Frugal Friday ~ 2-14-2020

Good morning to all my frugal readers. I hope you've had a great week. 
On Monday I received a call to sub, which I was grateful for since I missed three days last week. 
The rain here has not let up though and on Monday students were let out at noon due to more flash flooding.  School was cancelled for Tuesday also, so I missed another day of work. 
On Monday we went to town to buy a pair of jumper cables. My daughter's car had a dead battery and since someone stole my Dad's battery charger, we didn't have one. So, we went and bought a new set.  

We also bought five packages of Royal ready to eat rice priced at $1.88. We used an Ibotta rebate for $1.50 off and paid only 38¢ each. Ibotta let us use the rebate five times. 
This week I earned a $10 Amazon gift card from Microsoft Rewards. 

On Wednesday I subbed in a classroom with no microwave, so I brought my Crock-Pot Lunch Crock to heat my lunch during the day. 

Family movie night this week consisted of homemade pizza and popcorn. We also watched the film The Blind Side, which is a family favorite. 

Since I had extra time this week I decided to work in my sewing room.
My daughter picked up a pair of jeans in her size recently, but someone hemmed them and she needed them to be longer. 
So, while I was off work this week I took my seam ripper to them and undid the hem. Now they are long enough for her to wear. 
She has been going through some of her inventory and getting rid of anything that hasn't sold. 
She gave me two dresses that I cut up for the material to make other things. On Thursday I used some of the material from one dress, which I upcycled into a cloth pad. 
I used my 2019 Susan Branch calendar and turned the pages into envelopes. 

I took the presser foot and plate off my sewing machine and cleaned out all the lint and dust and oiled the machine. Taking care of my equipment helps it last longer, which saves me money. 

After all of that was done, I ended up making three cloth pads. 
The one on top has Minions and Curious George.  The middle one used to be part of the dress. 

I also cleaned up and organized a little in there this week. 

How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

My Frugal Week ~ January 11, 2020

It was back to the grindstone this week and I ended up working three days bringing lunch and drinks with me all three days. 

This week I cashed in points from Checkpoints for $3 in Amazon credit. I'm going to save my credit and buy some Wonder Clips for sewing as I am running out of straight pins as they bend when I make cloth pads with them.  

On Saturday I worked on making a casserole hot pad big enough for a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Looking back now I don't know why I didn't think of making these sooner. We've always doubled up on hot pads to fit a casserole dish, but no longer. 

I made another one of Friday, so now I have a matching set. These would make great gifts for friends and family too. If your interested in making these, here is a tutorial on how to do that. 
This week I listed more items on eBay and sold three items. One of the items was a tripod and I packaged it to mail, but when my daughter went to ship it she realized I didn't charge enough shipping. So, she repackaged it for me making it as small as could be and saved me $11 in shipping charges. 

My daughter gave me a Pampered Chef Mix & Chop for Christmas. I've already made tacos with it once and today I made egg salad. I was surprised at how heavy duty it was. It's a handy little tool for the kitchen, which makes fast work of some jobs. 
On Thursday I wrote a letter and filled out another application for free prescription medicine. 
These items were printed out using the printer we bought at a yard sale this summer for $3.00. Afterwards it was unplugged as there is no sense in having it plugged in, using electricity, when we only use it sparingly. 
My doctor will have to fill out a portion of it, but is the person who let me know about the free program, so I know she will be happy to do this for me. 
My Dad has fixed our driveway using his tractor and it is so much better than it was before. It has no potholes or ditches running through it. We do have heavy rain in the forecast for the weekend, but I'm hoping it will spare our driveway. 
Bailey's no spend January and our no eating out is going well. We have not eaten out any this month and have no plans to in order to save our money. 
We've not spent any money at the grocery store this month either, but have been using the food in our pantry. I've been cooking all meals from home and we've been eating up the leftovers, so no food waste either. 
We had ordered three books from a seller on Amazon for my Mom. They only sent two of the books and I asked the seller who said to give it more time. In the end the book didn't show and the seller gave me a refund this week. 
All of our Christmas decorations have been taken now and placed back into storage. The house seems bare to me now, but we did move some things back into their regular place, which did help some. 
On Friday we went to McKay's Used Books. Mom has been enjoying reading John Grisham books lately, so I looked for her and found several of his books for 5¢ each, which is such a bargain. She was tickled to get them too. 
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

Frugal Friday ~ December 6, 2019

“There is no dignity

quite so impressive,

and no independence

quite so important,

as living within your means.”

 ~ Calvin Coolidge

This week I worked four days and had Tuesday off. I used the day off to clean out a closet and work on Christmas presents such as hand warmers, key chains and felt food. 

Last Friday we spent the day with family before they went back to Florida. They treated us out to lunch at a local restaurant where I ordered my favorite, which is their patty melt. 
This week we snagged a free year of Disney as a reward from Verizon wireless. So far I've been catching up on some of my favorite Christmas movies. 

My daughter found a cat food deal from chewy.com this week. She was able to order four giant bags of cat food for only $18.00 total. Pictured above is our cat Scrappy with the boxes. 

Verizon sent us a $20 Amazon gift card this week for our one year anniversary with them.

I earned a $15 gift card to Amazon from Swagbucks this week. I used it as part of a payment towards a Christmas present. I also clipped a coupon on the Amazon website and received $23 off the product I ordered.

The Joy of Cooking cookbook that I won recently came in the mail this week.

Bojangles sent me a coupon via email for a free cinnamon biscuit for December from their Barnyard Calendar. If you live near a Bojangles and want to sign up for their Barnyard Calendar, click here. 

Each month they will send you that month's calendar to print along with a coupon that is good for the entire month. Best of all, it's free to join.

One day this week I cut up this shirt to reuse the fabric on something else. It's a beautiful fall print fabric. I also saved the ten pearl buttons that came with the shirt. 

I also repaired the hem on a dress for my daughter, replaced a broken snap on one of her cloth pads, and repaired another cloth pad that is simply worn out. She loves it though and is unwilling to part with it, so Mom to the rescue. 

Her and I finished posting two lists of clothing items for sale to both eBay and Mercari. As a result her sales have gone up and she was able to cancel a $50 monthly fee for maintaining the lists. We put our noses to the grindstone to get them done, and  the payoff was worth it in the end. 

We cooked every meal from home this week as usual. All lunches and drinks consumed this week were also brought from home. 

We've had to have the heat on at home several times this week. We keep the heater on 60, so I know when it clicks on that it's pretty cold in the house. Any lower than that and it's too cold for me. 


My Dad has moved back to Tennessee for the winter. The land he is living on right now does not have a driveway and he needs to build one. He asked me if I knew someone who could help him and I mentioned the person who does our garbage for us as he did a lot of yard work for us this year. 
He and my Dad worked out a great bartering deal. Timmy is going to help Dad build the driveway at $15 per hour, but instead of cash Dad is going to have Timmy work towards a truck and 5th wheel camper my Dad was going to sell. 
It's a win-win situation as Dad gets the driveway he needs and Timmy gets a truck and camper that he wants. 
This week I needed to order a clothing item online, and ended up getting free shipping and 50% off my order, which was a $32 savings. 
How was your week?Any frugal wins you'd like to tell us about in the comment section? We would love to hear about them. 

Belinda

~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living from Frugal Workshop.

Yard Sale Saturday

We were up bright and early to yard sale yesterday and we went to a total of 26 yard sales. The first one we went to was a neighborhood yard sale, which I like because you can park and walk around the neighborhood. 
The first place we stopped had some really good prices. They told us they were wanting to get "rid of things" when we first arrived, which is usually a good sign. 
They had boxes of really good books for 25¢ each, both paperback and hardback. We buy a lot of books at yard sales when we find them inexpensively, because we can trade them at Mckay Used Books. And I did buy several books to trade, but kept one for myself. 
I picked up this huge book, Gooseberry Patch Have Yourself a Homemade Christmas for 25¢. It originally retailed for $29.95, but can be found online right now for as low as $4.00. 

That's the problem with the mass producing of books today is that they don't always hold their resale value, so if you wait to get them, you can get them for much less, which actually isn't a problem for frugal people.
The next thing I stumbled upon at another sale was a box of sewing notions. They were priced at 5 for $1.00 and were brand new in the package. 
I've had zippers, bias tape, and ric rak on my shopping list for a few months now, so this was a great find for my sewing center. 
We bought a total of 23 pieces and she charged us $4.50, so 20¢ each, which sure beats the price these would have cost me retail and I had been looking at them at Joann Fabrics. 

Next, my daughter found a Mophie Wireless charging base like this one here for $15 also. We had looked at them at the Verizon store the other day and they are selling for around $50 right now, so this was a good deal. 
And of course both of us bought things we can resell, but I won't bore you with those items. It was 89 degrees while we were out yesterday, so it was a hot one. 
How about you? Were you able to get out and go to any yard sales? I would love to hear about it in the comment section.  Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Earth Day ~ April 22nd ~ Reusable Shopping Bags

Image Credit

Today is Earth Day and the focus this year is to help end plastic pollution. 
Plastic is threatening our planet's survival, from poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our streams and landfills. 
A few weeks ago my Dad was shopping at Lowe's in Chicago, Illinois, and they wanted to charge him 7¢ for a shopping bag and he was flabbergasted. 
The new "checkout bag" tax applies to ALL Chicago retailers, and applies to both paper and plastic bags. Shoppers who do not have their own bags will be charged the 7¢ at the checkout. 
What is a frugal shopper to do? 
Make your own shopping bags! 
In doing so, we can help end the plastic pollution caused by plastic shopping bags and can even save some money when retails like Target pay us to bring our own shopping bags. 

Here is a shopping bag I made on Wednesday using fabric I bought at a yard sale last weekend. 
Here is a link to the pattern for this bag. 
Mean Queen over at Life After Money makes her own shopping bags also and even gives them away free to other shoppers. 
There are multiple videos on YouTube on how to make your own shopping bags as well. 
Here is some fabric that my daughter picked up recently at a yard sale that I'm going to use to make my next shopping bag. 

This is a nice sturdy canvas fabric, which is perfect for a reusable shopping bag. 
Let's do what we can to save our planet and use reusable shopping bags when we shop. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Sewing Project: Sleeping Mask

My daughter likes to sleep with a sleep mask because any light will keep her from sleeping. 
For Christmas I made her a new Harry Potter sleeping mask, and she likes how tight I made the elastic. 
Here is a sleeping mask that I made for her today:

She uses multiple masks during the night as they tend to fall off and she doesn't want to wake herself up looking for them, so she gets a new one off her nightstand. 
She likes mine better than the commercial ones she has, so she asked me to make her some more this week, so that is one thing I'm working on this week on the days I'm not working at school. 
One thing about sewing for yourself at home is that you can custom make things like this to your exact specifications, such as shortening or lengthening the elastic on a sleeping mask. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Yard Sale Saturday 3-31-2018

We had a good day going to yard sales on Saturday. At the beginning of the day we thought it was going to be a poor yard sale day due to the Easter holiday. The first four yard sales we went to we didn't buy anything, but then things started to pick up afterwards. 

We bought a brand new Brother sewing machine for $60.00. The Walmart price on this machine was $188 (Walmart Price) when I checked it yesterday, but they have since dropped the price to $144 to match the Amazon price. 
The backstory on this machine is this...The husband's wife wanted the machine to sew clothing for her daughter, so they bought the machine, but she never did anything with it. You can tell from the photo that all the original tape is still attached along with the styrofoam. Since he paid $200 for this, he wanted $100 for everything. 
He looked the machine up online for my daughter to see and noted that Amazon had it for $144, so he dropped the price to $75. My daughter counter offered him $60 and he accepted it. 
This machine was brand new! It had all of the accessories with it and I've already been sewing on it. It does so many things that my sewing machine does not do. I am thrilled with this!
Other items we picked up included:

One yard of St. Patrick's Day Fabric...50¢

Lamp for Sewing...$2.00. You can see my daughter's reselling bins in the background here. 

A beautiful nautical Lamp for $2.00. It needs a new lamp shade, but that is no problem. They are a dime a dozen at yard sales. 
We almost lost the nautical lamp. Two other people tried to buy it, after I had already picked it up and asked the price, while we were there. One of them was the friend of the lady holding the yard sale. 

Fan...$2.00. We always buy fans at yard sales. It helps us keep our home cooler and helps us to save money on the electric bill. 

Ribbons...$1.00 for my new project. 
And, no pictures of the following two items. 
Curtain with Curtain Rod $1.00
Craft Paper $2.00
We had a great day since we both love going to yard sales so much. 
Did anyone else get to yard sale this week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Multiple Ways to Save Money on Sewing

Learning to sew was one of the best skills I ever learned, and has served me well over the years. 
Here are some tips on how to help you save money on sewing. 
1. Spread the word to family and friends that you are sewing. Remember how Amy Dacyczyn "put the word out" about her daughter wanting earrings and how she ended up with multiple pairs? 
Use that same philosophy for your sewing. Many people these days are decluttering and getting rid of things they no longer need. And many older people, who are no longer sewing, would love to give those items to someone who would love to use them. 
2. Use what you have. People who sew usually have a stash of fabric on hand for projects. Make a dent in your stash and use what you have to save money. 
3. Look for fabric and sewing supplies in all the places you shop regularly. I've seen fabric for sale at yard sales, thrift stores, eBay, Craigslist, and I've even scored free fabric once at a yardsale in the free for taking box, so be sure to check those too. 
Also, while you are busy decluttering, see if what you want to donate can be used to make other things. For example, those long flowing skirts have a lot of material that can be used in other projects. 
4. Upcycle other items for sources of fabric. My regular readers know that I sewed thrifty cloth pads for my daughter last summer using mostly scrub shirts that I upcycled. 
Use clothes you no longer wear, sheets, drapes, table covers, baby blankets, whatever you can think of to save money. 
5. Buy purses and backpacks inexpensively at yard sales and reuse the hardware on your own projects. Remember Amy Dacyczyn saving and reusing the hooks off of overalls? Purses and backpacks are a dime a dozen at yard sales. 
6. Keep all of your scraps and use them. They can be used for interfacing, stuffing, linings, pockets, facings, or even just as rags. I keep a basket of my scraps to reuse for other things. 
7. Look online for free patterns. There are thousands on them all free for the taking. 
8. Shop the sales. If there is something you need to buy, look for a sale and/or a coupon to save money. Joann Fabrics usually has coupons every week to help you save money. If you need to buy a pattern, look for them during their $1.00 pattern sale. 
9. Use your library to borrow pattern books for free as another way to save money on patterns. 
10. Save your patterns to use later. I think this one goes without saying. I always save my patterns that I know I will use again and again. 
11. Use programs like Ibotta , Ebates and Receipt Hog to earn money on products you do buy for sewing. 
12.  Save money by doing your own alterations. If you don't know how to do that, there are plenty of tutorials online and on YouTube to learn how to sew hems, make a dart, or any other alteration you need. 
13. Barter your services. Do you need something of value that someone else has and do you have something of value that they need or want? Use your sewing skills to get what you need without having to pay for the item. 
14. Shop at Wawak for supplies. Seriously, they have the best prices on sewing supplies that I've seen than any other company. 

15. If you need to buy fabric shop at places like Joann Fabrics, which frequently has terrific sales and coupons to match.  I like to use their 50% off coupon and buy one thing I need.

16. As always, be sure to check in the remnant bin for any fabric you might need. Wal-Mart even has a remnant bin these days.

What good tips do you have on sewing these days?

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 ~