Archive for Archive for December, 2009

Return Those Gifts! (and anything else you bought by mistake)

I spent all evening digging Christmas gifts from the hidden spaces. Along the way, I discovered: a hose nozzle that didn’t fit 4 cans of spray paint in the wrong shade a gift sweater that makes me look pregnant a Toys R Us store credit I thought I lost Pretty sloppy, huh?  I set the [...]

Posted by: MerchantShips on Monday, December 21st, 2009

Make Money Writing, Homemade Gifts for Men, and More

I’ve just signed up at Associated Content, where you can make a little extra money for your writing.    I’m not sure that this will be a huge source of income for us, but every little bit counts, of course.  Right now, they have a special where if you sign up now and get five posts [...]

Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress on Friday, December 18th, 2009

Surprisingly simple tactic for finding the perfect gift

It’s almost too late this year, but I’m going to give it a shot!  Why didn’t I think of this? For each person on my list, I tried to write down five to ten words that describe them in some fashion. I’ll list the eight words I came up with for someone on my list: [...]

Posted by: kimc on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Frugal Tactics For Cookie Baking

I hauled home a 4-lb bag of chocolate chips this week. I ignored the frugal rule (do the math) and bought it by instinct. At $7 for 64 oz, the cost is equivalent to paying $1.08 for a 12-oz bag of Nestle semi-sweet morsels. Couponers could beat that, but not for convenience. This is the [...]

Posted by: MerchantShips on Monday, December 14th, 2009

9 Frugal Things to Make and Do for Christmas

This braided headband is made using scraps of cloth you already have on hand and a bit of elastic. Very cute. Make your own snowglobe- you need a jar with a good lid, some clear drying epoxy glue for the figurines, distilled water, a drop or two of glycerine (to keep the snow from falling [...]

Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress on Friday, December 11th, 2009

10 Changes we’ve made this year

Our family has made quite a few changes this year toward simplifying our lives and our budget.  Some required extra work to adjust; others were painless.  Some save a significant amount of money, while others were done for different reasons – but resulted in savings as a secondary effect. We switched to cloth diapers. This [...]

Posted by: kimc on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

10 Frugal Gifts I’m Giving

Whew! I just crossed the last item from my Christmas list. It did require a last-minute run into Fresh Market, but overall, I came in under budget. Here are 10 frugal gifts you might find on my kitchen counter this season: 4 Tickets to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. Don’t laugh–admission costs [...]

Posted by: MerchantShips on Monday, December 7th, 2009

Shopping on Amazon this year? Nail the $25 free-shipping offer!

You probably know that many items on Amazon qualify for free shipping – if your order is over $25. But what if your order is just a little under $25?  What if you’re only short by 1 measly cent?  Or 10?  Or $1.51? Try this. Brilliant!

Posted by: kimc on Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Frugal and Creative Christmas (or other) Gifts

For children- the best way to reduce your children’s expectations and cases of the ‘gimmes’ is to turn off the television, or at least the commercials, and take them to the library or the park instead of the mall or toy shop.  If they don’t know what’s out there, they can’t yirn for it (yes, [...]

Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress on Friday, December 4th, 2009