Awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Square Peg
FFF = "Fairly Frugal Fun," a term someone coined here on the frugals thread a while back. Basically anything that didn't cost much and ended up being fun.
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Awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Square Peg
FFF = "Fairly Frugal Fun," a term someone coined here on the frugals thread a while back. Basically anything that didn't cost much and ended up being fun.
Score! It's always nice to have a little refuge away when visiting family, no matter how beloved. Might as well use those points!Quote:
Originally Posted by crunchycon
State Parks often have GPS kits for geocaching, too! Fun stuff!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stella
Not too frugal. Well, it was going to be . . . we found an oil change place near my work for $15 for me (since I work in the area) and $17 for everyone else. We took in both cars since they both needed changes. That is an awesome price for this area. But DH's car conked out on the way home!! Not sure what they did or didn't do when it was in there, but something is decidedly amiss. I am crossing my fingers that they will cover all costs and fix it, but even in that case, we gotta haul our butts back up there to pick it up. I am not going to beat myself up over this because it could have just as easily happened at a shop down the road. They were nice about calling a tow truck - could have been argumentative. So that's a good sign, I hope.
Shopped around for MiL's bday present and will end up ordering it online.
I bought a pair of shorts and some new nighties on sale. It was about $50.
Not a particularly rewarding afternoon, all said. At least every place was air conditioned, unlike our house. SO LOOKING FORWARD to this heat breaking.
Went to TJ's today and stocked up on many items I use that are so expensive. TJ's all the way on the other side of town. Went with a friend and split cost of gas/tolls.
Did other grocery shopping and stocked up on frozen fruit (blueberries, blackberries, cherries and raspberries [got a killer price on all @ Martin's]) bc I make this dark fruit cobbler every week and eat a serving every day. I sweeten it with agave nectar and also use nutmeg and tapioca. Cobbler crust is whole wheat flour, canola oil, soy milk and a little sugar. Then I eat this with soy milk on top. It is amazingly good and so good for me. I feel so healthy eating all those dark fruits. And as I'm trying to lose weight this summer and (aside from 10 servings of sweets in the sweet bank for the whole summer) I'm eschewing eating sweets, this is my sweet for the day and it's very good and isn't spiking my blood sugar level.
July05--not much to date
bke---I now for a fact that lowering (there was no way I was going to be able to stop coffee with all those hormones out of whack) but; back when I was suffering with menopause I did lower it down to 2-3 cups a day. Also, think about other caffine you might
be getting in tea/drugs/pop/chocolate, it is the total in a day that counts.
--Costco run and spent more then I planned but, mostly on really good buys on things I have been looking for.
--bought 5 lbs of ground beef and cooked it all up and packaged in the freezer ready to use--time and energy saver.
Decluttering continues and we start our yard sale today. This week I have spent no money. DH has probably purchased a couple of meals at work (about $4 each).
Interesting too, I have been planning and thinking about doing once a month shopping and cooking but I finally came to the realization that for me, it is not a good idea. I need less stuff in my life, not more. So it is not a good idea to bring a month's worth of food into my minimal storage options.
I like the geocaching idea Kelli!
bunnys your cobbler sounds delicious.
I don't know if I mentioned this the other day, but I have been on a mission to reclaim my house from post-partum neglect. I am feeling so much better now that the kitchen, entry, dining room, downstairs bathroom, living room and deck have been rescued. I really get anxious when things are out of whack and as someone mentioned previously, organization is huge when it comes to frugality.
School has started again in earnest, which is helpful with frugality because it gives us stuff to do. It really helps with our rhythm and routine. The two month evening out on her sleep, sleeping consistantly through the night and taking reasonably predictable naps. Her next older brother, who is 15 months, sleeps for 4 hours in the middle of the day, so I am once again finding time to make things from scratch, teach the oldest kids and do housework. I think baby exhaustion probably costs me about $100-$200 a month at least in compromises for convenience's sake, so regularly sleeping babies and good routines are a huge plus in the frugal column.
I have been rocking the expense tracking and I have talked Zach out of eating lunch out everyday. That was his bad exhaustion-related habit. He usually only eats two meals a day, by choice, so I have been making him breakfast instead. It's working well for him. Seeing how much it added up really made it real for him. We are pretty much spending nothing during the week except gas for him to go to work. With weekends pretty carefully planned, I'm feeling good about our spending. We are on track this month to spend a total of about $1800, including all of our bills. Considering we are a family of seven and this includes a trip to a waterpark for a birthday I think we're doing pretty well.
So very very hot in MN the past several days - stayed home and spent no money - besides the a/c and water for the garden!
Rain just came through - still humid but this too shall pass!
Been reading library books, posting things on etsy, and watching movies old-school -we still have a VCR and I bought some old favorites on VHS for .35 each at the thrift store on Sunday.
Chrissie I was practically shouting hallelujahs when the rain came through. I am not a heat person.
Add me to that list, MN girls!!!!
Oh, yes... the relief from the heat was greatly appreciated here as well. We didn't get much rain, unfortunately.
Just received our June energy bill and it was very low... will keep that in mind when we receive our July bill, which likely will not be due to the heat.
I'm heading out shortly to get some free small river rocks at a house down the street to use for various things in the house and yard. After that, I'm going to re-use two chicken wire cylinders that I had around shrubs to protect them from the deer - form them into one larger-diameter cylinder for planting potatoes; it's a bit late in the season but I had some potatoes that were beginning to sprout and figured I'd try it.
Picked another quart of raspberries, some jostaberries and gooseberries, and 2 quarts of peas in our garden yesterday.
Rosemary, I have garden envy. We will be looking for some shrubs for our yard in the fall and maybe they need to be berries . . .
Here, we had a FFF fish fry today! My parents and in-laws and BiL came over. Everyone made a contribution, the fish was from DH/DFiL's recent trip, and all was delicious. My parents also brought our new garage door ($50 from CL, which my dad picked up in my hometown, an hour from us, saving us the gas, and brought down in his truck - awesome dad!!) and they brought us one of those big sun awnings that's like a metal pergola because it wasn't working well at their house and they thought it might go better here.
They also took the dog back with them, saving us the gas of the trip up there. Actually, that in and of itself has been a repeat frugal. They have four dogs of their own, so they never mind when ours joins the pack for a week or two. HUGE savings over a dogsitter, and truly, they don't mind. They love him. He's the "granddog."
I must sing the praises of washing soda today! In the last week I've salvaged SEVEN garments with either spot treating with washing soda or soaking in a bucket of washing soda water. Three were pants I didn't realize I'd stained with my bike seat. They all came clean. Three others were grease spots from our washer - before I did a tub clean cycle there was this greasy stuff getting on our clothes sometimes. Those I spot treated by spraying the spots with water, sprinkling washing soda on the spot, and soaking again with water. When dry, I tossed in with the wash. The seventh is currently in the wash and so the verdict is out - blueberry stains, I think. Fingers crossed!! I have learned, however, not to handle the washing soda with bare hands. It's not kill-ya caustic, but it ain't baking soda, that's for sure.
Won't be checking in for a few days as we head off on our UP trip, and wishing everyone beautiful, frugal summer days! Now to pack! :D
Fidgiegirl, if you'd like some berry plant starts, let me know. Most of them propagate very easily. I need to remove a lot of strawberry plants as well, if you'd like a food-producing groundcover.
Thanks for the tip on the washing soda stain removal. Enjoy your trip!
I moved some things around in the house yesterday - free redecorating, with cleaning and sorting done in the process.
Today we have several fun free activities in the area to choose from - an outdoor concert, a couple of events at museums, etc.
We had such an amazing weekend! Saturday morning my Dad and I carpooled to Costco. He needed to get some toilet paper and some stuff for the food shelf and I needed groceries. He ended up paying for my groceries! I bought him a hot dog to say thanks.
We decided to take some of the found money and take the kids bowling. Elsie's in NE Mpls has a $20.85 special for 6 people to bowl unlimited for two hours, including shoe rental. We had such a good time. Travis, my 15 month old, actually beat me. :) After that we decided to go on a drive to Stillwater to walk by the river and watch the boats. That was a lot of FFF.
Yesterday the kids all went to sleep after church for a while. In one of those the-best-things-in-life-are-free moments Zach and I had three hours to ourselves to talk and snuggle. It was lovely. I am so glad we spent that time together instead of doing housework like we had originally planned.
In the late afternoon we finally had the ice cream party the girls earned with their extra-chores/extra-schoolwork marble jars. It was a good, cheap reward for them. We spent under $15 on the whole thing and let me tell you, they worked hard for that. They had a fantastic time and are now motivated to fill the jars up again.
I was planning to go to the store for some stuff I needed that I couldn't get at Costco, but I decided instead to just see how long I can go without that. Sometimes a little creativity and a shift of plans can get me through without a trip to the store.
I had a whole bunch of bananas that got bruised on the way home from Costco, so I froze some and made banana blueberry bread from some of it. I used some of the frozen bananas for peanut butter banana breakfast popsicles. Wow, were they good! Pretty healthy too, just bananas, peanut butter, plain yogurt, honey and milk. I made it from a smoothie recipe I'd pinned on Pinterest. I will be making those again.
Hi Stella,
Does your area offer free bowling in the summer for kids? In Michigan you just sign up for certain alleys and kids can bowl two games free per day.
Sounds like a fun day!
Stella - re: free bowling - http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/
I know the place in Arden Hills participates.
Thanks for the information Mara and Rosemary!
There is also Kids Skate Free, but it is pretty limited:
http://kidsskatefree.com/
We got back (I used to say we made money at yard sales, but I am retraining myself to realize that we are only getting back money we already put out, and usually not as much) $200 on our yard sale this weekend.
We bought DS a new comforter with some of the funds. While I am being frugal this summer, I am also getting my house tidy. And so I decided I would use some yard sale money to fund things like that. His comforter had a hole in it and will now become a dog bed. Shopko had them on sale for 50% off, so his new comforter was $30. We almost bought a toilet brush and mop head at full prices, but a quick check of the Dollar Tree saved us about $15.
One thing I have been doing for some time but I have concentrated a little more on it the last few weeks is to measure everything out. Obviously I have been doing that with food, whilst I am losing weight, but I thought I would try to apply it to other household things.
For example the washing powder box states that you can get 13 washes from this box - 13 I thought I'm going to beat that! So each time I measure out the 30g needed for a load I only measure out about 25g and then this is where I get a bit geeky - I mark the box to show that I have taken out enough for one load of wash. There is still lots left in the box and so far I have done 10 loads of wash.
Oooh, the skating sounds like fun too!
I am writing up my curriculum for the coming year to send off to my mom for review. Both of my parents have Masters degrees in education, so it makes me feel better to run my curriculum by them. I save a lot of money doing it myself. This year I am thinking of enrolling Cheyenne (the only one old enough) in an online Socratic Discussion class. Dad is going halves with us on it because he would really like her to take this class.
It was too hot Saturday to set up our flea market booth, so I went to my Dsis's to help with her house overhaul. In return, she gave me a big package of cold fried chicken to bring home. We got three meals for 3 people out of that cold chicken! Sunday it wasn't as hot, thankfully, because Dsis and I volunteered to work at our local air museum booth at a large airshow. So - we got in for free (saving almost $20 each), parked for free ($10 saved), got a nice free lunch (minimum saved, $6) and free water all day ($3 a pop for a bottle!!) Test drove a car (they wouldn't let us test-fly a plane, lol) and got a free T-shirt. We watched most of the show from our simulator tent, and on a break I took my "savings" and bought a Huey ride!! It was AWESOME! (And tax-deductible ;)) Much FFF!
Early morning that sounds like fun!
I am so not in the league of you frugalistas but I did want to post that I have clothes on the line today. Wish I could assess how much money that actually saves per load! AND I have to hit the grocery store but I am going to have a list and drop by my friend's garden first (he is out of town and asked if we would keep things picked...imagine that!).
Great to read the frugals and especially the FFFs. We are not great at this but need to get better. We don't spend on much of anything for months and then it seems like money just flows away for awhile....I loaned my DS a chunk of change from slush and so I am feeling the pinch a bit which is probably a good enough thing for me.
I have been doing quite a bit of cooking this week. The kid I am watching requested egg salad for lunch today so I hard boiled some eggs. That's a cheap and easy meal. I also made granola and granola bars yesterday and strawberry banana breakfast popsicles. Judgung from the taste of the smoothie I made for the breakfast popsicles, those are going to be fantastic.
Last night I made Avgolemono (Greek lemon chicken and rice soup) for dinner from the carcass of a chicken I roasted Sunday. Tonight we'll be having grilled garlic, chicken, fresh tomato and basil pizza to use up the rest of the chicken and the first ripe tomatoes from our garden. That's 3 meals from one chicken. Grilled pizza is one of the kids' new favourite meals and it is very inexpensive. Tomorrow is going to be pasta with bacon, peas and mint. That's a Jamie Oliver recipe we got off of a podcast we watched.
Early morning, what do you sell at the flea market?
Lesilann-please don't feel like this is a competition-we're just all here to support each other on all our sucesses regardless of the size!
Frugals: We're taking posession of the bankruptcy house today. The insurance ended up being about $300 less than originally quoted. I just don't understand the reason why these kids were allowed to file bankruptcy inthe first place. The debts were less than a year's salary. They make 40% more than we do a year and were allowed to file bankruptcy and give us back the house. Based on their income we could have payed all the bankruptcy debt and payed the house off in full in less than 8 years while still living quite comfortably!
We had a very sucessful shopping day yesterday. I used sales, coupons, and register rewards from a previous week to get the following for under $25 total:
7 deoderants, 5 body washes (I was on my last one), 2 jars of dry roasted peanuts (good snacks!) 28 bottles of propel water, and 2 containers of country time half tea-half lemonade.
We drink alot of water but once a day its nice to have someting else.
Today I did two loads of laundry using free laundry detergent.
We're having our worst year ever at work. We rely on people hanging out at their cottages to pay our bills. More and more of them are either staying home or eating in. We're still managing to stay in the black but there's not nearly as much being put away for winter as there normally is. Eating and living cheaply is becoming more and more important for us. A piece of me is a bit angry at finding myself in this position. A year ago I would have told you we were almost to easy street. Ah well! We have a big emergency fund and are actually ok but were just not seeing any forward motion on the financial front.
More laundry on the line! Bke, I do feel a bit out of my league here but I know it is a welcoming group! Anyway, I avoided buying a cup of (bad) coffee out yesterday and came home to make my own (much better) coffee. That's little but it counts! I did let DSD go to the convenience store for milk (and let her buy gum with the change.....little benefits) even though I was doing groceries later but she needed to Get Out And Walk Somewhere. She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome. So we paid more for milk but she got something out of it.
I just need to be thinking frugally. And I need to get back to tracking; those two go together for me. The parts of the house that ARE decluttered are fine but there are those Other Parts (the basement, for example). I agree that it is much easier to stay frugal when I know what I have in the house. Some part of me would love to live in Fawn's house!
Beautiful, beautiful summer day here in the Maritimes. Just perfect temperature, low humidity....and I am at work (of course). But grateful to work at home and to have had my lunch and coffee on the back deck. Oops, that probably belongs in a different thread.
She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome.
OMG! You have one of these too!!!! Mine hides in his room when there's time to do things as a family and then wants attention when dh and I have things that need to be done. I wouldn't be a teen again for anything in the world!
Stella, if you have a recipe for the soup please. My DH LOVES lemon rice soup. :)
Tracy
bke, I think many people are still hunkering down, as this economy just stays flat, or worse, for many of us working folk. I've noticed the causal buyers at the flea markets keep their hands in their pockets a lot more than before - bad weekends for us used to be any where we took in less than $500 a day, now we're pleased to break $200. We sell antiques and vintage stuff, mostly gleaned from yard sales and trash piles. I try to stay away from glass items, but sometimes they're just too good to pass up on. We sell a lot of 40s, 50s, and 60s stuff, even some from the 70s. I sell things from my house purges, too - it's hard to sell nice things for good prices at a yard sale around here, but at a flea market, people will pay the price. Strange, but true. Overall, it's fun, AND a lot of hard work - but it lets me put money away for a large trip we're planning in the next 5 years or so. So, I rate it as frugal :). I'm sorry your business is suffering, and that you had to take back the house. I hope you can sell it soon! It's really difficult when several negatives pile on at once. I'm about to put laundry out for the night, and DH just brought in the eggs. I have my lunch of dinner leftovers packed up for tomorrow, and a bottle of water in the freezer. I leave it in my car in an insulated bag, so I have a cold drink on my drive home. And I finally have some little green tomatoes on! The rest of the garden is pretty much toast...
Mara, here is the recipe. It's actually really easy.
Recipe
Thank you Stella.
It's been a while since I posted consistently. I have popped in now and again, but the classes I took this past spring had me crunched for time. Finally getting things back to order around here.
My frugals for the past few months
*I payed my auto insurance in full for 6 months vs. monthly to a savings of $148
*FINALLY really payed off one of our cars. Payed cash for new brakes and rotors for said car (we don't have a credit card), need to have the shocks done next. I was told I could wait a few months, it's slated for the end of this month.
*paying our neighbor to replace our garage roof. Huge savings having him do it.
*have a small summer garden planted, once the roof is done I am clearing out another area for a fall garden.
*while I spent $ it was with a plan, we have memberships to a science center, zoo and the Henry Ford. This will get us into many others for a full year for free or half cost.
*cancelled our canoeing trip with friends a month ago, savings of c. $300. DH is busy right now with a job and we would have had to cancel last minute losing the $.
*biking with the kids to the library and the Y
*using up all the $1 and $2 DQ gift cards we have for little treats for the boys. (I do have an ice cream maker and make our own popsicles but you know how a quick stop can be fun for kids, well a quick walk...it's at the end of our street;) ).
*when I want a coffee out, I used up all the freebie coffee coupons people give me
*my afternoon iced coffee is made with left over morning coffee. I got a new coffee maker for my birthday and I can either make a pot with it or just a cup.
Mara I do the same thing with the iced coffee. It's a nice afternoon pick-me-up. I admire your restraint with a DQ at the end of your street. That would be disasterous for me. :)
I think this morning we are going to go to our church's weekly playground meet-up. It's at a park that's within walking distance of our house and it has a splash pad. I will try to actually walk there too. It's going to be hot today, but it's in the morning and the splash pad should cool me off. No reason to drive 1/2 a mile.
I have survived almost the entire week without the stuff I thought I'd need on Monday. This was a good exercise for me. I think I have a certain level of "stocked up" that I like to keep things at and feel anxious if I fall below. Why I feel anxious, I don't really know. I live down the street from a grocery store.
We are definitely going to spend some money this weekend for Isabella's birthday, but her honourary grandma is buying her a cake. That will save us at least some money.
While I can't actually take credit for any of my frugals today they are certainly things I'm thankful for.
We officially own the house again. Thankfully the guy who did the quick claim deed only charged me $40.
I called up to the Registrar's office and can mail in the deed along with a check for $14 to make it official. Mailing instead of driving to the county court house will save $7-8 in gas.
I paid the summer taxes on the house from the escrow account today. It only took $500 so I legally get to keep the remaining $500 to put towards repairs. Technically it goes towards winter taxes but I'll deal with that this winter.
We went and changed the locks on the doors last night for about $30. Thankfully there aren't any major damages. A few what the h*ll were they thinking kinda things. Its dirty. The kitchen cabinents are lined with the contact paper that I put in them for us. They couldn't even do that! You can tell they never ever wiped down a light fixture or the front of a cabinent, the window treatments are filthy, etc. BUT the expensive window treatments we put up are still in one piece, no major holes in the walls, etc. It's going to take more elbow grease than money to get it ready to sell.
The previous owners left a bit of wall decor behind. It says "God bless this home as much as possible" . Its cute and the color of the wood frame matches the stuff where we live so dh brought it home, cleaned it up and we hung it in an area that needed a little something.
Oh, another little frugal. The new neighbors that bought my dad's old house popped over to chat and check things out. They are gonna help keep an eye on the place for us and let us know if there is any problems. They seem like a nice couple around our age. Anyways, there was a step machine in the basement. I had given it to the kids with the house because I didn't have room for it. The new neighbor gave me $30 for it last night.
I bought 2 gallons of paint for $40 today-that should cover the amount of paint we have to buy. There is a 5 gallon bucket of paint in the basement to touch up the walls that they repainted as well as floor paint to touch up what they had done. Only problem-there's not a ton of light down there and they painted the walls a dark grey and the floors black. The neighbor lady said it looked like a dungeon and I tend to agree. I guess I'll wait and see what the realtor says but I might have to buy paint and redo all of that to make it presentable.
Bottom line, I am optimistic about the possible asking price when we list it. There is still a chance we can get our money out of the place and be 100% debt free when it sells. We just have to be patient and get through the next year or so of being kind of short on cash.
Ok, this is turning into a book so I'll shut up. ;)
Today I told the place where I rent a storage unit that I'd be vacating it at the end of the month. I've got room for everything in my apartment. That should save me $70/month.
It's mostly been a no-spend week. I've been getting greens, peas, and raspberries from the garden, as well as eating down the freezer/pantry; I spent less than $10 at the grocery store this week.
Spending hours helping my friend clean her house is good for enhancing my already anti-spending mindset.
Mara: That's great on paying off the car and budgeting for the repairs. It must take some advanced budgeting skills to manage without a credit card (although we don't carry balances, we definitely use them for that type of expense and work it out later).
Stella, What is a splash pad? I too have what my DH calls my "comfort levels" of certain items that I don't like to fall below a certain level of inventory.
BKE: That's great that you have neighbors that willl keep an eye on things for you. I hope you find a good buyer soon!
Rosemary: I get the same effect when I work on decluttering at my Mom's house, but I do actuallly like to buy stuff, so reigning those tendencies in is a very good thing for me.
Nothing too eventful here. I was pondering the earlier back-and-forth about how it isn't a competition (Hello Leslieann!), and I was thinking about how for me, the competition is with myself. I will probably never be spartan, and that's OK, but I'm much less quick to plunk down the bucks than I used to be. Today, DH had a stressful 6-month follow up appt, and he didn't sleep much last night. In prior years there is no question that we would have picked up sandwiches on the way home from the appointment, but instead we came home and I made a salad (the check-up was good by the way). Talbot's has a cute polo shirt with a dragonfly embroidered on the front. I wanted it at $39, and now it's on sale for $23. But I've been talking to myself about how I haven't worn many of my nice casual shirts yet this summer, and I absolutely don't need another one. I'm trying to really understand why I want something that I so obviously don't need, and the answer seems to be just because it's pretty. Now I still could very well end up buying one before the summer is over (especially if the price goes down again), but the fact remains that if it were 5 years ago, I would have already bought two in different colors at the $39. price. So that's progress! I've had a no-spend week so far at the personal discretionary spending level.
Made dog food today. Turkey breast was $1.19lb at the grocery salvage and it is pretty much all meat. A very good buy.
Did a bunch of research on the new car I want to buy before going into that den of thieves that is the dealership. Did not buy. Made it perfectly clear that I have other places to visit and thinking to do before I decide on a car. Threw out one of the lines (even though the negotiating hadn't yet begun) that I learned online and got the first price offered knocked down another $500. It's already at a good price but I've only looked at one car and I am NOT GOING TO BE EMOTIONAL! Going to another dealership 50 miles up the road tomorrow. This is scary but I'm pretty confident I'm not going to be ripped off in this purchase. That's good.