2009.

We learned the mantra of "we have enough" but have managed to save and travel (extensively) over the years since.
Member Suzanne will atest to that! We have managed to visit each other a number of times over the years!

Thanks again, just off to package up the one item I have sold on e-bay this week. Only 99p but every little helps and it means that I need to walk the mile+ to the post office.

Merski

7-2-12, 7:13am

Entering a very tough financial period. DH doesn't have any photo classes till Sept. so one of his paychecks is gone. My pay goes entirely to mortgage and lucky for us I have good health insurance. We need to pay all of our insurances in August and haven't saved enough to cover them all. We will sit down and figure out how to cut back expenses severely without allowing us some FFF this summer. Will not go to New Bedford Folk Festival easily $75 for tix and gasoline but will go to lowell. $10 for parking. gas to get there and a donation. Will spend energy clearing out things to make more efficient room for my etsy stuff and his online book sales. Planning to do a flea market. Cut back a little on etsy buying (I have some back inventory). Eat down the freezer, work in garden and enjoy being together...

bunnys

7-2-12, 9:51am

Hung a load on the line today.
Going for a 2 hour walk for fitness (me and doggie) in 95+ weather. (There's access to 2 springs on the walk for a drink for doggie.)
Only ACing one room.
Library later today.

fidgiegirl

7-2-12, 11:22am

Merski, good luck . . . sounds like you have a good plan.

Stella

7-2-12, 12:05pm

Tiam thanks for the tip!

Merski, you can do it! Maybe we should start a thread on ideas for some good summer FFF. I bet we could come up with a ton of them.

I did minimal grocery shopping this week. The kid I am watching for the summer is at his Grandma's this week, so that will save me some money on food.

I RSVPd to the next neighborhood Women Who Cook event. That should be fun.

I am looking into a free gardening workshop I saw on my community gardening listserv for the girls. That's about it today. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff today.

Stella

7-2-12, 1:46pm

I forgot to mention that I have actually been doing a good job of tracking my spending this past week.

early morning

7-2-12, 6:52pm

Not much of interest here - too hot to be creative, >:(. Line drying all laundry; washing up bedding from house-guests, covers and throws from winter/spring by adding them into wash loads that are small, instead of making more loads of wash. Trying to buy only things that can easily be re-sold - actually living with our inventory, lol. Attending only free events, or those that benefit an organization that I wish to support. Went on a garden tour last Saturday, and one homeowner gave me a Red-bud tree and a Rose of Sharon start. Haven't planted them yet, but will try to do that Wednesday since I'm off work. Finally got all my spending updated and the checkbook balanced. Grocery bill was pretty low this past month, and should be this month too - we don't eat as much when it's hot! Last winter was pretty mild here so our level billing is down by $171 per month. I know, I know...and that's with the thermostat at 65 most of the day, and 55-60 at night. We seriously need more insulation or something!

AmeliaJane

7-2-12, 11:08pm

Made red, white and blue bread (cherry/blueberry/coconut) to bring to volunteers who are helping at my organization this week. Because I was using different size pans and doubling the recipe, I had a little batter left over--put it in a mini-muffin pan and will bring those to my co-workers tomorrow. All ingredients were out of my pantry and I really needed to use several of them up. The 4th of July will be going to my sister's neighborhood in the morning to see their children's parade, and then working at a holiday celebration--a fun, old-fashioned holiday festival. Technically it is work, but I would much rather do that than be at the huge, crowded city event, or sitting around at home. My family is going to try and come to our event if my nieces are behaving well. I hope so--I would love to make this a family tradition...

danna

7-2-12, 11:51pm

July 2
It sounds like July is off to a good start

--Dsil and Dd and grandson for a holiday lunch--had BBQ chicken thighs, Salad and a new to me that I am calling Fresh Spring Roll Salad
it was excellent and I will make it again.
--holiday so we have an extra day at the lower hydro rate so washed and dried up some bedding.
--leftovers for supper

try2bfrugal

7-3-12, 2:17am

I came in at 75% of my budget last month for flexible monthly spending items like groceries, gas, hair cuts, entertainment and household purchases. The only "stuff" purchases I made were a couple of used books to benefit the library and some craft fair type jewelry made by other members of our rock club, which came to under $30 total. Some of the jewelry pieces I will set aside and give to MIL for Christmas. I am interested in learning to make my own jewelry but I think it is actually cheaper to buy it already made from the other club members, since many seem to have a surplus. Some of the earrings and necklaces will go into the neat wooden jewelry box I bought at a thrift shop last month.

We were getting one of our kids ready for a trip these last few days so that kept us from driving or shopping much for ourselves, except for a few travel necessities for him. I have been checking out books on simplicity and crafts from the library. Tonight I got a book on how to make my own soap and a book on sustainable living, though at this point I have read so many books on the sustainable living I am not finding many more unique ideas.

We are in the process of refinancing at a no cost loan which will reduce our mortgage payment. We locked the rate over a week ago but I asked if they could do anything to get it lower and our mortgage person said she would look into it. That would be nice to go even lower on the rate, but if not as long as rates stay low we will just refinance again with another no cost loan next month.

Last month I raised the deductibles on our home and auto insurance policies and got a refund check today for the premium difference. It was nice to get a check in the mail instead of the usual bills.

Stella

7-3-12, 9:14am

I ended up not making the BLTs last night. I made the chilaquiles instead. Yum! Tonight will be the BLTs with lettuce from the garden and tomorrow will be grilled pizza.

It's insanely hot here today so I am planning a stay-at-home day. I don't use a lot of gas these days. I mostly drive on the weekends.

I have made a commitment to save a certain amount from each check and donate a certain amount. It's too easy to let it slide otherwise.

bke

7-4-12, 12:47pm

So many great posts! Its kind of nice to disappear for a few days and find a large amount of stuff to catch up on-its inspiring reading so much at once. Or maybe I'm just wierd:|(

I don't feel like I have much to report. We did do very well at Kroger's last week. When I was sick last summer (dehydration) the ER doctor recommended we both drink lots of Gatorade to stay hydrated in the heat. Its always at least 10 degrees hotter in the kitchen that it is outside so its nothing for us to labor for 8-10 hours in 90-100 degree temps. Anyways, gatorade after all the sale specifics were 49 cents a bottle. We bought 60+. That saves 50 cents over grocery store prices of $1 over gas station prices per bottle.

I have $16 in kroger cash and $4 in Riteaid cash to spend but may wait for next week to do so.

This may be TMI but menapause had really been kicking my butt. I'm evil.:devil: Hot flashes, mood swings, I can't sleep, physical pain, etc. Dh is nice and I cry. He makes my sandwich wrong at work and it takes everything I've got not to throw it at him. Some lady crossed against the light the other night and I wanted to get out of the car and kick her a**! So trying to be frugal, I got on the computer and searched for a solution. One thing that stood out was giving up my beloved coffee. I can easily drink 3-4 pots a day when I'm working. Plus a soda with dinner... I haven't had a soda or a cup of coffee in 8 days and am feeling much better. I also bought a bottle of vitamins for women going through menopause and they are helping too. I'm sleeping much better, the hot flashes are greatly reduced and I haven't felt the desire to lash out at some one over something stupid and minor this week.

The only problem is that I seem to be replacing the coffee with food. I just cannot go all day without eating the way I could before. But I figure the cost of the vitamins is covered by the savings from all the coffee I'm not drinking.

I've been drinking up a bunch of tea that I have in the house instead. An occasional cup of grean tea, lots of chamomile, and some Malalueca tea that my mother brought to me. I love the Malelueca and wish I could find a way to buy it on a regular basis. If any of you know how I might do this please let me know. The only source I no of requires me make a large monthly commitment to the company.

early morning

7-4-12, 1:11pm

more wash is sweltering on the line, and I have some smelly blankets, deposited by DS, soaking in the washer. I'll hang them out tonight. Don't have to drive to check on Mom, as Dsis is going over today anyway - so no driving. Too hot to go see fireworks!! So no gas burned. Need to get a new chainsaw. We have a big one but I can't handle it, and my little electric one is non-functioning. I'm going to try a battery one. We have a host of battery op tools, using the same batteries, and we have quite a few extra batteries and a large charging dock. I don't need it to do big stuff, just cut through some smaller limbs so I can get them into the pickup to haul out to the field. We don't burn inside; although it would be nice to have a woodstove, the mess and the thought of what it might do to DDs and my asthma, plus the cost of shoring up the floor with a hearth just doesn't seem worth it. I was going to go get one today but realized that I wouldn't use it right away anyway - too hot!- so may as well look around at prices, and not make a special trip to get it.

Square Peg

7-4-12, 1:23pm

How is this for frugal: we have decided to extend our no-spend to a no-spend year! Only needed items and costs for the next year. No thrift shops. If someone has a true need, we may pop in to one with a list firmly in hand and an accountability partner.

fidgiegirl, I agree with you that organizing is a frugality. We are doing a massive purge of our home right now (as in, a shed full of stuff to garage sale this weekend) and I found the most beautiful hummingbird feeder in my basement! New, it would have been $70, I had purchased it at Goodwill this winter for $5 and it almost spent the entire summer languishing in the basement! I found it and hung it on the porch instead.

My youngest son loves horses and all animals, and so he and my DH are volunteering at an orphan horse rescue farm. Much cheaper ( free) than horse camp and they are giving back.

Tussiemussies

7-4-12, 1:25pm

try2bfrugal

7-4-12, 1:48pm

My youngest son loves horses and all animals, and so he and my DH are volunteering at an orphan horse rescue farm. Much cheaper ( free) than horse camp and they are giving back.

That is a great idea. I wish I had looked for more volunteer activities like that for our kids when they were younger.

We are realizing now that we have probably more fun doing activities with non-profit clubs and groups then we did when we spent more money on things like restaurants and concert tickets. When we decided to go the simple living, low cost route at first we were not sure if we would feel deprived on a reduced entertainment budget. But it turns out we have actually had more fun and some months I haven't spent hardly any money at all. Our library has free passes to about 30 major local attractions, I bought a reciprocal museum pass for some not on their list, our local parks have many free events, we ride our bikes and hike and belong to several clubs with low annual membership fees. So we can by quite busy all month long and not spend any money at all except for gas.

rosarugosa

7-4-12, 8:37pm

I just ordered a free Arm & Hammer sensitive toothpaste sample. if anyone is interested, you can order at: freeAHsensitive.com. I'm certainly not in BKE's league, but every little bit helps. They will send you an e-mail and you have to click on the link in the e-mail to confirm your shipping address.

fidgiegirl

7-4-12, 8:45pm

fidgiegirl

7-4-12, 8:50pm

We had FFF at a friend's house today. We were super grateful for the invitation because 1) we haven't seen them in a social setting in a while and 2) they have a pool! We contributed the veggies, which sadly sat out in the heat and will have to be thrown, but we were strategic with the dip - we split it into two containers and brought them both. That way, if one sat out and got ruined in the 100 heat (which it did) and people were going crazy over the dip, or we needed more food, or whatever, we could pull out the second one. But as suspected, there was more than enough food and the veggie tray is always the last of what gets eaten, so we brought the rest of the dip and some of our carrots home in the cooler. :)

We got a new garage door for $50 off Craigslist. My parents are going to bring it for us on Saturday when we will have a fish fry for both sets of parents and my DBiL. The fish is from my DH's recent fishing trip.

I should report on how the garage organize went - we ended up doing it for $0! We thought we would go get special hooks to hold the tools on the wall, but then DH (smartly) said, why don't we just pound in 2 nails (you know, two nails and then the handle of the yard tool hangs in between). We had also squirreled away quite a few other packages of hooks that we got from DFiL a while ago and never got around to organizing our old garage. :laff: So those came with us and are in service now.

Hope everyone has a lovely and safe 4th!!

fidgiegirl

7-4-12, 8:54pm

I've been drinking up a bunch of tea that I have in the house instead.

Smart! I really like iced tea, and brew mine cold overnight. We are consuming a lot lately. I love that you look for your own solutions to this rather than running to the doctor. That's what I'd probably do. :(

Square Peg

7-4-12, 9:50pm

Merski

7-4-12, 10:23pm

bke welcome to the club most of us wanted to join to get out of our monthly "visitor" at one time and now we're sorry we're in it.:devil:

flowerseverywhere

7-5-12, 7:57am

went to the fireworks last night, the Symphony played beforehand and it was all free. I packed a little cooler of water and snacks. It was only a seven mile drive but we hadn't driven in days!

Starting a quilt for my granddaughter and I found enough scraps to make the whole thing. It will be squares of machine applique animals set in a barn. The back will be scraps from the front. I sew in the evening and listen to books on tape.

Next week I have two days set up where I am going to different friends houses to help them with sewing projects. In return for my help they will feed me lunch and both are excellent cooks.

cdttmm

7-5-12, 7:59am

Pretty quiet week here. Stayed home for the 4th of July and worked on the flower gardens. Then went for a trail run despite the fact that it was still 90 degrees outside and high humidity. Since I can run to the trail head from our house, it was a no drive day. We can see fireworks displays from our house so that provided some frugal entertainment. Did have to finally breakdown and start using the A/C -- the humidity finally got too oppressive. But keeping it set at 76 degrees for the most part and keeping the house closed up so that the A/C doesn't have to kick in any more than absolutely necessary. Going to focus on eating up whatever is in the refrigerator over the next few days since I'm headed to Texas for work next week.

bke

7-5-12, 11:49am

Yesterday and the day before were no spending/driving days. Today I'm feeling a bit stir-crazy so there's a chance we might go out this evening. When we're home dh is content to sit in front of the television. I'd rather be on the computer or reading a book but he feels neglected when I do so. That's the difference between me, the introvert, and a man who grew up in a house that always held 3 generations and at least 10 people at any given time.

Merski- I'm only 41 so the menopause thing took me by surprise. My first reaction was Cool, it's almost over! It seemed like the minute I celebrated this new phase of life it set out to see just how much it could mess with me. I guess I'm glad that at least some of you understand and didn't feel the need to shun me because of my admitted lack of emotional control-haha!

I really haven't been doing much of my usual frugals. I just can't seem to get myself organized with the coupons and sweepstaking seems like work at the moment. Dh and I are pretty frustrated at the moment. Between getting the house back, poor business at work, low interest rates and having to re-finance the restaurant we feel like our dream of retiring in a few years is slipping away. If things stay like this, it will easily take an additional 5-10 years to reach our goal.

So today I'm doing swag bucks, signing up for a few freebies and just kind of laying low.

crunchycon

7-5-12, 2:19pm

Going on vacation next month to visit family. Yep, we're being spendy and staying in a hotel rather than camping out in someone's spare room. What's frugal is that the hotel room is nearly free, as I'm cashing in hotel points from a LOT of business travel for the three-day visit. For us, lodging is usually the most expensive part of the visit, as I'm the Queen of Bring Your Own Food.

domestic goddess

7-5-12, 2:32pm

OK you can all say that I am really mean now. Yesterday I washed 6 pairs of tights using a shampoo that I did not like but had not thrown away and then dried them on an airer in the sun-room. When they were dry I checked them over for runs, or ladders as we can them this side of the pond, and as 2 pairs had one leg that was holey I cut off those legs and I will wear 2 half pairs to make one good pair.
If you are really mean (I think we would call it cheap here), then so am I becaused that is exactly what I have done and would do again!

Stella

7-5-12, 2:39pm

I guess I'm glad that at least some of you understand and didn't feel the need to shun me because of my admitted lack of emotional control-haha!

LOL. I've never been through menopause, but having been pregnant for much of the last 8 years I am no stranger to hormones and lack of emotional control. :devil:

We are having another quiet stay-at-home day. I made a tuna pasta salad when I made lunch since I was in the kitchen anyway. Now dinner is ready whenever we want to eat.

We are learning about Colonial America and the Revolutionary War, so I found some resources online. Colonial Williamsburg has some cool games and activities. The kids like to memorize things, so I wrote the preamble to the Constitution on the white board and they are practicing it. They like to memorize one thing in Latin and one thing in English. They just finished the Pledge of Allegiance and the Hail Mary. For a while we were on a poetry kick, but I guess now it's Civics related stuff, just for a change of pace.

I've banned myself from spending money on school stuff for a while, so I've made a list of some free stuff we can do. I think we're going to try orienteering this summer. That would be fun and there is a park in White Bear Lake that will even lend you a compass. I really don't have to spend money on homeschool stuff, I just like to. I need to remember that.

domestic goddess

7-5-12, 3:05pm

This may be TMI but menapause had really been kicking my butt. I'm evil.:devil: Hot flashes, mood swings, I can't sleep, physical pain, etc. Dh is nice and I cry. He makes my sandwich wrong at work and it takes everything I've got not to throw it at him. Some lady crossed against the light the other night and I wanted to get out of the car and kick her a**! So trying to be frugal, I got on the computer and searched for a solution. One thing that stood out was giving up my beloved coffee. I can easily drink 3-4 pots a day when I'm working. Plus a soda with dinner... I haven't had a soda or a cup of coffee in 8 days and am feeling much better. I also bought a bottle of vitamins for women going through menopause and they are helping too. I'm sleeping much better, the hot flashes are greatly reduced and I haven't felt the desire to lash out at some one over something stupid and minor this week.

This is where I got really lucky. Never had a symptom of menopause. As I am so often cold, I was actually looking forward to a hot flash or two, but never had one. Of course, some in my family have called me irritable, but I think of it as simply speaking my mind. Other people do it; why is it so terrible when I do it?

fidgiegirl

7-5-12, 5:05pm

Fidgiegirl, I don't know if he will get to ride them at all, but he got to feed them, lead them out to the pen, and groom 2 pregnant mares. And that was all on his first day there :)
Also, what is FFF?

Awesome!

FFF = "Fairly Frugal Fun," a term someone coined here on the frugals thread a while back. Basically anything that didn't cost much and ended up being fun.

fidgiegirl

7-5-12, 5:07pm

fidgiegirl

7-5-12, 5:08pm

That would be fun and there is a park in White Bear Lake that will even lend you a compass.

State Parks often have GPS kits for geocaching, too! Fun stuff!

fidgiegirl

7-5-12, 5:13pm

Not too frugal. Well, it was going to be . . . we found an oil change place near my work for $15 for me (since I work in the area) and $17 for everyone else. We took in both cars since they both needed changes. That is an awesome price for this area. But DH's car conked out on the way home!! Not sure what they did or didn't do when it was in there, but something is decidedly amiss. I am crossing my fingers that they will cover all costs and fix it, but even in that case, we gotta haul our butts back up there to pick it up. I am not going to beat myself up over this because it could have just as easily happened at a shop down the road. They were nice about calling a tow truck - could have been argumentative. So that's a good sign, I hope.

Shopped around for MiL's bday present and will end up ordering it online.

I bought a pair of shorts and some new nighties on sale. It was about $50.

Not a particularly rewarding afternoon, all said. At least every place was air conditioned, unlike our house. SO LOOKING FORWARD to this heat breaking.

bunnys

7-5-12, 5:48pm

Went to TJ's today and stocked up on many items I use that are so expensive. TJ's all the way on the other side of town. Went with a friend and split cost of gas/tolls.

Did other grocery shopping and stocked up on frozen fruit (blueberries, blackberries, cherries and raspberries [got a killer price on all @ Martin's]) bc I make this dark fruit cobbler every week and eat a serving every day. I sweeten it with agave nectar and also use nutmeg and tapioca. Cobbler crust is whole wheat flour, canola oil, soy milk and a little sugar. Then I eat this with soy milk on top. It is amazingly good and so good for me. I feel so healthy eating all those dark fruits. And as I'm trying to lose weight this summer and (aside from 10 servings of sweets in the sweet bank for the whole summer) I'm eschewing eating sweets, this is my sweet for the day and it's very good and isn't spiking my blood sugar level.

danna

7-5-12, 9:44pm

July05--not much to date
bke---I now for a fact that lowering (there was no way I was going to be able to stop coffee with all those hormones out of whack) but; back when I was suffering with menopause I did lower it down to 2-3 cups a day. Also, think about other caffine you might
be getting in tea/drugs/pop/chocolate, it is the total in a day that counts.

--Costco run and spent more then I planned but, mostly on really good buys on things I have been looking for.
--bought 5 lbs of ground beef and cooked it all up and packaged in the freezer ready to use--time and energy saver.

Square Peg

7-6-12, 11:30am

Decluttering continues and we start our yard sale today. This week I have spent no money. DH has probably purchased a couple of meals at work (about $4 each).

Square Peg

7-6-12, 11:32am

Interesting too, I have been planning and thinking about doing once a month shopping and cooking but I finally came to the realization that for me, it is not a good idea. I need less stuff in my life, not more. So it is not a good idea to bring a month's worth of food into my minimal storage options.

Stella

7-6-12, 12:15pm

I like the geocaching idea Kelli!

bunnys your cobbler sounds delicious.

I don't know if I mentioned this the other day, but I have been on a mission to reclaim my house from post-partum neglect. I am feeling so much better now that the kitchen, entry, dining room, downstairs bathroom, living room and deck have been rescued. I really get anxious when things are out of whack and as someone mentioned previously, organization is huge when it comes to frugality.

School has started again in earnest, which is helpful with frugality because it gives us stuff to do. It really helps with our rhythm and routine. The two month evening out on her sleep, sleeping consistantly through the night and taking reasonably predictable naps. Her next older brother, who is 15 months, sleeps for 4 hours in the middle of the day, so I am once again finding time to make things from scratch, teach the oldest kids and do housework. I think baby exhaustion probably costs me about $100-$200 a month at least in compromises for convenience's sake, so regularly sleeping babies and good routines are a huge plus in the frugal column.

I have been rocking the expense tracking and I have talked Zach out of eating lunch out everyday. That was his bad exhaustion-related habit. He usually only eats two meals a day, by choice, so I have been making him breakfast instead. It's working well for him. Seeing how much it added up really made it real for him. We are pretty much spending nothing during the week except gas for him to go to work. With weekends pretty carefully planned, I'm feeling good about our spending. We are on track this month to spend a total of about $1800, including all of our bills. Considering we are a family of seven and this includes a trip to a waterpark for a birthday I think we're doing pretty well.

chrissieq

7-6-12, 8:23pm

So very very hot in MN the past several days - stayed home and spent no money - besides the a/c and water for the garden!

Rain just came through - still humid but this too shall pass!

Been reading library books, posting things on etsy, and watching movies old-school -we still have a VCR and I bought some old favorites on VHS for .35 each at the thrift store on Sunday.

Stella

7-6-12, 9:24pm

Chrissie I was practically shouting hallelujahs when the rain came through. I am not a heat person.

fidgiegirl

7-6-12, 10:58pm

Add me to that list, MN girls!!!!

Rosemary

7-7-12, 7:35am

Oh, yes... the relief from the heat was greatly appreciated here as well. We didn't get much rain, unfortunately.
Just received our June energy bill and it was very low... will keep that in mind when we receive our July bill, which likely will not be due to the heat.
I'm heading out shortly to get some free small river rocks at a house down the street to use for various things in the house and yard. After that, I'm going to re-use two chicken wire cylinders that I had around shrubs to protect them from the deer - form them into one larger-diameter cylinder for planting potatoes; it's a bit late in the season but I had some potatoes that were beginning to sprout and figured I'd try it.
Picked another quart of raspberries, some jostaberries and gooseberries, and 2 quarts of peas in our garden yesterday.

fidgiegirl

7-7-12, 10:48pm

Rosemary, I have garden envy. We will be looking for some shrubs for our yard in the fall and maybe they need to be berries . . .

Here, we had a FFF fish fry today! My parents and in-laws and BiL came over. Everyone made a contribution, the fish was from DH/DFiL's recent trip, and all was delicious. My parents also brought our new garage door ($50 from CL, which my dad picked up in my hometown, an hour from us, saving us the gas, and brought down in his truck - awesome dad!!) and they brought us one of those big sun awnings that's like a metal pergola because it wasn't working well at their house and they thought it might go better here.

They also took the dog back with them, saving us the gas of the trip up there. Actually, that in and of itself has been a repeat frugal. They have four dogs of their own, so they never mind when ours joins the pack for a week or two. HUGE savings over a dogsitter, and truly, they don't mind. They love him. He's the "granddog."

I must sing the praises of washing soda today! In the last week I've salvaged SEVEN garments with either spot treating with washing soda or soaking in a bucket of washing soda water. Three were pants I didn't realize I'd stained with my bike seat. They all came clean. Three others were grease spots from our washer - before I did a tub clean cycle there was this greasy stuff getting on our clothes sometimes. Those I spot treated by spraying the spots with water, sprinkling washing soda on the spot, and soaking again with water. When dry, I tossed in with the wash. The seventh is currently in the wash and so the verdict is out - blueberry stains, I think. Fingers crossed!! I have learned, however, not to handle the washing soda with bare hands. It's not kill-ya caustic, but it ain't baking soda, that's for sure.

Won't be checking in for a few days as we head off on our UP trip, and wishing everyone beautiful, frugal summer days! Now to pack! :D

Rosemary

7-8-12, 6:40am

Fidgiegirl, if you'd like some berry plant starts, let me know. Most of them propagate very easily. I need to remove a lot of strawberry plants as well, if you'd like a food-producing groundcover.

Thanks for the tip on the washing soda stain removal. Enjoy your trip!

I moved some things around in the house yesterday - free redecorating, with cleaning and sorting done in the process.
Today we have several fun free activities in the area to choose from - an outdoor concert, a couple of events at museums, etc.

Stella

7-9-12, 8:43am

We had such an amazing weekend! Saturday morning my Dad and I carpooled to Costco. He needed to get some toilet paper and some stuff for the food shelf and I needed groceries. He ended up paying for my groceries! I bought him a hot dog to say thanks.

We decided to take some of the found money and take the kids bowling. Elsie's in NE Mpls has a $20.85 special for 6 people to bowl unlimited for two hours, including shoe rental. We had such a good time. Travis, my 15 month old, actually beat me. :) After that we decided to go on a drive to Stillwater to walk by the river and watch the boats. That was a lot of FFF.

Yesterday the kids all went to sleep after church for a while. In one of those the-best-things-in-life-are-free moments Zach and I had three hours to ourselves to talk and snuggle. It was lovely. I am so glad we spent that time together instead of doing housework like we had originally planned.

In the late afternoon we finally had the ice cream party the girls earned with their extra-chores/extra-schoolwork marble jars. It was a good, cheap reward for them. We spent under $15 on the whole thing and let me tell you, they worked hard for that. They had a fantastic time and are now motivated to fill the jars up again.

I was planning to go to the store for some stuff I needed that I couldn't get at Costco, but I decided instead to just see how long I can go without that. Sometimes a little creativity and a shift of plans can get me through without a trip to the store.

I had a whole bunch of bananas that got bruised on the way home from Costco, so I froze some and made banana blueberry bread from some of it. I used some of the frozen bananas for peanut butter banana breakfast popsicles. Wow, were they good! Pretty healthy too, just bananas, peanut butter, plain yogurt, honey and milk. I made it from a smoothie recipe I'd pinned on Pinterest. I will be making those again.

mara61

7-9-12, 9:34am

Hi Stella,
Does your area offer free bowling in the summer for kids? In Michigan you just sign up for certain alleys and kids can bowl two games free per day.

Sounds like a fun day!

Rosemary

7-9-12, 10:05am

Stella - re: free bowling - http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/
I know the place in Arden Hills participates.

Stella

7-9-12, 10:12am

Thanks for the information Mara and Rosemary!

Square Peg

7-9-12, 1:58pm

There is also Kids Skate Free, but it is pretty limited:
http://kidsskatefree.com/

Square Peg

7-9-12, 2:02pm

We got back (I used to say we made money at yard sales, but I am retraining myself to realize that we are only getting back money we already put out, and usually not as much) $200 on our yard sale this weekend.
We bought DS a new comforter with some of the funds. While I am being frugal this summer, I am also getting my house tidy. And so I decided I would use some yard sale money to fund things like that. His comforter had a hole in it and will now become a dog bed. Shopko had them on sale for 50% off, so his new comforter was $30. We almost bought a toilet brush and mop head at full prices, but a quick check of the Dollar Tree saved us about $15.

iforonwy

7-9-12, 4:40pm

One thing I have been doing for some time but I have concentrated a little more on it the last few weeks is to measure everything out. Obviously I have been doing that with food, whilst I am losing weight, but I thought I would try to apply it to other household things.

For example the washing powder box states that you can get 13 washes from this box - 13 I thought I'm going to beat that! So each time I measure out the 30g needed for a load I only measure out about 25g and then this is where I get a bit geeky - I mark the box to show that I have taken out enough for one load of wash. There is still lots left in the box and so far I have done 10 loads of wash.

Stella

7-9-12, 6:00pm

Oooh, the skating sounds like fun too!

I am writing up my curriculum for the coming year to send off to my mom for review. Both of my parents have Masters degrees in education, so it makes me feel better to run my curriculum by them. I save a lot of money doing it myself. This year I am thinking of enrolling Cheyenne (the only one old enough) in an online Socratic Discussion class. Dad is going halves with us on it because he would really like her to take this class.

early morning

7-9-12, 7:52pm

It was too hot Saturday to set up our flea market booth, so I went to my Dsis's to help with her house overhaul. In return, she gave me a big package of cold fried chicken to bring home. We got three meals for 3 people out of that cold chicken! Sunday it wasn't as hot, thankfully, because Dsis and I volunteered to work at our local air museum booth at a large airshow. So - we got in for free (saving almost $20 each), parked for free ($10 saved), got a nice free lunch (minimum saved, $6) and free water all day ($3 a pop for a bottle!!) Test drove a car (they wouldn't let us test-fly a plane, lol) and got a free T-shirt. We watched most of the show from our simulator tent, and on a break I took my "savings" and bought a Huey ride!! It was AWESOME! (And tax-deductible ;)) Much FFF!

Stella

7-10-12, 8:11am

Early morning that sounds like fun!

leslieann

7-10-12, 1:57pm

I am so not in the league of you frugalistas but I did want to post that I have clothes on the line today. Wish I could assess how much money that actually saves per load! AND I have to hit the grocery store but I am going to have a list and drop by my friend's garden first (he is out of town and asked if we would keep things picked...imagine that!).

Great to read the frugals and especially the FFFs. We are not great at this but need to get better. We don't spend on much of anything for months and then it seems like money just flows away for awhile....I loaned my DS a chunk of change from slush and so I am feeling the pinch a bit which is probably a good enough thing for me.

Stella

7-11-12, 8:15am

I have been doing quite a bit of cooking this week. The kid I am watching requested egg salad for lunch today so I hard boiled some eggs. That's a cheap and easy meal. I also made granola and granola bars yesterday and strawberry banana breakfast popsicles. Judgung from the taste of the smoothie I made for the breakfast popsicles, those are going to be fantastic.

Last night I made Avgolemono (Greek lemon chicken and rice soup) for dinner from the carcass of a chicken I roasted Sunday. Tonight we'll be having grilled garlic, chicken, fresh tomato and basil pizza to use up the rest of the chicken and the first ripe tomatoes from our garden. That's 3 meals from one chicken. Grilled pizza is one of the kids' new favourite meals and it is very inexpensive. Tomorrow is going to be pasta with bacon, peas and mint. That's a Jamie Oliver recipe we got off of a podcast we watched.

bke

7-11-12, 12:36pm

Early morning, what do you sell at the flea market?

Lesilann-please don't feel like this is a competition-we're just all here to support each other on all our sucesses regardless of the size!

Frugals: We're taking posession of the bankruptcy house today. The insurance ended up being about $300 less than originally quoted. I just don't understand the reason why these kids were allowed to file bankruptcy inthe first place. The debts were less than a year's salary. They make 40% more than we do a year and were allowed to file bankruptcy and give us back the house. Based on their income we could have payed all the bankruptcy debt and payed the house off in full in less than 8 years while still living quite comfortably!

We had a very sucessful shopping day yesterday. I used sales, coupons, and register rewards from a previous week to get the following for under $25 total:

7 deoderants, 5 body washes (I was on my last one), 2 jars of dry roasted peanuts (good snacks!) 28 bottles of propel water, and 2 containers of country time half tea-half lemonade.

We drink alot of water but once a day its nice to have someting else.

Today I did two loads of laundry using free laundry detergent.

We're having our worst year ever at work. We rely on people hanging out at their cottages to pay our bills. More and more of them are either staying home or eating in. We're still managing to stay in the black but there's not nearly as much being put away for winter as there normally is. Eating and living cheaply is becoming more and more important for us. A piece of me is a bit angry at finding myself in this position. A year ago I would have told you we were almost to easy street. Ah well! We have a big emergency fund and are actually ok but were just not seeing any forward motion on the financial front.

leslieann

7-11-12, 12:55pm

More laundry on the line! Bke, I do feel a bit out of my league here but I know it is a welcoming group! Anyway, I avoided buying a cup of (bad) coffee out yesterday and came home to make my own (much better) coffee. That's little but it counts! I did let DSD go to the convenience store for milk (and let her buy gum with the change.....little benefits) even though I was doing groceries later but she needed to Get Out And Walk Somewhere. She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome. So we paid more for milk but she got something out of it.

I just need to be thinking frugally. And I need to get back to tracking; those two go together for me. The parts of the house that ARE decluttered are fine but there are those Other Parts (the basement, for example). I agree that it is much easier to stay frugal when I know what I have in the house. Some part of me would love to live in Fawn's house!

Beautiful, beautiful summer day here in the Maritimes. Just perfect temperature, low humidity....and I am at work (of course). But grateful to work at home and to have had my lunch and coffee on the back deck. Oops, that probably belongs in a different thread.

bke

7-11-12, 1:11pm

She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome.

OMG! You have one of these too!!!! Mine hides in his room when there's time to do things as a family and then wants attention when dh and I have things that need to be done. I wouldn't be a teen again for anything in the world!

mara61

7-11-12, 7:10pm

Stella, if you have a recipe for the soup please. My DH LOVES lemon rice soup. :)

Tracy

early morning

7-11-12, 8:06pm

bke, I think many people are still hunkering down, as this economy just stays flat, or worse, for many of us working folk. I've noticed the causal buyers at the flea markets keep their hands in their pockets a lot more than before - bad weekends for us used to be any where we took in less than $500 a day, now we're pleased to break $200. We sell antiques and vintage stuff, mostly gleaned from yard sales and trash piles. I try to stay away from glass items, but sometimes they're just too good to pass up on. We sell a lot of 40s, 50s, and 60s stuff, even some from the 70s. I sell things from my house purges, too - it's hard to sell nice things for good prices at a yard sale around here, but at a flea market, people will pay the price. Strange, but true. Overall, it's fun, AND a lot of hard work - but it lets me put money away for a large trip we're planning in the next 5 years or so. So, I rate it as frugal :). I'm sorry your business is suffering, and that you had to take back the house. I hope you can sell it soon! It's really difficult when several negatives pile on at once. I'm about to put laundry out for the night, and DH just brought in the eggs. I have my lunch of dinner leftovers packed up for tomorrow, and a bottle of water in the freezer. I leave it in my car in an insulated bag, so I have a cold drink on my drive home. And I finally have some little green tomatoes on! The rest of the garden is pretty much toast...

Stella

7-11-12, 8:41pm

Mara, here is the recipe. It's actually really easy.

Recipe (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Greek-Avgolemono-Chicken-Soup/Detail.aspx)

mara61

7-12-12, 8:30am

Thank you Stella.

It's been a while since I posted consistently. I have popped in now and again, but the classes I took this past spring had me crunched for time. Finally getting things back to order around here.

My frugals for the past few months
*I payed my auto insurance in full for 6 months vs. monthly to a savings of $148

*FINALLY really payed off one of our cars. Payed cash for new brakes and rotors for said car (we don't have a credit card), need to have the shocks done next. I was told I could wait a few months, it's slated for the end of this month.

*paying our neighbor to replace our garage roof. Huge savings having him do it.

*have a small summer garden planted, once the roof is done I am clearing out another area for a fall garden.

*while I spent $ it was with a plan, we have memberships to a science center, zoo and the Henry Ford. This will get us into many others for a full year for free or half cost.

*cancelled our canoeing trip with friends a month ago, savings of c. $300. DH is busy right now with a job and we would have had to cancel last minute losing the $.

*biking with the kids to the library and the Y

*using up all the $1 and $2 DQ gift cards we have for little treats for the boys. (I do have an ice cream maker and make our own popsicles but you know how a quick stop can be fun for kids, well a quick walk...it's at the end of our street;) ).

*when I want a coffee out, I used up all the freebie coffee coupons people give me

*my afternoon iced coffee is made with left over morning coffee. I got a new coffee maker for my birthday and I can either make a pot with it or just a cup.

Stella

7-12-12, 8:57am

Mara I do the same thing with the iced coffee. It's a nice afternoon pick-me-up. I admire your restraint with a DQ at the end of your street. That would be disasterous for me. :)

I think this morning we are going to go to our church's weekly playground meet-up. It's at a park that's within walking distance of our house and it has a splash pad. I will try to actually walk there too. It's going to be hot today, but it's in the morning and the splash pad should cool me off. No reason to drive 1/2 a mile.

I have survived almost the entire week without the stuff I thought I'd need on Monday. This was a good exercise for me. I think I have a certain level of "stocked up" that I like to keep things at and feel anxious if I fall below. Why I feel anxious, I don't really know. I live down the street from a grocery store.

We are definitely going to spend some money this weekend for Isabella's birthday, but her honourary grandma is buying her a cake. That will save us at least some money.

bke

7-12-12, 1:27pm

While I can't actually take credit for any of my frugals today they are certainly things I'm thankful for.

We officially own the house again. Thankfully the guy who did the quick claim deed only charged me $40.

I called up to the Registrar's office and can mail in the deed along with a check for $14 to make it official. Mailing instead of driving to the county court house will save $7-8 in gas.

I paid the summer taxes on the house from the escrow account today. It only took $500 so I legally get to keep the remaining $500 to put towards repairs. Technically it goes towards winter taxes but I'll deal with that this winter.

We went and changed the locks on the doors last night for about $30. Thankfully there aren't any major damages. A few what the h*ll were they thinking kinda things. Its dirty. The kitchen cabinents are lined with the contact paper that I put in them for us. They couldn't even do that! You can tell they never ever wiped down a light fixture or the front of a cabinent, the window treatments are filthy, etc. BUT the expensive window treatments we put up are still in one piece, no major holes in the walls, etc. It's going to take more elbow grease than money to get it ready to sell.

The previous owners left a bit of wall decor behind. It says "God bless this home as much as possible" . Its cute and the color of the wood frame matches the stuff where we live so dh brought it home, cleaned it up and we hung it in an area that needed a little something.

Oh, another little frugal. The new neighbors that bought my dad's old house popped over to chat and check things out. They are gonna help keep an eye on the place for us and let us know if there is any problems. They seem like a nice couple around our age. Anyways, there was a step machine in the basement. I had given it to the kids with the house because I didn't have room for it. The new neighbor gave me $30 for it last night.

I bought 2 gallons of paint for $40 today-that should cover the amount of paint we have to buy. There is a 5 gallon bucket of paint in the basement to touch up the walls that they repainted as well as floor paint to touch up what they had done. Only problem-there's not a ton of light down there and they painted the walls a dark grey and the floors black. The neighbor lady said it looked like a dungeon and I tend to agree. I guess I'll wait and see what the realtor says but I might have to buy paint and redo all of that to make it presentable.

Bottom line, I am optimistic about the possible asking price when we list it. There is still a chance we can get our money out of the place and be 100% debt free when it sells. We just have to be patient and get through the next year or so of being kind of short on cash.

Ok, this is turning into a book so I'll shut up. ;)

DarkStar

7-12-12, 5:35pm

Today I told the place where I rent a storage unit that I'd be vacating it at the end of the month. I've got room for everything in my apartment. That should save me $70/month.

Rosemary

7-12-12, 6:18pm

It's mostly been a no-spend week. I've been getting greens, peas, and raspberries from the garden, as well as eating down the freezer/pantry; I spent less than $10 at the grocery store this week.

Spending hours helping my friend clean her house is good for enhancing my already anti-spending mindset.

rosarugosa

7-12-12, 6:48pm

Mara: That's great on paying off the car and budgeting for the repairs. It must take some advanced budgeting skills to manage without a credit card (although we don't carry balances, we definitely use them for that type of expense and work it out later).
Stella, What is a splash pad? I too have what my DH calls my "comfort levels" of certain items that I don't like to fall below a certain level of inventory.
BKE: That's great that you have neighbors that willl keep an eye on things for you. I hope you find a good buyer soon!
Rosemary: I get the same effect when I work on decluttering at my Mom's house, but I do actuallly like to buy stuff, so reigning those tendencies in is a very good thing for me.
Nothing too eventful here. I was pondering the earlier back-and-forth about how it isn't a competition (Hello Leslieann!), and I was thinking about how for me, the competition is with myself. I will probably never be spartan, and that's OK, but I'm much less quick to plunk down the bucks than I used to be. Today, DH had a stressful 6-month follow up appt, and he didn't sleep much last night. In prior years there is no question that we would have picked up sandwiches on the way home from the appointment, but instead we came home and I made a salad (the check-up was good by the way). Talbot's has a cute polo shirt with a dragonfly embroidered on the front. I wanted it at $39, and now it's on sale for $23. But I've been talking to myself about how I haven't worn many of my nice casual shirts yet this summer, and I absolutely don't need another one. I'm trying to really understand why I want something that I so obviously don't need, and the answer seems to be just because it's pretty. Now I still could very well end up buying one before the summer is over (especially if the price goes down again), but the fact remains that if it were 5 years ago, I would have already bought two in different colors at the $39. price. So that's progress! I've had a no-spend week so far at the personal discretionary spending level.

bunnys

7-12-12, 6:51pm

Made dog food today. Turkey breast was $1.19lb at the grocery salvage and it is pretty much all meat. A very good buy.

Did a bunch of research on the new car I want to buy before going into that den of thieves that is the dealership. Did not buy. Made it perfectly clear that I have other places to visit and thinking to do before I decide on a car. Threw out one of the lines (even though the negotiating hadn't yet begun) that I learned online and got the first price offered knocked down another $500. It's already at a good price but I've only looked at one car and I am NOT GOING TO BE EMOTIONAL! Going to another dealership 50 miles up the road tomorrow. This is scary but I'm pretty confident I'm not going to be ripped off in this purchase. That's good.

rosarugosa

7-12-12, 8:00pm

Bunnys: I'll be interested in hearing how you make out with the car. We have never negotiated a car purchase (one of the reasons we loved Saturn), but we're going to have to do it someday!
Just saw that the dragonfly shirt is now marked down to $19.99 online, but I'm feeling strong, at least for tonight!
Have you ever noticed how home magazines this time of year frequently feature big beautiful beach houses with vases full of blue hydrangea? Well I don't have the fancy beach house, but I do have the vase full of hydrangea from the garden. :cool:
I also cut some phlox - the smell is wonderful!

Stella

7-13-12, 10:14am

Ooh Rosa I love hydrangeas.

I finally did have to go to the grocery store, but I made it until Thursday night, so that's pretty good. I did my grocery shopping for next week too.

Today some friends are coming over to go swimming, so that will be some FFF. Isabella is getting her birthday dinner tonight since I'm pretty sure the waterpark will wear me out tomorrow. She requested tuna casserole, so that's pretty inexpensive. Tomorrow I am making crockpot chicken for mediterranean chicken pita sandwiches. It will sit in the crockpot all day and when we are done with the waterpark it will be waiting for us. That should cut down on any temptation to eat out.

I think we are going to have movie night tonight, since my Dad is home. We're going to watch The Parent Trap. The girls love Hailey Mills ever since they saw The Trouble with Angels.

Zach got an extra $200 in his check as a thank-you for hanging in there in a very busy season. I thought that was really thoughtful of his employer. I want to see if we can save most of it. I did my usual payday transfer to savings and added some extra. I have managed to get our weekday spending down to almost nothing. I think that's going to be pretty easy to keep up.

After this weekend we don't have any more birthdays until Zach's and mine in October and that's it until March. Birthday season is almost done. That will save us some cash. I am already starting to think about how I'll handle Christmas. Last year on our trip we did all experience gifts. I'm thinking that would be a good tradition to keep up.

flowerseverywhere

7-13-12, 11:33am

tonight ends my twelve day stint of being alone in the house as DH has been out of town. In that time I managed to largely eat out of the garden, and I only drove eight miles each way to a friends house once. I was helping her with a project and the roads to her house are pretty dangerous by bike. I learned to use my solar cooker and it was fun and cheap, now that I have the unit. When I was in the car I did all my errands that necessated a car, the rest of the time I walked or rode my bike.

I am not used to being alone and it gave me a lot of time to think about where my life is going and what personal goals I have for myself. Time well spent. I also listened to four books on CD as I worked around the house.

I also have not turned on the TV or air conditioning.

I did make a quilt with materials I had on hand- it came out really cute.

So all in all a very low spend few weeks.

chrissieq

7-13-12, 1:50pm

Back after 3 days/2 nights at a friend's lake home near Alexandria MN. It was so relaxing and fun with a total of 7 women getting to know each other better. Surprisingly we ate almost none of the many, many snacks we brought with us but left the unopened ones with her since their adult children and friend come nearly weekly and she provides all the food. We brought all the food for meals except the fabulous walleye dinner that her husband prepared for us.

We did spend $5 each to go to a tasting at a nearby winery - not tempted to buy any to take home. Went to her beloved outlet store and I bought very little - some fabric and bamboo pillow forms for 50% off - but enjoyed this ENORMOUS warehouse - we kept reminding each other "it's not a good deal if you don't really need it". Chipped in for gas and that was the extent of my spending.

Home yesterday in time to work a shift at the occasional sale shop where my sister and I have a space. Never tempted to spend $ in other vendors space. I did go to a few garage sales this morning and spent $4 on 5 items that I will re-sell either at the shop or on etsy.

mara61

7-13-12, 7:55pm

Rosaruga,

Not exactly advanced budgeting (I wish :) ). I shoot to do the bigger stuff when my DH has that "extra" paycheck every few months. I saved some of it from our income tax refund (we claim the highest, but he did a contract job last year and those really get hit hard with taxes). We won't have as much of a refund next year. Our neighbor I think charged us a very fair amount for the garage and tree removal and it looks like we will get some money back from excess shingles.

Next on my list is new electrical in our basement, what we have is scary!

mara61

7-13-12, 8:17pm

I was able to grocery shop alone today, so no mistakes with forgetting something or not using a coupon. My sons went golfing with their grandparents this morning and then my in' laws took them out to lunch.

For those that shop at Meijer, they have a good deal going with gift cards and fruit of the loom. If you spend $25 in gift cards you get $10 off fruit of the loom items. I bought a $25 Meijer gift card since I had some other items to buy and just broke up my purchases into three. I had a $2 coupon good off anything (except gift cards) so 3 packs of badly needed socks for the boys (18 pairs in all) cost me $3.90.

Meijer is also running a deal on their toilet paper, napkins and paper towel (I use both paper and cloth, just depends on what we are eating ;) ). I ended up getting 12 rolls of tp, 4 rolls of paper towel and 2 packs of napkins for $5.82. I'll be picking up another 6 rolls of tp, 2 more paper towels and another napkin tomorrow for an additional $.82. Coupons were curtesy of their MPerks site.

Grabbed some free vinegar at Target today, along with some free hydrogen peroxide. And managed to be there to get a free tall sample of Starbucks new refresher drink (I think that is what it called)

While I don't "need" the wine, I do trials through Bzz Agent and one that I am doing is for Be. Wine (it's by Berringer Wines). I bought 2 bottles for $7.99 each and will get back $5 per bottle. It's normally priced at $17/bottle at Kroger but was on sale since it's new.

Another trip to the library last night. DH grabbed the final book in the Eragon series on cd, he'll listen at work. More of my inter library loan books came in, lots of great reading. Tomorrow we will ride our bikes up to the library to return a couple of movies, the audio cds and a few books. I have more holds to pick up ;) .

We have no other plans thankfully tomorrow. It is supposed to rain....hope so :) Oh I am going to call our cable company and see if I can get our bundle price lower.

rosarugosa

7-13-12, 9:58pm

Mara, You rock with the $2.99 wine - I'll be over for drinks a little later, OK? ;)
No dragonfly shirt purchases made this week - and no other nonessential spending = bolstered my cash stash fund (my 1k self challenge) to $800. And I think I've got a really cool goal to target it towards, but I'm still contemplating. Actually, I could come up with 100k worth of goals for it . . .but if I come up with one good focused objective, I think that will help to motivate me.
I also left $20 of my allowance in the bank so that I can do a SLF donation this weekend via Paypal. Putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

danna

7-13-12, 10:07pm

July 13
Have not been on for the last week had company from out of town....
--mostly had food in the house to make nice meals and snacks...coupon 2/1 to take her out for coffee and treat one day and
she bought us ice cream sundae treats the one night. Bought beer and wine but only drank a few of the beers..very frugal week.
Also, had a great time
--A/C stopped working yesterday but, repairman was here within 24 hours and had it fixed no charge (I have a plan)...said the A/C unit was a very good one (I wasn't sure and bought in 2005) so that is good to know. The problem was a part (that he said was a battery as an easy way to explain what it did) and he had seen serveral this week I guess this heat has been hard on them.
--Thur Dgrandson had a program at the library so when I picked them up I spent a hour reading this months magazines Free have to love that.
--using up samples of shampoo and conditioner and not using my supply it will make it last longer
--discovered the smaller Hardware Store close to us and could not believe how easy it was to shop there...had a list of 4 items and I had found them (actually had sales help and advice on one item in particular) and was out of there in 20 minutes without feeling like I had walked a couple of miles. They had everything I needed and the prices were conparable. I think this will be my new hardware store...
--was suppose to go out for supper tonight but, really didn't feel like it so didn't go and was glad and saved the price of a not so good meal.
--cleaned out the fridge after company left and have been using up since yesterday.

Amaranth

7-14-12, 7:42am

The dragonfly shirt reminded me of a FFF sight this week. There were 50+ dragonflies flying over the garden. Very beautiful.

Stella, wanted to recommend the more recent version(1998) of The Parent Trap. It's a very fun update. I think your girls would get a big kick out of it.

early morning

7-14-12, 8:31am

recent high winds left our yard full of large branches. DH is seldom up to using our chainsaw, and I can't really handle it well - it's very heavy and temperamental. The cost to have the yard cleared, even by teenagers, was over $50. Instead, we put that money towards a $120 battery operated chain saw. We have LOTS of batteries, as it runs on the same system as most of our other battery tools. It's a little slow, but lightweight, easy to handle, does a good job, and best of all - doesn't tax DH nearly as much! He was able to cut up a lot of the branches yesterday, as he was having a really good day. Not being able to help much around here is harder on him than his pain, I think! He struggles with depression and all this makes it sooo much worse... so being able to cut up the wood yesterday really made him feel good. Hauling them into the field is not a problem, once they are small enough to get in the truck! DD and I will probably do that this AM.

Stella

7-14-12, 10:53am

Thanks for the tip Amaranth! We'll have to check that out.

Today is Miss Isabella's 7th birthday, so it is just not going to be a frugal day. Unfortunately, we will be saving some money because her friend that she invited to come with us to the water park got a stomach bug and can't come. We'll be eating out for lunch at a drive-in we like near the water park. This is Bella's birthday present and party in one. We like experience gifts. Tonight we'll have the cake grandma bought us at the pool at our house with anyone who wants to have some.

I was talking with my friend's mom yesterday and we are thinking of having a water fight sometime this summer. That would be some good FFF. My friend's mom is awesome. She always has cool, fun ideas of stuff to do and she has such a spirit of whimsy. She and her sisters (in their 50s and 60s) still go and do things like going to a trampoline place, passing out awards to random houses in the area for the best Christmas decorations and zip lining, with or without kids. I want to be them when I grow up.

bunnys

7-14-12, 3:47pm

Bunnys: I'll be interested in hearing how you make out with the car. We have never negotiated a car purchase (one of the reasons we loved Saturn), but we're going to have to do it someday!

Just made my purchase today. I got the Fiat 500 Sport. It is sssooo cute even if it's being hawked by J-Lo.

How guilty do I feel about buying this new, cute car? Not a bit. I am 48 years old and this is my 3rd car. Drove 1st 13 years and last 12 years. So I think that's frugal. So I'm going to run this bad boy into the ground. I got it with a sunroof (which I've always wanted and never had--I will enjoy this and get my money's worth.) Also got stick shift (cheaper and more fun.) I think this is my mid-life crisis.

Here's how my purchase was frugal. I saved all my pennies this past year and paid cash for this car. When the time came to purchase I was so scared to deal with all those sharks. So I did a tremendous amount of research on the specs of the car and how much the average person pays. Then I researched the process of car buying and the car sales industry. I was so informed when I walked into the first dealership. I felt so confident. I was the one in control and I know I did a good job. At the second dealership I knew so much more than the saleswoman I was embarrassed for her. I was also annoyed that she was wasting my time. On the first trip to both dealerships I walked out the door even though I knew I was ready to buy this week.

I cannot emphasize enough how informing myself about this process totally empowered me. I had thought of going through one of those "no haggle" programs that they have with USAA or Costco and in fact did get a quote for one of the cars I was looking at this way. But the reality is that I truly believe I got a better deal on my own by being informed (which translated to assertiveness and confidence.)

Those of you who are buying "no haggle" or are afraid to go into that kill or be killed arena, educate yourself (it really will only take about 24-36 hours [internet research, asking friends questions and processing what you've learned]) and you'll be ready to go in there and get a great deal.

I know I walked away having gotten the absolutely best deal I could possibly get for myself, bought the car of my dreams and was poised and unemotional throughout the entire process. And I know I will enjoy this car for many years in the future. What more could I want? I feel I have made a truly frugal buy.

early morning

7-14-12, 3:54pm

WTG bunnys! That is awesome! I really don't like car haggling - thanks for the tips. I hope I won't be in the market for a long time, but sometimes things happen...

Tussiemussies

7-14-12, 4:11pm

That is so great bunnys that you informed yourself and did all you could to prepare yourself with purchasing! Great job! By the way I LOVE that car!!!! Lucky you!

bunnys

7-14-12, 9:03pm

Tussie: Yeah, the car is pretty cute!

Thanks both of you. I love feeling empowered. And this, I think, is a lesson we all can learn from, especially if we ever buy a used car from a salesman. As bad a reputation a new car sales are, the world of used car sales is MUCH worse!

Stella

7-15-12, 1:04pm

Yesterday was a fun day, if not a frugal one, and the expenses were all planned. Isabella ended up getting into the water park for free because it was her birthday, so that was a bit less money than we were planning to spend. We ended up having card night with our friends after the pool party. I had made a crockpot chicken for pita sandwiches, so we brought it over for everyone for dinner. It was a lovely, exhausting day.

Today we are going to be a bit more low-key. We are going to the evening mass and Grandpa and I are going to take Bella to get her ears pierced, but most of the day we are going to rest and putter around the house.

My Dad gifted me a meal planning app that I think I will get a lot of use out of. I thought that was nice of him.

I opened an envelope today with a check for $300 from Travis' Godfather, who is a Jesuit priest. I had been talking to him about how I am trying to help the kid I am watching and how I love being able to help him, but it is definitely hard on the grocery budget. He said that people often give him money to put towards a good cause and he has decided that helping me with the expense of taking care of this kid is one of those good causes! I am so blown away. I am heading to Costco today to stock up on food.

Rosemary

7-15-12, 4:52pm

Home from our annual family camping trip. A frugal weekend aside from gas to get there. We and 4-5 other families share a group campsite at a state park. The kids play together all day and the adults enjoy relaxing and chatting and sitting by the campfire late into the night, watching the stars without light pollution. I far prefer this to camping at a regular campsite; the group campsites are large and separated from each other by bits of forest, and there are usually only 3-5 group campsites per park, compared to 100 family campsites at a typical park with little to no separation. When we split the reservation fee, it's about $20 per family. Cheap for the memories it's making!

try2bfrugal

7-16-12, 1:00am

try2bfrugal

7-16-12, 1:02am

Stella

7-16-12, 8:26am

That is so nice to hear. How is the boy doing so far? It sounded form your previous posts you were coming up with some cool activities to get him out of the summer doldrums.

He is doing great! He has made some friends in the neighborhood and when it isn't 100 degrees like it is supposed to be today :) he has been getting some exercise and having some fun. We've had some good conversations too. He's a good kid.

Today should be a pretty frugal day. Almost all of my weekdays are no spend days and I am not even remotely tempted to drive in this heat. I think dinner is going to be BLTs with lettuce and tomato from our garden.

cdttmm

7-16-12, 11:35am

For those of you in the MSP area looking for some FFF: http://www.twincities.com/ci_21069089/walker-art-center-must-be-feline-fine-about

Stella

7-16-12, 12:21pm

Hahaha! cdttmm that cracks me up. That could be fun.

fidgiegirl

7-17-12, 12:31pm

Awesome, cdttmm!! I just might have to go!!!

Well hello everyone! Back from a week or so in the Upper Peninsula of MI and Door County, WI. Both lovely and different, yet similar places. We camped almost all the nights in MI and saw the beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore out of Munising, MI and hiked, swam, and took two boat rides in the area. We were there with a friend of mine from Girl Scouts from years ago and her husband and cute little baby. They were as frugal-minded as us so the trip fit us all perfectly.

In Door County we stayed in my SiL and BiL's cabin (they charge $25/night) and mostly ate our meals in with my FiL and MiL who were also up there and didn't do too much that cost a whole lot - lots of antiquing but little buying. One memorable experience was kayaking on a sunset tour, about 5 miles in all. We took the money we had saved by being refunded one of our MI boat trips (a little boat fender-bender caused our tour to be delayed an hour, and so they refunded everyone's money and still took us out). Haha, of course now I have it in my head that I want a kayak! All-in-all, a successful trip!

I don't want to call this next one a non-frugal, because in the long run it is a frugal, hmmmm, we should think of a name for that kind of expenditure. Sometimes we get into thinking that spending money is not being frugal when in fact it often is frugal to spend more on something better that will last longer/work better/etc. Anyway, we had our back door replaced on the house and a new screen door installed. DH scored the beautiful door on CL a few months ago for only $65 (solid wood reproduction arts & crafts style door) and we did buy the screen door full price at Home Depot back in May. Our woodworking guy installed a new frame, threshold, etc. as well as the door and the screen door. In all I think we had about $800 into the project spread out over a few months. We are so happy with it! The old doors and frame were garbage - drafty, not secure, etc. These doors will last us many, many years, save on energy, and save on worry about break-ins. Pics on the blog if you are interested. We have yet to paint.

One last recent frugal - we had to have DH's car towed before our trip. We called today and indeed the insurance will reimburse the cost of the tow. We actually pay for this in the form of roadside assistance add-on but the fact that we actually will turn in the stuff and get the reimbursement is what is frugal - taking advantage of what we have paid for. It's tempting to just let that stuff go sometimes and not bother. = $80 back in our pockets.

Mighty Frugal

7-17-12, 4:43pm

I am really trying to have a fun frugal summer. It is our 'summer of adventure' so we are doing so much! My boys and I just came back from a marvelous 3 days on Wolfe Island but we stayed with family-so all 3 meals were cooked at home and we only ventured out once for ice cream and small treats for the boys-they paid for the toys with their own pocket money. Lots of swimming in the lake, campfires and watching neat programs on Netflix

The entire 3 days only cost me the price of the train tickets to get there and maybe another $20.

We are also doing a lot of camping-again another frugal fun holiday

Our 'big' trip for the summer has already been paid for earlier this year so I don't really feel the pinch. We're renting a cottage on our favourite beach. I will try to bring as much from home as I can.

And finally, still bringing in lunch every single day to work. Even days I don't feel like it-it's not worth it to me to buy the $8 salad. We're concentrating on socking away as much as we can to savings for the tighter years ahead (dh was laid off end of June)

oh, but now I totally want Netflix-haha-but only $8 per month so am researching as much as I can

SteveinMN

7-17-12, 8:09pm

Welcome back, Kelli! It's good that you and your family had a fun vacation (boat accidents and car-towing aside).

As for the high-dollar frugal expenditure (the door), well, IMHO it's frugal to do the right thing once. You will walk in and out of those doors multiple times a day. You will expect them to help keep the treated house air in and the outside air/rain/snow out. Over the life of those doors -- and it easily could be 20-30 years -- the price differential between the doors you got and the cheapest doors that would get the job done functionally is minimal. So you spent money on something attractive. Nothing wrong with that.

If frugal was all about not spending money, none of us would be here. We'd be too busy gathering nuts and berries to take back to our sod huts.

rosarugosa

7-17-12, 8:28pm

Kelli & Mighty Frugal: It sounds like you've both been having wonderful summers enjoying the great outdoors - good for you!
Steve: That was very well said and totally true. If it was always just a matter of not spending money, that would be a no-brainer. The challenge is in differentiating, and saving where you can and should so that you have the money to spend on the things that really matter.
My frugal for today: At work, we take on a lot of high school interns for the summer, and the company pays for the Kaplan pre-SAT prep classes to be held for them in-house. Apparently they're also putting out quite a spread for these sessions, because bags and bags of leftover baked goods from Panera were sent to my dept after the class. I took home a loaf of bread, 8 bagels, a muffin and some cookies. Free bakery bread makes my heart go pitter-patter! I understand that this will be a regular occurrence this summer :)

fidgiegirl

7-17-12, 8:30pm

Thanks all! I feel better about it. Well, I felt ok about it before. I like the name "high-dollar frugal expenditure." :)

Scored some pork ribs for $1.49/lb. tonight and grilled a few. Yummy but tough. We'll crock the rest, maybe in the fall. DH already froze them.

bke

7-18-12, 10:16am

We've been spending our evenings fixing up the other house. We're painting almost the entire house inside. One of our customers mentioned to me that she got a quote to have 2 rooms in her house painted. $1400! Even if this figure is exagerated we're saving a ton of money doing this ourselves.

We have a huge lawn to mow there as well. Dh and ds spent 3 1/2 hours with two push mowers to do the yard yesterday. Best offer I had on hiring it out was $150 a mow. There is no way we can spend $300 a month on lawn maintenence.

We bought a new mower Monday night. By driving 30 minutes we saved $40 off the price of the mower. I also discovered that they are putting in a CVS pharmacy which should be another opportunity for me to do some really cheap stockpiling. Plus, the new Panera opened which is the only place around here to get decent bagels which is a super duper improvement to my quality of life even if its about spending. Hey, I did get there customer card and already have a freebie waiting for me at my next visit-haha~!

My father had a utility trailer for sale and well, we need some way to haul lawnmowers around. He didn't want us to pay him for it so we struck a deal. I'm going to buy the license plate for it and allow him to use it anytime he needs it. Its a pretty good deal for all involved.

early morning

7-18-12, 8:25pm

Kelli, welcome back! I love the UP. Really want to go to Door Co - I'm a lighthouse buff... bke, we have a huge yard that I used to push-mow, too - about 6 hours worth. Funny how when DH had to take it over, we immediately HAD to have a riding mower!:~)

My frugals are mostly the same old stuff, but I've accepted a new position at work which will have me visiting other sites, so I'll get mileage. As my car gets in the mid to high 30s mpg, I should come out ahead on that. And our microwave died - our 30 yr old, huge, hangs on the wall microwave. *sigh* So until we fix or replace it, I have a nice breadbox. BUT we had a nice, nearly new trashpicked microwave stashed behind a chair in the living room, so we pulled that out and plugged it in. We used it the last time DH had to discombobulate our wall-mounted one. But this is a different problem, but at least we don't need to go buy something new right now! And YES, we really need a microwave, especially in this heat! We use it a lot, far more than the stove, oven, toaster, and grill combined.

fidgiegirl

7-18-12, 8:41pm

Thanks for all the warm welcomes back to the boards!

early, Door County is a neat trip. Lighthouses abound!! It can be pricey but if you pick reasonable accommodations where you can cook, it could be ok cost-wise. There is some camping but I heard it is super hard to get spots. (P.S. I hope you can get your micro replaced soon)

bke, awesome on the trailer share. You will indeed save a lot of money painting yourself. One thing we learned the hard way when redoing the house is to paint from top to bottom. You didn't mention if you are doing ceilings, but if you are, do them first, then any molding, then walls. Best of luck! If I don't have to paint anything for the rest of my LIFE I'll be happy. :) Are you still planning to sell, or going to rent out the house?

Nothin' much here in frugal-ville. We were going to buy meat to grill tonight but pulled some out of the freezer instead. We are headed to the BWCA (a canoe area wildnerness in northern MN) for a few days and when we get back I have a lot of food plans - eating down the freezer and cupboards again, doing some experimentation with the GF flours I have bought, and learning some new food prep things like coconut milk ice cream in the ice cream maker, and spring rolls in rice wraps! I also want to expand my mental repetoire of foods that are cool with GF, dairy free, and thyroid-friendly foods. It's all a learning process. Baby steps. I have been GF for over 7 months. Unbelievable! People get all sad for me when they find out, like I was when I started. But I feel so good I have no self-pity. It no longer feels like a sacrifice - more like so lucky that we figured it out.

Rosemary

7-18-12, 8:42pm

Cut DH's hair.
Postponed going to the grocery store as long as possible. We put a serious dent in the freezer. The garden isn't producing much right now or we'd have been able to wait longer.
Carpooling with a friend whose son is in the same day camp this week as DD. That will save a couple gallons of gas.
Most of my entertainment this week is helping my friend paint some rooms inside her house. Another friend is helping so it's social time while we paint. She keeps her A/C much lower than we do so that's an added bonus. She also bought me lunch today.

Tussiemussies

7-18-12, 8:45pm

Haven't driven my car in so long. Facebook and these boards have been my source of entertainment. Don't buy a ton of groceries and try to make sure we eat tem all...

Stella

7-19-12, 9:24am

Yesterday was a no spend day. When Zach got home I was thinking about running a couple of errands to get some household stuff we need, but it's not urgent and I mostly just wanted a break so I took a nap instead.

My big splurge for the week was two $10 puzzle mats for rolling up partially finished puzzles. So totally worth the money. The kid I am watching and my oldest kids spent hours working on puzzles and when it was time for dinner, we just rolled them up and put them away. Puzzles can be had quite cheaply at the thrift store, about $.50-$1, and they are hours of screen-free entertainment. We just didn't do them because we didn't have a dedicated space for them. Problem solved.

Isabella got her birthday present from my mom. It's the Lego Friends Olivia's House. The girls are likely to spend hours with that too. They love Lego Friends.

Speaking of Legos, yesterday while we were cleaning the girls room, I made a reading nook under their lego table, which is built into one of their closets. We have a lot of people here and the kids like to have a lot of little nooks where they can go to read or just be by themselves for a bit. The Lego table is higher than usual to keep little hands off of it and is accessed by a big window-seat type bench that is pulled in front of it when it is in use and pulled away when it isn't. The new reading nook can be sheltered from sight by pulling the bench in front of it. We're going to put in some LED tap lights for lighting, but it uses an otherwise unused space. This qualifies as a frugal to me because using our space efficiently helps us happily fit 8 people into this space.

Along those same lines, the family room is almost finished and I am thinking about how I want to arrange it. We already have furniture for it, a couch, a comfy chair, a coffee table and a foosball table. In thinking about how we use the space it seems to have two main purposes. One is for games, everything from board games to foosball. The other is for large muscle play. The coffee table down there is a trunk that is full of yarn I got for free, but not really nice yarn, just acrylics. Those are useful for some crafts, but I don't really like knitting with them all that much. The yarn takes up a lot of space, so I think I am going to get rid of most of it and move what I keep to my craft room. Then I can store games and puzzles in the trunk and it will be much lighter and easier to move. Now, instead of feeling like I have to divide the room up, we will just be able to move the couch and trunk for large muscle play and I can position the couch and coffee table in front of the fireplace. That will be nice for playing games by the fire in the winter.

The kid I am watching is helping me teach a unit on marine life to my kids. He is obsessed with fish and marine animals and is very knowledgeable. He is so excited about the project that he gets the other kids excited about it too. Since I have banned myself from spending money on homeschool stuff, I figured, I'd take advantage of his knowledge and excitement and channel it into something good for all the kids. I found a free printable lapbook on coral reefs, so we started those yesterday. The kids are really into the lapbooks.

We are also studying the Revolutionary War, so we are doing some Revolutionary War era cooking. A lot of it is actually pretty inexpensive stuff and the food we're eating serves double duty as a teaching tool and a meal. Bella found some YouTube historical cooking videos that we have been watching for inspiration.

Finally, last night we used up the last of the root beer from Bella's birthday having root beer floats. Yum!

bke

7-19-12, 11:05am

Early morning-we had a riding lawn mower but sold it when we moved. And now it just isn't worth it to buy another.

Fidgiegirl-the house is definitely going to be sold and not rented. When it sells we will be able to pay off the restaurant and be 100% debt free. So excited about that !!!! And I totally get what you said about never wanting to paint again. I say that during every project it seems.

I spent several hours cleaning up the kitchen cabinents. They had 3 young kids and I don't think they ever wiped down a cabinent the entire time they were there. Ugh! Anyways, I found a bottle of Old English here at home and used it on the cabinents and they look beautiful again-even dh was impressed by how well they turned out.

Last night we seemed to bleed money. We went to get the license plate for the trailer. We had to go to the local grain elevator and have it weighed. (I'll say it again, man I live in the middle of nowhere!) Anyways, here we are parked on this big scale and the car dies and refuses to start. Some nice guy jumped us twice before I could get it to stay running long enough to drive down the street and buy a new $65 battery. Then it was down the street a ways further to give someone $35 to put the new battery in the car. Once we did that and went to the DMV it was $75 for the plate instead of the expected $30. I just kept reminding myself to be thankful that we were in an area that we could get the necessary help and that we were together and it wasn't just me alone, at night kind of thing. This is our only vehicle so its not like dh could have just come running if I needed him.

On a happy note, once we got home I read about some more sweepstakes sites in a magazine and entered several that I hadn't heard of before.

In the mail this week I have recieved postage stamps, a gallon of BBQ sauce and a 12 oz bottle of a new dijon sauce.

I went to Riteaid today to use up a $10 reward. I bought 8 rolls of bathroom paper to add to our stockpile as well as a couple of other things.

The library was also a frugal sucess. I know have a copy of The Man Who Quit money to read as well as season one of The Big C. I had watched the first few episodes on one of those free trial deals with cable and refused to pay for the upgrade just to watch a show. Still, it will be fun to watch-and free!

try2bfrugal

7-19-12, 12:00pm

I started a couple of the items in the Making It: Radical Home Ec (checked out from the library) this week and made my own vegetable stock for soup and beans from dried beans instead of cans.

Yesterday we walked around the small lake and public gardens at a local park, and took our dog to the dog park next door to the lake. So that was an evening of free and frugal fun. Instead of buying patio lights my husband put up white Christmas lights in a big tree in the back yard and after our walk we had cheap wine on the patio under the lights.

Sunday we went to open houses to potentially downsize our house. We found a newer house on a hill with water views much cheaper than ours in a city with a cute downtown area. We walked around downtown and stopped for ice cream. The city is really nice but it is a further out from the main job area so the home prices are much lower. Since we work from home we do not care about the commute so I think that will be our target city to move to next spring. We were excited about this discovery because before that we wanted to move but hadn't found exactly the right spot. Between the houses in this area being much newer (less repair costs), hopefully more energy efficient, and getting a smaller house and yard we should save a lot of money in retirement. So decluttering our house and selling it next spring is our current plan.

I made home made dish soap from Castille soap and some natural ingredients. It turned out okay so we won't be buying commercial dish soap any more.

I found that the company that makes the natural bar soap I buy is local so I bought a case for half price directly from the factory office.

We went shopping at Safeway with the personalized shopping discounts from their web site and saved 40% off the retail prices just buying mainly the personalized price items. I could have saved 50 - 60% if I had not brought my husband since he adds things he likes to the cart that aren't on sale.

We bought the rest of our groceries at the pack it yourself warehouse store. They match all of the local sales of others stores so the prices are great. I wanted some olive oil to make my own essential oils and they had some marked down to $4 a bottle, $8 off retail price. It probably isn't the best tasting brand at that price but since I won't be eating it I am just glad to save the money.

I grilled chicken in a cast iron grill pan on the stove for dinner so that saved spending money on charcoal. Earlier in the day I made home made soup.

I bought cheap decorative soap dispensers from Ross and Target for every sink in the house and a bulk bottle of natural liquid soap from Amazon. The bulk soap is only about $10 for a huge bottle. I saw that the price of hand soap at the local retail grocery store is about $5 a pump bottle so this will save us a lot of money on hand soap in the future.

Stella

7-20-12, 1:42pm

I have a potluck this evening and I made a dulce de leche banana pie and I am making a chocolate tart as I type this. Rosemary, I am using your Grandma's tart crust recipe that you posted some time back. I love that crust. Both desserts are pretty easy to make and this potluck is such a fun monthly gathering.

Zach got off work early today and one of my friends randomly has the day off, so I am going out to the bookstore with her. I am going to try to restrain myself. I might buy a cup of tea, but nothing else. Famous last words. :) I am really needing some kid-free time and Zach is working tomorrow, so that cup of tea is totally worth it to me. Sweet, precious sanity!

I found something on Pinterest for restoring messy doll hair. It's basically liquid fabric softener and water. I tried it today on an old doll of mine we are saving for Charlotte and on Cheyenne's AG doll and it really did work.

I went to Target last night and stayed on-list. I got stuff like toilet paper, sponges and glue. Nothing too frivolous.

rosarugosa

7-21-12, 8:14am

BKE: That worked out well about the car. I'm sure the expenditure was unwelcome, but glad you didn't get stranded alone at night in the middle of nowhere!
T2BF: I was going to try a recipe for homemade dishwashing liquid, but the recipe includes washing soda, which kind of made me hesitate. Can I ask what the ingredients are for your recipe, and whether it has been working satisfactorily for you? I did stop making laundry detergent because I wasn't convinced that it was very effective, although I've been happy with all the other homemade household cleaning recipes.
Stella: I've peeked at Pinterest, but I've honestly been unsure what to do once I get in there, and I understand that it's a big marketing tool aimed primarily at women, so I've hesitated to pursue. Can I ask how you use it, or is that too much of an "essay question?"
I was off from work yesterday for an appointment, and DH and I went to Whole Foods to pick something up on the way home, and $65.00 later . . . That store is so seductive! And it didn't really cover any of our grocery needs for the week; it was definitely recreational food shopping, although we did get a nice lunch and dinner out of the deal, so I guess it was cheaper than going out to eat (as she stretches for the longshot rationalization)!
On a brighter note, I got credit card statements from the two cards with the special offers, and we did get the $150 credit on one and the $25 credit on the other, so that is certainly welcome "free money."

mara61

7-21-12, 9:16am

Rosarugosa,

Stella may have a different take on pinterest, but to me it's like a collage of interesting ideas/recipes/etc. that I might want to try and I don't have to print or cut out those ideas. I can just pin them. Now I don't go out there that often because it can be a HUGE time suck. But I have found some really interesting cool things because of it.

rosarugosa

7-21-12, 9:24am

Thanks Mara - and I'm trying to work on the computer as time suck thing as it is, so I might be better off without it, although inspiring ideas are always nice!

Stella

7-21-12, 9:38am

Mara that is pretty much how I view Pinterest too. I use it for recipes, craft ideas, garden ideas, tips and daydreams (tiny houses, places I want to visit). I have done a lot of recipes and projects from Pinterest. It can be addicting though.

cdttmm

7-21-12, 10:38am

I'm always so pleased to come and read about everybody's frugals on this thread because I am feeling like I don't have much to add this month! But I know I've done some frugal stuff, so let me see what I can come up with.

Bought heartworm prevention at the vet the other day for all 3 dogs -- and got 3 mail in rebate coupons so that will be $45 saved (assuming they accept all 3 coupons, there weren't any rules about 1 per household that I could find, but you never know).

Used coupons to buy cat food, dog food, and cat litter and earned some in-store reward dollars that I will use on my next pet food shopping extravaganza.

Hung some laundry on the line earlier this week when we finally had a nice, sunny, not-to-humid day.

Been picking blueberries from our blueberry bushes and enjoying them.

Cut some lettuce from the garden and will have salad today.

Been drinking up my stash of green tea. I did break down and buy some more tea in tea bags because it was easier to carry when traveling, but I'm back to using up my stash of loose tea now that I'm home.

Finally went to the post office and got some money refunded for unused postage meter strips.

Got a coupon in the mail for a free drink at Starbucks since my b-day is this month. I'll use that when I travel to Austin for work next week.

Have figured out that flying Delta to and from Austin every month should get me enough frequent flyer miles that I can get a free plane ticket for when I fly home to MN for the holidays. Woot -- big win on that one!

Had another month with a negative electricity bill -- thank you solar panels!!!

Wow -- that's definitely more than I thought I had and there are probably a few I forgot. Feeling better about staying on the frugal path right now!!!

larknm

7-21-12, 2:09pm

I was in the farmer's market this morning and really wanted this $6 thing. But I had only $2 and a credit card. To get wooden tokens with the card would have cost me an extra $2. After wracking my brain for strategies to go get them money, I didn't do it. That's one for impulse control.

Stella

7-21-12, 5:56pm

Zach worked some extra hours today. I suppose its not saving money, but since he is not terribly functional in the morning unless he gets dressed and gets out of the house, earning money is a good way for him to spend the morning. :)

I used the meal planning app my dad gifted me and it had a couple of recipes on it for stuff I want to make this week using stuff I have on hand.

Travis destroyed my keyboard, which is not frugal, but I replaced it with a nice one from the thrift store for $4.

I have been reserching ideas for the kids' rooms for months now and I think I have finally got a plan in place. I am going to see if I can get FIL and Zach to make these triple bunk beds (http://thehandmadedress.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-triple-bunks.html) for the kids. The boys don't really need three beds, but it never hurts to have a spare for sleepovers. We are going to modify them to have a climbing wall instead of a ladder, a shelf for each bunk and a full railing on the upper bunks for safety. Charlotte's bunk, the lowest one, will be blocked off at the foot and have a crib-style gate that can be removed. We'll get rid of the crib and just use that for her when she outgrows the pack n play. The girls' room would fit three beds without trouble, but this will give them more floor space.

The girls' room has two closets, one with a LEGO table and one empty one. The boys' room has a closet and an alcove. I am going to have Zach make a desk for the boys' room in the alcove from the old wood paneling, so it will be free. Both the closet in the boys' room and the empty closet in the girls' room will have reading nooks like the one in this blog post (http://original.littlehellraiser.com/2010/04/25/owen-and-dylans-room/) with shelves above for books and toys. Then all of their toys and books will be stored in the closet and the rolling window seat. The girls will have two reading nooks for privacy, both in the closet area and their beds will take up only a bit more space than one bed takes up now. The boys will have a lego desk for when they are older and a book nook with toy and book storage for now and their bed will also take up only a bit more space than one bed.

Tomorrow Dad is taking the kids on a train ride and Zach and I are going to do some organizing. He is adjusting the clothing storage to accomodate Charlotte's stuff and I am going to reorganize the pantry. That will make it easier to keep track of what we have.

chrissieq

7-21-12, 7:24pm

Chose to skip garage/estate/thrift shopping today. Instead DH took the car to church to take a CPR class - free for ushers. Stayed home and cleaned bathrooms, prepped dinner, straightened up the screen porch, finished one library book and started another. Later in the afternoon, took a nap.

LilyB

7-21-12, 7:32pm

We are back from a 14-day car trip to visit our little grandaughter and it was amazingly frugal.

First of all, since my daughter was on a business trip she saved the cost of a baysitter for a week. Since we won't take money for watching our own grandkid as she and her husband proposed, she paid for my styling and cut at her favorite spa...and even had them wax my eyebrows. I had my hair cut a bit shorter than usual so I can hold out on having it cut for a few extra weeks, and then I'll have my local (cheap) stylist trim it to maintain its shape.

We used the points from my credit card and hotel bonus card for 4 of the days at motels on the way to FL and back. This included a free breakfast each day of the trip down and back.

Three-year olds are cheap dates. We went to two different children's museums on their family admission card, ate at a fast food place with her best friend, swam in the pool, and played games when it was too hot to play outside. Who knew Candyland could be such fun?

We also got to celebrate DH's birthday with them. The star of the party was a cake decorated with toy soldiers by our granddaughter. One of his presents was a picture book of her past year made by our talented daughter. They also gave hime a gift card to Lowes which I know was sneaky way to give us some money.

We've decided to use the funds on the card to take of some needed home repairs

And last but not least, I made the final payment on my car. We now own it free and clear and were able to pay it off in half the loan term, saving lots of interest.

Amaranth

7-22-12, 9:59am

Stella, sounds like a lot of fun building projects. I like the jungle gym aspect of the bunk beds. I do have a few concerns.

As a small child, I managed to roll up and over the guard rail of the top bunk in my sleep. I woke iup just after rolling over the edge. Discovered it really is like in the movies where time slows before something horrible happens. Still remember the perception of the long, long, long fall before crashing into the floor.

Some of the children in our house after having read a pirate story, disassembled the guard rail from the top bunk in order to get a long board/plank. They wedged one end between the mattresses and the other end inside the open top drawer of a large heavy chest of drawers. One child then attempted to reenact the pirate story by walking the plank. The physics/leverage of the situation caused the chest of drawers to overturn. Fortunately the children were agile. The one walking the plank managed to leap out of the way during the fall as did the children on the floor. No children were crushed. Our mom did possibly lose a few years off her life contemplating the results of such a noise as she ran from the kitchen into the bedroom. I mention this since your children are skilled at repurposing and making things. ;)

As a child, I found that making up either the top or bottom bed was an ordeal and changing the linens even more so. The bottom one usually resulted in some injuries, usually head smacking, but sometimes hand or arm injuries if you overbalanced and fell while trying to shove the sheet around the mattress on the wall side. The top was really scary because you had to be on one edge while wrestling the other edge. And then it was important to be really, really careful not to back up too far so that you didn’t back up over the edge. For an adult it is difficult, especially on the wall side.

In the three bed design, I think it will be really hard to make up the bottom bed at the ladder and the middle bed at the ladder.

The child on the bottom bunk once past 6 or 7 can have a hard time doing things like reading in bed due to height restrictions. The child on the bottom bunk tends to get less sleep due to the noise of the one on the top bunk moving around on the bed. It’s not really safe for the child on the top bunk to do anything other than sleep.

Consider the speed at which the child on the middle or top bed can climb down and get to the bathroom when sick, especially if they have something that involves vomiting or diarrhea, or high fever with dizziness, or a broken arm/leg.

Some higher cage-like designs make it less likely that the child on the top will fall. These make making the bed or changing the linens much harder.

There have been some discoveries in the last 10-15 years or so about which bunk bed designs result in fewer suffocations of children.

On the plus side, I have also seen some very fun bunk bed designs where each child had a top bunk bed. The space under the bed had play space and shelves/bins, or a desk and bookshelves, or a comfy chair/small sofa and shelves.

early morning

7-22-12, 11:10am

Stella, those bunk beds are adorable!! Post picks when you're done please?? The creative side-rails are wonderful - are you doing those or another motif? I wish all families could/would utilize their resources they way you and your DH do (mine included :|() My frugals for the moment include, besides the same old stuff - cutting up a roast and freezing the pieces BEFORE they turned green.. (DD and I are doing really well with our 'waste no food' campaign), not purchasing anything at yard sales yesterday unless it was for resale or on our need list, and letting Mom buy us lunch :D. LilyB, great on the car pay-off! May it drive you around for many many years and/or miles! Amaranth, my cousin and I changed the sheets on her bunks by pulling out the mattress, which was foam and not really heavy. I don't remember it being a big deal. And put the least-restless child on the top bunk! In many old homes, the ceilings are really high, so anyone on a top bunk wouldn't be anywhere close to hitting the ceiling, but that is a good point - I don't know how high Stella's ceilings are! Falling is an issue, whether sleeping, climbing trees, whatever, and reasonable precautions should be taken. That said, each family has to decide their own "reasonable"...

mara61

7-22-12, 2:27pm

I'm loving this one...

Not too high, and nice and compact.

http://casadiez.elle.es/decoracion_interiores/habitacion_infantil/habitaciones_infantiles3/(image)/8

My DH doesn't want the boys to have bunk beds since he fell out and broke his collar bone. We do have an old home but the ceiling in their room is a bit on the low side.

Stella

7-22-12, 4:38pm

Mara I love that one! Both Zach and I had bunk beds as a kid and I agree they can be a bit of a pain to change the sheets. We do have foam mattresses, so that helps a little, not being so heavy. We are definitely going to add sturdier railings. FIL is a carpenter and he is very mindful of that kind of thing after having four boys. He is really good at making things sturdy and secure. We will put the cut-outs on the outside of the railings instead of using them as railings themselves. Cheyenne wants a paw print and Bella wants a heart.

Amaranth your story about your siblings does remind me of my kids. They are just that kind of crazy/resourceful.

I volunteered today at the maternity closet at church. We had a big baby stuff drive for a charity and we were sorting the donations. The maternity closet recieves donations from companies like Gymboree and Carters of out of season clothes, but we don't stock anything over 4T because of space issues. We sorted out boxes and boxes of clothes donated by corporations, a lot of them boxes of one style of shirt or one kind of jeans in different sizes. They told me to take some for my bigger kids. I got a bunch of jeans and shirts for fall. Considering it's Gymboree, where they charge like $20 for socks, it was probably $300 worth of clothes new. We decided we'd take the rest over to Caring and Sharing Hands this week so the kids there can get brand new clothes before school starts. We had 4 boxes of jeans alone and several boxes of other clothes. Gorgeous stuff. On top of the clothes I got for my kids, it was just good FFF. The girls and I are volunteering again next week and the week after with the maternity closet.

I think I need very little this week for groceries. I was looking in the frigdge and I think I pretty much just need milk and bananas. Maybe bread.

mara61

7-22-12, 7:38pm

Church this morning and a quick trip to Target to pick a filter for our sink. Our tap water has gotten worse over the last year in taste, and until we can afford to put in a full sink filter we picked this up. I've been buying big jugs of bottled water and this will be a more cost effective solution. We drink a lot of water from our water bottles and I'd like it to taste good (mine has a filter in it, but my DH's and kids don't).

Then over to Home Depot for some wood to fix our back steps and some hooks to hang up folding chairs. We trash picked 8 really nice old style metal ones and needed them up off the ground.

Making dinner with enough for leftovers for lunch for DH (thankfully he prefers to take lunch from home) and some mini muffins for snacks/breakfast for the next few days.

Tomorrow we are essentially home, except for a bike ride to the library. After last weeks VBS, I am tired of being on the go. We will I think be driving down to Toledo on Tuesday to go to the science museum.

I just tried my hand at refrigerator pickles, hoping they turn out! My plants are doing great as are the tomato plants.

cdttmm

7-23-12, 7:14am

Loving the triple bunk beds idea, Stella! I really want to try my hand at building stuff over the next year. I want some new cabinets in my pantry, perhaps I should try building them myself instead of paying someone else to do it.

Made a pound of black beans in the crockpot yesterday. Now I just have to plan some meals around them this week. I think tonight will be nachos with black beans -- probably not the world's healthiest meal, but it's my birthday and I figure it's cheaper to eat nachos at home than to go out! :D

I picked the last of the cherry tomatoes from the cherry tomato plant that was in a container on our deck. I thought it would keep going all summer long, but it was definitely done producing. I think probably our multiple heat waves and our ongoing drought did it in. Fortunately, we have a dozen or so tomato plants in our raised boxes and they are covered in green tomatoes, so the great tomato bounty of 2012 has not yet ended!

I've been on a decluttering binge and got rid of a bunch of stuff over the past two days. It has definitely made me reconsider buying anything ever again except for food, clothing, and sports equipment! :~) What can I say? I'm coveting a new bike and I think it's going to be hard for me to put off buying one for another year.

I've also been on a housecleaning binge, which has been a very frugal activity. Although I do think I'm going to hire a housecleaner for a few days in August while my partner is away. I have no interest in doing the truly deep cleaning that this house desperately needs. I'm thinking for $200-$300 I can get everything done by someone else and it will be the best money I've spent all year. And in preparation I will be forced to continue my decluttering and general organizing. That's what I call a win-win!!! :)

Not much else to report at the moment. I'll check back in when I have more!

mara61

7-23-12, 8:39am

It has definitely made me reconsider buying anything ever again except for food, clothing, and sports equipment! :~) What can I say? I'm coveting a new bike and I think it's going to be hard for me to put off buying one for another year.

My husband just got a new bike after taking his in for some repairs, it was cheaper to just have it repaired but apparently he was hankering for a new bike. We asked how much his bike was worth at the time (4 years old), and we went and sold it via craigslist. Our local bike shop only buys back used kids bikes otherwise we would have sold it there.

Perhaps you could sell your current one to offset the price of a new one.

Stella

7-23-12, 9:23am

Happy birthday cdttmm! I have been decluttering a lot lately and I am finding the same thing. I don't want to buy much.

Todays FFF is grocery shopping for the food shelf for my dad. We genuinely enjoy it and it's a valuable use of our time. We were discussing at the breakfast table what we could buy that is 1) reasonably nutritious 2) calorie dense and 3) very easy to prepare. We try to get the best nutritional value for the money while still realizing that this inner city food shelf does not always cater to people who can, for example, bake from scratch. The friars have told us that they like to have foods that anyone could make a meal out of. Our plan is to get canned chili, pasta, canned tomatoes with Italian herbs, baked beans, tuna, macaroni and cheese, canned corn and canned green beans. The pasta can be combined with either chili or the tomatoes and the macaroni and cheese can be combined with the tuna and canned vegetables. The baked beans can be a meal by themselves, or combined with some hamburger for cowboy beans if they happen to have hamburger. It's not the most nutritious food on earth, but its shelf stable, would fill you up and provide some nutrition.

I've got our own grocery shopping down to milk this week. I bought milk last night and, unfrugally, left it in the car. I think I could still make yogurt out of it though. I'll get another gallon when I go to Costco today.

I'm roasting a chicken on the grill tonight and making baked potatoes in the crockpot today. If I still have energy I am going to continue working on decluttering and cleaning.

Rosemary

7-23-12, 9:51am

Stella, Our food shelf has an online list of most-wanted items. When we volunteered there it was obvious why: some of the shelves were jammed with a year's worth of cans, while others were nearly empty. Perhaps your food shelf has a similar list.

We hosted a fundraising brunch for our church this weekend. It was mostly local foods, fresh from the farmers' market. I think the ingredients cost about $30, and it raised about $300 for our church. Since I know many of you are interested in recipes, here's what we made:
- eggs baked in pattypan squash (the squash are roasted partway first, then the eggs put in and baking finished
- roasted potatoes, carrots, and chicken sausages
- cucumber-tomato salad, middle-Eastern style
- mixed greens with roasted beets, walnuts, and dried figs, topped with goat cheese
- fruit - cantaloupe, cherries, plums, blueberries

Otherwise - just the usual stuff. Cooking at home, line-drying laundry, etc. Today's frugal entertainment will be sewing Hogwarts robes with DD for her dolls.

debi

7-23-12, 1:00pm

Fidgiegirl: "Well hello everyone! Back from a week or so in the Upper Peninsula of MI and Door County, WI. Both lovely and different, yet similar places. We camped almost all the nights in MI and saw the beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore out of Munising, MI and hiked, swam, and took two boat rides in the area. "

Wish I had known that you were in the UP. I reside about 30 min sw of Munising. I could have told you of places to go to for free that you would have enjoyed as well. We have a number of waterfalls that are spectacular that a lot of people don't know about, and they're free. I know in Munising there are a few that do charge -- don't ever pay for that. This past weekend Marquette held their Hiawatha Concerts. In mid-August, Escanaba has the UP State Fair. All of the small town usually have fairs as well. Where I'm employed, they give free demonstrations for woody biomass. The extension offices usually have free gatherings as well. Don't know if you hit any of the lighthouses. Don't know how far you went into the UP. Kewenawee has a lot of places to see -- I've been there for a mini-vacation. Pelkie area has Mennonites and some Amish. There's also a community near Newberry -- just don't know if the fire destroyed this Amish/Mennonite community.

Stella

7-23-12, 6:04pm

Mmm. Rosemary your brunch sounds wonderful! I did ask about what kinds of foods the food shelf prefers and they mentioned most of the things I bought. This food shelf is so low on stock they are nearly empty. I am thinking of having the kiddos do a food drive of some kind.

I went out to water the plants today and our tomatoes have just exploded. We only have a few tomato plants and I got a big bowl full of them. Nice! Caprese salad tonight, I think.

Blackdog Lin

7-23-12, 8:40pm

We have about 14 tomato plants this year in the garden which have also exploded (DH is watering - pretty bad drought here). I've been picking a 5-gallon bucket every 2nd or 3rd day; yesterday I picked 2 5-gallon buckets full. Also am picking 3-4 pounds of okra every time I'm out there. We have enough okra in the freezer for the next 6 months; coworkers, friends and family are starting to avoid me and lock their vehicles against me in my quest to not waste all the okra I'm picking (a la' the dreaded zucchini measures people have to take in gardening season). :)

So we're heavy into trying to plan meals that use all the freshness, along with all the canning DH is doing (love love love the new pressure canner - expensive but turning out to be worth every penny). It's a very good thing neither of us has "acid" issues with eating lots of tomatoes.

Thursday night: bacon and tomato sandwiches, with fried okra on the side.
Saturday night: garden gumbo w/fresh tomatoes and okra and smoked sausage and all kinds of other veggies, over rice.
Sunday night: leftover "loose-beef" and tomato sandwiches with horseradish sauce (me). Coleslaw made with garden cabbage (our first try growing cabbage and.....I don't know.....I don't think it was all that good of cabbage. I think he harvested too late, DH said he didn't notice any difference. Garden cabbage will be a learning experience for us the next couple years.....)
Tonight: spaghetti with homemade fresh-tomato sauce. DH outdid himself, his idea and his creation and it smells wondermous.
Tuesday night (plan): Italian pasta salad with pepperoni - and lots of tomatoes.
Wednesday (plan): tuna-salad-stuffed-tomatoes, with fried okra
and then I'm out of tomato ideas for a few days, but Thursday or Friday should be some simple cooked meat with oven-roasted okra. Haven't ever tried it, but it got great reviews on AllRecipes and I'm anxious to find a new way of fixing okra. sigh.

Frugal tip #1 for this year: have a good garden, then be so busy with taking care of it and picking it and planning meals with it and preserving it.....that you have no time whatsoever for considering any other shopping or recreation.

:)

Merski

7-24-12, 6:24am

Seeded peeled and chopped fine garden tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil and olive oil. Cook pasta till tender. Just before serving stir goat cheese into raw tomato stuff and stir until cheese "melts" Sauce will be pink. Put on drained hot pasta and eat. Very yummy!

Amaranth

7-24-12, 4:26pm

Blackdog Lin, Try drying some of the okra and powdering it. Then make some of the african okra sauces to go over polenta or use in winter soups, etc.

Stella

7-24-12, 5:33pm

Today's frugal entertainment will be sewing Hogwarts robes with DD for her dolls.

How did I miss this? Cool! I am jealous!

Stella

7-24-12, 6:21pm

I have developed a plan. What's new, right? :) I have always struggled between liking to have freezer meals on hand and going overboard and not using them. Here's my new plan. I am going to plan that Tuesdays, which are Zach's day to go to basketball, are going to be freezer meal nights. Once a week I will make a double batch of something, pasta, fried rice, etc. and freeze it. I will keep one spare freezer meal in the freezer beyond the Tuesday meal and every Tuesday I will use up the oldest of the two meals, replacing the extra one when necessary. This will give me two "outs" during the week if I need it and will automatically ensure that meals don't stay in the freezer for too long. I am using one meal tonight and I have some fried rice in the freezer.

We made another reading nook today, this time in the odd space in the kids' hallway. I took the mattress extender from the toddler bed, which we aren't using, and put a pretty quilt over it. We added some pillows with pillowcases I embroidered a while back and a wooden box turned on its side for a bookshelf. The kids stocked it with some books my dad's friend gave us, mostly Winnie-the-Pooh and Beatrix Potter. It is a huge hit. The big girls want to sew some buntings to go over it for decoration. I have plenty of scrap fabric for that.

Tussiemussies

7-24-12, 9:16pm

Stella, just love your book reading nook. Sounds so inviting for the children...

fidgiegirl

7-25-12, 12:11am

Wish I had known that you were in the UP. I reside about 30 min sw of Munising. I could have told you of places to go to for free that you would have enjoyed as well. We have a number of waterfalls that are spectacular that a lot of people don't know about, and they're free. I know in Munising there are a few that do charge -- don't ever pay for that. This past weekend Marquette held their Hiawatha Concerts. In mid-August, Escanaba has the UP State Fair. All of the small town usually have fairs as well. Where I'm employed, they give free demonstrations for woody biomass. The extension offices usually have free gatherings as well. Don't know if you hit any of the lighthouses. Don't know how far you went into the UP. Kewenawee has a lot of places to see -- I've been there for a mini-vacation. Pelkie area has Mennonites and some Amish. There's also a community near Newberry -- just don't know if the fire destroyed this Amish/Mennonite community.

Thank you, debi! We would like to go back, so I'll bear it in mind for next time!

Hi all, well, everyone's been busy busy! We, on the other hand, have not. :) We've been luxuriating in the pine cathedrals of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Lovely, lovely! Needed some rest and are back now.

We spent about $100 on food, $36 on a permit, about $50 on gas. We already have all needed gear for the BWCA. Worth it!

We'll be workin' on some power frugals coming up here. I have an interview for a side job tomorrow morning via Skype. We'll see if they want me or if it is a good fit. Still a long shot, but heck. Would be nice to make a few bucks toward the mortgage project. Of course, I have no idea how many bucks it will even pay! :)

Tussiemussies

7-25-12, 12:13am

Thank you, debi! We would like to go back, so I'll bear it in mind for next time!

Hi all, well, everyone's been busy busy! We, on the other hand, have not. :) We've been luxuriating in the pine cathedrals of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Lovely, lovely! Needed some rest and are back now.

We spent about $100 on food, $36 on a permit, about $50 on gas. We already have all needed gear for the BWCA. Worth it!

We'll be workin' on some power frugals coming up here. I have an interview for a side job tomorrow morning via Skype. We'll see if they want me or if it is a good fit. Still a long shot, but heck. Would be nice to make a few bucks toward the mortgage project. Of course, I have no idea how many bucks it will even pay! :)

Good luck Kelli with your job interview!:)

Stella

7-26-12, 1:38pm

Stella, just love your book reading nook. Sounds so inviting for the children...

Kelli I am jealous of your travels. Lovely places!

Thanks Tussiemussies! Here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25036380@N04/7651193738/) is a picture of it. It has gotten a lot of use from the kiddos. I'm feeling photo-y today. :)

We had some plants that were either done for the year or just never really got going, so we took them out and planted the bottoms of some celery (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25036380@N04/7651192464/) as an experiment for school. Supposedly they should grow. It's just for fun, anyway.

Cheyenne made us a Caprese Salad (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25036380@N04/7651192088/) today for lunch. We also had popcorn and tomato soup. The tomatoes for the salad were from our garden.

The heat has broken and the A/C is off. Yay! I have gotten Charlotte and Travis on more or less of a simultaneous nap schedule, which means I can actually do stuff. That is probably the biggest frugal of the year. :)

A friend of mine who lives in Chincoteague sent me the Misty of Chincoteague books for the girls. We've been having some good FFF reading the books and looking at photos and videos of the pony penning and the swim online. I had forgotten how well written those books are.

bke

7-26-12, 2:02pm

Last night we ate dinner at home before doing the weekly shopping. That saved us about $22.

I finally found a place to buy decent bagels. When I lived in the city, they were a staple for me. Now they feel like a real indulgence! For $13.29 I bought a baker's dozen and 2 8 oz. containers of flavored cream cheese. I froze the bagles to keep them fresh.

I also bought a $20 toaster oven to replace the one that died over a year ago. Our microwave had also went kaput and I waited to do any repurchasing until I determined how much they were missed. I could care less about the microwave in our current living arraingement. The toaster + bagels=an upgrade on our quality of life! Oh, and I did buy the cheapest toaster oven available!

It the past 10 days or so I have won a bag of chips, a $20 amazon.com gift certificate and an Ipod shuffle doing sweepstakes.

fidgiegirl

7-26-12, 2:38pm

bke, awesome. I entered a sweepstakes yesterday from the local independent business group and thought of you :) There will only be two winners but heck, it's gotta be someone, right?!

bke

7-26-12, 2:53pm

That's my attitude Kelli! Its certainly more profitable than scratching lottery tickets! Not that I make a habit of wasting money on those!!!

fidgiegirl

7-26-12, 11:37pm

Well, a few for today.

Passed on a new swimsuit. I thought I'd get a backup while they are on clearance, but none fit me right, and even on clearance they are still about $50. Eeeeek. I might, might, try making one. But stretchy fabrics are my nemesis. We'll see. My existing suit is doing ok and I don't swim too often.

We got a gallon of exterior brown paint for $5. We have several brown projects coming up, including our garage door, new backdoor, and quite a bit of trim, so that was a great find.

Continuing to eat at home even though we are running out of a lot of items! A grocery order will be coming tomorrow. Not super frugal, but saves me going to the store. Yuck.

mara61

7-27-12, 10:25am

No car = no drive ;) Supposedly getting brakes but I'm thinking theres more to it than that since it shouldn't take 2 days for a dealership to replace the brakes.

We've ridden to the library twice, saw a puppet show there. Very fun!

Cleaned out the fridge for dinner last night, have my list ready to go.

Unfortunately we had to cancel our camping trip, DH thought it was only mid July and our trip was tonight. So we are going out to Port Huron for a bike ride, maybe a few museums and lunch.

decemberlov

7-27-12, 12:09pm

I finally found a place to buy decent bagels. When I lived in the city, they were a staple for me. Now they feel like a real indulgence! For $13.29 I bought a baker's dozen and 2 8 oz. containers of flavored cream cheese. I froze the bagles to keep them fresh.

.

We eat lots of bagels around here. I always buy them at night at our local grocery store..they sell a variety pack of 12 for $4.00 because they want to get rid of the leftovers before the next morning when the fresh ones come out. We use them for pizza bagels for quick meals on busy nights and the kids love making their own!

CJLev

7-27-12, 4:04pm

I am very proud of myself. I was coming up to the end of my car lease, didn't want to the buy the car (it had some issues) and couldn't do another lease, since I will be driving rather far when my office moves to a new building next month. I was all ready to buy a new car, but decided to look into how much I could save going with a good used car. I am now the proud owner of a 2011 Honda Accord all thanks to Hertz. They have this used car division here (http://www.hertzcarsales.com/search-used-car-prices-and-values) and the cars are all retired rentals. Mine was less than a year old, only had 20,000 miles on it and was in near immaculate condition. This is a great option for anyone in need of a new car, but also looking to save a little money.

fidgiegirl

7-27-12, 4:25pm

Welcome to the frugals thread, both of you!

I turned a senior citizen bed safety rail from a garage sale ($2) into $15 on CL today. More work than I would have liked to do so, though. Duly noted.

Got a lot of free items at a garage sale today and many are now on eBay. That dude was one of the most motivated I've ever seen to get that stuff OUT of there! We mainly got books.

Our best score was a stability ball for $1 today but when DH pumped it up for me he ruined the inlet with whatever pump he used so consequently it is now in the trash. Boo hoo, I have been watching for an inexpensive one for weeks and was super excited. He felt really bad.

fidgiegirl

7-27-12, 11:45pm

We are batting around a financial plan for how to save for our next car as well as start knocking down the mortgage. Not much clarity yet, but it gives new meaning to our frugal endeavors. In brainstorming we came up with a few ways to rejigger what we are already doing to set aside more.

I have some yogurt going, a quart from whole milk. Yummmmm yummmm. I might strain this batch for Greek. Funny, I bought store yogurt while we were in between travels and I didn't like it as well as I used to. My homemade, whole stuff with pineapple in it or nectarines on the edge of sweetness - divine.

Right now DH is eating air popped popcorn on the couch next to me. I had some too but never eat the second round where he pops the old maids. :) We were also reflecting on how since I am gluten free now we have a lot less desire to go out to eat. Too much of a PITA.

I am going to look at the July numbers and see what we come up with.

SteveinMN

7-28-12, 7:45pm

After a week of house guests and crazy schedules, a normal day and a normal dinner. :cool: Today's frugal: oven-baked chicken with a cracker coating. Dunno about your house, but every box of crackers here seems to end up with a bunch of half- and third-crackers and whatever disintegrated over the time the box was open. They're not good for dipping or putting stuff on, so when the bag is that close to empty, I put the crumbs into a reused yogurt/cottage cheese container and stuff that in the freezer until there is enough (freezing keeps the high-fat-content crackers from going rancid so quickly). Then whirl them around in a blender or food processor or just crush them with a rolling pin, add the herbs and spices that make your brood happy, apply a thin egg wash to the chicken, roll in the cracker crumbs, and put in a lightly-greased pan. Easy-peasy.

fidgiegirl

7-28-12, 7:54pm

Mmm great idea Steve. I just composted some stale crackers but I bet they would have worked for something like this as they weren't too far gone.

I forgot a frugal from the other day. We bought a dog grooming clipper at a garage sale, brand new, for $5. When we get another dog or two they will be dogs who will need groomed. So, inspired by cdttmm here on the frugals thread a few months ago, I have been thinking I would attempt to learn how to groom them myself. Now, just to get those dang dogs!! :)

bunnys

7-28-12, 8:11pm

Bought some clothing last night. I don't think I've bought anything since last January. Got it on Eddie Bauer.com
2 sweaters--saved 40 bucks each
2 pairs of pants--saved another 30 or 40 bucks each
1 dress--saved like 30 bucks
Spent $99. so free shipping.
also bought a pair of shoes on Zappos for 35 bucks off

I very rarely buy any clothes that aren't on clearance and never buy anything that isn't at least on sale.

Don't feel like I'm doing very well lately with frugality as I've been dealing with purchasing a new car and trying to sell the other one for as much money as possible. When it comes to cars (buying or selling) 10% difference can mean thousands of dollars and so I really don't want to think about it any longer because if I mess up 10% that's a lot of money so the pressure's on.

Thinking of buying a stovetop percolator for making coffee as the drip coffee maker I've got has a cracked pot and the top that covers the water well is broken as well. Don't want to spend another 20 bucks on a drip coffee make when if I buy a stovetop percolator I'll never have to replace it. I've picked out some I'm interested in but the one I really want makes me pay for shipping unless the purchase is at least $50. and this percolator isn't that expensive and there's nothing else on the site I want or need. So I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place.

I don't trust ebay and am afraid of it and don't want the hassle of bidding against other people.

Rosemary

7-28-12, 10:22pm

I was inspired to begin a fairly large garden project yesterday. I'm removing a bunch of grass and planting an area that borders my vegetable garden. I have many plants to divide for the shady area and bought a beautiful plant that I've been eying for the last month, waiting for it to go on sale, for the sunny area. It's a St John's Wort hybrid and the bees absolutely love it. I'll plant other things around it, so it will be an accent. I had to buy some edging - I've learned the hard way that it pays to put this in to keep out turf grass, the most annoying and invasive plant ever. Anyway, this is frugal because I'm using mostly my own plants and digging up sod is a free, time-consuming activity...

Tonight we had a church potluck. Every summer I organize summer potlucks, which in the past have been at members' homes. This year I decided to do it differently and it was SO much easier. Instead of matching people up with dates, I just assigned a date and assigned food types to people as they committed to come. I brought my raw ingredients to the church to cook while we cleaned up since we don't meet regularly in the summer. We have enough leftovers for 2 nights' dinners - bonus!

fidgiegirl

7-28-12, 10:30pm

bunnys - I have seen a lot of stovetop coffee pots in thrift stores, as well as electric percs. Some vintage stores in the area have them as well. I have also seen at garage sales.

Truly, though, my gut says just go for a purchase on the site with the shipping. You're a person who researches her purchases thoroughly, and if you know it's the one you want, you'll be happy with it. You'll be able to use it right away, and once you've had that puppy for a few years, you won't even remember the few dollars you spent on the shipping.

One thing I try if buying online from a smaller online retailer (i.e. not Amazon) is to Google "coupon code for _____." Usually RetailMeNot is the top result, and then on their site they have all the active and past codes listed for a given online retailer. I've saved a few bucks this way in the past. Good luck!

Rosemary, nice garden project. We are going to do some moving/splitting in a few weeks as well. The rental has overgrown front beds that need to be made smaller and simpler in order to look nice. We need to get edging for those, too. The plants that get taken out are going in a different bed over there or coming to this house.

rosarugosa

7-28-12, 11:14pm

Just an aside that cats don't need outside grooming interference - they are totally self-sufficient as far as that goes. Just saying. . .
Bunnys: This is the stovetop percolator I've had my eye on. It's glass, so it could break, but I like the 8-cup capacity and the fact that it's made in the US:
http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Coffee___Glass_Stovetop_Percolator___109 4145#1094145
I learned about this company from someone on the Forums.
I don't do the bidding thing on E-bay either, but I have bought "Buy it Now" items, which are just regular purchases that I've paid for with PayPal. No bad experiences so far.

fidgiegirl

7-29-12, 11:59am

Just an aside that cats don't need outside grooming interference - they are totally self-sufficient as far as that goes. Just saying. . .

If only I could learn to love cats! :)

Our dog doesn't have to go to a groomer, either, but the copious hair everywhere *really* bothers DH. So his only requirement for our next dog is that it be a non-shedder. I'll take it, since for the longest time it was full-out resistance to the discussion of a second dog. :)

bunnys

7-29-12, 12:59pm

Rosa--I've seen the one you're interested in. I don't want breakable glass, plastic or aluminum. I want all stainless steel. This is the one I'm looking at.
http://www.backcountry.com/gsi-outdoors-glacier-stainless-percolator?rr=t&cmp_id=&rrType=ClickEV&rrProd=GSI0130
silicone handle so it stays cool and glass dome and all stainless steel. Not stainless outside and aluminum guts. I don't want to eat off heated aluminum.

Fidgie--actually, I like the idea of looking @ a thrift store. I have never drunk percolated coffee before and I'm not even sure I would like it or could get used to it. I should probably look around at some thrift stores to see if I can find one inexpensively and then see if I even like it before committing to something expensive. And yes, I do use Retailmenot quite a bit and always Ebates.com if possible. So helpful.
Also, you can learn to love ANY animal. They're all so lovable!

I have been looking at the Revereware ones on Ebay but they're used and some are $75! Come on $75 bucks for a USED coffeepot? But the Revereware are all stainless (except for their super-heat-conduting copper bottoms...)

danna

7-29-12, 2:34pm

July 29th
Been here reading the last couple of weeks not sure were the time goes...but I have had a few frugals.
--buying and eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies....all good and cheap right now...so it is the time to enjoy them
--had more company for a few days and again was able to feed them really well and cheaply mostly with stuff bought on sale.
--serveral more items sold on Kijiji---I am doing really well using this as a way to declutter
--mostly only buying food that is really fresh or really on a good sale...using coupons---managed to get a few that were buy one get one free really got like those ones.
--went to a pot luck last night and made an Asian Rice Salad with the Fake Crab meat it was not very expensive and the really large bowl was almost empty...so it must have been good...lol

Merski

7-29-12, 2:40pm

Made lots of food this rainy weekend to eat during the week. Curried turkey thighs in tomato sauce, big batch of rice, ginormous cauliflower cooked two different ways. Blueberry cake and chocolate zucchini cake. Will grill 7 of our recently harvested orient express eggplants, chop and freeze for pasta/pizza sauce marathon this fall. I feel great about this. No brainer meal will be hotdogs and beans (we pressure canned maple baked beans last year...will not do again) and even salmon burgers as back up. Went to purchase some amazing storage shelves at a phenomenal price at costco which weren't there so we got a raincheck for 5 of them. Will share with a friend who has a truck to pick them up in! DH will be getting a few more days a week at his job which is due to his friend/boss being ill, unfortunately but it will help us with the giant bills for allof our insurances which are due in August. BTW bought a copy of Frugal Gazette book for $1 and will reread and be reinspired by Amy D.

bke

7-29-12, 5:49pm

We had our big memorial dinner last night and it went really well. We fed 46 people. The family left me $147 tip! Such sweet people. We've been eating party leftovers for dinner the last two nights. Baked chicken, pasta salad, broccoli, baked beans and chocolate pudding. There is still quite a bit left but I'm sure we'll find a use for it all. The broccoli and the chicken are still servable so that's no problem.

I ended up making the pasta salad with black olives, red peppers and some good quality mozarella cheese.

Since I made such great tips this weekend, I have given tomorrow's waitress shift to one of my employees. She is a single mom who can really use the money and I can really use an extra day off after working so hard this weekend so everybody wins!

My guys went to work on the house for a bit tonight and I'm not doing anything more strenuous than communicating with you all and playing a little on-line scrabble.

rosarugosa

7-29-12, 7:16pm

Danna: We've been eating lots of peaches and blueberries. They're so cheap right now and very delicious.
Merski: Sounds like lots of good things to eat at your house and what a great score on the book bargain. Amy would be proud of you!
BKE: That's an awesome tip, and how nice that it could buy you a day off and help your employee at the same time :)
We jumped on Market Basket's $3.99/lb lobster deal today. We got four lobsters and two lbs. of steamers for $28.00, which is a steal. It's funny, DH showed me a conversation thread on his FB page where all the locals are talking about feasting on bargain lobsters from MB, so we're not alone!
I've also decided to return a pair of pants I bought at Talbot's a few weeks ago. I had convinced myself that I needed them, but I really don't. They also need to be hemmed and I keep vacillating back and forth on whether to keep them or not, so I decided that was certainly a clear enough indicator that I don't need them, so I'll be unspending some money at Talbot's. The trick will be to avoid spending more while I'm there, and to resist the siren's call of the dragonfly polo shirt.

fidgiegirl

7-29-12, 11:09pm

Hi everyone!

The camper is gone!! Yeah! We are about $300 richer after all was said and done and divvied up and will save on the monthly storage fee. Plus my DH's worry load is lighter. Yippee!! I am really glad for this. In the long run it will not be a savings because the trips DFIL and DH take will now require renting a cabin, but that's ok. It's money well spent for them to enjoy themselves and not be stressed over the camper.

Funny, the other day at garage sales we bought two canoe yokes to resell on eBay. Well, our nephew came out early from his own Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness canoe trip because his canoe seats started to break out. In discussing the repairs, he talked about wanting to put on a yoke, but said he didn't have a middle bar to his canoe (this particular style screws to that bar). Well, as luck would have it, one of the yokes came with a middle bar attached! It wasn't supposed to be on there . . . someone messed up and removed it from the canoe. We pointed this out at the garage sale, but they said the boat was long gone, so we said, ok then, off we go! And everyone laughed, and off we went. And then the NEXT DAY our nephew needed this part for his canoe. Whether he can use it I don't know (right size and all) but pretty funny coincidence.

Rosemary

7-29-12, 11:32pm

DH and I tackled various projects around the house and yard today, none of which required driving or spending money.
At the end of the day we helped a friend move some heavy items and DH had requested that we eat out after that, so we used a gift card that we had... almost free dinner.

Stella

7-30-12, 9:02am

Kelli, that is a funny coincidence!

We didn't have a frugal weekend. We decided to go out to Wisconsin for the weekend and see my aunt. We got a pretty good deal on the hotel room and had a lot of fun. I haven't seen my aunt since her husband died last year, so it was time to make a visit. I started the trip being anxious about every penny, but some things, like family, are more important than money and I eventually decided to just relax and enjoy the trip.

Now we are trying to plan a family reunion for next year. We're thinking of having it at a park. We'll have to come up with something for food. Potluck won't work because people will be coming from across the country and I don't want the burden to fall too heavily on my aunt and cousins who live in the area. If everyone came (descendants of my paternal grandparents) there would be about 50 people. I'm thinking maybe we could order fried chicken from the grocery store or something like that.

I ordered groceries for delivery on the way home from our trip. I spent less than usual and I bet it will get us through the whole week.

Amaranth

7-30-12, 9:14am

Steve, the crackers on the chicken recipe sounds really good. Two other things I like to do with broken crackers are crumble them a bit more and sprinkle them on salads or soups.

Kelli, that is a funny coincidence and especially for something so uncommon. I have had a number of incidences like that with plants. I often serve as a conduit for plant and seed swaps. Sometimes it can take months for someone to offer some extras of a plant someone else wants. Other times someone will give me divisions and then someone will call me half an hour later and ask if I know anyone who has some extra __________. And sometimes I can say...funny you should ask....

Amaranth

7-30-12, 9:22am

Stella, your overall frugality makes important things like visiting your aunt possible. It can be hard though to switch from black-belt-frugality mode to still-careful-but-enjoying-the-fruits-of-my-frugality mode.

For the reunion, if you can grill in the park, you might be able to cook the meat as part of the activities of the day. Often hanging around the grill allows people to interact who might not easily otherwise. A favorite when we do this for large groups is chicken marinated in italian salad dressing and then grilled.

decemberlov

7-30-12, 10:09am

Found a new produce place that I'm absolutely thrilled about!! We Made out very well.

2 qts of raspberries
2 qt of blueberries
6 red peppers
5 lbs of potatoes
2 heads of broccoli
1 spaghetti squash
2 large heads of romaine lettuce
5 cloves of garlic
8 bananas
2 huge tomatoes

total = $14.00 :cool:

So stoked!! and everything looked soooo much better than at the grocery store.
We also spent the time slicing all the peppers for easy access snacks for the kids.
My little one also loves to make smoothies with the fruit so she was thrilled to have some raspberries...we almost never buy them because they're so expensive!

fidgiegirl

7-30-12, 11:29am

Potential big savings - We're thinking about a refi. I know we just moved but rates have dropped even more in the time since we've moved! Almost an entire point! So basically with our ENTIRE mortgage still sitting there unpaid, we could save quite a bit of money over the next number of years. We'll see what our mortgage person says about it. I am not sure about fees and such. 15 year mortgages are in the high 2%. Unbelievable. Too bad I don't think we have the income to go for a 15 year at this time. But 30s are like 3.25%. We have 4.125% right now, so it's not the full point that conventional wisdom says makes a refi worth it. But we're so early into this mortgage that over time we'd more than make up the $$.

bke

7-30-12, 12:58pm

decemberluv-that is an impressive deal on produce!

Kelli- sometimes you can actually get a mortgage for somewhere in between the 15 and thirty years. Might be worth checking out.

Ds and I went out and ran errands today. Library, bank, etc. I bought 5 bottles of dish soap, 2 tooth brushes, 12 pks of gum for my guys, some lanacane for bug bites for less than $7. We were low or out of everything but the dish soap so this was good timing on the sales.

I bought ds Subway for lunch as a treat. I've been promising to do so all summer. I passed and came home and made a bacon egg and cheese sandwich instead. My treat today is a cup of free coffee with free hazelnut creamer. YUM!!! I am drinking very little coffee these days so it seems very decadent.

In the mail today I recieved more free coffee from Green Mountain, a sample of cereal, and a 30 supply of vitamins.

I won a bottle of Sobe last night playing sweepstakes and am about to see what I can win today.

mara61

7-30-12, 12:58pm

My no drive days of last week due to my car in the shop equated to new brakes and rotors, not frugal. Oh well, just keeping trudging along!

We stayed home on Saturday other than a trip to the batting cages with the boys. My DH finished fixing our back deck steps, the wood was under $15 for all 4 steps.

Sunday we drove out to Port Huron for the day, biked from the downtown area to the bridge and went to a few museums. I ended up buying the family pass, I'll take the kids back out in the fall and spring again. It payed for itself yesterday, so everything else will be bonus. We did eat lunch out, but I was expecting it. Coffee house/sandwich shop, tasty soup and sandwiches. I prepped dinner before I left so I just needed to cook the meat when we got home.

Today I took my oldest to the Apple store nearby for a free movie making class that they offer for kids. He got a shirt today and tomorrow will get a bracelet flash drive took bring his movie home after editing. On Saturday they will host a viewing in the morning for all the kids who want to see it at the store. After tomorrow's visit we are going over to Auntie Annie's pretzels. The boys got coupons for free pretzels for our town library reading programs.

We ran to the library today for returns and of course pick ups. We each checked out a pass to visit the Lansing Historical Museum. There are 10 other museums and then additional historical sites (along with State Parks) that you can visit with the passes. I'm hoping to go on Thursday, with a trip to the Potter Park zoo in Lansing in the morning (I bought a family zoo membership in Kalamazoo earlier in the year, so the visit there would be free to). My plan is to picnic in between the zoo and museum.

Printed out the boys reading sheets for Barnes and Noble, we are going on Friday to redeem for their free books for summer reading.

decemberlov

7-30-12, 1:18pm

Stella

7-30-12, 1:25pm

Amaranth, I like the idea of grilling! I bet that would work.

I agree, stuff like the trip to see my aunt is possible because we are frugal most of the time. I'm in kind of a zone lately because we are so close to seeing the light at the end of the debt tunnel. All we have for debt is my one student loan and a few minor hospital bills from having babies. If we keep our heads screwed on straight and things progress roughly as planned we will be totally debt free, including mortgage, by Zach's 31st birthday. That is just using regular, expected income, and we have gotten quite a bit lately in extra money. If that continued we could speed it up further and that is making me obsess a little bit about money.

I need to have patience with myself. I am really excited (maybe a bit overzealous, actually) because we're about to turn that corner where all of the hard work starts to pay off fast. I am kind of craving that sense of accomplishment. Until now a lot of our sacrifices have been for things that really haven't added much to the old net worth for the short-term, but will likely make a big difference down the road. For example, putting Zach through school without student loans while supporting our relatively large family. Now he's done and has a good job that he really loves and no student loans, which is great. His income dropped a bit, though, when he changed careers because he's starting at the bottom of the totem pole again. He has regularly scheduled pay increases for the next 5 years and will end up making good money, so in about a year and a half to two years we'll reach that sweet spot where we will be totally debt free with income that is going up substantially.

Stella

7-30-12, 1:26pm

Today I took my oldest to the Apple store nearby for a free movie making class that they offer for kids. He got a shirt today and tomorrow will get a bracelet flash drive took bring his movie home after editing.

Cool! I will have to look into that.

mara61

7-30-12, 3:42pm

If you have an account at Bank of America you can get free admission to some museums the 1st weekend of each month!! Here's the link. (http://gokidstravel.com/2012/03/02/bank-of-american-free-museum-admission-2012/)

Thanks Decemberlov, we do have a BOA account and in the past have used them.

The museum we are going to is only free on Sundays or with this pass as it does not fall under the BOA pass or the Target Arts free days. When possible I prefer to not go to museums on weekends. Too many people.

Thank you for the suggestion though :) .

mara61

7-30-12, 4:14pm

Here is the link for the Apple Camp. Stella, I don't know which store you go to but I would look today. It looks like this is the last week for it, with classes on Wednesday/Thursday and then on Saturday.
http://www.apple.com/retail/learn/youth/

Apprently our local magic store offers free classes at noon on Saturdays, we might check those out!

decemberlov

7-30-12, 4:23pm

Thanks Decemberlov, we do have a BOA account and in the past have used them.

The museum we are going to is only free on Sundays or with this pass as it does not fall under the BOA pass or the Target Arts free days. When possible I prefer to not go to museums on weekends. Too many people.

Thank you for the suggestion though :) .

No problem...your post reminded me that I still haven't taken advantage of this offer myself ;)

fidgiegirl

7-30-12, 4:44pm

So cool you guys! Everyone is up to such great stuff.

DH just did the most filthy job yet for our house. He had to go under the porch, which is just crawl space, and drill a hole through the cinder block wall to run wire for an outlet in the porch which was installed and never connected. Then he reattached insulation under the floor of the porch that had fallen down. SO GROSS!! But now it's done, and we will be that much warmer in winter.

Plus (and most exciting), I can proceed with the organization of the eBay area. eBay junk is taking over our house because I thought we could stage it in the attic, but the attic is just a half story and too pitched for my wonderful tall DH, so he just moves the stuff where it's more comfortable to work with. But we are going to move it to the basement. We'll use existing furniture. I am going to set up the box holder again (we used it to organize flattened boxes at the old house, it's kind of a vertical filing system of sorts, we made it out of a few dowels and 2x4s), put a shelf or hooks above that for holding other packaging materials (we have saved a TON on packaging materials just by keeping our eyes open for reusable items, and one friend who works in a shop sometimes grabs landfill-destined items for us, etc.). Then we are also going to have a shelf to store all the items that are waiting to be sold/shipped/listed/whatever, and a table for packaging items with all the necessary accoutrements. I am also going to hang a white cloth behind the table so that the table can be easily converted into a photography area for the items. And now that we have wifi, we can even do the listings down there right at the table. This is my vision, anyway: no eBay crap upstairs. :) We'll see how well it works out ;)

fidgiegirl

7-31-12, 11:19am

We have decided we should seriously start a car fund. (LOL, see my other thread about automotive repair!) Our goal and hope is to still keep both cars going until they are dead, but you can't wait until they are dead to start the car fund. I don't want to take an entire car purchase out of our EF at the rate we're going now. When I was single I always did better with separate "funds" within my main account, and they were all still sitting there empty. So I just started using one again. Easy. We put in the camper $$ and I closed a lingering Ally account with about $60 in it. So we've begun! All our online sales will go in there, too. We'll have to find an additional source as well.

bunnys

7-31-12, 2:21pm

2 qts of raspberries
2 qt of blueberries
6 red peppers
5 lbs of potatoes
2 heads of broccoli
1 spaghetti squash
2 large heads of romaine lettuce
5 cloves of garlic
8 bananas
2 huge tomatoes

total = $14.00 :cool:

That is a phenomenal deal!

Stella

7-31-12, 2:50pm

Kelli, I like to keep savings funds separate too. Lately I am all about stuffing our "Trip to Italy" fund. :)

We had the loveliest frugal morning. We walked to the park across from our house and collected leaves to identify with our field guide. There were fiddlers at the coffee shop at the park, out on the patio overlooking the lake, so we stopped and had a snack of graham crackers and water while we listened to them. I used to work at that coffee shop and some of my favourite regulars were there, so I got to chat for a while and show off my new baby. One of my favourite old coworkers was there too, home from college for the summer.

The kids danced to the fiddle music and identified their leaves. We also figured out that Stripey, the caterpillar that lives in our dill patch, is a Monarch caterpillar and Theodora, a caterpillar they were friendly with last fall, is a woolybear caterpillar. Apparently she turned into an Isabella Tiger Moth. Isabella was happy to hear that. We very nearly named Charlotte after that caterpillar. Theodora was high on my name list.

We came home and made bruschetta with our homemade tomatoes. We made one type with a rainbow of sauteed tomatoes and one type that was a crostini with slices of fresh mozzarella, sliced yellow and red tomatoes and fresh chopped basil. So insanely delicious and very, very cheap. Diana in Wisconsin advised the girls on their tomato gardening project and they have gotten so many lovely tomatoes.

This afternoon the big kids are doing leaf rubbings from the leaves they collected while the little kids and I nap. Lots of FFF!

decemberlov

7-31-12, 2:56pm

rosarugosa

7-31-12, 8:47pm

Decemberlov: Yes, awesome score on the produce!
I'm really impressed with the low-cost ways that those of you with kids are finding to have fun. It makes me sad to see families that I know spending loads of money that they cannot afford in order to show their kids a good time. You all demonstrate how unnecessary that is.
Kelli: You are amazing me with the car repairs!
I went to Talbot's yesterday and returned the pants, and found another pair that fits better, cost $50. less, and don't need to be hemmed, so I'm ahead of the game by $50. on that one. I also brought home some free bagels and cake from work today.
The lobsters we bought Sun fed us dinner for two nights and gave me an extra treat in my lunch today, so we got good value from the expenditure.

chrissieq

7-31-12, 10:01pm

Back home after a 4 day family reunion - it was a blast - the best frugal tip was take the Megabus to Chicago and then Amtrak to Alliance, OH. Heard a fellow Megabus rider say she was saving over $500 taking the bus to Chicago then to Midway airport for her flight vs. flying from Minneapolis. Started looking at a trip to DC via Chicago Megabus in October to visit our son - less than 1/2 price.

That said, it took us nearly 20 hours to get home - 1:00AM pick up by cab from hotel, Amtrak to Chicago, 4 hour layover in Chicago so we walked to Millenium Park to people watch, had a Ploughman's lunch at a pub - shared with DH, 8 hours home via the Megabus. I wanted to grab a cab but none waiting there so we saw the city bus coming and waiting downtown was the bus that took us 1 block from our house. 10:00PM home - long, long hot shower and a great night sleep in our own bed!