May Frugals

[fidgiegirl]

We did try flowers and they all failed. Funny you mentioned that!

[Tussiemussies]

Thanks Kelli for letting me know, there must be someone on board who is successful with flowers? I'm going to post about it....

Kat, I don't know how you ever went through a kitchen renovation while being pregnant!!! That may have been extremely stressful.....

[rosarugosa]

Okay, we have the good, the bad and the ugly here
I'm going to claim the lobsters as a frugal. Market Basket had a sale for the holiday weekend for $5.99/lb. DH got about 4 lbs worth, and MB cooked them for us (no charge for that and it saves a lot of fuss and mess). We had great big lobster rolls for dinner Fri, I made a fancy tossed salad with lobster and mango and smoked paprika dressing for dinner Sat, I nibbled on the lobster bodies with Humprey the cat last night and we polished off the last one tonight. So for $24.00, we ate lobster all weekend, felt very fortunate, didn't waste any of it, and were not tempted to eat out at all. So I would call that money well spent!
I had designated rainy yesterday as the day for the semi-annual closet cleaning and seasonal clothing rotation. I really didn't feel like doing it, and I was thinking about going to the mall or something instead (horrors!), and frittering away time online and just generally procrastinating. So I gave it some hard thought, and realized there wasn't a thing I really needed or even wanted at the mall, and that what I really needed was a clean closet, and that I could "buy" that with an investment of time rather than wasting it. Once I jumped into the closet project, I didn't come up for air for several hours and was very pleased with the accomplishment. I have one bag for SA donation and I tossed a few old pairs of shoes that weren't good enough to donate.
Today was a beautiful day, so DH & I took a nice long hike in the woods with a friend, and that was great free fun. But afterwards, DH & I went to Trader Joe's, and that was the ugly part, because TJ's is a real budget-buster for us lately. The good news is that we have lots of dark chocolate!

[chrissieq]

A neighborhood friend raised over 600 seedlings - several kinds of tomatoes, maybe 5 pepper varieties, and 3 eggplant - obviously way more than they would need but the plan was their sons would have a plant sale during our neighborhood garage sale. The dad came by during my sale offering any we wanted at no cost because there was no way they would sell all of them. Then the mom dropped off the order form and told me to call her husband and he would deliver them since I was working my sale. It ended up that I and my friend who was with me each got 4 tomato and 1 pepper plant and were encouraged to stop by and take as many as we wanted. I got them in the ground today and now am out of room - they do like to get carried away with things! But I appreciate their generosity!!

[Tussiemussies]

A neighborhood friend raised over 600 seedlings - several kinds of tomatoes, maybe 5 pepper varieties, and 3 eggplant - obviously way more than they would need but the plan was their sons would have a plant sale during our neighborhood garage sale. The dad came by during my sale offering any we wanted at no cost because there was no way they would sell all of them. Then the mom dropped off the order form and told me to call her husband and he would deliver them since I was working my sale. It ended up that I and my friend who was with me each got 4 tomato and 1 pepper plant and were encouraged to stop by and take as many as we wanted. I got them in the ground today and now am out of room - they do like to get carried away with things! But I appreciate their generosity!!

That was really nice of them...

[fidgiegirl]

Bryce is hanging the blind I scored for $1 at a garage sale in a very odd size for above the sink. Yeah!

[Blackdog Lin]

We've been out of, and looking for, small square hay bales to use for our tomato-plants mulch in the garden, as we do them every year. Yesterday while driving the country roads on the way to pick up our cemetery flowers we crossed paths with the neighbor who hays our acreage every year, so we stop and pass the time with him (and his dog - he drives around with his baby dog, of course. ) And DH mentions our need for some old straw bales. And neighbor says he has a few in his barn, he'll have his grandson get them down, and that sounds awesome but we really don't believe it will actually happen, people forget this kind of stuff, they get busy etc. etc. you know?

I'll be darned, neighbor showed up this morning with 4 bales of straw, and we spent this evening mulching and putting up the tomato cages. Tomato plants are all done 'cept for putting up the fencepole stakes to hold up the cages. And all for free. (Neighbor kinda owes us as he hays our pasture every year for free.) I was prepared to have to pay to get some straw this year. Free is better.

[Tussiemussies]

We've been out of, and looking for, small square hay bales to use for our tomato-plants mulch in the garden, as we do them every year. Yesterday while driving the country roads on the way to pick up our cemetery flowers we crossed paths with the neighbor who hays our acreage every year, so we stop and pass the time with him (and his dog - he drives around with his baby dog, of course. ) And DH mentions our need for some old straw bales. And neighbor says he has a few in his barn, he'll have his grandson get them down, and that sounds awesome but we really don't believe it will actually happen, people forget this kind of stuff, they get busy etc. etc. you know?

I'll be darned, neighbor showed up this morning with 4 bales of straw, and we spent this evening mulching and putting up the tomato cages. Tomato plants are all done 'cept for putting up the fencepole stakes to hold up the cages. And all for free. (Neighbor kinda owes us as he hays our pasture every year for free.) I was prepared to have to pay to get some straw this year. Free is better.

Really nice of your neighbor to keep his word!

[bke]

Well our two evening garage sale (we ran it from 4 to 8 pm) was a decent success I think. We sold $120 worth of stuff. I did great on the new items that I had like crayons, deodorant and lotions. I actually sold 140, yes one hundred and forty, toothbrushes to a lady! She makes Christmas stockings for low-income kids and is going include the brushes.

Fidgiegirl- I was inspired by all your great sale finds and went to a neighbor's sale 2 weeks ago looking for things I might turn a profit on. I bought a $4 BBQ tool set and sold it for $10. I also bought a campfire grill and resold it for a small profit.

Anyways, I'm sure we'll do this again before the summer is over. This was Dh's first sale and he was impressed by some of the things that sold.

Ds spent yesterday on Mackinac Island with his class. I gave him $40 spending money. He returned with $18 of it. His big purchase was fudge for the entire family. He only bought himself a small key chain as a souvenir.

Another ds brag. He is about to finish middle school and they have a big farewell dance tomorrow night. He bought his ticket in advance, saving a couple of bucks without even telling me about it/asking me for the money. I'll give him some spending money as a way of sharing the expense with him. But my point is, he bought in advance to save money.

I used coupons to save 20% on last night's shopping trip. I only spent $40 to buy what we needed for the week.

[early morning]

Same old stuff - been line drying clothes, taking commando showers- but offset some of that by washing more things in warm, instead of cold, water. Took in over $500. at the antique show we set up at on Sunday... sold enough trash-picked stuff to cover booth rent. What we sold we had maybe $175 in - and we had a heep of fun!! Our electric bill is down a bit this month, which is good. Managed to get gas this evening at the cheapest station. Watching library shows and reading library books and trying to not buy stuff...