The current economy is scary for most everyone… 

While I don’t think we will have to start doing without the essential items of our lives, I do think that we will be cutting back in non-essential areas….such as eating out. We travel a considerable amount of time, so eating out while on the road may take on a new look….it will most likely never be completely stricken from our budget.

Eating out just because…I am tired….it is late….I don’t want to mess up the kitchen…..OR…because it’s the dog’s birthday….is being cut from the spending budget. We will be eating at home on  a regular basis.

Today, while I was organizing some pantry shelves, I noticed I had a few items that were nearing the expiration date. In the past (and please do not flame me…this has been a learning process for us) I might have thrown those expired items away. Not anymore….we are making do with what we have….and USING IT ALL UP! Just the other night I cooked a roast that had been in the freezer for almost two years. It was fine. Another night I found a can of spinach that was 1 month past the expiration date and after checking for any creases, dents, or evidence of spoilage we cooked it up. DH love spinach with boiled eggs…something I never heard of before meeting him…lol.

A few times this past month, our local grocer has had milk on sale for $2.50 a gallon…a bargain. One night DH came home with only one gallon of this $2.50 milk and it resulted in me fussin’ at him for not purchasing a second gallon. Fortunately, I have Hais (DD2)trained to purchase two if she finds it on sale. Three days ago, DH came home with two gallons of the sale priced milk, along with two loaves of sale priced bread. He has been eating sandwiches a lot lately, so I did not see a problem. (Now before I proceed, I would like to preference the remainder of this story with DH normally brings home the freshest….tastiest breads ever when he shops.) When the man eats two to three peanut butter sandwiches for lunch every day, two loaves do not last very long, so I was happy that he thought ahead.

For some reason our bread stash was not dwindling and I soon discovered the reason. The brand (which will remain nameless) was not something we had purchased before and it was NOT (by any means of the imagination) fresh. The crust was somewhat hard and it was tasteless. What to do? There is an entire loaf sitting on the shelf! What can I do with this? The wheels started turning…and my stomach was growling…so my first idea was a grilled cheese sandwich with LOTS of butter…..yum. That didn’t make a dent. Now what? We could have french toast for dinner tonight…even though I prefer a thicker french toast. BREAD PUDDING! The entire family loves bread pudding. Luckily, I did have some raisins on hand…so right now…my house is fresh with the warm aromas of nutmeg, cinammon and vanilla and in another 40 minutes or so…..HEAVEN!

♥

Be Creative With Halloween Decorations!

by Jill Cooper

http://www.LivingOnADime.com/

I just stepped outside and took a deep breath and then another one and another one. No I don’t have a breathing problem or anything. It’s just that for the first time in months, I don’t feel like I’m breathing in an aquarium. The air is crisp and cool and that means fall is here and the humidity is gone!

At one point in our lives, that would have been the signal for us to haul out boxes and sacks full of Halloween decorations and go to work. It would usually take us at least a month to put everything out. We were one of those families who would put out a “monstrous” (Ha!Ha! No pun intended) display. We literally had hundreds of people drive by our home just to see our decorations. It really was a lot of work, especially because back then you couldn’t really buy much to use for outside Halloween decorations. We had to use our imagination and make our own.

We like to have fun at Halloween and not scare the wits out of everyone, so we try to keep our decorations cute and funny looking. To us, Halloween is a time for children to dress up and for one night a year be what they always dreamed of being, whether it’s a fairy princess, a ballerina, Superman or even a robot. They get to be on the “stage” for one night to show everyone how beautiful, strong or funny they look. And to end a perfect night they get tons of candy, bags of candy and did I mention, a whole bunch of candy??

Here are some ideas of things we did to have a whole lot of fun for very little money. You can use these same basic principles for any holiday decorating.

   1. You don’t have to have a lot of decorations for your display to look nice. I drive by one home every year and each season the owners put out one simple something. For example, in the summer they have one beautiful pot of flowers sitting on their porch. In the fall a pot of mums, for Halloween, one pumpkin with a smiley face and at Christmas one pretty lit up wreath on the door. It’s never a lot, but I always get pleasure when I drive by the place and see their one simple decoration.

   2. We work all year buying things at garage sales or thrift stores for our decorations. We started out with about 25 plastic pumpkins to set out for a pumpkin patch. The next year we added another 50 and drilled holes in the bottoms so we could put lights in them. After a few years we had 200-300 of them that we had collected. We never paid more then 5-10 cents for them. If you want to have a big display, start small and just add a little bit more to your decorations each year.

   3. Cute homemade decorations make Halloween fun! If you see something in a magazine or somewhere that you think is cute but too expensive, try to copy it and make it yourself:

          * I saw a cute rake in a magazine that I loved. It was an old rake that had a few silk flowers tied on it and a sign that said “Free leaves, rake all you want.” I just happened to have a dead 50 year old rake in my shed I was going to throw away, so I pulled it out, found an old board and some paint (I could have used a marker too), painted on the words and tied on a couple of stray silk flowers that I had and voila! I had a cute rake and saved about $25.

          * It takes nothing to stuff some old clothes with plastic bags and make a scarecrow family.

          * If you are a little handy, put your talent to good use. My husband took and old metal trash can and motorized it so that the lid moved up and down and when it opened it popped out a Sylvester the cat.

   4. We found decorations in unusual places. Once we went to the grocery store where they had a gigantic pumpkin. The thing was about 8-10 feet across. We asked the manager it they threw it out at the end of the season and he said no. We told him what we needed it for and discovered that he had seen our display and liked it. He said “Come by on Halloween morning and you can take it to use and then bring it back.” It doesn’t ever hurt to ask about anything. Most people aren’t mean and hateful, but are usually kind and helpful.

   5. Get more bang for your buck. Buy things that have a big impact but cost little. A couple of bags of spider webs and plastic spiders can cover a lot of area and look “cool” but cost very little. I use spider webs for everything. They’re great to use to cover throw pillows for a party, put in your hair, hang on the lights or wrap around the handles of silverware. You just can’t have too much.

   6. Use what you already have around the house.

          * We were having a Halloween party and to add to the effect, we dug out some black sheets and covered all the furniture. It changed the whole look of the room.

          * Another year, my husband found some 10 foot long, thin metal rods. We stuck them in the ground, added styrofoam wig heads to each one and hung some large pieces of sheer fabric I had gotten for free from a friend over the tops of the heads. Everyone loved them. The sheer material had a much more realistic see through look then just a sheet. At night, you couldn’t see the rod so it looked like these ghosts were floating 10 feet up in the air.

   7. Start the day after Halloween to prepare for next year. If your kids get a bunch of plastic spiders when they go trick or treating, save them and add them to the decoration box. If your child dressed as a pumpkin this year, save the costume, stuff it next year and set it out with the decorations. Try to think of ways to incorporate any old costumes into your decorations.

Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the editors of http://www.LivingOnADime.com/. As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own home business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income. Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income. They have helped thousands of people all over the world to save money and get out of debt.

To make the STAYcation Extravaganza a bit more interesting, I have decided to add a little twist.  We are going to have give-aways!

I like receiving gifts, but I LOVE giving gifts even more. Every person who posts a comment at the original contest post will have their name entered into the drawing, even if it is onlyto just mention that they are participating.  If you write a post about the contest in your blog and include the STAYcation Extravaganza icon in your sidebar, your name will be entered a second time (just let me know by a comment or by email so I can add your name twice . The third entry chance for the drawing comes when you actually write about your own STAYcation on your blog and then link it with Mr. Linky (again, I am still trying to figure that all out…might have to find someone who has used it before to help me out.) The drawing will take place after midnight on August 22, 2008.

I am excited! My suggestion and photo submission for a frugal garden decorating hint and photo contest at www.ThriftyFun.com.

 If you would like to visit the site, you can leave comments or rate my entry.  

For a very long time now, I have been trying to get our backyard hard-scaped with a privacy fence, a concrete patio, and a walkway to the alley. It seems as though so many other things get in the way. Last week I think I wrote about having a date set to finally get my patio poured. Well, guess what? It’s not done. With the threats of a week worth of severe storms and rain, we thought it best to put it off…yet again.

I am not certain, but I think we may have a break from anything severe for today. Today’s weather is my favorite for camping…cool, cloudy and overcast. The dampness makes me crave a campfire. Last night after the last storm passed through, DH and I simultaneously looked up at the sky and said, “Man, this would be a great night for camping.” Knowing that wasn’t the prudent thing to do, we thought about just laying out on the trampoline to watch the stars and the satellites pass over. I mentioned that we could go “camping” in our backyard like we used to when the kids were younger.

My dream for my backyard is for a place in which we would want to spend time…..a place for reflection…for entertaining or a breath of fresh air.  Money is always tight, but we generally get away to somewhere every year…even if it just over to Meade State Park for a weekend of camping and fishing. This year, I am afraid that the only “vacation” away from home will be associated with DD’s travels and it will be frugal, no frills travel to say the least. The gasoline budget will be eating up any of the entertainment dollars we might have had. To me, this makes my dream for my backyard retreat even more important.

On Path to Freedom’s Journal today, there is a post about Staycations and Staying Closer to Home. Staycations are vacations spent at home enjoy what it has to offer. That is what we are planning for this year’s “getaway”. We will getaway to our backyard. Tonight I will set the date with DH. All hard-scape will be finished, so as to not make it a working vacation. I am looking for a relaxing, maybe romantic few days of togetherness. I found the Top 10 Staycation Strategies at about.com and plan to put some in place.

What would your strategies be for planning a Backyard Staycation?