Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Recent Frugal Activities

I meant to publish this post a while back, and since I am just getting to it I decided to include a couple week's worth of frugal activities.

During one of our evening walks, we came upon a couple apple trees we never noticed before. The apples were all over the ground and the tree was bursting with ripe fruit. We asked the homeowner if they minded us picking some, and he was more than happy to let us since it would help reduce the amount to pick off the ground later. We filled the bottom of our stroller with some lovely crabapples - about 12lbs. Our first fruit gleaning experience!

I made a nursing necklace for Snowflake. I had been eyeing a few on etsy for a while, and I was all but ready to shell out $12 or so for a nice one when I had the idea to just make my own. I followed this tutorial and it turned out lovely. It has really helped with keeping her focused!

I decorated for fall using the decor I had in storage. I even had a few new items in there that I bought last year during an end-of-the-season sale.

Daddy C is at the wood working again and is almost finished with a new bookshelf for our living room. I am really excited for it to be finished - it's just what we need to help contain the small toys and books that seem to pile up quite easily around here. He has plans to make a matching end table for me as well!

We've been working on redecorating our living room and shopped around for many different pieces. We found a couch we really liked, but we did not like the price. It was $700, which was way more than we wanted to spend on a single item when you have small children running around. We kept looking and eventually found one almost identical at another store for only $400. The same thing happened with our chair and ottoman - we got them for $150 and $80 instead of $350 and $200. Yes, we could have bought used, but we really wanted something specific and the pieces on the used market were very worn and not at all our style. We paid cash for all our new living room pieces, saving on interest and other fees.

I visited several garage sales this past weekend and picked up a cute basket for $1, a brand new children's puzzle for 75 cents (these kind retail for $10-15), a wall hook for Snowflake's bedroom for 50 cents and a cute sweater and new looking shoes for Peanut for 50 cents each. I also found 10 books by Janette Oake to add to my library for only $2.50. Garage sale season is almost over, so I am scouting the few that are still happening. Many of these sales are of the best kind- people just wanting to get rid of things. That means you can find some great deals if you are willing to look.

I also line dried a couple loads of laundry this past week, kept the house at 74 degrees only when it became too hot and used coupons for our Sunday lunch out.

What frugal thing have you done lately? Share in the comments below!

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