We Have a Wedding A Week from Today!!
This is a two-part post. I've written about some of the frugal things we are doing here at our regular blog, (ideas including making cupcakes with homemade frosting) and here I'm explaining some of the ways we came up with funding for two weddings in 11 months.
How we paid for things:
In both cases we really had fairly short notice- the girls were friends with their grooms, and then they were engaged and six months later there was a wedding, basically. We started setting aside money from the budget each month as soon as the young men asked us permission to court, but that still wasn't enough time and some of the money came out of other budgeted areas, and in a major mistake we put a couple of things on the credit card. We are trying to start setting aside wedding funds NOW for the other girls, even though we do not foresee a similar situation coming up. Of course, we didn't foresee that with our HG and Strider, either. I have heard somewhere that some home-school guru thinks that parents need to set aside some outrageous sum (thousands) for weddings, and I disagree with that, emphatically. Nobody is owed that. However, it is true that there are lots of small, surprise expenses that come up for a wedding and wedding related things (extra gas to go to the airport and pick up guests, extra snacks or groceries for feeding people who are decorating the wedding site or staying overnight after the wedding, a slip or other undergarment that we didn't realize would be required by the bridesmaid dress but is, extra tape or pins), and these little things do add up.
We used my credits from Amazon for several little things- the cake topper, papers, blank CDs and CD sleeves. I have those credits both from affiliate links and gift certificates from Swagbucks, and this is the sort of thing I always use my Amazon money for- extra, not necessarily planned purchases of small unexpected things, and gifts.
We also had a little bit of money from affiliate links from Bookcloseouts. That will cover the paper products (plates, napkins, utensils)
Selling stuff. You can sell things online at Etsy.com, E-bay.com, Amazon.com, on Craig's List, or at local auctions or consignment stores. You can also buy things online at those places and often find nice things for less money than you would elsewhere. Strider designed the HG's ring and commissioned an Etsy seller to make it. It is beautiful, unique, deeply personal, and far less than he would have paid for something impersonal, glitzy, and more reflective of a successful marketing compaign than of their personal tastes at a soul-less brick and mortar jewelry store. You might find the perfect Mother of the Bride dress on e-bay for a fraction of what it would have cost from a store.
We budgeted 20.00 for a new pair of shoes for the Boy, but instead of going to the store and buying them, I set that aside to use at the last minute. Then I kept looking at thrift shops and consignment stores just in case, and this year I found a perfect pair for him at a thrift shop for 5, so we were able to move that money to a different purpose. Last wedding, I never did find a pair of shoes for him, and the week of the wedding we had to buy him a new pair, this time it worked out differently. IN both cases, we already had the money set aside for new shoes.
We also sell things on our own website, and while you aren't going to make a lot of money selling, say, vintage books for 2 dollars each, or parenting books or vintage linens, every little bit has come in very handy- often at quite providential moments.
You can even sell some of your stuff that you like and would rather keep- if you are in a financially perilous situation, you're better off selling that stuff now and buying more later once you climb out of the hole.
Look around the house to see if there's anything you have still new in the box, and see if you can take it back to the store. Even if you do not have the receipt, several stores will at least give you in-store credit for the item and you can use that for items you would have to buy anyway.
Have a yard sale.
Develop a skill that you can use to barter services with friends with other skills. Cake decorating, baby sitting, changing the oil in a car, mowing lawns, photography, proof-reading papers (especially useful if you live in a college town), calligraphy, bread making, writing, sewing, mending, quilting, carpentry, cleaning, web design, these are just a few services that you could develop and trade with others.
Look for a part-time job- it's not forever, it's temporary. It may be only a month or two. We didn't do this for the wedding, but it's something to consider for a serious financial emergency, and we have done it before- years ago when were deeply in debt my husband worked for six months at a Walgreen's and the extra money went toward a bill, and I took in daycare kids at home with that extra money going to pay bills. Six months is not forever.
How about you? Any suggestions for ways to bring in a little extra money?
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