Sunday, June 4, 2017

First Frugal Week of June 2017

Ebay is another source of passive income for my household. In the past I have sold things year round on Ebay, but in recent years have only done this in the summer time when I have more free time from subbing at school. 

This past Monday I listed five items for auction and hopefully after paying all the fees associated with both Ebay and PayPal will end up making some money to add to our summer budget. 

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We found a nice bag at a yard sale last week for 25¢, but the handle was torn off. No problem. I did a quick stitch of it on my sewing machine and it is as good as new. 


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As my regular readers know, my daughter is the coupon queen here these days. She got in on a great deal on St. Ives body wash at Dollar General this week. 

St. Ives body wash was on sale for $2.00 each. She had five manufacturer's coupons for $1.50 off one bottle and a digital coupon for $2.00 off $10.00. So, she bought five bottles and paid 50¢ for all five, which worked out to 10¢ each, which is a great deal for body wash. 

She is also great at keeping our stockpile organized too. She rotates all the stock putting all the older stuff up front to be used first and putting anything new in the back. 


As a result she had already put the St. Ives in the back of the closet, so I did not get a picture of it, but here is our stockpile from the front so you can at least see the stockpile. 

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We spent part of the day on Friday going to yard sales. We both found a Vera Bradley bag, which trilled me to the bone as I love them. Pictured here is a photo of both of them. 

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I made cauliflower taco meat again for dinner today. Here is a photo of it up close. It looks so much like taco meat that it's hard to believe it's actually cauliflower. It's a plant based dish, which is not only healthier for us, but costs less than buying meat.  Here is a picture of it in the taco salads I made for lunch today. 


I also made baked french fries to go with the salads. I did not use any oil in these and they still turned out great. They are much healthier than fried potatoes and my family loves them. 


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Saturday was the first Saturday of the month, which means Goodwill has everything in the store for 50% off the regular price. We went to three different stores and picked up several things. 

One of the things I found were these really nice cotton cloth napkins for $1.00. These are the ones you want to use as dinner napkins because of the material, which feels good on your skin and is absorbent.  I don't care for the polyester dinner napkins as they are not very absorbent.


Another thing I found were these two scrub shirts. Now I'm not going to use them as scrub shirts, but rather use the material to make cloth pads for my daughter. I love the Mary Engelbreit one and buying the material this way ($2.50 each) was much cheaper than buying the same material ($9.00 and up) at the fabric store. 


Speaking of cloth pads, here is another one I made for my daughter yesterday. So now she has two new cloth pads to add to her stash. 



That's it for this week at the Frugal Workshop. I have more things to share with you at a later time like the really neat surprise my daughter made for us after shopping at Goodwill yesterday. I'll save that for another blog post later this week. 

Don't forget to enter the giveaway we currently have going on at the Frugal Workshop. 

I hope you all have a great week!

Belinda
~ Living within our Means ~

10 comments:

  1. Great price on the bodywash and I love the bags you found.
    I hadn't thought of using cauliflower for a taco meat. I have been adding rice to ours to stretch them.

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    1. Thank you, Busy Bee. I love the bags too.

      The cauliflower taco meat is recipe from Brand New Vegan. Adding rice is a great way to stretch taco meat. We like to add potatoes to ours too.

      I hope you have a great week!

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  2. I do a green lentil taco "meat" that is a great comparison to its counterpart, but I've never tried cauliflower. will look up that recipe. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome. I've made Chef AJ's taco meat using lentils and that one is good as well. I hope you try and like the cauliflower one. :)

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  3. Oh, that Vera Bradly bag is to die for. I am a purse/bag lover. I love reading about teenagers frugality. They are the ones that teach us now. :) Your baby is amazing. I love your view on Ebay. Every one has told me to avoid it like the plague because of the fees and what not. I never sell anything and give it away. I do love giving things away, don't get me wrong. I have been looking at Ebay from your point of view and even if the fees are a bit high least it is a bit of passive income. I also think it would help to stop people in my real life using me & DH too. :) Thank you for writing your blog posts. They really inspire me.

    My DH was lamenting this weekend we don't have any places to trade any more. I told him I was thinking of trading at Amazon. He said they will probably not give us much. I told him they will give us something and that is better than nothing. Least we will get Amazon credit to pay for the small things we order there like our books. He told me he didn't realize to think about it that way.

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    1. Thank you, Aiyana. I love the Vera Bradley bags too.

      Right now Ebay is having a $5 selling cap fee, so now is the time to try it if you want to, it's only for a limited time though. For me, I know I can get much more money for some things than I can at a yard sale or flea market, so it depends on what kind of item it is. The passive income definitely helps me.

      You should read the http://creditcardfree.savingadvice.com/ blog. She is the one who got me thinking this way. She takes $3 that she earns and adds it to her savings. It is a great blog to read. I'm so glad you are enjoying my site. I love doing it. :)

      My daughter does well selling new things she finds at yard sales on Amazon. She received income every month last year and this year, so it is definitely worth doing.

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  4. Replies
    1. Thank you, Carol. It's so good to see you, I figured you've been super busy moving into your new home. :)

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  5. Another good use for those cloth dinner napkins: straining yogurt. I make my own, and I prefer a thicker, Greek-style yogurt. Once the batch is done I save half a cup as starter for the next batch and then pour it into a cloth-napkin-lined colander set into a large saucepan.

    The whey that drips into the saucepan gets saved for adding to oatmeal; I cook mine with more water than whey, but my frugal partner uses all whey. (That's too tangy for me.) When he makes bread, he uses whey instead of water. We also add it to homemade soups, stews, chili and stroganoff. In this way we get to use ALL of the milk we paid for, and we're not throwing away that extra nutrition.

    This tip will appear in the third in the upcoming "Playbook For Tough Times" series, a book which will be devoted entirely to food hacks.

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    Replies
    1. That is a great use for the dinner napkins, Donna. And I like Greek yogurt too even better than regular yogurt. Several great ways to use whey too, that's great that you are using all the milk that way.

      Looking forward to your next book too. :)

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