Second Frugal Week of August 2017

Several days turned out rainy this week. Mostly we stayed home and spent no money, although I did work three days this week subbing and have every day scheduled for the coming week. 
Speaking of school, Len Penzo has posted his 9th annual cost survey of 10 popular brown bag sandwiches. You can read all about by clicking the link here. 
I saved 10¢ per gallon when I filled up my gas tank on Saturday paying $1.95 per gallon. I earned triple points on my Plenty Card with the purchase and now have over $12.00 that I can use from those points, which I am saving until I can buy a full tank of gas for free (around $25 or so). 
We did a small amount of grocery shopping on Saturday also. I spent $42 and stocked up on frozen vegetables and fresh produce for the week. 
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

First Frugal Week of August 2017

Image Credit

School started back here on Friday, August 4th and I am already scheduled to work three days this week and every day the next week. I'm definitely grateful to be back to work and earning again. 
On Friday I made a pasta salad for lunch and dinner for a few days at least. I had so much fresh produce on hand like cucumbers, tomatoes, and broccoli that it just made good sense to use them in something refreshing. 
Friday  night we went swimming and spent about an hour exercising in the pool.

On Saturday we went to several of our local Goodwills for their 50% off sale. I found several pairs of curtains for the house for both the kitchen, hallway, and bedroom. I've had them on my yard sale list, so it's nice to cross that off the list. 
I found a gallon bag about half full of pencils, pens, highlighters, mechanical pencils, erasers, and lead for 50¢. I've already put this in my sub bag as you can never have too many of these. 
I found another Vidalia Chop Wizard like this one: 

I love mine, but if you have one, you know the bottom will break easily. The tops are made very well, but the bottoms are not made as well. We find the tops and middle green parts at yard sales regularly, and I have extras of those. The bottoms are not as easy to find, so I was tickled to find this one marked at $1.00, so we paid 50¢ out the door for it. 
I also found a vintage quilt for $2.00. It is hand quilted and you can tell from the prints that the fabric is from the 1950s era. I bought it with the intention of flipping it, but my daughter wants to keep it, so we are going to keep it instead. 
I found one movie ($1.00) that I've watched, but did not care for so that will go into our McKay's box to be traded. 
We came home on Saturday and I made Salmon Patties, Fried Potatoes, and Soup Beans for dinner. Afterwards we played a board game for more free entertainment. 
We made another exchange at McKay's Used Books during the week with the scientific calculator and more board games we bought at yard sales and realized over $100 in trade credit. I picked up a couple of books, but we mostly saved it to spend on another day. 
Sunday lunch was the rest of the pasta salad while Sunday dinner was leftover salmon patties made into salmon burgers with tartar sauce, cheese, and dill pickles. 
We went to the local apple orchard on Sunday and bought apples. It's that time of year again.  :)
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Workshop is Back Up and Running!

First off, our internet is back up and working today! 

On Thursday we went to the 127 Yard Sale and started our day in the town of Pikeville, Tennessee. 

The vendor booth in this picture is selling paper hornet nests. This is something my Dad has done. You wait until winter when the hornets have left the nest and then you cut them down from the tree. Dad had two one year that he sold for $25, so this can be another source of passive income. 

Some of my readers know we lived in the town of Pikeville when my daughter was first born, so I took her around to various places to show her the first house she lived in and some other places and things. 

Here is a photo of one of the houses we lived in and a tree I planted back in 1992, so 25 years ago. Visiting there was a sweet walk down memory lane. 

The sale was so much fun, and miles and miles of yard sales. We stopped at many of them and found some great items. 

One of the things I bought was this aloe vera plant. You can see it already has babies and I'm going to replant them and sell them as another passive income source. 

I also bought a new bottle of hand gel and a cute yard of fabric for $1.00. 

Another one of the places we stopped at was The Country Cupboard in Crossville, Tennessee. I used to love to visit the store when we lived in Pikeville. They have the best prices on spices there. We even found pints of flax seed for 99¢.

The cucumbers and apple were free as one store was giving away the cucumbers for free and we picked the apple off of a tree, with owner permission, that was loaded with them. 

The rest of my blog post is from last week, before the Internet went down here. I wasn't able to post a blog post, but here it is for you to read now. 

Pictured above is cloth pad number 30 for my daughter so I've finished that project for the summer. 
I cleaned and organized my sewing area and made one tub for fabric. 
On Wednesday I took off two loads of garbage to the garbage dump including one broken chair that needed gone. I also cleaned off the back porch, which looks much better. 
I put an ad on Craigslist this week for one free chair and a free rolling file cabinet and these were picked up already. 
I sold one living room chair this week for $100. We had too much furniture in the living room, and getting rid of this chair has made a big difference. I should have done it sooner. 
I  earned another $5 Amazon gift card this week from Microsoft Rewards Points this week and added it to my Amazon gift card balance. 
Tomorrow is the Goodwill first Saturday of the month 50% off sale, so if your local Goodwill is participating you may want to check it out. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Update

Just wanted to post a quick update to let you know our Internet is down and won't be back up until Friday. I'll be back as soon as I can.  :)
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

The Frugal Weekend

The temperature hovered around 95° over the weekend, which made it around 118° in the car when it was closed up during the day. Needless to say, it was hot!

We spent Friday and Saturday morning at multiple yard sales and rummage sales, which is one of our favorite things to do. 

One of our best finds was a graphing calculator for $1.00! The lady who sold it may not have known what it was worth. We plan on trading this at McKay's Used Books.

We also lucked out on several free things such as a Vera Bradley Purse, The Mummy Movie on Blu Ray, and a 8 quart bag of Miracle Grow potting soil. I was very surprised to find these things in a free box, but they were ours for the taking.

We also stopped by an Mennonite roadside produce stand and picked up some terrific grape tomatoes for $2.00. They are so sweet that they taste like candy.   

I made four more cloth pads for my daughter this weekend. This material came from the scrub shirts we bought at yard sales this summer. This makes pad #26, 27, 28, and 29 so far this summer. Only one more to go to make our goal of thirty pads.

We had a mystery shop for free pizza, after reimbursement, on Saturday night. We brought the movie home and turned it into a movie night and watched Disney's The Parent Trap. 
How was your weekend?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Third Frugal Week of July 2017

     

Last Friday we both went to Starbucks and got a free sample of Teavana's new teas. She got the Pineapple Black Tea and I got the Strawberry Green Tea.

On Friday we went to 13 yard sales and 2 church rummage sales. Three of the yard sales either decided not to set up or had already closed up for the day. 

One of the items I found 81 pencils for 75¢ total. One of the teachers on my Facebook page said to get someone to cut them in half for me, which I thought was a great idea. I can't have too many pencils for when I'm subbing. 

I took my kitchen fan apart and cleaned it with hot soapy water to get it good and clean. It cools so much better when it's cleaned well, which helps it cool more efficiently, which saves me money. 

Pictured above is the cell phone I bought new in January 2012 and blogged about here. This was a good phone for me helping me to earn money for over five years. 

I endured many comments from students about my phone and how I needed to upgrade. One of them even went so far this year as to call my phone a throwback phone. LOL

One of the hinges even broke on it this past winter and made it unable to stay open to use the keyboard, but I continued to use it as it still worked fine. 

This week I finally went with a smartphone, but did not have to pay any actual money for it. It is a iPhone 4, which my daughter was excited for me to finally get as she wants to Snapchat with me. LOL

I didn't pay any money for the phone, but traded for it at McKay's Used Books like we did when we needed one of those expensive graphing calculators. 

We bought ten board games at a yard sale the weekend before and traded them and received $51.95 in trade credit. The phone cost $49.95, so almost an even trade. 

I even worked out a deal with Verizon, so this phone won't cost me anymore than the cell phone I had before. That was the one thing that held me back from getting a smart phone for so long. I didn't want to pay more for it each month. 

We stopped by a new spice & tea store in Chattanooga and my daughter checked in on their Facebook page, which entitled her to one free item. She picked this Spiced Ham seasoning, which I think will go well in some of our 15 bean soup recipes. 

Today is Saturday and we are going to more yard sales. 

What are your plans for the weekend?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Second Frugal Week of July 2017

Last week we found a full length mirror at a yard sale for $1.00. It had been on our wish list for some time, but I hardly ever see full length mirrors for sale at yard sales. The one we've been looking at @ Lowe's is $14.98, so we saved $13.98 on the mirror. 
We went to Jo-Ann's Fabrics over the weekend. The reason I went was to get a cleaning brush for my sewing machine and sewing machine oil. Mine did not come with these since I bought it at a yard sale and I've used mine a lot since I bought it, so it was time for a good cleaning and oiling. 
I had sticker shock while I was in Jo-Ann's. We used a 40% off coupon, but even with that the prices were very high, even double in some cases when compared to other stores. This makes me happy for my frugal ways as I find other sources for fabric that don't cost me as much as stores like this. 

I made one more cloth pad for my daughter this week. This fabric came from one of the scrub shirts we bought at a yard sale last weekend. 
I figured the cost of ordering 30 cloth pads from Etsy, and the total cost would have been $610.50. I did not pay anywhere near that amount for the materials I bought. 
I used good quality fabric obtained second hand and bought PUL and Zorb to make these pads, which ended up costing less than $3.00 each to make, which saved me over $500. And now that my daughter has a sufficient supply we are saving money on electricity via less laundry as well. 
On Tuesday we went to McKay's Used Books and traded books and games again. We received right at $50 in trade credit and picked up several new to us books & movies in return. One of the movies I picked up was Simon Birch, which I had seen years ago, but enjoyed watching again this week. 
We also went to the Samaritan Center on Tuesday. I picked up a couple of fabric bundles inexpensively (88¢ and $1.36) and also some pretty cloth napkins for 25¢ each.
We went to the Mennonite Farmer's Market on Tuesday. We picked up tomatoes, red onions, lettuce, red cabbage, cantaloupes, and potatoes. For dinner that night we had soup beans, cabbage, and tomatoes & onions. Delicious!

I'm not sure if you can see that, but I ordered Redbook, Woman's Day, and Woman's Health magazines for free from Verizon Rewards this week. I also ordered Rachael Ray's magazine free from Recycle Bank this week. 

On Wednesday I drove Mom to a doctor's appointment. We stopped at the Peach orchard and bought peaches. These are so delicious that the juice will run down your arm when you eat them.  :)
I sold an item on Ebay this week that netted me $36.55 after all Ebay and Paypal fees. 
What frugal things have you been up to this week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

First Frugal Week of July 2017

Monday we went to the YMCA for my daughter's Zumba class and I went for a swim while she was exercising. I used my new to me swim bag that I picked up at a yard sale for 50¢.

I made three new pads for my daughter this week. The one above was made from a Camp Rock sheet, which was bought at the thrift store and upcycled. The one below was a scrub shirt, which we bought at the thrift store. 

This cloth pad below was made from a flat sheet, which we bought at Goodwill and upcycled. We kept the pillowcases. 

I only have five cloth pads to go before I reach the number of thirty that we settled on before. 
We stayed home on Tuesday and had a quiet 4th of July. I made a vegetable stir fry for dinner and made some more vegetable egg rolls. We wanted to go to our local fireworks show, but it was cancelled due to rain. 
On Wednesday I went to Walmart because I needed a few things. I picked up some distilled water for my CPAP machine. I like to get it there as it is only 88¢ per gallon. 
I looked at the fabric while I was there, but didn't find any that I liked. I did pick up a birthday present for my Mom. It was a set of summer pajamas. I also bought her some soap, on sale for $3.00, from Bath & Body Works over the weekend. 
Afterwards we went to the library with our laptops and utilized their Internet. We also picked up a couple of movies to watch at home later. No money spent there. 
When we came home my daughter gave me and herself a haircut. No money spent there either. 
I baked a cake on Thursday for Mom's birthday on Friday.  
I paid for my auto insurance this week. I could have paid two installments or a one time payment. Paying the one time payment saved me $12, so that is the one I chose. My auto Insurance is now paid up through January 2018.
On Friday and Saturday we went to several yard sales before the rain set in for the day.  

I found a sewing box to store thread for 25¢. 
We also did well on finding scrubs both days. Some people were just wanting to get rid of stuff and were willing to sell us a bag full for $2.00 at one sale. 

In all we ended up with about 20 scrub shirts for about 25¢ each, which certainly beats the Goodwill thrift store price of $4.99 each. 

We found two Disney movies for $1.00 each. 

I'm going to file this under unbelievable. We bought two brand new HUGE beach towels for 25¢ each. They are Better Homes and Gardens brand and one of them still had the tag for $12.97 on it. They practically gave them away!
My daughter found multiple items to resell online. She has done well for herself this summer by flipping and reselling items. 
We had a good frugal week here and hope that you did too! :)
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~