I use Garnier Nutritioniste Skin Renew Anti-Sun Damage Daily Moisture Lotion SPF 28 every morning and it costs around $12-14 for 2.5 ounces which isn’t cheap. I have tried using cheaper SPF face creams but I find that they make my skin greasy or make me break out. So to get the most for my money I cut open the bottles and use my little spatula or finger to get as much as I can out of the container. In the picture are two bottles that I had cut open and the blue container that I put the remains in. I weighed it and I ended up with .5 ounces. that’s 20% of a bottle which is equal to $2.40 worth of product if the bottle costs $12. I have to ask- is it really an accident that the remaining lotion is so hard to get out of the bottle? In any case, until I find a better or cheaper product this is what I use and I guess I’ll just have to keep cutting open the bottles.
Category Archives: Frugal Living
Getting The Most From Expensive Lotions
January $200 Grocery and Household Item Budget Review
I know that I am a little late posting this but I ended up getting sick at the end of the month and it took me a little while to get back in fighting shape. However, it did make me happy that we did so well on our grocery budget last month. I don’t usually post about our grocery budget but I’m going to try to do a monthly review every month this year in 2013.
Our goal for January was our usual grocery budget of $200. We put our receipts in a reused junk mail envelope so that we can total them up periodically to check our progress. This budget is for two adults and yes we do eat three meals a day at home. We only ate out 2-3 times the entire month. I mention that not because we include what we spent eating out in the grocery budget but to show that we really do eat almost all of our meals at home. This also includes all household items such as toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc. Here is the breakdown-
January Monthly Grocery and Household Item Budget- $200
Number of People in Our Household- 2
Number of Meals a Month- 85-90
People I know who don’t coupon think that this is an extremely low number. People who do coupon tend to think that this is a high number. I like to think that it is in the middle.
Why $200 a month?
Things that make our costs a little higher-
– We try to eat healthy with as little junk food as possible- This means more fresh vegetables and fruits that aren’t that cheap in where we live. Also healthy foods have fewer coupons than junk food.
– We really do eat at home all the time- This means our grocery budget is a little higher but our eating out budget is a lot lower.
– This budget isn’t just food- It’s also all household items we may need like soap.
Things that help keep our food costs low-
– Couponing, couponing, couponing- While there are less coupons for healthy food that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, it just takes a little more work
– Shopping Loss Leader Sales- Buying items at the lowest possible prices
– Shopping at Aldi a Discount Grocery Store- Food staples are simply lower at Aldi. Although Aldi doesn’t take coupons, most of the items we buy there aren’t items that usually have coupons anyways like flour and sugar.
– Shopping at Dollar Tree- Everything is $1. We can get regular sized laundry detergent for $1 and it works the same as name brand. We buy things there that are just plain cheaper than anywhere else even accounting for size and quality
– Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without- We try not to waste food and we also try to make our meals around the items that we get deals.
– Stockpiling household items- We buy them at the lowest possible price to save $ in the long run
So how did we do this month?
We Spent- $192.33
We Saved $ 197.52 (this doesn’t even count stores like dollar tree that don’t show what you save over other stores)
So we actually came in under budget which is always good. Also, $20 of what we spent was on the last day of January on groceries that we were generally buying for next month, but as I said I was sick and didn’t think I would make it back to the store for a while and I didn’t.
Tune in at the end of Febuary to see how we do with our $200 grocery budget for next month.
Free DIY Houses for Small Pets
Recently we ended up with a small rat as a pet. In the above picture you can see Benny enjoying a Milkbone. (Our local pet store told us you can feed rats dog food). We weren’t sure we were going to keep him so we didn’t want to spend a lot of money on his house or toys. You can also see a toilet paper tube in the background, another favorite and free toy for small, rodent pets. We originally made Benny’s house out of an empty Country Crock container.
As Benny got bigger, we got attached to our litttle guy and we realized he wasn’t going anywhere. Now he is too big for his butter tub house so we made him a house out of the bottom of a milk jug. The indented circle on the side was also a great size for a door.
As I was writing, I realized that we had also made a butter tub house for our hermit crabs. Yes, the one in the picture above is on his back and no I didn’t have to help him get up. The point of all of this is that small pets are often very happy with toys and houses made out of household items that we often throw away. I know that these things can often be very expensive at Pet Stores and honestly our little friends don’t know the difference.
A Frugal Date Night
Picture this- A couple celebrating their anniversary by getting dressed up in fancy clothes, walking through a downtown area, wandering through an art gallery and then heading to an expensive dinner at a nice restaurant. After enjoying a fantastic meal, they go to watch a movie.
Sounds expensive, right?
Well here are the numbers. We have been extremely busy the last few months and since this month was our anniversary we decided it was time for a nice date night. One of our favorite restaurants is a really nice place but it’s fairly expensive. Meals are around $25-30 per person but the food is excellent. One of the ways we save money is that I work at another restaurant that is also owned by the same company. Luckily I have a discount card that is for 50% off for up to 4 people at all the restaurants owned by the company that I work for. Also we received a gift card at Christmas for this same group of restaurants. When used together we received a huge discount. We had a $100 dinner including entrees, desert, and drinks for about $35 including a big tip (We always tip on the pre-gift card, pre-discount amount). We actually planned to go to the movies but then realized that there was nothing playing that we both wanted to see. We did however find a movie we both wanted to see at Redbox. So instead of spending $24 just for movie tickets (yes that’s what it costs where we live for two movie tickets) not including snacks or drinks, we enjoyed a movie at home.
Was it any less romantic?
No.
Did it require a little more planning?
Yes.
I am a firm believer that you can enjoy the finer things in life without spending a lot of money. For those of you who are already frugal I can see you nodding your heads. For those of you who would like to be more frugal think about this- If you can enjoy the same things for less, why wouldn’t you?
How I got a Bread Maker for FREE
I have been looking for a Bread Maker at different thrift shops for a while now but I was hesitant to buy one because I wasn’t sure how many pieces they came with or if they were going to work. I was inspecting a used one at one of my favorite thrift shops when a woman came up to me and told me that it wasn’t a very nice one. We started a small conversation and before the end of it she told me that she had an almost new, really nice bread maker with the instruction book that she wanted to get rid of. I was a little hesitant but she drove home and got it to give to me. I offered to pay her for it but she didn’t want anything for it. And that’s how I ended up with this fabulous Bread Maker for free. It was spotlessly clean and didn’t look like it had ever been used, even though she told me she used to use it a lot. That very night I used it to knead the dough for the pizza we made in the picture below. I can’t wait to try making a loaf of bread in it. I will write an update once I have tried it for a while to let everyone know if it actually saves me money or not, but I know that homemade bread is fantastic.
Recent Thrift Shop Finds
It has been a while since I have been thrift shopping so I was really excited to go thrifting with my mom. I was very happy with my finds and it reminds me why it is worth it for me to go thrift shopping. When I don’t find clothes for $1 or $2 I end up buying them for much more in regular stores. When I don’t buy kitchen utensils like the potato peeler I bought for $.25 I end up buying them for $10 at regular stores. I also love the fact that my money goes to good causes such as Habitat for Humanity or the Salvation Army and that I am saving something from ending up in a landfill.
These were my finds-
– An Electric Fondue Pot w/ the sticks and instructions (my non electric fondue pot burns everything)- $4
– A Gianni Bini Purse in like new condition for $5
– An Ann Taylor shirt for $.99
– An Express dress shirt for $1.99
– Another nice purse for $2.99
– Potato Peeler $.25 (I tried doing without by just using a knife but I think this is wasteful because I cut off too much potato)
Put Your Grocery Shopping List on Your Fridge
Something that works well for us is putting our grocery shopping list on the fridge. Below is a picture of the magnet that I taped onto the back of the notepad. This works for us because it’s simple and easy to add things to the list when we run out of something. I then look for deals on the items we need to buy soon.
When I actually go to the grocery store, I find it helpful to take a picture of the list with my camera phone. That way I know I won’t forget it.
Waste Not Toothpaste, Want Not Toothpaste
This would have been a better picture if all 6 of the mostly used toothpaste tubes I found around my house had made it into the picture. I would like to mention that with these almost empty tubes of toothpaste you could no longer squeeze any toothpaste out of them and yet I hadn’t wanted to throw them away. When we “ran out” of toothpaste around the first of the this new year I decided that I wasn’t going to buy anymore until we had used them up.
My mother had shown me that if you cut open an “empty” tube of toothpaste you will still have several days of toothpaste left inside. Now I realize that this didn’t save us a huge amount of money but for two people we were able to wait another week before having to go to the store to buy toothpaste.
I haven’t found any great coupon deals on toothpaste recently so we didn’t have any stocked up. I find that when you have a coupon stockpile of items it is almost too easy to grab a new bottle of something when you are almost out of the last one without fully using it up. In another example, I recently dropped and broke the corner of a new bottle of body wash. Instead of throwing it away I put the remaining body wash into an empty conditioner bottle and have been able to use it. For me these little projects are more about not wasting than saving money. Yes, I did feel a little odd cutting open tubes of toothpaste even though I knew I was doing this by choice instead of desperation. Why would I feel that way when I should feel smart instead? Because in America we take things for granted and I don’t want to take things for granted that many people wish they had access to. When I did eventually buy toothpaste I used a free gift card. I like to think that now when we use our new tube of toothpaste we’re a little more grateful than we would have been.
Recent Dollar Tree Finds
What is not to like about Dollar Tree where you can easily afford to buy anything in the store? I found a few neat things when I was there on my last visit. I really liked the cool hand animal temporary tattoos for kids in the above picture. I could see these providing hours of entertainment. Below I found Ed Hardy lighters also for only $1.
A Reader’s Great Christmas Deals
I got a phone call from a friend today, who also happens to read this blog, who shared with me a couple of really great deals she got while shopping! The first is the shirt in the picture above. She needed a Christmas shirt and had a Free $10 Kohl’s cash to spend. She found this shirt in clearance for $8 so she got it for free!
Then she was Christmas shopping for an electronic item and found it for $100. She decided to also check at Big Lots and found the exact same item for $75! Now that’s the way to go Christmas Shopping!
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