August Challenge - No Spending

I will admit that I have been emotional spending. Now it has to stop. Since there has been a lot of things going on in my family instead of expressing my feelings or dealing with it in a proper way I have been spending ..a little here and a litte there.

So for August here is my challenge NO SPENDING:

Rules:


1.I BB Vow not to spend any money on unnecessary purchases.

2. Come on here everyday and record my spending.

3. If I think that you absolutely MUST buy something, come on here and post about it first. Must wait 24 hours before buying ANYTHING!

Some exceptions

*Groceries, utilities, clothing for myself, transportation...these things are necessary.

*Record whatever will cause myself to spend the least.

*I WILL NOT get discouraged if I spend -- this is about PROGRESS not PERFECTION. I will spend this month...the goal is to spend less -- significantly less -- so no all or nothing attitude.

Here is my gameplan:

On the days I work take water bottles or soda from home. DO NOT TAKE ANY MONEY TO WORK

Stay home as much as possible

Start by using up all food here

When I do need to shop for new pants for work - Start at the thrift shops

Really work on everything I can cut back on. Think before I spend.

Dog Days of Summer are here!

This week it is going to be HOT HOT and HUMID here. So now keeping the house cool is my main concern. Since I am home most of the day I don't want to be hot and sweaty. So here are some of my tips for staying cool. My apartment is not huge and it is cement on the outside. The good news is that means it stays cool when you get it cool but if it gets HOT it stays HOT! So my plan is to keep it cool without spending a ton of money to do it.

1. Get up early and get any HOT chores done.
2. I do keep all the blinds closed from the beginning of the day. This keeps the sun out and does not heat up the house.
3. When I run the air conditioner I also have a box fan in front of the air conditioner to push the air. Towards my room I keep a oscliating fan to cool off my room. I also have a celing fan in there. Which does help a lot.
4. I do not run my air 24 hours a day. I usually turn it off around 10 pm or so and I can usually keep it off for a good 12 hours or more.
5. I keep the bathroom and the guest room bedroom doors shut. Since they are not used often I don't see a reason to cool them off.
6. Keep all lights off. Until I MUST have one on.

If you are outside during the day. A frozen or wet cloth on the back of your neck will do wonders for you.

Why should we pay the electric company more than we need to.

If I am not doing much in the afternoon. I do

Small Stock Up

I went to Walgreens when I got home from Detroit. HA! I love a quick road trip. Drove up with a friend last night to Detroit. Spent the night and came home today.

I had a lot of coupons that were expiring today. Most of them were B1G1 free so I got shampoo, body wash and erasers to clean with.

2 Pantene - 2/$12
2 Infusions - 2/$12
2 Olay of Olay B1G1
1Olay of Olay face wash - found one for under $5.00 and got 1 free Body Wash
2 Natural Instints - B1G1
1 Mr. Clean Erasers
1 Licorace

Total after coupons and with my employee discount $16.15

33.43 in Man. coupons
Walgreens Advertised Saving 5.32
Waglreens Coupons 1.70
Employee discount 8.59

$49.04 Total Savings

Thinking of selling my round kitchen wood table.

Tonight as I am sitting here on the computer. I am really thinking of selling the table it is on. There is a desk in my son's room I can use for the computer. There is many reasons why we don't eat at the table. One my son was to big for the table. His legs actually lifted up the table if he ate at it. So it was to uncomfortable for him.

Now it is used for the stuff on it and the computer. If I switch to the desk then I would have some drawers for the stuff on the table. I am going to put an ad out and see if I get any takers. It is a nice solid table.

The computer can not be moved into the guest room since the phone jack in there is broken. I will also find out if they fix it for free. I do have line backer maintence on the phone line.

Just throwing some thoughts out there.

Online shoe shopping

Okay I am not a big one for shopping online for shoes. Since all shoes fit differently and what you see online may not look so great in person. I have bought a few pairs of shoes online. I have only dealt with one company. I use Zappos. The reasons I use them is 1. Free shipping 2. Free returns and 3. price matching. So if you can find your shoe cheaper at another site they will give you the difference plus 10%.

For example I got a pair today for $20.37 and free OVERNIGHT shipping from Zappos that where on sale at Endless

Here is how it works at Zappos. This was written by Gallo at Frugal Families She explains it better than I could.

**To price match at Zappos....find the shoe you like at Endless add to cart, then see if Zappos has it, add to cart. Then call Zappos and tell them you want to place an order with a price match at Endless. They will look up the shoe and do the rest. Take the price of the Endless shoe (minus $5) and subtract it from the price of the Zappos shoe, then take 10% of that. Subtract that number from the price of the Endless shoe and that's what Zappos will sell you the shoe for. Zappos also has free overnight shipping, free no hassle returns. Great customer service. Order today and you'll get your shoes tomorrow.

Watch for little ways to save money

Today when I went online to check my bank balance. An ad popped up to get $10.00 from my bank for signing up for E-Statements. I jumped on that one. That is less paper coming into this house. I can save them online and back them up on a cd for future reference. The whole process took me maybe 3 min. and I earned $10.00.


Look for little things like this that will earn you more money. I am thinking of opening a second account and having part of my Walgreens check directly deposited into that account. For doing this the new bank will pay me $100.00. Not bad. I can have as little as $5.00 go into this other account and only get a card for it. As my first bank does not charge me for checks and I earn free rewards using my checkcard at certain stores. So I will not be leaving them anytime soon.

Little things can add up to big money.

Entertainment is not cheap

One of the things I have been doing is looking for things I can do outside of the house that are fun and cheap. I decided this morning (hey it is early 4:45 AM) that I would treat myself to a movie. So I look at the movie theater near my house. Okay I know I am not going during the expensive time. Ha! Even before 5 PM it is $7.00 for a movie. I am not paying that much to spend 2 hours in the dark. Hey that is $3.50 and hour. So I see that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before noon they have $5.00 movies. Okay not bad...I can pay $2.50 and hour to sit in the dark, and maybe get a laugh or two out of it. So I pick a few movies I am interested in: Hair Spray, I now Pronounce you and The new Disney movie with the Rat in it. I figure one of those if not all will have a starting time before noon. NOPE! Not a single one is listed as starting before noon. Great so now there are no movies that I can see for $5.00 at the theater I want to see. Why bother offering a discount on those days if you do not have anything showing? They should have at least one movie before noon for us frugal folks.

I figure if I go to the movies before 5 pm the whole thing will cost me:
$1.75 bus fare
$7.00 movie
$1.75 bus fare home
$1.18 for soda (that I am buying from Walgreens with my discount)

$11.68 or $5.84 an hour.

Guess I won't be going to the movies any time soon. That is crazy to me.

School Supplies

I am so thrilled I don't have to buy school supplies this year. I love seeing all the back to school sales..knowing I don't have to go through that mad rush this year. I will be picking up some notebooks for me when go back to school. I won't need to many as I know that all my notes will get typed up when I get home from that day of classes. I learn better when I redo the info right away. I also like to study from typed sheets rather than my own hand writing. Also this way if I borrow someone my notes and they don't return them I have a back up copy.

For those of you buying school supplies..don't forget to buy extra for in Jan. when little Bobby or Suzy says mom I need blah blah blah. Never failed in this house. So I started buying extra just for the next Semester.

Selling on Craigs List

B&B asked me about selling on Craigs List awhile ago and I am sorry I have not written this post till now. Hey 3:30AM and I can't sleep. Can't think of a better time to catch up on some blogging.

For those of you not familar with Craig's List it is a great place to sell your items locally. All state's are listed and then you just find your city or one that is close to you. It is FREE to list so there is no shipping involved, my favorite part. I also think some things sell faster this way. Big items are great to sell this way.

In the past some things I have sold through craig's list include:
Purses
Shoes
Clothes
bread machine
19 inch TV older not cable ready

There is also a place to post free items. I posted my mom's old gas dryer. We were not sure if it even worked anymore. My mom just wanted it out of her basement. It was gone less than 24 hours later. The beautiful part was I was not involved in moving it at all. I also gave away my deep freezer this way too. Great!

Now here is how I go about selling on craig's list:
1. find items and take pictures if possible. You can list the item with or without a picture. I find that I sell better with pictures.

2. Write up your description and price to list. I always ask for more...figuring I am willing to go down a bit if possible.

3. List on Craig's list and sit back and wait.

4. If I have not had any bites in a week or so. I will go back and redo my description or lower my price. Esp. if it is something I really want out of my house.

Pricing can sometimes be hard. I price most of my stuff very low. I want it out of my house so I am willing to take the least amount for it. Just get it out of here.

Now I am going back to Craigs and putting up that Toybox again. Maybe I can get rid of it.

Redecorating

I know I mentioned that I was redecorating some of my house. My son is turning 16 I guess the time has come to replace the baby pictures. I have the older pictures on the tables. But I wanted something new for the walls. I really love b&w photos. Funny my first baby photos were B&W.

While I was in Chicago I took some photos. I still have not gotten them all printed. I did go to CVS to print a few. I love that you can make a collage with your photos on the Kodak machine. Can't do that at Walgreens...so I go to CVS.

Here is what I did with a few of the 4 X 6's:


The top on is Solider Field. Okay so I live in Packer Country and I have the Bears Stadium on my wall. The other is just a B&W of some buildings. I like to arrange the frames in odd ways. Kind of adds a bit of flair to the wall.




The larger one if my favorite. I love how the sun looks coming off the building. The two together I am going to change the photos but wanted to see how the frame was up there. I will be adding more across the wall.

I got a bunch of frames on clearance at Walgreens. One I need to touch up with a black marker. From a distance you will never know that I did it.

So far I have not even spent $15.00 on the frames and pictures.

My BLT --- with Tomatoes from the Garden

I was so looking forward to making a BLT with my garden tomatoes. Here it is....




Next year I am doing more tomaotes. I love these baby tomatoes. They are growing great. Now if the other green ones would turn red. The lettuce also came out of the garden.

SHOES~ I LOVE SHOES

I love shoes..and I mean good shoes. I won't lie I am a shoe whore. Give me a pair of top name shoes anyday. I love Kenneth Cole, Bandolino, Coach, Nine West you name it. Now I do not like the prices. So I refuse to pay those prices. I really love it when Boston Store at Brookfield Mall has their shoe clearance sale. I have been good though in the last few years. I mean one year I bought 12 pairs in 2 weeks. I guess that was before my frugal days. LOL

I have not been in the best mood. A lot of crap in my family going on. Basically I don't even answer my phone anymore. So today after work I decided it was a ME day. I called and got in to get my hair cut. It has been 8 months and my eyebrows waxed. I do that once a year and then keep them up myself. After my hair I popped into Boston Store....shoe sale. Now I had already told myself you can not buy more than 1 pair. You have to be able to wear them a lot. So I found these.................






They are a pair of brown Bandolino's for $89.00. Who pays that much for shoes? I will for a good pair of NIKE shoes. But not for casual shoes. Now a pair of Nike last me at 3 years. So that is not bad. So I try them on...oh love the shoes! I want the shoes..can she buy the shoes. Yes I can they are only 18.00. Yes I got a pair of good designer shoes for 18.00.

Frugal Update

Today I updated my laundry experiment after washing 3 loads. I have not managed to get more loads out of the bottle than TIDE thinks I can. Ha! that will show them. Granted at the start I was doing wash for 2 and now doing wash for one. But does it really matter if you are washing for 1 or 12, the point is to get the most out of the bottle. All the wash is outside drying.

My garden is doing well. One of my tomatoe plants was having a moment but I think it is going to be okay. There are more tomatoes growing. I really am going to grow cherry tomatoes again next year. I love them. The beans are doing well too. I don't know if I will do them again next year.


Working on the redecorating. My room is done. I got a small dresser from my stepmom. It is perfect for my room and gives me some extra room. I took out the table
that had my TV and stuff on. With the dresser I have a place for extra clothes. Where the table stuff just got thrown on it.

Money is tight so I have been staying away from CVS and Walgreens. I don't need anything so why buy it. I have been only buying food. I used up the rest of my ECB on soda and other food stuff.

I am now working on my son's room. I am going to turn that into my guest room. Also will be where laundry is hung up in the winter. This way it won't be all over my house making me feel as if my house is a mess.

Tomatoes -- I have tomatoes!

Today I went and checked the plants. All these were ready to be picked. So tonight I can have a tuna sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce. I swear the more I cut the lettuce the faster it grows. Another few days I should have some beans too.

This is a good thing since I had to throw out my whole freezer. I don't even want to think of how much money an meals where in there. I had 2 whole chickens, so that is 2 weeks right there. Somehow when I was in Chicago my freezer door came open and my mom said everything was warm and mushy. So I am not taking the chance. So I cleaned it all out threw it all away and next week will have to go shopping.

In the mean time eat out of the pantry and eggs! Good thing I love egg salad!

First area to be redecoated!

Before I went to Chicago. I had started to redecorate. I had a bookcase in my living room that I have had for years. The only issue with it is that I managed to always store to much crap there. So it was time for it to go. I have a built in curio cabinet with storage underneath. I moved what I needed to keep from the bookcase to the under area storage area.

Then I took an end table that I was not sure I wanted to keep in that area. Perfect fit. Put one of my lamps there and of course pictures of my son and my family. I was also able to hide my stereo on the bottom behind some pictures. It works by remote so I can turn it on and off very quickly.

I personally like the look and it really makes my living room look more open and uncluttered. That is the way I want my whole house to look. I prefer for things to be out of site.

Here is a picture of what the area looks like:

Garden Day!

Today I got outside and took care of the herbs and picked some beans. I am amazed at how well those beans are growing. This year I grew 6 plants. Next year I may add a plant or two.





I have 2 tomato plants. I noticed the one I have been adding coffee grounds to is growing much better than the one I did not add any to. Funny the pot the coffee ground is the one I was worried about. Go figure! Also I know that growing smaller tomatoes works better in containers than when I tried to do bigger tomatoes last year.

Lettuce is going well too. I keep using it and it keeps growing. This year has been much better for me and container gardening than last year. So I am hoping next year is even better.



So tonight I will be having a burger with fresh garden lettuce and fresh steamed green beans. YUMMERS!

More benches

Thought I would share a few more of these adorable benches.


This one took me a moment to figure out as I walked up on it. I saw the Scooby Doo theme...then I saw it is a viewmaster. To darn cute!




Here is one of our favorite games when B was little:

My newest decorating idea

I love so many of the pictures I took while in Chicago. So I have decided to redo my walls. I am going to use the pictures I took and decorate with my own photos. I put out a want on freecycle. Hoping I can get some decent looking frames. I will also be watching the sales for frames too.

I thought it would be a great way to redecorate without spending much money. Also waiting for coupons etc for getting my pictures made.

Here is one I plan on using - this is "The Bean" in Millenium Park in Downtown Chicago.

Looking for frugal tips - Baby Shower gift

Well all you newer moms out there I need your help. My niece will be having her baby shower in October. Of course I will be there with Camera in hand! I would love to make her a towel cake - with a bath theme. Not sure if that is going to happen as I have to travel and don't see the cake making it through 2 train trips.

If I don't do the cake then I am going to make a basket bath package. So far I know I will be putting in diapers, wipes and baby shampoo. So this is where I need your help. Tell me something you love having for your baby..does not have to be bath related.

Thanks!

Back to reality

Okay now that vacation is over and my sister is going fine from her surgery. She had surgery on Monday. I am back into full fledge frugal mode.

Today is a cleaning day here. I need to get my house back together. I seem to just grab and go when I was packing. I did not think I was leaving town so when I got the call...I grabbed adn tossed. So now time to get it back together.

Warm here so I will have the air on. The dewpoint is going to be in the 70s. That is where I draw the line. Way to hot and sticky. Thank goodness the cooler air is coming.

I will get some garden pictures taken today too. My garden is going so well and I can not wait to get more beans, tomatoes out of there. I will also be drying my herbs today or tomorrow too. Probably tomorrow when it is much cooler here.

Childhood Benches

Here are the benches I mentioned in my previous post. These will bring many of us back to our childhood. My sister in law drove down the street so I could get a picture of every single bench. I was so tickled when I laid eyes on the first one a few days before my picture day.

These were all taken in Old Tinley Park, IL which is South of Chicago (45 min by train)


The Playskool Phone - I had one as a kid -- Did you?




Now the red wagon! My son had one and we still have it.



This is my FAVORITE! or should I say one of my 2 Favorites...




There are more but I will save them for another day. I hope you enjoyed them.

Home from Vacation!

I am home from vacation! I was in Chicago from July 3-7 and had a awesome time. I spent most of my time in the burbs but went in for the Taste of Chicago. I did not want to come home but work was calling. I took LOTS and I mean LOTS of pictures. So far this is my favorite. I am not even sure what building it is. But I love how you can see the sun coming through - Heck it looks like a sun a child would draw with the rays coming out. I really hope the photo it's self is not so grainy. I want to frame it with some others.




I came home to beans! I already picked what I could for today's dinner. I love beans from the garden. So I will be steaming those later and having some seafood salad with them. At 96 degrees not much is going on in this house after I get home from work at 2 pm. Free dinner -Well the bean seeds did cost me 49 cents but the seafood salad was from Stepmom yesterday. I do have lots of tomatoes but there are just not red yet. Anyone want to direct me on making fried green tomatoes. Also my lettuce is doing great - might make up some egg salad for sandwiches!


More vacation pictures to come! I only live 1 hour and 37 min. from Downtown Chicago. I feel as if I was 2000 miles away from home. That is how wonderful vacation was.

Blogging Vacation

Taking a break from blogging July 3-7! Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July! Don't miss me to much Walgreens Man!

Answer to B&B comment

B&B wrote:
"I was just wondering how do you stretch things out to last when your son is home? For example, if you stock up on a certain item, how do you make sure it lasts a while (like snacks being eaten quickly)? I was thinking you might deal with this with a growing teenager. My dh is one to use more of something if it's available and I really need to stretch things a bit for the near future because things are tighter. Thanks, B&B"

Well there are a number of things I have done:
1. Told him this is it till such and such date and stuck to it. Sometimes that worked other times it didn't but I did not budge.

2. I labeled things...like do not eat for dinner or don't use until such and such.

3. I had no issues hiding food. My son is 6 feet 2 inches tall and a eating machine. He could polish off a bag of grapes in a day. He would go through cookies like no tomorrow.

4. Sometimes I just stopped buying stuff. And would tell him nope cause you eat it all in a day.

Time to share the other news of my life changing

I have spent the last few weeks walking and praying about my son. I love this kid more than anything. There are things I want for him that just don't seem to be playing out here in the big city for him. So after many walks,teary moments and talks with God. I have decided to let him live with his Father. He asked me if he could and his Dad wants to take on the parent role. So I said yes. It was not an easy thing to do and probably one of the hardest things to do in my life. But I know that it is for the best interest of my son.

So my now lives almost 1,000 miles from me in a smaller town. He has his Dad, Uncles and Grandparents. I know he will be well taken care of and provided for. Not that he was not up here but he needs a man in his life. Since my Dad passed he did not have that.

He knows if he needs to come back he can, but he has to come back a changed person. I can't deal with the way he was. I am also hoping he is home for Christmas. That is the plan.

So I guess I don't consider myself a single mom but I sure know the struggles. As far as frugality well I am going to continue with it. I truly believe no matter how much money you have that it does not need to be spent because you have it. My blog will continue and of course if you have questions on how I did manage when he was here. I am more than happy to share.

I don't think my son reads this but I did not want him to read that he was staying with his Dad before I could tell him. It has been a few days since I told him and I do not regret the decision - so I know it was the right one.

July's projects

For the month of July I am going to track how much I save in coupons. I wish I could take the savings and turn it to real money. But finances don't allow me to do that. But knowing what I have saved using coupons, allows me to have more for much less. And who knows a reader or two out there might not use coupons and see that it is worth the time to cut them out.

The other project for July is to also keep track of any extra money that comes in through rebates, selling things and I will even count child support if I see it.

If anyone has a suggestion for August -- let me know!

Walgreens Deals

Okay after I sat down and went through all my coupons and the Walgreens ad and Easy Saver book....I made the run.

2 bags of New York bagel chips - 1.00 off coupon on 2 plus on Megasaver
Schick Razor - Manf. coupon and easysaver coupon
Dove Deoderant - free for buying above razor and 1.25 coupon
Covergirl make up - b1 get 1 50% off and had 3.00 in coupons
Agua fresh - free after rebate and had 1.00 coupon
Pickles
Baby Shampoo - clearance for 1.69 and had a 1.00 off coupon
2 frenchs mustard - 99cents plus had 2 30 cents coupons
Glade airfreshner - 99 cents had coupon B1G1
Always pads - free after rebate and 75 cents coupon
Lysol airkit - 4.00 easy saver coupon and 5.00 manf. coupon
Airwick mini airfreshner - 3.00 easy saver coupon and 4.00 manf. coupon
Dr. Scholl foot pads - 2.00 ad coupon - 2.00 manf. coupon and 2.00 rebate
Oral B toothbrush - 1.00 manf. coupon and 1.00 easysaver coupon

Total before coupons and discount: 74.76

After coupons and discount: 26.39

And have 7.93 coming back in rebates.

All my free stuff from June 2007

Free stuff I got in June
$1.00 off coupon for Dove Cream Oil body wash
1 bottle of coffee creamer
12 free boxes of pasta and12 free bottles of sauce
2 cans of fruit
2 jars of PB
2 liter of pepsi
2 packages of Kotex
2.00 off Pantene coupon
20 oz diet coke plus
5 hot dogs
block of wood for the AC - from stepmom
bottle of hershey choc. syrup
box of 4 platex tampons
box of labels
can of corn
Colgate toothpaste
coupon for free diet 7-up
Diabetic monitor
dinner at red lobster
dog food - gave to my stepmom's dog
Dove Cream Oil - Body Wash
Fitness Magazine
Free box of cereal
free magazine - Dime
free magazine - Spirited Woman
Fusion Shaver
jello mold
John Frieda Shampoo Pack
kellogg meal bar
Kodak welcome kit
Kotex
lamp
lunch
Lunch from Stepmom
pamper - gave to neighbor
Photos from Shutterfly
ream of paper
Shutterfly photo book - love it
slim jim
Tupperware hamburger press
underwear from Macy's