Archive for the Category ◊ Money Saving Tips ◊

30 Apr 2009 Simple, Inexpensive and Fun….
Author: admin |  Category: Day to Day Family, Money Saving Tips, Stay at home moms  | Tags: , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

My daughter loves to play with “Play-doh” and  I have been waiting for the “Play-doh” from the store to run it’s course.  Finally it has happened, she had been mixing up all the colors and they had all dried out so the other day we decided to try and make our own Playdough.  This is something so easy, the kids can get involved and you probably have every ingredient in your house!  I won’t ever buy “Play-doh” again (it seems to dry out much faster than this!)

Here is the recipe we used:

Playdough Recipe

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons oil

2 cups water

food coloring (or Kool-aid)

Combine first 4 ingredients, add very hot, boiling water and you color and mix until desired consistency is reached.  (It is very goopy to begin with and as it cools it sets up.)

We have had a lot of fun, it has a great texture and feels like I am getting something for FREE as I had all the ingredients.  She picked green as the color for this batch and when it wears out or dries out we will make another color.  I think next we are going to try and make Flubber!!!!!

Enjoy!

Grace

26 Jan 2009 Family Grocery Shopping – Changing up the schedule
Author: admin |  Category: Money Saving Tips  | Tags: , , , ,  | 3 Comments

Everyone agrees that our economy is in a sad state right?  Well, my hubby is always asking……how can we save money and reduce our debt?  We try and review this several times a year and I am so thankful he is a lot like my dad in that we don’t buy it if we don’t have the money!  It has helped us immensely to reduce our debt as a family.

I want to share a change we recently made as a family to save money…..We all have to grocery shop right?  We have always done this as a family.  It isn’t always a stress free experience for me because my darling husband pays for the shopping and tries very hard to keep us within his budget.  We all know how challenging this can be.  I remember when our daughter was born and we had to buy diapers and wipes and all the little extras that babies need…..I thought he was going to go over the edge!  He wanted the budget to stay the same even though we had a new person to feed and take care of.  In the blur of it all I think we actually did it, although I don’t know how!!

The latest challenge was when the gas prices skyrocketed causing the price of groceries to go up, up, up.  We were at that time shopping weekly.  I suggested to my husband that perhaps we start shopping every two weeks and see if it doesn’t save us a bit of money.  Like most we tended to buy a lot of the same things  sometimes when we didn’t really need them ( I am not the best at checking the cupboards before making my list :) ), just out of habit causing our bill each week to be over $100.00.  My thought was if we shopped every two weeks and tried to keep it around $200.00 then we would be ahead and if it was less that more the better! More money to play with!

We started doing this and we really have saved money and have been able to keep a “pantry” of staples as well.  We occaisionally run out of milk or fruit and have to stop in between for those items but overall we are ahead of the game.  We always shop from a list, we have a basic list on our computer and we go through it and mark what we need for that shopping trip adding additional items as we have need and since we save it each time I can see what we purchased previously and know from that whether we need it again or not.

Shopping from a list is important too! It may seem a bit rigid and basic but it really prevents shopping on a whim which can cost you a lot when you get to the checkout!  I think we all want to provide nice meals for our families but also have enough money left over to do fun things with our families as well…..like go out to eat! Which is one of my favorite things to do!

Our new schedule has made our shopping less stressful for all of us, we have a blast doing it as a family and we don’t have to go to the grocery store every week!!!  It’s all good!

Question:  What kinds of things do you do to save money at the grocery store?  I would love to hear your ideas….

Happy Shopping!!!

Grace

25 Jan 2009 Sunday mornings…..trying to get out the door!
Author: admin |  Category: Day to Day Family, Money Saving Tips  | Tags: , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

I don’t know if your family is like mine but it always seems harder to get it together on a Sunday morning and get out the door on time!

This morning was no different, we needed to be at church early to set up and work the coffee bar and make all the free coffee etc.  My son likes to help so it is usually, my hubby, my son and myself.  Well, our youngest got up and climbed into bed with me before the alarm and I thought…..Whoa, way to early to be up as it was nice and dark in the bedroom.

She informed me it was morning time and she was headed downstairs to play and watch “TVT”.   I closed my eyes for just a moment …..when the alarm went, it was  7:15 !  I drug myself out of bed about 5 minutes later.

Our youngest daughter has decided that she likes dressing herself which is really a great help so this morning I got her some clothes and asked her to get dressed because we had to go to Sunday School this morning.  I left the room to continue getting myself ready and didn’t think much more about it.

Finally ready, we headed out to the car and I got her in her carseat and she said “Careful mommy my pants are falling down.”  I looked down and noticed that she had them on backward!  Thinking that was just too funny but that she can’t possibly go to church like that I said to my husband, ” can you please turn her trousers around before you take her to class…..??”

After church and finishing in the coffee bar my hubby went to pick up our daughter and we all headed for home.  I got in the house and looked down at my wonderful little girl and noticed she STILL HAD HER TROUSERS ON BACKWARD!!!

I looked at my husband and said, “Why didn’t you fix her trousers?”  “Oh”, he said, “I guess I didn’t hear you…….”

Selective Listening at it’s finest!!!!! sigh….

Smiles!

Grace

18 Jan 2009 Finding the deal……hitting the thrift shops
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So, we’ve been out of town this weekend and one of our favorite places to shop is a Goodwill in a very posh area.  They told us the first time we were there they once got a donation of Versace trouser’s with a $1700.00 price tag still on them…..she thinks they put them on Ebay.

We went the first time because my hubby has to dress for work in shirt and tie etc and he had said, let’s go to Nordstrom’s and price a couple new suits and some shirts and ties.  Just checking it out the price tag came to about $2000.00…..which was way to much for our pocket-book.  A co-worker told him about this Goodwill so off we went……we hit the jackpot, 3 hours later we had Nordstrom dress shirts, Nordstrom Silk ties, fancy dress shoes……hardly worn and he was all kitted out for work.

Today was no different, we set off and our little one said she wanted a cupcake baking set…..and I was thinking…..hmmmm I hope she won’t be too disappointed because the chances of that……  So, she was shopping with my daddy and they got to the toy area…..and he was explaining that there just wasn’t one here and she said….Daddy, it’s just right over there….and I’ll be danged if there wasn’t a cupcake baking toy still in the box!  God is so good!

Here is a review my hubby found about the store we go to:

From http://www.yelp.com/biz/goodwill-bellevue

Yes, I’m giving a “thrift” store a 5 star rating…. Believe me when I say I have been to quite a lot of thrift stores in my time, a curse my Mother has burdened me with, I just can’t pass up a good deal!

If you haven’t been to a Goodwill before, you’ll find the more “valuable” items locked up in a glass counter and manned by armed guards….I’m just kidding on the “armed” part, but some of those employees behind the counter, I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, if you know what I’m say’n….

Here the “good” stuff reminds one that we live in a rather rich Country, from this looks of the Gucci, Prada and Dooney and Burke bags, someone must have just changed out LAST year’s look.  They even had Salvatore Ferragamo shoes that were out 2 Summers ago!  OMG!!

One of the cleaner Goodwill locations I have been to, and the quality of stuff will amaze…

This has become a family event for us and we just have a blast, the first time we went looking for the dress clothes for my hubby our little one rode around on a Radio Flyer tricycle the entire time we were browsing around…..of course we had to buy it for her.

So, you can save money and have a great time as a family which is good on so many levels it must be repeated!!

Question: Do you have any fun things you do to save money as a family?

Smiles!!!!

Grace