Well, I made it! I am now a Senior Blogger for the Families.com Frugal Living Blog. Isn’t that great? This last week has been fun relating ideas about stockpiling, storage, milk prices, freebies and uses for dryer lint. In case you missed any of the blogs from my fourth week, here they all are listed for you.
Stock Up on Freebies for the Outdoorsy Guy/Gal
Okay, now that the holidays are almost behind me, I am thinking of birthday and “just because” gifts. For immediate friends and family, I like to sign up for freebies I know they will like.
In an earlier blog, Witch Hazel Makes a Great Toner, I shared one of my mother’s favorite frugal secrets. She always had such glorious skin and a youthful appearance. Here is another one of her favorite staples for beauty, a soak that replenishes lost magnesium and soothes the skin. it can also be used as a gentle scrub to slough away dead skin cells and give you a healthy glow. What is this miracle product? It is a lovely little soak and scrub imported from Paris, France worth every penny of the $45 an ounce you pay for it.
Save More at The Thrift Store (1)
Did you know that there are some special ways to save even more at the thrift store?
Save More at The Thrift Store (2)
In Save More at The Thrift Store (1), I wrote about some great ways to get additional discounts and savings at the thrift store. If you don’t take advantage of some of these ideas, then you are paying more than you need to in your thrift store shopping. Save More at The Thrift Store (1) covered some of the biggest ways to save. Here in this second part, I will cover some of the more secret and little known ways to save big.
A couple of weeks ago, we were in one of those fancy chain gourmet stores looking at some dinnerware. Our current set is a hand-me-down set that is missing many pieces. The pieces are missing mostly thanks to Mrs Butterfingers over here…me. While I was pregnant, my joints would loosen up so much that my husband swears he could hear my bones rattle around as I walked. An average rate of one broken plate/bowl/cup a month times three pregnancies..well, you get the picture.
When my first child was born, I spent hours pouring over baby magazines while he played happily next to me. Sometimes he would even “read” the magazine with me, looking at the photos of babies and deciding which pages were worthy of tearing to shreds in his glee.
Saturday morning, I stole an hour away to go thrift store shopping. They were having a sale, and Henry really needs some 6-9 month clothes. On the way out of the store and into my car, I heard a tear. Uh-oh.
This is one of the best freebies I have ever received. I couldn’t believe what a great book this is, and it is free for the asking.
How Much Did You Pay for Milk Last Year?
Milk prices seem to be going up in states all across the nation. In 2006, states such as Pennsylvania, California and New York announced or proposed price increases. So how much did you actually pay for your milk?
In our house, bread really is the staple of life. We are huge carbohydrate freaks, even in a world where going low “carbs” is normal and expected. Of course, we try to eat mostly the good stuff, the most nutritionally dense, such as enriched pastas and whole grain breads. Perhaps it is my Italian heritage, but there is no way I could see a life without lots of bread.
3 Practical Tips to Save Money on Bathroom Products
One of the great principals of frugal living is making things last long and getting by with less. Did you know that there are so many ways to do this with bathroom products? Most of the time, we use much more than is required to get the job done. Manufacturers encourage this with super-sized products (you use more when you have more), over-large holes for product to ooze out, etc.
Don’t Waste Money on Expired Products!
Saturday afternoon, we had a long overdue trip to the local warehouse store for our bulk purchases. Among the items that we bought was bulk yeast, since I make a lot of bread from scratch.
Are you getting married? You’ll love this freebie!
Was Gerald Ford the Frugal President?
As the nation remembers past president Gerald Ford, we say goodbye and commemorate his life. Today is his funeral at the National Cathedral. Americans everywhere are watching this event and saying goodbye. Ford was the first president I could really recall from my childhood.
There is no doubt that making and bringing your own lunch is much more frugal then going out for lunch. Even a simple cafeteria-bought lunch can cost you more than $25 a week or $100 a month! And if you like to go out to a nice sit-down place, you can easily double or triple that number. It all adds up.
Bartering is a great way to conserve your resources and afford things you might not normally fit into your budget. You can get all sorts of things through bartering. In this blog, I’ll tell you what bartering is and give you some ideas on what can be bartered.
8 Practical Stockpiling Tips: Save Money!
Practical tip 1: Buy up “loss leaders.” Grocery stores entice you into the store by offering a few items at ridiculously cheap prices. These items are generally on the front page and can be seasonal. So when soup is on sale four cans for a dollar, fill your pantry until the next sale.
Adventures of the Stockpiling Queen (1)
This blog is about how a desire to save money and be prepared for anything creates a kingdom onto itself.
Free Pasta Sauce Or A Full Refund
Mmmm, the title alone is enough to make me hungry. Being of Italian heritage, I am very partial to pasta sauce. In fact, I just used a large jar and-a-half of pasta sauce for the lasagna I made for dinner tonight. Yes, I know that making sauce from scratch is wonderful, but nearly impossible while I’m a mom of young ones. Using jar sauce is a shortcut that allows me to make dinner quickly with three kids underfoot.
Dove is one of my favorite companies for deals. I was just thinking about that as I sit here warm and snugly in a blue fleece shirt I got for free a few years ago with the purchase of two Dove body wash.
Adventures of the Stockpiling Queen (2)
In Adventures of the Stockpiling Queen (1), I shared “how a desire to save money and be prepared for anything creates a kingdom onto itself.” If you answered yes to the questions I asked, you, too, may be stockpiling royalty. I also shared the one thing that I keep hidden from my husband.
How do you store your stockpile?
What Would You Buy If You Had $30 to Spend? (1)
You would think that having money to spend would be a blessing, right? Of course it is, but when you are frugal-minded, you tend to over-think your purchases, at least I do.
HOFF: Real Uses for Dryer Lint
Proving that something can always be made of nothing, this Hall of Frugal Fame (HOFF) is dedicated to those brave souls who, no matter how small, worn or seemingly useless an item is, find a way to reuse it in a new way.
What Would You Buy If You Had $30 to Spend? (2)
In this blog, I continue from yesterday talking about the internal debate that occurs when a frugal person, like me, has $30 to spend free and clear.
Frugal Conservation: Save that Soap
Do you buy bar soap? it is the least expensive, generally, and so the most frugal. But what do you do when your bar soap gets really teeny tiny. Hopefully you aren’t throwing it out. Here are some easy ways to save that soap.