Category Archives: Frugal Living

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.

Make Your Own Natural/Organic Hand Soap with Only 2 Ingredients

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 11, 2013 None comments

If you have been reading about my Natural/Organic adventures and deals HERE then you already know that I have been replacing the cleaning and personal care products in my house with Chemical Free options. I wanted to find a good alternative to our hand soap especially because I often have dry, cracked skin on my hands and wash them a lot. I ended up purchasing Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Soap which is made from olive oil and I did a little research on how to turn it into hand soap.

You Need-

– Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap scent of your choice

– 1 Empty Foaming Hand Soap Pump – $1 at Dollar Tree (I gave away the soap and kept the bottle)

– Water

Hand Soap Recipe-

– 1/8 Parts Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap

– 7/8 Parts Water

*This isn’t an exact recipe so I don’t measure, I simply eyeball it*

– Mix it in a foaming hand soap pump. This part is important because if you use a regular soap pump like I did at first it’s really runny and you will use more. However, it makes a great foaming hand soap.

It’s that easy!

You do have the option of adding an essential oil for a different scent but I like the way the Almond Dr. Bronner’s soap smells so I don’t find that necessary. You can also add Tea Tree Oil to make the soap antibacterial but we didn’t use antibacterial soap before we went organic so we haven’t tried that yet.

Click HERE to read about more of my Organic / Natural / Chemical Free adventures.

Thanks, to MyMerryMessyLife for help with this recipe.

My $20 Goodwill Bench Before and After

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 8, 2013 None comments

BEFORE

For a couple of months I’ve been thinking about how I would really like to have a bench in the small entrance way in our house. I was surprised to find the above bench for less than $20 at Goodwill despite the fact that it was a little scratched and a small dog had gotten a hold of it’s bottom right leg and chewed it up a little.

I knew that when I was done, will a little help from some of the stain sticks my mother and I have acquired through the years, that you would never be able to tell it had been damaged. What I didn’t know was that my new-to-me bench would actually look like new. I just wish I had taken a picture of the pile of shoes that used to sit where the bench is now so that you could see how much better it looks and you would never guess it’s already full to the brim of shoes.

*Stain Stick Tip*- Grab a small rag and wipe over the spots you have colored in. It helps to blend the stain into the grain of the wood so it looks a lot more natural and has less marker lines.

AFTER

If anyone knows where this bench originally came from please leave me a comment. I would be curious to hear.

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.

Stocking Up On Toilet Paper at Walgreens

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on May 31, 2013 None comments

Why did I buy 6 12 packs of toilet paper at Walgreens today? To take advantage of an even better stock up deal than usual.

Here it is-
Bought 6 12packs of Real Soft Toilet Paper at Walgreens – Regularly $5 each
– Used $1 off Real Soft Toilet Paper from the May Coupon Booklet (this coupon takes of $1 each, $6 total)- Exp 6/1/13
– Used $5 off of $20 Walgreens purchase catalina coupon from a couple of days ago- Exp 5/31
Cost After Coupons- $19 for 6 12packs of Toilet Paper
Saved- $11

So for $19 we are set for toilet paper for at least the next month. Even when it’s not on sale we usually buy Walgreens $5 Real Soft toilet paper because they are thick rolls that last a while and they are cheaper at full price than when buying TP at regular price anywhere else around here.

When they are regular price they are .41 cents per roll which works out to be cheaper than the big box clubs I’ve compared it to. Walgreens often gives out $1 off coupons that makes it .33 cents per roll.

Today we only paid .26 cents per roll which is even better. One thing I hate spending money on is toilet paper because it literally goes down the drain. It’s the only paper product we buy in our house so I always try to get it as cheaply as possible.

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.

Saw It On Pinterest and Tried It- Turn An Old Spice Rack Into A Nail Polish Holder

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on May 16, 2013 None comments

So I went to my sister Candy’s house the other day and I saw her nail polish rack and I was reminded of why I love it! It used to be my old spice rack! I have been able to find some really cute old spice racks at thrift shops for a couple of dollars each. As you can see from the before picture below it actually said SPICES across the top before she painted it. Unfortunately old spice racks aren’t large enough to hold many modern spice bottles but they are perfect for nail polish!

You might be interested in “Saw It On Pinterest and Tried It- Label Your Power Strip for Free”

To see even more fun and frugal ideas click the logo below and…

Divide Up Your Meat Before You Freeze It

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

Something I don’t always remember to do when I get home from the grocery store is dividing up meat into meal sized portions before freezing it. I was glad that I remembered to do this with some Crockpot stew meat I got on sale because it makes life easier. Now the next time I decide to make a crockpot meal I can simply pull out one bag of already portioned meat and I’m ready to go. I don’t even defrost it before it goes into the Crockpot. It also prevents me from using a larger portion of meat than necessary just because it is all frozen together.

Edit- My Aunt told me I should add that you should freeze your meat flat if you can. It saves room in your freezer and it’s easier to defrost.

When I get home from the grocery store I also Double Our Milk.