Frugal Friday with Marsha --Preparing for Vacation

Who knew that preparing for vacation was so hard? Well, it is for me. LOL
My daughter and her boyfriend are going to stay at the house to house and pet sit for us. Even though they are over here all the time, I feel the need to do a bunch of extra cleaning.
Yesterday I steam cleaned the carpets. Speaking of that, buying the steam cleaner is what I feel was a good investment. Just using it a few times more than covered what we would have paid to rent a machine. It was something we chose to buy 2 years ago with part of our income tax refund.

Today I am preparing for a yard sale tomorrow. I am going over to the little town where my middle daughter lives for their 'city wide' sales. City wide is a population of 1,100 people, but tons come in to town for the sales too. Cheap cost of just $5 donated to the 4-H to be on the map with an ad of what we have at our sale. So, minus the small amount of gas, a lot cheaper than trying to host and advertise one from home (it's just a 24 minutes drive from my driveway to theirs), plus I get the added plus of spending time with my daughter and grandchildren too.
Do wish me luck of actually selling some things though.

We will be gone next week on vacation, and I am also taking a vacation from blogging. I have a plan to do a Wordless Wednesday post with some pictures, but that's it.
And back to speaking of vacation----I have managed to earn $22 in Target gift cards that will help us take some of meal foods with us on the trip to avoid always paying to eat somewhere. Plus I also have a $5 Walmart card as well. With that we will stop and get some macaroni and potato salad from the deli. Yum!

Until then, I can't wait to see what posts you share this week to inspire and motivate us all to keep living frugally, saving money, do it ourselves etc!

An InLinkz Link-up

Writer's Unite 4/30/15

I can't believe it's already the last day of April!  Where did the month go?

As you already know, I am not writing anywhere except my blog and bubblews.  I've only been writing once a day on bubblews, with the exception this past weekend where I wrote twice about my nephew's wedding.  In fact, one of the posts that I am sharing in the linky includes 2 short videos that I took at their reception.

Are you still writing heavily, or have you backed down too?  Either way, I can't wait to see what is shared this week.

p.s.  We are on vacation next week so I will not be blogging next week except possibly Wordless Wednesday to share some pictures from our trip.

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 4/29/15

Sewing....what sewing have I done this past week?
I sewed up the apron for my son's birthday yesterday.  Unfortunately, I had too many things on my mind and spaced off taking a picture of him wearing it while he grilled his birthday dinner on the new grill that he bought himself for his birthday.

I did finish my challenge quilt enough for it to be pinned up at guild on Monday.  I do still have to put the hanger on the back of it before the quilt show in July.  I can do that right?

I have 2 quilts that I want finished before the quilt show.  We are going to Branson on vacation next week so no sewing, and no posting either while we are gone.  I do actually have my box with yo-yo's and hexagons to take along.  I'm hoping to at least be working on those while hubby is driving. 

In the meantime, I am heading to the little town where my daughter lives this weekend for their city wide yard sales.  Well, not sure you call population around 1200 a city, but I'm setting up with her.
I'm taking all of my crafts, so this week I am working on making dish scrubbies as they generally sell well for me.

Before I thought of getting scrubbies made, I had pulled out t-shirt strips and started on a rug.  I needed something that I could work on rather than just sitting here.  I will take it this weekend to work on while we have our sale.

UFO's:

Rectangle quilt
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
Emerald Island Fusique table runner
Five and Dime quilt
Fractured Pineapple quilt
Charming Stars quilt
Brown half square triangle quilt
5 sets of doll blanket, pillows and rug
Hexagon flower table runner
Wall hanging for quilt guild
Challenge quilt for quilt guild


2015 Finishes:

Locker Hook Rug
re-do binding on blue and peach patchwork
9 lined fabric bags
yellow crazy quilt lined bag
Pink hexagon table topper

I am linking up with the following blogs today:

Earning Experiment Results

If you recall my post last Monday, I said that I was going to try to keep track of all of my earnings 'online' for the week, not just the traffic exchanges.
I think I did keep track pretty well, but it was such a super busy week!  One day I was sick.  Another day I spent 5 hours at church.  One day I spent time at the doctor and then out of town for a concert.  Another day was 9 hours away for my nephews wedding.

All in all though, I tend to have these busy weeks about every week.  Always something taking me away from home where I would rather be.  Take today---all morning at quilt guild, then some time at my mom's before coming home to finally get started.

Anyway, I was not able to make my surfing goal on the traffic exchanges each day of the week.  I have come to the conclusion that they were taking up too much of my life though.  I'm no longer going to stress over them.  I will eventually reach pay out without stressing over how many surfs I think I need to do on each one each day.

I only earned $3.84 this past week with the traffic exchanges.  I earned just $2.69 with websites that I stopped to work a bit on while surfing in the traffic exchanges.  I earned $16.09 with some apps and websites that aren't seen while I am surfing, for a grand total of $22.62 for the week. 
There was some other earning that I didn't keep track of like the zubees and stickers that I earn while surfing Traffic Royal, but it was too much thinking for me to figure out what each point is worth on those.

Anyway, I am going to keep plugging away.

I am going to work more on getting crafts made and listed in my Etsy, Zibbet, and Shophandmade shops.  I will be promoting my crafts more often.  This is firstly because I have sponsored a child in Peru.   I need to sell enough crafts to cover my monthly sponsorship.   I will write a whole other post about my sponsored child at a later date.

I chose not to put in any referral links with this post, but if you would like more information on websites that I earn with, please don't hesitate to ask.  A lot of them are on my Earning Money page here on my blog, but I do need to spend a day updating that page.

Thanks so much for reading and keeping up with me and all that I do!!

Super Sunday Reviews Link Up 4/26/15

An InLinkz Link-up