Frugal Friday ~ 5-18- 2018

My Dad came for a visit last week and we were able to spend time with him on Friday & Saturday. 
We went to the Provident thrift store with Dad and they were giving away green peppers. This is the same place where we got the free power greens in March. 

Each family was limited to two bags. When I got home we had twelve green peppers. So, I washed them and cut them up and made six bags with them. They are now safely tucked into my freezer to use as needed. 

Swagbucks had a special Mother's Day Collector's Bill for Mother's Day and I won my search and earned 13 Swagbucks. 

Swagbucks

I was able to get two free 8x10 prints at Walgreens this week thanks to Hunt4Freebies. I was also able to get a free 8x10 from Snapfish this week too. 
My daughter sold our old printer on Ebay and made about $2.50 on it. Normally we would have just tossed this, but I think it's better to have sold it for a small amount than toss it. 
I forgot to mention this in my yard sale Saturday post, but we came across a free yard sale last week. We picked up several articles of clothing for free from a free church yard sale. My daughter offered to make a donation, but they wouldn't accept it. 
This week I was able to work three days and could have worked all five days, but didn't since we are in Chattanooga and pet sitting for the week. 
We are going to yard sales today and Saturday this week. How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Consumerism & Second Hand Market

One of my goals every year is to avoid consumerism as much as possible. Consumerism, to me, is shopping for entertainment, going out and buying things that we don't need, or buying things we cannot afford on our budget.

Consumption should be based on satisfying basic human needs such as shelter, food, clothing, and healthcare. Of course, consumerism encompasses different things to different people. Your version of consumerism may be different than mine and that is alright.

Many people believe they work to make ends meet, but upon closer examination of their households reveal they spend part of their income on unnecessary items or even name brand items when they cannot afford them.

My goal is limiting consumerism as much as possible. For example, shoes with name brand labels are not needed in order to take a hike. Board game pieces made from marble don't make the game any more enjoyable than a game played with plastic pieces. 

Around here the Yeti tumblers have been the go to item in recent years, and the price of those is quite high. We don't have Yeti tumblers here, but we each have a tumbler equivalent to the Yeti. And we bought them in the second-hand market for $1.00 each.

In our household we use things up and use things until they no longer useful. Such as a favorite bowl that develops a crack in the side. I will use it until it is no longer useful.

I used to have a non-smart phone that I had for years. There was no reason for me to replace it because it worked great. Some students at school would actually talk to me about how obsolete it was, but in reality, the phone was in perfect working condition and would stay charged for days.

When my daughter finally talked me into using her old smartphone you would have thought I won the lottery by the student’s reactions at school. Even today I will get a comment about getting a "new" phone even though it's not a new phone.

We shopped the second-hand market when my daughter bought it and she used it for a couple of years before she passed it on to me.

We shop the second-hand market for things we need and in doing so are not purchasing items made with new materials for the things we need. This practice not only helps us to save money, but is also good for the environment because we are not using new virgin materials to have something made for us. 

The second hand market is wonderful for trying to live this type of lifestyle. We love to shop at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift shops for the things we need first. And we even like to dicker with the sellers. 

These days I strive to be less of a consumer. If, as the experts say, we have to spend money to keep the economy flowing they can count our household out of that equation. It may not be for everyone and that is OK, but I am content with my life. 

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Week of March 12, 2018

I worked two days this week and brought lunch & drinks both days. 
My daughter is doing so well with her reselling that she has asked me to join her. So, on Saturday I started helping her because business has been doing so well. 
On Ebay I listed several more items for sale over the weekend. One of them sold on Thursday for $19.99. 
We were able to get in on an Angel Soft toilet paper deal at Dollar General this week. We used a $5 off $25 deal, plus a $5 off $15 Angel Soft deal, and $1.00 off coupons for each package.  We bought 5 packages of 12 rolls each and paid 91¢ for each 12 pack, which was a 92% savings.
I downloaded several free health videos and sewing tutorials to my computer to watch at a later time. 
On Thursday I had the day off, so we took the opportunity to drop off my daughter's car at her uncle's auto shop to get the oil changed. He also rotated her tires for her and only charged her $20 for supplies. 
While we were waiting on her car we went to the thrift store and picked out several items to resell. 
On Friday night I made a large taco salad for dinner on Friday and Saturday. I like making enough of one dish to have for the next day too. 
How was your frugal week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Free Items @ Provident Thrift Store

My daughter had an errand to run yesterday and one of the ways we save money here is to combine errands, which we did yesterday. 
One of the places we went to was one of our favorite thrift stores. I'm so glad we went because they were giving away produce inside and outside the store. 
There was a limit per family of two items inside the store, but you could take all you wanted of what was outside the store. 
Inside the store they had boxes and boxes of these Power Greens, so we took two boxes of those.  

Most of what was on the outside of the store was already picked over, but I did manage to get a few things like these cucumbers, tomatoes, and a few strawberries. 

Needless to say, I was very grateful for the free produce.  
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Week of March 5, 2018

This week I was able to work three days and brought my lunch and drinks from home all three days. 
My daughter trimmed the bushes that line our driveway near our new steps. It's amazing how much better it looks and how much light is there now. I would have had to pay someone to do this for me, but she did it for free. 
We had multiple loads of laundry to work on this week since we were pet sitting last weekend, most everything was covered in dog hair. I'm happy to report that all the laundry is finished, folded, and put back where it belongs. 
We went to a couple of thrift stores while we were in Chattanooga and I found a really thick, new to me, thermal blanket. I've been wanting one of these for a while, my price out the door was $6.99.
We filled up our rewards card at this local thrift store, so the next time we shop there we will be getting $25 worth of items for free. Even some of our local Goodwill stores have a rewards program. It always pays to ask if they have one where you shop. 
I earned another $5 Amazon gift card from Microsoft Rewards this week. If I spend just a few minutes each day on this I can earn this reward once about every three weeks. 

We have flowers blooming here right now from the recent warm weather. These are the grape hyacinths that I planted in 1986 right after we moved here. They come up every year during this time. 

We also have daffodils ready to bloom and our Bradford Pear trees are in full bloom as well. Our daffodils bloom later than anyone else's daffodils since these are in the shade. 

We had both of our male kittens neutered last week. We took them to Dixie Day Spay, which is a low cost spay/neuter clinic and a PetSmart charity. 

They charge $40 for spay or neutering, which is a great savings compared to the vet's office. 
On Thursday we were invited to a birthday dinner at a local restaurant. Dinner was free to us paid for by the birthday host. 
I ordered an item from Amazon in January that never came. I emailed the seller several times with no resolution. I finally let Amazon know and they refunded my order this week for the $23 purchase. 
We went to PetSmart last week, which is right next to our Aldi, and found a shopping cart that had not been returned. We returned it and earned a quarter (25¢) in the process. 
I listened to Pandora radio for free while I was at school one day this week. 
We attended a class last week while we were in Chattanooga and received a 20% off coupon for a future purchase. 
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

My Frugal Weekend

I made $11.95 on an item I sold on Ebay this weekend. This was for an item I paid $10 for to use myself, but it ended up not working, so I was able to recoup my money for the item, which is good. 

We went thrift shopping on Saturday. I found a bag full of gift bags for 99¢. There were 10 gift bags in the lot, so they ended up being 10¢ each. 
Even with thrift stores you really have to watch the prices. I found these gift bags at the Salvation Army thrift store. The ones at the Provident thrift store were priced starting at 99¢ each, so it really pays to check prices even with thrift stores. 

I also found a Charles Panter Griscer Deluxe food grinder for $9.95. I love that this is non-electric. I have fond memories of a lady that I knew years ago who would make carrot salad with one of these. 

I also found a Roseville Robinson Ransbottom crock for $1.99. These are so beautiful to me and I find them very useful to store things. I have one on my desk that holds pens and scissors. 
One of the items I was looking for was flannel, but I didn't find any in the price range I was willing to pay, so I will keep looking for that item. 
My Mom requested flannel pajama bottoms for Christmas, so I am looking for a deal on them. In the meantime I found a pattern for them for 10¢ at the thrift store, so I picked that up. If I find flannel at a good price before Christmas, I will make her some. Otherwise, I am still looking for a good deal on them. 
We are staying home today as my daughter has school work and I have several things I want to do at home. I hope you are having a great 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 ~

Fourth Frugal Week of June 2017

Last Friday I made arrangements with someone on Craigslist for a free chair. We both agreed to the day and time, but when I went to the home no one answered either door and they ignored my text as well. Sometimes our good deals do not always come through. 
Lucky for us though we were able to pick one up while we were going to yard sales on Saturday, so we were happy with that. 
Last Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we stayed home, so no wear and tear on the car, no gas used, and no money spent. 
On Monday, dd went to her Zumba class while I did a quick run to Food City. I found bananas on markdown as well as taco sauce and water chestnuts. I also bought more 15 bean dry soup beans and tortillas. 
The only other groceries we bought this week came from Aldi, which included two watermelons and ten packages of sweet corn on the cob. Both were on sale and a great price. 
We packed a lunch to take with us on Monday and brought water to drink in reusable water bottles. 
We also went to McKay Used Books on Monday.  I found a good book about sewing. 
We also went to the thrift store. I found a couple of shirts to reuse the material. And an electric can opener. I found a brand new Saltbox Illustrations notepad, still in the wrapper for 55¢. That will be going into my gift closet for Christmas.
I made four more cloth pads for my daughter this week. I've made her a total of seventeen pads now. 
Friday we went to multiple yard sales including some in Chattanooga. We found several things that we were needing such as a new rug for the bathroom ($1.50), a new shelf for our board games ($2.00),  a pencil box filled with new embroidery thread ($1.00), heated drying rack ($5 goes for $47 @ Amazon).
Ironing board ($1.00), two Dr. McDougall books ($1.00 each), several board games (50¢ each), several items of clothes (4 pieces for 50¢ and the lady even gave dd a very nice coat), and multiple other things I cannot recall right now. We checked off several things on our "things we need list", which is always a good thing.
How was your week? Hopefully it was a frugal one. :)
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

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 ~

Saturday Errands

Saturday was a busy day here this weekend. We started the day with a home cooked breakfast. 

Scrambled eggs with cheese, fried potatoes, ham, and buttered toast. 
Afterwards we went to town to run errands and stopped at a couple of yard sales. 

I found these containers for 5¢ each. I couldn't believe she had the Tupperware marinating container included, but she did. I looked and the item sells for $22.00 on the Tupperware site and $12.00 on Etsy. What a bargain! So, 25¢ for all five containers. I couldn't help but pick these up as they are useful for many things. 

Afterwards we went to our local Goodwill store, since March 5th is the first Saturday of the month and everything is 50% off the first Saturday of the month. 

We picked up four blankets for our cats. One of them was $2.50, but the others were $1.00 as was the Better Homes and Gardens gold towel. 

I like to buy the blankets for our cats at yard sales and thrift stores and let the cats use them until they need replacing and then just toss them because I do not want to clean them in my washer & dryer. So, buying them at yard sales and thrift stores makes them more affordable. 

   

We found these baskets in a free bin on Friday and I knew the cats would love them, so we picked them up and put the blankets in there yesterday. 

Big Kitty, on Friday night, didn't even want to wait for a blanket for his basket. He is a funny cat and loves to have new items to sleep on. If I have a towel drying on the banister and it falls to the ground, he is on top of it almost instantly. :)  

Other items we found include these organizers and two shirts. The Made Smart Junk Drawer Organizer is brand new and retails for $12.00 at Ace Hardware. I picked it up for $1.50.

We stopped in at Fresh & Low and Cooke's Hometown Grocer to pick up a few sale items. 
I went to Cooke's for their sale on Kraft cheddar cheese. They have this sale about every three months where you buy eight of a certain product and they take off $8.00 of your order. I picked up eight of the eight ounce blocks of cheese and ended up paying $1.49 each. 
Next stop was Fresh & Low, which is actually owned by Cooke's, and picked up some dried beans, sugar, bread, macaroni and cheese, and canned chili. 

The two pound bags of mixed beans were $2.01 each while the cranberry beans, a favorite of mine, were one pound bags for $1.36 each. These will make very frugal dinners of beans & cornbread served with a green vegetable. And beans are a great item to keep my blood sugar lower.  

I also picked up two boxes of the Best Choice Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese dinners. I picked one up about a month ago to try it and we liked them, so I decided to pick up two more boxes. 

These will make a good dinner on a night when I am too tired to cook after working all day. A can of chili stirred into the Mac & Cheese after it is cooked makes for a great addition. 

The Mac & Cheese was on sale for $1.25 and the chili for $1.19, which makes it a very frugal dinner. Of course I will add a vegetable when the times comes. 

We also went to McKay's Used books where I traded some books and received $5.76 in trade credit and bought two movies. One was The Long Walk Home for $1.95 and the other was volume 30 of The Heartland Series with Bill Landry for $6.95. 

How was your Saturday?

Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~
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