Category Archives: Frugal Inspiration

Make Your Own Small Pet Food Mix

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on July 3, 2013 4 comments

As some of you might already know, we are the proud parents to three really cute ratty babies. Rats are not the most common pets to own and I think that this is part of the reason that their food is $15 a bag if you buy the special rat food mix at the pet store. Since we have owned our rats, we have done a little research on what they can and can’t eat. We have also acquired through various means some various foods that we can feed them.

We had-

– Dog food- one pet store told us to feed them this

– Rabbit food- I got a great deal on it

– Squirrel food- a friend gave it to me

– Whole wheat organic cheerios- aka people food that we didn’t like but they love

So I decided to mix them all together to make a rat food mix that actually doesn’t look too different from what they sell at the pet store for a lot less than $15 and they love it. I should also mention that we feed our rats a large variety of fruit and vegetable that we are also eating. Our little rats eat a lot better than people in some third world countries.

6-25-13 Thrift Shop Finds

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 26, 2013 4 comments

I’m starting a new job soon and business clothes are expensive. See my article How To Buy and Dress in Business Clothes for Less.

I have been buying business dress clothes slowly as I find good deals on them to help me build up my new work wardrobe. Although the picture above doesn’t show the clothes in their best light, I was really excited to find about 10 dress shirts from New York and Company, St. John’s Bay, and Gap all for $1.99 each. I spent about $20 which is less than I would have paid for one shirt at one of these stores.

I was also excited to find the below vegetable holder/washer so I took a bigger picture of it. It was only .99 cents and it helps keep produce fresh longer and even better it’s dishwasher safe. I happen to know that these can sell for A LOT more than 99 cents.

6-21-13 Recent Free In The Mail

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 21, 2013 5 comments

I have been doing really well with some great stuff for free in the mail! Some great coupons for free products and some nice free coffee.

– Coupon for a free Pepsi NEXT 2 liter

– Coupon for a free box of Playtex Sport Tampons

– Coupon for a free Single Serve Package of Tai Pei Asian Garden

– 2 Large Free Samples of Gevalia Coffee

– 1 Free Folgers Coffee

– A Free H&M Organic Cotton Baby Onesie

– Free Finish Quantum dishwasher detergent

– Free Sample of Natralia Heel Balm

– Various other coupons with the Products

To see some of the other cool stuff I get for free click HERE to go to my Free In The Mail Category.

$3.99 Better Homes & Gardens Goodwill Lamp

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 19, 2013 None comments

We needed a little lamp for our living room and we had been using our desk lamp until we found one. Luckily the next time I was at Goodwill I found this new in the box, Better Homes & Gardens, lamp with the shade for $3.99 in their Target close out section. When I got it home I realized it needed a little bit of super glue in one spot but other than that it was fine and now I can have my desk lamp back on my desk where it belongs.

6-14-13 Frugal Living / Finance Articles

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 14, 2013 None comments

I love reading about finances and frugal living. It inspires me to try even harder to save money and I learn a lot along the way. I happened across a lot of great articles recently and I thought I would share.

Duke Grad Student Secretly Lived In a Van to Escape Loan Debt

13 Money Lies You Should Stop Telling Yourself By Age 30

How To Pay Off Student Loans When You Have No Money, No Job, And Nowhere Else To Turn

The 9 Steps I Took To Get My Finances Back On Track

What You Should (And Shouldn’t) Wear To Work In The Summer

How A Former Olympic Rower Paid Down $82,000 In Debt

13 Ways To Lose Weight Without Blowing Your Budget

How One California Man Negotiated His Way Out Of $150,000 Worth Of Debt

Why I Left My Career In Finance For A Nonprofit

How This Family Raised 19 Kids Without Going Into Debt

15 Surprising Uses For Household Items That Will Help You Save

Saw It On Pinterest and Tried It- Homemade 2 Ingredient Downy Wrinkle Releaser- Can Be Natural/Organic!

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 13, 2013 None comments

EDIT: I must report that after I posted this I discovered that you can literally just use a spray bottle with water to take wrinkles out of almost all clothing. I’m a college professor so I’m constantly spraying down business clothes and it works!!!!

We LOVE Downy Wrinkle Releaser because it’s so much easier than ironing, especially while we are traveling. However, I became concerned about the chemicals that were in it that we were spraying all over ourselves. So when I found this recipe I was really excited to be able to make my own.

Need

– Fabric Softener of your choice (the cheap stuff is fine, you can buy a jug for $1 at Dollar tree)
* To make this Natural/Organic use Natural/Organic Fabric Softener
* Remember that the scent of your fabric softener is the scent of your spray so make sure you pick one you like

– Water

– A Spray Bottle ($1 at Dollar tree)

Recipe

– Mix 1/3 cup of water with 1 teaspoon of fabric softener in a spray bottle

*multiply this recipe to make a larger portion

I happened to have a couple of free in the mail samples of fabric softener and I wanted to try making it for free before I buy natural/organic fabric softener to make it with. The single sample size portion you see in the photo above was large enough to make enough mix to fill the above spray bottle several times and I still have some left over.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Thanks, TheMakeYourOwnZone for this pin on Pinterest that really works!

A Cool Use for Clearance Valentine’s Day Card Kits for Teachers

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 11, 2013 1 comments

I have always seen Valentine’s Day kits on clearance for less than $1 each at Goodwill or Target and I always wondered who would buy those. So when I saw my mother browsing them at Goodwill recently I asked her about it. She told me that the kits only cost .59¢ each and most of them came with a lot of nice pencils (like the one in the picture below) and stickers and other little gifts that were great for teachers (she is a substitute teacher). Especially in the area we live in, the schools have had major budget cuts and teachers have had to be creative with how they buy things for their classes. So for less than $1 teachers could possibly get little gifts or incentives for their students.

May 2013 Grocery and Household Item Budget

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 3, 2013 None comments

Our goal is to spend only around $200 a month on all groceries and household items and this month we were $70 under! This was a little bit of an unusual month for us as far as our grocery budget goes. As exciting as that is, it’s only because of the Free $100 Publix Gift Card I won. This took $100 off of our budget so we would actually have been about $30 over this month otherwise.

We were on track to spend even less in May but towards the end of the month I recommitted myself to eating really, really healthy. Therefore, I didn’t want to eat some of the food we already had in the house and had to go out to buy more meats, veggies, etc. It did cost a little more but it was definitely worth it and I’m going to continue the healthy eating into June (and hopefully longer) so we will see how this affects the grocery budget next month.

We also ate out more this month than we have in probably an entire year. We had a lot to celebrate so I feel that it was entirely worth it. Eating out isn’t included in our grocery budget.

May Totals-

Spent- $129.84

Saved- $309.73 (not including savings from stores such as Aldi and Dollar Tree which are hard to calculate)

Remember- This budget is for two adults and we eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, cleaning products, toothpaste, etc.

Some of Our Shopping Trips This Month (Not All of These Were From The Grocery Budget)-

5-2-13 Publix Shopping Trip

Free Croft & Barrow Towels with Kohl’s Cash

Walgreens Banana Boat Sunscreen Deal $1.75 each

Publix Returns Made Easy

5-16-13 Goodwill Thrift Shop Finds

5-11-13 Recent Thrift Shop Finds

See How We Have Been Doing With Our $200 Budget So Far in 2013 With the Links Below-

January Grocery and Household Item Budget

February Grocery and Household Item Budget

March Grocery and Household Item Budget

April 2013 Grocery and Household Item Budget

How did you do with your grocery budget this month?

Check back at the end of June to see how we do this month!

Getting Free Croft & Barrow Towels with Kohl’s Cash

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 2, 2013 None comments

Earlier this year I wrote about getting Croft & Barrow towels from Kohl’s for $1 each after my Kohl’s Cash. Well again I ended up with $10 Kohl’s cash and didn’t have a chance to make it to the store until the day it was expiring. I was sick and didn’t feel like shopping, but I didn’t want to waste the free $10 to spend on anything in the store. I even tried to give the $10 away to my mother but when that didn’t work I forced myself to head to the store. I ended up picking up some more towels. I already know that I like them, they are good quality, will last a long time, and who can’t use some nice bath towels? This time they were on sale for $4.98 each so I didn’t even have to pay a penny out of pocket. I wish I had thought of buying household items with Kohl’s cash earlier.

This is yet another reminder that saving money isn’t always hard but it does require effort. Was going to a nice store worse than working an hour at a job to earn $10? No, so I consider it time well spent.

Another Reason I Love Publix- Returns Made Easy

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on May 24, 2013 None comments

Publix Supermarkets are generally agreed to be the best supermarket chain in this part of Florida. I get the majority of my coupon deals from there as they are very coupon friendly. They also score high marks from me because they make it really easy to return items, not that I return many. A week ago I had milk go bad 10 days before the expiration date and they willingly exchanged it for me.

I HATE doing returns! Especially at Walgreens where they act like you are trying to rob them (but that’s a post for another day!). However, Publix in my experience generally makes the return process really easy. I recently bought some Oscar Mayer lunch meat and it was HORRIBLE. I tried to force myself to eat it and I couldn’t. I don’t know what was in that package but it didn’t seem like turkey to me. So at around $5 for a package and with our tight grocery budget I decided it had to be returned. So after a couple weeks of putting this off, I finally decided to bring it back to the store. I also had to exchange some shampoo and conditioner that were the wrong type and I decided to do this all at once.

I didn’t have my receipt for the items but they took them all back and refunded the money on a gift card for the full price of the items. I would have told them that I thought the meat was B1G1 free when I bought it if they had asked but they didn’t and they were processing my return as I was running to go get the shampoo and conditioner I was exchanging. The other shampoo and conditioner turned out to be on sale so they gave me the amount extra for the previous shampoo and conditioner as well as full price for each of the B1G1 free lunch meats on the above pictured gift card.

Stores have return policies for a reason, as evidenced by the nice message on the gift card they gave me. There are several other stores (aka Walgreens) that have such bad customer service that I try to avoid them as much as possible. If anything, Publix’s willingness to help with returns only makes me more likely to shop at there in the future.