Tag Archives: Frugal Living

Shopaholic Savers Weekend Update- So I was really trying to save money this month and then…

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on June 22, 2013 2 comments

Life Update-

So for those of you who don’t know my work life right now consists of-

1. Conducting a Research Study under a fellowship for a large university.
2. Working as a server on weekends at a restaurant
3. This Website
4. My online eBay/Amazon book store business– this one has currently been put on hold because I am so busy with everything else but I hope to pick it up again soon

I try to pay my bills with the money from waiting tables so that I can save the rest. I was doing well this month trying to save money and not spend much so I could focus on working from home. As you can see from the pictures this didn’t end up working out too well.

Remember my post a couple of months ago about how excited I was to fix the mirror on my car by myself? Well then I had one really bad day financially which involved missing my exit on the highway, getting a parking ticket, and then hitting a pole while backing out in a parking garage (it was in my blind spot, I swear!). All together this was almost $300 worth of mistakes in ONE day! Uggggg!!!!!

However, I am grateful that I do have an emergency fund to cover it. And I’m grateful that we have a fantastic mechanic who went to the junk yard and found parts for my car and then primed it for a lot cheaper than I would have paid anywhere else and he did this very quickly.

So here is the question- Should I pay to have my whole car painted?

The whole car is in need of a paint job because it’s an older car and I think I could get this done for less than $300 (Hopefully!). Then it would look really nice for my new teaching job at the university in a couple of months. I bought the car for $2,000 off of eBay seven years ago and I have taken excellent care of it. I am planning on driving my car until it dies but I don’t know if that will be *knock on wood* years from now or sometime sooner. However, it really doesn’t look that bad (see below). It really could look a lot worse. So what do you think?

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.

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.

Free Fresh Bakery Item from Racetrac

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

If you get gas at a Racetrac Gas station you might want to keep your receipt. I never would have noticed this but my sister noticed that at the bottom of their gas receipts you can get a free “Fresh Bakery Item” for telling them how they are doing.

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?