November 2009

Tiffany at My Litter shares with us the art of cutting children’s bangs!

How To Cut Bangs On Children

One of the biggest costs that you can avoid are trips to the hairdresser. Although I would hate to put myself out of business ( if I was still doing hair) it is possible to stretch a haircut. Learning how to cut “bangs” or the front of their hair can “buy” you a few extra weeks before you have to get the rest cut.

But first, does this look like the face of a kid excitedly hoping for a haircut? Yea, he wasn’t too thrilled. Sorry buddy, I hate that long in the face thing the guys have going on right now.

She was also thrilled to be getting her hair cut. I think she was just mad I was doing it and she didn’t do it herself.

Don’t be afraid to cut your kids bangs. Just do a little at a time and QUIT while you are ahead! We all have horror stories of our Mother’s cutting our bangs too short, so don’t keep cutting, just walk away! But the most important thing is to layer the bangs to soften them up and blend them into the rest of the haircut.

Once you have the length cut. Pull the “bangs” up from the side and cut off the point to make them lay really well. Take a look at the video where I show you how.

This works well on husbands to extend the life of their haircuts also! Good luck, don’t be afraid.
You can always start out practicing on the dog…

.

Tiffany Ivanovsky, a.k.a. MyLitter is mother to 6 fabulous children ages, 11,9,7,5,3, and 1. She spends her days daydreaming, eating bon bons and watching all the soaps. NOT! In her free time she likes to do laundry, dishes and wash the kitchen floor. Tiffany and her family survive on laughter, sarcasm and most of all love.

Tweet

{ 0 comments }

Rachel is a Coupons, Deals and More reader that is new-ish to couponing, She began her journey less than a year ago, and this is the story of her first success at Walgreen’s!

.

Before spring this year, I thought couponing was a waste of time and energy. I would clip and redeem a few, but mostly they wound up wrinkled in a jacket pocket, left on an end table, or found months past their expiration date in the bottom of my purse. All this to try and save 75¢! Needless to say, it wasn’t worth it. For me.

Then I took a “coupon class” offered at my church. It cost $25, and I was very skeptical. I received a “scholarship” for the $25, so I went. They talked about saving strategies for grocery and drug stores, ECBs and RRs, Target gift cards, coupon filing, and more. My head was swimming! The worst part was to find all the deals and coupon matchups, you had to look ONLINE! I had no Internet at home, so my options were limited. The local library only allows one hour of Internet per day, and NO downloading, so NO printables!

Finally in February, I got Internet at home. This is where the fun begins. Since the class in December, I had been asking people for their inserts and was getting about two or three per week. By the time I could search for deals, I was already set with the coupons from last week – or last month. I was stoked!

One week, I got online to see what deals could be had. I decided that Walgreen’s had some deals I would try first. There were many RR deals and lots of money makers, some of which were high dollar! I wrote a list, tried to figure out transactions and the rolling scenarios, gathered my coupons, and off I went. It was a Saturday (3/7/09), so I wasn’t sure what deals to expect. Plus I had my not-quite-two year old son with me!

I made out like a bandit! I purchased these items in six total transactions to minimize my OOP.

I got $143.62 worth of merchandise including:

4 Clorox Disinfecting Wipes
2 Clorox Disinfecting Bathroom Cleaner spray
2 Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner with Bleach
3 Sense & Spray
2 Aleve Pain Reliever
3 Blink Tears
1 Sambucol Cold & Flu Relief
3 Colgate MaxFresh Toothpaste
4 Garnier Fructis products
4 Ritz Crackers
2 Whatchamacallit Candy Bars
2 Thingamajig Candy Bars
1 Fiber One Chewy Bar
2 Pencils

TOTAL OOP: $13.62 This total is actual OOP – including tax!!
TOTAL RR I walked out with: $13.00 (Walked in with NONE, as this was my FIRST TIME!)
TOTAL COST OF ENTIRE TRIP: 62 CENTS!!! (99.6% savings after coupons and RRs!!)

The total cost was less than the price of the two pencils (39¢ each) I had to buy in order for the RR to go through!

Now that I know how to better roll RRs, the same trip would be less OOP. I got the candy bars and pencils to bring the total up because I was using too high of RRs as coupons, then needed more fillers for the transactions since you can’t have a negative balance. My cashier was a doll, very patient, and congratulated me on such a great haul. I don’t know who was more surprised at my savings, her or me!

Oh! And through this whole trip taking over an hour, my son was a little darling. He didn’t fuss once! What a trooper. Now he gets excited over coupons, too! I love to hear him say, “Yay, coupons!” Melts your heart, doesn’t it?

.

Rachel is a single mom in her 30s with a 2 1/2 year old that lives in Kansas City. She enjoys couponing immensely and the habit has now spread to her son, who repeats, “MY coupons!” proving that someone is never to young to learn to coupon.

Tweet

{ 1 comment }

Jamie at Cool Crafty Mom is a coupon beginner that is learning fast! Read her great saving story below!

.

I love to be frugal when it comes to shopping. My husband says I am the most frugal person he knows. Lately, I’ve showed him how to become even more frugal than he ever thought possible. This has all been with the help of coupons.

I am very new to couponing. I’ve always used coupons, but only one or two here and there. Lately I’ve become coupon crazy. My husband just laughs at me and says he will never use any coupons. Although he does tell me he’s very happy with all the money I’ve been saving us over the past month. I’ve been having so much fun clipping coupons and seeing how much I can save, and in many cases I’ve even made some money.

We got some killer deals in one week at Walgreens, Rite Aid, Fred Meyer, and Target. We got a total of 64 items. Everything pictured plus two gallons of milk and two magazine subscriptions, although I could have gotten four magazine subscriptions. The total of everything came to $289.90. After, coupons, rebates, and register rewards we spent a grand total of $10.57. That is a savings of $279.33. I couldn’t believe all the great deals I got and now I have enough Chex Mix and shampoo to share with family and friends.

If I can save this much money anyone can. It’s so easy all you have to do is be willing to clip coupons, match them up with weekly ads, and have fun shopping. Being frugal has become a way of life for me. Every penny saved is a penny earned.

It’s so much fun to see how much money I can save each week, I can hardly wait till the next week to see what’s on sale. I love it when I can get items for free, cheap, or be paid to take them out of the store. Does anyone else have a great shopping trip they’d love to share?

I am a mom to two very energetic boys, a two year old and a three month old. I love being a mother and my kids are my inspiration for everything I do. I love to sew, cook, create things, but most of all enjoy life. You can visit Jamie at Cool Crafty Mom

Tweet

{ 0 comments }

Jennifer from Saving and Giving has written us a very timely article about maintaining balance in our lives. With the hectic holiday season upon us, it is a great reminder to prioritize.

.

Maintaining Balance

Oh how I love a good deal! In fact, I can get totally wrapped up in finding a good deal and lose my perspective on what’s important. So I speak from experience on this topic!

Saving money is a truly important task, one that benefits every member of our families. Our family members get to try new products, and the money we save can be used to fund other family activities or purchases. It’s a lot more fun to partially fund a vacation than a trip to the grocery store. Plus, if I can save us money on the basics of life, we have more left to help others. And, let’s face it, getting a good deal is just plain fun!

But saving money can be time consuming. There are blogs to read, sale ads to scour, coupons to clip, lists to make, and actual shopping to do. It’s enough to wear anyone out!

The key is balance. Granted, you will need to do a little planning in order to get the best deals. However, it doesn’t need to consume you. I’ve found that allowing myself a little time each day to see what I can find deal-wise is fun, and for me it’s relaxing. But I can easily be drawn into reading blog sites and printing coupons, only to realize that an hour and a half has passed without me realizing it.

One trick that I’ve found is using blog-reading and deal-seeking as a reward for myself. I happen to be an online teacher, and there are times when I’d rather be blogging than grading. So I make myself a deal….. Grade 5 lessons, and then I can read one blog site that I like to visit. Grade another 5 lessons, and I can do a quick blog post. Going back and forth between what I need to get done and what I’d rather be doing is a good way to break up the work. It also motivates me to get those 5 lessons graded! (I just graded 5 more before I finished this!) I’m sure that most of you aren’t online teachers, but you can apply the same idea to any task that you need to accomplish. Do you need to dust, vacuum, and unload the dishwasher? Challenge yourself to get the dusting done, and then reward yourself with some time visiting your favorite frugal site. Then jump back up and get the sweeper run. Once that’s done, allow yourself time to clip last week’s coupons.

Another effective way for me to keep myself from getting too wrapped up in deal-hunting is to occasionally take a week off from shopping. This might mean sending my husband to the store, or it might mean cooking from whatever we have on-hand. Either way, I give myself a bargain-hunting break, and I focus on other things that may have been neglected while I was getting my deals. I used to read other bloggers’ sites and just be astonished by the fact that they skipped a whole week of bargain shopping. How could they possibly pass up the deals??? What would they do if they ran out of toothpaste this week? Now that I’ve been living frugally for a while, I see how they did it. I now have a nice supply of personal care and food items in my little stockpile. I don’t feel a desperate need to run out to CVS every single week. My bargain shopping has paid off! From time to time, I can kick back, relax, and not go shopping.

If you’re new to bargain shopping, you may feel like you have to get to every single store every week. You may feel like missing a good deal this week means that you’ll never find that great of a deal again. Trust me, all sales run on cycles. If you happen to miss the sale cycle this time, you can catch it next time. It’s much more important to have a balanced life. Striving to get every deal will throw life out of balance very quickly!

If you start working now to find a balance between saving money and doing what’s most important – like spending time with family, keeping up with friends, and maintaining your own sanity! – it’s going to pay off. This is especially true with the holidays approaching. There will be more sales, can’t-miss deals, and early bird specials than any of us can keep up with! My head is swimming just thinking about it! My plan is to be very picky this Christmas shopping season. I won’t jump in my car for one deal that will save me a few bucks. Instead, I plan to consolidate trips and just catch the sales that match up with what I already know I need to buy. If I let myself get drawn into the flurry of excitement (especially on Black Friday!), I’m sure I’ll find myself short on cash and patience.

If you find yourself getting out of balance and devoting too much time to your bargain hunting and coupon clipping, you may want to enlist the help of a spouse, friend, or family member. Being accountable to someone else is a great way to keep things in check.

Jennifer is the wife of a wonderful man and mom to a beautiful almost-five-year-old daughter. Jennifer blogs at Saving and Giving, a site dedicated to ways to spend less, save more, and give generously.

Tweet

{ 0 comments }

Heidi at The Frugal Girls shares with us her tips for making foaming soap!

.

Homemade Foaming Soap Saves $$

As you know I love to save $$, and my favorite frugal tips are the simple ones! Following is how I keep the costs down on hand soap…

My favorite soap for the bathrooms and kitchen are the Bath & Body Works antibacterial foaming soaps. The big fluffy suds that come out are so fun the kids even enjoy washing their hands!

So one day I got creative, and attempted to make my own refill for my existing bottle.

Guess what… it worked! I’ve been doing this for about 5 years now, and have saved loads of money with this simple trick.

What You’ll Need: Liquid Antibacterial Soap (Softsoap, Dial, etc.) & 1 empty bottle of Bath & Body Works Antibacterial Gentle Foaming Hand Soap (the other styles of bottles will not work).

Step #1: Fill up the bottle with about 1 inch of antibacterial liquid soap. {I buy the large bottles from Costco}

Step #2: Slowly fill the rest of the bottle with tap water, put lid back on, and gently tip upside down and back and forth to mix the soap and water together. Don’t shake ~ it will get too sudsy.

And there you have it! I love that it is a diluted version of antibacterial soap, and is much gentler on my family’s sensitive skin. I also love that one big bottle of antibacterial soap literally lasts us years… and years… and years!

How’s that for frugal?!?

The Frugal Girls is a positive and fun site helping you save $$ and stretch your dollars by sharing Freebies & Giveaways, Grocery Coupons, Hot Restaurant Deals, Thrifty Recipes, and Frugal Living Tips! Come join us as we live well with less money!

Tweet

{ 2 comments }

Are you tired of turkey left-overs yet? Erika at Alaskan Bargain Hunter is sharing her Chinese Egg Drop Soup with us today! Sounds delicious, fast and easy!

.

I am one of those women who would LOVE to be a “domestic Goddess”. You know, one of those women who you could send into a kitchen with a match, a cup of flour and a glass of water and she’d walk out with a gourmet meal? After having children, I quickly realized that my dreams of being “Miss Domestic Goddess” were out of line and it was more realistic to wish myself into “Miss How-in-the-Heck-am-I-Going-to-get-Dinner-Done-With-Two-Young-Kids-Climbing-Me”.

I have found various recipes throughout the years that allow me to get dinner on the table quickly AND cheaply and I came up with this one. It’s made in the microwave, preferably with your kids (if old enough to do microwave cooking…although that never stops my kids from trying) and is done in ten minutes tops. Can’t beat that!

Chinese Egg Drop Soup (non-traditional)

1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
2 Cans Chicken Broth
1/2 Cup Frozen Mixed Japanese or Oriental Style vegetables
1 Egg

Put the cornstarch into a microwave safe 1 1/2 quart container and add the broth SLOWLY while stirring to incorporate evenly (avoids lumps). Stir in the frozen veggies and cover container.

Microwave on high 3 minutes. Stir. Return to microwave and microwave on high 4 additional minutes or until everything is nice and steamy hot and the veggies are done.

Meanwhile, beat egg in small bowl.

Remove soup from microwave and add egg and stir once (don’t overstir or you won’t end up with any “egg drops” in your soup…you’ll just end up with some egg ADDED to your soup.

Ladle into bowls. Serves 4.

Dinner in 10 minutes. Sweet Deal. And since it’s done in the microwave, have your kids help you out. Cooking with kids is important and will help them survive later in life =).

Erika Buswell runs a fun blog dedicated to finding deals and bargains in Alaska, The Alaskan Bargain Hunter. She currently lives with her husband and two overly ambitious rugrats all the while finding time to live frugally.

Tweet

{ 1 comment }