My Frugal Week

Thanks to a sale at Walgreen's and several valuable coupons, we are now stocked up on 15 bottles of Purex laundry detergent with Clorox. 

My daughter did this deal for us and combined coupons from Coupons.com, which also reset, along with Walgreen's reward points. She used $10 worth of her Walgreen's reward points, so the majority of the laundry detergent was free to us. 

The sale is going on through Sunday. 

There are several sales going on this week, which I hope to take advantage of, which include:

Aldi
Eggs 69¢ (limit 4)
Red Onions 99¢ (2 lb. bag)

Publix
Raisin Bran B1G1F + doubled coupon - $1.45 box

Piggly Wiggly
Ground Beef $1.99/lb. (wow!)

Kroger
Milk - 1/2 gallon - $1.00

Any good deals going on where you live?

Thank you for reading,
Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~
Earn with Swagbucks

Early in the Week

I can't remember if I mentioned the fact that we have Monday & Tuesday off this week. My daughter and I have been doing laundry and cleaning all weekend, so we could enjoy our two days off this week. We finally got all the chairs and brooms from the drying racks put back where they go, which made the house look better almost instantly. And we are finally caught up on the laundry. Yay! :)

I've been working in the kitchen, cleaning and putting things away. I boiled two dozen eggs today for egg salad and lunches for this week. I am so tired of sandwiches in my lunch, so boiled eggs will be better. I'll add some cheese too. 

Dinner today is Pedernales Potatoes, Carrots, Green Beans with Onions, and Sweet Iced Tea. 

On Tuesday we ran some errands. One place we stopped was Bi-Lo because I had some coupons I wanted to use with their three day sale. 

My favorite coupon site nowadays is Couponaholic. 

Couponaholic

I don't even use the Sunday coupons anymore. I let my daughter deal with them because she enjoys it so much. I look at Couponaholic every now and then to see if there are any good deals. The 55¢ off coupon for Skippy peanut butter was a good deal.  I printed two coupons off my computer and my daughter printed four coupons and she also had an additional six $1.00 off coupons from the Sunday paper for one jar of Skippy. 

The peanut butter was on "sale" at Bi-Lo for $3.12, but it was buy one get one free, which made each jar $1.56. The 55¢ coupons doubled and so our total coupons took off $12.60, which made each jar only 51¢.   This was a really good deal. 

The also had Pillsbury cake mixes on sale for buy one get one free. We had 35¢ off coupons that doubled, so each box end up costing 44¢ each, which was another good deal. 

We did buy a few other things like margarine, crackers, preserves, and olives. 

We also got hair cuts today. I saved a receipt from Walmart for $9.99 haircuts and used them at Great Clips today. Haircuts for both of us came to $19.98 plus tip, which saved us $6.00 off the Great Clips price. 

I also filled up the car today using my Bi-Lo bonuscard fuel perks and paid $2.44 per gallon. It only cost me $21 to fill up today. I should be dancing in the street at the savings. LOL :)

Back to work and school tomorrow. I hope you all have a great week!

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

End of October

I hope all of my readers have had a good week. I worked four out of four days this week. School is out on Friday this week, so today was the end of the work week for me. The students were so excited this week for Halloween. I loved seeing them in their costumes on Thursday. 

Groceries

In September I spent $334.22 on food for our family of three and said I wanted to do better in October. Well, I totaled up everything I spent on groceries this month and it came to $324.37. A difference of close to $10.00. While I definitely wanted to do better than that, I have to say that the kitchen is well stocked right now, so I'm happy with that.  

I left home early this morning to snag a couple of deals that were one day only sales and while supplies last. The first stop was IGA where they were offering milk for $2.99 a gallon, which is about an 85¢ savings. I also picked up some ground chuck priced at $2.99 a pound. I plan on making Tacos and Hamburgers this weekend. 

I also stopped at Fresh n Low for Wampler's pork sausage in the one pound packages for $1.99. I bought five pounds of the sausage and put one in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. They had three carts filled with Crash & Burn items. I bought several things including Bubble Bath for hand washing for 50¢ a bottle, Suave body wash for 75¢ per bottle and several packages of Jello for 40¢.

Ebay

This month I made $13.94 on Ebay sales. I mentioned earlier this month that my sales were down from last month. Seemed to me that people were just not buying. My Dad says people are afraid to spend money right now because they don't know what the future holds, which is certainly understandable. 

Gas

Gas for my car is one of my biggest expenses each month because we live out in the country and have to drive a ways to get most places. In October I spent $169.09 for gas for my car. It was nice to see the price drop this month though. On my first fill up of the month, I paid $3.09 a gallon while the last fill up of the month was $2.62 per gallon. My Dad says it's because of the November elections coming up, but I read an article this week about OPEC, the price of a barrel of oil, and US supplies were the reason the price dropped. Either way, I'm happy that the cost of gas has come down so much, and I hope it stays that way. 

Dryer News

We've been dryer shopping last week and this week. We stopped in at the Habitat for Humanity store to see if they had any dryers, but no luck. We stopped in at a locally owned appliance store and found one for $356. Home Depot has one for $314 as well, which is probably what we will go with, but for now we are still hanging laundry up to dry. Our electric bill was $45 less this month, so we are already seeing a savings there. 

The thing that I noticed about hanging laundry to dry is that, if you save up your laundry for one day or are washing large loads, you can run out of places to hang it fairly quickly. 

I cannot hang our laundry outside to dry here because of my daughter's allergies. We live on forty-one acres of land that is mostly wooded and she is allergic to many of the trees and grasses here along with the pollen and the ragweed count is very high right now. 

S0, allergies are the reason we hang our laundry indoors. I have four sets of chairs back to back with brooms and mops on them and one clothing rack and it can fill up quickly. I hang shirts on hangers and then hang them on the broom sticks to save room. As a result of this, I have been washing smaller loads, which is not the most frugal way to do laundry. We are going dryer shopping again today, so I'll keep you updated on that front. 

That is my end of the month report from here. I hope you've had a good frugal month in your corner of the world.  :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

My Frugal Weekend

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day for me. I had several errands to run including...

Having the oil changed in my car. Cost was $43.89. 

Stopped at Cooke's for a sale on Kraft cheese, which was $1.49 for the eight ounce bags of shredded cheddar. A price not seen since before the Great Recession. I also bought oranges, potatoes, and bananas since they sent me a $2.00 off $5.00 worth of produce coupon in my email. I also received 25¢ back from Checkout51 on the bananas. 

I know I said I wasn't going to buy Ziploc bags, but we came upon a great deal. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :) 

The sale was for Hefty bags, 2 for $3.00, and we had 50¢ off coupons that were not supposed to double, but they did, so we paid 50¢ per box. See why I couldn't pass it up? :)

We ended up in Chattanooga at McKay to check out the free book bin. We ended up with eighteen free books. I didn't really look at them until I came home, but there was a hardback book in there from one of my favorite authors, Willie Morris. He wrote one of my favorite books, My Dog Skip. If you've not seen the movie, watch it. You will love it. 

The book I picked up Saturday was Taps and ended up being his final book written about a fictional journey through the south, of a fleeting boyhood and a young man coming to age in a time of war. I'm already reading it as I love the author's writing style. 

While in Chattanooga, I bought gas for $2.98 a gallon. We even saw it cheaper at several stations down the road offering it for $2.94 a gallon, which is such a welcome sight. We also went by Krispy Kreme to use our free doughnut coupon that was in the Sunday paper. 

Finally, I went to Publix for Angel Soft Tissues. 25¢ per box after sale and coupon. I was able to pick up four boxes. 

We went to a couple of yard sales. I bought a sweater jacket for my Mom, and my daughter bought two historical decorative plates. 

CVS has Arm & Hammer laundry detergent on sale this week for Buy 1 Get 2 Free. We had $2.00 off coupons, which brought the price per bottle down to $1.07 each. I bought 8 bottles, so I am stocked up on detergent for a while. 

I hope you had a frugal weekend.  :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Coupon Sunday

Rite Aid has a sale starting today on Purex. When you buy one, you get two free. 

I had coupons for $1.50 off two and I used three of them for one deal and my daughter used three more for a second deal. 

We now have 12 bottles in our laundry room and we paid $1.37 each for them. 

It's nice to be stocked up on them for a while.

Our next stop today was at Kmart. They are doubling coupons this week up to $2.00, when you spend $25, up to 5 coupons per day. 

My first coupon was for Purex. I bought 2 boxes, which cost $3.49 each, and used a $1.50 coupon off 2 Purex, which doubled, so I paid $1.99 each. 

Next, I found three Colgate Optic  White toothpastes on the clearance shelf for $3.03. I had three coupons for $1.50 off, which doubled, so I paid 3¢ each for those. 

Finally I bought the One A Day Woman's Gummie Vitamins. They were $17.99, but I used a Shop Your Way rewards coupon for $6.00 and combined that with a $2.00 manufacturer coupon, which doubled, so I paid $7.99 for the vitamins. 

Stopped at Bi-Lo yesterday as well. They had this Right Guard deodorant for $3.99. I had two manufacturer coupons for $2.00 off and 2 Target coupons for $2.00 off, so I bought all four deodorants for free and only paid the sales tax.  

We found another deodorant deal at Publix. These Speed Sticks were buy one get one free and after doubled coupons we paid 30¢ each. 

The Dollar Tree has Hormel Pepperoni for $1.00 a pack. I had several coupons for $1.00 off two packages. They only had seven packages left on the shelf, so I bought six and paid 50¢ each. 

Yesterday I received the coupon I had ordered from My Coke Rewards for a free 12 pack of any coke product. I decided to pick Sprite for those days when someone has an upset stomach. I don't like entering the codes into the system, but I do like the free 12 packs.  

Publix has Oscar Meyer hot dogs on sale this week and we had several coupons to use for $1.00 off. I paid $1.13 per package for these hot dogs. I put six of them into the freezer to use later. 

These Suave shampoos were on sale at Publix for $3.49. We had manufacturer coupons and combined them with Target coupons and paid 49¢ for each bottle. 

I love couponing because it allows me to have more purchasing power than if I didn't coupon. We are stocked up on so many things we use in our house and it is all because of coupons. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Free Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent after Rebate

The other day while I was shopping I needed to pick up some baking soda for the freezer, which I had just cleaned out and defrosted. I picked up two boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda and was pleasantly surprised to find a rebate for up to $5.00 for a free bottle of Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent. 

All I needed to buy was two boxes of baking soda and one bottle of detergent, which I had already bought this month. So I came home, printed off the form, and sent it off with my receipts. The offer is good through 2-15-14. Here is a link to the rebate offer if you are interested: 

Get one Arm & Hammer Liquid Laundry Detergent Free

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Frugal Saturday 10-1-11

This was a very good week for me because I was able to work every day, which will make for a good paycheck later this month.

Breakfasts this week were geared towards saving money and therefore made at home. They included peanut butter on toast, cherry, blueberry, or cheese pastries, which were bought at a discount at the Little Debbie thrift store, and scrambled eggs and toast. 

Lunches for my daughter are free at school because of our income, but lunches for me were packed from home every day. They included peanut butter sandwiches, roast beef sandwiches, sliced cheddar cheese and crackers, canned peaches, peanut butter crackers, and always water in my own container to drink. 

Dinners this week included grilled chicken sandwiches, homemade pizza, grilled chicken salads, chicken stir fry, and one night I made grilled cheese sandwiches and opened a can of Campbell’s vegetable beef soup, which I stocked up on during a sale this summer. 

The weather here is turning cooler, which is welcome and will offer some relief from the heat and expense from running the air conditioner every day. The temperature right now is 55 degrees outside, but our home is well insulated, which saves money on heating and cooling, and is 67 degrees inside right now. 

Laundry started as soon as we got home from school yesterday and included two loads last night and two loads this morning. I’m out of fabric softener, so I made a double batch of homemade fabric softener and filled two bottles, which will last us a while. I’ve folded and put away all four loads of laundry. 

Other Saturday chores include cleaning the house and taking off garbage all done with saving money in mind. 

Gas was $3.24 per gallon when I stop and filled up my gas tank last night. There are no planned outings this weekend other than dropping off garbage, so I will have a full tank of gas on Monday morning to start the school/work week. As of right now, I am scheduled to work two days next week, but that can and usually does change on a daily basis. Combining errands helps me to save money on gas as well.  

Dinner tonight will be tacos on fresh corn tortillas with the usual toppings of cheese, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream if desired. I also plan on making a couple of gallons of sweet tea for drinks this weekend. 

That’s what our week has looked like. My blog postings have been nonexistent during the week and for that I apologize, but it is because I’m working and then busy in the evenings cooking and getting ready for the next work day, which leaves me tired and with little to no time left to spend online. I hope you all understand. How are things going with you and your family this week?

Belinda 

© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2011. 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Homemade Fabric Softener

The first time I wrote about homemade fabric softener was in this post:

Saving Money on Laundry

At that time I said I would try the recipe and get back to you with the results. 

Today was the first time since that post that I've been without fabric softener, and I also happened to have an empty fabric softener container on hand. I have a lot of conditioner on hand as well because we use more shampoo than conditioner in our house, and my mother gives us conditioner because she will open a new bottle even before her old bottle is empty. Since this is canning season I also have a lot of vinegar on hand. Therefore, this was the perfect time to try this recipe. 

Pictured above are the ingredients needed to make the fabric softener. It took only a few minutes to mix up a batch. 

Homemade Fabric Softener 

Ingredients: 

- 2 cups hair conditioner
- 3 cups white vinegar
- 6 cups warm water 

Directions:

Add ingredients to an old fabric softener bottle or any other suitable container, and mix well. Use as you would any other fabric softener. 

Total Cost to make:

- 2 cups hair conditioner - free - (gifted to me by Mom)

- 3 cups white vinegar - 39¢- (from a 64 ounce bottle at the Dollar Store)

- 6 cups water free - (we have well water)

Total Cost: 39¢ for an almost full bottle

Even if you had to buy the conditioner the cost would be cheaper than buying a bottle of fabric softener.  

The results were good. I used a lilac scented conditioner, so the laundry had a nice feel and smell to it with no static cling, which is exactly what you expect from fabric softener. 

What do you think? Would you be willing to give it a try or have you tried it and would like to talk about it in the comment section? Feedback is welcome. :)

Belinda 

© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2011. 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Facebook & Free Items

Pictured above is just a sample of the coupons and free items we have been receiving in the mail lately. Anyone who has not signed up for a Facebook account is missing out on some great free items and coupons out there. Today in the mail I received a coupon for a free bag of Uncle Ben's rice, a free bag of Kraft Cheese with Philadelphia cream cheese mixed in and a coupon for $1.00 off another bag, a free bottle of Suave professional shampoo, a free pack of tomato seeds,  and a free Shout color catcher. 

Last week we received a terrific free sample from Tide for their new in wash booster. It was a large bag of them along with a free sample of Tide laundry detergent. I have also received a free sample of Wisk laundry detergent. I wouldn't have received any of these if I hadn't been on Facebook and joined a couple of the Freebie Facebook groups. I want to encourage everyone to join up and sign up for these free items because they are definitely worth your time and money.

Saving Money on Laundry

Deal With It, Simply! has an article about saving money on laundry. 

I like the idea of the homemade fabric softener, which I am going to try and then get back to you with the results.

Homemade fabric softener; 2 Cups cheap conditioner, 3 cups Vinegar and 6 Cups water. Mix and store in a container and use it just like your regular fabric softener.

Cut fabric softener sheets in half and they can be used more then once.

Only wash full loads of laundry, weather 1 thing or a full load you use the same amount of water.
Learn to use 1 Tablespoon laundry soap

I have been considering the girls doing their own laundry. I bet the multiple changes would diffidently change.

Hang clothes and use the dryer less. We have a solar dryer outside, a clothes line. In the winter I have a rod above my washer to hang clothing. The moisture adds to our home.

Clean the lint trap after each use.

Vinegar also makes a frugal fabric softener.

Take clothes out of the washer right away so you don’t have to rewash them and waste water.
Things that can be worn more then once- Jeans, bras, Pajamas and sweats.

Hang your towel to dry and you can use it again.