Brand Loyal

I confess I used to be brand loyal. Even after i took a marketing class and learned all about brand loyalty I still had my preferences. Crest toothpaste, ragu pasta sauce, Jiff peanut butter, Caress body wash. It did not matter to me if there was a comparable brand on sale for much less, that's what I liked and that's what I bought. Wow did that cost me money! I know that when someone is frugal sometimes they have to make more of an effort to save money. For instance making granola is more work then picking up premade granola at the store. Bargain shopping, coupon clipping it all takes work. But sometimes you can save money without any extra effort. Sometimes all it takes is giving up your brand loyalty in favor of store brands or a sale brand. Maybe sometimes the brand you try is not as good as your favorite. There are a few brands of pasta sauce that I don't like but when they are extremely cheap I'll pick them up anyway. I either use them in dishes were their flavor is disguised or add a bit of spices and sugar till it tastes better. Sometimes you just have to get used to the new product. I hated any toothpaste but crest. However when money became tight and a different brand was far cheaper i couldn't justify the extra expense. Now I've adjusted and so long as the flavor is mint I'm fine. If by chance we buy something we really cant stand (like Nori, not my thing) we give it away and try a different brand. Even if you have some initial failures eventually giving up brand loyalty will be a great benefit to you.

Rite aid rebates

My goodness they had good stuff today! We were there WAY early, about 9:30 am so we were able to get everything we wanted. That never seems to happen! The downside is they dont have the ad up yet so you have to be very careful (double checking the ad) to get the exact product in the exact size. But I think its worth it to get all this great stuff for free. The big purple bottle is a fancy shampoo that i'm excited to try. Dh is excited about his brut cologne, and adidas body wash. The fancy shampoo and cologne would make excellent christmas presents. The body wash would be good too especially if given with a loofa. Or new towel set. The small blue box off to the left is ginger gum, cures motion sickness. I get motion sickness often in the car. I hope it tastes alright. My last batch of dramamine was chewable and had the most horrible flavor, it made me shudder! Anyways I estimate our rebate to be about $55.

Guests

I've spent my entire day cleaning! Whoo! I'm a housewife but even so I don't normally clean till 8 pm. And I still have 5 loads of laundry to fold. I dump it all on my bed and fold it in the evening while watching TV on DVD. I get to sit down! Having people over makes me 'physco' (according to my husband) I go into super cleaning mode. The upside is my home gets sparkling clean, even if I'm very tired. My goal is to keep my house clean enough to get it guest ready in an hour or two. However the 8 animals and husband that I live with do not prize cleanliness as highly as I do. I wonder if everyone has this reaction to guests? I know my mother does. She has a insanely clean house and I never see her cleaning it. But when she has company coming she goes on the cleaning rampage too. Maybe physco is genetic?

Goals

Today my husband and I sat down, with no distractions and listed our financial goals. To my suprise the ones he listed were different then mine. But after listing both sets of goals, we came up with a set that fit both of us. I think goals are important, and its very important to have a common set in a marriage. If he's saving for vacation, and I'm saving to pay off debt were going to have problems! My main goal is to get out of debt. I dint like debt! We have a minimal amount, a small car loan, 1 credit card, and a mortgage. But i want to be free of everything including the mortgage. My husband really wants/needs a vacation. Last summer we spent a week in Las Vegas, and last spring we went down to Oregon for a few days. But we haven't been anywhere since. We were saving for our house. That was a MAJOR goal! So we've agreed to save for a vacation in a year. That's a long time away! But in April my family is having a huge reunion, that's sort of mandatory for us. My grandma paid for dues and other expenses related to the reunion but it still leaves us hotel (we could stay with my family but for sanity's sake were going to get a hotel) car rental, airfare, and dog kennel. I doubt we'll need to spend much on meals my grandma's home has a kitchen and if we go out to eat much we'll probably be treated. But we do need spending money, gas money, and fun money to go. Which means we will have that to save for that as well. Its kind of a mandatory vacation right? :) Except my mama already told us she's putting us to work! We've been remiss on getting big dog his shots, and getting him fixed. We agreed to accomplish that next check. We also agreed to get our furnace checked and the metal flute we need installed. Paying with savings if necessary. That's been our biggest block to do foster care. Once that is taken care of we can move forward! I am happy, I think my husband is happy and we should be back on track financially in no time.

Cellphone

A few days ago my husband did a load of laundry, including a pair of my pants. Pants that had my cell phone in the pocket. A cell phone that went through the washer. A cell phone that after a few days drying has water spots all over the screen, and has a delete button that doesn't work. This is a problem for me, I text my husband all day long. Not to mention that I've dropped it a million times in the past two years. Its the best way to communicate. Am i going to replace my horribly deformed phone? Nope! Our contract is up in January and we plan to go with a new cell phone carrier so I don't see the point in replacing it now. Frugality is not always about buying things as cheaply as possible. Sometimes it means not fixing things, instead dealing with them as they are. Even if it means your friends and family are wondering why your text messages look like a 5 year old wrote them!

Bad bad Bad!

Some days frugality goes right out the window. Tonight we had dinner at Red Robin $44. Yum. After that we bought Transformers, and Meet the Robinsons $30. And I splurged on cheese curds. $7 for 10 ounces. That's a high price for cheese! At least we used $15 in best buy rewards on the movies. You know what? It was fun. I had fun at dinner, i *love* Meet the Robinsons and I'm thoroughly enjoying the squeaky cheese.

Remember my $12 shipping on a $3 book? That was a Little Prairie cookbook, its awesome. My sister in law and I are going to try to make cheese curds our self on Sunday, from a Little House recipe. How cool is that?? I've just got to find rennet now. The actual cheese making process would require special equipment, but if we stop at curds we should be just fine. When it comes to buying equipment anyways! First thing my sister in law said was I'm NOT trying them first! lol.

Fire

Yesterday we dropped off our box to the family who lost everything in the fire. Today I got an email letting us know that withing 12 hours of the first email there was a full house full of furniture listed, and this morning everything was set up. How awesome is that? In fact so much stuff was given that the family has few wants. I think its wonderful how every one pulled together to help one of our own. When we were leaving the house (they were able to get base housing, very lucky) a stranger wanted to know if they were the family who lost everything. When I said yes she said she would bring over items for them as well. When we left stuff there was 3 boxes of things on the porch waiting for them to get home. I saw more when I was jamming the gift card under the door. I might be trusting and it is base housing, but even I don't think its a great plan to leave a $150 gift card sitting on the porch. I love how my mom emailed me right away to tell me she had transfered money for the family. And my sister in law offered a bed just a few hours later. I am very sorry for the family, don't get me wrong. But I'm thrilled to see how everyone comes together and helps.

Animal sticker

Animal rescue sticker

The Aspca will send you a free rescue sticker, letting firemen know theres animals in the house in case you are not home. I ordered one and it makes me feel a lot better!

Family lost home in fire

A family in my husband's old command lost everything in a fire. No one was hurt, but the house burned to the ground. I don't know if they lived on base or in town. I don't even know who it is. But I do no that a man, woman, infant, and toddler lost everything yesterday. My heart aches for them. When I look around my home at the things we've acquired through the years, my heart aches more. Its not the tv I would miss. Or the couch and love seat. Its the plaque that was my beloved grandfather's. "may your horse never stumble your cinch never break, your belly never grumble and your heart never ache." Its my grandma's bronco blanket, the pictures, the plaque my mom made me promise to hang above my bed no matter how old i get 'for this child i prayed and the lord has granted me,my petition which I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the lord; as long as he lives, he is lent to the lord." Its the pretty silver ring my dad picked out all himself. I know its wrong to treasure things, and my real fear when it comes to fire is not being able to get all the animals out on time. I'm so glad the family wasn't hurt, but i feel for their loss just the same.

So I've put together toothbrushes, tooth paste, deodorant, conditioner, soap, facial cleaner, baby powder, antacid, excedrin and a child's tooth brush. Where did I get all this? In my cupboard. I'm able to give these things without any extra cost due to couponing/refunding. What a blessing! I'm also adding several baby outfits from my foster care stock pile. None of them cost more then $2.50. I'll be able to replace them before we're able to foster. I included a baby rattle that's in its package (normally $4.99) that I got for free. A few other baby toys I've bought. A diaper bag, a new fuzzy scarf. Paper plates, bowls, cups that we bought for our move but don't normally use. Baby socks, and a cookbook. I'm going to add a blanket, and some mugs. I'm also going to give a baby walker that was given to us, i just cleaned it. All of these things were items already in the house. It didn't cost me any extra money to put together a box, just items i already had. Some of the baby outfits give me a slight pang but their need it far greater then ours, and i really enjoy buying baby clothes! I'd like to get a walmart gift card as well, because super walmart carries everything from groceries to lamps. That will allow them to fill in around the edges and buy things that matches their taste, to start over again. How sad.

Walgreens spa deal

I learned about the Walgreens spa deal at Money Saving Mom I'm SO glad I did! Even if the spa rewards does not work out, 4 cough medicines for $4 is awesome! I enjoy reading frugal blogs for encouragement, inspiration, and ideas. Its wonderful to have them point out a great deal. Even my husband is excited, he wants a massage! :) Thanks for the heads up Crystal!

We bought another car!

Well a van. A full size 1984 van. At auction for $300. We needed a bigger car to haul things (theres just so much one can throw on top of a 4 door car) including our big zoo. 5 cats, 2 dogs, 1 rabbit, and two humans do not fit into a single car! It was disgustingly dirty inside, dh spent a few hours pressure washing the inside. We bought car seats covers to make it look better. Now we need to re-upholster the roof, and the floor needs carpet. I'm thinking remnants. It needs some slight work dh is very excited about it. I like that the car is a beater, no worry about dents or deprecation.

Vehicles are cheap at auction! Lots of stuff is cheap at auction, it was exciting. Its an all day affair here, we went at 9 am and didn't leave till 1. Way before they were done! Next time I want to take a book, lunch, and yummy snacks to look forward to.
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No power outage yet!

People all over the area are losing power but we're still fine. The Internet was down for a few hours, but its back now! I'm glad we haven't lost ours, and so far don't seem to have any damage. Yay!

Power Outage

Power outages are very common where I live. They happen often because we get lots of rain so our tree roots don't go very deep. When the wind gusts, trees blow over. Especially when its been raining for a few days like recently. And wouldn't you know we have high winds predicted? I've been through this many times and I do a few simple things to prepare. Our home phone is not a VOIP service, just a plain old phone. That way if the power goes out we still have working phone service. We have plenty of candles, lighters, and matches. If we still had a fireplace I would lay in a supply of wood, however we don't have one. We do have lots of small propane bottles and a propane heater, as well as a propane stove. I've always had a small propane BBQ when living in apartments but now we have a big one as well. We have plenty of food in the house. Several convince foods, like 'chicken helper' that would make a full meal in a single skillet. The animals are stocked up on food. We have tons of blankets. On the day of i lay out candles and a lighter in whatever room I'm in, especially if its night. I generally carry a flashlight in my pocket. If I know in advance that bad weather is planned i plug in my cell phone and start heating up the house. (we keep it pretty cold and usually just use the heater in whatever room we're in) If i didn't have warning i Coral all the animals in a single room with me, it heats up fast! Especially with candles burning! A word of warning, be careful with candles if you have curious cats. If I'm out anyway i fill up the gas tank. Usually we don't have the power out for long, maybe a day but last year my city lost power for several days. However it wasn't the whole city, parts of it still had power. I was lucky enough to have it down for a single day. But I like to be prepared just in case! And if it gets too bad my parents live a few hours away and usually don't experience the exact same weather. But who wants to stuff 5 cats, 2 dogs, and a rabbit in a 4 door car??? Not me!

Apple Pie

Apple pie sounded yummy to me today, so I decided to make one. I don't have any apples (over due for a grocery trip) but I have a can of apple pie filling. I've never tried canned filling before, I always make it myself. I looked over a crust recipe to make sure i had all the ingredients. I don't have shortening, so i substituted butter. Well half way through the recipe it said 'add an egg' egg? what egg? I'm out of eggs! I do have soy flour which can be substituted for an egg but when we tried it in a cookie recipe it tasted gross. Don't want to try that again. Its only one egg I'll just add more water. Then it says add a tbs of vinegar. Only I'm out of that too. Ok more water. Now i cant find a pie pan! Ok simply substitute a cake pan. The recipe I used is from Living On a Dime and it says it makes 3 crusts. Not when you use a cake pan! :) I finally get the whole bottom of the cake pan covered, then I check the filling can. Oh no. It says to use 2 cans! And I'm using a 3 crust cake pan. Great. Well I've com this far right? So I dumped the filling into the pie/cake, and covered the top with the last of my 3 crust recipe. lol. Its cooling down now, smells good but who knows with an egg less, vinegar less, 3 crust, 1 can filling, cake pan, pie?

Why not simply run to the store like a normal person? Because my dh has the car. We're a two car family but one has been broken (and sitting on base!) for 4 months. I cant get up at 4:45 am to take him to work because I frequently can't fall asleep till after midnight, no matter how early i go to bed. Why not simply stop making the pie? That wouldn't be any fun would it? Sometimes my little experiments come out just fine and how would you know if a recipe works or doesnt with a missing ingredient if you dont try? Besides it gives my husband something to laugh at and tease me about later. :)

Ebay

I dont buy a lot of things from ebay because I find with patience I can find a better deal. When I do purchase an item I make sure it check shipping. If shipping is too high I always pass. Recently I bought a hard to find book on ebay. The seller didn't have shipping listed but i figured even if its on the high side (around 5 dollars) it would still be worth it. Turns out I should have paid more attention to where the book was comming from. Canada. The shipping on a $2.99 book is $12! Youch! The big shipping charge wont cause us financial problems or anything but its definatly irritating! My dh laughed when I told him, he knows how mad i get when I pay more for something then I have to. I like my money in my pocket not someone else's thanks!

Awesome Husband

My wonderful husband bought me a present, for no reason. Thats very very unusual. I'm always bringing home stuff for him but he hardly ever shops without me, and if he does bringing home a present doesn't occur to him. But he ordered me the coolest present online. Its a Bronco (BRONCOS BABY! WOOO!) jersey with my name on it!!! SO COOL! Not the least bit frugal but I love it. I would never have bought it for myself as I wouldn't be able to justify the expense, but i totally adore it. Especially because dh is not a bronco fan. He supports another team, who's name will not be entered into my blog! :) Physco much?

Friday fun

A few days ago I broke down and bought cheap laminate furniture. *sigh* We have several pieces of laminate that I would like to replace, not add onto. But we had pressing storage needs and I have been unable to find something wood I liked. We bought a small cabinet and a shoe storage box to go on top. The one with cubbies for the shoes. Both pieces were on sale for $24 at target. I've been unpacking our last few boxes (we recently bought our first house) and organizing my craft stuff in the new cabinet. Its working very well the little cubbies keep small things from falling all over the place and the bottom cabinet holds bigger items nicely. It even fit in a good spot upstairs so I'm really rather pleased with my new white laminate. *sigh* Hubby mentioned the paint sprayer with a wicked gleam in his eyes. I countered with the much neater paint rollers. We'll see!

Why would I purchase more laminate? Because the faster I get our spare downstairs bedroom cleaned out the faster it becomes a nursery! I'm watching for deals on freecycle and craigslist so far we've been given a walker, play thing, and infant seat that goes in a bath tub. I also watch for deals on baby clothes in the thrift store and in retail stores. My highest price for an outfit is $2.50. Baby day is still a long ways off (longer if i don't get the room set up) I'm looking around for baby stuff now because the more time you have to search for deals the greater the chance of finding a good deal. or better yet free! Unfortunately we need to get some work done on our home before they will approve the home study (foster parent regulations are very detailed) hopefully it wont be too long till its taken care of. I sometimes wonder if our focus on paying down debt wouldn't be better shifted to adoption/foster care. We recently paid off a credit card with a lump $2000 payment.$2000 would have paid for the work on the house. But I suppose paying off the debt will make a huge improvement on our finances which will benefit a baby in the end. We have about $800 in credit card debt left, one car payment and a mortgage. Not to bad. Except for our recent mortgage we're pretty debtphobic, we made that mistake once!

New blog

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

This blog is wonderful! The author lives in a different region then I do so most of the deals she mentions, i dont have stores to go with. But I still really enjoy reading about them. Occasionally the deals she lists are for stores I have as well. Like Rite Aid my weekly stop. But I'm really enjoying her blog.

The drill

This summer my husband bought a corded drill. I think from a yard sale. A few weeks later he found a cordless drill at the thrift store for $15. He was thrilled, and purchased it. Two drills should be good right? Yes. If your rabbit doesn't eat through the cord for the cordless drill. And if the second drill isn't left outside in the rain two would be peachy. All the sudden we needed a new drill. Our first move was to price new ones online. Why? For two reasons. Thrift stores and pawn shops don't have an online inventory. Second we needed a baseline to know if the used drill was a good buy or not. Sometimes used stuff is not much cheaper then new. In that case we usually buy new. FYI sometimes renting tools isn't a good deal either. It would have cost us $55 a day to rent a pressure washer. We spent $90 on a new one. Used it for two days on the house, and have found several other uses for it. We did watch for one all summer in the used market but had no luck. Which brings me to our next move. We posted a wanted ad in www.craigslist.org that brought us several replies(best to do this as soon as possible so you get more replies) but no good deals. Our craigslist ad had brought us prices of $20-$45. In fact the man with the $20 drill bought is for $25 and wanted to resell it at a $5 loss? That's outrageous for a used tool! In the online retail ads We found the best drill deal right now for a new drill was $100 for a drill, saw, and other tool stuff in a set. More then we wanted to spend. Next we hit thrift stores, we came up empty. A trip to the local pawn shop reveled cordless (hubby wanted cordless, corded drills are cheaper) went from $20-$200! However hubby found an add on craigslist for a cordless drill for $7. It was a half an hour each way to pick it up. We figured even with gas it would save us $7 off the cheapest pawnshop drill. If you were pressed for time, low on gas, or don't enjoy driving then the cheap pawnshop drill might have been the right choice for you. Everyone is different. The lady we purchased the drill from also sold us a big garage light for $7 so our trip was defiantly worthwhile.

There was another option. We looked up a new power cord for our drill. It was $12 and took several days to ship. Not an option. That would have bought the drill to $27 for a bottom level drill. I would rather wait and get a good drill for a good price.

The drill we bought is not very powerful but suits our current needs just fine. We weren't able to wait for a better drill at a good price, so we went with the cheapest we could find while we look for a better one. If you have time to wait in a used purchase you can generally find a better price. We didn't. Even so we looked for a pressure washer all summer, and finally bought a brand new one in the fall.

Frugal play

Animals are not frugal. Properly cared for they require good food, shots, flea meds,surgery and toys. I have never added up our animal cost as we don't want to know. They provide us with joy and that's good enough. There are a few ways to keep costs down. I'm going to start with toys.

A few minutes ago my 2 dogs were joyfully sliding across our floor chasing after a toy. What was the toy? A Kong ball? A tennis ball? A stuffed animal? Nope. An empty, rinsed plastic milk jug. Their very favorite indoor toy. That's right theres nothing my dogs like to play with indoors better then a milk jug. Big dog grabs it by the handle and flips it into the air while he prances around, teasing little dog. If it should fall it glides easily across the hard floor. Outdoors they love, LOVE sticks. When we take them out to play and they will no longer chase their soccer ball, volley ball, or tennis balls they will run for a stick! lol my pampered pooches love the simple things. That's not to say that they don't like stuffed things that squeak, they do. But they could care less about it being a $10 petco animal or scrap fabric that i stuffed and added a squeaker. (i save squeakers from animal they tear up, and petsmart sells a package for $2)

Dh and I joke that the more expensive the item is the less likely the cats are to like it, when purchased for them. But an expensive coat carelessly left on a couch is wonderful to lay on. :) My cats favorite toy is a real fishing pole, with a rubber ball and scrap of fabric tied to the end. They love it! I don't know how much it cost to put together my dad did it for us, but i bet you could find good deals on fishing poles at garage sales. The black demon loves twist ties. The orange menace loves hair ties but that isn't frugal as every few months I have to replace the ones he hid! The cats love feathers on sticks usually $3-$5 at a petstore. Unfortunately so do the dogs, and they shred rather then play. I'm planning on taking the left over plastic stick and attaching feathers to it with floral tape. We'll see how that goes. I have feathers left from another project that i will try it out with but i would like some bigger ones if its successful. Like i mentioned earlier we are building a massive (over 5ft) cat scratcher and i will try to post photos of it when completed. We have some carpet but i don't think it will be enough even though i plan on wrapping part of the posts with sisal rope. If i need more fabric i will look at a remnant store down the street from us.

Rabbits are big chewers. Our bun has chewed through and on countless cords even though we try very hard to rabbit proof his room. He's sneaky! He enjoys chewing baskets till they are nothing but twigs. Just make sure its not a coated basket. I pick them up from the thrift store spray with vinegar and leave in the sun to sanitize. He chews cardboard boxes. Oatmeal tubes make great chewable tunnels. Black and white newspaper in a big box is fun to shred and dig in. Pine cones are good to chew as well. Some rabbits like toys, mine isn't a fan. but i know several people who buy baby rattles at the dollar store for the rabbit to toss.

My best recommendation is to know whats safe and what isn't and let the animals experiment under supervision. Last night my husband gave a hunk of leftover wood to the dogs. They chewed it into little chunks in no time! We took it away because small chunks can be swallowed and cause problems. (something you need to watch with any chew) I used to let the cats play with string in till they started eat ting it. Now i pick up every piece I find. But if we didn't experiment we wouldn't know how much fun a used milk jug is!

Rebates

So far this week I only picked up the freebies. I haven't had time to cut and sort my coupons. But I try and get the freebies as soon as possible because they go fast. On Sunday (The day the ads come out) they were already out of Aquafresh toothpaste, and almost out of crest. I got the last tube :) I check my stockpile, we now have 5 reserve tooth brushes and 3 extra tubes of toothpaste. Which means I will only pick up those items if free, or money making. If we should acquire too many then the items are easily donated. I wonder if anyone takes un-opened aspirin? I find antacids on rebate almost ever week, which is a blessing. I have a prescription but sometimes forget to take it (or misplace the bottle!) and my darling husband uses them as well.

I bought my first batch of ebay coupons. Well, I should say i paid someone to clip me a batch of coupons :) as it is illegal to buy or sell coupons. I'm waiting for them in the mail. Two of the batches were for dog bones. I have a lab that is a bigger chewer, and a corgi who loves to chew just not as fast. It would be wonderful to find a sale on the items, if not I'll head to a store that carries the item cheapest.I keep meaning to try homemade dog biscuits but haven't been able to. I would love to make one similar to a dog's kong treat as they enjoy them. Today is rainy with a nasty storm predicted so dh and i were not able to finish painting, maybe tomorrow!

EEEEE!

We broke down and bought the $40 paint sprayer we decided against. OH MY GOODNESS! We were stupid! Should have bought that in the first place. We got more of the house painted in 3 hours then 6 days!!! If you need to paint your house and dont have tons of help, buy a paint sprayer!!! It DOES make a huge mess, which i dont like but given the huge time savings i'm willing to look the other way.

Dh and i bought supplies to make a cat stand. So far we've spend $20. We have some carpet, and free wood. I think we'll pick up 2 more 2x4s for another $3. Most decent cat stands cost 100-200 dollars. Plus its something we enjoy. A year ago we took an old cheap set of shelves (no back) and carpeted them, then wrapped the sides in Sisile rope. The cats LOVED them! It was 3 shelves of scratching, lounging bliss. It was fun, and it used up a piece of furniture we were planning on throwing out. I was bummed when it fell apart on my husband during the move. AFTER i lugged them up a 2 flights of stairs! :)