July Frugals

For those of you in the MSP area looking for some FFF: http://www.twincities.com/ci_2106908...ine-fine-about

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for all the warm welcomes back to the boards!

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

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

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