It doesn't matter how frugal you want to get, there's always something that is worth every penny to you. I don't even try to justify these kinds of purchases; they are what they are, and I have yet to regret spending the money on such things. My top three Worth The Money items are:
1. Sheets. I don't know how I ever got to sleep on scratchy 250-count sheets. 400-count is good, 600 is better, but anything above that is obscene and makes me want to come to your house to spend the night. :) I have found some reasonably-priced 400-count sateens at, of all places, Wal-Mart, and outlet stores are another good place to find bargains, just remember that you can either spend $50 on two sets of sheets that do nothing for you, or spend the same $50 on one set that makes you look forward to bedtime.
2. Vodka for martinis. I'll drink the cheap stuff when mixing with fruit juice, but for a classic martini, only the best will do.
3. Moisturizer. Sure, I can buy a massive-sized bottle of Suave for a couple of bucks (and I do use their hair products), but there's such a huge difference in my skin when I use something a little more pricey. No department store needed (yet, anyway, lol); Olay has some fantastic products out, and for general all-over lotion with sunscreen, Lubriderm works for me. Yeah, I know, it's really tough standing there in the beauty products aisle of your chosen store and thinking, hmm, is Lubriderm really worth $5 more? Is Olay worth $10? YES. They are.
And since I'm supposed to be talking about saving money, here's a list of my top three Free things:
1. The library. My library is da bomb.
2. Being outside. Really, how much simpler can it be to refresh your mind and body? Just get out of your chair and go outside. A simple walk can replace both the gym membership AND the psychotherapist. Score!
3. Google. ohmygod how did we ever know anything for sure until Google came around?
So, what's your three?
Friday, March 20, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Frugal Friday: The Frugal Gardener
I love red peppers. I love to roast them and roll them up inside chicken breasts, I love to chop them up raw and toss them with salads, I love to use them in place of green peppers in recipes like chili and spaghetti sauce. But I don't love paying $1.50 for a single pepper. That's just nuts.
Our family eats a lot of fresh produce. We have salads a couple times a week, with $2.50 romaine, never mind the $1.50 a pound tomatoes and the carrots and cucumbers and onions...so while it was still chilly, Michael and I decided that this year, we'd grow a garden. It seemed the easiest way to lower our grocery bill without changing our eating habits. I'm not much of a gardener, so this required research. I knew our clay soil was pure crap, and tilling and amending and de-stoning it would be pure hell and I'd give up before I even got started, so I looked into building raised beds. I found this site that gave really great instructions on building simple beds, and used those instructions to slap together these:
Each bed is 4'x 8', and cost $12 in materials to build (3 pieces of 8x8x2 lumber) and $17 to fill (1 block of peat and 10 bags of top soil). While that is quite a bit to spend up front, this is money I don't have to spend again when I plant next year, and the years that follow. They look naked right now, right? Well, you have to look closely:
That's a baby mustard green. I also have spinach, carrots, broccoli, collards, turnips, and lettuce poking through the soil already (all started from seed--the frugal way to go), and in the basement under lights, I have these:
Two types of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers, marigolds (for the creepy-crawlies) and beans to climb up my bean trellis. Outside of this picture are squash--yellow crookneck and zucchini. And herbs--parsley, cilantro, basil, and thyme. I have an oregano plant left over from last year's pot on the porch that I'm transplanting into the garden. I was alerted to this site about outdoor winter sowing of seeds a little late for this year, but next year I plan to use that technique to save on electricity. And that site also has some great information and links about seed saving, which I plan to try as well.
So, that's my garden. As much as went into the start-up costs, I think I should see all of it returned by late summer in savings at the grocery store.
Now for Free Gardening:
Yesterday, Michael and I mulched our beds and added 24 plants to the entry garden without spending a dime. How? Our county has a mulch yard. You just bring a truck and a shovel and take all the mulch you want, for free. Check with your county's extension office (contact information can be found here) to find out about any free resources available for home gardeners.
And the plants? We just dug up some perennials and split them. Eight years ago, our builder installed three of these near the front door:
Those three plants are now over 40 plants. Don't worry if you don't already have some plants to dig up and split. You can stretch your gardening dollars by purchasing a single perennial from the garden center and splitting it (into two? four? Maybe more, it really depends on the roots and type of plant) before installing in your garden. I just use scissors or a small spade to cut through the roots.
The next item on our frugal agenda is setting up rain barrels. More research coming.
Our family eats a lot of fresh produce. We have salads a couple times a week, with $2.50 romaine, never mind the $1.50 a pound tomatoes and the carrots and cucumbers and onions...so while it was still chilly, Michael and I decided that this year, we'd grow a garden. It seemed the easiest way to lower our grocery bill without changing our eating habits. I'm not much of a gardener, so this required research. I knew our clay soil was pure crap, and tilling and amending and de-stoning it would be pure hell and I'd give up before I even got started, so I looked into building raised beds. I found this site that gave really great instructions on building simple beds, and used those instructions to slap together these:
Each bed is 4'x 8', and cost $12 in materials to build (3 pieces of 8x8x2 lumber) and $17 to fill (1 block of peat and 10 bags of top soil). While that is quite a bit to spend up front, this is money I don't have to spend again when I plant next year, and the years that follow. They look naked right now, right? Well, you have to look closely:
That's a baby mustard green. I also have spinach, carrots, broccoli, collards, turnips, and lettuce poking through the soil already (all started from seed--the frugal way to go), and in the basement under lights, I have these:
Two types of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers, marigolds (for the creepy-crawlies) and beans to climb up my bean trellis. Outside of this picture are squash--yellow crookneck and zucchini. And herbs--parsley, cilantro, basil, and thyme. I have an oregano plant left over from last year's pot on the porch that I'm transplanting into the garden. I was alerted to this site about outdoor winter sowing of seeds a little late for this year, but next year I plan to use that technique to save on electricity. And that site also has some great information and links about seed saving, which I plan to try as well.
So, that's my garden. As much as went into the start-up costs, I think I should see all of it returned by late summer in savings at the grocery store.
Now for Free Gardening:
Yesterday, Michael and I mulched our beds and added 24 plants to the entry garden without spending a dime. How? Our county has a mulch yard. You just bring a truck and a shovel and take all the mulch you want, for free. Check with your county's extension office (contact information can be found here) to find out about any free resources available for home gardeners.
And the plants? We just dug up some perennials and split them. Eight years ago, our builder installed three of these near the front door:
Those three plants are now over 40 plants. Don't worry if you don't already have some plants to dig up and split. You can stretch your gardening dollars by purchasing a single perennial from the garden center and splitting it (into two? four? Maybe more, it really depends on the roots and type of plant) before installing in your garden. I just use scissors or a small spade to cut through the roots.
The next item on our frugal agenda is setting up rain barrels. More research coming.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Frugal Friday: Magazine Subscriptions for a click
I have tried many survey sites, but only one has really come through as worthy. That is www.e-rewards.com. There are several things that you can get in exchange for your survey dollars--discounts on purchases at several online merchants, frequent flyer miles--but the one thing I use my rewards for is magazine subscriptions.
When I first signed up with them, I was skeptical. I'd tried several others before them, and ended up answering a lot of surveys that seemingly went on forever only to be told, oops, sorry, you don't qualify! No points for you! But the difference I found with e-rewards is that even if you don't qualify for the survey, you still get paid (and they tell you up front, within the first couple of questions, if you don't qualify). A quarter, fifty cents, depends on the survey. But none of them come back with No Soup For You!
And the actual surveys, when you complete one, only take a couple of minutes. Maybe five minutes, tops. I do one or two surveys a week, delivered right to my email, do a little click-click, and watch as my account fills with dollars for me to redeem. Most of my surveys pay between $2 and $7, and the minimum account balance for redemption is $10.
I've always been a big subscriber to magazines. So getting them for a click is saving me a lot of cash. I currently have e-rewards subscriptions to:
Woman's Day
Family Fun
Smithsonian
Car and Driver
Body & Soul
That's what? $75-$80 worth of subscriptions for a few minutes of my time? I deem that worthy.
When I first signed up with them, I was skeptical. I'd tried several others before them, and ended up answering a lot of surveys that seemingly went on forever only to be told, oops, sorry, you don't qualify! No points for you! But the difference I found with e-rewards is that even if you don't qualify for the survey, you still get paid (and they tell you up front, within the first couple of questions, if you don't qualify). A quarter, fifty cents, depends on the survey. But none of them come back with No Soup For You!
And the actual surveys, when you complete one, only take a couple of minutes. Maybe five minutes, tops. I do one or two surveys a week, delivered right to my email, do a little click-click, and watch as my account fills with dollars for me to redeem. Most of my surveys pay between $2 and $7, and the minimum account balance for redemption is $10.
I've always been a big subscriber to magazines. So getting them for a click is saving me a lot of cash. I currently have e-rewards subscriptions to:
Woman's Day
Family Fun
Smithsonian
Car and Driver
Body & Soul
That's what? $75-$80 worth of subscriptions for a few minutes of my time? I deem that worthy.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Frugal Friday: Homemade Daily Shower Cleaner
I am a lousy housekeeper.
I hate doing it, would rather puncture my own eardrums with bamboo skewers than perform 'housekeeping duties' most days. But I love having a clean house, so I employ all shortcuts possible to reconcile my slovenly side with my House Beautiful side. One of those shortcuts is religious use of daily shower cleaners, and now through the Wisdom of Google, along with my own trial and error, I present to you a very effective Daily Shower Cleaner for about $0.35 a bottle:
This recipe makes two bottles.
4 cups of water
1 cup of Hydrogen Peroxide
1 cup of 70% Isopropyl Alcohol
4 tsp. Dishwasher rinse agent (like JetDry; I use Cascade brand)
1/2 tsp. dishwashing liquid (like Dawn. I use store brands)
Mix it all together in a large pitcher and pour into spray bottles. I refilled my store-bought Daily Shower Cleaner bottles, but you can buy new spray bottles for about a dollar.
I spray not only the shower (and the glass doors in my bath, the curtain liner in the kids' bathroom), but also the sink and toilet bowls. I figure, why not? Sure beats scrubbin' them!
If you wanted to, you could add a drop of essential oil to the mixture to add fragrance. I prefer the simple scent of Not Moldy. If you start with a clean shower and then use this stuff daily, you can cut your shower scrubbing days down to about four per year. SRSLY. :)
I hate doing it, would rather puncture my own eardrums with bamboo skewers than perform 'housekeeping duties' most days. But I love having a clean house, so I employ all shortcuts possible to reconcile my slovenly side with my House Beautiful side. One of those shortcuts is religious use of daily shower cleaners, and now through the Wisdom of Google, along with my own trial and error, I present to you a very effective Daily Shower Cleaner for about $0.35 a bottle:
This recipe makes two bottles.
4 cups of water
1 cup of Hydrogen Peroxide
1 cup of 70% Isopropyl Alcohol
4 tsp. Dishwasher rinse agent (like JetDry; I use Cascade brand)
1/2 tsp. dishwashing liquid (like Dawn. I use store brands)
Mix it all together in a large pitcher and pour into spray bottles. I refilled my store-bought Daily Shower Cleaner bottles, but you can buy new spray bottles for about a dollar.
I spray not only the shower (and the glass doors in my bath, the curtain liner in the kids' bathroom), but also the sink and toilet bowls. I figure, why not? Sure beats scrubbin' them!
If you wanted to, you could add a drop of essential oil to the mixture to add fragrance. I prefer the simple scent of Not Moldy. If you start with a clean shower and then use this stuff daily, you can cut your shower scrubbing days down to about four per year. SRSLY. :)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I'm back...
Life is crazy weird. So I'm going back to basics. I've been doing a little writing (and by that I mean very little), but I'm getting back into fiction again, which feels good. I missed it a lot. I should start submitting again over the next couple of weeks. That'll be a nice heartbreaking addition to my daily tasks. Checking emails, waiting for responses, getting all those pesky rejections. Oh Joy!
I'm growing a garden this year, too. Biggest one I've ever had, which isn't saying much considering the biggest one I had before this was a 2x3' box. Now I have four 4x8' raised beds, complete with a strung bean trellis. Why, yes, I built it all myself. I'll post some pics once things get growing out there. I just put the carrots and greens in the ground yesterday, have another month before I can move my tomato plants and all the other goodies outside. Mmmm, warm tomatoes fresh from the garden. Is there anything better?
I'm going to start posting Frugal Fridays, just notes and links and whatnot that I've discovered on my path here back to basics. 'Basics' does include internet service, right? Well, it does for me. I can do without a lot of things, but Google is not one of them. Other than the Friday posts, the rest will be bonus material, like on DVD's.
I'm growing a garden this year, too. Biggest one I've ever had, which isn't saying much considering the biggest one I had before this was a 2x3' box. Now I have four 4x8' raised beds, complete with a strung bean trellis. Why, yes, I built it all myself. I'll post some pics once things get growing out there. I just put the carrots and greens in the ground yesterday, have another month before I can move my tomato plants and all the other goodies outside. Mmmm, warm tomatoes fresh from the garden. Is there anything better?
I'm going to start posting Frugal Fridays, just notes and links and whatnot that I've discovered on my path here back to basics. 'Basics' does include internet service, right? Well, it does for me. I can do without a lot of things, but Google is not one of them. Other than the Friday posts, the rest will be bonus material, like on DVD's.
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