My Personal Christmas Club Bank - 2013

I got the bright idea to just sock away money every week this year for Christmas.  That way, come December, I have a pile of cash to just go crazy with.  I'm doing $10 a week.  Every week in 2013.  Since we're already in the 7th week of the New Year, I just threw in the money for the previous weeks.    That will give me about $500 for Christmas.  Which probably isn't enough for most people but should probably be close to enough for us.  We really don't go crazy with gifts.  

But I had to be creative with it.  If I just use a jar or envelope - I will dip into it.  And that defeats the purpose.  I need to give it meaning, so I got crafty:

I had an old shoe box and got some wrapping paper and the stuff to wrap it (have to give this a Christmassy theme).

I cut a small hole on top - big enough to get dollars through but hopefully small enough so I can't steal money out of it. 

    

I wrapped it, cut the hole out in the wrapping paper and wrote on it.  Giving it a subliminal message of a "Christmas Gift" will hopefully remind me of why I am doing this and will make me less prone to want to steal it.  The only real way to get the money out is to unwrap it.  

You probably can't see too well - but I will write the dates I contribute on the back of the box.  That way, if I fall behind, I'll know how much I need to catch up.  By December 1, I should have about 48 dates written on it.  

So sure - I could keep the money in the bank because I'm losing interest but honestly, interest rates suck now so it really won't break us losing out on the interest.  Plus - if it's just in the bank, I'll spend it.  I won't take it seriously.  Also - I'm getting my kids involved with it so they will see how much saving can add up.  

It's not too late for you or your children to do this yourself!  We have 42 more weeks until December 1st.  So how much could you or your kids save in this time?  Assuming you don't back date it and just start now, here is what you have the potential to save in your own personal Christmas Club:

$2 a week:  $84 (a great amount for kids to have!)

$5 a week:  $210

$10 a week:  $420

$15 a week:  $630

$20 a week:  $840

$25 a week:  $1,050

What a great & easy thing to teach your kids!  

Reuse the Kids' Socks - and Make Your Cats Happy

I HATE throwing away socks that the kids have outgrown.  I mean - a lot of them still have use left in them - but having someone use someone else's socks is pretty nasty.  So I usually just toss them, like 99% of the country.

I also HATE spending a ridiculous amount of money on cat toys.  For instance....

This Play-N-Squeak Mouse is a whopping $4.97 at Walmart!  Seriously?  So we turned our old socks into toys for the cat:

I got my supplies - old socks, scissors, rubber bands (did not use), ribbon (did not use), sharpie marker and cat nip (I had this in my house - I bought it at the Dollar Tree before Christmas because we were going to make something that we never did).

I cut up some of the socks for "filler".

I took the three socks that I was going to use as the toy and I cut the ends for tassel.

I filled the sock with some filler and some cat nip (not too much!)

We drew a silly face on it.  

Then we made more.  

I guess they kind of look like kitty sperm toys.  That wasn't my intention.  I just got lucky.  

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!

Thinking Outside the Normal Storage Box

Sometimes you have to think outside the normal storage box for your storage solutions.  We have this old desk that we bought way back yonder that we managed to keep and have given to the son for a desk for his bedroom:

Organizing pencils, crayons and other kid stuff can be a challenge.  But we wanted to make use of the pull out drawer - I the last time I was at Ikea I picked up THIS CHEAP silverware holder - a whopping $1.99.

It's nothing fancy - just the Rationell Variera Cutlery tray.  It works perfect for storing desk stuff.  And at $1.99 - by far the cheapest desk storage system out there.  Maybe because it's not marketed as a desk storage system.  If you go to Staples (which I typically love) - all of their storage solutions cost an arm and a leg.  

So now all his art and homework supplies are neatly organized.  And on the cheap.  

Be a Fu-Fu Mom By Making Do with What You Have - Valentine's Day

The overachieving homemaker these days DOES NOT just buy a box of pre-printed Valentine's Day cards for their kids' class.  Oh no.  We're too good for that.  Really obnoxious moms make their kids bring in something to "wow" all the other moms...oops, I mean kids.

Here are some of the obnoxious and creative things that over-the-top homemakers are doing these days for Valentine's Day:

Picture with pop - more info on how to make this can be found at Design Mom.

Homemade Pops - From Family Kitchen

Ruler Cards - From Lil Sugar

Candy Robot Creations - From Prutsen

Melted Crayon Heart Cards - From PaperBlog

Well I want to be cool and hip!  However, I don't want to spend any money and I don't want more crap in my house (so I'm NOT buying any heart shape pan for anything).  My kids' schools don't allow food gifts - because obviously lollipops and conversation hearts make kids fat these days.  So I had to go with something non-food related.  In fact - I wanted to step up my game and get crap OUT OF MY HOUSE during this little project.  So I decided on a crayon project - because we own more crayons than the Crayola factory. 

First and foremost - do not believe the internet - you CAN NOT MELT CRAYONS IN THE MICROWAVE:

So my idea was to melt crayons down into multi-color crayons.  I have a heart candy mold - and some things that I did read on the internet said you can melt crayons in the microwave in candy molds, but nope.  You can't.  So I destroyed more crayons, cut them up in little pieces and used my mini cupcake pan to melt them.  I put them in a 200 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  Then they were melted and I let them cool on the counter top.  Used a knife to sort of pop them out of the pan.  This was relatively easy.  

I have a bunch of leftover cardstock that I had for a project way back when.  I used my large circular punch and punched out the number of circles I needed.  I had the 5 year-old sign the backs of all of them.

On the front with a Sharpie marker, I wrote "You Color My World, Valentine".  Isn't that all corny and wholesome?  

I had some leftover adhesive circles from a Christmas art project - so I used two on each mini crayon to attach them to the circles.  You can buy these if you really want to make these - they are much better than scotch tape.  

Voila!  Before long - we had our cards for 1 kids' class.  My handwriting isn't all that good - but whatever.  4 year-olds don't care.  

Not only did I not spend any money doing this project with the kids - but I used up some crap that was in my house.  Which is my ultimate goal in life - remove the crap from my life.  So sure - they aren't all heart-shaped or anything really festive - but I don't need a heart shaped pan or any other crap cluttering my already cluttered house.  

 Now I'm one of those cool, obnoxious, overachieving moms that everyone loves to hate.  I'm cool with that.  

Homemade Bread Crumbs - Yup, I'm THAT Cheap

I've been on this bread making kick.  I don't know why.  I make more bread than we can possibly eat.  So I was looking at two, half eaten loaves and was like "darn it - I don't want to throw that away but it's going to go bad."  

So I took a knife to them and cut them up in chunks.

Then I put the chunks on baking sheets.  I baked for about 10 minutes at 300.  Then I turned them over (or attempted to - I just sort of shuffled them around).  After about 5 minutes, I threw my chunks in the food processor.  Then I put the smaller chunks back on the cookie sheets and baked for another 10 minutes or so.  Then I put them back into the food processor.  

And VOILA!  Homemade bread crumbs.  Since I just ran out of bread crumbs, I just dumped my bread crumbs in the container.  Oh - and at the second round of food processing, I added some oregano, garlic salt and basil.  I don't know - maybe 2 tsp. or more of each.  I'm liberal with spices.  Mostly because I buy them at the Dollar Store.  

You can do this with store bought bread.  I was surprised at the ease of it.  And I'm happy with the lack of waste.  I shall make an epic meatloaf with my homemade bread crumbs made from homemade bread.  I have become everything I have never wanted to be.  

Saving Money Challenge: Goof On Your Kids for the Price of a Candy Bar

I do this to my kids every Easter.  I try to trick them but they figured it out early on.  I guess they know the difference between chocolate and poop....  Introducing:

Bunny Poop!

So when I put together the kids' Easter baskets, I scatter some of these chocolate candies in them.  I tell them that the Easter Bunny pooped in them.  I think it's hysterical.  They usually say "That's not poop!  It's candy!"  I'll probably still be doing this for them well into adulthood.

So you take your pick - what do you think looks more like Bunny Poop?  Raisinets or Milk Duds?  I gave you a picture so you can be prepared before you go to the store.  I think Milk Duds do a better job, but Raisnets will work just the same. 

I'm so excited for Easter!!!

Saving Money Challenge: My .35 Cent Centerpieces (Ghetto-tastic!)

I'm slaving away at preps for the son's birthday party.  I'm devoting way too many hours to this but I don't care.

So the plan is to have some tables with table cloths (plastic, of course) - So I wanted something to put on said tables. So I made three centerpieces:

They aren't terribly great - but something to accent the place.  So how did this only cost .35 cents to make? Well first, it's assuming you have a bunch of things.  Like vases.  And pipe cleaners.  And twist ties.  If not, you're going to have to buy those things.  You can get some nice vases at Ikea for $2.  The Dollar Tree also has them.  The Dolla also has pipe cleaners and floral wire (which is recommended - I had a big roll of twist tie so I just used that).  

My only out of pocket expense was Tissue Paper.  I bought this pack at the Dollar Tree for $1.06 after tax. I was able to make flowers for 3 arrangements out of this pack.  So about .35 cents each.  If you do not know how to make Tissue Paper Flowers, well Google it.  Here's Martha Stewart's version (I love teaming up Martha & the Dollar Tree in one post).

I realized that I was going to need something in the vases to hold it down - my pipe cleaners are pretty flimsy and even though I doubled them up, they just weren't cutting it.  I stole them from my kids' art supply bin.  They didn't have any green ones so I just didn't care about that.  Since I'm cheap, I didn't want to spend any money on this adventure.  So I went to my backyard and I have 2 milk crates full of white rocks for whatever reason back there (the old owners left them there).  

So I grabbed some:

They were pretty dirty and gross.

So I let them soak in some soapy water and I kind of washed them with a sponge and sprayed water at them.

Then I let them sit in a mixture of bleach and water for about 1-2 hours.  I rinsed them off with water.

Then I had nice, clean, white rocks for my vases.  

Even if you have to buy some stuff, it's pretty cheap to make Tissue Paper flowers and display them.  Ghetto?  Sure.  Cheap?  Definitely!

Saving Money Challenge: Even MORE Homemade Party Decorations

In case you haven't read up on my Saving Money Challenges, I'm on a "birthday party" kick.  So far, I've spent a $1 making a Big Birthday Banner and $3 making homemade streamers of sorts.  I'm not done.  Oh no.  Never.

Here are even more decorations that I have made.  To give you a little background, I'm having a Smurf Party for my 6 year-old.  He picked the theme.  I just ran with it.  So we'll have some little hooligans in our backyard for a while here in April.  I like to prep stuff though because this crap is more exciting for me than the kids.  

Since the kids are a little more "older" and "with" it.  I'm going to have 4 stations/Smurf villages set up in my backyard.  These are going to be as follows:

Handy Smurf - Build something (They sell cheapo kits at Michaels for a $1 or something.  I'm thinking these, but might go with foamy things). 

Painter Smurf - Either paint said building project or just have paper and paint.  I have paint and brushes galore.  I'm saving egg cartons to use as paint holders.

Baker Smurf - I'm going to have 2 sugar cookies for each child ready to decorate with frosting and sprinkles.

Farmer Smurf - Each kid will plant some seeds in their take home planter and will also be awarded the opportunity to dig for worms in my untilled garden.  I was going to try to borrow a tiller or rent one this season - but nah.  Making 15-20 kids dig in my dirt patch should be efficient enough as a till.  

So I made 4 signs to hang along my fence as my "Smurf Villages".  I have to do one more coat of paint on the letters and I'll be done.  This was really cheap for me.  $2 to be exact.  

First, I bought 4 blue poster boards at the Dollar Tree for .50 cents each.  That's my $2.  

I have cardstock letters that I bought from Staples a while ago with Staples Rewards that were going to expire.  So I spelled out what I needed with those and traced them.  Put the cardstock letters back in their bag.

I have a bunch of paint in the house (cheapo paint - they have it at Michaels for like a $1 and sometimes it goes on sale for .39 cents or .59 cents a bottle.  CLICK HERE to get a general idea of what it looks like).  So I painted my traced letters with white.  

I then did a Google Image search for each Smurf I needed.  Clicked on desired image, scaled it to fit on a 8X11 piece of paper and printed in color.  I cut around each Smurf and hot glue gunned them in the middle.  

Money Saving Challenge: Homemade Streamers (with a little class)

Still prepping away for Smurf-fest 2012.  I decided to prep some homemade streamers to hang in the house and outside.  Here's what they look like:

I'm going to make about 30-50 of these suckers to hang around the house and outside.  This is really easy, if you have some patience.  I do - only because it's perfect procrastination from cleaning.  

I have a circle punch that I bought from Michaels a while ago.  I'm not one of those "scrapbooking people" - I just "needed" a circle punch for some reason.  It looks like this:

That's not mine - I stole it from the Gadbois Family.

So how did I make these?  They were easy.  

I cut 2 1/2 foot long pieces of ribbon (I used some from my never ending stash).  Most ribbon roles are 10 yards - so you'd get about 12 pieces out of one roll if you use 2 1/2 feet.  So use that to determine how much ribbon you need.  

Then I dropped $3 on Cape Cod Colored Cardstock at Michaels.  There's 50 pieces in that pack and I can get 12 circles per sheet.  

So I taped up some of my 2 1/2 foot long ribbon pieces and just scotch taped 6 circles on each strand.  Voila.  I am done.  The weight of the cardstock weighs down the ribbon nicely.  

Since I had everything except the cardstock, my out of pocket cost was $3.  If you want to create this, you'll have to buy some cardstock, some rolls of ribbon (.50 - $1.00 each roll), a punch (about $14 at Michaels - but buy on sale or with a coupon), & scotch tape.   

  

Saving Money Challenge: Homemade Birthday Banner

I created a birthday banner for under $2.  I think it has more pizazz than store bought banners.  I think it looks really neat - but you might think it looks white trashy.  I don't care.  This is like Dollar Tree craft time ladies....

First, my "theme" for this birthday is Smurfs.  All good homemakers MUST have a theme for birthday parties these days.  If you don't, you suck.  So I bought a package of blue lunch plates at the Dollar Store.

I then when to Classroom Clipart and printed out the Large alphabet letters I needed for my project.  I didn't adjust the image at all and printed out on regular old white paper.  I cut out the letters and hot glue-gunned them to paper plates as shown.  Then I took my hole punch and punched holes in both sides of each letter plate. 

I have a ton of ribbon laying around my house.  So I cut out a bunch of 4" long pieces of a blue one.

I just "knotted" the 4" pieces to connect the plates.  You could cut the ribbon longer and "bow" them for a more fancy look.  I'm going to have 3 different banners that I'm going to hang in order to say "Happy Smurfday Ben".  Isn't that really gay?  I'm such an obnoxious homemaker.  

I didn't hang it up because it's pretty big and it's going to go outside (crossing the fingers that no rain will come our way).  

So what did I use:

1 pack of 20 plates from the Dollar Tree - $1.00

8 sheets of paper to print out my saying (I put two letters on one sheet)

2 hot glue gun sticks.  (You could use regular glue - I just love hot glue).

1 roll of ribbon (can be bought for .50-$1.00 at Michael's).  

My out of pocket cost was $1 since I had all the other things laying around.  I'll add a picture of the final product after the party.  Hopefully it looks smurfarific and not trashy.  Who am I kidding!  

Saving Money Challenge: Plan an At Home Party

Well it's the first week of March - which means I have one month to plan a birthday party for my oldest son.  I'm like Martha Stewart's white trash niece.  Thanks to Pinterest and having almost 6 years of "homemaker-ness" under my belt, I'm coming up with some killer ideas for the son's 6th birthday.  We're going to attempt a house party - because with our ideas, we can't go any place.  My only wish is that God gives us a rain-free April 7th.

I've done some white-trashy parties before.  In fact, three years ago, I blogged about a Dinosaur Party that I had for my then 2 year-old.  So a lot of my "money saving" posts this month might be birthday based.  If I can actually remember to do them.

So what's your take?  You think at home parties are more frugal than going some place?  I'd like to think they are - but I usually end up getting all excited and carried away and buy way too much crap.  I can't help it though - I dig it.  If you don't get all giddy and shopaholic like me, they can be a very frugal option for Little Johnny.

Saving Money Challenge: Learn to Accept Ghetto Fixes

Our fence sucks.  There is no better way to describe it.  Getting a new one (that we'd like) would cost about $4,000.  We don't want to drop that kind of money on a fence now.  But I'm sick of looking at the nasty of it all.  So I trucked myself up to Lowe's and bought some spray paint.

Before

After

Before

After

Perfect?  No.  Cheap?  Yes.  Makes me happy?  Yes.  $13 vs. $4,000 works for me for the time being.  So go ahead - be ghetto, be fabulous & be cheap.

Saving Money Challenge: Know When To Buy In Bulk

Not everything is cost efficient to buy in bulk - mostly, when you buy in bulk and don't even use all the crap you bought.  I try to know what is best to buy in bulk for our family.  

Here's my example:  Garlic Stuffed Olives.  I love them.  This huge jar is only $6.99 at BJ's.  At the grocery store, a jar about 1/3 this size sells for $5.99.  I eat them like they're candy so it's worth it for me to buy bulk.  My husband thinks I'm nasty.  

Saving Money Challenge: Transfer Money to Your Savings

I'm happy to report that I got my federal refund today.  It's like winning the lottery - but not really since it's our money that the government held onto all last year since we don't claim the proper deductions on W-2s. So when I saw it post into my checking, I immediately transferred about 90% of it to my savings account.  I left the rest because our oil tank is on 1/8th and I need to call them today.

Even though I have easy access to both checking and savings accounts, there's just an element of "don't touch our savings" in my head.  The only time I touch savings is when we're about to overdraft on our checking or if I need Keno money.  Those both seem like legitimately great reasons to tap into the savings.

So save money - hide your money in secret savings accounts so it seems that you don't have that much.  It works for me.  Well sometimes.

Saving Money Challenge: Make Your Kids Play With Paper

Even though my kids have more toys than a small 3rd world country (because they're spoiled) - they get bored relatively easy.  Around Christmas time, they had some friends over and "there was just nothing to do."  Sure kids.  Whatever.  So I gave them some paper and said, "Have fun".

All four of these kids like the Annoying Orange.  If you haven't seen the Annoying Orange yet - you should.  Just google it.  I think they are actually coming out with a show on Cartoon Network on the fall.  I'm more excited than the kids.

So anyways - these kids played with their "paper masks" for at least a half hour, if not longer.  I'm not sure if this is saving money, or if it's just plain old trashy.  

"Saving Money Challenge": Save Recyclables for Future Use

My kids love Danimal Yogurt Smoothies.  They come in a package of 6 and each smoothie is only 3 ounces.  So they both drink 3 at one time.  Yeah - that is NOT economically feasible for my poor ass.
This is what they look like:



But I have learned that I can just make them smoothies, save the containers, and they drink to their hearts content without me whining, "You know how expensive those things are!" and "What!!!  Another one!  Heavens!"

First, if you don't know how to make a smoothie - it's easy.  If I can do it, anyone can.  I just take one container of yogurt (if I was even cheaper, I'd buy yogurt by the 32 oz. or even make it.  I'm not that motivated when it comes to dealing with yogurt though), a banana, some frozen strawberries and some milk.  Blend it for a minute or two.

Then you have it:  A Smoothie.  And I have my old Danimals containers to put said smoothie in.  It makes my kids happy, it makes me happy for being cheap, and it makes me look ghetto fabulous by storing recyclables in my kitchen cabinets.