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If only I could learn to love cats! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by rosarugosa
Our dog doesn't have to go to a groomer, either, but the copious hair everywhere *really* bothers DH. So his only requirement for our next dog is that it be a non-shedder. I'll take it, since for the longest time it was full-out resistance to the discussion of a second dog. :)
Rosa--I've seen the one you're interested in. I don't want breakable glass, plastic or aluminum. I want all stainless steel. This is the one I'm looking at.
http://www.backcountry.com/gsi-outdo...rrProd=GSI0130
silicone handle so it stays cool and glass dome and all stainless steel. Not stainless outside and aluminum guts. I don't want to eat off heated aluminum.
Fidgie--actually, I like the idea of looking @ a thrift store. I have never drunk percolated coffee before and I'm not even sure I would like it or could get used to it. I should probably look around at some thrift stores to see if I can find one inexpensively and then see if I even like it before committing to something expensive. And yes, I do use Retailmenot quite a bit and always Ebates.com if possible. So helpful.
Also, you can learn to love ANY animal. They're all so lovable!
I have been looking at the Revereware ones on Ebay but they're used and some are $75! Come on $75 bucks for a USED coffeepot? But the Revereware are all stainless (except for their super-heat-conduting copper bottoms...)
July 29th
Been here reading the last couple of weeks not sure were the time goes...but I have had a few frugals.
--buying and eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies....all good and cheap right now...so it is the time to enjoy them
--had more company for a few days and again was able to feed them really well and cheaply mostly with stuff bought on sale.
--serveral more items sold on Kijiji---I am doing really well using this as a way to declutter
--mostly only buying food that is really fresh or really on a good sale...using coupons---managed to get a few that were buy one get one free really got like those ones.
--went to a pot luck last night and made an Asian Rice Salad with the Fake Crab meat it was not very expensive and the really large bowl was almost empty...so it must have been good...lol
Made lots of food this rainy weekend to eat during the week. Curried turkey thighs in tomato sauce, big batch of rice, ginormous cauliflower cooked two different ways. Blueberry cake and chocolate zucchini cake. Will grill 7 of our recently harvested orient express eggplants, chop and freeze for pasta/pizza sauce marathon this fall. I feel great about this. No brainer meal will be hotdogs and beans (we pressure canned maple baked beans last year...will not do again) and even salmon burgers as back up. Went to purchase some amazing storage shelves at a phenomenal price at costco which weren't there so we got a raincheck for 5 of them. Will share with a friend who has a truck to pick them up in! DH will be getting a few more days a week at his job which is due to his friend/boss being ill, unfortunately but it will help us with the giant bills for allof our insurances which are due in August. BTW bought a copy of Frugal Gazette book for $1 and will reread and be reinspired by Amy D.
We had our big memorial dinner last night and it went really well. We fed 46 people. The family left me $147 tip! Such sweet people. We've been eating party leftovers for dinner the last two nights. Baked chicken, pasta salad, broccoli, baked beans and chocolate pudding. There is still quite a bit left but I'm sure we'll find a use for it all. The broccoli and the chicken are still servable so that's no problem.
I ended up making the pasta salad with black olives, red peppers and some good quality mozarella cheese.
Since I made such great tips this weekend, I have given tomorrow's waitress shift to one of my employees. She is a single mom who can really use the money and I can really use an extra day off after working so hard this weekend so everybody wins!
My guys went to work on the house for a bit tonight and I'm not doing anything more strenuous than communicating with you all and playing a little on-line scrabble.
Danna: We've been eating lots of peaches and blueberries. They're so cheap right now and very delicious.
Merski: Sounds like lots of good things to eat at your house and what a great score on the book bargain. Amy would be proud of you!
BKE: That's an awesome tip, and how nice that it could buy you a day off and help your employee at the same time :)
We jumped on Market Basket's $3.99/lb lobster deal today. We got four lobsters and two lbs. of steamers for $28.00, which is a steal. It's funny, DH showed me a conversation thread on his FB page where all the locals are talking about feasting on bargain lobsters from MB, so we're not alone!
I've also decided to return a pair of pants I bought at Talbot's a few weeks ago. I had convinced myself that I needed them, but I really don't. They also need to be hemmed and I keep vacillating back and forth on whether to keep them or not, so I decided that was certainly a clear enough indicator that I don't need them, so I'll be unspending some money at Talbot's. The trick will be to avoid spending more while I'm there, and to resist the siren's call of the dragonfly polo shirt.
Hi everyone!
The camper is gone!! Yeah! We are about $300 richer after all was said and done and divvied up and will save on the monthly storage fee. Plus my DH's worry load is lighter. Yippee!! I am really glad for this. In the long run it will not be a savings because the trips DFIL and DH take will now require renting a cabin, but that's ok. It's money well spent for them to enjoy themselves and not be stressed over the camper.
Funny, the other day at garage sales we bought two canoe yokes to resell on eBay. Well, our nephew came out early from his own Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness canoe trip because his canoe seats started to break out. In discussing the repairs, he talked about wanting to put on a yoke, but said he didn't have a middle bar to his canoe (this particular style screws to that bar). Well, as luck would have it, one of the yokes came with a middle bar attached! It wasn't supposed to be on there . . . someone messed up and removed it from the canoe. We pointed this out at the garage sale, but they said the boat was long gone, so we said, ok then, off we go! And everyone laughed, and off we went. And then the NEXT DAY our nephew needed this part for his canoe. Whether he can use it I don't know (right size and all) but pretty funny coincidence.
DH and I tackled various projects around the house and yard today, none of which required driving or spending money.
At the end of the day we helped a friend move some heavy items and DH had requested that we eat out after that, so we used a gift card that we had... almost free dinner.
Kelli, that is a funny coincidence!
We didn't have a frugal weekend. We decided to go out to Wisconsin for the weekend and see my aunt. We got a pretty good deal on the hotel room and had a lot of fun. I haven't seen my aunt since her husband died last year, so it was time to make a visit. I started the trip being anxious about every penny, but some things, like family, are more important than money and I eventually decided to just relax and enjoy the trip.
Now we are trying to plan a family reunion for next year. We're thinking of having it at a park. We'll have to come up with something for food. Potluck won't work because people will be coming from across the country and I don't want the burden to fall too heavily on my aunt and cousins who live in the area. If everyone came (descendants of my paternal grandparents) there would be about 50 people. I'm thinking maybe we could order fried chicken from the grocery store or something like that.
I ordered groceries for delivery on the way home from our trip. I spent less than usual and I bet it will get us through the whole week.
Steve, the crackers on the chicken recipe sounds really good. Two other things I like to do with broken crackers are crumble them a bit more and sprinkle them on salads or soups.
Kelli, that is a funny coincidence and especially for something so uncommon. I have had a number of incidences like that with plants. I often serve as a conduit for plant and seed swaps. Sometimes it can take months for someone to offer some extras of a plant someone else wants. Other times someone will give me divisions and then someone will call me half an hour later and ask if I know anyone who has some extra __________. And sometimes I can say...funny you should ask....
Stella, your overall frugality makes important things like visiting your aunt possible. It can be hard though to switch from black-belt-frugality mode to still-careful-but-enjoying-the-fruits-of-my-frugality mode.
For the reunion, if you can grill in the park, you might be able to cook the meat as part of the activities of the day. Often hanging around the grill allows people to interact who might not easily otherwise. A favorite when we do this for large groups is chicken marinated in italian salad dressing and then grilled.
Found a new produce place that I'm absolutely thrilled about!! We Made out very well.
2 qts of raspberries
2 qt of blueberries
6 red peppers
5 lbs of potatoes
2 heads of broccoli
1 spaghetti squash
2 large heads of romaine lettuce
5 cloves of garlic
8 bananas
2 huge tomatoes
total = $14.00 :cool:
So stoked!! and everything looked soooo much better than at the grocery store.
We also spent the time slicing all the peppers for easy access snacks for the kids.
My little one also loves to make smoothies with the fruit so she was thrilled to have some raspberries...we almost never buy them because they're so expensive!
Potential big savings - We're thinking about a refi. I know we just moved but rates have dropped even more in the time since we've moved! Almost an entire point! So basically with our ENTIRE mortgage still sitting there unpaid, we could save quite a bit of money over the next number of years. We'll see what our mortgage person says about it. I am not sure about fees and such. 15 year mortgages are in the high 2%. Unbelievable. Too bad I don't think we have the income to go for a 15 year at this time. But 30s are like 3.25%. We have 4.125% right now, so it's not the full point that conventional wisdom says makes a refi worth it. But we're so early into this mortgage that over time we'd more than make up the $$.
decemberluv-that is an impressive deal on produce!
Kelli- sometimes you can actually get a mortgage for somewhere in between the 15 and thirty years. Might be worth checking out.
Ds and I went out and ran errands today. Library, bank, etc. I bought 5 bottles of dish soap, 2 tooth brushes, 12 pks of gum for my guys, some lanacane for bug bites for less than $7. We were low or out of everything but the dish soap so this was good timing on the sales.
I bought ds Subway for lunch as a treat. I've been promising to do so all summer. I passed and came home and made a bacon egg and cheese sandwich instead. My treat today is a cup of free coffee with free hazelnut creamer. YUM!!! I am drinking very little coffee these days so it seems very decadent.
In the mail today I recieved more free coffee from Green Mountain, a sample of cereal, and a 30 supply of vitamins.
I won a bottle of Sobe last night playing sweepstakes and am about to see what I can win today.
My no drive days of last week due to my car in the shop equated to new brakes and rotors, not frugal. Oh well, just keeping trudging along!
We stayed home on Saturday other than a trip to the batting cages with the boys. My DH finished fixing our back deck steps, the wood was under $15 for all 4 steps.
Sunday we drove out to Port Huron for the day, biked from the downtown area to the bridge and went to a few museums. I ended up buying the family pass, I'll take the kids back out in the fall and spring again. It payed for itself yesterday, so everything else will be bonus. We did eat lunch out, but I was expecting it. Coffee house/sandwich shop, tasty soup and sandwiches. I prepped dinner before I left so I just needed to cook the meat when we got home.
Today I took my oldest to the Apple store nearby for a free movie making class that they offer for kids. He got a shirt today and tomorrow will get a bracelet flash drive took bring his movie home after editing. On Saturday they will host a viewing in the morning for all the kids who want to see it at the store. After tomorrow's visit we are going over to Auntie Annie's pretzels. The boys got coupons for free pretzels for our town library reading programs.
We ran to the library today for returns and of course pick ups. We each checked out a pass to visit the Lansing Historical Museum. There are 10 other museums and then additional historical sites (along with State Parks) that you can visit with the passes. I'm hoping to go on Thursday, with a trip to the Potter Park zoo in Lansing in the morning (I bought a family zoo membership in Kalamazoo earlier in the year, so the visit there would be free to). My plan is to picnic in between the zoo and museum.
Printed out the boys reading sheets for Barnes and Noble, we are going on Friday to redeem for their free books for summer reading.
If you have an account at Bank of America you can get free admission to some museums the 1st weekend of each month!! Here's the link.
Amaranth, I like the idea of grilling! I bet that would work.
I agree, stuff like the trip to see my aunt is possible because we are frugal most of the time. I'm in kind of a zone lately because we are so close to seeing the light at the end of the debt tunnel. All we have for debt is my one student loan and a few minor hospital bills from having babies. If we keep our heads screwed on straight and things progress roughly as planned we will be totally debt free, including mortgage, by Zach's 31st birthday. That is just using regular, expected income, and we have gotten quite a bit lately in extra money. If that continued we could speed it up further and that is making me obsess a little bit about money.
I need to have patience with myself. I am really excited (maybe a bit overzealous, actually) because we're about to turn that corner where all of the hard work starts to pay off fast. I am kind of craving that sense of accomplishment. Until now a lot of our sacrifices have been for things that really haven't added much to the old net worth for the short-term, but will likely make a big difference down the road. For example, putting Zach through school without student loans while supporting our relatively large family. Now he's done and has a good job that he really loves and no student loans, which is great. His income dropped a bit, though, when he changed careers because he's starting at the bottom of the totem pole again. He has regularly scheduled pay increases for the next 5 years and will end up making good money, so in about a year and a half to two years we'll reach that sweet spot where we will be totally debt free with income that is going up substantially.
Cool! I will have to look into that.Quote:
Today I took my oldest to the Apple store nearby for a free movie making class that they offer for kids. He got a shirt today and tomorrow will get a bracelet flash drive took bring his movie home after editing.
Thanks Decemberlov, we do have a BOA account and in the past have used them.Quote:
Originally Posted by decemberlov
The museum we are going to is only free on Sundays or with this pass as it does not fall under the BOA pass or the Target Arts free days. When possible I prefer to not go to museums on weekends. Too many people.
Thank you for the suggestion though :) .
Here is the link for the Apple Camp. Stella, I don't know which store you go to but I would look today. It looks like this is the last week for it, with classes on Wednesday/Thursday and then on Saturday.
http://www.apple.com/retail/learn/youth/
Apprently our local magic store offers free classes at noon on Saturdays, we might check those out!
No problem...your post reminded me that I still haven't taken advantage of this offer myself ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by mara61
So cool you guys! Everyone is up to such great stuff.
DH just did the most filthy job yet for our house. He had to go under the porch, which is just crawl space, and drill a hole through the cinder block wall to run wire for an outlet in the porch which was installed and never connected. Then he reattached insulation under the floor of the porch that had fallen down. SO GROSS!! But now it's done, and we will be that much warmer in winter.
Plus (and most exciting), I can proceed with the organization of the eBay area. eBay junk is taking over our house because I thought we could stage it in the attic, but the attic is just a half story and too pitched for my wonderful tall DH, so he just moves the stuff where it's more comfortable to work with. But we are going to move it to the basement. We'll use existing furniture. I am going to set up the box holder again (we used it to organize flattened boxes at the old house, it's kind of a vertical filing system of sorts, we made it out of a few dowels and 2x4s), put a shelf or hooks above that for holding other packaging materials (we have saved a TON on packaging materials just by keeping our eyes open for reusable items, and one friend who works in a shop sometimes grabs landfill-destined items for us, etc.). Then we are also going to have a shelf to store all the items that are waiting to be sold/shipped/listed/whatever, and a table for packaging items with all the necessary accoutrements. I am also going to hang a white cloth behind the table so that the table can be easily converted into a photography area for the items. And now that we have wifi, we can even do the listings down there right at the table. This is my vision, anyway: no eBay crap upstairs. :) We'll see how well it works out ;)
We have decided we should seriously start a car fund. (LOL, see my other thread about automotive repair!) Our goal and hope is to still keep both cars going until they are dead, but you can't wait until they are dead to start the car fund. I don't want to take an entire car purchase out of our EF at the rate we're going now. When I was single I always did better with separate "funds" within my main account, and they were all still sitting there empty. So I just started using one again. Easy. We put in the camper $$ and I closed a lingering Ally account with about $60 in it. So we've begun! All our online sales will go in there, too. We'll have to find an additional source as well.
That is a phenomenal deal!Quote:
Originally Posted by decemberlov
Kelli, I like to keep savings funds separate too. Lately I am all about stuffing our "Trip to Italy" fund. :)
We had the loveliest frugal morning. We walked to the park across from our house and collected leaves to identify with our field guide. There were fiddlers at the coffee shop at the park, out on the patio overlooking the lake, so we stopped and had a snack of graham crackers and water while we listened to them. I used to work at that coffee shop and some of my favourite regulars were there, so I got to chat for a while and show off my new baby. One of my favourite old coworkers was there too, home from college for the summer.
The kids danced to the fiddle music and identified their leaves. We also figured out that Stripey, the caterpillar that lives in our dill patch, is a Monarch caterpillar and Theodora, a caterpillar they were friendly with last fall, is a woolybear caterpillar. Apparently she turned into an Isabella Tiger Moth. Isabella was happy to hear that. We very nearly named Charlotte after that caterpillar. Theodora was high on my name list.
We came home and made bruschetta with our homemade tomatoes. We made one type with a rainbow of sauteed tomatoes and one type that was a crostini with slices of fresh mozzarella, sliced yellow and red tomatoes and fresh chopped basil. So insanely delicious and very, very cheap. Diana in Wisconsin advised the girls on their tomato gardening project and they have gotten so many lovely tomatoes.
This afternoon the big kids are doing leaf rubbings from the leaves they collected while the little kids and I nap. Lots of FFF!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stella
Sounds like such a lovely day :)
Yes! I felt so foolish for never going in there before!Quote:
Originally Posted by bunnys
Decemberlov: Yes, awesome score on the produce!
I'm really impressed with the low-cost ways that those of you with kids are finding to have fun. It makes me sad to see families that I know spending loads of money that they cannot afford in order to show their kids a good time. You all demonstrate how unnecessary that is.
Kelli: You are amazing me with the car repairs!
I went to Talbot's yesterday and returned the pants, and found another pair that fits better, cost $50. less, and don't need to be hemmed, so I'm ahead of the game by $50. on that one. I also brought home some free bagels and cake from work today.
The lobsters we bought Sun fed us dinner for two nights and gave me an extra treat in my lunch today, so we got good value from the expenditure.
Back home after a 4 day family reunion - it was a blast - the best frugal tip was take the Megabus to Chicago and then Amtrak to Alliance, OH. Heard a fellow Megabus rider say she was saving over $500 taking the bus to Chicago then to Midway airport for her flight vs. flying from Minneapolis. Started looking at a trip to DC via Chicago Megabus in October to visit our son - less than 1/2 price.
That said, it took us nearly 20 hours to get home - 1:00AM pick up by cab from hotel, Amtrak to Chicago, 4 hour layover in Chicago so we walked to Millenium Park to people watch, had a Ploughman's lunch at a pub - shared with DH, 8 hours home via the Megabus. I wanted to grab a cab but none waiting there so we saw the city bus coming and waiting downtown was the bus that took us 1 block from our house. 10:00PM home - long, long hot shower and a great night sleep in our own bed!
chrissie, awesome on the travel arrangements! How was Amtrak? I've always wanted to do an Amtrak trip and we're actually really close to the terminal. We can only go to Chicago though or west out through No Dak/Montana to Seattle.
Rosa, score on Talbots. :)
Tomorrow my friend is coming visiting! Yeah!
Monday night we went to the county fair. Its never cheap but did include a couple of frugal choices. We took one of ds's friends with us and bought them b1g1 free arm bands for the rides. Towards the end of the night we all were quite hungry. We ate at the fair but dh bought an entire pizza from one of the vendors saving $6. The boys had fun so it was worth every penny! Ds has worked hard this summer and definitely deserved a fun night out.
We needed to pick up something for work so I ended up shopping for the week without a prepared list. I really, really hate that! I spent $40, only used 2 coupons and thought of things I wished I had bought after we returned home. Oh well!
Fidgiegirl, I started looking today at a trip to DC to visit our son in October - the Megabus to Chicago and Amtrak from Chicago to DC cuts the expenses in less than 1/2. The beauty of amtrak is that you can get a full refund if you cancel your trip before picking up your ticket - if you have picked up your ticket, there is a 10% fee.
Spent the day writing thank you notes to family who went out of their way for us during the reunion. Stopped by the library to work on the on-going book sale donations. Baked potatoes for twice-baked potatoes before it got way too hot!!
moved to August!