Spring at last!

This past winter was LONG! And cold. And long. This past week we have finally been having warmer temperatures so the last of the snow has melted away revealing a big mess that was once a garden. I admit I neglected the yard and garden quite a bit last summer because we had a new baby to tend to instead. I missed having a veggie garden though, more than I expected. I am really excited to restart my garden this year, but I have a lot of work ahead of me. Because I let it go wild, my veggie garden currently looks like this:

It is full of crabgrass, thistle, and so many weeds that I will need to start over completely. Thankfully the weather this week is supposed to be pretty nice, so I have a chance to clear things out.

This morning I decided to start a little outdoor spring cleaning before tackling the garden. Our side door where everyone enters the house was dirty and run down. Leaves had blown everywhere and it had become a dumping ground for shovels, brooms, gas cans, and our snowthrower.

After a little sweeping, cleaning, and putting things away in the shed, it now looks much more presentable. Cozy, yes?



A new life for leftovers

So I've been doing my best to keep making inexpensive dinners for the family, and have been mostly successful. Ok, we did cheat and eat at McDonald's last night, but kept it to the dollar menu at least. We can't all be perfect. One of the ways I try to keep food costs down is to make sure we don't waste a lot of food. That means eating leftovers rather than tossing them in the trash, as well as buying only what we will eat. The kids usually love it when we have leftovers for dinner. Sometimes it can get boring eating the same thing over and over though, so I try to get creative with what we have in the fridge. Just a couple days ago I made up some fried rice using nothing but leftovers. 

It's super easy- just toss some cooked white rice with whatever leftover meats and veggies you have in a pan with a little soy sauce. It's really yummy, and best of all really cheap! This meal was essentially free!!!

Turn it off!

The kids are home from school today because of yet another snow storm that is blowing around outside. I am determined to continue my thrifty ways even with all the miniature money-suckers around though. I have spent a good portion of the day following them around and instructing them to TURN OFF THE LIGHTS, especially when I find them on in nearly every room of the house during the daytime when lights are not necessary. Sigh. 

I did catch myself using some unnecessary electricity as well. With so many people living here, our dishwasher gets used OFTEN. I usually have to run it twice a day, sometimes more such as holidays or weekends. One thing I was doing without even thinking about it was using the "heated dry" cycle to dry the dishes faster. Honestly, this is really not necessary and uses quite a bit of electricity. So I simply turned that off and leave the door cracked open to allow the dishes to air dry. I suppose if I was feeling like Martha Stewart I could towel dry the dishes, but I seriously don't have time for that. 

Dinner was nice and cheap today. We had tacos with yellow rice and corn- yummy! The ground beef for the tacos was purchased on sale a while ago and has been waiting patiently in the freezer for me to cook it up. The taco kit I used was less than $1 after coupons, and the corn was bought on sale as well. The rice was FREE thanks to coupons (my favorite price). Our dinner cost just under $5 total for the 7 of us. Not too shabby. 

Hubby also did something frugal today- he cleaned! He went through the giant pile-o-crap on our desk and found a couple gift cards that we had completely forgotten about. He decided to use them to buy himself a treat (some DVDs from Best Buy). I don't even know where the gift cards came from in the first place, but it's always fun to find things like that. I wonder what I'll find when I do the laundry...

Back in the saddle again

For the past couple months we have been practically hemorrhaging money. 'Tis the season, I know. We bought an obnoxious amount of gifts for the kids, ate out way too often, drove around more than usual, and celebrated the holidays in fine consumerist style. While I admit that it was a nice change to be frivolous, I am just plain burnt out from all the shopping. Normally I'm as thrifty as possible, and I plan to get back to being that way. 

I figured this was a good place to not only keep myself accountable, but also share some of the ways I stay thrifty. I do many things every day that are thrifty or frugal without even thinking about it- I wear clothing purchased at the thrift store, wash our laundry in homemade laundry detergent, cook from scratch, use cloth diapers on the baby... you get the idea. I want to share at least a few of the things I do here to help me get back to my frugal ways. 

Today I did something simple that seems to be a bit old fashioned to some- I darned socks. Some of my hand knit wool socks were getting worn thin, so rather than tossing them and buying new ones, I darned them so I can hopefully wear them for another season. I often darn the hubby's socks too (that man is a sock killer!), and occasionally the kids'. I know socks aren't that expensive, but when your available cash flow is nonexistent, replacing them just isn't an option. I forget where I learned to do this, but I know there are plenty of tutorials online. 

Today's dinner was also thrifty. I made baked Mac & Cheese with some pasta and cheese that I got for cheap with coupons. Even with the veggies we ate, dinner cost less than $5 total for the six of us. Eating at home is so much more frugal than fast food!

Upcycled Baby Hats

Fall is finally here, and the weather has been getting cooler. I love this time of year because it's cool enough to go outside without sweating buckets, but just cold enough to break out the sweaters.  The littlest minion, although he is very cute, is quite bald and his little head can get cold.

See- very bald!

I found a great pattern online for the Sweet Pea Pilot Cap that I thought was just adorable. Being both thrifty and crafty, I decided to make a few out of my older boys' outgrown t-shirts. We have just recently gone through all of their clothes and gotten rid of any outgrown or worn out clothing, so I have quite a bit to choose from. I have 5 trash bags of clothes in my basement now waiting for a trip to the thrift store! I took a few shirts that had holes or stains on them and made these:

He loves his hats, and seems so happy to have a warm head!

While I was cutting apart the shirts to make hats, I decided to use the sleeves from a long-sleeved shirt to make some pants. I didn't use a pattern for these, I just used a pair of pants we already had as a guide. Here was the result:

So far, I've made 5 hats in a couple different sizes and 2 pairs of pants. The best part? It cost me absolutely nothing to make all of them because I used stuff we already had. Yay for free baby clothes!

Weekend Fun

This past weekend we decided to take a break from reality and visit our favorite local amusement park, Canobie Lake Park. We like to go every summer as a family, and this year Val received tickets as a birthday present from Nana (thanks Wanda!). The kids all had an absolute blast!

Since it's nearly fall already, the park was celebrating Octoberfest. They had a small petting zoo with goats and sheep for the kids to feed.

They got to fill some sand-art pumpkins

And pose in lederhosen.

There was even a nice garden that we all wanted to steal veggies from ;)

After playing with the animals the kids went on as many rides as possible.

We did take a break for food

And some of us even took a nap

If the kids misbehaved, we locked them up in the stocks

Though most of the time they were proper ladies and gentlemen... sort of.

Even the baby had a good time looking at all the exciting rides with shiny, blinking lights!

We were having so much fun that we stayed until the moon was shining, and the park closed for the evening.

(none of us were brave enough to try THAT ride though!)

Keeping Baby Frugal Part 2 - Our Biggest Money Savers

Those of you with kids already know that the biggest expenses with little babies is not the big-ticket items such as cribs or car seats. The largest amount of money is actually spent feeding and clothing those tiny bodies. The cost of diapers, formula, baby food, and clothes can easily add up to thousands of dollars for the first year alone! Here is where we end up saving the most by making smart choices and being a little creative.

Feeding Baby

Formula can easily cost over $100 a month for the first year. I'm too cheap for that! My solution? BOOBS!!! They're not (just) a man's plaything- they are milk bags. I have been fortunate enough to breastfeed all 4 of my children, and we have all benefited from it. They get nutritious breast milk, I get decreased breast cancer risk, and we all get to save money. Though honestly, I really enjoy breastfeeding simply because I get to cuddle with my little ones while they are still little :o) It makes it easier for me to be lazy too! There's no bottles to clean, nothing to sterilize, no formula to mix, and nothing to heat up in the middle of the night. All I have to do is lift my shirt and stuff my boob in baby's mouth- much easier. I was even able to get an electric breast pump through my health insurance company at no cost to me. I realize that breastfeeding may not work for every family, but it works great for us!

Every time I walk down the baby isle at the grocery store I am amazed at how expensive those tiny jars of baby food are. I mean, what are they made of to warrant such a high price tag? Unicorns??? (not that I would want to feed my child pureed unicorns, mind you) And have you ever tasted them? They don't even taste remotely similar to the food on the label. Some of them are just plain GROSS! I swear the pureed chicken baby food smells just like cat food. We save money here by making our own baby food. It's very simple - just puree some fruits or veggies with a blender and voila, you have baby food. You can even puree whatever the family is eating so you don't have to cook anything extra. It freezes easily in ice cube trays, so I like to make a large batch at once and freeze for later to save time. I really like knowing exactly what is in my baby's food, and it tastes so much better than the jarred stuff.

Diapers

Babies poop. A LOT! Newborns can go through a dozen or more diapers per day, and they can get crazy expensive. Disposable diapers can cost over a thousand dollars by the time your little one learns to use the potty, not including baby wipes. This is where we save a HUGE chunk of change by using cloth diapers. These aren't like the diapers your grandma used- these are just as easy as disposables now. Our favorite kind of cloth diapers are "pocket diapers" that have a waterproof outer to keep baby's clothes dry, a soft fleece inside that keeps baby's bum dry, and an absorbent insert that you stuff it with to catch everything that comes out of baby's hiney. We recently discovered a cloth diaper company in China named Alva Baby that makes really inexpensive diapers that are just as good as many other brands. We bought some of their one-size-fits-most diapers, and hope to keep using them until the minion is potty trained. I will admit that we did slpurge a bit on some custom embroidered diapers from ChunkabuTT Creations because we're dorks and found it necessary to plaster that fact on our child's bum.

We also use cloth wipes that I made from an old flannel bed sheet that was given to me. I was able to make 40 double-sided wipes that are 8" x 8" and fit nicely in a regular baby wipes box. I even found a video for folding the wipes so they pop up in a wipes container. Yay for more free handmade stuff!

Our total cost for all our diapers and wipes is less than $300 total. Much better that those pricey disposables!

Clothes

For the first few years of a child's life they grow amazingly fast. So fast that they will outgrow nearly all their clothes before they even become slightly worn out. Because of this I have a hard time dropping $20 on one pair of jammies that my baby will wear maybe 5 times before outgrowing them. For this minion, about 95% of his clothing came from 2 places- the thrift store and a children's resale shop. I usually spend no more than $5 for a complete outfit, and the clothing is all in fantastic shape because it was barely worn. The cheapest clothing is from the thrift shop. I buy whatever is on sale for half off and have a frequent shopper's discount card, so most things cost $1 or less. The children's resale shop is slightly more expensive, but all of their stuff is name-brands in excellent shape. Another good place to get clothing is yard sales, but we weren't able to go to many this past summer. As an added bonus, when the minion has outgrown his clothes yet again I can sell the good stuff to the resale shop and make back some of the money spent (though the money usually goes towards clothing in the next size). If you're not interested in buying clothing used, then check out the clearance rack at your favorite store. I can often score brand new clothing for less than $5!

Tip: when buying used clothing, always look at it carefully in the store to check for stains and holes. It's not worth buying something that is stained or falling apart, and many thrift shops and resale stores do not allow you to return items.