Welcome back! We are so happy you are here today and we are super excited to be on the verge of the month of February. Why?! Every year, we spend the month of February challenging ourselves to see just how little money we can live on.
Continue reading “Annual Fabulously Frugal February – 2024 Edition”10 Ways You Can Save Big Repurposing Everyday Items
One of the many ways we save money is by repurposing things we already have laying around the house. Whether it has outlived its intended purpose or might normally be considered trash, you can squeeze more value out of things you already have — and avoid spending more of your hard-earned money — with a little creative thinking. A few of our favorites follow.
1. Glass candle containers: Once the last of the wax has been removed — I save these small bits to create other candles — and the jar is cleaned, I use them to store q-tips, cotton balls, and other small, hard to organize items on my bathroom counter.
10 More Simple Ways to Save Money Today
1. Drink water
2. Hang up clothes that do not need washing and can be worn again
5 More Great Places To Buy Groceries That Aren’t the Grocery Store
With the cost of groceries seeming to rise every time we go to the store, we continue to search for ways to stretch our grocery budget any way we can. Earlier, we gave you five suggestions for alternate places to save on food; here are 5 additional places we purchase food items at a discount.
Continue reading “5 More Great Places To Buy Groceries That Aren’t the Grocery Store”5 Places We Save Big on Food (Hint: NOT the Grocery)
When your fridge and pantry start to look a little bare, you probably picture yourself heading to your regular grocery store. While this is natural, you may be missing out on some amazing deals just down the street in places you might not think of for food.
1. Drug Stores – Yes! We have always been able to find clearance items at Walgreens at a significantly reduced rate. Although I am sure this would be the case at CVS or other drug type stores. As an example, we once found boxes of generic mac & cheese for $0.07 per box!
Continue reading “5 Places We Save Big on Food (Hint: NOT the Grocery)”How We Saved Money the Month of June
With every passing year I find that our budget seems to become more stretched during the summer months. When the kids were little, I was able to find LOTS of free or low cost activities, but as they have become older, their activities have become much more expensive. Although we love helping our children enjoy their summer, there is only so much we can do financially, so we encourage our children to get a job if they want to have more spending money. Our youngest recently started their first job, so we currently have all 6 of us working. Needless to say, it has already been a very busy summer but, with all our kids having their own jobs, they have their own spending money for wants, which definitely takes some pressure off us.
As I am driving more, I make sure that I do whatever little errand that needs to be completed around work pick-ups and drop-offs. (we live too far away for those not driving to walk or bike to work and way to dangerous).
Continue reading “How We Saved Money the Month of June”Ways We Saved Money in the Merry Month of May
This month I received an unexpected check. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough that I was able to give each of my children some cash to purchase summer clothing.
It is customary for us to head to a thrift store to so we can get the most bang for our buck, but this time, it was unanimous that we head to our closest outlet mall so they could shop for new clothing. This was a huge hit! We also saw firsthand that, when your children understand the value of a dollar, they make wise choices and appreciate each financial blessing.
10 Free Everyday Things that Save Us Money
Years of paying down debt has shown us that, while bringing in more money is a wonderful way to accelerate debt reduction, it is not always possible. Living with multiple chronic illnesses, there have been many many years that I have not been able to work outside the home, so it has been my focus to search for ways that allow us to stretch our dollars further.
Although we use more than 10 free things in our lives we wanted to share our most used free items…
Plastic Grocery Bags
We realize that plastic is a huge issue for our planet and we are working to reduce our use of it, but not all stores are welcoming to reusable bags these days. While we avoid them when we can, we make sure to put every single plastic bag we do receive to good use. We use grocery bags to line our small trash cans and pick up dog waste. I have also used bread bags to put over my kiddos shoes when it was extremely wet outside and they wanted to go outside and play. Plastic grocery bags also make great shower caps.
Continue reading “10 Free Everyday Things that Save Us Money”Ways We Saved Money in April
OK, April was a total buzz kill in terms of saving money this month. I would LOVE to be able to write that we were on FIRE, but in reality, it was a dumpster fire when it came to finances. As the old saying goes, it’s always something and we have found this to be unapologetically true, and the very reason those of us who are on a debt free journey start yelling from the roof tops, “You need an emergency fund!” and in no way shape or form is $1,000 enough, period!
There are all kinds of thoughts out there about how much you should have on hand before you begin to be gazelle intense with your debt payoff. For us, it is our belief that you need a minimum of $5,000 saved in an emergency fund because, $1,000 doesn’t cover squat!
This past month we were slammed with an unexpected $5,600, and $445 vehicle repairs AND hundreds in medical bills.. A measly $1,000 would not have put a very large dent into this situation.
9 Ways We Saved During Our Fabulously Frugal February
We have now completed our Fabulously Frugal February (FFF) and the 2nd month where we are sharing some of the ways we saved money that month, so here we go!
1. We still have no dryer. Yes, we could have used the money Mr. SF earned by selling stuff he didn’t want any more to buy one, but we decided to continue to tough it out and put that money toward our emergency fund.