Frugal Friday With Marsha 5/30/14

Just one more day in May.  It's so hard to believe that the days seems to be going by so quickly.

This week I will talk about coupons.
Those things that I can't seem to stay caught up on.
I get in a couple good days of cutting and getting them in to my binder each week, but I need to be working on them daily.

I like to use the excuse that we don't have enough money for me to be worrying about the good deals with coupons, but really that is all the more reason to pay attention.
It's just that there aren't coupons for milk, cheese, and meats etc.
Our financial situation is not good, and we do well to keep the essentials in the house.
(Of course if Dr.Pepper wasn't on our essential list we would be doing well too)

I did get in a bit of coupon shopping is week.
I had some higher store coupons that a friend had passed on to me from her bzzcampaign.  They were expiring on the 28th so I headed out and used them, along with a few other coupons.
If you would like to see my post, please check it out at:  Photo of the Day 5/28/14--A Little Coupon Shopping

Back 'in the day' of me getting 10-15 inserts free each week and our store doubling coupons I had gotten up quite a stockpile of groceries and household items.
My stockpiles are getting slim.  
Even though I don't get those 10- 15 inserts and the store no longer doubles, I'm sure that if I can keep my coupons sorted in to my binder and pay attention to the blog posts on deals that I can still build stockpiles.
(Our newspaper lost it's contract with Smart Source well over a year ago so we have to buy an out of town paper to get that insert each week)

How have you been doing on saving this past week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/29/14

 As the Books For Kids Contributor on Squidoo. Ruthi put out this page the past week:

Solve a Mystery Books for Kids to Read and Review

This prompted me to go to the children's bookshelves in my room.
She has highlighted my new lens at:

Children's Books Reviewed by Squidoo Writers

The Three Rs of Books for Kids

I Spy for Readers and Writers

 

I also ran across several lenses this week that need to be updated....I made myself a little list.  I will pick one of those to share in my linky, along with my newest lens.

Here's to a great squidoo week!!

 

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/28/14

So many projects and so little time.....such is the life for many of us.

This past week I've not worked on anything except the Goodnight Irene quilt blocks and I have yet to catch up!
I have 3 rows put together and have been working towards the next 2 rows to get caught up to May.

I'm a little worried.  When I started this sew along (which you can click the button on the right to learn more about) I didn't know about squaring up.
As I was finishing up squaring up 4 patches for the 16-patch blocks I realized this.
I didn't learn about squaring up until a workshop in February.
Oops....I know I squared up, but not until the complete block was done.

Now I am worried if my rows will match up.  I won't know until I finally get blocks together to complete a row.

I can only think that if they don't fit I will then make a table runner from the 2 rows that I do have put together.  I'm sure no matter what happens it will all work out in the end, it will just take me even longer to get caught up!

Here are my piles so far for the last 3 rows:

Now I want to show you something else.....

This is a popcorn tin full of 2 1/4 inch squares.  It was given to me.  I've already used quite a few of them in the Goodnight Irene, but as you can see, there are literally thousands left in this tin.

My mind set is to just start working on putting them all together.  First in to 4 patches, but also 16 patches.
I can have some of both of those sizes for projects, but also the 16 patches will be a very good size to make hotpads with.
Obviously it's a 'life long' project, but it sure is something to get started on and something that will always keep me busy.

I have so many projects.  The rugs that I make are not listed on my lists below as they aren't sewing.  My crochet is also not listed below either.

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
 (finished)Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
(finished) Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt


I'm linking up with the following blogs:

Armed Forces Appreciation Collector's Bills from Swagbucks!

Swagbucks has been my favorite way to earn extra money online, and now they're also helping us commemorate the armed forces. Swagbucks just released the Armed Forces Appreciation Collector's Bills, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. They're live now until Sunday, June 1st at 11:59pm PT, so you have until then to collect all 5 Bills. Each Collector's Bill celebrates a different branch of the armed forces, and if you collect all 5, you'll automatically receive a 15 SB bonus!

So how do you collect them? It's easy, just use Swagbucks Search as your normal search engine, and you'll randomly win different Collector's Bills - plus Swag Bucks each time you get a Bill! Why not get a little extra towards a free gift card for just searching online? If you haven't gotten free gift cards from Swagbucks yet, sign up here to get started and collect all the Armed forces Appreciation Collector's Bills!

I found the Marines today for 12 Swagbucks!!

Frugal Friday With Marsha 5/23/14

It's raining, it's pouring....it really is pouring rain outside and has been for well over an hour.
Of course it's stormy and rainy, it's Memorial Day weekend when most people are planning bbq's and camping trips......sigh.

Actually, I am perfectly fine with the rain.  It's very good for my gardens.  It also saves me money on the water bill from having to go out and water.

I'm sure glad that I chose to keep doing laundry yesterday since I dry it on the line.  I don't have anything in the laundry room to wash, but I do have 4 loads on the table to get put away.
That darn laundry, just like dishes, seems to be a never ending task.

How have you been doing on frugal living, saving money and such this past week. 
We've had to learn to make due in a lot of areas due to just not having money to spend.
Meals this week have been split in 2 and eaten 2 nights.

My hubby did make a big purchase at the day old bread store.  They have chosen to close it to everything is 25% off plus he got his normal 15% discount on top of that too.  What he brought was $43 before discounts and $26 after.
He got jellies, honey, lots of spices, condiments, salad dressings and crackers.   At least if nothing else, we are now stocked up on those things.  (I do wish he had come home and got me and let me shop with him-----he bought one of every one of their large spices, but half of them I've never used before so I doubt I will)

Let's see some links!  Encourage me as well as others to save save save.
Thanks!

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/22/14

Let's get this party started!
School is out for summer here.  For me this means more time at home since I won't have the worry of picking up the grandkids from school for a few months.  Woot!
Hopefully for me this means that I can finally start making my goal of working in squidoo daily.

I received 2 books in for review this week.  Both will make great review lenses.  I still have the one book that been on hold to get done first. 
There's always updating that I can do to my lenses.
I've not updated my latest 10 lens and I've built like 15 lenses since my last update on that one!
Maybe I can make my goal to change out just one per day until I get caught up.

Speaking of that.....I had been using a website to get coding instead of using the featured lens module.
It seems that we can't use that site now without paying?   That may only be right since that person does put a lot of work in fixing up the coding and such.
Should I just go back to featured lens modules then??   Or, do they even still exist??


Let's get to sharing.   I think I will share my 2 bottom lenses this week.

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/21/14

Whoa!  Life is spinning out of control crazy!

I only have one photo to show today.  It's my scrappy log cabin table runner.  I now have the binding sewn around and ready to hand sew down.

I did finish up the quilt for church as well as my scrappy log cabin wall hanging.
One of these days I will get a post up with all of my finishes for the year so far.....some day.

I didn't find time to get in any more work on my Goodnight Irene quilt.  Cross your fingers for me that I can relax and have some down time to concentrate on that this week!

I didn't get a picture of the wall hanging.  I had to push to get it done before Monday morning as it will hang in our museum until the end of July.

So, here are my lists---  Will I ever even start on my NewFO's to be able to move them to the UFO's list?

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
(finished) Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
(finished) Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt


I am linking up with the following blogs:

Frugal Friday with Marsha 5/16/14

This week has been spending a lot of time in the garage attempting to prepare for a garage sale that starts tonight then goes tomorrow.
A task that I should have been working on for a month!
I have had 2 aunts die in the last year and we put my mother-in-law into a home. This means that I brought stuff home from both my Aunt Donna's and my Aunt Thersea's and hubby has busily been bringing stuff home from his mom's house since her house is now sold.
What a mess!!

I really feel the need to put an ad in the newspaper to advertise our sale. I don't feel the need to pay the $26.25 that they want to only say Multi-family garage sale, our address and the day and time! That is highway robbery, as my mom says.
We don't have high ticket items to sell and usually I would be lucky to make $20 at a sale, if even that!

I've put the ad on craigslist. I've posted it to my status in facebook as well as to the local garage sale group. We also have a local buy, sell and trade facebook group. They co-own a website called BST Exchange. I've put the ad on the exchange and then posted the ad to that group too.
My mom is calling in to the local radio talk show this morning to advertise.
We then have a few signs made up to hang on some corners. Will it be enough? I can only hope and pray that it will.

Garage sales are so much work for such little turn over, at least for us they are.
I need to look through what is left of my couponing stash....I know I have some toothpaste and shave gel in excess and that generally will sell.


Last week I bought groceries at Walmart and spent $40 ($39.19 to be exact) on what seems like so little.
I bought:
16 lb bag of cat food
bagels
whipped cream cheese
8 pack of frozen burritos
sour cream
bag of salad
taco sauce
2 cup bag of shredded cheese
Carnation Instant Breakfast
.98 box of mini chewy sweetarts
gallon of milk

I've found myself wishing I had shopped at Aldi instead. In fact, when I get $40 again to spend I'm going to go to Aldi and experiment.
I know I can't get the sweetarts, but I can find some other sort of candy. They also don't sell my breakfast drink so I will have to know to take off $5 for that. I will be sure to post my results once I do.

Groceries are horribly priced these days! I'm working towards catching up with cutting and sorting my coupons once again. It's a must that I start paying attention to what is on sale and price matching and matching coupons as well. $40 a week for groceries is about my limit on what I can spend. As you can see from my list that $40 only really covered 1 meal and breakfasts, plus feeding the cats.
I could only do that last week because of the meats I got on markdown the week before.
It all works out in the end, but I'm missing my bargain coupon shopping.

How has your frugal week been?

An InLinkz Link-up

Squidoo Hopping 5/15/14

Shouldn't it be squidoo payday today?  Maybe that just comes later in the day.   I don't expect much, but I did have a couple of sales recently.

This past week I read a post on bubblews by another lensmaster.  She wrote that another lensmaster had been prompting her to update her profile.  Mostly to add in a link to her bubblews profile.
This motivated me to get in to squidoo and update my own profile.

I changed it up just a bit and then did add a link to my bubblews profile page. (although I sure with bubblews would be up more than it's down).
While there I also switched up the 5 lenses of mine that you see down the side as well as add my google+ link and changed a couple of those other website links too.

This week, if you don't mind, let's do something different in the linky.  For one of the links that you share, please make it your profile page.  I'm interested in what others have for their profiles.

When I'm returning comments, I also open the person's profile page in another tab before approving the comment.

Thanks gang!

An InLinkz Link-up

WIP Wednesday 5/14/13

Life is so crazy right now!  My daughter took on a full time babysitting job.  This on top of finishing up her schoolwork to be graduated this year.
We've had one yard sale and really must have another one this Saturday.
Always the usual things that I do, but add in the extra taking Jasmine to the babysitting jobs and picking up grandkids at school.
It's surprising that I've gotten anything done and home and I have to be thankful for my times away from home to sew.

Friday was sit n' sew at the quilt shop.   It's from 6-10 pm.   I took my hexagons.
I learned my lesson that you don't work on them that long in a stretch.  I thought my thumb and my thumbnail were both going to fall off from holding down to get them stitched.
I didn't get any pieces put together, but I have 4 sets of flowers ready to put together.  They are in the bag.
Otherwise you can just look at my box and know this truly is a forever project.

Here are all of my 4 patches that will eventually be 16 patch squares for the Goodnight Irene quilt.
I'm to the point of squaring these up.   I still hope to get the 2 rows of blocks together and sewn on to catch up to what I should have done by this month.

A couple of evenings in front of the tv and computer I cut up 4 extra large t-shirts and got the middle braid started on a rug to make with them.  I'm thinking the 4 extra large shirts will make a rug all their own.   I still have another rug started in another bag as well that didn't get worked on.
I did pick up some more fabric strips to add to that bag yesterday.
Oh, that cute sewing/craft basket I picked up at a yard sale for $5.  I really bought it for the $8 cone of cotton yarn that was inside it.  I decided that cute basket is a lot better than the usual bag I have sitting by my desk while I work....decorative too.
It was also filled with other yarn and knitting supplies.  I won't use those so they are packed into a bag to put out for sale at the yard sale.

Yesterday was sewing club day at church.  After months and months of working on this quilt, I am finally to hand sewing the binding down.

Finally we are down to my current lists.  Hopefully I can check off a couple more by next Wednesday.  This is only sewing and not my rug making or other crochet and such projects.

UFO's:
(finished) Log Cabin quilt
Log Cabin wall hanging
Log cabin table runner
Rectangle quilt
2 rectangle table runners (one done)
challenge wall hanging
GoodNight Irene quilt/wall hanging
Quilt for sewing club at church
 (Finished) Applique Bunnies quilt
 (Finished) Penny Patch Quilt
Yo-Yo Table runner
Hexagon table topper
(Finished) Spoolin' Around
Emerald Island Fusique table runner

NewFO's
Sunflower table runner and matching placemats
Spiderweb quilt
Easter wall hanging
Cat wall hanging
Christmas bags (total of at least 25)
Braid table runner
Sunflower pillow
Christmas wall hanging
Five and Dime quilt
Chevron quilt

I am linking up with the following blogs: