Welcome to week 68 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle. Did you read all the great submissions last week?

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic.
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

I know this doesn’t look like much but I am very excited about it.  The entire time I lived in CO I tried to grow primrose.  Except it was too hot and dry.  Finally after we moved here I ordered myself some primrose.  They have really taken off this year and my kids definitely got tired of hearing me say “I love my primrose!” every time we backed out of the driveway.

So I decided once they were done blooming I would divide them.  It would have cost me another $30 or $40 to order more (I have yet to find a garden store near me that sells primrose), but for FREE I just doubled the amount of primrose I have in that flower bed.  I can’t wait to see the amazing splash of color next spring every time I pull out of my driveway.  Dividing the plants you already have is a great way to save money on gardening.

**This post is linked to Frugal Tuesday Tip and Tuesday Garden Party.

We got our last winter CSA package this week.  The summer one will start in June.  We will get that every week and it should contain a lot more produce than the winter one does.  Here is what we got this week:

• 2 balls of pizza dough
• pint pizza sauce
• 8 oz gouda cheese
• 2 veggie burgers
• ground turkey
• ground pork
• 2 lbs oatmeal
• ramps
• lettuce
• 4 lbs of butter (purchase extra)

I had to stock up on the butter to get us through until June, I just love this butter!  It is locally made from grass-fed cows.  Yum!

My oldest daughter has been struggling with gymnastics a bit lately.  I think she is overwhelmed at everything she needs to work on and learn.  This has been causing lots of frustration.  Gymnastics in general lends itself to being negative, as there is always something that needs fixing.  So I thought it would be a good idea if she set some small personal goals for practices and then came up with a reward for when she meets her goals.  Little things mostly, like getting through practice without crying and we paint her nails.  For the big skills we will do bigger rewards, like when she gets her giants on bars we will celebrate by going out for ice cream.

Then my younger daughter decided she wanted in on this and before I knew it, I was making my own goal/rewards sheet.  Yep, I have a sticker chart.  Since I seriously need some motivation to work out more I thought this would be perfect.  Except my rewards are probably not what I should have since working out is my goal.  Chocolate motivates me pretty well, so why not have chocolate for my rewards?  Emma and Claire couldn’t stop laughing at me, but I say you should stick with what works, right?

Welcome to week 67 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle. Did you read all the great submissions last week? My favorite was Homemade Anti-Wrinkle Serum by Discourse of a Healthy Frugal Family.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic.
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Can you push a seed down into some dirt?  Then you can grow your own veggies for pennies compared to store bought.  Even if you only have a pot on a balcony – you can grow something.  A zucchini seed will provide you with fresh zucchini for months and an abundance for your freezer.  A tomato seed can provide you with dozens upon dozens of fresh tomatoes.  A packet of lettuce will give you salads for weeks.

It doesn’t have to take up a lot of space.  You don’t have to turn your side yard into a huge garden.  Try planting vegetables here and there among your flowers.  Set out a large flower pot and fill it with basil, thyme, and oregano for fresh herbs all summer.

One of the best ways to save money is to grow your own food.

Last fall I bought a Groupon deal for a vacation.  $400 for a 1-week stay at a resort in the US.  The only thing was we couldn’t decide where to go until 60 days prior to going.  I have been calling it our “mystery vacation”.  Not being able to pick meant that I couldn’t plan anything – and I am a big planner.  Except now we know and I can start planning, yay!

We are headed to New Hampshire for a week in the White Mountains in June.  I can’t wait!  It should be so relaxing.  I have read stories about how vacations are good for you and that part of what makes them good for you is the planning and anticipating.  So now that I have the family on board we are all getting excited.  The look on the kids face when I said New Hampshire was priceless.  They had been expecting the beach somewhere.  And for days after my announcement they kept asking when we were going to New Jersey.  But now they get it and are excited too.

The possibilities are endless (in my mind, anyway) and I am having fun thinking of everything we can do.  Namely, relax in the mountains.

Are you going anywhere on vacation this summer?

Since we started our healthy eating journey there have been a number of foods I have quit buying. There was never a clean out the cupboards and start over day, it has been a very gradual process. I think that has been better for all of us and I don’t think we miss the old foods as much because of this. Except some days the kids will ask me about certain foods and wish I still bought it. I thought it would be fun to make a list of foods I no longer buy.

• ramen noodles
• popsicles
• cinnamon toast crunch (except Cascadian Farms makes an organic cinnamon cereal that I sometimes buy as a treat)
• lucky charms
• pringles
• individual packaged snacks (except for when I have to bring a sports snack)
• instant oatmeal
• canned bread like crescent rolls or biscuits
• frozen waffles
• apple juice
• powerade
• canned broth

What foods have you quit buying?

Welcome to week 66 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle. Did you read all the great submissions last week? My favorite was from Stacy Makes Cents where she does the math on if you should buy a new car to get better fuel economy.

This week we are talking all thing Mother’s Day.  Please share your frugal tip regarding Mother’s Day if you can.  If not that is OK (you can still share any frugal tip), but be sure to read all the great tips that other’s share.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic.
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Last week Amazon had Annie’s Mac ‘n Cheese on sale.  A case was $14 or so, meaning it was just $1.21 per box.  For organic mac & cheese, which is a great price.  I didn’t really want to spend $14 of my limited grocery budget on mac & cheese, but luckily for me, I had accumulated Amazon gift cards through Swagbucks.  I got the case above for FREE!

I love Swagbucks and search through them numerous times a day.  I earn, at minimum, $10 in Amazon gift cards each month.  I use these gift cards usually to purchase food.  With 4 growing kids it seems I never have enough money for food, they just won’t quit eating it seems.

Kevin didn’t like searching through Swagbucks and would ignore the tool bar I had in place and seek out google to search.  Then I decided to figure out the total amount of gift cards I had earned in the year or so I had been using it.  Even I was surprised at the total – $160 in FREE gift cards just by searching through Swagbucks.  Needless to say that convinced him to start using it too.

If you aren’t currenly using Swagbucks you should really start.  It is such an easy and painless way to earn free giftcards – which means I save money on food.

We picked up our CSA package this week.  I usually buy butter and yogurt extra, but didn’t have the money this week.  I got lucky because they were both included in our regular package.  Yay!  We got the following:

• 2 lbs butter
• 1 quart yogurt
• 4 oz sheep/goat feta cheese
• 5 apples
• large bag of kale
• large bag of salad greens
• spinach linguine
• 4 chicken sausages

We only have 1 more pick up of our winter CSA and then the summer one will begin at the end of May.  I can’t wait for all that produce.  The summer CSA is every week, while the winter one is every 2 weeks.

I had a very short list at the grocery store this week and only took $20 with me.  We just needed a few things, but I wanted to take advantage of some great sales.  The kids are very happy with me this week!

• 3 Honey Nut Cheerios – $1.16/ea
• 3 Cascadian Farm Cinnamon Crunch Cereal – $0.90-$1.05/ea
• 4 Go-gurts – $0.75/ea
• 5 lbs of carrots
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 lb strawberries

Total spent was $20.08.  I have a slim budget this pay period, so I have really been limiting myself at the grocery store and trying to make do with what I have here.  I just couldn’t pass up the lowest prices I have seen on cereal around here in over a year.  How much do you pay for cereal?  What has $20 bought you lately?

Welcome to week 65 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle. Did you read all the great submissions last week? My favorite was Why You Should Join a CSA.  We love ours!

Next week we are going to be having a themed linky again – but this time on Mother’s Day.  Be thinking of your best frugal Mother’s Day ideas this week!

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic.
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Kevin and I believe strongly in conserving resources and living a green lifestyle.  I guess that is a product of us going to college in Boulder, CO.  One thing I have discovered though is that living this way can save a lot of money.  Here are some of the ways helping the environment also helps your wallet.

• Line drying clothes = lower electric bill.
• Combining errands = lower fuel costs.
• Using cloth napkins, rags, etc = no $ spent on disposable paper goods.
• Using natural light = lower electric bill.
• Using less shampoo, conditioner, dish detergent, laundry detergent, etc = less $ spent on these products
• Shopping from the bulk bins = cheaper groceries
• Growing your own veggies = less money spent on produce
• Purchasing energy efficient appliances = lower electric bills.
• Reusing what you have on hand = no $ spent on a new item.

Can you think of any other examples?

Today is Earth Day, and some would say the start of Earth Week.   I thought we could celebrate here with some easy ways to live a green life.

1. Recycle – most cities offer curbside recycling with the trash pick up.  Even when you are out and about there are usually cans for recycling along with your typical trash can.
2. Use CFL light bulbs.  The price has really come down and they use so much less energy.
3. Shop from the bulk bins to avoid unnecessary packaging.
4. Mulch your lawn clippings instead of bagging them and putting them in the trash.  Grass clippings will break down much faster on your lawn than in a plastic bag in a landfill.
5. Use reusable bags when shopping.
6. Use reusable containers for lunches, leftovers, etc.
7. Buy whatever you can second hand. This prevents things from ending up in the landfill AND from resources being used up to create a new one.
8. Plan a loop route for your errands to save fuel.
9. Carpool.
10. Borrow from the library rather than buy new.
11. Plant a tree or a houseplant.  Plants will help offset some of your carbon footprint.
12. Grow your own veggies.  You will eat better and save a trip to the store.
13. Put things on a power strip and turn the power strip off when not in use.
14. When you purchase new appliances, purchase ones that are energy efficient.
15. Cook more than one thing at once to save energy.
16. Turn your heat down and your AC up a few degrees and dress appropriately for the weather.
17. Use natural light as much as possible.
18. Use real plates and cups, not disposable.
19. Use cloth napkins, rags and towels rather than paper products.
20. Use cloth diapers.

Here are some of my favorite articles from around the web this week.

• Learning the Frugal Life talks about how she sneaks veggies into her homemade smoothies.  I do this too!  The kids never notice either.
• If you need to make money, Money Saving Mom gives 27 ideas for moms to make money.
• Simple Homemade has some delicious looking recipes for eating spring veggies.  Yum!  I can’t wait for my peas to come in.  Spring veggies here in NE Ohio usually produce in late May and into June here though, so I have to wait awhile.
• I learned a new use for egg shells in Frugal Granola’s post about The Amazing Uses for Egg Shells.  My houseplants need a boost right now and there is a really easy way to give it to them with egg shells.

Have you found any good articles this week?

This is a picture of my garden today. You can tell that we can’t really get an early start here in NE Ohio. There are a few garlic shoots that came up last fall that were leftover from last year’s crop. I left them to see what would happen. I do have lettuce and peas planted, but nothing has come up yet.

I have 6 raised beds inside the fence, a strawberry bed in front and a box that we have yet to fill.  We are adding that this year.  The strawberries are just coming up.  To the left I have what has always been my potato box, but this year I think I will plant something different in there.  Along the right side and the back of the garden I have beds about 6-8 inches wide that I plant peas and green beans in and they use the fencing for a trellis.

It doesn’t look like much right now, but over the course of the next 6 months I hope to harvest hundreds of dollars worth of organic produce from it.  We have had a fairly nice spring so I have already added kelp meal and chicken manure to each bed and turned it over gently.  The ground here never really froze this winter so the weeds were never killed.  It took me a few hours and 2 helpers to get all the beds weed free.  I am sure the neighbors would prefer I spend that much time taking care of my flower beds!

The white box in the very back is our bee hive.  We got bees again last weekend and they seem to still be alive although we are paranoid after our last experience.  If they live we should have an even better garden.

Now I just need to figure out what to plant!  I started some tomatoes and cukes from seed inside and I am giving each child a box of their own.  So it should be interesting!  I plan to do a monthly update over the growing season and would love to hear how your garden is growing.

Welcome to week 64 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle. Did you read all the great submissions last week? My favorite was Homemade Cooking Spray.  I hate buying the spray cans and keep meaning to make my own – now I have no excuse!

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic.
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

A few weeks ago our garage door broke.  The spring snapped and we couldn’t open it.  Well, one time both Kevin and I hoisted it up and then he held it up while I quickly backed the cars out, but it was difficult even for both of us to lift it.  We called someone to come out and fix it.  It was $250.  And it was money well spent as we must be able to get in and out of our garage and we don’t like parking outside.  We needed to do this.

Fast forward 2 weeks and our garage door is broken again.  This time though it is the opener.  It needs a new gear or something.  We could pay someone over $100 to come fix it or Kevin could probably fix it himself with $40 or so and a few hours time.  Or worse case scenario we have to buy a new opener for $200-$300, which Kevin can install himself.  Except Kevin has no time.  This is our busiest time of year and the time just isn’t there.  There are more pressing things on the schedule.

The difference is we can easily open and close the garage door manually.  A pain yes, but it can be done.  In reality a working garage door opener is a want, not a need.  So we aren’t fixing it yet.  We will likely get to it this summer which is a little frustrating but I don’t want to pay a bunch of extra money to have someone else come fix it when I know Kevin can do it.  Having someone else come fix it is a want, not a need.

This is just one of the ways we save money and make our money stretch farther each month.  How do you evaluate needs versus wants?

Ugh!  Claire woke up this morning with hives on her legs.  We thought that was strange, and since she complained of them itching we gave her benadryl and didn’t think anything more of it.  Until tonight at 6 pm.

I was putting laundry away while Claire was taking a bath, except she wasn’t bathing she was just sitting there crying.  I went in and gasped.  She was one big hive!  Swollen, red blotches all over her body.  After drying her off and calling Kevin to see what we should do I decided to take her to urgent care.  By the time Kevin got home 10 minutes later the hives were all over her face and getting worse right in front of my eyes.  It was scary!

So we paid a bunch of money for the Urgent Care doctor to tell us Benadryl every 6 hours.  And the dr did not make me feel any better about taking her there.  He treated me like I was an idiot.  But I was not going to just put her to bed for the night when the welts were getting visibly worse by the minute.

I know I did the right thing, but I guess I probably should have just given her benadryl and waited until the morning to call her regular dr.  Except what if it got so bad in the middle of the night she couldn’t breathe?  Clearly she is having a severe allergic reaction to something.  Ok, trying to make myself feel better here.  This parenting thing is stressful!