Last Minute (Frugal) Decorating!

For some reason, decorating always seems to be the last thing we thing of at my house around the holidays. We're so busy shopping for presents, attending gatherings, and baking the days away that we don't give it a second thought until VOOM! it's the week before Christmas and we need to decorate!

This year I collaborated with my mom on a fab, frugal, and earth-friendly way to decorate with pine cones. Begin by collecting pine cones from a logical spot (say under a pine tree...?) until you have what is necessary. Make sure that you get an assortment of sizes. When you're ready, cover baking trays with foil and spread pine cones in a single/double layer. Simply bake at 200F for 30-45 minutes to dry the sap/kill insects and let cool.

I recommend using them naturally, either filling vases/bowls with a combination of pine cones and colorful ornaments or using any thread/ribbon you might have handy to create new ornaments. If you want to get crafty, maybe get out the spray paint or try one of the ideas that can be found here. The benefit of leaving them in their natural state is that they make great fire-starters for a cozy night around the fireplace! Or just toss into the woods--no pain of trying to store decorations til next year!

Merry Christmas!


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Cheaper Greener Coffee!

I stumbled across a post today at Tree Hugging Family about permanent coffee filters!  This seems to me like a great way to help the environment, and eventually save some money.  There are plastic and mesh ones, as well as ones made of hemp!  Check out the post here .

Katharine

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Frugal Quickie: Make your own Playdough!

The Hillbilly Housewife just had a great article about how to make your own playdough!  When I was a kid we never made our own playdough, but we did make our own Goo-ey Flarp-like thing.  We just mixed corn starch, water, and food coloring until it was a consistency we wanted to play with.

Homemade playdough is a great project to do with kids, and its great for the environment!  You eliminate all the chemicals and carbon costs of making and packaging playdough, and you don't have to worry (too much) about the kids eating it.

I might just make some myself...
Katharine
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Homemade goodies--a double money-saver!

Alright--I'll admit it: the homemade spaghetti sauce totally did not deserve two posts...I'm sure anyone who makes their own sauce already as well as those who may have tried to gather some free ingredients must have been thinking "Come ON, already"

But, in case it hasn't come across yet, I love being in the kitchen. As weird as it might sound to those of you who know me, I LOVE food! I love baking treats (so much that I've even let my sister claim credit for my cookies when she gave them as a gift to her boyfriend!) and making full meals for my family from scratch. Yes, I'm clumsy and so I make a mess, but its fun! Which is why, to me, cooking is a double money-saver. Firstly, it prevents me from buying silly, over-priced junkfood that is full of unhealthy preservatives and covered in layers of destined-to-be-landfill-filling wrappers. And, secondly, its something to do! This is a biggie for me lately, because I've been doing the post-college/pre-gradschool jobhunt (one of the hardest things of my life...), and cooking definitely provides a much needed break from that.

This past weekend, I harvested the produce of my sole basil plant! I had grown it from seed, carefully tended and watered it in the spring, and then moved it outside after returning home from college. My reward? Pesto!!! Delicious, fresh, garlicky pesto! Not only was it rewarding for me as a reprive from the curse of my mother's black thumb, but it was frugal and semi-healthy. Ok, so pesto does include a comparatively great deal of olive oil and parmesan cheese and pinenuts, but these are healthy fats, with protein! So far, my family has enjoyed it on sandwiches and pasta. Also this past week, I've been experimenting with freezing cookie dough. After mixing everything together, I use my fantastic cookie scoop ($5.95 at Walmart!) to make perfect little balls of dough, which store perfectly in a tupperware in my freezer. Consequently, almost every night for the past week, my evening has ended with freshly baked cookies! I totally recommend this method for
everyone who loves cookies: moms with little kids who always want to 'help mommy', moms whose teenagers have to fend for themselves after school, young adults too busy to bake very often, and they make a great gift for anyone who may be baking-challenged! Voila! A bountiful supply of budget-friendly bites!

Look for more updates coming soon!

Cheers,
Ali


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The Benefits of Frugal Living

Katharine here.  Just wanted to introduce our first guest poster, Miranda from DestroyDebt.com!

 

One of the personal finance trends gaining popularity right now (especially with the current economy) is frugal living. Frugal living is a lifestyle in which you spend much less than you earn, and take steps to avoid excessive consumerism. And, increasingly, frugal living is becoming tied to green living. While it may seem that frugal living is a recipe for denying yourself, the truth is that there are plenty of benefits involved in frugal living.

 

Benefits of frugal living

 

Frugal living includes a variety of benefits that can help you change your thinking. Once you start looking at frugal living as a way to benefit, you'll be surprised at how much more appealing it is.

 

1. Save more money. This is probably the benefit that comes most often to mind when you think of frugal living. With frugal living, you take the time to get the best value for your dollar, helping your budget stretch further. Additionally, frugal living includes a lifestyle of fewer consumer purchases, so you spend less money buying things you don't really need anyway.
2. Enjoy better health. In many ways, frugal living can help you enjoy better health. If you are buying your produce at the farmer's market to avoid pesticides and chemicals, you are keeping harmful chemicals from your body. Consider this: Walking, public transportation and riding your bike all require more exercise than driving your car. And you don't have to spend money on gas. And, if you plan to prepare and eat more meals at home to save money, you will have less processed food and fewer "filler" calories that do little beyond contribute to weight gain.
3. Help the environment. Many frugal living practices are now being applied to the environment. Conserving energy, driving less, buying local when possible and reducing consumer waste are all things that help the environment while saving you money.
4. Less stress. A consumer-based lifestyle is stressful. Having debt is stressful. Trying to figure out where to put all your stuff (and taking care of it) is stressful. Frugal living can help you reduce the stress you feel in your life, and it can reduce stress that you might feel in your relationships with others. Plus, frugal living means that you have room to build up your emergency fund, creating a safety net in case something unexpected happens.

Frugal living is a lifestyle choice. And it is one that can result in benefits for you that move beyond the financial. The choice to live frugally can also affect your health, your relations and even the environment.

 

Miranda Marquit edits information on debt consolidation for DestroyDebt.com.

Frugal Cooking: Practicing What We Preach

Part of what we've been addressing in this blog is how going green and being frugal can go together. Its a great experiment that, I think, so many people are getting interested in because of the environment and the economy. Not to mention the average person's hectic life, where its hard enough to make time to eat food, let alone make it. So really, what we are suggesting is a win-win: cook once, eat twice.

Now that may not really sound too appetizing. "Eating leftovers every other day? EVERY day?" This challenge is something all of us go through. We want the ease of a quick fix, without the pain of having to cook a meal from scratch. My advice is more of a compromise: cook a staple food and use that as a base for more than one meal. Voila!

Using myself as an example, let me tell you about the past two days for me. Last night I made my quick-fix marinara sauce--lovely chunky tomatoes, plenty of herbs, and layered flavors. Once again, all tomato products were free, the herbs were a gift, and the rest of the ingredients are quality, but inexpensive. That over spaghetti was my meal last night and there was some leftover sauce for another meal. But the important leftover was the spaghetti. Today, I had plans to go on a beach picnic and needed to pack a dinner. So, within about twenty minutes this afternoon, I pan-fried a slice of tofu and assembled a peanut-noodle dish using: left-over spaghetti! Simple and totally different. This wonderful dish is great cold and goes well with the wakame seaweed salad that I made as well.

This is a skill that I honed when I was living abroad in Scotland. Totally changing directions with a staple food becomes easier the more daring you're willing to be. Rice, for instance, provides limitless options almost and can easily be made in great quantities, to be refrigerated and saved for later. I once cooked a huge quantity and went from a Chinese side dish to Mexican to cold rice salad and finally to fried rice. Give yourself a chance and you'll be surprised with what you come up with! Cook once, eat multiple times!

Cheers,
Ali

The 3 R's of being Frugal and Green - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Hi again!

Thinking about Alison's post earlier (here), being frugal and green is definitely not easy. That being said, its not too hard, if you are willing to get creative!

The #1 rule of being green is Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Come to think about it, this is the number one rule of frugality too!

Reduce - From a green perspective, this means reduce your consumption... Use only what you need, and no more. From a frugal perspective, it means reduce your spending! Buy only what you must buy, and no more! So we want to reduce our use of items, and also our spending, and these two go hand in hand! Use causes wear and tear, and could lead to breakage, which leads to having to replace things. Not to say that you shouldn't use the things you have, but use them as necessary!
A great example of this is laundry. Are your dress clothes really dirty after you come home from work? Maybe if you were sweating on the job at a construction site, but sitting in the office at a desk? You can probably wear those clothes again. When I get home from work I strive to take my dress clothes right off, and hang them up towards one side of my closet, in the once worn section. Obviously, all is moot if I've spilled something on myself, into the hamper it goes. You may still have to do laundry weekly, but odds are you will have fewer loads, and your clothes will last longer if you wash them less! Washing is the main cause of wear and tear on most clothing.

Reuse - Reuse things as much as you can - the more you reuse them, the longer you can hold off without throwing it away. Eat lots of jam? Reuse the jars to hold nails or small parts (or crafts). This saves the environment, because your things aren't in the trash, and it saves you money, because you didn't have to buy something to store your nails in! Reusing can be a great way to be both green and frugal. A great way to reuse items is through Craigslist or Freecycle! If you won't use something, other people might! These websites are also a great way to get something you need for free or cheap!
A good example of this is Alison's situation from Friday's post (here). She got a bunch of free samples, which if she was also green in her choices, are things she would already use, but that she just got for free. I must confess, I also got the Charmin toilet paper dispensers. I must confess, I never would have bought something like this, I have a perfectly good toilet paper dispenser. However, when the roll is new, I have trouble unrolling toilet paper, and, combined with the free-factor, I decided that it was worth it to save me the hassle of peeling my TP one sheet at a time. Everyone has to decide if the green trade off is worth it every time they get a freebie, but to me it was. Addressing the excess of packaging that comes with free samples a great way to reuse this would be as padding! Tear the cardboard boxes into small pieces, bunch the plastic wrapping into a ball, and put them in a plastic bag... Next time you have to send something, instead of going out and buying bubble wrap, use shredded cardboard! Though you may want to remove you personal information from them first, depending on who you are sending it to. On the other hand, you could just recycle the cardboard. Which brings me to number three.

Recycle - Recycling is also both frugal and green. Frugal, because, lets face it, a nickel back for every soda i drink is a lot of money! Now, to be truly frugal, I am trying to cut way down on my soda drinking, and hopefully give it up altogether, but the caffeine addiction makes it a slow process. My goal is to have quite completely by the end of the month. Recycling is Green, well, because it reduces the amount of raw materials necessary to create new products!

So I guess the message of my post is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle! It's frugal, it's green, and it's just plain smart!

~Katharine

P.S. If you have a Shaws near you, you may want to check out their deal on Near East Couscous! They are going for 10 for $10, which is a steal, but combined with the manufacturers coupon (here), they are free! Shaws automatically doubled this manufacturers coupon for me. I'll be going back to stock up on more couscous before Thursday, which is when they sale cycle at Shaws this week ends!
The Tylenol website (here) has a coupon for $1 off any Tylenol product. As Alison mentioned Friday, this is good at Target, but it is also good at CVS too! Check your local store's travel section.

Being Frugal and Green is Hard - Resisting Freebies

Hello, Readers! **crickets chirping...silence**

Ok then, with the optimistic thought that someone, someday, might read this and be amused, or even get something out of it, here is my second update:

Rule #1 of being frugal and green: This is hard! Finding free things = definitely a challenge, and staying green while doing it = almost impossible. Take yesterday for example. I got a windfall in the mail of four awesome freebies: Playtex ultra glide tampons -- and just in time (Katharine: This is still available here from Walmart and here straight from playtex - I got the links from this Freebies4Mom post), Ban deodorant -- nice scent (Katharine: this is still available here from Walmart, I got mine Wednesday too!), a sample of French Vanilla Splenda(Katharine: Available here - link from the "Cent"sible Sawyer), and two Charmin toilet paper dispensers - I don't know why I ordered these, but I should probably reference the comment in my first entry that I tend to go overboard when I go into "free-mode" -- it was free, therefore I want it(Katharine: these are still available here - link from the Bargainist). The latter two I have no idea where I got, but I'd guess from startsampling.com.

Now, while getting all of this free stuff was great (well, exciting at least), I'm now in super-guilt green mode. You should have seen all the extra packaging that there was on everything! There were cardboard boxes inside of cardboard boxes. Other things were wrapped in plastic bags and the result was that all of this created what looked like an open landfill around the chair I had been sitting in. I was really disgusted by this.

So what have I learned from this minor debacle? Well, lets just say I'm going to try and prevent myself from ordering everything I see that has the word "free" or "sample" under it. I think limiting myself to things that I will actually use, or know someone who will, may hopefully prevent green catastrophes like this in the future. I'd love to hear Katharine's opinion on this, because I know that she, like me, really enjoys ordering free samples...

Alison

P.S. Everyone run to Target's trial-size section w/ your coupons! Free Satincare shave gel w/ $1off coupon and free Tylenol w/ $1off coupon!! Check Smart Source circular from 6/6 for the first, and go to the Tylenol website (Katharine: here) to print the other one.

Welcome to the Femmes Frugal!

Welcome to the Femmes Frugal! (not that anyone's reading this now, but hopefully someone will in the future...) I'm Alison, sometimes Ali, and I'm really excited about beginning this blog. Things to watch for from me in the future will be my frugal/freebie adventures, converting friends and family to the frugal/green life, and my struggles to stay frugal and green. Trying to stay entertained is also a huge thing so free and green travels and activities are a must. I'm looking for a job, but until I find one I'm supplementing my income/needs and that of my family with freebies and gardening, which makes me feel like I'm contributing (besides by my manual labor). Sometimes I go overboard when I find a deal (such as having 6 boxes of cereal and 3 cartons of soy milk stored away because I got it all for free). I do love to break down the how, when, and where of my shopping deals, so watch for that. And even though you probably won't see me talking about very high-tech stuff, I'm very into doing things to conserve and live greenly. My biggest project for this summer is that I'm trying to get grants from the state so that my parents can install solar panels on our garage mostly for free (*crosses fingers*).

So at this point my favorite websites for coupons and freebies are moneysavingmom.com and walmart.com. And as far as freebies go this has been a pretty good week. I tried out my sample John Frieda Weather Works shampoo, conditioner, and serum on Sunday, which I got from Walmart. It was really excellent and I'd recommend ordering it, but just a warning--it was very strongly scented. So while my hair was soft and frizz-free, it also smelled like an elevator full of rich women just after their anniversaries (aka lots of expensive perfume).

Some other good things were a free sample of Dunkin Donuts coffee, can't wait to try that. I also got my first movie from my free one-month Netflix subscription (technically my second, but the first time the sent the wrong movie grrr....).

On the shopping front its been pretty good as well. So here is my Monday shopping trip: I've spent some time stockpiling LiveActive cereal using the coupon from the Kraft.com website. You can print a $3 off coupon and at StopandShop its on sale for $2.50, so its FREE! So I got one box of that for free. Yo+ yogurt is 2/$4, using a $1 off coupon, I got one pack for $1. Then I saw Kashi crackers marked $2.29, yay--I have a $2 off Kashi coupon! But then I get to the self-checkout and it rings up $3.29. So the lady comes over to help and it turns out I'm right--duh. Now good to know: S&S has a policy that if they get a price wrong you get the item for free...SCORE! And after I got that one box for free, I had another that they had to give me at $2.29, so I whip out just one of the coupons. $0.29 for two boxes of delicious organic crackers! (Also, it anyone can get a hold of a $1 off Quaker Simple Harvest coupon, now is the time to use it on the oatmeal--its being discontinued at S&S so its 50% off $3.50, which makes it $1.75 minus $1 makes it $0.75. --I don't have one though) Yogurt, cereal, and two boxes of cracker all for $1.29? Now bad, grasshopper...

Only other deal stuff going on today was when I went to Walmart with my mom. I needed new razors desperately, and I found a pack a four Schick Soliel (?) for $4.67. I had a $2 off coupon, making it $2.67 and then since my mom wanted to put it all on her charge card I bought her a tube of Colgate toothpaste (6.4 oz $1 - $1coupon = FREE) and later used another $1 off coupon for something the family needed for groceries. I figure since so much of the food I get for free feeds the family anyway, it all ends up even somehow.

Oh, and I also spent some time getting a couple of magazine subscriptions from adperk.com! Neat site, kind of annoying, though. There's a choice of about four magazine subscriptions and to "earn" it you have to watch a certain number of commercials. Not a bad deal in my opinion (considering I did it twice from two different emails--I sent one to my grandmother and one to my mom), but I'd recommend multi-tasking so you don't go too nutty. Go for it!

Stay Green and Free!
Hugs,
Alison