Frugal Living — A Cultivated Nest

Home Sweet Frugal Home – April

May 3, 2013 By Manuela

Are your dollars not stretching as far as they used to? Everyone has different reasons for wanting or needing to cut back. I thought I’d start sharing some frugal things that we do, in a monthly series, as a way to not only encourage myself to stay on tract, but maybe give someone with similar goals some ideas. Please feel free to share what frugal things you have been doing in the comments!

-I got these two books for free combining the 20% off coupons that Barnes & Nobles sent me with BN gift certificates I got from the Viggle Rewards Program. Plus I got free shipping since we are B&N Members.

- Also got a free book for my Kindle with my Swagbucks gift certificates

-Lovely free bouquets of flowers from trimming my rose bushes

-My amazing daughter needed more RAM and a new video card for her desktop and watched a few youtube videos on how to install them and did so to her desk top computer. Then I needed some more RAM for my old desktop and she installed it in mine. Normally we would have gone to Best Buy and had them do it but – honestly- it’s so inexpensive to buy the parts elsewhere and install it yourself. You basically just pop these things out and in! So we saved quite a bit because she was willing to learn something new!

Every month I try a few new things to make myself. In April I made homemade dry onion soup mix (which I love btw – I will never buy the “L” brand again) & dry mix cream of whatever soup. We also made our own deodorant and so far it seems to work really well. There are a couple of recipes for making your own deodorant and some use more ingredients. This one is pretty simple:

5 Tbsp. of Coconut Oil
1/4 – 3/8 cup of Baking Soda
1/4 – 3/8 cup of Cornstarch or arrowroot powder

Your choice of essential oil – I used tea tree oil since I had that on hand from making liquid hand soap, but I think a lavender oil would be nice.

You can get the instructions for how to make it at Surviving The Stores

-My newspaper seedling pots have worked really well and I’ve already planted some in the garden.

-We made our own homemade healthy coconut candy – soooo delish!

It’s made with coconut oil, unsweetened coconut flakes and you make the chocolate topping from cocoa. It’s like a dark chocolate Mounds/Almond Joy bar – except minus the bad stuff. You can find the recipe and instructions here at the Nourishing Gourmet. My daughter wants to make some homemade healthy gummies – I’ll let you know how that turns out !

Last year I bought a bunch of plants on clearance at the end of the growing season and re-landscaped one side of my house with them. I’ll take some pictures in a few weeks so you can see how pretty that’s looking (gotta pull some weeds first).

But I wanted to show you how beautiful my yellow climbing rose is now that it’s bloomed.

I got it at the same time as the other plants last year and planted it on one of the arbors going into the veggie garden (the other arbor has grapes growing on it). I had to coddle it through the heat of our Georgia summer and fall but it was so worth it!

We also did all our usual things like bake bread, I cut my husband’s hair, we’re still a one car family although we are looking for another car. We’ve been a one car family for almost 3 years now and that’s not easy living in a place where mass transit is practically non-existent! But we’ve made it work!

Have you made anything from scratch lately? What have you done to save money lately?

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living Tagged With: Frugal Living, garden, home sweet frugal home 21 Comments

Homemade Solutions: Make Your Own

April 5, 2013 By Manuela

Have you cut your food bill as much as you can but still need to find a way to cut further? I thought I’d start sharing some make your own mix pantry staples that are easy to make and budget friendly. The great thing about making your own is that not only will it save you money at the grocery store, but you can customize them to your families diet restrictions and tastes. So if you need to keep things low salt you can control that or maybe you avoid MSG or gluten. If you make your own you know exactly what’s in it. It’ll help you save money plus it’s healthier!

I would suggest starting with one or two things. I know it can be very tempting to think “I’m going to make everything from scratch”. You will burn out and wind up making nothing from scratch! My goal has always been to try one or two new things a month. We started by making our own bread, then we went on to tortillas, chicken broth, coffee creamer, pretzels etc.

The first make your own mix recipe is a dry cream of soup mix. I think I use a cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup at least once a week and they’re expensive unless you stock up when they’re on sale. Plus even the low sodium version still has lots of sodium and fat in it (not to mention the BPA in the can). So they don’t exactly fall into the “good for you” food category

Dry Cream of Soup Mix
2 cups instant powdered milk

3/4 cups of cornstarch

2 tblsp. minced dried onions

1 tsp. dried crushed basil

1 tsp. dried crushed thyme

1/2 tsp pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and store in an air tight contaner.

To Use:
-For the equivalent of 1 can of cream of… soup, mix 2/3 cup of mix and 1 cup of chicken broth in a small saucepan, whisk until smooth, bring to a boil and cook until thickened. Or make it in your microwave.

- You can mix with veggie broth, beef broth, or plain water as well. Make your own chicken broth to avoid MSG

-For cream of mushroom or celery you can add chopped mushrooms or celery while you are thickening the soup or saute them before adding the soup mix.

If organic is important to you use organic cornstarch and organic whole powdered milk and make your own chicken broth. If you’re dairy free you could try making it with powdered rice or soy milk.

I also made some onion soup mix packets. I use these at least once or twice a week.

Dry Onion Soup Mix
4 tsp. beef bouillon granules

8 tsp. dried minced onion

1 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp. pepper

This makes one packet of onion soup mix. Mix all ingredients together and store in a snack size storage baggie or make individual foil packets.

I just started making these two mixes so I didn’t make a lot to begin with in case I didn’t like them. But so far I can’t tell the difference between them and store bought. So far so good!

I think when you’re trying to make any kind of lifestyle changes, doing it bit by bit will give you a greater chance at succeeding. Ideally I’d like to get rid of all processed food in my pantry but I know I need to do it a little at a time!

I’ll be sharing more Homemade Solutions as I try them!

homemaking linky party

Filed Under: DIY Projects, DIY Projects, Frugal Living, Frugal Living, In the kitchen Tagged With: Frugal Living, homemade solutions, make your own mixes, Recipes 18 Comments

Home Sweet Frugal Home – February

February 13, 2013 By Manuela

Are your dollars not stretching as far as they used to? Everyone has different reasons for wanting or needing to cut back. I thought I’d start sharing some frugal things that we do as a way to not only encourage myself to stay on tract, but maybe give someone with similar goals some ideas.

- I continued to harvest Kale, Swiss Chard and Collard Greens from my garden. As well, as herbs like the rosemary above, thyme, sorrel and sage.

- Hung a few loads of kitchen towels to dry on our drying rack that I set up in the garage since the weather has been rainy.

-Sold a book on Amazon for $11. Will be listing some other books soon.

-In my post Renewed Frugality: 21 Frugal Tips To Try This Year, # 21 was “make frugal living something you invest time in learning about” so with that in mind I started really reading a lot of frugal websites again and while reading through a post on Money Saving Mom I found a tip I hadn’t tried yet! I actually found it reading through over 200 comments on a reader question post about how to save money on groceries. Someone suggested using a little clicker to keep a tally of how much you spend at the grocery store so you don’t go over your budgeted amount.

I don’t know why keeping track in the store has been such an issue for me (well I do know why). I’ve tried keeping a mental running total, I’ve used a calculator, I’ve written the prices down next to the item I put in my cart and added it up at the end. I’ve done the tick mark tally’s and I’m always way off! This little tally clicker was $1.89 on Amazon shipping included!

There’s a saying down South that “all roads lead to Kroger”. I run into neighbors, friends, my daughter’s piano teacher that we haven’t seen in 15 years, the old ballet teacher, Mom’s from when my daughter was in school etc. Today I ran into the real estate agent that sold us our house! Kroger is a social place! Anyway, it’s totally distracting unless I go at a really off hour. So far this little clicker is great! I round up to the next dollar – 1 click for $1, 2 clicks for $2 and so on. All I have to do is look at it for the running total. That way I know how close I am to my budget amount. What ever works!

- Made my own liquid hand soap. Here is my tutorial for homemade liquid hand soap.

- I switched from using a night cream to using a natural avocado oil. I’m becoming more and more concerned with the ingredients in makeup and skincare products and the affects of those ingredients on my body. I had read lots of good things about using avocado oil as a moisturizer and thought I’d try it. So far I’m very happy with it. I use it at night after washing my face. A tiny bit goes a long way and it’s absorbed into the skin after a few minutes. This bottle will last a long long time versus a jar of Olay or something along those lines. So I think it will save me quite a bit of money. Here’s a good place to start if you’re thinking of using oils (and there are all kinds) as moisturizers Face Oils vs. Creams – Huffington Post

- I used a few soft wrinkled apples and made mini apple cranberry crisps with cranberries I bought on sale after Christmas @ 99¢ a bag and froze.

What frugal things have you done so far this month?

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living Tagged With: Frugal Living, home sweet frugal home

Home Sweet Frugal Home #6 – January

January 23, 2013 By Manuela

Also, broccoli!

-I dehydrated a couple of pumpkins that I had from last November and roasted the seeds with a bit of sea salt and Mrs. Dash Caribbean Citrus (which is also my favorite thing to put on popcorn) for a tasty snack.

-Went back to planning my weekly menu-it really is a big help in keeping me on budget and using up what I already have thereby keeping me out of the grocery store. The trick for me is to just stay out of the grocery store. If I go in for one thing, I see about 6 other things I think I need (especially if they’re on sale) and then I’m over budget!

- Did the things I always do, made bread, cut my husband’s hair, washed out baggies to re-use. I use my daughter’s old baby bottle drying rack to dry my freezer bags. Which just shows you how long I’ve been washing and re-using freezer bags (and foil)!

-Since we’re eating a lot of clementines now ($3.99 for 5 lbs at the Korean Market). I made clementine scented vinegar for cleaning (which I’m sure smells the same as the orange peels I usually use ) But gives me something to do with the clementine peels. You can also do grapefruit peel.

-Dropped Netflix down to 1 DVD out at a time. Since Netflix has to wait forever to get any new movies anyway, by the time they get them, we’ve downloaded them from Amazon using our Swagbucks Amazon money * (my husband does Swagbucks too and his Amazon GCs get used for this). I think we’ll probably just switch to the streaming only package soon. Had another talk this morning about dropping cable. I’m ready – my husband and daughter aren’t.

We like to do puzzles and I found this 10 puzzle set (Barns!) at Kroger for $4.49! It was marked down so I guess they sold these at Christmas. The only problem is that the photos of the completed puzzles are small which makes it hard to use them as reference. We have plenty of puzzles to keep us busy this year with this set!

-my Kindle died! It stopped charging – which apparently is a known issue (is on the list of things to choose when you contact Amazon). I did a live chat on Saturday – got the out sourced in India call center customer service- was told I could BUY a new kindle at a discount. No Thanks! I called Amazon on Monday and got a US customer service rep – they are replacing my Kindle for free. All I have to do is pay the shipping fee!

It’s great but also ridiculous!

Why they don’t have a standard method of handling this situation is beyond me. But lesson to myself – don’t call customer service for anything after working hours during the week and on the weekend. You’ll probably get an out sourced customer service rep and they may not be able to be as helpful as the US one (this has happened to us before).

Well those are just some of the highlights of my recent frugal activities. Be sure to read the comments section of this and previous posts for more frugal tips:

HSFH #5

HSFH #4

Please leave a comment and let me know what you’ve been up to! You never know who you might be helping when you tell about what frugal things you’ve been doing!

Check out A Cultivated Nest Frugal Living Pinterest Board

*Disclosure – contains referral link to Swagbucks

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living Tagged With: Frugal Living, home sweet frugal home, money saving ideas

Renewed Frugality – 21 Frugal Tips To Try This Year

January 9, 2013 By Manuela

Like many people, we have fallen off the frugality wagon for a number of reasons and need to get back on. I made this list for myself but thought I’d share it with you in case you need help getting back on track!

Understand that it’s going to take effort – there’s no easy way around it. Sometimes I get tired of figuring out how to make my food budget stretch, or I don’t want to take the time to hang the kitchen towels up to dry instead of putting them in the dryer, I wish I could hire someone to paint those walls so I wouldn’t have to do it, I don’t want to make chicken stock from the roast chicken and so on – you get the idea! You have to be willing to do the work.
Realize that you (and I) can always do much better. There are so many things that most of us could be doing that we don’t for one reason or another.
Consider repair/reuse/repurpose first. For example- clothing can be repaired or re-styled into something else. There are tons of blogs who’s topic is restyling clothing or upcycling items. Think jeans into skirt, long sleeved shirt into short sleeves , a sweater becomes yarn for a project or felt it or you can save the buttons and zippers, use the material to make pillows, doll clothes etc.
Learn a new money saving skill – how to change the oil in a car, canning, crochet, how to make bread, sewing, gardening, how to recover a lamp with a new shade, learn how to clip the dogs nails instead of going to the groomer ($14 at our Vet) for example.
Use social media to get discounts. Use Foursquare to unlock deals and “like” brands on Facebook to get FB only coupons.
This idea comes from my friend Tracey McBride ( Frugal Luxuries Gift Pantry) create a gift closet. When you find good deals throughout the year stock your gift closet. This was such a money saver when Savanna was little and it seemed like we had a birthday party to attend every week!
Always weigh bagged produce. There is a difference. So don’t just grab that bag of onions, potatoes, apples – weigh a few of them first
Make you own laundry detergent/liquid hand soap.
Use the world’s greatest invention, the crockpot more in order to keep from eating out. Having something already cooking is one of the best ways to be sure you’ll eat at home on busy days.
Have a home movie night instead of going to the movies and make a big deal out of it. Make some fancy(er) snacks or finger foods to munch on while you watch your movie.
Use it up – try to consume perishables or freeze them if you can’t. Throw no food away!

12. Save your spare change – it’ll add up!

13. This tip is from Amy Dacyczyn (Tightwad Gazette) learn to use the minimum - toothpaste, shampoo, dish soap, whatever, – that gets the job done. When you get to the point where it doesn’t work for you anymore you then add a bit more until you’re satisfied.

14. Cut down on cleaning supply costs by making more of your own. Cleaning Recipies Here

15. If you fall off the frugal wagon bounce back the next day. It’s OK. All is not lost! Just don’t make it into a habit

16. Meal plan on some level. Some people do weekly, some do monthly. Some just have a general idea what they want to eat that week. At least have some plan as to what your meals are going to be even if it’s not a particular recipe. Just knowing you’re having some kind of chicken dish is better than not knowing at all what you’re going to cook/eat!

17. We will look at our credit reports at least twice a year - you’re entitled to one free credit report per credit reporting agency a year so take advantage of it. Not only to make sure there are no identity theft issues (expensive and a headache), but to stay up to date with your financial status. It could be a wake call!

18. Get better at eliminating disposable products like napkins and paper towels. (I will probably never totally eliminate paper towels because after I wash my hands I feel like I either need a whole fresh kitchen towel or a paper towel). We did switch to those paper towels that you can choose the size you need (Target brand)

19. We’re going to go over our budget every 3 months or so to see where we are. Before we’d just make a general budget for the year and look at how we did at the end of the year. This year we’re going to re-evaluate where we are in regards to our goals on a more frequent basis so we are able to make adjustments as we need to.

20. Try to create rather than to consume. I’ve found that creativity really does bloom where there is necessity, if you let it.

21. Make frugal living something you invest time in learning about. Read websites, magazine articles or check out books from the library about saving money. Even if I don’t learn anything new to try, it helps me to stay motivated.

We are all in different places financially and you may not even need these tips, or maybe you already do all of these tips. At any rate, hopefully there’s something here that you will find useful that may help motivate or inspire you in your frugal endeavors.

Feel free to add what frugal thing you’re going to work on this year in the comments. You never know who you’ll help! Check out my Frugal Living/Tips Board on Pinterest for more inspiration!

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living Tagged With: Frugal Living

10 Homemade Gifts In a Jar From Your Kitchen

November 10, 2012 By Manuela

Homemade gifts in a jar are fun to make and a frugal holiday gift to give to just about everyone. Great when you need a little something to show appreciation to a teacher, neighbor or friend. They’re also a great starting off point for gift baskets!

This first one is homemade No Bake Chex Mix from Amanda’s Parties To Go The presentation is so cute isn’t it! She even gives you the Christmas tag as a free download here!

5 Grain Pancake Mix in a jar from Good Life Eats. She also is kind enough to include a free printable recipe card for you to attach to your jar.

Cowgirl cookies from Bakerella. You could change the pink out for something more seasonal.

Peppermint stick cocoa from My Recipes. Yummy! Perfect for a cold wintry day!

For your vegan friends how about a homemade dairy free mac & cheese mix. Change the presentation to one that’s more Christmassy.

How about cinnamon honey butter from Tidy Mom. Doesn’t that sound delish. She even gives a great tutorial on she made the jars look so cute here.

How about your favorite soup mix in a jar? This is curried-lentil soup from Good Houskeeping.

Homemade cocktail mixers from the kitchn. You might want to use something other than a jar for these. I got bottles that look like this from Cost Plus World Market (also Ikea has them).

Chocolate dipped pretzels in a jar from Alice Golden. I made similar ones last year with stick pretzels and they were a huge hit!

This is one is so easy because you can make a batch of cookies, dressed up nuts or homemade candy (or buy them) and place them in a jar, wrap with Christmas ribbon and fabric and you have a very nice present. Photo source Cartwheels In My Mind

I hope this gives you some easy ideas for Christmas gifts that you still have plenty of time to make. Christmas is only about 6 weeks away!!

****Remember to please go to the source if you would like to pin any of these ideas. There are links in the photo and text.

Here are the links to the other posts in this series in case you missed them:

Frugal Christmas Gift Guide 2

Frugal Christmas Gift Guide 1

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living, Inspiration, Link Love Tagged With: Christmas, Frugal Living, Recipes

More Cute Homemade Christmas Presents

November 1, 2012 By Manuela

Can you believe it’s November!! Before we know it, Thanksgiving will be here and then there will be just a few more weeks until Christmas! Are you ready? I’m not! I do have a few more inexpensive holiday gift ideas for you including some ideas for kids.

Put together your own gift baskets! There are so many that would be fun and inexpensive to do. Like a spa/manicure one, movie night or how about this car wash kit.

It doesn’t have to be just for Daddy- I’m sure any teenage new car owner would be happy to have it too

I love this idea for someone that likes to bake! This is a gift basket that you can buy already put together. But I think it would be so easy to do on your own. You can get some of the items at the dollar store or even thrift store. You can wait for sales on cookie cake mixes or include your own homemade mix. It’s basically white wash cloths, kitchen mitt, kitchen towel, spatula, cookie cutters, measuring spoons and mix. You could make this anyway you want!

How about this one from Country Living. I would put a mix for cornbread in the skillet unless you’re giving it on Christmas Day. You can find baskets at practically any garage sale or thrift store for just a few cents.

With gift baskets it’s all in the presentation. So think outside the box, it doesn’t have to be in a basket just because they’re called gift baskets!

How about silhouettes of the kids for the Grandparents? I love how she added numbers to each one!

For Kids – after Halloween buy some clearance items and make a dress up box for them.

How about some yummy smelling gingerbread playdough?

If you’re good at sewing here’s a link to free American Doll type dress patterns agplaythings.com

Sew Mama Sew - she uses a small shirt from the dollar store to make a cute ruffled skirt. It’s so cute!

This doll sleeping bag is so cute! Riley Blake Design

Make a marshamallow gun out of pvc pipes! I would paint it to dress it up. But it looks like fun and it certainly won’t hurt anybody or thing!

I hope some of these ideas help to get your creative juices flowing. There’s still time to be creative and frugal with you’re gift giving this year!

If you missed Part 1 of my Frugal Christmas Gift Guide – go here for more ideas

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Frugal Living Tagged With: Christmas, Frugal Living, Inspiration

Stretching Those Decorating Dollars

March 22, 2009 By Manuela

I shop at a lot of places for home decor items, I’m sure you do too! Some of my favorite discount stores besides Target are Big Lots and Dollar Tree. I was in Big Lots Saturday (looking for some canned peaches – can you believe a can of fruit used to be under a $1 and now it’s $1.45 to $1.89!)

Anyway, they were all sold out of the Dole peaches but they did have some home decor items. If you want to start or add to your mercury glass collection, check out Big Lots. They have a few faux mercury glass candle sticks and a votive in their new home collection. I don’t have one to show you since I didn’t buy one (I have more than enough already).

I did find some cute springing tablecloths for $3.50. This cute striped apple green one I have on my table, a yellow polka dot and green and white flowery one.

I know some people turn their noses up at vinyl tablecloths but I happen to like them since they’re so easy to wipe clean (great if you have kids) and come in so many lovely patterns these days.

I brought out some of my milk glass bud vases from the thrift store to stretch my grocery store bouquet of flowers (which were originally clearance anyway). You always have a few flowers that seem to last longer in a bouquet than others so bud vases come in handy for them!

I also found these cute storage jars for $4! I thought they’d be perfecting for storing craft supplies like bits of ribbon or used in the kitchen/pantry.

My other favorite decorating resource is my local wallpaper shop. I got these four rolls of toile wallpaper for $12 + tax!

They’re a small wallpaper shop and they have a back room where they have all their discontinued papers and rolls that were open for samples. The two larger rolls were $5 each and the smaller ones were a $1! That’s better than buying scrapbook paper and it’s not patterns that everyone else already has! So don’t be afraid to check out stores you wouldn’t normally think could have any good deals. They may surprise you! Even my local florist had spectacular deals on Christmas mercury glass and other things in January!

P.S. : One of those wallpapers is going to go on the back of my bookcases this week – out with the stripes and in with some toile!