September Frugals [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

early morning

9-2-12, 11:57am

Cool uniforms! Which one is Tyler? (forgive me if you've posted his pic before...) Not much frugal going on here. This has been a rough summer, and it doesn't seem to be getting better- but I really shouldn't complain. We've had enough in our emergency fund to meet the challenges so far, and that's a lot better than it used to be! I'm just not good at self-denial sometimes. I go along swimmingly for a long time, then- WHAM! I buy stuff! The things I buy are good deals, and I can justify them, but - we could live without them. And it's not like I don't have plenty of stuff already, plus stuff to MAKE more stuff, lol. I did order flea/worm/earmite meds online for the :0! five cats in our household. Pricey, but cheaper than the vet. Bought DH a new pillow at TJMaxx. He uses lots of pillows to try to alleviate some of his pain, and they get smashed up pretty badly. It was $15, but it seems made of sterner stuff than some of the cheap wussy pillows he currently has (and he has 15, at LEAST). I also got a small wire stand to loft some of my plants, so I can put more plants under them. I love plants but don't have many good windows for them, so they are pretty crowded when they come in for the winter. I'm a little concerned about this fall, as I want to try to winter over some of my out-of-zone summer buys. I do have a new room (2, actually) at work due to my new job responsibilities, so maybe some will be able to winter over there.

Mrs-M

9-2-12, 12:42pm

What a wonderful picture.

Sigh... nothing new on the front to post about Re: frugals.

Will be setting-out a line of washing in a bit, and meal-time tonight will consist of leftovers. An easy Sunday.

Rosemary

9-2-12, 1:01pm

Back to gardening. Spreading plants that I already have.
Yesterday I cleaned the garage and found several items that we had been unable to locate, and needed. Also made a space to collect cardboard and newspaper over the winter for use under mulch next year.
Line-drying laundry.
DD is cleaning her room from top to bottom this weekend since she's let it go all summer. As incentives I checked out a few movies from the library - if we've accomplished a substantial amount each day we'll take an afternoon break. Also as incentive today, and a break from cooking and dishes for me, we're using a free lunch certificate that she received for reading books during the last school year.

bunnys

9-2-12, 1:08pm

Those look like legitimate kilts.

I have been cleaning today but haven't done a whole lot because I have to go back to school on Tuesday WELL RESTED.

Also fixed a chipped plaster pedestal that I've been sitting with the chips to fix for like 4 years. It took all of about 5 minutes to complete the job.

I'm going to make my Italian baked pasta dish. I live alone so this makes a TON and will last me ALL WEEK. Yes, I will get sick of it but not till after like 6 or 7 servings and this makes me about 8-10 servings. That's how good it is. I buy the pasta sauce @ Mart-Mart for $2.38 per jar. Have also gotten it at the salvage store for slightly less.

Here's the recipe. It is vegan but you can always un-veganize it.

1 lb whole wheat penne
1 LARGE sweet onion (Vidalia or Maya)
1 very LARGE red bell pepper
1 12oz bag of frozen spinach
1 pkg Tofurkey Italian sausage
1 8oz pkg Daiya Mozzarella-style shreds
1/2 c red cooking wine (or any red wine you happen to have and are drinking)
olive oil (enough to saute veggies and sausage in)
1-2 jars (depending on preferred level of sauciness desired) Bertolli olive oil, basil and garlic
8 oz pkg of crimini mushrooms (optional--not really a fan of mushrooms, personally)
garlic powder
crushed red pepper
1-2 t dried basil (or fresh if you have it)

Roughly chop sausage and all veggies to bite sized preference. Saute sausage in @ 1T olive oil and remove from pan. Saute all veggies (excepting spinach) in another T olive oil.
Cook pasta approximately 7 minutes, drain. In pasta pot add sauce, cooked veggies and sausage, crushed red pepper, garlic powder and basil (to taste) and wine and cook a couple minutes to cook off alcohol. Add 3/4 cheese (reserving remainder for top.) Stir in spinach and pasta. Place all in VERY LARGE oblong glass pan and top with remaining cheese. Bake covered @ 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. (I uncover the last 15 minutes.)

If you have a large family this will make enough for all of them or enough for a single person to not have to think about cooking for many days. Also, this is a very healthy dish because it is PACKED with a variety of veggies and fiber. I use organic products when possible but especially for the red pepper (one of the dirty dozen) and the spinach.

Mrs-M

9-2-12, 1:17pm

OMG, Bunnys, that recipe is to die for, and penne, is a family favourite of ours. So hardy. Thanks a bunch for posting/sharing.

Azure

9-2-12, 1:21pm

Early Morning - Tyler is right in the middle. The one with the tan. He looks so serious because he knew I was trying to take his picture and he was doing his best to ignore me lol We did get a little flicker of a wave from him at one point lol

Thanks everyone! Ty has had a few bad days up at school trying to fit in the xc & the marching band camp. He has been considering whether or not he should drop the xc because it's been so stressful. But I think he's going to give it a little more time because now that band camp is over it should not be quite so hard. We'll see. Mostly he is loving where he's at. Making friends and playing music. He and a new friend put together a version of Folsom Prison Blues and performed at an open mike night. Johnny Cash.... who knew

Getting Ian ready to drive Ian back to go to school this afternoon. We traditionally get something to eat before we leave him. And we may have to stop by the store on the way down & pick up a few things he still needs So not frugal again today. But he is really good about not wanting to buy a lot of things. We debate whether he is frugal or cheap :)

When I regain control of my washing machine I will hang a load of wash on the drying rack.

I am prepared to be much more frugal for the rest of this week to help make up for the craziness this weekend.

Mrs-M

9-2-12, 1:38pm

Originally posted by Azure.
He looks so serious because he knew I was trying to take his picture and he was doing his best to ignore me lol We did get a little flicker of a wave from him at one pointThanks for the laugh. Kids and pictures, tend to go only one of two ways. The kid is either excited to get their picture taken, or they run like the dickens from the camera.

Your son looks so proud.

Stella

9-2-12, 6:05pm

Azure, Tyler looks great in his kilt. I recognized him from pictures you've posted before. I love kilts. I wish I could talk Zach into wearing one.

I spent some of the freshen-up-the-house money mom gave me today and I think I got some good stuff for a reasonable price. I needed new cutting boards and I got some nice looking bamboo ones for $8 for two. I got a large blue serving platter for $13, some new wooden spoons for $4 for five of them, a small, pretty cassrole dish in a size I needed for $8 and some beautiful salad plates in white with a turquoise and purple (my dining room accent colours) peacock pattern for $4 a plate. My main dishes are white and the salad plates were all broken at this point. I also got white melamine salad plates for children to use so my nice ones will stay nice. All of this was out of money my mom gave me (that my grandma gave her) so it's a freebie.

I made a batch of apple "nachos" today for a snack. I saw the recipe on Pinterest and thought it looked like something the kids would like. We made ours with sliced apples, peanuts, cashews, raisins, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips with a drizzle of some dulce de leche I had made, but not opened, a while back. So good, and it was healthy, inexpensive and pretty. I put it on my new blue platter.

Dinner tonight is a ham, tomato and herb quiche with a salad. The ham is leftover from our pincic yesterday. I'll be using the bone to make split pea soup for Friday and I may freeze the rest of the ham to make ham and rice soup next week.

Tussiemussies

9-2-12, 6:15pm

Hi, I thought Tyler was the one in the middle. He is a very good looking young man. I'm surprised that the girls aren't approaching him more? My husband also has anxiety about social situation so he takes Prestique. It seems to help but if he gets really, really anxious he takes Xanax as a one time episode application.

I hope your son has a good transition in school yhis year, it must be so hard on him. Wish him the best...

mara61

9-3-12, 7:18pm

Azure, what a handsome young man you have there! I am going to have to show my Caleb that picture for sure. What instrument does he play? The subject of instruments came up yesterday after our trip to Greenfield Village and which instruments the boys want to take in in 5th grade.

I bought a membership to The Henry Ford back in May for a field trip, after this visit it paid for itself. We will go out a few more times. Always fun. The boys made the mini candlesticks this time.

Nothing really frugal around here lately with school starting up and all the shoes the boys needed (only bought one shirt at the schools resale). We have school pictures this week, I always buy the smallest package but it's still $13/kid. Caleb needs a hair cut and I am not comfortable cutting it. He has lots of crazy colics. Which, Azure did you ever cut your sons hair (I'm presuming they have some crazy colics going on to).

Azure

9-3-12, 8:22pm

Thanks Mara! I know I always loved to see pictures of older Korean kids when my boys were young. And I always enjoyed looking at the HiFamilies graduation issue. Tyler plays trombone. He also plays a wicked good guitar - if I do say so :~) I remember that they did some kind of testing to figure out what the kids might be good at. Though I think Tyler had a choice between trombone & drums. Ian apparently did great on his first try at the french horn. It'll be interesting to see how Caleb does.

Sounds like you are really getting your moneys worth from your membership. It's a really cool place.

And no I never tried to cut my boys hair. Ian particularly has some funky stuff going on with his hair. And it was always hard to find someone who could make it look decent. Ian's bangs always ended up lopsided. We eventually found a Korean woman who did their hair for a few years. But when the boys were teens they wanted more grown up looks. We'd tell her what we wanted and she would agree that would be good. But they'd always come away with the same cut lol I just took them to the Aveda institute where I get my hair done and they both look pretty good. Funny thing is Ian ended up with a woman who is married to an Asian man. She said Ian's hair is just like her DH's so that worked out great.

Azure

9-3-12, 8:35pm

Thanks Tussiemussies! I think he's pretty cute too. He is mostly just kind of shy around girls. BUT, he met a girl at college last week and they've been going out for coffee and doing a lot of talking. So that's good.

He is actually my social butterfly. Before he even got to school he was making friends on facebook. And he's been busy building up his social network quite steadily these past 2 weeks. lol

Though he does work himself up into a state of freak out regularly enough that he might benefit from something. I think it might be a maturity thing. He really does have to find a way to deal with stress. I think he lets things build up and then it ALL comes out.

fidgiegirl

9-3-12, 9:58pm

Hello everyone!

I finally have some frugals to report, but they were expensive ones. We bought two wool rugs today at a deep discount and I am happy with both of them (although, foolishly, we did not inspect either closely and it was a no returns kind of sale and did find a defect in one. I think I can disguise though.)

I have black beans in the crock pot and rice in the fridge for rice & beans for the week. We ate at home today after quite a few meals out this weekend.

Line dried all laundry. I am loving it. It is quite meditative for me.

We gave up on tiling our backsplash (or rather, I did). I feel a lot better about it. We did the bathtub surround and did a good job, but I found it extremely stressful to lay it all out correctly, etc. So I am proud to say I know how to tile now and hope I never have to do it again. Since the backsplash had some unique challenges and I wasn't getting around to wanting to do it and (sorry to say) not trusting DH to do it (my perfectionism issue) we let it go. Rather I drug my feet and he finally gave up. The tile has been returned to the store. He will put up bead board which will match the rest of the kitchen and he'll do a great job and it will be done.

I am looking forward to a crafting retreat next weekend with my mom. It will be reasonable and I'll finish a few projects.

rosarugosa

9-4-12, 5:13am

Nice picture, Azure. It must be challenging paying tuition for two sons at once!
Kelli, I think you made a good choice. A backsplash is a real focal point, and if it doesn't look the way you want it to, it could be a constant source of irritation.
Sept won't be a terribly frugal month for us. I went to our annual craft fair outing this weekend with DSIS and some other friends, and then we went out to dinner. Planned expenditures, but not cheap. Next week we are going to be spending the week in the Berkshires at DSIS's & DBIL's timeshare. Mom and Mom's friend are also coming (DSIS has two units booked at the timeshare, so we should have plenty of space). While I like the family get-together aspect, I'm also a bit apprehesive about a couple of things. DSIS is a veritable shopping machine, and Mom isn't far behind. I like to shop, but I don't want to spend the whole week doing recreational shopping. DBIL and DH are looking forward to some hiking, but I want to spend some time with DH and do some hiking as well. The resort is in the middle of nowhere, and nothing is within walking distance, so there will be planning and logistics involved with everything. It's been my experience that it gets a little more complicated as you are trying to please a greater number of people's likes and desires. So there will be some challenges. I hope the fun aspects outweigh the challenging aspects, and that we get some R & R in there too!

Amaranth

9-4-12, 9:05am

Spotted a Ty look-alike here
http://pinterest.com/pin/124763852148010533/

Planted a bunch of fall vegetables over the weekend and will do more this week.

mara61

9-4-12, 11:19am

Ian particularly has some funky stuff going on with his hair. And it was always hard to find someone who could make it look decent. Ian's bangs always ended up lopsided. We eventually found a Korean woman who did their hair for a few years. But when the boys were teens they wanted more grown up looks. We'd tell her what we wanted and she would agree that would be good. But they'd always come away with the same cut lol I just took them to the Aveda institute where I get my hair done and they both look pretty good. Funny thing is Ian ended up with a woman who is married to an Asian man. She said Ian's hair is just like her DH's so that worked out great.

Lol, funky is right when it comes to Caleb's hair! We did the long cut for a bit, and until I found a Korean barber it was not quite right. It's a bit of a drive to Rochester which is where I found him and Caleb decided he wanted it shorter like his brothers and dads. Sigh..which just doesn't work so well as you can imagine.

I thought it was a trombone, but some of those horns look very similar.

SteveinMN

9-4-12, 11:45am

Surprisingly frugal weekend -- a Labor Day get-together with the men of friends of our family (people my wife has known since college). A nice cabin on the shores of a quiet lake in Wisconsin. In exchange for chuckwagon duties, I stay for free. :)

Here's a picture of the lake, illuminated only by a house on the far side and by our August "blue moon""

http://i48.tinypic.com/30ndv9i.jpg

Mrs-M

9-4-12, 12:40pm

What a great picture, SteveinMN.

decemberlov

9-4-12, 1:11pm

Yesterday wasn't exactly a frugal day, we went to six flags to celebrate my daughters birthday. The past 2 years she's decided to not do a party and instead bring along 2 friends to six flags. We did order the tickets online for $35 instead of $68 at the park. We also packed our lunches and didn't buy any food in the park. We made extra sandwiches and what was left over my husband and I brought to work for lunch today.

Sunday night i used up 2 hamburger patties that didn't go on the grill the night before and chopped them up to put in spaghetti sauce for dinner.

Went through my oldest daughters closet and made a list of back to school stuff. Mostly just a few pairs of pants since she out grew all her others and 2 or 3 cute little cardigans to go over summer tank tops so we can still get some more use out of them.

Tussiemussies

9-4-12, 2:10pm

bunnys

9-4-12, 3:10pm

Took my breakie and coffee to school today. Ate lunch when I got home. Going for walk in park for exercise with doggie; will stream DNC online tonight so no cable TV fees--just internet.

Stella

9-4-12, 6:49pm

Dinner tonight is cheap and simple, grilled chicken legs (super cheap at Costco) half with Penzey's Greek seasoning, half with Penzey's Northwoods seasoning, sweet potato fries and watermelon.

I made Travis (17 months old) a new toy today. It's just a milk bottle and some clothespins. He is loving putting the clothespins in and taking them out and when he outgrows it the milk bottle and clothespins can go back to their previous occupations.

We are doing a unit on flight right now and I found a ton of great experiments on lift, gravity, thrust and drag that won't cost more than a few pennies on the web, Pinterest, YouTube and in some books I inherited from my mom, who was a teacher.

It's so nice to have everything back to normal after summer and my mom's visit. I am feeling pretty good about things lately.

fidgiegirl

9-4-12, 8:17pm

fidgiegirl

9-4-12, 8:17pm

@rosa, thanks for the reassurance. I was feeling badly about disappointing DH and wasting so much of his time in preparation for the tiling.

decemberlov

9-4-12, 8:57pm

But I love that even though it was Six Flags, you did it for as frugally as possible. You decided to spend the $$ on it, but spent as little as possible to accomplish it. Love that.

True! Its crazy to think that anyone would even buy tickets at the gate when you can get them much cheaper online! We had a wonderful time too!

Birthdays always stress me out between money and entertaining guests and making sure everyone is happy. The six flags birthday definitely helps my stress level lol

Now i have one more month to figure out the little ones party. Im hoping she'll go for the same thing we did last year. A customer of mine owns a haunted house attraction (her birthday is in October) and she let me use the pavilion for free and we had the kids go on hay rides and go through the haunted house. It was so much fun!! Plus it was on their family night and all the super scary stuff was toned down for the little kids.

Focusing my energy on a frugal school year as my grocery bill always is much higher with packing lunches for the girls. During the summer Grandmom watches them and provides lunches and sometimes dinner. (i know, lucky me! Im very blessed!) I did put a request in at the grocery store to get the honest tea drinks in quart size instead of juice boxes hoping that that will save us some money (and trash) so i can pack them in water bottles.

fidgiegirl

9-4-12, 10:10pm

cdttmm

9-4-12, 10:41pm

Wow -- nice job on the frugals, everyone!!! You are helping me to get (and stay) inspired when it comes to my spending choices. :)

Nothing to exciting to report here. Went to get an eye exam and bought new contact lenses. There was a $20 rebate if you bought 4 boxes, so I took full advantage of that. I don't have vision insurance right now, so I'm hoping to extend my time between eye appointments to more than just a year (unless of course I magically get vision insurance in the interim!) and I should have enough contact lenses to get me through about 15-18 months.

Also went to get my teeth cleaned, and hooray for dental insurance, the cleaning was free (no co-pay and work pays 100% of our dental insurance premiums, so really truly, it was free). :D And the hygienist gave me a toothbrush, floss, and two travel sized toothpastes, all of which will get used. The toothpaste is greatly appreciated because I always have to buy travel size for when I fly and this will save me a few bucks in that future.

Been eating at home for the most part, but it has not been the most frugal of meals. We've been making sushi rolls lately since I am on a ridiculously restricted diet at the moment. I've been taken full advantage of the fact that I am allowed to eat sushi and premium ice cream. :~)

Made homemade pesto from our very prolific basil plants and the garlic we grew this year. Turned out great and we've been enjoying that with gluten free pasta (okay, the gluten free pasta is not that frugal!).

Wow, that's all I have...keep up the good work everyone so that I can continue to be inspired to find new ways to be frugal!

decemberlov

9-5-12, 9:25am

To piggyback on your Honest Tea - we brew iced tea at home and it is quite delicious. We just add some tea bags to a pitcher of water and leave it in the fridge overnight. Even can be brewed directly in the water bottle! Voila! Although I can see that it is hard to resist the siren song of the most delicious Honest Tea . . . That stuff IS good. :)

I love the Honest Tea too!! The kids actually drink the Honest Kids drinks which aren't really tea but pink lemonade or super fruit punch. But come to think of it I do brew Red Zinger Iced tea (no caffeine) and that's a much cheaper alternative and they love it! Thanks for the suggestion :)

bke

9-5-12, 9:56am

Azure, there was a picture of the Alma band in the local paper on Sunday. I looked for your son but couldn't find him-too bad. I'll be sure and keep a look out for him in the future.

Well summer is officially over for us business-wise but fortunately it went out with a bang! We're very pleased with sales over the holiday weekend.

Sat and sunday were no spend days. Yesterday dh had to get some help from a local mechanic to fix a headlight. The car is manufactured in a way that dh couldn't do it himself. Thankfully, they only charged him $5.

I took ds to school this morning and did what shopping we needed while I was out. Most of the stuff was for work so I really only spent about $10 for us. If we actually avoid eating out this week I will have saved us quite a bit of money by doing this.

Dh and I are seriously thinking about closing the restaurant for the entire week between Christmas and New Year to go to Chicago. Actually the Palatine/Schaumburg area. This is where we were living when we met. Ds was born there but doesn't remember much of it. Plus Dh has 2 brothers living there. It would be a good trip for us to make for many reasons but I'm going to have to really buckle down and save some money to afford multiple nights in a hotel plus all the other expenses. The restaurant does very little business that week so closing isn't a big issue.

If anyone of you know of a decent hotel with a pool in the Palatine/Arlington Heights/BuffaloGrove area I'd appreciate you sharing the info with me. A pool is considered a necessity for us.

I know there should be more to add but my brain isn't working properly this morning. As soon as the laundry is done and put away, this woman is going to take a nap.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Stella

9-5-12, 6:46pm

We had a nice frugal day. We walked up to the park to observe birds in flight for our flight unit and there were musicians playing. We had a snack of raisins and water and listened while we chatted with some other regulars.

Lunch was simple, cheese quesadillas and apples, and snack was leftover rye crackers and cheese with some chai tea as a nod to Mother Teresa's feast day. Dinner is going to be leftover ham with cheesy potatoes. My mom had bought the stuff for the cheesy potatoes and the ham was from my great-aunt, so the only thing that costs us anything is the salad we'll have to go with it. I'm getting back to being pretty frugal with food. I spent $80 on groceries last week and I'd bet I'll be pretty close to $100 for the coming week. For a family of 8 that is pretty good. I've got my mojo back. :)

I have been thinking things over lately, kind of mulling over what areas are areas that I can trim some fat from, not even necessarily because I need to, but because it's kind of a fun challenge for me. I've identified a few areas where I think I spend money emotionally instead of rationally.

One is homeschool. I think I kind of have had a fear of inadequacy with this sometimes, which I think is normal, but I don't think it's rational. When Cheyenne took her tests she was at grade level or above (a few grade levels above in math) in all subjects. Bella didn't have to take the tests (too young), but she is pretty obviously in good shape for her age. I write my own curriculum and have my parents, who both have a masters degree in education look over for me and give me input, but once in a while I get panicky and buy a bunch of stuff I think will be better than what I come up with. It never is. It's frequently just as good, but not really better. I need to stop spending money emotionally in this area. Only well thought out, rational spending. That's my goal this year.

The other area is food. I don't know why I have a fear of lack, but I do. It's ridiculous. I come from and upper middle class family and my parents are the black sheep because they are only upper middle class. Its not like I grew up with nothing to eat. I am reevaluating what I stock up on and why. Some things make sense. Others really don't. I've been getting back to my old frugal-ninja ways with food lately. :) I need to keep this up.

Sorry, that was long winded.

danna

9-5-12, 9:57pm

Stella I have been trying to follow what someone wrote on here last year and it has really been helping....I have always stocked pile a little too much...lol....."Buy What You Use and Use What You Buy".

Sept 05 so far this month

---only spent $25.00 on groceries
---this is not frugal if I did not need the clothes but, have lost a little weight and not bought much in a long time
But, I did get believe it or not 8 items of good clothing for $67.60 including tax....but I am sure sales like this are not a good indication of how these stores are doing.
--still eating and buying at amazing prices....froze up some more peppers all colours on sale at $1.00 a lb. also, some corn
--marked down bag of sweet onions (8) for $1.49 will use some and freeze the rest, and a very large bag of tomatoes for $1.49 just froze
the very soft ones and they equaled 3 large cans. The rest will make fresh salsa for supper tomorrow and sandwiches.
--used serveral coupons that saved $6.00 this week all on sale items

Rosemary

9-6-12, 7:14am

Every spring and summer we eat down our pantry and freezer. That helps to limit stockpiling, because the goal of emptying things out is never that far away. Of course, limited storage space is a huge factor as well!

Today I'm hosting a lunch for a large group of at-home mom friends. Yes, school has begun, so there will just be a few youngsters around. Frugal because: it's basically free entertainment for all, and it's potluck, with reusable napkins, plate, and silverware (I borrowed a few plates).

I'm working out carpools for DD's before-school activities (orchestra and choir). School is very close so it's not much of an issue anyway, but it will save time and gas.

Tonight is clean-out-the-fridge night for dinner.

Greg44

9-6-12, 10:13am

Had my HP ink cartridge refilled at Costco. I waited too long on my color cartridge and it was damaged, but did do the black for only $ 7.99 -- and had I waited another day -- a $ 2.00 off coupon came in the mail.

I have purchased refilled cartridges before with not much success - but so far the Costco fill seems to be doing great.
Went to Wal-mart for the color cartridge -- $ 31.97 :(

try2bfrugal

9-6-12, 10:51am

I have purchased refilled cartridges before with not much success - but so far the Costco fill seems to be doing great.

I just tried the off brand refill cartridge idea last month. I bought Sophia Global cartridges on Amazon for my Canon printer. I think I paid $12 for a 6 cartridges. They worked so well that I switched out the downstairs printer for a Canon that uses the same cartridges because Sophia Global didn't make cartridges for the brand we had there previously. The savings on ink will more than cover the cost of the new printer in a few months.

try2bfrugal

9-6-12, 10:53am

Every spring and summer we eat down our pantry and freezer. That helps to limit stockpiling, because the goal of emptying things out is never that far away. Of course, limited storage space is a huge factor as well!

We are doing that now. I think we really need to do it 3 times a year. There has been some scary old stuff in there no one can even identify much less be willing to eat.

bke

9-6-12, 12:28pm

Today should be a no spend day.I found out this morning that I won a sweepstakes worth $500. It includes a designer tote bag, sunglasses, a silver necklace, scarf, music download gift certificate, a watch, and lip gloss. Hopefully there will be at least one item that I really like and I can do whatever with the rest.Since I won something, I've been inspired to spend quite a bit of time this morning doing sweepstakes-lol! I had slowed down quite a bit this past month.I'm drinking free starbucks this morning and relaxing. It seems weird not having ds home!

try2bfrugal

9-6-12, 12:57pm

Today should be a no spend day.I found out this morning that I won a sweepstakes worth $500.

Way cool. I have a retired friend who enters contests as a hobby and she has won some amazing stuff.

bke

9-6-12, 1:03pm

Yeah, I'm hooked. In the last few months I've won an Ipod shuffle, $66 in amazon.com gift certificates and now the $500 prize. I look forward to retirement and being able to win vacation prizes!

Tussiemussies

9-6-12, 2:59pm

fidgiegirl

9-6-12, 6:29pm

bke, did you ever decide anything with the shuffle? Try your hand at eBay? :)

(Now I'm just being a pest. But you totally can do it!)

bke

9-7-12, 10:13am

Stella

9-7-12, 4:12pm

Zach was off yesterday and off early today because of a slow work week. Even though I kind of want to get out of the house I've put on my big girl panties and stayed home to do some stuff I needed to do.

I assembled some preschool stuff today. I used some barley I had on hand, some rice I coloured and some pickling salt to make sensory bins. I got some scoops a while back from the dollar bin and I'm letting my funnels, which I only use once in a while, live in the sensory bins. I added some toys the kids already have and we were good to go. James played with the barley/farm sensory bin for almost an hour.

I also made lacing cards today. The girls and I drew pictures and I laminated them. Zach punched the holes. We cut out some yarn and taped the ends. That too has been used already. I also brought out the large wooden beads for stringing that I got at a garage sale when the girls were preschoolers.

Next up I'm going to make a colour sorting game by making cylanders out of construction paper and cutting up small pieces of paper. I'll put them in a bowl all together with a large tweezers the big kids have in their science stuff. Then James can sort them out into the right cylander.

Another free project we are doing next week is a family newspaper. The kids will come up with stories, interview people, take photos and format it on the computer. We may start putting it on their blog too. This is a good week to start it because we are having a picnic with their great grandma this weekend and Grandpa is taking his final Franciscan vows on Friday, so we have some good topics.

danna

9-7-12, 8:14pm

Sept 07
--made soft and hard shell tacos with a whole lot of toppings and two differents meats for DSil's visit yesterday and eat leftovers for supper tonight.
--trip to Costco new pair of dress pants for $9.97, some groceries and a new mouse/keyboard with coupon $23.99 as posted on the No Spend Days thread this was very unfrugal because I ruin my old one by spilling a whole glass of red wine on it (and believe it or not it was my first glass..lol). Hopefully I have learnt my lesson about eating and drinking at the computor but I have always done it and it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks they say. hehe We will see.................

Greg44

9-7-12, 8:19pm

Even though I brought my lunch to work today -- while I was out running errands on my lunch hour...I really wanted a BK Veggie Burger, but I resisted. Is that frugal?! :laff:

danna

9-7-12, 9:26pm

Sure is..........

early morning

9-7-12, 11:17pm

Azure, your son is adorable! (Haven't been on much the last week, so just read which band member was Tyler.) And cool uniforms. Not much in the way of new frugals here, quite the opposite, actually... each year, we donate gift baskets for a raffle as a fund-raiser for our local air-museum. Usually, we do 6 or 8, and we are on the lookout all year for cool (and cheap) items for them. This year there was a bit of a misunderstanding, and we thought we were only supposed to do 3 or 4, so that's all we planned for. Last minute, we found out they really needed 6-8 from us, so we're having to pay almost retail for a lot more things than normal! But hey, that's what charity's about, right? I did order our cat flea meds online, for about 2/3 of the cost of paying the vet. Sent in my Dsis's order to, so we split the shipping. Bought sandwiches for dinner, but had BOGO coupons. As we had to wait, we got coupons for another free sandwich and free fry, plus they gave me one of the BOGOs back so we can use it again. Found HoneyCrisp apples at a local stand for half the supermarket price, AND they're picked daily.

Azure

9-8-12, 9:37am

mmmmm.... fresh picked honeycrisp apples.

Congrats on the win BKE!

Well, we won't be going to an xc meet today. Tyler & the coach have been trying to work out his schedule & then the coach had to go somewhere and they never finished the conversation. Ty did not know when the bus was leaving today. I don't know if I mentioned that he is working at the xc around his marching band commitments. Which means he is doing most of his training alone without the team. So he misses out on a lot of information & team bonding time. So anyway - he missed the bus. He is feeling discouraged & wondering, once again, if he should quit. I think I may have convinced him not to make any decisions while he is upset and/or talks to the coach. He feels he let the coach down & it is embarrassing. ANYWAY - we will save gas & money by not going.

Though we may end up going out for Korean food so the money thing may be a wash. DH has been requesting it.

Did some grocery shopping after work yesterday. Between coupons, sales & my Target discounts my bill dropped by $30. Stopped at Horrocks & got 2 lbs of hard salami for $6 so we'll have plenty for sandwiches.

My birthday is this month so I got a $10 gift card to Kohls. I went & got 2 pairs of earrings. One pair is itsy bitsy silver flowers. So cute. I did go over by about $3.50 but I'm very happy with my earrings. I also got a coupon from Steak & Shake for a free burger & fries.

Spent my free $5 Target gift card on a new lipstick. It was $9. On clearance for $6 & had a $3 coupon attached.

With me being gone during the day we have been able to leave the air on energy saving & low even on the hot & humid days this week. Plus we've had several days when we didn't use it at all. Not as much laundry. And no one is staying up all night playing on the computers & watching tv. I am hoping to see a big drop in the energy bill.

Today I need to make up a more complete menu plan for the week.

mara61

9-8-12, 11:17pm

Hit a few garage sales today via bike but nothing worth snagging. My oldest had his first cross country meeting today, though in fourth grade he ran against the junior high kids and came in 13th out of 75. He did well. We bought nothing there (skipping the t'shirt). Meals all home this week, we won't have another eventing out till the end of the month and then just DH and I.

Called on cable bill and got that lowered a bit.

Electric and gas bill lower than the last two years.

:)

Azure

9-9-12, 8:46pm

Mara - Your son did GREAT! That's wonderful.

Yesterday we went and bought DD a new bed for our house. She has the money & the bed here is a wreck. So we got a new mattress, box spring, bed frame, water proof mattress pad & 2 sets of sheets. Also got a set of sheets for her bed at the group home.

Stopped and had Korean food for lunch. mmmmm good. And lunch was cheaper than dinner would have been. Stopped to visit DD. And then visited the local cider mill. Talked DH out of buying a whole gallon of cider for the 2 of us. Also by passed the donut counter. Bought a small bag of honey crisps to take home.

Today was catch up day. Caught up on the dishes & laundry. Caught up on the check book & balanced it. AND caught up on some sleep. I got up with the dog around 7 but then I went back to bed and dozed on and off til 11:30. Feel bad about missing church but boy did it feel good to catch up on some sleep.

fidgiegirl

9-9-12, 9:20pm

No Kelli, I've been draggging my feet and procrastinating. I was thinking yesterday that when I get this new prize I should list the shuffle and anything else that I don't like enough to keep. I figure as we get closer to Christmas it might be easier to do.

Do I have to show a picture of things? I don't have a clue about downloading pictures! I need to win a digital camera-lol!

Yes, you'll do MUCH MUCH better with a pic. In fact, I don't even know if you can post without one.

You could pick up a cheapie adequate digital camera on Craigslist! :D

cdttmm

9-10-12, 10:25am

Not much for frugals to actually report over here, but everyone is keeping me inspired, so please keep posting!!!

Made up a batch of homemade pesto from the remaining basil plants yesterday. Also got to use some of our homegrown garlic in it. Was super yummy, but only made enough for one meal -- boo. I do have lots of base for pesto in the freezer, though, so I should just get in the habit of making up a batch of pesto every weekend. We will certainly eat it! We have a ridiculous stockpile of pasta, but now that I am gluten free I can't eat it. Fortunately, my partner is not gluten free and I actually found a gluten free pasta that is pretty good. So I guess we can add pasta with pesto back to our list of dinner options. But, wow, is gluten free pasta expensive!!!

I'm actually making a grocery list so that when I go out later today I remember to buy everything we need. I usually just rely on my memory, but that has been getting me into trouble because I either will forget something or I will impulsively decide to buy other random stuff that we don't need.

Aside from that, the weather is beautiful here and I'm hoping it stays that way so that we can have several weeks of not needing to use the A/C or turn on the heat. Hooray for lower energy costs! :)

Now if I can just get motivated to do some laundry so that I can line dry a bunch of stuff that would be fantastic!

try2bfrugal

9-10-12, 11:55am

For September we joined a Gold Prospecting club. It was a pretty cool find because the clubs has its own claims and yet you can join for free. We went gold panning on Saturday and actually got a little bit of gold this time. The other members were kind enough to show us the ropes. We already had pans, my husband packed snacks and I made sandwiches from my cheap food stockpile so all we had to pay for was gas and on the way home food from the dollar menu from McDonalds. Next time I will know to pack food for two meals. The roads were all paved so we will take the better gas car instead of the all wheel drive for an even cheaper day out next time.

I got a turquoise jewelry set, a roaster oven and a couple of other items for free to do product reviews.

We have been decluttering and looking at open houses so our downsizing project is moving along. That we be the really big frugal event.

I had enough points saved up from our rewards cards for $100 statement credit. I used to buy stuff on Amazon with the points but I realized that if I get the credit and then buy stuff separately I get 3% back in reward points on the stuff I buy.

I bought a new printer for downstairs that works with Sophia Global ink cartridges on Amazon. One set of all the colors is $12 (6 cartridges) compared to $20 for one color cartridge with the old printer.

AmeliaJane

9-10-12, 12:44pm

I am currently cleaning out the pantry/refrigerator/freezer with some cooking projects--including turkey chili, baked fish with pesto, cherry applesauce, lamb turnovers. There was one mishap where I mistook frozen grapes for frozen cherries (made for some odd baked oatmeal) but overall it has gone well.

Merski

9-10-12, 2:49pm

Went on a date on Saturday morning with DH to a local place known for great prices and great breakfast. I'd rather go out to breakfast or lunch than dinner-just way too costly and not always up to our expectations. Well, anyway, next door was a farm stand for a real farm and we bought a half bushel of green, red and green/red bell peppers for $7. Brought them home, washed them and cut them into large chunks for raw freezing. We got 4 gallon sized bags to use all winter (when peppers are $4 a lb.). Am currently making pasta/pizza sauce to pressure can in quart containers. Used veggies from the garden and used giant can of tomatoes as well as the few tomatoes we had. A good friend says she has a surplus of Roma Tomatoes from her garden and is willing to share. I'll just make another batch! Baked some cran-orange walnut biscotti, two batches, for the freezer and to give some as gifts to folks who help me out countless times. Found a place in Wells Maine for a 3 night stay that was dog friendly for the vacation we never got.
Will offst the cost of the cottage $90 a night by bringing most of our own food and snacks. Who could resist fried clams and fish when near the ocean? We'll budget that in.

sweetana3

9-10-12, 4:09pm

Just returned from a not so frugal retreat but saved on both the room, by having a shared shower, and meals, by not eating out. I took some easy to prepare food and used the refrigerator for cold water and milk.

Stella

9-11-12, 10:33am

We are eating through leftovers from our Grandparents Day picnic on Sunday. I injured my foot and they sent me home with the leftovers to make cooking easier for me. The picnic was good FFF and the food has been good. Lots of fruit, which is helpful since feeding my family often makes me think of feeding the monkey house at the zoo. :)

School is in full swing again and it's going extremely well. Getting back into a routine always helps with spending. I'm finally feeling fully recovered from Charlotte's birth and looking ahead to a year in which, as far as I know, nothing life changing or earth shattering is on the horizon. I almost don't know what to do with myself. With everyone in a regular routine, the house reasonably well organized and nothing gigantic to tackle, I actually have time on my hands. I am ready to get back to some of my hobbies and learn some new things.

For the sake of cost, I am going to list the things I want to do and prioritize them. I'm not necessarily going to weigh things only by cost, but that will definitely be a factor. For example, I have a lot of fabric and a very nice sewing machine, so I might work on increasing my sewing skills since it wouldn't cost much, I'd enjoy it and I'd be making things that would have a use. I'll also probably take a couple of days a month and do some big cooking or baking project. I love that kind of thing, as do my older kids, and we have to eat anyway. When my foot heals, I am thinking of biking and rollerblading before it's too late in the year. I have a bike and rollerblades (which I felt guilty about spending money on at the time, but I have had them since 1996 and they are still in use) so that is free. I'm going to try to get back to blogging and I might give NanoWriMo a shot again this year.

I'm beginning to see that a few years from now this is all going to be much easier. The girls are spectacular at helping out. Bella loves cooking every bit as much as I do and Cheyenne loves building and fixing things as much as her Daddy does. James and Travis give me almost no trouble about picking up after themselves. Well, Travis gets distracted, but he's 17 months old. That's to be expected. James, who is 3, is excited to help out. They are very self motivated learners, so school is not nearly the amount of work I thought it would be. I think it won't be long and I'll be able to get back to some of the frugal things that have fallen by the wayside lately, like line drying laundry.

I am going to test something I saw on Pinterest today about adding a cup of baking soda to your toilet, letting it sit for an hour and flushing. If it works it's a cheap, more environmentally friendly toilet cleaner and if it doesn't, I'm out a cup of baking soda. I get baking soda from Costco in a huge package for cheap.

I'm beginning to think about Christmas. I am planning to spend about $250 on the family, most of that on an experience gift. In addition to that I'm going to make each of the kids a Movie Night pillow. It's basically four pillowcases sewn together, top to bottom, with a pillow in each one that can be folded up in many ways as a comfortable floor pillow for movie nights. We frequently have pretty crowded seating on movie nights, especially when people come over. $250 is about $35 a person, which isn't too crazy.

Rosemary

9-11-12, 10:10pm

Stella, I use either baking soda or borax on the toilet but they're not labor-free. They're abrasive, so help the toilet brush scrub off any water stains.

Frugals... in addition to the usuals (eating at home, line drying laundry, etc) I am saving water from the kitchen (washing hands, washing veggies, after it cools from steaming veggies, etc) and fish tank to use on the landscape. It is so dry here that even native plants and invasive weeds are wilting. The last time we had significant rain was early June, I believe, and we had one of the hottest summers on record. Today's desert-like 94 degree, dry day with convection-oven-like winds did not help matters.

I'm planning to set up a worm composting bin for the winter. I read that this can use up to 6 pounds of kitchen scraps per week, which would be fabulous. I've got an extra covered garbage can that I'll fill with leaves and use our weedeater to shred for worm bedding.

In the last week I made and canned salsa and peach jam. We don't eat much bread but DD likes to flavor her yogurt with jam, and mine has almost no sugar in it and much better flavor than store jam. The salsa was a lot of work (peeling, seeding, chopping tomatoes) and I'm not sure that I'd make that again, but jam is pretty easy.

bke

9-12-12, 9:12am

Dh managed to can nine more pints of free ranchero sauce. We recieved the assortment of peppers from 2 people and tomatoes from a third. Good stuff!

I have shopped at 3 different stores this week to get the best deals. (All in one evening and in one town.) I stocked up on that nasty stuff they call Spam because ds likes it from time to time and it has a longer shelf life than what I probably do. Blech!

Kleenex were $2.50 a 4 pk and I purchased two of them. That should get us through the winter at the very least. Sales and coupons made it possible for me to purchase baking chips and unsweetened cocoa powder for 79 cents to $2.19 an item. The chips are in the freezer where they will stay good indefinitely and the cocoa powder in dry storage.

I need to buy a pressure canner and learn how to use it. Dh and I want to learn to grow and store as much of our own food as possible. I think I'm going to look and see what I can find of Craigs list today.

Gas prices are going up AGAIN so I stopped and filled the truck saving 13 cents a gallon.

flowerseverywhere

9-12-12, 1:32pm

gas prices are over $4 a gallon here so I have renewed my bike riding with a vengence. I normally ride everywhere but sometimes I just get lazy.

Have eaten every meal at home this month so far and no plans to eat out- we are better off for it in the pocketbook and for our health.

bunnys

9-12-12, 3:21pm

I would love to ride my bike on errands and even to school but unfortunately my town/neighborhood is not conducive for bike riding beyond entertainment/exercise in the neighborhood.

awakenedsoul

9-12-12, 3:40pm

I love reading everyone's frugals. I picked over two crates full of pomegranates that were starting to get eaten by critters. People told me that you can't ripen them off the tree, but it's working. That's a relief. Those will last me for months! I can juice them in the citrus juicer, too. I've been growing most of my own produce. I do splurge on organic melons at Sprouts, but they are always under a dollar a pound. My watermelon patch looks promising. I should have some yellow watermelon by November. Gas here is $4.19 a gallon! I've been biking or taking the bus everywhere. I just use the car once a week to keep it running. Went hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail yesterday morning, which was fabulous! I'm cleaning up my front cottage garden. I just pulled up the brown, dry allysum and will compost it. Next I'll dig up the Bermuda patches and then fertilize the soil with homemade compost tea. I've got a wheelbarrow full of homegrown Cinderella pumpkins in my driveway, and it looks really festive! Since I've been doing the Bikram yoga everyday at home, I no longer am struggling with back and hip pain. I didn't realize how much energy I had been wasting. I feel strong and youthful again. Such a relief, because I've got a lot of land to maintain. Back to my yardwork...

Stella

9-12-12, 9:01pm

Tonight is a leftover smorgasbord. There aren't quite enough leftovers to be filling, so the girls and I made cornbread to go with it. Most of the leftovers are split pea soup and calico beans, so cornbread will round that out nicely.

Tonight after the kids go to bed Zach and I are going to hang out in our room watching Poirot on Netflix, washing laundry and sewing. I'm going to finish some pillowcase skirts for the girls. I love those. They are cheap and easy and the girls love them. I might see about making some pajama pants for the boys.

MIL sent the kids some blankets today. Actually, she sent blankets for Charlotte, Travis and James and those tied fleece blanket making kits for Cheyenne and Bella. Charlotte and Travis' blankets were simple one-piece fleece blankets, but MIL had tried to make James'. Unfortunately MIL is almost completely blind (very hard for her to admit) and she clearly got confused and had trouble with it. Completely understandable. While the littles napped Cheyenne, Bella and I spent a lovely rainy afternoon making (and fixing) the blankets and listening to a free audiobook, Pollyanna, on Librivox streamed through the TV. When the littles woke up they spent a lot of time playing with the box the blankets came in and the blankets themselves. Nothing like free novelty.

This evening we are listening to a children's music radio station on Pandora.

We signed up next week to volunteer at the rotating homeless shelter that is staying at our church for the week. Volunteering is always good FFF for the kids and they especially love doing the homeless shelter stuff. We're doing social hour. Our assigned task is to make cars out of recyclables. It's like they know me. :) Are you kidding me? I am the queen of making stuff out of recyclables. This I can do.

Zach and his friend volunteered to do the overnight next Friday for the homeless shelter. They have to stay awake the whole time, so they are going to play cards. His friend works overnights and Zach has five kids, so they are both pretty used to being up in the middle of the night. :) It should be good FFF for them too.

Friday is my dad's final Franciscan vows. We're going to the mass and reception, so Charlotte's godparents are going to watch the three youngest and we'll just take the big kids. Free babysitting is awesome.

The one area of homeschool where I have done the least is in music education. I don't actually put a lot of stock in ethnic stereotypes, but this is one area where my little half-Welsh kids live up to expectations. It's like living in an opera around here. Everyone is always singing. Always. About everything. And I mean everyone, even 4 month old Charlotte sings. I really think that this year I need to do something for the big kids, so they are joining the children's choir at church. Dad has also offered to take them to the children's choir at the cathedral if they'd prefer. We're starting out with ours because it is closer.

rosarugosa

9-14-12, 8:42pm

Well just got back from a beautiful week in the Berkshires, where all was lovely except for the stuff with the car that ending up needing two trips to a mechanic and $1400 - ouch!
Luckily, we were traveling as a veritable tribe and one of our folks had a vehicle that held all 7 of us, and everyone else had cell phones, so it worked out pretty well.
Vacation was less than budgeted, which gives us some immediate unspoken for funds to go towards the car repairs. I'm asking DH if we can challenge ourselves to come up with the rest without tapping savings (or taking as little as possible from savings).
RosieTR's thread on car replacement resonated with me because the car needing repairs is our beloved 1995 Saturn SL1. But we are not eager to replace her; we would like to keep her forever. The mechanic did say that other than the issues being addressed (rear brakes, drums, transmission line and radiator) that the car looked good and that we might be able to keep it going for another 5 years. We're only at about 94K miles. We were really quite lucky because we were in a very mountainous region wher losing one's brakes was more excitement than one would typically wish for on an otherwise idyllic day!

Stella

9-15-12, 2:24pm

rosa that sounds a little scary, losing your breaks in the mountains. Yikes! I'm glad everything is OK.

I made pillowcase skirts for the girls this week out of some jersey pillowcases I got at a thrift store for $1. They are adorable and the girls think they are quite comfortable. The next time I am at the thrift store I am going to keep an eye out for jersey sheets. I think they would make some nice, comfy pajama pants for the kids too. The boys have outgrown their mass quantities of footie pajamas now.

Two friends have told me that they have boys' clothes their kids have outgrown ready and waiting for me.

On the subject of hand-me-downs, Cheyenne wore a dress that was handed down to her from her 12 year old best friend last night to Dad's vows ceremony. She really got it a year ago, but it fits her now. I was blown away by how mature she looked in it. Just beautiful! Also, as much as it somewhat annoys me that she can wear my shoes, it is kind of helpful in the sense that it expands her options when we are going somewhere nice. Her dress shoes are white and this dress is black, but I have a pair of dressier flats she is able to wear. I suspect this is temporary, as she is 8 years old. she's probably going to have bigger feet than me eventually, but it works for now.

Azure

9-15-12, 2:25pm

Oh, Rosa, sorry to hear about the car. But it's great that you didn't let it ruin your trip.

I have $9.06 in the grocery money to last until next Friday. I will need a loaf of bread, for sure. And some kind of meat. But I think I can do it.

We got an update on our car insurance bill and freaked out. It had gone up by over $100. We had added Ty to the policy since he finally got his license. And he never completed the good driver "course" that the insurance co. requires for a discount. Plus we had forgotten to get the boys report cards turned in. DH is usually in charge of this stuff so I'm not sure what happened there. He went in and talked to our agent and changed some things around & we still have to turn in the report cards but the bill will go back down but not this month. We'll get it taken off next months bill but right now a tight budget got even tighter for this month.

DH asked what I want for my birthday and I told him there is no money for birthday presents because of the insurance bill. I'm ok with that.
But he's not. I usually ask him to just get me something small like an itunes card but he insists on spending much more money than that. He's like his mother that way. Generous.

Today I'm doing some decluttering & laundry. It's a beautiful day so I'll walk in a little while.

bunnys

9-15-12, 2:42pm

Today I did errands. Gas @ Costco. Nine cents cheaper than the two gas stations I passed today but as I am not a family of 6 Costco really doesn't have a lot to offer me. If the gas had been 30 cents off per gallon that would be another thing. I'm thinking the gas savings over the course of the year will defray about $40 of my $55 membership fee. I've been a member of Costco now for about 2 months. It's beginning to look to me that I will most likely make up for the membership fee 2 or 3 times over, over the course of the year with the other purchases I make. So what if I do save a total of an additional $100 this year at Costco. How much more am I spending anyway? I'm going to consume more by going to Costco. I can't buy produce at Costco because it will go bad before I buy it and I just don't buy a lot of appliances and other pricey items that will save me money.

One example that I think kind of summarizes my purchasing behavior. I would like an immersion blender. I can buy an ok immersion blender @ Mart-Mart for about $25. At Costco, they have one choice and it's a good brand (Kitchen Aid, I think) and has a lot of power and a bunch of attachments I'm not interested in, all for $20. No, I don't want the attachments because I don't want to store the attachments.

Problem (I guess) is that this is the ONLY APPLIANCE I have any interest in buying in the future. I will probably think about this immersion blender purchase about 6 months before I cave and buy it. Then I'll use it about 5x before I stop using it, forget about it until I see it again in another year and regret having purchased it to begin with.

There is nothing else I'll probably buy at this store (beyond a few limited choices of groceries) because I simply don't buy a lot of stuff. So even though the stuff at Costco is cheaper, I'd have to change my purchasing behavior to buy more stuff so I'll save more. In the end, I'll probably end up spending more.

So I'm kind of frustrated with this situation. Sorry for the diatribe.

But on the upside, I did save 9 cents per gallon on my gas today!!!!

Stella

9-15-12, 4:54pm

Your logic makes perfect sense bunnys. It doesn't sound like the Costco membership is worth it for you. Maybe if you split stuff with somebody, but that's it's own layer of hassle.

I had to come on here and tell you all about my freebie score. Zach worked a couple of hours today to help out his boss. He came home with 8 1+ lb packages of organic beef sliders, 3 packages of organic meatloaf mix and about 6-7 packages of organic, free range boneless skinless chicken. His boss had spent the morning volunteering at a food shelf. The food shelf he volunteers at gets free meat each day from Lunds, Byerly's, Kowalskis (upscale grocery stores) and Trader Joes. They don't have a freezer, so whatever they have leftover is given to the volunteers. He had gotten double that amount, but didn't really need that much, so he brought half of it for Zach. According the the price on the package it was over $150 of free meat.

awakenedsoul

9-15-12, 7:52pm

Wow! That's incredible Stella! How exciting!

bunnys,
I'm single and I also have a Costco membership. At first I found going there overwhelming. Now that I'm a few years into it, it saves me a ton of money. I buy their dog food, toilet paper, tampons, cheese, milk, pasta, dried fruit, bananas, juice, coffee, sugar, flour, salt, spices, soy milk, dish soap, make-up, lotion, Uniball pens, nuts, and chocolate. Most of this I stockpile. I make a list and stick to it. I don't look around at the appliances, clothes, etc... I got a nice lime tree there for my orchard. I even googled "What do you buy at Costco?" and tried the things other people were buying. It's a weird adjustment, but if you get used to the size of everything, and just buy what you need, it can be great. Maybe you don't use any of this stuff, but if you do, it's much cheaper. My grocery bill went up when I first started shopping there, now it's dropped way down. At first it seemed really expensive. But, a lot of the stuff I buy there lasts me for a year.(or more.)

rosarugosa

9-15-12, 8:34pm

Amazing score on the meats, Stella! Especially considering that it's organic.
Bunnys: I think that one size doesn't fit all with the warehouse memberships. Do you have someone you could split it with? That might make it more worthwhile. We are a two-person household, so we don't buy lots of produce there either, but we save a bit on things like kitty litter, coffee beans, paper goods, bottled water & frozen berries and seafood.
Azure: Good luck with the tight budget this month. How about if you asked DH to make or do something for you (depending on his talents), or give you a low cost "experience" like a foliage ride in the country?
I reviewed the budget for Sept with the car repair bill factored in, and it looks like we are just $219 short, barring any other unexpected expenses. So I think that's a reasonable challenge. Groceries came in well under budget today, so that will give us at least $25 toward the $219. I tend to budget high for uneven expenditures like food, gasoline and utilities, so if we're focused and don't fritter extra dollars away, we could very likely manage this.
We ate out all week while we were away, but tonight we had a caprese salad, and tilapia almondine (had tilapia in the freezer from Costco) with basmati rice. It's funny because it was better than any of the restaurant meals that we had, and it was certainly a whole lot cheaper.

fidgiegirl

9-15-12, 9:05pm

Hi guys,

We went garage sale-ing today. Scored a dog crate for $5. Also we got a brand new medicine cabinet for our future bathroom remodel in the bathroom for $20. Even if we take a while to get around to it and decide not to keep it in the way, we could easily resell it for even more on CL. I was most proud of what I DID NOT buy at the garage sales. There was lots catching my eye today, but passed on all of it except that.

Had a beautiful lunch out with girlfriends and picked up some spices at Penzey's - my first experience at the store! Lots to choose from. I was picking up the glass bottles and then realized the pouches are cheaper for more spice. I have lots of containers already - pouches take up less room and work for us.

Also splurged on a neat glass bottle for making salad dressing. The cost of dressing has been holding us back from eating much salad. I know, dumb, but it is what it is. I am always nervous to get glutenized with all the processed crap in the cheap dressings, and the fancy ones are expensive for not much dressing. So this bottle has about 8 simple salad dressing combos printed on the side of it. Just fill to the line, shake and voila. I passed on a similar plastic bottle at a garage sale earlier in the summer and had regretted at a few times. So I figured that was a good sign to pick it up. And at only $6.95, we'll make our money back on savings on store bought dressing in 2 or 3 rounds of using it.

Azure

9-15-12, 9:22pm

Found Tyler's report card! I knew it was around here somewhere!

flowerseverywhere

9-16-12, 8:22am

I always love reading everyone's accounts of their frugality. It is so inspiring.

My dear friend of 34 years is going to be a grandma- I can remember when her son was a baby so this is exciting. I am making a quilt for the new little one entirely out of scraps I have and it is coming out super cute.

Went visiting yesterday and the couple suggested we go out to eat. They have had several bouts of unemployment so instead I suggested we barbecue. I bought some skewered meat and veggies (veggies from the garden) and we cooked them on the grill. Tasty, and cost less for the four of us to eat than if one of us had eaten out. I fear they don't manage money well, during the good times they like to treat themselves, and we try to show them by example you don't need to spend a lot of money to have fun and good food.

Stella

9-16-12, 6:31pm

Kelli, I love Penzey's! I get the bags too. They are pretty economical. The spices are such high quality for really, not much more than you'd pay at the grocery store. I am planning to make some granola tomorrow with their apple pie spice. Sooooo good.

flowers, congratulations to your friend!

We went to my friend's kids birthday party today and had a fantastic time. They have a huge yard and they had set up an obstacle course for the kids to run through. The kids had fun on the obstacle course and on the play equipment. She had made superhero capes by cutting up some old t-shirts and ironing on logos she printed from the internet. We had cupcakes and the kids are now completely worn out. The adults talked and caught up. It was good FFF. We're having leftover hot dogs from last week's picnic that I froze and apples for dinner and the kids are going to bed early.

Tonight I'm going back to my friend's house for some girl time sitting out on her porch and talking. She is 34 weeks pregnant so she was too tired for our regular girls night on Friday.

bunnys

9-16-12, 7:01pm

rosa: I have a good friend who's willing to have me go with her any time I like. I actually joined this year bc I thought I'd buy a car through their car program but I ended up getting a much better deal by biting the bullet and haggling. Before this membership runs out I'm going to make sure I know exactly what they have throughout their store so I can 1--be certain if I want to renew, 2--bother to arrange with my friend to go with her.

kelli--great idea with the salad dressing bottle. Homemade dressing is FAR SUPERIOR than anything bottled. That's one of the my sister's cardinal rules of salad making. No bottled dressing.

I made apple butter today. First time. Got recipe off internet. Called for apple cider vinegar. Now my apple butter tastes like vinegar. I want to do this again but I will add apple cider instead next time. I don't like the vinegar taste. Don't know if I'll be able to eat it. But it wasn't that expensive and it was a fun little thing to try out...

rosarugosa

9-16-12, 8:02pm

Bunnys: We "split" our membership with my SIL, so at least in theory, we could split the membership fee ( we used to take turns paying it on alternating years, but we have just paid it the past several years since she has been out of work). She has a card and DH has a card.
Kelli: We were just talking about Penzey's the other day. I was mentioning to DH that several people on the Forum get spices from them. Is this a good source for bulk peppercorns? My more local sources have dried up (sounds like I'm talking about drug dealers - LOL). Having bought them in bulk for years, I can't bear to buy those overpriced little glass bottles in the grocery store, and we use a fair bit of pepper.
As far as salad dressing goes, I like olive oil and red wine vinegar the best, so I guess I'm lucky. I understand that this isn't everyone's cup of tea. I do occasionally enjoy doing something fancy with fresh squeezed lemons or limes, like my smoked paprika dressing, but oil and vinegar usually does the trick for me.

decemberlov

9-16-12, 8:29pm

*I do occasionally enjoy doing something fancy with fresh squeezed lemons or limes, like my smoked paprika dressing, but oil and vinegar usually does the trick for me.

I would love to know your recipe for your smoked paprika dressing. We just recently bought some fabulous smoked paprika at a farmers market and I've been using it in my eggsalad, chicken and pretty much anything lol it gives such a nice flavor!

fidgiegirl

9-16-12, 9:32pm

rosa, I am not sure. I haven't had much experience shopping there. They did have a bag of them, but not sure if it was a good price. Stella?

Rosemary

9-16-12, 9:58pm

I think Penzey's prices are reasonable given the high quality of the spices and herbs. The price/pound at most natural food stores that sell bulk seasonings is generally lower, and the products are more likely to be organic, and you can buy just what you need. But if you don't have that option, Penzey's is great. We buy some items there that we use in large quantity or that we prefer to the bulk option, such as the bay leaves and curry powder. As for peppercorns -- I know that they have many varieties. If you sign up for the Penzey's print catalog, it nearly always contains coupons for free things.

I started painting our porch this weekend. This was one of the tasks we removed from the contractor's list to save money.

I'm currently uploading our best digital photos of the year to a site that is having a major sale on prints. I hate processing digital photos so I only do it once or twice/yearly, when there's a good sale to motivate me. But another plus is that when I sit down to do our annual electronic photo collage/holiday greeting, all the best photos are already in a single folder on the computer.

In thanks for her hard work in the yard this afternoon while we DH and I were completing house-related tasks, we went to the library with DD so she could pick out a movie to watch in the late afternoon, along with making a batch of popcorn. She was very happy with this as a reward!

We're hosting a dinner for our church's annual auction next weekend, themed around local & fresh foods. We've done this for several years and it is fun but a huge amount of work - lots of chopping of vegetables, etc. This spring I got a gift card at DD's school's annual fundraiser for a whole dessert from an amazing local bakery, so I ordered a pumpkin pecan cheesecake for the event... it was actually packaged with some orchestra tickets and the package together cost less than either item normally would sell for. With such a filling dessert, dinner can be a little lighter, and I don't want to ever have a whole one of those cakes in our house with just the three of us around! Plus, I know our guests will really enjoy it. I'll freeze leftovers for when my parents visit.

SteveinMN

9-16-12, 11:26pm

I buy all my pepper at Penzey's. I haven't purchased pepper at a grocery store in years, because even if Penzey's isn't the cheapest pepper around, the price does not seem outrageous and the quality is there. A quick peek at Penzey's Web site shows that 4 ox. packages of black peppercorns goes for $4.55 and up (depending on variety; they have three types); 8 oz. packages go for $7.89 and up. Does that help?

AmeliaJane

9-16-12, 11:46pm

Made a really good Thai curry in the crockpot--used up potatoes, coconut milk, curry paste, a zucchini and peanut butter that were hanging around the pantry. It turned out very well, and I think next time I will lighten it up a little with slightly less PB and more vegetables (now that I know it makes a lot of sauce). I got it from a new slow cooker blog that uses instant tapioca in a lot of recipes as a thickener. That was new to me but it worked very well. I prefer sauces thick and have had a hard time getting that result in the slow cooker.

try2bfrugal

9-17-12, 12:16am

JaneV2.0

9-17-12, 2:01am

I heartily recommend signing up for Penzey's slick and wonderful catalog. http://www.penzeys.com/

rosarugosa

9-17-12, 5:16am

Thanks for the info on Penzey's everyone. I checked their website, and I think they will definitely be our new source for peppercorns!
Decemberlov: I had found a recipe online and tweaked it to suit our tastes. We love smoked paprika too! I especially like this dressing if I'm adding seafood to the salad (eg. smoked trout, smoked salmon, cocktail shrimp, lobster meat)
This is enough for an entree salad for two (at least in our house; we're not too heavy on the dressing):
2 tbsp fresh lemon or lime juice
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1 heaping tsp mayo (needs some heavy whisking action to combine this with the other ingredients; this ingredient is optional. I found the dressing from the original recipe a little bit bitter, so I added in the mayo and found that we preferred it this way)
salt & black pepper

SiouzQ.

9-17-12, 12:45pm

A productive morning I've had: In addition to getting a load of laundry done, all my stretching to keep limber, playing my guitar for a while, I've made two dishes with one bunch of broccoli. One was my broccoli bulgar pilaf, which, because I have been making it for so long, I feel free to be creative with it. So in that recipe I used up a bunch of garden tomatoes ripening in a pan in front of my sliding glass door and shredded some garden kale into the broth. When I add the cooked bulgar I now easily have four meals taken care of. With the other part of the broccoli I made my own version of "Broccoli Crunch", which we sell in the deli. I think mine came out better. I added an apple that was languishing in the fridge I also cooked up some lentils to make something called "Lentil Citrus" that uses orange juice (which I have in the fridge from when my dad visited last week. I don't drink it but it will be used up). I just need to get some chili peppers for this one.

Other than that, it is a beautiful day here in southern Michigan so I think I will (not so frugally) head out in my car to one of my favorite local hiking spots to get some fresh air and sunshine. Later tonight, I am going to the Todd Snider concert (look him up, he's is one helluva storyteller/singer/songwriter) at The Ark with my new guy friend. He's taking me out for dinner beforehand :)

decemberlov

9-17-12, 12:50pm

Azure

9-17-12, 1:21pm

Have a great evening, Siouxq! I love live folk music but have not been in ages. I used to go to the 10 Pound Fiddle in E. Lansing quite a bit.

The good: Just learned last week that as a Target team member I can get a discount from Verizon Wireless. DH & I just filled out the "paperwork" a little while ago. The only thing is I have no idea how much of a discount it is. And it says that it would show up in 1 or 2 billing cycles. Soooo.... I guess I'll find out when I find out. Not a big deal really, but I am curious. BUT any discount is better than NO discount.

Received the $25 itunes card I earned on mypoints. I really want to spend it on myself. But Tyler does have a birthday on Oct. 8th.

The bad: My car wouldn't start this morning. I ended up driving dh's jeep & he rode his motorcycle. He put the charger on the car before he left for work. It started up when I got home & unplugged it but he came home early and it was turning over kind of rough by then. So he has it at the shop right now. Praying for inexpensive news here.

The ugly: I forgot to pay DH's credit card on the 6th. I can't even remember the last time I've done that. But it was kind of crazy around here the couple of weeks before then so it was just a stupid over sight. I discovered the oversight on Saturday & went to pay the bill and the $50 minimum had shot up to $130. NOT Happy! Not sure if I'm madder at me or at them.

Stella

9-17-12, 4:08pm

The girls signed up for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Young Writers Program. They are having such a great time preparing for it. Good FFF and good learning all in one.

I am making a big batch of chili today. That should give us two meals. I'll bake some cornbread to go with it this evening.

I think I am going to make some chilaquiles tomorrow for lunch. I have three half-bags of tortilla chips that need to be used up from various recent events.

flowerseverywhere

9-17-12, 8:55pm

found this cute pattern for a skeleton made of milk jugs after seeing one at a craft fair for sale for mucho bucks. I have neighbors saving for me so I can make one for my grandkids for halloween decor.

http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/milk-jug-skeleton-fun-recycled-craft-decoration-halloween/

Figured out how to download free books from the Gutenburg project onto the Ipad. There are 40,000 books in the public domain, including hundreds in French. I need to keep up on reading the French language (although my pronunciation is atrocious these days) and this will be a easy way to do it. I also figured out how to get them from my public library for free. Don't even need to go to the library to get them, although since I am at the library at least once a week to read magazines and pick out books on cd etc. it usually isn't a problem.

fidgiegirl

9-17-12, 9:52pm

flowers, thanks for the reminder about the Project Gutenberg books. We have a lot of people asking about eBooks for their classroom iPads but I forget about these most of the time. And for me! Thanks!

SteveinMN

9-17-12, 9:57pm

Today's frugals:

- my wife's GPS (which probably would be one of her "100 items" if we ever got there) needed a new battery. The manufacturer will replace it -- for a stiff enough charge to make me wonder whether we should just buy another one :(. But the Web is my friend, and I found instructions for replacing the battery DIY. I ordered a generic battery through Batteries + and gathered my electronics repair tools. I got the GPS apart and replaced the battery. Probably took more time to figure out how to open the case without trashing it than it took to do everything else. Then I tried it on an errand; we're back in business without the power-cord tether. We spent probably a quarter of what it would have cost to send it back to Garmin, though I already had on hand all the tools I needed.

- repairing the kitchen faucet (sprayer, actually) myself. We started having problems with it and Web searching revealed some answers. For some reason, though, I ended up calling Moen, the faucet manufacturer. I found out the parts I was going to buy at the hardware store would be sent to me free for being the original owner of the faucet (not bad; hardware stores will charge $45 for the assembly). The sprayer arrived a couple of days ago. In the "olden" days, it would have been hard to fit a call to Moen within the daily schedule and the part, once bought and paid for, would have sit until we hired the job out to someone. But today I crawled under the sink and, some contortions and a little spilled water later, the new sprayer is on and working.:cool:

Tussiemussies

9-17-12, 10:06pm

Great going Steve! :)

bunnys

9-17-12, 10:13pm

Very impressive, Steve.

rosarugosa

9-18-12, 5:00am

Good work Steve! DH dealt with a very sluggish kitchen drain yesterday, so it must have been a good day for DIY plumbing!

fidgiegirl

9-18-12, 9:13am

Steve, awesome!!! My DH accidentally discovered the free faucet part thing a while back and has ordered the parts for more than one sink from more than one company. So it's something to keep in mind, all!

DIY is so inspiring.

AmeliaJane

9-18-12, 11:03am

A BIG frugal today--just paid off the car, three years early. YAY!

On other topics, the two crockpot blogs I use are http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ and http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/. The first is not updating as regularly any more, but I do like the archives. The author of the first is not a trained cook or anything--she just tested various recipes she found various places (or from friends). Some recipes are terrific, others not to my taste.

And the Project Gutenberg books are terrific. It is amazing what is in there--not just Important Classics like Dickens, but also for instance all the Anne of Green Gables books and some early PG Wodehouse. Pretty much anything written before the early 1920s...

decemberlov

9-18-12, 11:16am

Azure

9-18-12, 7:35pm

Way to go Steve & Amelia Jane!

Today at work we marked down school supplies to 70% off. So I bought a nice selection for Operation Christmas Child Shoe boxes! I had the money set aside for that purpose so it worked out great. Plus I got to use my personal discounts for another 15% off.

Had sesame noodles for dinner. Yum. I love sesame oil. Probably take leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Yesterday I had left over chili.

I have a new battery in my car & it's running great now.

Blackdog Lin

9-18-12, 8:41pm

I never feel like I have anything to contribute to this thread. My daily frugal life just seems to chug along on "I DIDN't.....whatever". I didn't stop at the quick-store for a soda; I didn't go to the grocery store, made up a meal with what was in the house instead; I didn't order that flittermegidget online that I've been thinking we needed.....

But Azure, had to respond to agree with your taste choices: ditto YUM on sesame oil. If left to me I could easily exist on (1) macaroni and cheese; and (2) sesame noodles (with green onions and sesame seeds and whatever else, yes?!!!) Alas, DH doesn't share my love of sesame oil. I am forced to use it in miniscule quantities in only certain suitable recipes.

rosarugosa

9-19-12, 4:46am

Congratulations, AmeliaJane!
Azure: Glad your car is running great; it sounds like you REALLY don't need a car repair bill just now.
Azure and Lin: I don't think we've ever used sesame oil, but it sounds really good. I think sesame anything is yummy, so we should check that out.

Stella

9-20-12, 10:14am

Azure, I love sesame oil too.
AmeliaJane, that is fantastic! Congratulations!

Cheyenne joined the children's choir last night and she absolutely loved it. Loved it. This is going to be good free fun for her.

I'm having my girls night at my friend's house, so that's some good FFF for me. Tomorrow is my monthly neighborhood women's potluck. I think I'm going to make my famous baklava. I haven't made it in years, but people from high school still remember it and mention it occasionally. It's kind of a pain in the behind, but every once in a while I like making things that are a pain in the behind. That's good FFF for me too.

Tonight we are having meatloaf. We are using the meatloaf mix we got for free and having it with garlic mashed potatoes and carrots, so it's going to be a very inexpensive meal. Last night I used the free chicken we got to make a chicken and herb stew with dumplings. That was quite inexpensive as well.

Zach and I made plans to celebrate our birthdays next month. There is a coupon in the marching band coupon book we have for a buy one get one free meal at a nice steak restaurant near us, so we are going to go to there the Friday before my birthday and have a nice date night for half price. He is going to be 30, so it's a big one for him. I'm going to be 34.

Our church is having FallFest the last weekend in September and we will have midway rides. They are selling discounted tickets ahead of time, so I am buying $10 for each of the girls. I think James will be perfectly happy with the little train ride they have there, so I won't get any for him.

Stella

9-20-12, 1:51pm

Oooh I have a few others now. We have been setting up a little altar/prayer corner in our living room and I was badly in need of artwork. I shopped at home first and pulled together a few things I already had. Bella found a pretty green placemat to use for an altar cloth (green for ordinary time, which it is now) and I printed off some pretty public domain antique holy cards from the Graphics Fairy website and I found some frames for them in my storage closet. I still need one more frame, pretty candleholders and pretty placemats in purple, white and gold, blue and red, but now I have time to search the thrift and vintage shops and find something I like.

BayouGirl

9-20-12, 8:08pm

One of my favorite frugal things is the fuelperks card with my local Winn Dixie grocery store. I have to buy groceries anyway and by using the sales circular and buying their fuelperks bonus items, I am able to get money off of a gas purchase at my local Shell gas station.

I got $1.60 off per gallon of gas (up to 20 gallons) so I saved $32.00 on a full tank of gas. So I ended up paying $2.00 per gallon!!

Fuelperks are earned by signing up for a WinnDixie card which you need to get some of the best sales items anyway. I have no problem with them gathering information on my shopping habits and they send me coupons for $5 dollars off any purchase occasionally as well as other offers. You get something like 5 cents off a gallon (up to 20 gallons) for each 50 dollars that you spend and there are items that you buy that will also get you 5 or 10 cents off a gallon.

My grandmother also uses her WinnDixie card and saves her fuelperks for me. I go and stay with her as her caretaker every few weeks and she is always thrilled to fill my tank and get over a dollar off per gallon. She doesn't drive so she fills my car for her errands. She lived thru the depression and the thrill of a good bargain has always been a mainstay in her life.

Tussiemussies

9-20-12, 10:52pm

try2bfrugal

9-20-12, 11:46pm

Instead of buying beeswax to make my own candles which was my original plan, I bought wax candles with LED flames from Amazon, paid for with credit card rewards points. The candles use rechargeable AAA batteries, and I already had batteries and and a charger for free from doing product reviews. The batteries are good for hundreds of charges so the candles should last for many years, with maybe just having to replace only the flame bulb at some point. The candles look pretty good for fake flames. We used them as a centerpiece for dinner the other night. They flicker just like real candles.

This month I got a few hundred dollars of goods for free for doing product reviews.

I sold some books at the book store and made $12. From my mailing list signups I got tea and two pounds of bananas for free.

I found a $60 gift card for pet supplies from cleaning out my coupon file. That was a nice surprise. I bought some dog treats with part of it and saved the rest.

My son helped me figure out how to put free audio book rentals from the library on my iPod.

For fun, since we started really trying to follow the simple living ideas this past year, we have pretty much transitioned over quite a bit from restaurant meals and for profit ticket type events like plays and movies to more free of inexpensive club, museum membership and meetup activities. This weekend between the various family members we have a couple of meet up hikes, a planetarium visit with discount tickets from a reciprocal museum membership, a potluck picnic and a star viewing night. So we have lots of free or low cost entertainment planned for the whole weekend. From the context of other member's posts I guess it is FFF but I am not entirely sure what the FFF stands for - Frugal Family Fun? If so, we're on it!

Selah

9-21-12, 5:11am

A frugal win has suddenly become only partially frugal. Here's why: I finally got to join a local choir I'd been wanting to join, ever since I saw them in concert last spring, which guarantees hours of free fun and companionship every Sunday night until next June. They are back from their summer break and started rehearsals some weeks ago, but my friend forgot about it and only remembered to tell me last week that they'd started up again. This is relevant because we are having our first concert on October 4th, so I have a LOT of new music to learn. So that's a frugal thing to do, as it keeps us from going out to a cafe instead. I even carpool with a fellow chorister, so I don't have to pay for a taxi.

However, I got a call from the conductor a couple of nights ago. It appears our 2nd Soprano soloist for Vivaldi's "Laudamus Te" (from his magnificent "Gloria") got suddenly drafted into the Israeli Defense Force and has to report for duty next week. So the conductor asked me to take her place! Not exactly like getting my big break on Broadway after the lead busts her ankle, but I'm happy enough with it. Now I get the non-frugal fun of shopping for an awesome little black evening gown for the performance!

Merski

9-21-12, 10:05am

Selah congrats! Try going to a bridal consignment shop for your evening dress if you have one. They might also consign evening dresses!

Tussiemussies

9-21-12, 2:26pm

Delay, that is wonderful that you were able to join the choir and now have a solo! Sounds exciting. Good luck in finding the perfect dress!

fidgiegirl

9-21-12, 5:08pm

FFF = Free Frugal Fun
FFF = Fairly Frugal Fun?

Now I don't remember, either!

rosarugosa

9-21-12, 7:43pm

Selah: That is wonderful! Do you have Youtube video so we can hear you sing?
Kelli: I remember it as Fairly Frugal Fun, but of course, there is nothing wrong with Free Frugal Fun.
Bayou Girl: Nice to have you in the conversation - welcome. Gas savings have become so important as fuel consumes an ever-larger share of our household budgets. I believe we are unusual in New England in that so many of us heat our homes with oil. For the past several years, we've paid a fee to "cap" our oil prices for the heating year. I've opted to pay it - I know it might sound insane, but I sleep better knowing I can afford to heat my home through the winter. Occasionally I think about how outrageous it's become that decisions about home heating oil have a flavor of Vegas or playing the markets. Who ever would have expected it? Just trying not to freeze to death.

danna

9-21-12, 8:10pm

Sept 21
Been here reading just didn't get around to posting...been doing all the usual
--Dsis here to visit and used mostly pantry and freezer to make our meals, and I think we each only spent about $25.00
on tea/coffee out and a couple of lunches out. Bought us some nice wine (not in a box ...hehe) with a gift cert I got for my birthday.
--I took Dd out for lunch this week but it was Indian Buffet, very inexpensive, I owed her a lunch.
--still freezing up some veggies bought at good Fall prices
--no heat and no air on you have got to love this time of year

rosarugosa

9-21-12, 9:49pm

Wow Danna, wine in a bottle - you folks are living the good life - LOL!

BayouGirl

9-21-12, 10:58pm

Today is the first day of fall and many stores have already started with their holiday displays and items. But for me, this is the time when I buy summer stuff that is on clearance and pack it away for next year. That way when spring comes, I already have some nice new outfits to kick off the season. For instance, last winter I found a rack of sundresses at Walmart that were marked down from $15-$20 to $2.00.

They didn't have the right price displayed but when I bought a few (thinking they were $5.00 as the tag said) the register showed they were actually $2.00. So I told the cashier to ring me up for 10 of them and after I paid I would go get them off the rack (rather than going thru the nightmare of dealing with Walmart and the fact that they will only have 1 or 2 cashiers with lines that are quite long).

So, wow!! I got 10 sundresses which are very cute and comfy for a total of $20!! Gotta love that. I was in Walmart over the weekend and found a rack with clothes from last winter marked down to $2.00 and picked up a few long sleeve shirts for me and some shirts for BayouBoy. I also got about 5 sets of capri pants with cute embroidery on them for $2.00 also.

It is very rare (almost non existent) that I would pay full price for clothing. I have no problem shopping at a second hand store either. They are a great source for clothing, work clothes, books galore for me and the grandkids and other items that catch my eye.

I am also the type who does Christmas shopping all year long. I start shopping for Christmas in the weeks after Christmas, when all the Christmas stuff is marked down to 70%-90% off. It all goes in a box and I keep track of my list of who we have to buy for and get some really great stuff. It also takes the stress off of the last minute purchases which we always end up doing because we use the money from our pecan crop and harvesting pecans from other people (for a percentage of the profit). Picking pecans often goes right up till a few days before Christmas and we depend on it each year to fund Christmas.

The next big clearance sale will be on school supplies and I already bought 10 notebooks for .10 cents each as well as a few packs of good markers and crayons for me an the grandkids. The kids each get a notebook and can use it as a journal and art pad. The kids know that the toys here are not battery operated or plugged in. They have coloring books, art supplies, flashcards, playing cards, books galore, puzzles and a huge tote of wooden trains and tracks that is over 20 years old and was my son's when he was a baby. They giggle when I exaggerate and tell them "When I was little I only had one thing to play with and it was called "OUTSIDE".

Oh, and I bought some colorful kitchen utensils (spatula, ice cream scoop, big spoon, etc) for .25 cents each. It was all summer stock and marked down 75-90%! I bought a set for our "big" house (600 sq ft, lol) and a set for my tiny house (196 sq ft) which serves as a guest house, my arts and crafts studio and storage for off season clothes.

I also saved up a couple thousand coke points and got a gorgeous set of 6 ceramic bowls that all fit in each other an are all different colors and a "nesting kitchen set" which is a creative set of bowls, a strainer, a colander, measuring cups and measuring spoons that all nest in the large bowl. It's so cute and each item is a different color. I love my little house and love buying cute petite items for it.

I also bought the items needed to make homemade laundry soap for the first time. I looked at all the recipes online and decided to mix mine with a little more borax and washing soda than the recipes I saw. I found a version of it that uses dawn dishwasher liquid rather than grated soap. It mixes quite quickly and easily since there is no grating and melting the bar of soap in hot water. However, it does end up being a bit thin (as opposed to the much thicker recipe using grated soap).

So I mixed up about 5 batches using different amounts of ingredients. I did grate some soap (Fels Naptha) and dissolved it in hot water so I could see how much work it would be and also to add some thickness to the recipe that uses Dawn and seemed thin to me. BayouBoy is an excellent test subject for laundry soap because he works all day in the Louisiana heat and goes thru a few tshirts a day and gets quite dirty as well.

And that is September, so far. I don't usually buy a lot of stuff really because when you live in a small house, each possession has to justify its existence. Nothing is allowed to just lay there unused and taking up space. I regularly drop off items at the local goodwill. I keep a box designated for that and as I clean, I put things in the box and then when the box is full, off it goes. Friends and family are also welcome to take anything from the box that they can use.

Stella

9-22-12, 4:46pm

Welcome BayouGirl and Congratulations to Selah!

I had my monthly potluck last night and I did not get my baklava made. I ended up having to go really simple with some sliced Honeycrisp apples from the apple orchard and a batch of homemade caramel sauce. It was yummy, though. It was such a fun party. The hostess made two kinds of soup, an Indian lentil soup and a beef and vegetable soup, and everyone else brought appetizers, salads or dessert. One of our members brought her mom, who is visiting from India. It was fun getting to know her and she made a really tasty rice dish. I think this group is going to have to put out a cookbook or something someday because everything people make is just delicious. It's such a fun group.

We have a new neighbor and I have some overripe bananas, so I am going to make a banana bread and take it to her.

This year is Zach's and my 10th anniversary and we want to renew our vows and have a little reception for our family and friends. I am thinking of seeing how much it would be to have it at the hall at our church. I'm thinking we could do pulled pork sandwiches, a fruit and veggie tray, bread and spinach dip and cake and punch. It wouldn't have to be expensive. One of my best friends has agreed to help me with it and I am going to ask another friend if she would help out too. We eloped and spent a total of $67 on our wedding, so a few hundred dollars to celebrate our 10th anniversary seems reasonable to me. Both celebrations combined still come in thousands of dollars less than the average wedding. :)

early morning

9-22-12, 7:33pm

Congrats on your 10th, Stella! I think anniversary celebrations are important! DH and I have our ups and downs, but we celebrate each year, because it means the ups are winning, lol. Or that we're too stubborn to give up ;). I actually had a Saturday at home for once - I've not been home for an entire day for over a month, and I hate that! The house is trashed and we've been eating too much junky food - but today I got a few things accomplished, read some, caught up my financial tracking, [I]almost[I] balanced the checkbook, put four loads of wash on the line. The last one will have to stay out overnight and I'll bring it in when I get home tomorrow evening. DD is home from work now and is going to help me clear out the family room by us taking a huge trunk upstairs to DS's room. Which I will promptly fill with some of DS's junk. THAT will make me happy! ;)

BayouGirl

9-22-12, 8:34pm

Congrats on your 10th Stella and Zach! It's so nice to see a couple who didn't go overboard on the wedding expenses. I see the huge wedding that seem to almost be mandatory today and I can only think that they will still be paying off that wedding long after they are divorced in a few years. Weddings that are over the top seem to lose the real meaning of the ceremony. I don't think the wedding party or the guests really enjoy a wedding that is so over planned. Weddings should be joyful celebrations of love, not choreographed displays of excess.

BayouBoy and I plan on getting married in the next year and we want the simplest wedding possible. Just friends and family for a barbeque at his parents farm. I don't want people dressing up or stressing over details. However it happens, whatever catastrophes may occur, are all part of the memory of that day and nothing to stress over. I have learned that even the catastrophic become comical in the retelling of the tale in the years to come. That's what memories are made of!

danna

9-22-12, 9:29pm

hehe...rosagura you are right not something I do often these days.........

Stella Congrats on your 10th my DH and I spent next to nothing on our wedding and it lasted 47 years
I don't believe how much is spent on a wedding predicts the outcome. More likely sometimes the smaller one last longer.
Enjoy your anniversary!

--forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago I cashed in points for $20.00 worth of groceries
--used a $3.00 coupon at bulk barn towards $25.00 and also received a $5.00 gift card
--paid dear Gson to cut grass....this is a win win because it is teaching him to work, he gets exercise and it is money his money does not need to give him. I did the edging and some tree trimming, so all the excerise I needed for free.
--leftovers for supper

SteveinMN

9-23-12, 11:50am

This weekend's frugals:

- went back to the co-op to have our membership coupon applied (forgot it last time I shopped there); it's $5 (or 10% off the amount under $50);
- returned some unused plastic sheeting to the hardware store for refund and, at the same time, bought a CFL bulb for a kitchen light that always seems to be on now that DSD and more dark hours are setting in. If the fixture is going to be on all the time, it can use a quarter of the electricity...;
- filled up the "stupid" car. 50 mpg on this tank. I'll take it. ;)
- decided against dinner out/takeout on Friday, heating a frozen pizza at home instead. Probably saved us $10-15.

I'm still surprised how much money we just kind of ----ed away, though, in fairness, that was when time, not money, was the scarce commodity.

bunnys

9-23-12, 12:29pm

Yesterday, did grocery shopping and other errands. Filled up the tank @ Costco for a big savings of 3 cents per gallon? Hmmm... Going to continue watching that.

Also bought groceries and one of those apple peelers from Ebay like they sell @ LLBean. Twenty bucks, delivered. I had been thinking that I don't use apples and potatoes enough because they're such a hassle to peel. I think this will help with that chore. Also bought a new heating pad @ drugstore.com. I don't like being cold and I hate getting into a cold bed with cold feet. I have used this technique for years but the heating pad I currently use has less heating power than a 40 watt lightbulb. This way I can turn my heat off @ night (I live in Virginia--know this wouldn't be possible in Minnesota) and save on my heating bill this winter.

Today I'm making a pumpkin pie and (sigh) chili. Hey, it's food and it will cover me for the week. It doesn't always have to be exciting.

fidgiegirl

9-23-12, 3:59pm

Hi all!

We haven't been doing much in the frugals department lately. We had a few good scores on BOGO at Lunds (upscale grocery) and went to Costco today but the outlay was far from frugal. Good thing we only do a trip like this every six months or so. Impulse buys included running gloves (cuz I was so cold on my run this morning, so it was fresh in my mind. But now I think I could have used some XC ski gloves I have instead! Bah! Oh well, I will enjoy them . . . ). We also got some bulbs.

Last night we hosted 4 couples for game night at our house. It was FFF. We made chips and dip from a Penzey's mix and some sour cream we already had around, and I made pickle roll ups, a quintessential Minnesota party food. It was my first time making them. They are kind of slippery . . . at the party one of my friends told me you have to dry the pickles with a paper towel before rolling up! Crazy! Everyone did BYOB which is good for us because every couple is bigger drinkers than us. We will have another one in a few months at someone else's house. Sometimes we are good about doing it often, sometimes it's six months or so in between. But it's always fun to get together.

This afternoon I am going to fix a table that my parents gave us and then give it back to them. :D We've been storing it in the garage and just haven't come up with a good spot for it in the house yet. And it was my great-grandmother's, so I'm under strict instructions not to get rid of it. If we want to park our car in the garage, it has to go back to mom and dad's.

Doing laundry, but not hanging it. Laundry is one of those things I like to have allllll done on Sunday night before the work week starts, and I got started at it too late this weekend. So in the dryer it will go.

In bigger news, our refi is moving along . . . had an appraisal this last week, and hoping to get word tomorrow if it appraised for enough. We are confident it will, but you never know what can go awry. So I will feel better about that. In doing so we will eliminate our second mortgage and lower our payment about $100 a month. It will also make it a lot easier to feel like putting extra $$ to the mortgage is actually doing something. That LOC we had for the 2nd was in essence an interest-only mortgage. We will be glad to be rid of it even though it was small in the grant scheme.

This is good because we need to divert that money into a car fund right now. Bryce's muffler fell off this morning. Bah. At least we didn't call a service - he got down on the road and figured out how to disconnect it from the car and we drove it over to the garage. I was thinking about how many people would have just dialed up AAA. I should note we were on a placid city street. It would have been another story if we'd been on a freeway or something. But bah, that's more $$ into his car.

Keep posting, friends!! I love reading what you're getting up to! Sorry it got long! :)

Stella

9-23-12, 6:02pm

Pickle roll-ups! Yum!

Thanks for the congratulations everyone. Our anniversary is this winter, but we are pretty excited about it.

Tonight we are doing our lesson for Family Formation, which is our church's faith formation program. To make it more fun I'm making a little treat and we're going to play Jenga afterwards. We'll have hot apple cider and popcorn. I think it will be good FFF.

Three friends contacted me this week about giving me some clothes their kids outgrew. One has a girl a bit older than Charlotte, one has a boy a bit bigger than James and one has a grandson a bit bigger than James. The boys are the same size, so it's nice to have a few sources of free clothes for them.

The recyclables and patterned duck tape were a huge hit when we volunteered last night. We had such a blast. We also brought in a blanket and made a blanket fort. That was a hit too.

rosarugosa

9-23-12, 7:23pm

Pickle roll ups - I'm always learning interesting food things from you folks in Minnesota. Are they ever served with lutefisk? :)
We took a wonderful 2-hour hike in Lynn Woods today and had a great time - free fun!
It sounds like my car is going to cost us another $1200 which is definitely a bummer. It looks like we're going to succeed in squeezing the first big repair from the Sept budget, but there's no way I'm going to find another $1200 worth of slack to cut. Let's face it, if I could, it wouldn't be much of a budget.

chrissieq

9-23-12, 9:33pm

I too hit Lund's for the BOGOs this week and will probably swing by this week to pick up a few more - the pork chops and roasts are fabulous! Otherwise this weekend was not particularly frugal - went to Red Wing on Saturday to meet family - DH and cousin played golf for free and his wife and I window shopped (though did find 2 thrift stores - I spent $3 and she spend .75) - we did have a great lunch together and caught up for the last 4 months. Today we had brunch at Hell's Kitchen - great organic food - my first time ever eating Corned Beef Hash - why didn't anyone tell me how wonderful it could be! A quiet week at home - nothing after work all week and we blocked out next weekend so we do not commit to anything but us!!

SteveinMN

9-23-12, 10:30pm

Sounds like I should find myself a Lund's or Byerly's! I saw the circular, but some of the items in which I was interested looked to be about normal price at BOGO, so I let it be. I'll have to look again.

fidgiegirl

9-23-12, 10:33pm

Yum yum yum, yum yum yum!!!

http://files.recipetips.com/images/recipe/users/appetizers/ham_pickle_rollups.jpg

chrissieq, I always forget that you are a fellow Twin Citian! :)

fidgiegirl

9-23-12, 10:33pm

Steve, this one wasn't as good as ones I've seen in the past. Sometimes the meat deals are out of this world. But we picked up stuff we needed anyway and got some bonus food is the way I see it! :)

Stella

9-24-12, 5:16pm

I forget sometimes how well represented the Twin Cities are on this board. LOL. Rosa, nothing goes with lutefisk, IMO. It just shouldn't be eaten. :)

I took some melatonin for the first time last night and I actually slept! You have no idea how momentous this is. I have literally only slept through the night a handfull of times ever in almost 34 years of life. So, so worth the $7 for the bottle.

The kids needed some cheap novelty so today we made playscapes in large foil baking trays with green felt for the grass, blue fabric for the water and clear rocks and just the bare aluminum for a "snowy land" for the polar bears and snowmen. I brought out my cupcake toppers, which I have used now for about 4 years for cupcakes and double as playthings when I allow them to use them. I gave them some playdough to help the snowmen, deer, gnomes and such stand up and we made trees out of construction paper. Hours of free fun and when they are done, I don't have more junk to store.

I also made sensory bottles for the toddlers using random stuff and some pop bottles I had saved. I hot glued them shut, so hopefully that prevents them from making a mess.

Snack today is baked apples with raisins and a little brown sugar and apple pie spice. Cheap and reasonably healthy.

danna

9-26-12, 9:00pm

Sept24
been here reading but, I know I am being frugal but nothing out of the ordinalry...

fidgiegirl

9-26-12, 11:10pm

New tires today, friends. Boo hoo :( But I got a $20 credit because my old ones didn't last the time they should have lasted (whoopee, $20 - that I had to push for) and I had to convince the guy that no, I really didn't want to pay $60 ($15 per tire) for the protection plan JUST IN CASE something happens to replace them. I'll take my chances. Now watch. I'll have to replace it tomorrow. :D

Made a nice soup from the carcass of a Costco rotisserie chicken, the leftover meat, some freezer veggies, and a rutabaga and some parsnips from the store. Will feed us for several days. Man, thost Costco rotisserie birds are really fatty!

Processing some paperwork for our refi now. We'll get 3.25%. Amazing! I am excited to hit the mortgage now! Even though we won't pay extra until we've recovered our EF, which has taken a hit over the last year, even just paying the payment we'll be saving in interest. Whew.

That's all!

Stella

9-27-12, 2:27pm

I got the kids up and we went to mass and my women's group this morning. It was so nice to have some adult time. It's free, except there's a suggested donation for the child care.

In the plaza between mass and the women's group I ran into a friend of mine. She's about my parents age and just loves my kids. She gave me $20 for them for FallFest. She does this every once in a while. I wouldn't take, it, but the kids were standing right there and she always insists. I figure I'll pay it forward someday. That $20 is the girls' ride money this weekend.

bke

9-28-12, 11:03am

HI everyone

I've had a moster cold for the last 10-12 days and haven't been doing any more than necessary. My frugals have been few and far between.

I did recieve a free can of soup and a free beverage in the mail yesterday.

Ds is doing his second fundraiser of the school year already-ugh! The current one is for a field trip that we will end up paying for one way or the other. It involves selling gift cards to a local pizzaria. B1G1 free pizzas up to 15 per card. He has to sell 7 cards at $10 each for the field trip. So I"m buying pizza cards and trying to find people who might be interested in buying one from me. Not my favorite fundraiser as a restaurant owner-lol!

We used the card and bought 2 two item pizzas for $14 last night. Not a bad deal and there are leftovers for this weekend.

Tonight is homecoming and ds is in the marching band. He is SOOOO excited! I'm going to the game instead of working tonight so its not exactly a frugal day. The kids have a BBQ between the parade and the game. Ds was told to bring a salad of some kind so dh made a big batch of coleslaw for me to take in. Total cost-maybe $2.

Dh cut my hair the other day saving however much a women's hair cut cost these days.

I have an old sleeping bag from 1975. Its hideous to look at and falling apart but warm as the dickens and used regularly as a throw in the living room while watching tv. I fould an old sheet and dh is sewing it to the sleeping bag in order to get a few more years of use out of it. Oh, and I know the bag is from '75 because my dad bought it for me when I had the chicken pox.

We gave a car jack to one of our employees We had an extra and she needed one. In exchange, she has brought us 25-30 canning jars of assorted sizes which we will get lots of use out of.

I'm going to try and do a few sweeps before I leave for this evenings festivities.

Have a great day everyone!

Blackdog Lin

9-28-12, 8:40pm

bke: love your savings on haircuts, and the bartering. Bartering rocks.

Stella

9-29-12, 2:56pm

This weekend is not going to be the most frugal, but it is budgeted for. This weekend is FallFest at our church. Tonight there is a free concert by a realtively well-known local musician, G.B. Leighton. We are all going to go, but we're eating dinner first, so we'll be less tempted by the food. I think we will all have a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we will be meeting a friend of mine from elementary school for mass and FallFest. Tomorrow we will eat lunch there. The kids have a set number of tickets that they earned for the rides, so they can use them either day.

This coming Friday Zach and I will be celebrating our birthdays (Oct 9 and Oct 13). My friend is babysitting for free, we are eating dinner with a BOGO coupon and if the weather is favourable, we will go canoeing in our canoe. Overall it's a pretty reasonable birthday celebration.

Tradd

9-29-12, 3:12pm

Stella, it sounds like you have some nice things planned!

I'm in the last crunch for my exam on Wednesday. I took Friday (yesterday) off work and don't go back until day after exam. I'm mostly staying in, aside from church this weekend, and doing lots of review and such. Catching up on sleep, too! :) My non-frugal things are two massages - one yesterday and one Wednesday evening, but I saved up my monthly Massage Envy massages (I have a membership - one hour massage for $60/month) over the summer to have these bunched like this.

I'll have gas up to the exam site south of Milwaukee, but I'm staying with friends in the Milwaukee area. That will put me slightly closer to exam site than driving from home, plus they will make sure I get out of bed (at 4:30 am!). I'll pay for dinner Tuesday evening as a thank-you (they offered their guest room for this exam and April).

I will pick up my favorite Target brand rising crust pepperoni pizza on the way home from church this evening - all of $4.50. Saturday nights have been "Study and Snack," as I call them, for months. I hope this is the last one! :) I'll get some Coke, too, as a treat. Need soda with pizza!

Tussiemussies

9-29-12, 3:20pm

Stella, you always come up with great frugal things to do for you and your children, it's admirable!:)

Tradd, sounds like you are going to get some much need R&R, best wishes for you in taking your exam!!!:)

Tradd

9-29-12, 3:48pm

Thank you, Tussie!

try2bfrugal

9-29-12, 4:21pm

We cut the TV and Internet cable bills by $40 a month through changing options and negotiating the rates. We ended up with higher speed cable for less money and dropped some optional TV channels.

I got 2 pounds of bananas, a container of ice cream, a six pack of natural soda and a carton of chicken stock for free from coupons on the grocery store mailing lists. With a new store in the area I think the stores are giving away a lot of free food just to get people in the stores. I just go to pick up the free stuff and maybe pay for a loss leader or two.

I sold more books for a total of $20 this month. We used the money to go out to eat. The servers forgot to bring my husband's dish initially so they gave us both meals for free. That seemed like too much of a concession for one late meal so we left a big tip to split the difference.

We switched to drinking box wine on sale so that cut our weekly wine cost by about 75%. We added more weather stripping to try to lower the energy bills. I got another $50 worth of free stuff for doing product reviews.

We got a credit card that has 2% cash back. I try to put as much as possible on the charge card and pay it off every month, so that will bring in an extra few hundred dollars a year over the 1% cash back card we have now.