Frugal Living Blog
Welcome to my Frugal Living blog! This blog will:
-- let you know when new pages are added to Frugal Living Now
-- give you access to additional frugal ideas that don't appear in the main body of the site
-- NEW - tip of the day: a new frugal tip each day!
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Feb 25, 2015
Salad
Any green salad. Put lots of veggies in along with some cut up meat like chicken. Most of us don't eat enough veggies, so any leftover broccoli, etc.
Aug 30, 2014
Small Jars
I use small jars such as the ones pimientos or the tiny jars of mustard to store herbs and spices or other things such as buttons, needles, paper clips,
May 29, 2014
Budget Wedding Gown: Find frugal wedding dresses and save on your special day
Need a Budget Wedding Gown? Top Tips for Saving Money on your Wedding Gown
Continue reading "Budget Wedding Gown: Find frugal wedding dresses and save on your special day"
May 29, 2014
Grow your own Herbs: Even if you have no gardening skills, growing herbs inside
Grow your own Herbs: For a small investment you can easily grow fresh herbs to use all summer long!
Continue reading "Grow your own Herbs: Even if you have no gardening skills, growing herbs inside "
May 29, 2014
Vegetarian Split Pea Soup recipe: inexpensive warm and hearty dinner idea!
Vegetarian Split Pea Soup recipe: only 200 calories
Continue reading "Vegetarian Split Pea Soup recipe: inexpensive warm and hearty dinner idea!"
May 29, 2014
Make a button bracelet! Recycle buttons with this great kids craft project or ho
How to make a button bracelet from old or extra buttons for yourself or as a homemade gift idea
Continue reading "Make a button bracelet! Recycle buttons with this great kids craft project or ho"
May 29, 2014
Restaurant savings: tips for saving money when eating out.
Want to go out to eat, but can't afford to? Learn my restaurant savings tips and you can!
Continue reading " Restaurant savings: tips for saving money when eating out."
May 29, 2014
Living on a budget: Creating a budget is the easy part. Now you have to figure o
Tips for living on a budget and sticking with it
Continue reading "Living on a budget: Creating a budget is the easy part. Now you have to figure o"
May 06, 2014
Picking up empty cans and bottles
Start picking up refundable bottles and cans on trash days. Our neighborhood will leave bottles and cans in bags for people to pick up and return to the
Apr 25, 2014
Plastic 2 liter bottles
I cut the top of the bottle off less that 1/4 of the way down the bottle to make a funnel. Comes in very handy when trying to pour something into a smaller
Mar 29, 2014
Vegetarian recipes: Meat is expensive! Try these frugal and healthy low-cost mea
Vegetarian recipes for those wanting to save money by eating meat less often
Continue reading "Vegetarian recipes: Meat is expensive! Try these frugal and healthy low-cost mea"
Mar 29, 2014
Making a Budget is essential for living well in tough economic times. Let's get
Making a Budget that works for you and sticking with it.
Continue reading "Making a Budget is essential for living well in tough economic times. Let's get "
Mar 15, 2014
A Fond Farewell
I want to thank every one of my faithful readers for helping me to make this website a success!
Frugal Living Now will soon be under new ownership. I am selling the site so I can have more time to devote to my jewelry shop, Holly&Sage.
If you need to contact me find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hollynsage or Twitter at https://twitter.com/hollynsage
Thank you!
Holly
Mar 11, 2014
Vegetables.
My husband and I every so often do a batch of vegetables and potatoes. The pots are mashed and made also for roasts and frozen. The veg are blanched in
Feb 24, 2014
Frugal Way to Reuse Spice Jars
I save the really small jars and bottles that food comes in such as mustard, pimientos, jelly, etc. These are excellent for spices and herbs if you want
Feb 16, 2014
Six Items to stop buying to save money (and the environment)
We buy a lot of things we don't need. Sometimes it is just out of habit. Not only do some of these things cause us to spend money we could be saving, but they clutter up our homes and eventually fill our landfills.
This is the first in a series of articles I am writing on items we can stop buying to save money, clutter, and the environment.
- Dog and cat toys. One of the most wasteful things to spend money on is pet toys. We have two cats and their favorite thing to play with is wadded up ball of aluminum foil. They never get tired of pushing them around and running after them when we throw them. Something about the rustling sound it makes, I guess. Cats also love to reach inside and under things, so you can put a ball in a shoe box and cut several holes in the box. They will have lots of fun trying to 'catch' the ball and pull it out of the box.
For dogs, a regular used tennis ball is just as good as a colorful one that is sold in a pet store for three times the price. You can also make chew toys for dogs out of old t-shirts.
Or try this clever chew toy made out of dried sweet potatoes!
- Individual water bottles. Get a reusable bottle or cup for water to go and refill it from a larger jug, your filtration system, or the tap.
- Book marks. Aside from the fact that you can use almost anything to mark your spot in a book, there are oodles of cute, crafty ideas for creating bookmarks from recycled items. One example is this clever way to reuse empty cereal boxes by Plum Pudding.
- Greeting cards. Write a personal note, pick up the phone and call, or make a homemade card. It will be more appreciated then a generic one written by a greeting card author, and it won't cost you $5.
- Magazines. Magazines cost money and clutter up our homes. In this day of technology you can find all the information contained in magazines online for free. Buying magazines is one of those impulse buys that we can easily live without.
- Gift bags. Save gift bags when they come into your household and reuse them. You can also brighten up bags from retail stores (to hide their logo, etc.) with stickers, fabric, lace, scrapbook paper, etc. You can also use brown paper lunch bags or grocery bags to create your own gift bags.
There is no end to the ideas you can find at Pinterest for this!
Feb 01, 2014
Our Best Friends made Our Best Day Ever
Here are some ideas from the wedding my daughter and I planned 2 years ago in February. The colors were silver, white and Granny Smith apple green. We
Jan 31, 2014
Free Through Sunday: Frugal Cooking With Beans
Download Frugal Cooking With Beans
Beans are one of the mainstays of a frugal diet. They are highly nutritious, an excellent meat substitute, convenient to store for long periods of time, and very easy on your budget. Oh, and they are also delicious!
Sally Thomas has compiled over 40 frugal recipes - many of them her own creations - using canned or dried beans. I like that she provides conversion information to substitute one for the other and that she gives detailed instructions for the correct method of soaking dry beans which is essential for proper digestion and absorption of nutrients. Each recipe has a photo of the finished dish, which is always nice in a cookbook!
This cookbook includes a lot of soup recipes - just what we need for a simple supper on these cold winter evenings! There are also recipes for salad, side dishes, appetizers, and entrees.
This versatile book offers vegetarian or meaty versions of most recipes and uses common, easy-to-find ingredients.
Don't miss this chance to
get this helpful recipe book for free through Sunday, February 2!
Find more good ideas from Sally at her blog,
Frugal Food Prepper
Jan 26, 2014
Frugal Beauty: Coconut Oil Moisturizer
Photo by TJ
We should be careful what we put on our skin – it is easy to forget it, but toxins in cosmetic products enter our system just as surely as if we had swallowed them! If your moisturizer contains sodium laurel sulfate, fluoride, titanium dioxide, aluminum, or propylene glycol you should familiarize yourself with the toxic properties of these ingredients.
One way to avoid these harmful chemicals is to buy cosmetics that do not contain them, of course, but it can be expensive. I recommend thinking outside the box instead.
I used to use a very nice natural body lotion from Tropical Traditions after bathing each day to keep my skin from drying out. One day I ran out and wasn’t excited about spending the money to order more, so I tried plain coconut oil. I love it for these reasons:
- It saves me (a lot of) money. I bought a 16 ounce jar of pure, organic coconut oil for $5.99 at Trader Joe’s. I am not sure how long it will last when used as a skin moisturizer because I have only used a very small portion of it in the month that I have been doing this. I feel confident in saying that it will last more than a year.
- It saves me time. It is so fast and easy to take a little oil in my hands and rub it over my arms and legs while I am still wet in the shower. It goes on effortlessly and leaves my skin soft and smooth in less time than it takes to apply body lotion after drying off.
- I have no doubt about harmful ingredients. There is only ONE ingredient, and I know there is nothing in it that will make me sick or cause an allergic reaction.
- It has a lovely light scent that is not overpowering or perfume-y.
P.S. Olive oil will work too, if you don’t have coconut oil – though it doesn’t smell as nice!
More homemade beauty products
Jan 18, 2014
Areas to De-clutter Now
Photo by Amy Burton
January is a good time to unclutter and simplify. Here are six areas to clean out this month:
- Family puzzles and games. Especially if you got new games at Christmas, now is a good time to get rid of any that have been outgrown or that have missing or broken pieces.
- Freezer. Take everything out of your freezer and throw away items that are over a year old or have freezer burn. List the remaining items and try to use them in your next menu plan. (You should probably clean the freezer while you have everything out).
- Magazines. Reclaim your coffee table by getting rid of those magazines that have been piling up there for months. Recycle them or pass them on to someone else to read.
- Coupons. If you clip coupons, go through your stash and get rid of the expired ones.
- Pens and pencils. If you have enough pens and pencils to run a school, get rid of some of them. Weed out the ones that don’t write well and throw them away. Organize the rest in a place they can be found when you actually need one. If you have an over-abundance, give some to a local charity, church, or school.
- Your computer bookmarks.
More on uncluttering your home and your life
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