Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Into the New Year

Welcome to 2018!

It's that time again to think about my goals.  Basically they are the same every year.  Every year I start out fairly strong with them, then I fizzle out.  I'm sure this is the case with most people, which is why so many now say they don't make any New Year's "Resolutions".

Last year one of my goals was a 365 goal.  The goal to get money or gift cards in 365 times.  I actually didn't come too short of my goal, only by about 21 days.  However, I did have to start adding in found money, even that penny on the ground, to come that close.
I am trying for that same goal again.

I have tons of figuring to do yet on what I got from where, and then figure out what I paid for website upgrades etc.   I will be posting about my earning for the year over the next several weeks. 

I do know that my biggest online earner is no surprise at all to any of you.  It was Swagbucks, which earnings of $1,015.00 for the year.


You Can Get Free Gift Cards For Shopping, Searching and Discovering What's Online at Swagbucks.com

I'm standing good on my great start for gifts for this year too.  I've continued to crochet the headbands.  I'm almost done with Amelia's jingle bell blocks for her birthday coming up in 9 days.
I got in the BBQ Utensil set from Amazon that I ordered through Snagshout.   It's a nice set.
I used some of my Recyclebank points to order Preserve Re-Usable Utensil set.  It's not come in yet.  Once it does I will decided if it's something I can order more of for my gift stash.

Another of my goals is to declutter and organize this house.  2018 needs to be the year!! 
I dug out a couple of lists I've started in the past.  I say started because I have tried one of them twice--one time not getting past day 2 and another time I got to day 9.   This is the list I am actually starting with.  It's How to Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day for 30 Days.  You can find the article HERE is you would like to check it out for yourself.
Day one was today for me.  It really is surprising just what you can get done in 20 minutes, especially when that is just what you are focusing on.

Apps---so many apps that I "let slide" again throughout the year.  One of those was ShopKick.  I rarely messed with it at all.  At one point in the year my oldest daughter asked me about it.  I opened it and did the discover books for points.  The past couple of months I've been remembering to at least get the walk in points when I've been to Wal-Mart.
I had always gotten Target gift cards from ShopKick.  With the announcement that our Target will close it's doors on February 3rd, I went in and got the final few points I needed to cash in for a $5 Target card.   My intention was to get $5 off of cat food, but when I walked into the store, it's half empty and there was NO cat food left.
I ended up heading to the Christmas clearance aisle and getting a few items for 70 and 90% off.
Adding these items to my gift stash (except the Lindt chocolates, which are being adding to my stomach).

As I said, other apps that I just let slide and didn't do.  Doing so took away a lot of earnings for me.  Over the next several weeks I will also be writing about different apps.  Perhaps when I redeem would be a good time to write about them.

I've gotten too wordy again in this post, so will leave you with a few goodies to check out. 

Free Eggs & Bread at Walmart

Free Larabar at Kroger & Affiliates

30 Free Recyclebank Points

Win a $1000 Yankee Candle Shopping Spree

Frugal Friday with Marsha --Gift Giving

It's that time of year--time for the birthdays of the grandchildren.  I thought it would be fun to share the gifts that I give them in my Frugal Friday posts.

First came Skyler's 13th birthday.  He's my step-grandson.  I was busy worrying about not having much for him.  All I had in my stash was a Star Wars spiral notebook that I had picked up at Walmart for 50 cents on clearance.
My daughter then suggested that I crochet him hacky sacks.  I would never have thought of that, but went right to finding a pattern online.

I used the pattern found here:  http://www.freshstitches.com/how-to-make-a-hacky-sack-crochet-easy/

I rounded up all of the materials to make them, which I had plenty of around the house.  I decided to make him 3 of them because not only does he like to hacky sack, he also likes to juggle.
He loved them.  His friend at his party thought they were cool.  And, they had a family hacky sack game after we went home.

Other than making gifts, a lot of my gifts come from items that I get in for review.  Some of those I do get in free, and some, like this game, I do pay a small amount for.   I chose to get Rooster Race because I knew Jacob would like it.  He's been playing card games with my mom most every evening.

A little review:  It's a really fun learning game. Each player gets 14 cards then one card is turned over in the center.   On your turn you guess if your card will be higher or lower than the card on top of the pile.  If you are right you get to take a cute little ear of corn from the center.  If you are wrong you have to give back an ear of corn.  The winner is the one with the most ears of corn once all 14 cards have been gone through.  He's had a lot of fun with it.

Another birthday coming up this weekend so I will have more gifts to show in next week's post.

Handmade Gifts for Ariel

A financial dilemma made me really think about the birthday's of 3 granddaughters this month.
Handmade is better anyway, so what was I thinking?


Today is Ariel's 7th birthday.


I had ran across a squidoo lens about bracelets made from plarn.  That sparked an idea.   I also crocheted her a necklace with beads.  Both are shown in the photo below:

As I sat making those another idea hit me that I had thought of one other time.  Make them quilts for their dolls!   I have quite a pile of different sized squares that are left over from other quilts.  I got to work.  It wasn't getting as large as I wanted it to be so I kept adding on here and there until I thought it was an acceptable size.  I think this is what you call true quilting.
Here is what I came up with.  I have 2 more to make, including Willo's today.  Each will be different than the others.

I will end with a picture of the birthday girl with her cake:

 I hope to start doing more of these frugal gift posts.

 

My Frugal Christmas 2010 Part 5

I am going to include my baking and food making this year as part of my frugal Christmas, which I will explain below.

Normally I wouldn't consider the food goodies to be frugal.  I usually would have spent more money on food items than I did on all the rest of the gifts!  In past years, I've had food stamps, so there was no actual cash going out of my pocket.  I'm sure that's why all those years ago I even started baking bread and cookies and making some kind of candies and such.

I was worried this year as to how I was going to do the baking.
Here is a photo of the total of 11 boxes I fixed up.....whew!  got them done about 1 pm this afternoon.

Now for the fun part.  The Lord works in mysterious ways and does provide!!
I was chosen to do a giveaway through myblogspot with Chex cereal and Kroger.  The prize package included a $25 Kroger card to make my favorite Chex cereal holiday recipe.  I've been making the Muddy Buddies for a few years now.  These were TOTALLY paid for, including the Ziploc bags with the gift card!  Plus, there was some left over for a few other groceries as well.

I "cheated" this year on the cookies.  I used Krusteaz cookie mixes.  They were on sale at my store for .99 a box and there were $1 coupons out!   I had 6 coupons, and therefore got 6 boxes of cookies mix free (just paid the sales tax).   I did peanut butter and frosted sugar cookies (powdered sugar for the frosting was left over from making the Muddy Buddies)

Then, I won a blog giveaway for a $25 Del Monte gift certificate good on fresh fruits and veggies.  The bananas for the banana bread all came from that (along with 3 pineapples and 9 large tomatoes).

Steve bought the ingredients I was missing.....1 dozen eggs, 2 boxes of stick margarine and a bag of brown sugar.

And, even the boxes I used I didn't pay much for.  They were all part of a larger bag full of the boxes, plus some gift wrap that I picked up at my church Christmas fundraising sale for just $1!

So.....how did I do?  I want to say again, that God works in mysterious ways...and here's proof that he listens to prayers and does provide!

Here is wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas!!

My Frugal Christmas 2010 Part 3

Welcome to part 3 of my frugal Christmas this year.

By accident I had discovered making the fabric bags when someone contacted me asking if I could make them.  From there it blossomed to me making one for each of 5 grandchildren for their birthdays this year.  Filled with goodies of course.

I decided that for Christmas I would make my other 2 grandchildren, as well as my niece and nephew each one as well.

Below is the photo of just the bags--Thomas for my 3 yr old grandson, Cash--Scooby Doo for my 9 yr old grandson, Tristian---pink and brown sparkly for my 11 yr old niece---and KU for my 16 yr old nephew.

Below is the photo with the contents in each.  I now have these wrapped and ready to go.

 I'm not sure how well you can see, but the body wash and body spray I had gotten at Walgreen's using coupons and receiving back full price in register rewards.  The deoderant was part of a sale and coupon deal at the grocery store  and I paid just 5 cents for it.

My 9 yr old grandson is getting the same school supplies that the other are getting in a box, just inside his bag instead.

My niece is getting a Teddy Bear that I paid $1.79 for at a close-out store, body spray I paid $1 for, a ruler that was 5 cents, and body wash that I just paid sales tax on after sale and coupon.

My 3 yr old grandson is getting 2 tray puzzles and an activity book boubht at Walgreen's 3 for $1.  Another activity book I paid 25 cents for on clearance.  A box of crayons that I paid 25 cents or less for and a Tonka tractor that I paid .50 for at a yard sale.

As far as the bags....each takes 1/2 a yard of material.  The most expensive was the KU licensed material at $3 plus.  The Scooby Doo was $2.24 and the brown and pink was $2.22.  The Thomas material was given to me by a gal at church.

I strive on finding bargains, and I love making home made Christmas gifts.  These fulfill both!

Part 4 will be the hot pads I am almost done with!  Stay Tuned!

My Frugal Christmas 2010 Part 2

Part 1 were boxes for the kids.  Part 2 are boxes that adults get from me.

Any of you that follow me know that I shop Walgreen's all throughout the year getting good deals with register rewards and coupons.  A lot of what Walgreen's offers are health and beauty aids.  All of my adult children, and their boyfriends and girlfriend expect a health and beauty aid box from me.  This year they are even fuller than usual.

Each of the men get a body wash, a razor a deoderant and dental floss this year.  Each woman gets a razor, or package of razors, deoderant, dental floss, a bar of Neutrogena face soap and a body wash.
For the men other things are mixed in...the box in the photo has shave gel, where another box has body spray.  For the women some get lip balms or gloss and body spray, some just the lip or spray.  

As I said in Part 1, I didn't keep track of what I paid as I should.  I do know that I only paid sales tax after sale and coupon for each of the dental floss (7 cents)  The Right Guard deoderants for the guys only cost me 5 cents each plus the sales tax after sale and coupons.
Some of the body washes are the same....just sales tax.   The majority of the rest I used a coupon for in conjunction with getting full price, or close to it back in register rewards.

Stay tuned for Part 3

 

My Frugal Christmas 2010 Part 1

I thought I would share with my readers some of my Christmas.  Having lived poor all my life, all of my Christmas' as an adult have had to be frugal.  

I am one of those who buys all throughout the year with coupons, sales, clearance, at yard sales etc.  I also make things each year.

The one thing I don't do, that I should, is to keep track of what I am spending that will be used for gifts.  I started to a few years ago then fizzled out.

Below you will see an example of art sets that the grandchildren are getting this year.   Each year at the beginning of the school year, we all know that Walgreen's, Office Max, Wal-Mart etc all have supplies that you can buy cheaply.   Nothing in these boxes did I pay  more than 25 cents for, and the majority of it I paid from 1 cent to 10 cents for!  

Inside each box is a folder with 40 sheets of notebook paper, a spiral notebook, a ruler, a box of 24 count crayons, a protractor, ever sharp pencils, pencils,  pens, bottle of glue, a glue stick and a sharpie marker.   The oldest 4 grandchildren do get a box of colored pencils.  I didn't have enough markers, so each box I had was split in half and put among the boxes.   I made a total of 6 of these boxes.   What was left I split up between my neice and my 3 yr old grandson.

 Stay tuned for Part 2

Birthday Bags Completed for My Three Granddaughters

II completed the birthday bags for my 3 granddaughters yesterday.  I think they came out cute.

They are pictured below, along with the items going in to each one.  Very frugal gifts.  I got most of the items you see in the photo with my points on listia.  Some of them are won through mycoolcontests.  Some were bought at yard sales.  In total I only spent $2.10 out of pocket for it all.

To see full details, I hope you will visit my gather post  Birthday Bags Completed for My Three Granddaughters

If you aren't a member of mycoolcontests yet, please check it out.  It's free and lots of fun to do each day!!  I win often and I use the items for gifts.