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.
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One of my favorite things that I did recently was to remake a pair of earrings that were given to me!
I loved the color but they were just way tooo big and heavy for me. So I took them apart and re-made them more my style.
I just used some regular needle nosed pliers that we have and and took some elements off and put some other elements on. This is inspired me to look through my jewelry box to see what other earrings I have that I can re-fashion. Seems when you wear dangly earrings you always lose one dangle or something falls off etc. I’ve seen people make really pretty necklaces and bracelets doing the same thing.
-We continued to make our own bread,tortillas and pizza dough (made some “healthy” oatmeal cookies which were nasty so I won’t even bother to give you the recipe).
– We had homemade pizza for family movie night which we all decided is much tastier (and really much more healthy) than take out. I use turkey pepperoni -1/2 white/whole wheat crust- no salt sauce. I always make one that is all veggies – spinach or kale/mushrooms/onion/broccoli fresh tomatoes from the garden, whatever we have on hand. I also froze some pizza dough rolled out so all I have to do is top it for a quick meal.
Dug up and moved plants – divided plants. Bought clearance plants and shrubs to plant in my garden. I need a lot of shrubs to replace all those that Colonial Pipeline cut down so I’ve been waiting for fall clearance to purchase the bulk of them.
-Planted my fall/winter garden . Continued to harvest kale, tomotoes, peppers, eggplant, swiss chard, green beans & herbs.
Made myself a fall wreath from bits and bobs of fall things I had on hand. Not sure if this is the end result or if I’ll tinker with it a bit more. But wanted to show you anyway 🙂
It used to be blue for spring – I spray painted it a mellow yellow for fall. That’s the fun thing about these grapevine wreaths. You can spray paint them to get a new look! BTW I always always see grapevine wreaths at the thriftstore – so look there if you need one. Also Target has little ones in their dollar section right now.
– We got a Free one year Costco membership through American Express Rewards. Very excited about that as I’ve read that it’s a great place to buy yeast and flour in bulk and since we bake our own bread, tortillas, pretzels,pizza dough, cookies etc from scratch we go through a lot of yeast and flour. My husband has a Corporate card that he uses for travel that we have linked to our family card for reward points. We don’t use our own card very much but since he travels quite a bit we are able to get a couple of gift cards a month from his work expenses (which he is reimbursed for).
-I was making popcorn on the stove top for snacks, but realized that all that oil I used wasn’t healthy or economical. So I got a hot air popcorn popper for free from Amazon using my Swagbucks gift cards. I’m sure most of you have heard of Swagbucks by now. I do a couple of points programs but Swagbucks is the best one as far as I’m concerned. For all you Kindle Fire users – be sure to download the Swagbucks tv app to your kindle. Much easier and faster to get points than watching Swagbucks TV at the site. I usually get $25 dollars in Amazon GC’s a month and 1 ($5) PayPal. My referral link if you haven’t signed up yet is here. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about how to get started.
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 ideas:
You are a very talented (& frugal) woman. That pizza looks delicious!
I am always interested in how to cut costs. We were forced to cut way back several years ago. Seems like we continue to need to do more and more.
I have Celiac and GF foods are expensive. My husband usually has to eat what I do so I don’t have to make a different meal.
I like to shop at our local grocery that others think is more expensive. They have a bigger selection of GF products. Other than those products I only buy things that are on sale. It if isn’t I don’t buy it.
My husband drives 45 each way to work 5 days a week. I work from home so if I don’t need to leave the house I don’t. When I do I try to do everything I can on those days.
With the holidays around the corner I would love to hear how others do gifts for their families. I posted for ideas before but didn’t get any help. I love giving gifts so I don’t want to stop. We have tried a couple different things but haven’t come up to any great ideas to buy for 7 adult kids (spouses included) and 6 grandchildren plus others.
Thank you for sharing. I will look forward to more ideas.
I have a couple of ideas that I’ve been collecting for Christmas gifts. I’ll do a post about them in another week or so.
thanks so much for the Kindle tip for swagbucks tv, I did not know about that one but the TV is good way to earn extra swagbucks. I can keep the kindle fire wherever I am, much easier than using the big computer.
I am doing a month of frugal posts at my blog. Our income has increased a little but it does not really help as all prices just go up up up!. It is really keeping me on my toes.
Exactly. I keep mine with me and the Kindle app actually automatically loads the next video. Sometimes you can leave it alone until you max out and sometimes you have to x out of the ads.
Love redoing items from around the house for a new look. Your new old earrings look great!
I enjoyed reading your frugal home tips and look forward to seeing more!
Blessings!
~Nadine
Love what you did with the earrings!! Save the unused parts – they would work well in a necklace later.:) The pizza looks so good! I really like your wreath redo. I need to take my Spring/Summer one off the door and put something more Fall appropriate up.
Thanks for sharing your great ideas.
I was thinking of you and all the jewelry you make when I was working on them!
What a great idea for those earrings. I like “yours” so much better than the original.
I was going to get our deck and garden ready for winter but we had an unexpected visitor… a tropical storm! It wasn’t even on my radar (literally) and it seems even the local meteorologists were surprised that it made its’ way to the Midwest. I know we need rain but fall rain is SO cold and one tracks in all those leaves. So my garden is waiting… it has rained for three days.
The sun is to shine tomorrow and we go from the 60s today to the 80s tomorrow to the 50s on Friday… such is life in the Midwest.
I tried a new cookie recipe this week that didn’t work, either. It sounded good on paper (pumpkin chocolate chip) but we didn’t care for the texture at all. Instead of chewy it was gummy.
Some great ideas Manuela!
Yep, frugal is the thing to do now. I loved the idea of transferring and separating plants for the garden. The hardest place for me to cut back (emotionally) is on the garden, this way its easier to bit the bullet!
I like your version of the earrings much better than the original. You have some great tips!
I like the idea fo freezing pizza rounds ready to top! Thanks! Costco IS a great place for the baking supplies. The yeast price is amazing. Its a couple bucks a packet at the grocery store and a couple bucks at Costco for a huge bag. I keep mine in the freezer so it doesn’t go stale.
As usual, you had some wonderful ideas to share. (Sure wish you had actually liked the oatmeal cookies because would love a healthier version of the ones I make. ) My favorite tip was the one about the rewards! We have wanted to join Costco, and we have AMEX. I need to look into that.
We keep searching. When I find a recipe I will share it. I think we’re just going to try using our old oatmeal cookie recipe and tweak it to make it healthier. The really healthy ones we’ve tried only had 1-2 tablespoons of sugar/sweetener and that’s really not enough 🙂
Beautiful earring remake:) Yummm… popcorn! Great popcorn maker! Have a blessed day dear friend! BIG HUGS!
You are the queen of repurposing! Your earrings are wonderful, your wreaths are always a delight. One would think I’d know more having studied your blog all this time. ☺ I see “Swag Bucks” in my site meter and had no idea, until now, what that was even about…
All very good ideas. Your earrings remake was perfect! I am also concerned about holiday gift buying. We have always been the “bountiful parents”, but we need to cut back on that:)
Manuela, thanks for sharing all these great activities!
One thing we’ve done lately is to cook several things whenever we have the grill going. If we go to all the trouble to build a fire, might as well use it! Recently my husband cooked a pork shoulder which we had for dinner, then he took all the leftovers and put them into the crock pot and made pulled pork to share at our church potluck the next day. Then while the fire was hot, he also cooked a whole chicken, so our next day’s dinner was ready to roll!
I love these ideas! Thank you for sharing your fabulous frugality with us! I have a bracelet I made a few years ago that represents my life journey. It has lots of bits and baubles from things – an Eiffel Tower earring I got on a high school trip to Paris and lost its mate, my temporary engagement ring from my husband that substituted until he could get the real thing, charms that represent my girls, my high school class key necklace charm, and lots more. I keep adding and adding things over the years. It’s just so much fun to explain to people.
That’s such a lovely idea!
Love what you did with the earrings! I like them better than the original design!
We make most things from scratch, too. Including handsoap and detergents.
It helps the budget a great deal!
I agree with Deanna, the new earring design is much cuter. The originals would have been way too much for me too!
The pizza looks awesome…I need to get back into baking my own pizzas. They are so much better than the store bought!
Great ideas!
Great job on the earrings they turned out fantastic.
Your pizza looks really good. When all my girls were home we used to do Friday Night Pizza night and movie. I would make our own pizza dough as well. then instead of 1 or 2 large pizza everyone rolled out their own and dressed it up the way they wanted it done.
Oh just love the pink wheel barrow did you paint it yourself. I just might have to do that to the extra one we have here after I get a new wheel for it.
I would not change a think on your wreath I think its looks great the way you have it. What all did you put on your wreath?
Thanks for the reminder of Swag Bucks. I did sign up with them a while back and have not used it much but now that I know of an actual person that has actually gotten things from them I will start using them again. Swag Bucks has a tv station now I will have to check them out as well.
No I didn’t paint it – but that would be an easy thing to do if you had a metal one. It used to be red! The hot Georgia sun has bleached it and now it’s pink!
Thank you – I’m glad you like the wreath. As I was looking at the photos I thought maybe it might look better if all that fall stuff was actually the bottom instead of the side. So we’ll see if it stays the same 🙂
Okay, the way you made those earrings prettier, not to mention lighter is genius (:^)
Love your creative, frugal ideas. The earrings you refashioned are so cute. I agree that they are even cuter than the originals!
Your home made pizza looks so good! I love to make them myself so much more than buying a frozen one or eating out. That is our frugal move right now …. no eating out (unless we are on the road traveling). It costs at the very least $50 for our family of five to eat out! That is 1/3 of my grocery budget for the week! So eating out is not practical. Audley has AmEx points for his work card as well. He uses them most often for Home Depot cards which have been a big help in landscaping our new yard. This weekend I am making pumpkin puree which goes farther and tastes better than the canned stuff. It’ll be quite useful for pumpkin butter and pumpkin pies and tarts this harvest season.
Enjoy your weekend!
Jen
Your pizza looks so yummy! I love to make homemade pizza, too. I make mini pizza crusts for each person, I just cook them in my cast iron skillet! You will love Costco, we just joined. They actually have a program that reimburses you at the end of the year for the cost of the membership, too. Lots of wonderful organic products that you will like a lot!
Your pizza looks so good! I love your new earrings! They are prettier now! You are so clever and inspiring! Thanks for all your great ideas for saving money. We all can use some help today!
You know how much I LOVE these posts Manuela…so inspiring! The earring trick is sheer genius…and the pizza looks very much like those “hand crafted” “artisan” pizzas they sell for a fortune at all the artsy gourmet restaurants around here! I am working on making a gluten and carb free version for us. I have tried the flax and cauliflower varieties. I think they’re good but the rest of the family is not really on board as they love the traditional crust (not that I blame them ;). I love pizza/movie night! When I was growing up we always had Saturday night designated as pizza night in our family. Even when we lived in Japan for several years. My parents solved this (mostly my Dad) by putting together a pizza from a Chef-Boyardee Kit in a box! I did love seeing that box on the counter top on Saturday afternoons…we loved Pizza night. t was pretty young so I remember the pizza tasting great! 😉 Well, sorry to ramble! Again, love these posts Manuela and sure do appreciate you going to the trouble of sharing all your hard work to inspire us (as always).
Love,
Tracey
x0x
Love how you converted those earrings from big, dangling to smaller, compact size. You are creative and full of ideas. All those tips in saving dollars come in handy for me, I feel like I need more done to get bigger savings.