A frugal and meaningful Valentine’s Day
The word on the street is that people plan to be more frugal and practical this Valentine's Day. No surprises there. The big question is how to do it without looking or feeling cheap or thoughtless.
Fortunately, ideas abound. Just search the internet for frugal Valentine ideas, or try some below.
Chocolate. It's practically required, but how many of us really want to add a whole box of chocolates to our hips and waistline? Instead of paying for fancy packaging and presentation, do the presentation yourself: a few rich and creamy Dove brand chocolate hearts on the pillow speak volumes, and hint at even more. ht to Frugal Fiction
Flowers. Another firmly entrenched tradition where it's possible to break free from consumerism and come out smelling sweet. Try hand-delivering a single rose with a kiss and a single chocolate (but don't leave it at that!), or buy a variety of flowers with more personal meaning than overpriced high-demand red roses. Tulips are lovely and last longer than thin-petaled flowers.
A potted flowering plant is usually far less expensive than cut flowers and will last much longer, even if your sweetheart doesn't have a green thumb. Again, tulips are inexpensive, widely available and absolutely beautiful in pots. With a little know-how, they can be enjoyed for years to come.
If you really must buy a dozen flowers, here's a fun idea to get a lot of bang for your buck: Plan to meet in a public place, and have eleven strangers each deliver a single flower to your sweetheart just before you arrive to deliver the last flower. Oh - do make sure you have a vase or box to hold the collection when you arrive.
Express yourself. Don't rush to buy a sparkly $5 card full of cliches written by a total stranger. Write a love letter, try your hand at poetry, or jot down a handful of love notes and leave them in unexpected places.
Dinner. It doesn't have to be at a fancy restaurant. When we were first married, we often celebrated by splurging on inexpensive steaks that we cooked together at home. Over the years, we tried our hand at seafood and other specialty items that we could never afford to order at a restaurant. A nice bottle of wine at home is also far cheaper than 2 glasses of nice wine at a restaurant.
Later, when we had children and couldn't afford a sitter, we would buy the kids some fun foods like chicken nuggets and fries, then send them to bed with - gasp! - a video in their room. If they weren't ready to fall asleep at 7, they stayed put until they were ready to sleep, and hubby and I had the rest of the house to ourselves. The kids still have fond memories of these times.
Gifts. Sometimes the most appreciated gifts are the practical ones. One year hubby and I went clothes shopping together. We each bought 2 or 3 badly needed items that lasted for many years. Some years, we buy one item for the house that we have both been wanting, using the holiday to justify the purchase.
Get creative. Some gifts are free, requiring your time rather than money. If you are married, you have a whole other class of gift options from which to choose. Use your imagination.
Dates. Dates need not include a full sit-down dinner and a movie. Go browse a bookstore (then come home and check PaperbackSwap for the titles that caught your eye), go out for ice cream or coffee, split an appetizer at your favorite restaurant, stroll through an art museum, or visit that fast food restaurant where you first met your sweetheart. Look for sentimental value rather than retail value. more ideas here.
Movie. If you do want to take in a movie, consider renting one from the library, Netflix, or RedBox (search the internet for a free rental code). You could even buy an old favorite as a mutual gift. Pop a bowl of popcorn, dim the lights, and snuggle up together on the sofa. No matter how you get it, a movie at home is a more relaxed and intimate time and has far more potential for romance than the local theater.
If you must go to the theater for your movie fix, try an early matinee or a dollar theater, and avoid the concession stand. Instead of shelling out $10 for popcorn and coke, save your money and split an appetizer at your favorite restaurant afterward, or buy a nice treat to take home with you.
Need more ideas? Check out the roundup of posts at the Carnival of Valentine's Day Personal Finance Bloggers' Posts.
Do you have ideas of your own, or memories from Valentine's past?
Share your failure and win a copy of The Tightwad Gazette
Many frugal zealots consider The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn to be the handbook for frugal living. There is such a wide range of ideas in it that everyone can learn something new. Everyone can also find something that is just too extreme even for them. We all seem to love it or hate it, or both. It's just that good.
I picked up 2 used copies over the weekend. They were $2 each, and I used a $5 off coupon that had no minimum. Yes, I got them both for free. Amy would be proud of me.
My money-saving techniques don't always work out quite so well, though, and I suspect yours don't either. Oh, the stories I could tell...wasted food purchased on sale...the cheap iron that burned up hubby's best dress clothes...skipping the survey and building our house on the wrong property...
Want to win your own copy of The Tightwad Gazette? Share your worst-ever attempt at pinching pennies: your biggest, most embarrassing, funniest or worst failure to show how badly you need the book. Either tell us your story in the comments or link to the story on your own blog (be sure to link to the specific post). Enter as many times as you like - just keep sharing new stories of failure to encourage the rest of us that we're not alone and frugality is worth the hard lessons along the way. You can also enter by telling somebody else's story, but if you win maybe you should consider giving the book to them.
We'll take entries for a week, then we'll choose a winner in a totally unfair and biased method of our choosing. Choosing a random entry is just so predictable.
Frugal Making Do
A friend of mine says she saved money clothing her large family by learning to sew, but not from scratch. She 'edited' clothing she found at the thrift shop. She took larger jumpers and took them in at the sides, cut them up the front, folded in a new seam, added placket (for those who don't sew, this is a folded over piece thicker than the rest, with buttons).
Another friend entertained a large (really large) crowd on a regular basis. She had a set menu of a particular pasta salad, but she didn't own a large enough bowl for it. She would clean out her ice chest really well, and mixed and served her famous pasta salad in and from the ice chest.
Rubber Gloves- Get three pairs for the price of two: Usually the glove that fits your dominant hand wears out before the other one. When one glove wears out and you need a new pair, save the old 'good' glove. When your second pair wears out and you have two good gloves, but both for the same hand, turn one of them inside out (dust it with corn starch to make it easier to slip your hand in. (from everydaycheapskates.com)
Accent balls: I have a primitive, hand carved wooden mixing bowl that I inherited. After spending some time in a home-decor store, I discovered a here-to-fore unknown need- I needed some perfectly frivolous items known as 'accent balls' to go in my wooden bowl on my coffee table (which is an old black trunk with a bit of cloth over it). I wandered back in to that store several times over the next couple months, coveting the pretty and completely unnecessary bits of decorative home confectionery, wishing in growing state of discontentment that I could justify the cost of three of them just for decoration. Then one day while cleaning out my uncle's garage I came across the perfect solution- three old wooden croquet balls- so old their paint was faded, fashionably distressed, and terribly chicly shabby- perfect for a primitive wooden bowl. This past Christmas I discovered something else that worked well- some large old glass balls for the Christmas tree. These had once been a opalescent white, now faded to a milky translucence. If I turned them so the part with the hanger was facing down, they didn't even look like Christmas ornaments.
How do you make do?
New on the Frugal Blogroll
- Savor the Savings
- Tips & Treasures
- Dodge & Weave
- Tara's Favorites
- Prudent & Practical
- The Savings Queen
- My Chicago Mommy
- Short on Cents
- Mom Stays Home With Me
- A Welcoming Heart
- The Freebie Addiction
- Thrifty Northwest Mom
- Smart Money Mom
- Mommies Savings
- Keeping Our Cash
- Household Cents
- My Deal Frenzy
- Coupon Queeny
Did you find a new favorite, or is one of your old favorites here on the list? Give them a shout-out in the comments!
Here I Am
Who am I? I am a new contributor to Frugal Hacks. Here's my story:
In the fall of 2008, two days after the delivery of our second son, our family moved two hours away from the place we called home so that my husband could finish college. (He's going to school to be a pastor.) Two days after the official move, classes began.
We decided to wait two weeks before we started the job hunt, you know, to give ourselves time to adjust to the change. My husband applied everywhere. He went with the first employer that would hire him: Walmart.
First, he told me the hourly wage, which was less than I had calculated that we needed. Then, we discovered that full time didn't necessarily mean 40 hours. He generally gets around 32, which means under $1000 per month. That's good so that he has time to study, but not so good for our budget.
I panicked! I thought there was no way we could make it on that income. So, I found some work that I could do with kids in tow. We had a few months of a hectic lifestyle where I felt like even though I was always with my kids, I wasn't parenting well. I stopped working, determined to make it on my husband's income.
Living on a low income forces you to think everything through before you depart with your pennies. I have been forced to get creative with everything I do and am thankful for all I have learned, some of which I will be sharing as a contributor here on Frugal Hacks. I now think of having little resources as a great gift. We know we can make it and have practiced many skills that we would otherwise never have had to. We are prepared.
Even though we now earn more than the $1000 per month thanks to my blog, we are determined to continue living on less. Living on less gives us more than peace of mind, it gives us the freedom to follow God wherever he may lead.
Freebies: milk, Atkin’s snack bars, Redbox rentals
Free half gallon of chocolate milk: Get a half gallon of chocolate milk when you buy a gallon of milk. The first 500,000 entries in this contest for a year's worth of milk, will be emailed a link to print the coupon. Don't panic if the screen freezes when you hit the submit button on your entry. Mine did too, but I still received the email.
3 free Atkins bars: Not a coupon, but the actual bars themselves will arrive in your mailbox. Even if I'm not trying to lose weight, I still feel best when I stick to a lower-carb diet. These 3 free snack bars will make a great snack to carry in my purse! I received mine very quickly in the mail, just over a week after registering.
Free Redbox DVD rental: You can search the internet for free rental codes nearly anytime (Retail Me Not is a good place to start), but here are two longstanding freebies: DVDONME and BREAKROOM. Each is good only for one use per customer.
Do you know of any better-than-average freebies? Share!
Cloth diaper giveaway and promo code
I've posted about my favorite diapers - they're super cheap all-in-one pocket dipes from China. They do the job adequately and the price can't be beat. All in all, they're the best fit for our budget and situation, but I won't hesitate to admit that I love the more expensive diapers when I can get them at a good price.
Thanks Mama is giving away 3 Kissaluv cloth diapering items on their blog! There are 10 ways to enter so do as many as possible to really increase your odds of winning.
They're also having a great sale on Thirsties, and shipping is always free on orders over $60.
I couldn't help but notice that they also carry my favorite-ever baby carrier, the Ergo, at a competitive price. It's not cheap, but so worth it! I love mine, and it's so ergonomically well-designed that my skinny 8yo can adjust it to fit herself in seconds, and can carry the 35 lb. boy in it with ease. It's truly amazing!
Too many temptations? Use the code below to save 5% on your order and remember that orders over $60 get free shipping. Be sure to tell them KimC sent you.
5% off promo code: mama
Reader hack: uses for leftover giftwrap
Perhaps you have found storing wrapping paper for a year awkward or have just a little that you are trying to use up. I've repurposed wrapping numerous ways. Here are a few of my favorite wrapping paper hacks:
- Tablecloth: Depending upon the design, you've got yourself an easy clean up cover for your dining table.
- Tablecloth (part 2): Or, turn it around and display the white side. This serves the same purpose as a tablecloth with some added fun. Draw, color, or paint on the white table covering for some family fun.
- Origami: If you have just a bit of wrapping paper left, cut squares and make some festive paper cranes.
- A makeshift sword, light saber, or schwartz: As a kid, I preferred the latter, a reference to Space Balls the movie. Children, and kids at heart, can have at least five minutes of fun before destroying the cardboard tube.
- Wrapping paper: December and January birthdays along with New Year's Eve party hosts have resigned themselves to receiving gifts wrapped with evergreens and snowmen.
What uses have you found for leftover wrapping paper?
The “Snowed In For 3 Days” Edition
Snow hit my city with several inches of unpreparedness. Parents, confronted by a once-a-year phenomenon, scurried to find boots, sleds, or their frugal alternatives. The neighborhood listserv buzzed with ideas for slipping bread bags over shoes, repurposing trash can lids or rubbing a candle over cardboard.
(Wonder if anyone Googled the Frugal Hacks For Winter Clothes article by DHM?)
I imagine the winter gear pickings will be slim in area thrift stores for the next couple of months. Meanwhile, the seasoned thrifters are buying out-of-season swim cover-ups and Lily Pulitzer shifts. We'll be the ones looking for boots in July.
My family fared pretty well over the last few days. We did our fair share of sledding. We made Valentine cookies using cutters I bought for 10-cents on clearance. Our library bag slowly dwindled. We made enough chili to freeze for the next snow day.
Mostly, it was a quiet relief to be stuck at home. Sometimes we need a snow day to realize just how resourceful and refreshed we can be here.
Free food from Denny’s – hurry!
The first 500,000 people to sign up for the new Denny’s Rewards Program here will receive a coupon for a free burger and fries from Denny’s.
HT to Money Saving Mom
Reader hack: fluorescent bulbs
Kimberly at Frugal Playground says:
Do your fluorescent bulbs actually last like they claim? Ours haven’t. We’ve used fluorescent bulbs since we’ve been married (6 years in January!) and in two different residences. We started writing the date with a sharpie on each bulb and saving the receipts with packaging. The box claimed they’d last five years I think it was, and it wasn’t even a year. I don’t know if we got ones that were poorly manufactured or what. I’d recommend saving the packaging and receipt even though it’s annoying because I recently shipped some of ours back to the company and they sent me 2 x $20 coupons to replace the bulbs...
Read the rest of Kimberly's post here
Frugal Dates
I really, really, really am frustrated with the fairly modern and very western middle class idea that a married couple MUST have regular date nights in order to keep the marriage healthy and happy. NO, you don't. What is necessary is time together. My own parents accomplished this by getting up about half an hour earlier than they needed to. They would sit on the couch together sipping coffee and visiting. We all knew this was their time and we were not invited. My husband and I have done various versions of a regular 'date.' Sometimes we got a movie from the library, put the kids to bed early and retired to our room with the door shut to watch a movie, just the two of us. Sometimes we picked a book to read aloud together, and we would wake up a little earlier than usual and read a chapter from out book and discuss it. Sometimes, when the children were small, we went for walks with the children in the stroller at naptime, so the children would fall asleep and we could visit as we walked along. Sometimes we opened the window of the house next to the carport and sat in the car outside with the window down a bit so I could hear if the baby woke up. The point is doing something together, NOT spending money.
The most important tool in your frugal toolkit, as I have said before, is your own attitude. Lose the sense of entitlement and gain a sense of contentment. Lose the desire for instant gratification and gain a sense of adventure and creativity. Do not elevate wants to needs. Challenge yourself on this- every time you find yourself thinking "I really need...." learn to stop and examine that claim honestly. If you won't get sick or die without it, it's more likely to be a want than a need. It may be a serious want. It may be an important one, really important, a high priority want. But it's important to be honest, brutally honest, about this, because only be stripping away the encrustation of cultural expectations, commercially driven, successful advertising campaign level wants can you really determine what you need and figure out how to get it.
It may be that the 'want' is getting in the way of the genuine need. For example, you may be thinking "I need to go out with my husband a couple of times a month," and this keeps you focused on the things you cannot do- you cannot afford the baby sitter, the restaurant, the gas. But if you examine this 'need' carefully, you can see what really matters- time with your husband, and what doesn't- time and money for a dinner and a movie, with a sitter. Find ways to get that extra time while the children are sleeping or trade sitting with another couple in similar circumstances.
New additions to the Frugal Blogroll
New on the Frugal Blogroll since last time:
- Puget Sound Prudence
- "Deal"icious Mom
- Making My Own Luck
- Frugal Upstate (an old-time member and occasional contributor, mysteriously lost from the list)
- Coupon Queeny - One Coupon at a time!
- A Frugal Housewife In-Training
- La Vida Cheapo
- Living Richly on a Budget
- Frugal in Houston
- Lovin' Free and Frugal Without The Catch
- Penniless Parenting
In Praise Of Frugal Friends
Like minded friends can be your best tightwad treasure.
Who else will call you when she sees organic eggs slashed to fifty cents a dozen? (True story!) Who knows that your daughter is having an American Girl birthday, and picks up a trunk full of extra clothes at a yard sale down the street?
I love to watch the frugal trading on Facebook. My connected friend Paige is a master of sustainable and cooperative living. I see her swapping childcare needs, passing along unwanted toys, and trading garden bounty--and recipes--with neighbors. Truly, she's an inspiration and a reminder that we can share over the virtual fence, too.
Do you have a frugal friend nearby?
Bargain Briana has extended the idea of the frugal friend network with the Frugal Map. As more blogs are added, you'll be able to click on this visual blogroll to discover deal bloggers in your own area. Not only will your coupon match-ups become more accurate, you may find more of those unadvertised specials that make bargain shopping so fun.
Along with the amazing blogroll here at Frugal Hacks, the Frugal Map will be a great resource for all of us who love to save.
A quick shout-out to my local frugal blogs Faithful Provisions, Frugal Dr. Mom, Nashville Cheapster, Tara's Favorites, Keeping Our Cash, Faithful and Frugal and if I've missed you, too, please leave a link in the comments!
Frugal Disaster Prep
We all know that we are supposed to have some sort of disaster preparedness kit or plan in place, and that's a very smart thing to do. However, you must realize that there is no way to be prepared enough for a disaster like Katrina, which was an unprecedented event in this country's history, or one like the earthquake in Haiti, which hadn't had an earthquake like that in 200 years. When it hit, buildings crumbled to dust, walls fell on vehicles, and even if anybody had had a disaster preparedness kit, it's unlikely it survived the quake or was accessable.
Consider these synonyms for unprecedented: aberrant, abnormal, anomalous, bizarre, singular, unexampled, unheard-of, unparalleled, unrivaled, unusual, atypical, deviant, unthinkable, unexpected.
One dictionary defines it as "Having no previous example."
Your best asset under such conditions is simply going to be your faith in God and the ability to think creatively and utilize the unofficial motto of both the Marines and the Coast Guard- "We who have done so much with so little for so long can now do anything with nothing."
Flexibility also helps- practice now, regularly brainstorming your way through making do, making substitutions, using what's in your hand, figuring out how to make substitutions. It's a good habit to develop under any circumstances.
Another useful skill is knowledge- learn what's edible and wild in your area. Learn where things are. Learn how to do useful things.
But just in case your kit does survive whatever disaster or emergency strikes, it's best to plan something extra and physical as well.
Water: We usually have 2 litre bottles of water in our freezer. The idea is that a freezer would likely survive an earthquake or even a fire, or pretty much anything. They'll also help keep the contents cold if our 'disaster' is merely a power outage (we've been without power for a week or two before, due to snowstorms). Right now we do not have the bottles in the freezer because we had to make room for a deer that somebody gave us.
You can also, in a pinch, use water in toilet tanks (not the bowl, though you might let a pet drink it) if you don't put the blue stuff in. You have a hot water heater, and it, too, will have water you can use if you can drain it.
If you can buy a water filter, purifer kit, or put bleach or purifying pills in your disaster kit to use to purify contaminated water, that would also be good.
Food: The thing about food is it has to be food you eat, and you need to eat your 'disaster' food and replace it regularly to keep it fresh. There are special foods survivalists buy. We rely on our pantry, which usually contains some canned foods, powdered milk, peanut butter, dehydrated potato flakes, nuts, raisins- things that do not *have* to be cooked. Use coupons and shop sales for items for your emergency stash- power bars, granola bars, pop tarts, and so forth are pretty self explanatory. Another food I keep in my freezer (usually) is bean flours.
I use a whisper mill to make my bean flours, but I have just read that you can use an ordinary coffee bean grinder. I haven't tried it, yet, but it's worth checking it out and seeing if you can make some bean flours- these are instant proteins. You can make creamy soups if you can boil water, or instant refried beans.
I have recipes for bean flours here.
Other foods to consider:
Ramen Noodles- these don't even need to be cooked. They eat them raw as a snack, like chips, in Hawaii, and probably other places as well. You gently crunch up the noodles while still in the bag. Then you open one end of the bag and pull out the foil seasoning packet. Sprinkle about half of the seasoning packet over the dry noodles in the bag. SAve the other half packet of seasoning- you can add that to bean soups, instant mashed potatoes, and use it for seasoning soups, broths, and meat if you are so lucky as to have meat to cook. Eat the dried ramen noddle bits with your fingers, just like chips.
Tofu in asceptic packaging- This has the advantage of coming with extra liquid. We buy ours by a case through our local co-op and this way the price is reasonable. It's not very reasonable at our local grocery store.
Landjaeger sausage - keeps very well and does not need refrigeration. I believe the German Army travled on these for decades. How expensive it is depends largely on being in the right place at the right time.
Honey
Canned fruit- never throw away the juice from canned fruits and vegetables. Drnk it or bring it with you. Do not throw it away.
Instant pudding, powdered milk, and water (or liquid from canned fruit- stir together to make the pudding.
Vitamins
Candy- this will depend on where you live. In Alaska chocolate is just fine. In LA, I imagine it's a sticky, nasty mess.
A few boxes of crackers
Bisquick, or better yet, your own home-made instant biscuit mix. Remember to write out what you need to do to make biscuits, pancakes, or whatever and tape it to the bag, bucket, or box.
Granola (home-made recipe here)
Dehydrated foods. You can make your own. We've made dehydrated beans for family camping trips.
Vinegar- you need this for first aid and hygeine as well.
Know your area, know the types of needs you are most likely to have, and stock with your family in mind.
Remember to rotate through your supplies, replacing them and eating the older stock. This is important for two reasons- one is to keep your supplies in good order. The second is because it is important to be familiar with these foods. In an emergency you don't want to be experimenting. You want to be serving meals that are familiar, and even provide comfort, to your family. Disasters are incredibly stressful, and you think you won't care what you eat in the middle of an emergency, but some comfort food might just be the thing to keep you calm.
Other Items
Decent can opener
good pocket knife
tools (a hammer, flashlight, saw, and pliers because you may need to turn off gas and water lines...)
Matches and/or lighter
candles
batteries
Duct tape
This is just a starter kit, and I haven't even touched on the first aid items, or things like cell phones, writing down numbers just in case, taping shoes to the bottom of the bed, keeping dry socks and blankets in your car, and more.
Other resources
See links to some serious preparedness sites here.
Start Your Food Storage at 10.00 a Week
Ready.gov
Ready.gov's 'get a kit' site
Why one size doesn't fit all in a disaster preparedness plan.
A lot more here.