Salvation Army Thrift Store

I haven't been to any thrift store in a long time, mostly because we don't need anything right now. But the other day, I couldn't help myself and I had to stop in the Salvation Thrift Store on John St. It was after my doctors appointment, so I had no kids with me and I was all by myself. I love those moments.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you what I found. A pair of shoes for Pudge! I've been looking for awhile now for some simple shoes that he can just slip on, and I told myself that I wouldn't buy any for full price. So, I was thrilled to see them at the thrift store!

They have super heros on them and were a little dirty when I found them. But once I brought them home, they cleaned up pretty nicely! Plus, they have velcro, so Pudget can put on the shoes himself. Here's a photo of them:

And the best part about them was that they were only $1.63!!! Now, that's a steal! Have you found anything at a thrift store lately?

I Love to Reuse!

I thought that today I would show you some of the things that are in our kitchen, specifically some of the drawers in our kitchen. To let some of you know, I love to reuse things, especially things that I can use on a day-to-day basis. We have so many drawers in our kitchen that half the time I don't even know what to do with them. So I fill them with things that I don't want to throw out, but at the same time, don't know what to do with them. Here are a couple of examples:

I save the lids to our peanut butter jars, to put the boys' syrup in for breakfast. It holds just the right amount of syrup for their little meals.

I save the lids to the bouillon cubes. These also are perfect size for the boys.

I also save the containers that their applesauce comes in. These are great for their veggies at mealtime.

I save the containers that their yogurt comes in. We will be using these for our vegetable plants, come the end of February. We'll just drill holes in the bottom and we'll be all set! Very excited about this project!

We also reuse our Ziploc bags. Yes, I wash them and we use them until the holes start appearing. It's not that much extra work, and we don't buy Ziploc bags near as often as we used to. And I've picked up a little trick in the blogging world...when our dishwasher is empty, I just put the Ziploc bags in there to dry! Brilliant! The only reason we have a toilet paper roll in the dishwasher is because Pudge decided to throw that roll in the bath, so it was drying out!

Do you have anything that you like to save and reuse?

Fresh Air

The weather has finally started warming up and it feels great to be outside! Even if it is only for a half and hour, the fresh air feels so good. The other day we spent the morning at Meadowbrook Park in Urbana, an excellent park to play at if you've never been there before! Even though it was a little windy, the boys had a great time. I wanted to share some photos with you all, and keep your fingers crossed that this weather is here to stay.

There was still lots of snow in some places, but we just threw on the boys' winter boots and let them have fun.

Pudge enjoyed crawling under the ladder.

Z-man was all over the place, running and jumping whenever possible.

Dad was a great help in playing and watching the boys while I enjoyed the company of other moms.

We thought ahead and asked some other families from Preschool to see if they wanted to join us on that sunny day.

We even thought ahead and brought a yummy lunch of PB and J sandwiches, carrots, apples, and pretzels. I love that our boys like to eat nutritious foods.

Overall, it was a great day! Have you made it outside this week? If so, I'd love to hear what you did!

Winter Fun!

Looking for something simple and frugal to do with your kids in this never-ending winter? I found an idea in my Family Fun magazine, where you fill up squirt bottles with water and food coloring, and let them "paint" the snow!

We didn't have any squirt bottles on hand, so we stopped in our local Dollar General and they had some huge bottles for (you guessed it...) only a $1 each! I'm sure if you have some bottles lying around the house, this would be an even more frugal activity for your kids.

There has been snow in Illinois for the past 2 months, so we have had many clean canvas' for our squirt bottles for quite some time! The boys love it, and as long as we have gloves and a hat on, they could spend quite awhile outside.

Try it out and let me know what your kids think of this fun idea! Or better yet, share your winter ideas here!

Laundry Day - Simple Things

Today is laundry day. I LOVE laundry day, because it makes me stay home (and not spend any money). Laundry day is great because all summer I've been hanging our clothes out to dry on the laundry line. I hope that we're saving a little bit of money by not running the dryer, and it makes me get outside for a few minutes at a time.

My eldest son, Z-man, has this thing now with playing the Nintendo DS. He got Mario Kart for his birthday and is actually pretty good at it. The only thing is that we only let him play the DS after he's helped with chores. Today, his chore was to help mom hang up one load of laundry. He did great! And I think he actually enjoyed it!

I also love laundry day, because the time that I'm outside hanging clothes, I have a chance to remember all the ways that we're being frugal.

First of all, we aren't using the electricity to dry our clothes.

We also use an energy efficient front loading laundry machine.

We use clothe napkins instead of paper towels. I just bought a huge tablecloth from Goodwill and cut it down to size for clothe napkins.

We buy our clothes from second-hand stores, or have close friends who give us their kids hand-me-downs.

We drive a hybrid.

We either run or use workout videos at home, thus saving money by going to the gym.

We keep our heat below 68 degrees. And open the windows when it's hot out.

Okay, so these are the things that I've thought of while outside hanging clothes. I'd love to hear how you try to save money in different areas of your lifestyle!

Rain, Rain...

Today was the first day in about a month that it has rained. And not actually sprinkling, it poured!!! I love when that happens, because not only do my plants get watered, but all my rain barrels get full.

One of our frugal activities that my husband and I love to do is have friends over to play board games after our kids go to bed. It's great company, and we don't have to pay money to have them over! (luckily, our friends don't have kids yet, and they can come over when ours are in bed!)

Anyway, we had one of our favorite couples over last night, and we were learning how to play a new board game, when I asked if they had ever heard of Champaign getting less rain then the surrounding towns. I had heard this from a previous source, and I had never actually confirmed whether it was true or not.

So, luckily, our friends know how to keep us up to date on the topics we talk about late into the night, and here's what they researched about the rain levels in Champaign. This is the average rainfall in a year:

Champaign = 41 inches

Indianapolis = 40

South Bend = 40

Chicago = 38

Joliet = 37

Rockford = 37

Grand Rapids = 37

Springfield = 36

Peoria = 36

Milwaukee = 34

Now, whenever I'm complaining that my rain barrels have been empty for quite awhile, I will remember these facts about rainfall in our town.

Thanks to Razor Family Farms for letting me share their photos with you.

We froze our credit cards!

Well, we finally did it! We literally froze our credit cards this morning. My husband and I went over our budget and finances and decided we've give it a try. It kinda makes me nervous in a way because we are so dependent on our plastic cards, that carrying cash could be even harder for me. For one thing if I see the cash in my wallet, I'm most likely to spend it. But then again, if I use our credit card, it's hard to know where our money is going and how much we are spending together....until the bill comes in the mail.

So, here goes nothing! I went to CVS this morning with Pudge, and forgot to go to the bank beforehand. I opened my wallet to pay, and I had no credit card to pay with!! I almost had the cashier put everything back, but then I remembered I could use my debit card if necessary.

It was kinda embarrassing, but at the same time helped me remember to be careful about where I'm spending our money. Granted it was only $1.50, but everything counts.

I'm curious, do you live without credit cards, and use cash only? Or have you even frozen your credit cards and how did that work out for you?

Green Hour

I've checked out a new book from the library, and it's titled The Green Hour, A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids. This book is written by Todd Christopher, creator of the National Wildlife Federation's, GreenHour.org.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this book, I just know that I should take my boys outside more often. It has been so terribly hot and humid out here in central Illinois, that it's so tempting to stay inside in the nice, cool air conditioning. But, alas, I know that my boys need to be out in nature, even if we are sweating by the time we get home.

So to share with you what we did today for our hot and humid green hour....we rode our bikes to a local pond! It was really great, because there were lots of trees to give us shade. And every once in awhile there was a breeze to cool us down.

I took some pictures to inspire you to get outside for an hour and spend some time with nature.

Some Man's Trash...My Treasure!

If you've heard through the grapevine, or have simply asked me how I find all the coupons for my groceries, it's true...I get my treasures from other's trash. I'm a trash digger! It's really not as bad as it sounds. You're probably imagining me dumpster diving of some sort to find these coupons, but there's a much easier way. I find my coupons and other great things through a nice elderly neighborhood just within walking distance of our home. They have all their newspapers all nicely organized into brown paper bags, in their recycling bins. Trust me, if it's not organized, I don't go near it.

Here's what I found this week! A great week to be collecting trash!

I found 4 coupon inserts! (One was from the Chicago Tribune, which has way more coupons than our local newspaper). Another mail-flyer that we got in the mail earlier this week. This included a coupon booklet for County Market, Smoothie King, and Monical's Pizza. YUM!

Also, I found someone's People's Magazine for this month of May, in mint condition. I usually don't look through people's magazines, but this one jumped out at me in the bag. Weird, but a fun surprise! (I guess you can say that I'm getting to know my neighbors!)

More Cleaning

I don't know if I'm boring anyone with my cleaning spurts, but it's fun to post what I'm up to and to maybe even inspire you to get organized this new year.

We have had this bookshelf in the corner of the room and it's been an awful mess to look at.

I took it upon myself to re-organize that mess and to make it look more appealing to look at.

So as the new year is here, I encourage you to go through your messes and take the steps to clear that clutter out!

Morning Snow

Beautiful snow land!

When we woke up this morning, we were happy to find out that it had already snowed over 6 inches! It was a great feeling! I love to shovel the driveway, so I made sure that I beat my husband to it!

Now you all know where I live!

I love snow!

Simple Treat - Spider Sandwiches

I have been reading a book titled, Cheap Talk with the Frugal Friends by Angie Zalewski and I'm just soaking in all the information that they have. Their topics range from coupon clipping to cheap dates. I checked it out from our local library and wanted to share with you a simple treat that I got out of their book.

Our boys have been kinda picky at eating lately, and unless it's an apple or peanuts, they're likely to say "no". So when I found this little treat in the book I'm reading, I had to try it out.

It's a recipe for an after-school snack, called a spider sandwich. Really all you need to do it cut out 2 circles from a couple slices of bread, slather some peanut butter in it, grab some pretzel sticks, some raisins (or chocolate chips) for eyes and you're all set! (I also added peanut butter chips for fangs). The author also suggested drawing a spiderweb on a napkin for more curb appeal.

And our boys gobbled them up fast!

Simple Things

So today I was inspired to change the look of our two lamps in our family room.  I have been reading a new blog to me, The Nesting Place, and she inspired me to change the color of our lamps. Here is a snapshot of our before lamps:

I was very excited to try out a new color, so here's the work in progress:

And then here is the final product of my creativity!  

I like it a lot! It's a colonial red, and it will go well with the fabric I picked out for our new curtains in our family room!  Yea for color!

Simple Things

My family and I went to a wedding today that was outdoors.  It was the first outdoor wedding that I had ever been to, and I have to say it was the most simple wedding I have ever been to.  I really enjoyed being outside, surrounded by trees, with thunder rolling in the distance, and my boys playing in the rocks.  

We had the option of sitting on huge logs or sitting on metal chairs.  We thought it would be more fun for the boys to sit on a log.  I love how they lined the logs with flowers.  It was so simple and elegant at the same time. 

So beautiful.  I think that if/when my hubbie and I ever renew our vows, we'll have to do something similar.