Frugal Friday...Free Evergreen Trimmings For Decorating

If you live in an area where there are not a lot of Evergreens, or even if there are but you don't feel like trimming them for decorations I stumbled upon a great find for these trimmings. We bought our live tree at Home Depot the other day and they will trim the trunk of your tree for you. There was a large pile of Noble Fir and other types of Evergreen tree trimmings where the man was trimming our tree. I asked if I could have them and he said sure! So I piled up a cart full of greenery to take home to decorate my mantelpiece and make a large wreath all for FREE! I imagine any place that trims live trees for their customers will have extra laying around. So if you'd like the smell of Christmas scattered throughout your house or just want to make a wreath for your door, check out Home Depot and places like it for some free trimmings.
I'll be posting more of our frugal Pioneer Christmas Projects later so come back and check them out!

For more frugal tips head over to Biblical Womanhood!

Frugal Friday...Bandanna Apron

Soph modeling her bandanna apron as she was about to run out the door for school!

Like I mentioned last week we are having a "Pioneer" Christmas this year, so to continue my frugal gift making ideas I want to share this apron with you. Soph went to a Brownie activity a few weeks ago and the girls made aprons out of bandannas. They all turned out really cute and they were easy to put together. This would make a cute gift for children, but also the adults were wearing them. It may not cover as much area, but it still looked sweet on the grown-ups!

The cost of this gift is just a few dollars. All you need is a bandanna ( I saw several cute Christmas ones at WalMart the other day), buttons, ribbon and fabric scraps.

The only sewing that needs to be done on the machine is to fold back the corner on one side a couple of inches. You could even do this by hand if you wanted to.

Next we tacked on ( a couple of holding stitches) either ribbon or some lengths of fabric for the neck ties and waist ties. We then sewed buttons on each tie to help hold it in place an for a little decoration.

The girls each decorated their aprons however they liked. We glued on ric rac or you could sew it. Soph used a fabric pen to write I love .... all down the front of her apron. Some girls traced their hands or glued fabric flowers around their apron. I got tickled watching the girls come up with their own designs.

This was a fun, easy project that fits right in with our Pioneer Christmas theme! Next Friday I'll share another fun, easy project that involves using old socks and dying:)

Frugal Friday...Pioneer Christmas Decorations

On Wednesday I told you all how this Christmas we were sort of going with a theme, a Pioneer theme that is. My girls are having a wonderful time learning about what the pioneers did for the Christmas holidays. One of the really neat things is that the pioneers used what they had and made things from scratch, which is a great lesson in frugality! I plan on sharing many of our projects up until Christmas, because a lot of these are just easy, non-expensive ways to celebrate the holidays, plus a lot of fun.

Our first project were these tin can lanterns:

We've been saving soup cans, vegetable cans, tea canisters anything that is metal. Em takes off the label, rinses them out, and then fills them with water. We put them in the freezer to harden.

This is my outdoor freezer, please excuse the dirt. I believe the girls were stockpiling some mudpies in here!

Anyways, after the water is good and frozen you can make your designs. You might want to lay can on a towel to help keep the can still. Using a pin, make little dots on can in whatever pattern you like.

Now you take a nail and hammer gently through each dot. The frozen water inside helps the can to hold its shape during this process. You can use different size nails to make things even more interesting if you like.

To finish drain ice from cans and place a tea light inside. We're going to line our walkways with these so we'll add some sand to the bottom to keep from blowing away!

I just love the pretty patterns they cast. This has been so easy and didn't cost us much. Weren't those pioneers smart?!!!

For more frugal tips head over to Biblical Womanhood.

Frugal Friday - Kids and the value of money

I know there are many, many ways to help teach our children the value of money. Recently our 1st grader has been studying coins and our 3rd grader is learning about making change, etc. This all helps when they look at the change in your purse and realize just how much money you have to spend on something! But WB and I sort of both came up with the idea that we could give them a certain amount of money and take them to the store to buy something. A couple of ideas are:

1: Write down the price of their favorite meals when we go out to eat add it together and then give them that amount of money to go to the store with. Help them plan a home meal and then search for the ingredients, they have to pay with their money. Quickly they realize that with the money we spend on their two out to eat meals we could feed the entire family spaghetti, salad, and some bread. Wow!!! It's fun to watch their eyes pop:)

2: Those packaged sweets they always beg me to get at the grocery I rarely give in to because of nutrition as well as cost. But every once in awhile I say yes. Give them a few dollars and see how much prepackaged sweets they could buy as opposed to making something from scratch...like a cake mix for cupcakes. They will quickly see they could get more for their dollar by making it themselves. Not to mention it won't have all the preservatives etc.

I know there are tons more examples along these lines, but so far these have made an impact on my older girls. It's important that they understand that being frugal is not a terrible thing, just a smart choice:)

Since Biblical Womanhood is still on a blogging break you can head over to my mother-in-law Pat's blog to see another frugal Friday tip:)

Frugal Friday- Getting the Most out of 2 for 1 Sales

Today we ventured forth to buy some school clothes for the girls. I was armed with some coupons and a strict budget. We've recently started shopping at a certain department store that always seems to have buy one get one for a dollar. Last year the girls went crazy at this store buying 7 dollar tops, 15 dollar shirts etc. But as I sat and the dressing room and added up how much it would all cost it dawned on me. All the most expensive items are going to ring up full price and the cheaper items will end up being the dollar items. This would not do, so I decided that I would bunch the more expensive items together in one transaction and the cheaper ones in another. At the check-out I simply explained that I wanted to ring up the two groups separately. If you're worried about holding up the line just go to an out of the way, not busy register. Today I actually rang up three separate transactions and instead of paying 72.97, I paid 57.98 that's 15.00, which would buy my kiddos two more tops. I do the same thing with buy one get one for half price as well.
And I always leave the store feeling like I'm actually putting those math skills to use, the ones that almost kept me from graduating from high school!
That's my frugal tip for this Friday, head over to Biblical Womanhood for more great tips!

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Saving Pennies

We love to find pennies. My girls can spot them in the parking lot at ten paces. "Look Mom, I found a penny", they shout out gleefully and then usually follow it up with a little dance. Isn't it great that small children can appreciate the value of even a penny!

I hate to admit this, but before I was frugal when I would come across pennies in my drawers I would throw them away. Or instead of lean over and pick up the penny on my floor I would let my vacuum suck it up! I know, I know how could I. To give myself some credit if it was a nickel or a quarter I absolutely would keep it. Anyway, don't you worry I have changed my ways. We now understand the value of mere pennies in this household.

We have a glass milk jar and we have deemed it our loose change bank. Anytime we find loose change we drop it in our jar. The girls love to scour the car and sofa cushions for treasures. And yes, all those pennies people carelessly drop out of their pockets in parking lots, sidewalks and such are true finds for my little ones.

Now when we want a special treat, like going for a coke or ice cream, we go get our "milk money" and count out our pennies (and the odd nickels, dimes, and quarters that find their way in). I heard of a man who saved his loose change for twenty years and was able to use it to take his wife to Hawaii for a second honeymoon!

So my tip is to save your change, who knows where it might take you:)

For more frugal tips head over to BiblicalWomanhood.com.

Frugal Friday

I'm not extremely frugal by nature so I take all the help I can get. My mother-in-law sent me a link to this site that has lots of good ideas. One I have tried is shopping in my own kitchen cabinet and freezer. I have enough food to make dinner for at least a week, even though I thought at first glance I needed to go to the grocery. She has lots of neat tips on shopping at home first, before you go spend money needlessly. Just wanted to pass along this find.

Happy Frugal Friday and for more tips check out BiblicalWomanhood.com.

Eating Out

Eating out is a treat, it can also be expensive! But we all need to let someone else do the cooking every once in awhile so here are some things my family does to make eating out more affordable.

- Coupons...of course this is a great way to save dollars. Don't forget to check out the coupons in the back of the phone book!

-Find out which restaurants have Kids Eat Free. Lots of restaurants offer this on certain days of the week. I went to a sit down Mexican food place with my two girls and the three of us ate for 8.00 including tip! Plus, we had left-overs:)

-Think of sharing an entree with your hubby. We love to go to the Olive Garden- all-you-can- eat salad, bread sticks and then we share an entree.

-A good way to watch your weight is to eat only half your entree and take the rest home for another meal--two meals out of one!

-Drink water. It's amazing to me that they can charge up to 2.00 in places for iced tea!

-If you like Chinese food try the Lo Mien noodles. It is cheap and those noodles seem to multiply. One entree has feed my family.

-Try carry out. This way no tip and no drinks to pay for plus you can make a salad or something to help stretch the meal.

-Ask friends where they like to eat that is cheap. We found a little Italian restaurant this way. The woman who owns the place is Italian and the food is amazing. For the four of us we get two salads to split, hubby and I share a gourmet pizza, and each kiddo gets a meal with drinks for under 20.00. You can spend that much at the Whataburger drive-through!!! We also found a quaint French Bakery. Loaves of bread are 1.40, pastries under 2.00 and you can get croissant sandwiches for 2.40 and that includes tax:)


For more frugal tips head over to BiblicalWomanhood.com

Saving Money On Produce and Veggies

Okay, so many of you already do this, but for those of you that don't here's my tip for Frugal Friday.

When buying fresh produce only buy what is in season. It will be cheaper and taste better. Even though we can buy strawberries year round their in season for most of the country is during late spring and early summer.

Don't shy away from buying in large quantities, it can be cheaper this way at wholesale clubs. Just take home and freeze what you are not going to use. Right now my garden is overflowing with tomatoes and I don't have the time to make and can my sauces so I simply put whole tomatoes on a cookie sheet and freeze. When they are frozen I stick in a baggie and throw back in freezer. All you have to do is run under water and the skin will rub right off when your ready to use. Peaches work this way as well!

If you have a farmer's market check them out. This is a great way to get organics at a cheaper price and support your local farmers.

For more great frugal tips head over to

Energy Saving Tips

Here's a few things we do around here to help save on our energy costs:

-switched out our light bulbs to the energy smart kind (13 watts of this bulb = 60 watts of incandescent bulbs)

-unplug all chargers etc. when not in use - they pull energy just by being plugged in

- turn your air up or down (depending on season) when you leave the house

And here are some great tips from my Hubby about fireplaces:

Fireplace Tips
-If you never use your fireplace, plug and seal the chimney flue.
-Keep your fireplace damper closed unless a fire is going. Keeping the damper open is like keeping a window wide open during the winter; it allows warm air to go right up the chimney.
-When you use the fireplace, reduce heat loss by opening dampers in the bottom of the firebox (if provided) or open the nearest window slightly—approximately 1 inch—and close doors leading into the room. Lower the thermostat setting to between 50° and 55°F.
-Install tempered glass doors and a heat-air exchange system that blows warmed air back into the room.
-Check the seal on the flue damper and make it as snug as possible.
-Add caulking around the fireplace hearth.
-Use grates made of C-shaped metal tubes to draw cool room air into the fireplace and circulate warm air back into the room.

You can find other energy saving tips here.

Check out Biblical Womanhood for more frugal tips!

Beans for a week!

Being a fan of Dave Ramsey's we took his plan of living on beans to save money to heart. A couple of years ago we were struggling with a lot of debt and after listening to Dave we decided it was time to make a change. He's not joking when he says you might have to live on beans, we did and it worked!

Dried beans in the bags at the grocery are very cheap so we would load up on bags of beans and take them home to soak overnight. If you drain the water several times it helps with the...uhh..effects beans can have on your body. My hubby makes a killer chili powder from scratch and put those in the beans while cooking. If you're in a pinch you can use your pressure cooker to get the beans ready faster. Even my girls love a bowl of beans with a slice of cornbread. After the first night you can get creative with your leftover beans. We'd throw some cut up ham in for one meal, use them for quesadillas another meal, add rice, make a soup etc. The sky's the limit with beans. Even when we're not in a financial crunch it has become a tradition to have bean week at least once a month!