Kat, do hope you are feeling better soon and that your house gets back in order. We had a kitchen refurbishing and had just moved in so I understand how unsettling it is,and you have a baby on the way. What will you name him? bThat is adorable how your daughter got so much joy from her bubble wrap. It must have been so cute to see!
I am quite proud of this one--the doctor told me I need to get more active, and after considering various options (I live in a part of the country where outside exercise is not on the agenda in the summer) I decided to start with a Wii Fit. A couple of relatives have them and I have had a chance to try them out there. I bought a used Wii and balance board on Ebay, and used common sense and the Internet to figure out how to set everything up. I even had to order a special connector to use the HDMI port on my TV. I spent less than half what it would have cost to buy everything new, and it worked perfectly!
Tussiemussies--We remodeled our kitchen when I was expecting DD, and it was a difficult project. The kitchen is a tough room to be without! Glad you are all back in yours now and can resume life as usual.Oh, and the baby's name...is a surprise!
AmeliaJane--Isn't Wii fit neat?
Well, even though I said I didn't need groceries this week, I am headed to the store this morning. The new flyer was just released, and there are a number of things listed at my stock up price (namely meat and condiments on sale for Memorial Day). I still have grocery money left, so I don't consider this a fail. I had planned to save that money, but it will be nice to stock the freezer, too. It is starting to look a little bare, and I hate paying full price for things. Nothing irritates me more than paying $3.79 a pound for chicken when I know it was only $1.99 two weeks ago!
Other than that, I plan to resume my work on the kitchen today while DD naps. I am also going to take her outside to play with her big red ball!
I received two free item coupons in the mail yesterday. Then last night I won a free case for my camera-I don't have one at the moment so this is a nice little win.
I think we might have completely lost our minds with this idea but dh and I are gathering things together to have a garage sale in the evenings after we close the restaurant this weekend. We will have the front parking lot empty, lots of road traffic and there's tons of stuff to get rid of. The only thing I'm not sure we'll have is the energy!
Gretchen Rubin-- The Happiness ProjectI didn't want to look back at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe and think, 'How happy I used to be then if only I'd realized it.'
bke, perhaps DS would like to make a few bucks by setting up or staffing the sale!
Great on the groceries, Kat. We're terrible about grocery savings opportunities. We just buy.
AmeliaJane, that is such an awesome feeling! Isn't it incredible how much one can save by DIY and used? The Internet is such a wealth of resources . . .
As for here, my DH's car saga continues. Now it's the brakes, and the A/C really is leaking - from the condenser AND the compressor!We won't fix that after all, but the brakes are non-negotiable. At least the shop offers a 15% discount for local employees and they do good work. STILL cheaper than getting a new car.
Fidgie-ds cleaned a bunch of stuff out of his room yesterday. He has so many nice books for young readers! Oh, and the clothes! He grows faster than he can wear them out. We told him that we aren't going to get rid of anything he cares about but unless its something he knows he bought, it's all going into the same fund. He's been getting plenty of extra cash for field trips and fun days at school lately. I've got at least $200 invested in such things for the month of May.
I also have a bunch of school supplies like colored pencils and crayons that I got for free years ago as well as moisturizers, kids tooth brushes, deoderants and other items.
When dh and I met I was at my thinnest ever. I was also at the point in my life where I was buying nice, good quality clothing. The weight I'm at now is 3-4 sizes larger than that. I've been holding on to all these clothes because it seemed so wasteful to get rid of them. Plus, you know how we women can be, always thinking we should be thinner. Thing is, I'm 42 and I've been within 5-10 lbs of my current weight for most of the last 20 years. So I am officially purging the closets and dressers (not to mention all the boxes) of clothes that I haven't worn in 15 years. I've moved these things to 5 different houses thinking that maybe some day I might need them.
Let's see, do I have any actual frugals to share?
Well, I'm washing a ton of laudry today. Half for our use and half for the sale. I'm using up a bunch of single load free laundry samples I have laying around the house.
I ate a very indulgent doughnut for breakfast but I washed it down with a free cup of coffee.
I had bought a bottle of multi vitamins for ds but they irritate his stomach. I don't see anything in them (they're men's vitamins) that will hurt me so I've decided to use them up instead of throwing them out.
I'm sure I'll fit in a few sweepstakes today.
I borrowed a bunch of magazines from the library yesterday. I like to thumb through them and its so much $$$ to buy them. I used to be one of those people who couldn't get through the check out line without buying a magazine.
Gretchen Rubin-- The Happiness ProjectI didn't want to look back at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe and think, 'How happy I used to be then if only I'd realized it.'
This might not exactly be a frugal, but I ended up spending less money than I might have otherwise, and it could have relevance for others, so I'm going to share. A few months ago, I bought a small (6"x6") oil painting online, and I needed to get it framed. If my painting hadn't been square I might have been able to find a ready-made frame to pop it into, but I wasn't able to find anything with those dimensions. I went to Michael's craft store because there is one in my town and I knew they did framing. I'm not a real fan of the store, but it was convenient and I assumed that the price would be reasonable. The woman in the framing dept was very off-putting and not very customer-oriented, but that is not the main point. Basically, they don't frame something that small, so they would need to mat it to make it bigger and add glass, etc. Total price was $65.00, which I didn't think was too crazy, since I know framing is expensive. But after I went home, I kept turning it over in my mind, because I didn't want glass and matting, etc. and I just wanted it framed as a 6"x6" painting, and I went back the next morning to get my painting back and cancel the transaction, because I disliked paying for something that wasn't even what I wanted. Now I needed to come up with an alternative and I remembered that there was a small frame shop in Melrose Square, and I like to support small local businesses, so I decided that would be a good choice even if it cost a bit more. Bottom line is that they are doing exactly what I want for $30.00! So lesson learned is not to assume that the big-box store is cheaper than the small local store.
That was a great saving rosa! We always go to Michaels for standard size frames which are expensive enough. I wish there was a small shop in town like you have!Originally Posted by rosarugosa
Hello everyone!
We have had an interesting spring with gardening. I think in some ways we saved, in others not. It was our first year really starting a big crop of seedlings. On Rosemary's recommendation we bought a small greenhouse that we set up in our sun porch and that worked well. We hooked up some gro-lights that we'd accumulated over the years for the evening hours. We started these in late March. However, we messed up on the lights - didn't keep the plants near enough to them, so they got super leggy. I estimate we lost about half our seedlings to leggyness - breaking off at the middle of their long stems. Others just never really developed leaves. But we did get a good quantity of tomatoes, squash, peppers and a handful of others. Now that we've made the investment in equipment and learned the lesson with the lights future years could really be a savings with the seedlings, and man were they a fun project in the eternal winter we had this year. They gave us hope!
So they are all in the ground now. We had to pick up a few veggies at the greenhouse but mostly we'll see what we get from seeds and the seedlings we grew ourselves or picked up at cheap plant sales. We put in a bunch of veggies at the community garden plot and at my parents' already this weekend. I also transplanted some ferns from their house to ours, and we'll be moving some hostas from our house to our rental house tomorrow. Whew! A gardening whirlwind!
Sounds like a lot of work Kelli but also a lot of fun too! Hope you get a good yield. Sounds like you started a lot of plants. Plants I start but they don't all take. Flowers I have a hard time growing from seed indoor. Did you try any flowers?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote