Where to Buy: Seeds!

We just moved into a cute basement apartment that has a yard and a place to plant a garden. I am so excited to have my first yard to take care of! I needed some seeds for the garden and some flower seed to make the grounds look pretty but did not want to spend a fortune. Here are the results of my quest: At Dollar Tree they had no seeds at all and at Big Lots they just had bulbs. Finally, I went to Family Dollar and found every seed I could want!

I ended up buying:

Zinnia
Wildflower Mix
Bachelor Button
Shasta Daisy
Delphinium
Nasturtium
Cosmos

Cantaloupe
Squash
Cucumber
Cabbage
Spinach
Carrot
Zucchini
Pepper
Lettuce
Cherry Tomato
Garden Bean
Sweet Corn


Parsley
Chives
Sweet Basil

Here is the best part: The Zinnia's and Wildflower Mix were in big boxes for 1$ each and the seed packets were 4 for 1$ plus they are having a buy one get one 50% off sale on all seeds and bulbs! I got 21 packets of seeds and 2 boxes of seeds for about $7.00. Now that is eating economically!! Can you tell I am excited? I will post some pictures of my garden once it starts growing!

Finding the Best Price

When it comes to online shopping, my favorite tool to use is Google Shopping. You enter what it is you are shopping for in the search bar and it will bring up every online store (and some local stores) that carries that item along with the price and shipping cost.

I do not shop online without first consulting Google Shopping because it has saved us hundreds of dollars! Just last night, we were dreaming about buying a nice canvas tent. We found the same one that my mother-in-law has. She paid $500 and this one was listed at $350 with free shipping!

Saving on Gas

 My husband drives a lot both for his job and for his work. Unfortunately, gas is a major chunk of our budget every month. We like to save every penny when it comes to filling up our cars. That is why we shop and fill up at Smith's. Each time we shop there, we swipe our rewards card (provided for
free) and we usually will save up 10-20 cents per gallon once or twice a month. It saves just a few dollars per month but hey we will take it!

For our next car purchase, we are considering buying a Certified Natural Gas vehicle. You can buy a car that takes only CNG or they also have bi-fuel options that take regular gas as well. There are natural gas stations all over Utah and all over the rest of the states as well. Right now in Utah, natural gas is only $1.49 per gallon! The car would almost pay for itself in savings at that price! Not to mention, this year you can get $0.50 per gallon in tax credits so if you decide to go CNG be sure to keep track of your gas receipts! A great place to find CNG vehicles in Utah is cngutah.com. To see if there is a CNG fill-up station near you, go here.

Never ask the question, "What should we have for dinner?" again!

Meal planning takes a lot of work and a lot of time. My life has recently become more busy and our budget still does not allow us to eat out very often. This is why I decided to subscribe to "Emeals" yesterday. When you subscribe, they give you a meal plan each week that has recipes and the entire grocery list. They create the meals around sales at your local grocery stores and have over 40 different plans to choose from. The meal plan I have chosen is the "low-carb" one. I liked how all of the recipes are healthy and they use a lot of fresh ingredients but are simple at the same time.

The subscription for 3 months costs $21.00. I found a coupon code that saved me over $3.00. ( I figured $17.00 was a small price to pay for all the work it is going to save me!)

Has anyone else used emeals before? What has been your experience?

I can't wait to try it out! I am going shopping today!

A Home Phone for $20 a Year!

I still love Page Plus Cellular and am keeping my cell phone to use when I go out but I knew there had to be a cheaper option out there for as much time as I spend on the phone at home. That is when my mother-in-law and brother told me about Magic Jack! The name makes it sound kind of phony and I was skeptical at first but after talking to my family about it, I realized that people have had really great experiences with it. The initial cost of the Magic Jack device was $45.00 on Amazon and then I also purchased a basic cord phone for $10.00.



All you have to do is plug the usb part of Magic Jack into your computer and plug the regular phone into the other side. It works through the internet signal on your computer and the first year of the service is free and then it only costs $20.00 per year!

It is still in-transit right now but I will post an update on how it works as soon as it gets here!

Free Household Products!

Lately I have been working on a project to earn free household products! I no longer have to pay for laundry detergent, body wash, deodorant, dish soap, face wash ect. ect. I know I have posted in the past about where to buy these items cheaper, but free is much cheaper! It has done wonders for our budget! I also found out my hero Dave Ramsey does the same thing! If you would like to know more about the program, email me at renaehall675@gmail.com

Swim Diaper Savings

My good friend, Melissa told me this cool tip over the weekend:
All of us with babies know how expensive swim diapers are. Last time I bought them I think they were $10.00 for the small package and I about croaked. This tip I learned could save you money this summer!



 Swim diapers are reusable! You just carefully take the diaper off, rinse it off, and hang it out to dry! (As long as there are no surprises in them of course!) We figure that the chlorine does a good enough job killing the germs and yes, the diaper will have chlorine in it when you reuse it but the baby is just going to be swimming in it agan anyway.

I am not sure if that methodology is proven science but hey-- I will do whatever it takes to save a little more money : )

Budgeting for Gas

It is always hard to know how much to budget for gas. Then, whenever my husband gets a new job or a new school schedule and consequently changes his route, we are forced to change our gas budget allowance. We love using the website: Cost 2 Drive.

You enter the year, make, and model of your car and then your start and end location. It will figure the cost to drive based on current gas prices in your area. We will then take that amount and multiply it by the number of days in the month that my husband will be driving to that particular destination. Then we add them all together and add $20 or so (for miscellaneous errands) to give us our monthly gas budget. This is also great if you are trying to budget for a family road trip!

An App that Pays you to Work Out!

So I just discovered this app that rewards you for working out. It is called Gympact. Apparently you set a goal for yourself and put up a bet against yourself like $10. If you meet your goal, you get paid. If not, you lose your stakes.

This might give me an incentive to work out more often and meet my goals I have set for myself. I think it really would work on me because I hate losing money so much! This is a super cool concept. I will have to try it out and let you know how it is!

Frosting-- Double for your Money

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. I just started a business and I am glad to say it is really taking off but it is also occupying a lot of my spare time.

This is a secret that my sister-in-law taught me: When you don't have time to make your own frosting, buy a can at the store and then scoop it into a bowl and with the mixer, mix it on high. This technique will allow you to double your frosting amount and will also make it nice and light. Who knew? So easy! This makes me wonder though-- when we buy the whipped frosting in the store, are we really getting half the amount for our money?

Where to Buy: Prescription Glasses

So my darling little Eli was playing with my glasses yesterday. You know when they are playing with something and think: "I really shouldn't let them have that but I need to get this done so I guess it's alright". . . yeah he snapped the arm off.



It looks like I am going to have to order some from Zenni Optical. They have prescription glasses for as cheap as $6.95! They are cute ones too! My good friend Amber told me about Zenni and I am absolutely in love.

I think I want to get these for $9.95 --->

Going to Dinner--$50 a Month

So even on a tight budget, it is healthy to go on dates. My husband and I do fun activites and/or go out to dinner 4 times a month for less than $50.

This is how we do it:

CityDeals.com


City Deals is awesome because they have gift certificates available to buy for like 50% (give or take) off. So at the beginning of each month, I will order a few for dinner/activites that we can do for our dates.

For example, last week we went to Pizza Factory. Our bill with the gift certificate was only $8.

They have all sorts of rockin deals on their site. It is worth a peek for sure and their deals change all of the time.

How to get More for your Money-- Everytime you Shop!

One day a couple years ago, I was looking at a price label on the shelf in a store. Then I saw a magical magical thing-- "price per ounce." When you compare the price per ounce, you can truly find the best value for almost every product. In some cases you may even notice that the off-brand is not the best deal, or maybe a different off-brand is a better deal. I use this trick for almost everything. For example. When I buy cereal (which is not very often), I do not choose any that are over $0.12 an ounce.

Using this trick will get you a lot more for your money. Does anyone else use this trick?

Turn the Spender Into a Saver!

Typically in a marriage there will be one spouse who saves and one spouse who spends. There is some truth to the theory, "opposites attract." In my marriage, (obviously since I have this blog) I am the nerdy saver who is very practical, frugal, and will save every penny I have. My husband is just the opposite-- He is the fun, relaxed, care-free one in the relationship who likes to spend.

As a couple, we have the same goals, but we have still have a hard time finding the balance between spending and saving. I want to save every dime, (almost to a fault) and he wants to save a little, and have fun too. We decided we would budget $25 each for our own personal fun money. As he did not check our mint.com budget very regularly, we were finding he would go over his $25 very quickly. We tried to envelope system (where you put cash in evelopes for each category of your budget) but when the cash was gone the debit card would get pulled out. I kept trying to think of ideas to help him stay within our budget.

Finally, I was talking to my friend and she told me about a method that she and her husband use to keep their budget. In their marriage, she is the spender and he is the saver. They have 3 bank accounts. They have their joint bank account, and then each have their own personal bank accounts. Usually I am not a fan of married people having separate bank accounts but they only use it for their "fun money." They each have an allotted amount that is automatically transferred at the beginning of each month into their separate accounts. She spends her "allowance" each month until the card won't work anymore (kind of like a monthly gift card to herself) and he, being the saver, has a card that is loaded due to his lack of spending.

I thought this idea was absolutely BRILLIANT! We just need to get to the bank and get our accounts set up so we can try it out.

What do you think? Could this work in your marriage?

Where to Buy: Kids Clothes

1. Gordman's: This place has awesome clearance prices. We found my 14-month-old pajamas for $3 and an outfit for $5. If you get on their text list, they will send you 20-%30 additionally. Killer deal.

To see if they have a location in your area, click here.

2. Target: Sometimes Target will have pretty good clearance prices on their kids stuff. It is hit and miss though. When you do find a good deal on their clothes it is awesome because they are all super cute.

3. Kid-to-Kid: If you do not mind used clothes, Kid-to-Kid and other childrens thrift stores have some great finds. I believe most of these stores will also give you in-store credit for bringing in clothes your kids have outgrown.

4. thredUP.com: I haven't shopped with this company yet but it looks like a great idea if you are on your last child. You order a free bag from them, you fill it with clothes and send them back (free shipping), they pay you 20-40% for the clothes you send in. You also shop at their store for a discounted price.

5 Dollar Remedies from Dr. Oz

I have to apologize. I know I have not blogged for a few days. Somehow I caught the flu over the weekend and have been stuck in bed. I have never had it before but man is it nasty. I am seriously considering getting a flu shot after this.

So I was watching Dr. Oz today (not a big fan but there was nothing else on) and he had a Dr. from Harvard Medical School come and share her home remedies for under $5. As I currently have illness on the brain, and this sounded budget friendly, I ran and grabbed a pencil and paper.

Here are the remedies:

Back Pain
Mix a few drops of peppermint oil with water in a small paper cup and freeze. Peel off the paper cup and apply to back. Massage.

Cold
Mix 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar, 1/4 cup water, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper. Drink. The apple cider vinegar with boost your immune system, the honey will coat your throat, and the cayenne pepper will break down the mucus.

Toothache
Apply ground cloves to the affected area

Bad Breath
Chew on some fresh parsely

Chapped Lips
Brush your lips with a soft toothbrush. Spread mixture of 1 tsp each of lemon juice, sugar, and honey onto lips. Wash or lick off and apply additional honey to seal in moisture. Who needs Burt's Bees? ;)

As soon as I purchase some honey, I am going to try the cold and chapped lip remedies.

Perkstreet: A debit card with cash back

I am sure you Dave Ramsey fans out there have heard about Perkstreet. We opened our account a couple years ago and we have really enjoyed earning free money. We used our Perkstreet debit card for almost everything and earn 1 to 2% cash back. This account, combined with our Ally Bank account, has given us a 2% raise.



The great thing about Perkstreet is that it is not a credit card. There is no interest and no fees (as long as you are making purchases with it each month.) And who doesn't like free money? We love Perkstreet.

A Word on Gift-Giving

I love to give gifts. I love to find the perfect gift for someone for their Birthday, Christmas, Wedding, you name it. However, I am learning quick that with a limited budget, I cannot afford to do all of the wonderful things I would like to for all of the people that I know and love.

We budget $35 a month for gifts. Some months we do not need to buy gifts and so the money is  saved for big Birthday months (ours are April, June, and July) and Christmas. This gives us a total of $420 we can spend throughout the year.

This does not sound like very much because it's not. I have learned to give homemade gifts from the heart so that they will still fit in the budget, and hopefully they will still be meaningful to the recipient.

Siblings' Birthdays: One of the gifts that I started giving to our brothers and sisters for their Birthdays is a loaf of homemade Ooey Gooey Cinnamon Bread from lilluna.com. This bread is as good as it sounds. I like it even better than the kind from Great Harvest. I wrap it up in Saran Wrap and stick it in a paper bag with a bow. You can smell the bread even through the paper and it is delightful. You can find the recipe here.


The recipe makes 5 loafs so I usually scale it down to two (giving one loaf away and keeping one for ourselves. Shhh!)

Kids' Birthdays: For my little Eli's Birthday, I like to stick to the rule: something they WANT; something they NEED; something to WEAR; something to READ. I personally think that we can get too carried away with kids' Birthdays. I know that we all love our kids and want to give them everything in the world to show them our love. But the thing is, they do not need EVERYTHING they want. If they get everything they want every Birthday or Christmas they will learn to expect everything they want and be dissapointed if one year they do not get it all instead of being grateful for what they did get. That was probably a major run-on sentence but you get what I mean.

Kids' Christmas: For Christmas, I follow the rule above but just double or triple it, depending on the budget that year.

Parents' Birthdays: For both sets of parents, we do something a little more special than bread because they do so much for us. We still do not spend a lot because we can't, but we try to do a little something extra to make their day a special one. The same goes for Christmas.

Spouse Birthdays, Christmas, and Anniversary: For each others' Birthdays and Christmas, we try to keep it at $50 each. For our Anniversary, we usually just go on a nicer-than-usual date.

Whatever it is that you spend on gifts, follow these steps

1. Name an amount that you will spend on each child, parent, grandparent, sibling, ect. for each event. For example: Kids Christmas: $70 each X each child, Kids Birthday: $50 each X each child, Parents' Birthday: $35 X each parent, and so on.

2. Add them all together and that is your total gift money for the year.

3. Divide that amount by 12 and that is what you budget for each month so that when the big day of Christmas rolls around, you will already have the money set aside.

When in Doubt, Check Online

We decided to get rid of our huge entertainment center (refinsihed from the D.I.) because we move a lot and didn't want to be hauling all around the country. I started shopping for a wall mount for our tv to save some space and to protect our tv from our little toddler.

I checked the selection at Wal-mart in the store and their wall mounts were priced at $95-$189. I was thinking, "Are you kidding me? It is just a piece of metal and some screws!"

$95 was definitely not in the budget so I decided to check online. I am not kidding you I found one on the Wal-mart website that looked just as good for $17.  I ordered it and it has been working great.

I have had many other similar experiences just like this.

So moral of the story is, when in doubt, check online!

Food Storage: List to build it at $10 per week

This is a very economical way to build your food storage slowly. My mom wanted this list so I thought I would share it with all of you too!

This list will build you a years worth of basic food storage for one person or a 3 month supply for a family of 4.

Week 1     2-48oz bottles of oil
Week 2     50 lb wheat (or 25 lb flour)
Week 3     4 lb macaroni and 4 lbs spaghetti
Week 4     6 cans meat or fish
Week 5     1-28 oz bottle peanut butter
Week 6     5 lbs honey
Week 7     25 lbs of sugar
Week 8     15 lbs dry milk
Week 9     8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soup
Week 10    6 cans meat or fish
Week 11    25 lbs Rice
Week 12    1 lb yeast
Week 13    10 lbs dry beans
Week 14    6 cans evaporated milk
Week 15    1-28 oz bottle of peanut butter
Week 16    8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soup
Week 17    25 lbs flour
Week 18    4 lbs macaroni and 4 lbs spaghetti
Week 19    8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soups
Week 20    1 lb baking powder, 1 lb baking soda, 5 lbs salt
Week 21    2 lb yeast
Week 22    2-48 oz bottles of oil
Week 23    15 lbs oats  
Week 24    2-3 lb shortening (cans)
Week 25    25 lbs flour
Week 26    8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soup
Week 27    25 lbs Rice
Week 28    1 gallon vinegar
Week 29    10 lbs dry p beans
Week 30    5 cans cream of chicken soup and  5 cans cream of mushroom soup
Week 31    5 lbs brown sugar
Week 32    10 lbs oats
Week 33    6 cans meat or fish
Week 34    25 lbs sugar
Week 35    50 lbs wheat (or flour)
Week 36    6 cans meat or fish
Week 37    1 lb yeast
Week 38    5 cans cream of chicken soup and 5 cans cream of mushroom soup
Week 39    2-48 oz bottles oil
Week 40    50 lb wheat (or flour)
Week 41    8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soup
Week 42    1 lb yeast
Week 43    8 cans fruit, vegetables, beans or soup
Week 44    2-3 lb shortening (cans)
Week 45    1-28 oz bottle peanut butter
Week 46    15 lbs dry milk
Week 47    15 gallons of water
Week 48    10 lbs dry beans
Week 49    2-48 oz bottles of oil
Week 50    1-28 oz bottle peanut butter
Week 51    6 cans evaporated milk
Week 52    5 cans cream of chicken soup and 5 cans cream of mushroom soup

Some weeks you will not have spent as much money, so set aside the extra for those items that will cost a little more. For every person in your family double or triple the amount of the item you are buying that week. Or if you are like me, you may just buy half of the amount listed and build food storage for several years. Do whatever fits your budget.