Tag Archives: thrift

Embracing Frugality

Although we started practicing a frugal lifestyle to allow me to stay home with our first child, since then we have come a long way to embracing the lifestyle. A lot of it, I think has to do with attitude. We’ve gone from thinking, “How on earth can we figure out hoe we can afford to live?” to “I wonder what new opportunities will come our way today!” When you really embrace frugality, you don’t have time to moan about what you don’t have, because you are too busy living life and enjoying it. You’ve cut off the bad part … Continue reading →

Organizing Household Donations for Taxes

This morning, while the kids were occupying themselves, I thought I would conquer a little bit of the spare bedroom upstairs. This is a room that needs a lot of work. Eventually, it will be turned into a bedroom for our youngest son, but right now, its proximity to the attic stairs, as well as its need of repair, has turned it into a sorting or holding room. As we fix up other areas of the house, we will put furniture or other items from the project room into that bedroom. It will probably be the last room we clean, … Continue reading →

Free Flowers

Want to stock your garden with beautiful high quality flowers without spending a cent? Then you’ll want to read this article. I’ll tell you how. I think the price of flowers is pretty crazy these days, but there is really no reason to pay for them. That is because you can easily find dozens of perennial flowers for free. These flowers, although they will bloom year after year, are routinely dug up from the front of businesses and thrown in the trash. Professional landscapers are paid to keep the areas of these businesses always blooming, and so they change out … Continue reading →

Single Parents are Do-it-Yourself Experts

I know that title sounds a little snooty and I don’t mean to imply that somehow single parents are “better” than anyone else in any way—but I did want to say something encouraging, positive, and I believe—pretty accurate. When I think of all the single parents I know, most of them are pretty thrifty and creative and quite versed in the ways of the do-it-yourselfer… I think that there is truth to the old saying that necessity is the mother of invention—there’s nothing like a limited budget, limited time, and a healthy helping of need to inspire a person to … Continue reading →

Sometimes, It’s All About Survival

Sure, sometimes things are going well and our single-parent world and family are all humming along with love, passion and purpose. The bills are paid, our child is happy and healthy, and life feels purposeful and productive. Sometimes. At other times, things get rough and bumpy and it really is all about just getting through. Sometimes, the focus is just on survival… When those survival times come on, it doesn’t mean that we are failing. It can surely seem as though we’ve done something wrong, or that when we look around–everyone else has got it better than we do and … Continue reading →

Take Advantage of “Bag” Sales

Do you know what a bag sale is? No, it isn’t a sale on your favorite purses or handbags. it is a way to get a lot for very little. Read on to learn about bag sales and how to get the most you can out of them. I was introduced to my first bag sale when my eldest son was a toddler (and an only child). The three of us were wandering around the downtown area of a local town, just browsing around, when we wandered into an “upscale” thrift store. The store just happened to be having a … Continue reading →

Frugal Lessons from the Amish: Going Goodwilling

If you have been reading my recent blogs about the Amish you know about Amy, a young wife and mother who is part of the Amish community near me in Lancaster county, Pa. Amy has been nice enough to share some of the ways that she and others in her community live frugally. I asked Amy if she ever goes shopping, and she laughed. “For sure!” She and her relatives and friends love to shop as well as anyone, turning the trips into social occasions. Her husband, Levi, and her brothers often come along, too. How does Amy shop? Well, … Continue reading →

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 say big. Sudden specials: Do you remember the famous Kmart blue light? The light would go on somewhere in … Continue reading →

Save More at The Thrift Store (1)

Did you know that there are some special ways to save even more at the thrift store? Thrift store shopping is a wonderful way to save money and be frugal. Most of the time, thrift stores are run by charities, so any money you spend there will be going to a good cause. I started thrift store shopping after my first child was born. A new stay-at-home-mom, I needed to get out of the house. I didn’t know about play dates then or finding other new moms. So instead, I would put Andrew in his stroller and we would take … Continue reading →