Living frugally; saving money...help!

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Syele said:
For school supplies, if you go often, you can watch for the name brands, they do show up occasionally. When they do, grab them up. I have Gotten Crayola brand markers and crayons, mechanical pencils and the good wooden pencils - but you get fewer to a pack than the off brands. Stay away from the Rose Art Crayons too.
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Have to comment here- I love Rose Art crayons! I like their markers, and their version of “Sharpies”. The kids and I use them all the time with no ill-effects. (What I really like are pressed crayons, which are like giant colored pencil leads that color more effctively. They are hard to find, and almost never on sale.) We use them in our school, too. They were 10 cents for a pack of 24 at Wal-Mart last summer, and we stocked up.

If the OP is not adverse to Wal-Mart, once a year, starting in July, Wal-Mart puts what’s known in the trade as “loss leaders” on sale, three or four a week until school starts. They are supposed to get a body in the store to buy other things, but if one develops the discipline to only go in for the loss-leaders, then this is a good savings. Usually, there is no limit on the number in this particular Wal-Mart sale. One week might be crayons from 10 cents to 25 cents, depending on how many are in the pack, notebook paper, and kid markers. The next week, it’s a variety of glue, construction paper, and pencils.

In fact, loss leaders are great in any store, provided they are really sales, and not imitiation sales. Example: Jacking the price up on a gallon of milk from $2.99 to $5.98, and then saying it’s “Buy One, Get One Free (BOGOF)”. A person’s better off headed to the store that has milk per gallon at a cheaper price.
 
Oh yes, I am going to try putting generic bubble bath into the branded bottle. Get this. They are exactly the same, probably made in the same place, but hubby will not touch the identical and much cheaper generic brand. Well we’ll see.(evil laugh haaaaaaaa!).
 
johnnycatholic said:
Hanging laundry to dry is also good on energy. I keep my lines inside so i can do this rain or shine. It takes longer, though, so you may need the dryer for backup.
Thrift stores, too, for clothing. You can find quality. And get tubs to store clothes for your kids so that when the younger ones get big enough for them, they are organized and easy to pass down…
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I have clotheslines in my basement as well as my backyard (one of the perks of living in the midwest). I don’t like to machine-dry towels, synthetics, sheets, some jeans, some blankets and quilts, or silks (the thrift stores have some amazing bargains, and the right ones have some expensive fabrics dirt cheap). When my younger granddaughter was a baby, we line-dried her cloth diapers during the summer.

I do dry uniform jumpers and blouses for the girls, and snatch them out of the dryer just as the buzzer goes off. These save time on ironing.

Our school offers used uniforms once a year. Families place clean and pressed unfirom items on hangers, with an envelope for the price they hope to get. Other parents bring their kids and cash, should they wish to purchase the uniforms. The office returns the cash envelope to the family. At the end of the year, the uniforms are placed in tubs, and hauled out again right before school starts.
 
Just a caution about line drying outside if anyone in your family has allergies - the pollen blowing around will settle in the clothing and cause their allergies to flare up. I found this out the hard way with my allergy-prone kids.
 
1ke said:
One thing I’ve cut out completely is store-bought cleaning products. They are SO expensive. Instead I bought spray bottles that I fill and staples that include vinegar, plain bleach, borax, and ammonia. With these, I can clean my whole house for pennies.

You can Google terms such as “homemade cleaners” “natural house cleaners” etc and get recipes for the cleaners.
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Hats off to you. We have every cleaning product ever made and it just burns me!!!
 
Big Dido on the tithe. It is a wonderful discipline that brings graces. Enough said.

Also, read Dave Ramsey’s book Complete Financial Makeover. Big takeaways: DEBT is the enemy, save and pay cash for everything. Read it! It’s fantastic and will put you in control of your finances.

Cloth Diapers is a big one for us. We bought all our cloth diapering material for our three children under three for less than $300. If anyone can last three years with three children on disposables for under $300 I’d sure like to know. The cost savings on this alone is amazing. Check out www.babyworks.com.

Dido on hanging clothes - in fact, the little hanging racks for indoors work great as well (during the winter we use roughly 5 racks per load, cloths dry in about 24 hours). This easily saved us $20/mo. if not more. Dryers use so much energy!

Invest in flourescent bulbs. Make sure to get good ones with red in the spectrum so they shine like “regular” lightbulbs (some flourescent lightbulbs have only white in the spectrum) - these bulbs, while costing a bit upfront (you should be able to suit your whole house up with roughly $100, $150 max) save a bundle on the electric bill (i.e. a flourescent 60 watt equivilant bulb uses only 14 watts of energy). We saw instant savings on our electric bill of $8-$12 /mo, so they pay for themselves in a fairly short time. Also, they always come with atleast a 5 if not 7 year warranty, so they are gauranteed to last a long time (keep your reciept!)

Toss the TV. While there are so many reasons to do this other than saving money (TV is by and large garbage. Archbishop Sheen called it the “Tabernacle of Satan,” I humbly agree) you can save a bundle just by the absense of large electronic items like the TV and large entertainment stereos, etc. Use your computer sparingly and shut it off when not in use. These high-end electronic devices can add a surprising amount to your bill and curtailing their use (and in the case of the TV, eliminating it’s use) saves a bunch.

(hint: for movies, favorite shows, try watching them on the computer, which most computers can play DVD’s). We watch our favorite shows on DVD with no offensive commericals, rent DVD movies, and overall entertain the family for far less than expensive cable TV that is a button away from poisining my childrens minds with garbage.

All the grocery stuff so far is great as well, although we’ve had little success with cupons (they often are mark-off’s on brand name items bringing the price down to a “normal” price). Look for cheap, however don’t comprimise basic standards of food consumption (i.e. 93% lean meat is expensive but much more healthy, some cheaper processed foods like butter-spreads, cereals, etc. are no substitute for real butter, healthy cereals, etc.)

Pax Christi -

Michael
 
I second the cloth diaper route (if you have small children).

I make my own cleaning agents. I use vinegar, a squirt of liquid soap, my favorite essential oils and water. I use this to spray down my dishes in the dishwasher, that way I only have to fill the detergent cup half way.

Vinegar in the washer in the rinse cycle, and then a washcloth with one to two squirts of my favorite essential oil takes care of fabric softener.

I also second the cloth for everything too. It really does cut down. Since I’ve got all girls, having cloth wipes in the bathroom has reduced the toilet paper consumption and the repeated plungings due to using too much. (I’m still amazed at how much a three year old thinks she needs)

all the other advice is great and I learned alot!!! 👍
 
TrishaW said:
My husband insists that Pantene shampoo is the only one he’ll use. That stuff is EXPENSIVE!! So I buy the store brand for $2.00 cheaper and pour it into a Pantene bottle. Been doing this for a year and he still doesn’t know. I do the same thing with coffee and cereal.

Good luck and God bless!! 🙂

Trish
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Isn’t that just a tiny bit like lying?

Catholig
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Have to comment here- I love Rose Art crayons! I like their markers, and their version of “Sharpies”. The kids and I use them all the time with no ill-effects. (What I really like are pressed crayons, which are like giant colored pencil leads that color more effctively. They are hard to find, and almost never on sale.) We use them in our school, too. They were 10 cents for a pack of 24 at Wal-Mart last summer, and we stocked up.
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I should have sqaid why I avoid Rose art Crayons. (I have no trouble with their other products). Rose Art crayons break really easy and coloring using up more of the crayon than coloring with a crayola will. I know of alot of teachers that won’t let the kids use them in the classroom. FMy daughter does use the Rose Art crayons sometimes, but I just expect that within a few days they will all be broken and I know I’ll have to get more sooner.Maybe your kids are just gentle colorers. 😉

I agree on the Wal-mart clearances, sometimes those have great deals. 😃
 
1ke said:
One thing I’ve cut out completely is store-bought cleaning products. They are SO expensive. Instead I bought spray bottles that I fill and staples that include vinegar, plain bleach, borax, and ammonia. With these, I can clean my whole house for pennies.
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Can you share what you clean w/ each of those? I’m guessing vinegar on glass surfaces and bleach on toilets, but what else? —KCT (budgeting in the new year!)
 
As I haven’t read it mentioned here, here I go: dump per-pay cell-phones. My wife and kids went to pay-to-use phones and they only pay what they use, with no monthly payments. T-mobile is the only provider to offer roll-over, pay-to-use minutes.

As for me, I work in an office beside a phone, so I don’t have one.😉
 
Syele said:
I should have sqaid why I avoid Rose art Crayons. (I have no trouble with their other products). Rose Art crayons break really easy and coloring using up more of the crayon than coloring with a crayola will. I know of alot of teachers that won’t let the kids use them in the classroom. FMy daughter does use the Rose Art crayons sometimes, but I just expect that within a few days they will all be broken and I know I’ll have to get more sooner.Maybe your kids are just gentle colorers. 😉

I agree on the Wal-mart clearances, sometimes those have great deals. 😃
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I send them to class with a box of Crayola (15 cents at Wal-Mart) and a box of Rose (10 cents at Wal-Mart). Rose breaks eaiser, but the color spectrum is fabulous, partiularly on blending colors. OK,:o I am a color junkie. I also use broken crayons in my room at school (yes, there are some things that involve crayons and a computer), in a big bucket. I make my girls bring home their “nibbles” of crayons before I give them a new box.

OH and there’s the crayon cookie! This is a neat thing I got from Tightwad Gazette! Take all the crayon nibbles, and melt them in an old muffin tin, not too deep (1/3 to 1/2 way up the side) in a warm oven (about 200-250). The result should pop out of the tin when cooled. You can make each section all of one color, or make them in blends. They don’t melt into each other to form one color, but make a variety of colors in one round lump. They are fun, and at the store, they cost a couple bucks. You can also call them color pucks.
 
KCT said:
Can you share what you clean w/ each of those? I’m guessing vinegar on glass surfaces and bleach on toilets, but what else? —KCT (budgeting in the new year!)
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Ditch the bleach!! Use vinegar on your toilet. It’s better for your family AND God’s Earth. (And it kills germs, too!)

Really, the best place to find cleaning recipes is “Clean House, Clean Planet” by Karen Logan. Get it from the library - it’s great! I’ll never go back to store-bought cleaners. They smell funny, and they cost too much.

I’m glad someone else brought up the cloth TP idea. Some folks look at me like I have three eyes when I suggest it! 😉
 
cut up all your credit cards except the one with the lowest interest and most generous grace period. lock that one up for emergencies.

buy on lay-away or not at all

if you don’t need it don’t buy it.
a want or desire is not a need.
 
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!
I am really, once again, intrigued by the idea of tithing…I remember when I have done that in the past, there always seemed to be “enough”…
Thanks again!!
 
Renny said:
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!
I am really, once again, intrigued by the idea of tithing…I remember when I have done that in the past, there always seemed to be “enough”…
Thanks again!!
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It’s weird how that works. We took a household pay cut last year, but I kept up our usual donation schedule. We haven’t had any problems whatsoever making ends meet. God does provide. 🙂
 
On the recipe front: www.hillbillyhousewife.com She has recipes for just about anything you can think of from scratch. I’ve been saving TONS of money on stuff just by using her recipes!
 
My mom is good at stretching the budget. At times when funds are tight, she still insists that we eat healthy, well balanced meals.

One of my favorite are her omelettes. She fills it up with a little meat and vegetables, cooked with a little butter. She slices it up like a pie as our viand for the meal and its delicious. We eat it for lunch or dinner–of course, with rice (coz, I’m from a rice-eating country)–but I think you can do this also in your country.

Another favorite of mine is her meatloaf (she adds a little extender of bread mashed in milk)–where she adds chopped carrots and other vegetables and steams it in loaf pans and stores it up in the refrigerator to be sliced up and heated when she has no time to cook. Normally, we have this for breakfast (but it can be for other mealtimes as well)–because she doesn’t like us to eat too much canned foods, and since she made it herself, the cost is a lot cheaper that canned meatloaf–and tastes better, and is healthier too (because no preservatives).

I agree with one of the posters, puzzleannie, that you can also try to cut down on credit cards and buy only things that are necessary. I think that will be a lot helpful for someone who likes to live frugally.

I read in an American magazine (sorry, I forgot the name)a few years ago, about a family that had to suddenly cut down on expenses because the dad was suddenly laid off from his work. The nice thing about their story was how they managed to go through the difficult time in their life–and even became closer as a family because everyone pitched in.

They had to cut down on television–so, they played games (like scrabble) as a family. They cut their own hair which saved them a lot of money. Plus, when the kids needed a vacation…they went on a family camping trip in a nearby lake-side campsite which was free or just had a minimal fee.

I think, living a simple life is a good thing. 🙂
 
soup for breakfast was a big hit when I went back to school and work when kids were in JH and HS, basically leftovers in a crock pot with stock. they would eat that because it was hot and ready, where they would not eat eggs and oatmeal. DD would put it in an insulated coffee mug.

last person did not always remember to turn the crockpot off, but oh well, I had the kind with a removable container that could be soaked.

stock: in 5 qt stockpot stash bones and leftovers from meat, chicken or turkey. a package of chix backs and necks, pork neckbones or beef bones very cheap and can be added.
beef and pork can go together, or chicken and turkey.
a turkey carcass makes a very rich broth.
add veggie leftovers and washed trimmings you have stashed in the freezer. wash and quarter a yellow onion, skin and all but cut off root and stem, dump that in, with any produce that is has seen better days (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage or spinash will make it bitter, cut those in small pieces and save to add to finished soup at the end).
add something acidic like a tomato cut in half or a tsp of applecider vinegar or lemon juice. it leaches protien out of the bones
simmer for 2 hrs.
strain the liquid, let the rest cool, pick out the meat pieces and store them in a separate container. throw everything else away. let liquid cool in frig and remove top layer of fat. strain again and pour into 1 qt freezer containers and freeze.
you always have a quart of rich stock for a soup or stew base.
you can also freeze in ice cube trays, and store the cubes in a freezer bag for enough for gravy or cooking veggies.

add new veggies, reserved meat (if it looks appetizing other wise cut up a chicken breast or brown a pound of hamburger and drain), or follow whatever soup recipe you have.

you can also make fish stock for chowders and fish soups if your family likes them with any whole bone-in fish on sale at the market. if you have fishermen in the family do this with their bounty.
 
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