Making your days special without money

Southern Hospitality is gathering tips on how we make our days special while in the midst of a tough economy. If you would like to see some of the ideas or add some of your own please visit her blog. I thought I would share some of the things I do to make our ordinary days feel special.

1. Buy an expensive cut of meat when it is on sale and having a special meal instead of going out to eat and paying a tip and all the other costs. Did you know that beef tenderloin is cut into filet mignon steaks? I just learned that!



2. Making yummy pies, cakes, cookies, etc. with the kids.



3. Bringing in nature to decorate. Go on a walk and pick up acorns, pinecones, colored leaves, sticks and add these to tabletop arrangements.



4. Finding a good book or magazine at a yard sale or thrift store. Definitely under $1 and time for me to just zone out in "me time."



5. Renting a Red Box movie for $1, popping some popcorn, and cuddling under a warm blanket.



6. Sewing a patchwork scarf in seasonal colors- here and here. Making a new bag out of scrap materials. I look for sheets and pieces of fabric at thrift stores to use in sewing. You find a lot of great prints and the sheets are so large you have a lot of fabric.

WFMW- No more double creases!

For Works for Me Wednesday I am sharing a new tip I found. My husband wears pants and buttondown shirts to work each day so I iron a lot of clothes each week. I have always hated ironing his pants because they slide around and I would have to be so careful not to get double creases. The problem was I tried ironing the pants legs with them positioned on the ironing board like the photo below so they wiggle back and forth, making it hard to keep the crease stationary while you iron.

Well, being lazy one day I was ironing and the ironing board had stuff on the end. I didn't want to take the time to move the stuff so I just used the space I had free. I positioned the leg on the board like it is in the photo below. Oh my goodness! I have taken 21 and 1/2 years of marriage and ironing to figure this out! The pants didn't wiggle around. I got nice crisp creases. It was so much easier to iron the pants. Now, the job is not as bad as it was, but if you would like to come do my ironing.... just call, okay? I won't object, I promise.

Finding "caught" water

Mrs. Darling commented that one pitcher of water would not water her plants and I wanted to clarify what I do. It does sound as if she has rows and rows of flowers and vegetables so I probably am in any way needing that much water. What I have is two 4x8 raised bed vegetable boxes and two patio tomatoes. Everything else is on the God watering system. I really want at least two rain barrels but haven't found them locally and haven't decided on ordering them.

I don't only use the water I collect from glasses to water my plants. I save the water I boil noodles, potatoes and eggs. I let it cool and use that. I mentioned that I have started filling my larger popcorn bowl with water and use it to rinse off dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I use that water. I am becomming aware of catching the water that is running while waiting on the water to get hot. I have even used the small amount of tea and coffee. I either blend it with a lot of water or only pour it in the compost bin. I have a few really large plastic bowls that we use for popcorn that I run out to the patio table if it rains. I pour that into my watering cans or into milk jugs for later when it all dries out. When we go shopping or to ball I always fill bottles for us to have water. I use the water we didn't drink. Just be aware of water that is there and it is amazing how much you have that you throw out. When you paid for it coming in, you want to use it instead of just throwing it out.

This weekend my husband moved the drain hose from the air conditioner. It now drains into the ground right at the end of the vegetable bed. We are hoping some will seep over to the bed because it has a really slight slope down from that area.

I have not watered my garden daily. I think I have watered it 4 times since May. One of the advantages that I have is that we have clay soil. We didn't go by the Square Foot Garden recipe for making good soil. We got a truckload of topsoil which equals tilled clay. We added in two bags of manure. I don't even water with collected water daily. If I have a pot of water from cooking noodles or eggs I go ahead and take that to the garden. I will put two or three cups at the base only of each plant. My daily watering from the pitcher goes to my patio tomatoes. The only times I turned the hose on to water was when it dried out.

I have thought about taking a bucket up to our shower to collect the water before it turns hot. I don't know if I want to haul it down steps and I think my husband would really think I am nuts. If the bill is that high again I just might do it.

Kroger card

Did anyone buy the Kroger gift card to get the bonus bucks? They are offering $30 if you buy a $300 card, $60 for $600, and $120 for $1200. I bought the $600 card and earned $60 extra bucks. I figured that I will use $600 pretty easily and so I might as well get the extra bonus money. Kroger is the closest grocery store and a mile or less away so we end up running there when out of bread or need something.

This is one of the great benefits of reaching the point where you have an emergency fund and extra money available. You can further increase your savings because you can invest ahead in things or pay cash when things are available.

Google Reader

I finally broke down and put some of the blogs that I keep going to on Google reader today. Am I making myself sound like a blog hick because I have been checking sites by a favorites folder? I check some sites two or three times a day because I don't wanta miss anything. Well, now I can check the reader 45 times a day and save time, right? Do you think it will work? Do you have your favorite blogs on a reader or are you an old fashioned kind of girl? See, now I am getting all hip and trendy. It tells how many people subscribe to your blog. Me? I have 10 and one of them is me. Sad. I guess I am just a boring person. Nester has like 435. I am jealous. You kind of feel like you are looking at people's private mail to check. You get to be a sneaky lurker. If you want to make me feel better you can subscribe to my blog.

Iron Out Results

Scroll down a couple of posts for the before photos.
Alright, I cheated. I washed them in Iron Out only and opened the washer and they looked the same as when I put them in. I took them to the sink and used Tide, bleach (I know I said not to, but they were really bad and I felt that it couldn't make them worse)I took a fingernail brush and put bleach directly on the stains and scrubbed. Not much happened. I added Tide and scrubbed. A little difference. I even put on Comet and scrubbed. I kept scrubbing the big stains until they were at least light in color. Then I washed them. I am pleased with the results.

Now for my review of Iron Out. Put in a regular wash it did not work. Since it is a powder you may be able to do the scrubbing like I did with the bleach, Tide, and Comet but why do you want to pay as much as I did for another product? I don't think that I would go out to buy it, unless I talk to moms tonight that tell me what I did wrong.

Iron Out and Boo Boo

This happened yesterday when we returned home from the store. He slammed it in the door. Do you think he will be able to bat well and throw tonight? He is just fine until he realizes it is time to clean or do anything. Then it huurts and he holds it up all still.


Who is the brilliant person that gives 7 and 8 year old white baseball pants and then schedules pictures half way through the season? This is the before photo of what they look like now. Moms on our team swear by a product called Iron Out and say that it gets all the red clay we have here in N Alabama out. So, I bought some yesterday at Walmart and am giving it a try. You find it in the plumbing section of the store near the drano. It says it gets the rust out of toilets and clothing is mentioned. I am leary about putting this in my washing machine, I don't want to mess something up in my machine. I used 1/2 cup, it is a powder. I turned off the machine to let it soak for a little while after it mixed with the water in the machine. I have a front loader so I used a regular cycle so that I would have enough water to cover the pants. I also am trying it with warm wash and cold rinse. I am going to complete this washing cycle, then wash with the rest of my whites with regular Tide detergent. I do know not to bleach them. One, bleach does not get out these dirt stains, but my husband was a football official and they were told to never bleach their pants because it yellows the white. You can tell if someone has bleached them when they are under the stadium lights. I tried one year with a pair of my sons old pants that had stains that did not come out. I actually wet the pants and put straight bleach on the spots and scrubbed and they still did not come out. So.... check back later to see if this product works.

How to keep your shopping organized

Before I found CVS I shopped at Walmart. Always low prices, price matched other store deals. Then, Walmart started to annoy me. There were always long lines or I had to use the self check out and continually have problems with it saying I didn't bag items. The employees did not seem to want me there. Walk in a publix an see the difference. I now shop at about 8 stores, getting the deep sale items at each with coupons and most of the stuff is really cheap or free or even a money maker. The problem is now how to get all my shopping done. It does take more time and gas. Is it worth it? Yes, if I can organize my trips and not drive out of the way or spend too long in each store.

I have mapped out a loop so that I can shop quickly. I like to shop on one day when the kids are at their home schooling classes. I drop them off and go to CVS, Walgreen, Staples, Publix, Southern Market which are all by the church then drop off cold stuff at the house, go to CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, and Dollar General Markets- which are all by my house, drop off cold stuff at the house, head to town to Target, Walmart, Sams, another CVS. I don't go to all the stores each time- only the ones with good deals. I keep a cooler in the trunk for cold items.

To go as fast as I can and stay organized, I have envelopes for each store. I go through the ads at home and make a list per store with the item, size, sales price, coupon amount and total cost. I put the coupons and list in the envelope for that store. I put all the envelopes in one of the outside pockets of my purse. I keep my CVS card, Kroger card, etc in the envelope. I keep all my other coupons in the car in a container, in case I find a deal that was not in the ad. Before you get to the check out go through your coupons and seperate the ones you are using from the ones that were not in stock or you are not buying.

When I have returns I put them in a bag and put by the garage door in the coat closet. I use different cars so I don't put them in the trunk. I have an envelope labeled Returns and I keep the receipt in there. If I put the receipt in the bag it gets lost.

Renting Videos

Have you used Netflix or Blockbuster on line rentals? We have used both and I am trying the Blockbuster on a two week trial. The problem? It is into the 2nd week and I have not received any of my 3 movies that I am supposed to have at one time. We tried them when we lived in Florida and had the same problem. I added about 6 movies to my queue and they all said they were available. I don't understand what the problem is. Both times I have contacted customer service to advise them that it is taking over a week to get the movies and they tell me that I need to add more movies to my queue to incur less delays. What? I have 6 there and have not received any. In Florida, I searched and added movies that I really didn't care to watch and, of coarse, they sent those. The only thing that I like about Blockbuster is that when you finally get your video you can exchange it at a store and not have to wait. Our Blockbuster is about 5 miles away. To some I know you are saying that is no big deal, but our house is located right within walking distance of everything and I don't want to drive that far when there are others closer. When we used Netflix, we got our movies the next day or at most, two days later. They have awesome turn around time. If you are looking at subscribing I would definitely go with Netflix.

Stockpiling

Amy at http://www.momadvice.com/blog/ is doing a series on stockpiling. Today she is talking about where to store the extra food. You may ask why to stockpile. Well, instead of buying food each week for the things you are going to make, you buy the sales each week and get your pantry stocked with the items you usually need for your meals. You keep your pantry stocked with sale items and get the best price you can. Then, you cook from what you have in your pantry. It really lowers the amount you spend on food.

I have a problem. I am able to find good deals. I buy lots of those items. I line it all up, take photos of it, then... my family goes on a spree to see how fast they can eat it. The more I buy the more they eat. Anyone else having this problem? I have two teenagers and three 8-11 year olds. We always have extra kids in the house. Every week my daughter has about 6-12 friends over. I try to monitor what they eat but it just disappears. I actually have to hide things.

I am trying to store food that would last us two to three weeks during any emergency. Stuff that we can heat on the grill or campstove or dry. I guess I need to put it all in a box and put it on a high shelf in the laundry room. Have you ever been without electricity for a long period? We lived through Hurricane Fredrick in Mobile and did not have electricity for three weeks. I was young so don't really remember much except when each neighbor took turns opening their freezer and grilling all the food and the neighbors came to eat it. Next meal, next neighbor. Now we live where there are a lot of Tornados. I would like to be prepared. We also just went through over a year of two house payments after we moved. We were scraping the barrell to find money for food. I am glad that I had food put up that we could pull from. You get really creative when you get hungry enough.

I have a lot of kitchen cabinets so I can put food in them. I have a walk in pantry under the landing of the stairs ( the door is in the kitchen) It has a low ceiling, like 5 foot, but it is lined with floor to ceiling wire shelves. I am able to put a lot in there. We have 9 foot ceilings in the laundry room so I have shelves over the washer and dryer and the opposite wall where I can put things. I am going to add shelves on the two side walls and over the door for extra space. We have a coat closet at the garage entrance and I use the shelf above the coats for storage. Right outside the door in the garage I have a bookshelf and cabinet side by side. I keep non food items there. We kept our old side by side refrigerator and I keep the freezer full. We only use the refrigerator for extra space right after shopping or for parties. I plan on buying flour and storing it there - that way bugs won't get into it. I could use the space under our bed(king size) if I needed to find more space. I store toiletries under the bath cabinets.

Getting the kids to clean

Do you tell your kids to clean their room only to go back and find it looks like they didn't touch a thing? I do and it frustrates me. I forget how overwhelming it is to go into a room and see so much to do that you give up or stand there in shock. I can get them to do a better job if I divide the chore into specific things to do so that they know what to do. I will tell one to pick up all the books, one to pick up all the cars, and so on until it is done- or better:) Sometimes, we make it fun by telling one to pick up everything red and one everything blue and let them race to get it done first. Too many times I forget to make it fun and help them stay on track and I stand there yelling that they haven't gotten the job done. I need to spend more time helping them learn to break it down in pieces and make it fun.

I see something pink and green to pick up. You go find the red and blue things. Race ya.
Go to http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/02/works-for-me-ou.html to see all the Works For Me Wednesday tips.

Clothes that you can wear year round

It is Frugal Friday at http://www.Biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/blog.htm. My frugal tip is to buy basic/classic clothes that do not go out of style. Layer them to make your short sleeve shirts wear into the winter. For bottoms buy denim, khaki/olive, white, and black.

For boys: Layer short sleeve tees,polos and button front shirts over long sleeve tees and even sweat shirts. Or wear them under long sleeve button front shirts. Wear hoodies under jackets to add warmth.

For girls: Opt to buy skirts over dresses. Choose colors and the weight of fabric that can be worn both in the summer and winter just by changing tops. You can also get many more outfits with a skirt by changing the tops.

A white button down can be worn with a skirt left untucked with a belt, with jeans for a casual look, with pants, with a formal skirt, under a sleeveless sweater, under a cardigan, sweater, or blazer. It will look casual to dressy depending on the pieces you put it with and the accessories.

Buy basic loafers, tennis shoes and sandals for boys. Girls need a white shoe in the summer and black in the winter plus a pair of tennis shoes and sandals. For me, I buy black, ivory, sandals, and tennis shoes. Of course I add pieces to this (like these http://southernseven.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-clothes.html) but if you have the basics you don't NEED anything else.

How to make a girl's skirt from your husband's pants

You can make a girl's skirt from a pair of men's pants. Take the pants and cut from the bottom of the leg along the inside seam. Cut up the length that you will need for the skirt plus 2 inches for the waist. Repeat on the other leg. Open the pieces out. The topstitched seam that will be in the middle of the cut out piece will go along the front center and back center of the skirt. The bottom of the pantleg will be the bottom of the skirt (it is already hemmed for you.)

Sew the sides together either with a regular seam. Zig zag the seam edges if you do not have a surger so that the ends will not fray. If you would like to create a topstitched seam, lay the seam to one side- towards the back of the skirt, and sew a seam looking at the top of the fabric, about 1/4 inch from the seam.

Make and elastic waist band using 1 inch wide elastic. Make the casing by folding the top down 1/4 inch and sewing. Then fold an inch plus just a little for wiggle room and sew again, leaving a 1/2 inch opening on either side of the center back. Run the elastic through the casing and pull to adjust the size you need then sew the elastic ends together well. Hand sew the remaining closing.

You can add cargo type pockets onto the front by cutting fabric out of the remaining pants. Make a 1/4 inch seam around the sides then sew into place.

Buy Transitional Furniture

There are pieces that you can use in many different rooms that are those timeless pieces that are great to own. One of the pieces that I have aquired is the vanity in the photo. I bought it at a yard sale for $15.00. In our old home it sat in the master bath with a mirror above and held my makeup and other items. Now, it sits at the top of the stairway in the hall before you enter the master bedroom. I could see this in a foyer or kitchen or bedroom.

The armoire was bought two houses ago to house our tv and videos. It is now being used in the master alcove area where I have a desk for crafts and an extra computer. I have all my craft stuff and office supplies in it. I could also see this in a large bath to hold towels and things. It could be used for an armoire in a bedroom. Meredith at www.likemerchantships.blogspot.com has this same piece in her dining room. She painted it black.

The antique dresser was my great-grandmother's. It is now in my foyer. It could be used in a bedroom, bath, dining room.

Instead of spending money on pieces that only go in one place or can only be used for one purpose look at how many ways you can use a piece. Be creative.

Moving The Mountain of Laundry

Disclaimer: I do not always do the things I want to do but instead do the things I don't want to do. Got it?

See in the photo how we have the washer and dryer elevated on a shelf with room for baskets? Love it! My husband made the shelf in our old house because we had a tiny laundry. When we had a rental house it flooded and the washer and dryer were safe since they weren't on the ground.The kids have so much laundry that I needed somewhere to put it where it was not piled in front of the washer and dryer. I don't know about you but when I go to do the laundry and I can't make it to the machines I get discouraged and instead go find chocolate. On good days, I seperate clothes and start filling the washer with one color and put the other load in the basket under the washer. On normal days they are all piled together in front of the machine and I eat chocolate. I keep the basket under the dryer to put clothes when they come out of the dryer to fold. I also throw the lonely, regected, left behind socks waiting to be reunited one day. Okay, the shelf needs to be replaced and the molding was knocked off the front edge when we moved a couple of months ago but I hope you can get the idea.

My goal to keep the laundry going works great when i am consistent. I usually have two loads a day- one lights and one darks. I am trying to hang dry most of the clothes, but heard that it costs about $.40 to dry a load so I figure if life is hectic that sometimes it is worth paying to dry them. I have the one drying rack you see in photo next to the machines over the air vent. On the opposite wall from the machines I have a full wall of shelving where I hang everything possible on hangers to dry. You can hang towels and sheets with clothespins on the hangers. I have room below the hanging shelf where I can set up two more drying racks.I hang stuff that will need to be ironed to the left and stuff that just needs to dry and be put away to the right. Then, just put up the stuff on the right when dry. I am trying to iron all items on Monday and again on Thursday to keep clothes ironed.

Above the washer and dryer and hanging shelf I have two shelves that I store boxes with theme party supplies, paper towels, cleaners, emergency supplies, large canning stuff and dehydrator. Since we are new here I am not finished in here.

I found the battery organizer at a garage sale for $1.00 and spent about $80.00 at Christmas on rechargeable batteries. It has a tester on the top so we can tell when the batteries need recharging. I am hanging this somewhere in the laundry. I bought a wall organizer to hang my ironing board and two cans of starch, but still need to hang it.

I love Rhoda's laundry room and want to work on mine later to make it pretty like her's. If you go to Southern Hospitality there are photos of her laundry room. Just click on the title of this post to go to her blog.

Using a Gift Box to Save Money

One thing that has saved us a ton of money is to keep a gift box. I pick up all the bargains that I find through the year to keep on hand for gifts. With five kids we have a lot of parties to attend. I like to pick up craft kits, legos, books, art supplies, toys that have been clearanced, journals, cute photo albums or frames, puzzles, remote cars, there are so many ideas!

I also have gifts for adults that I keep like afghans, albums, frames, candles, bath salts, swiss knives, and anything else I find. We do two or three Dirty Santa games at Christmas where we need $5.00-$10.00 gifts. I recently picked up a gift box packaged thermos with two coffee sip cups for $5.00, two floating flashlights for $1.58 each, a chenelle afghan for $4.00, a set of two photo albums for $3.79. These all make great gifts and were over half off original price.

I also try to keep gift bags, tissue, ribbon, and box sets of cards on hand. I recently bought a box of birthday cards for $1.50 at Walgreens. Keep blank note cards so that you can use for any occasion. I also pick up clearance paper plates and napkins. You can use these to make it festive when feeding one of the kids friends or when you have a friend drop by.

Save Money On Your Mortgage

One of the things that we are doing to save money is to pay extra principal on our mortgage each month. The cheapest way for us to finance our mortgage was to take out a second fixed rate mortgage for $24,999.00. We qualified for a VA loan but doing a conventional plus this second was cheaper down and kept the monthly payment within $4.00 of the VA loan. It is set up on a 30 year loan. If we pay an additional $57.00 a month it knocks off 15 years of the life of the loan and $34,872.00 off interest payments. We hope to add more in additional payments and pay it off even earlier then roll payments into the first mortgage to pay it off more quickly. It just takes a little to make a huge difference in the long run.

Tip of The Week

I was lurking around on www.stretchingabuck.blogspot.com and she had a tip I thought I would share. She said that if you get white deoderant marks on your dark clothes to take a black, dark brown, or navy sock and wipe it off. You don't need any water and it is supposed to really work.

My question is why does your sock have to be dark? Does the deoderant stain know how to tell colors? Is it biased towards certain colors. I want to know if a white, tan, pink, or light blue sock would work. We have also received some funky socks with monkies on them. Do you think the monkies would eat the stain? And, what about the striped and argyle socks?

I also think that a good tip would be that you not use a perfectly good sock. Use one of your left behinds that is sitting in a basket in your laundry room waiting for the possibility of being reunited one day. They deserve love too. By the way, how long should we wait for a mate? You know as soon as you do the deed and throw it away the roaming partner will come back. Decisions, decisions, decisions,