July Sizzling Savings- July frugal chatter

[lilo0003]

jumping back on the frugal train with everyone, just back from a wonderful vacation in Florida. Not cheap at all but so worth it. We went to The Kennedy Space centre and were lucky enough to be there on the day the Atlantis shuttle was put on display, very cool. This month requires serious budget attention as we have a two week vacation to the UK next month, but I have close to 120.00 PC Points and enough for 50.00 at Metro so that is my grocery plan for the month. Now off to work, no rest for the wicked.

[Caseythegoalie]

August is always a spendy spendy spendy month for us with back to school, several birthdays and a wedding anniversary Sept 9 (so I usually buy in August). We have an annual trip to Pennsylvania planned in August for me and my oldest birthdays which are a week apart and I hope to go up north to visit my parents as well which is a six hour drive one way. I am hoping to be as frugal as possible in July!

[Frugalbigmama]

Happy July Everyone! Just splurged on a new computer for the family so plan on getting myself organized and posting on Kijiji like a mad women to pay for it lol. My goal is to sell stuff cheap and put the money back in savings

[Frugalbigmama]

Love the idea of really tracking our savings/groceries etc. Have a freezer full of meat so will be shopping from the freezer mostly and only shopping for fresh stuff. DS has 2 weeks of hockey camp this month but was paid for months ago. Will pack him good lunches from leftovers etc. I have been very good taking my breakfast/lunch and snacks to work so no extra spending on that. I took my BFF shopping the other day and showed her how to Price Match so I hope she continues to do it and save her family $.

[lilo0003]

August is always a spendy spendy spendy month for us with back to school, several birthdays and a wedding anniversary Sept 9 (so I usually buy in August). We have an annual trip to Pennsylvania planned in August for me and my oldest birthdays which are a week apart and I hope to go up north to visit my parents as well which is a six hour drive one way. I am hoping to be as frugal as possible in July!

that is our family in September. All three boys (DH and 2 DS) have their b days within two weeks. In that same time frame it is my nieces and FIL bday's and my parents anniversary. It is a very expensive two weeks.

[coupon girl]

I am in the process of downsizing from a three bedroom house with a basement to a two bedroom apartment, no basement. I can be quite inventive. Use as much vertical space as possible. Also, silly and most people probably do it, but store your suitcases full of the other seasons clothing.

oh yeah I am trying to be frugal this month too-just bought baby shower invites for .50 each for 8 -trying to condense our house too put 6 more items on kijiji-have made the 500.00 mark since april on kijiji selling stuff cheap ,or lowing the price as I go along and I keep reposting when it comes up -keep being frugal everyone -opps quoted the wrong quote meant to quote frugalbigmama

[Giseledta]

just picked 2 huge heads of broccoli from our garden. Bliss. 2 loads of laundry to the line.

[blueeyetea]

Any tips to maximize space,I have half less space then the neighboors because I have the stairs on my side...not faiir........

Get furniture that does double duty: a blanket chest can serve as a coffee table, for example. Ikea, at one time, sold these side tables that were nothing more than boxes with a lid, i.e. more storage.

Don't get bogged down with furniture stereotypes. I replaced my "lady's" dresser, i.e. a wide dresser with a mirror, with two chests of 6 drawers. It was double the storate with smaller footprint. A hanging mirror behind the bedroom door was just as functional.

[blueeyetea]

Thank you to all for the tips !!! I have 4 tires,outdoor stock,home stuff ,and quite a few pièces of furniture in a walk-in kind of size locker...I already see the challenge to figure this out and still have place to be in there to pick of the stuff needed.Under my bed is already boxes taked lol.Thank you for the pinterest idea ,seems very interresting too.Kind of an very building 101 old locker I dont like....

For the tires, some of the places that specialize in tires (selling/installing) also provide storage services for a fee. Considering how heavy they are to lug back and forth in spring and fall, it might be worth looking into.

[SassyAshley]

Not sure yet what July will bring, hoping for some quality time with my guy. He had a nurse wheel him to a pay phone and called me yesterday, I almost cried when I heard his voice. He said since the surgery it has been complete night and day, he is hungry has an appetite and has not been sick since the surgery. Recovery time should be about a week, so right now we are just waiting for him to be released. I do not want him to push himself too much so I am hoping for some nice quite weekends in.

I am hoping for a some what calm July as August is going to be super busy, we have my guy's bday, than we have the local fair (which me and my mom go to every year cost us about $40 to get in and get a couple treats), might cost a bit more this year as hopefully my guy will be joining us, the following weekend I have our company golf tournament, than we have both my dad's parent's bdays, not sure what we will be doing as Opa will still be recovering and Oma I do not think realizes anymore what is going on we remind her why we are there but she cannot remember.

Also for July I am hoping to cut back on our shopping we are fully stocked on most items but whenever I say this it back fires.

[LuvToUseCoupons]

We ate out this morning...firemen`s breakfast. $32 for 4 of us. Definitely not frugal but it goes for a good cause.

On the other hand, yesterday at Zehrs I got 2 Chapman`s ice cream and a Balltop pack...used 2 $5 coupons. Free ice cream tastes better somehow. Also used some other coupons so waited forever for an over ride. There was only one guy in line behind me and he didn`t complain.

That's the best .

[LuvToUseCoupons]

July will be not be a frugal month.
This weekend we had 2 Graduations and 1 Birthday, plus Canada day celebrations.
This weekend we have another 2 birthdays, plus in a few weeks another birthday.
So not a frugal month at all.

[Granger]

Subscribed. This month should be more frugal than the last. No weddings. We are going on a little road trip, but I think I can stay on budget for that.

[sweet sparrow]

We had a good find this weekend, prepared meat for $2.99/lb, when we usually buy it for $4.99/lb. I usually purchase it raw at that price and have to do all the marinating and cook it myself. Even if we did have to pay the tax on it, I still find that a good price! It saved us from turning on the oven for over 40 minutes, and lots of time in meal prep. (Maybe this should count as June savings?) So far, we've used it for four meals on the first package and we're not completely through it yet.

I did turn on the oven anyways, and used up some yogurt for brownies (yum!) and tried a new recipe for oatmeal blueberry muffins to share with some dear friends. We were also able to see fireworks on Canada Day from our front window and got a load of laundry out on the line (and it didn't rain on it!!). Yay!

To empathize with all the plus-sized girls from last month's thread, I am now nine months pregnant and at the point where stretchy maternity clothes feel really tight. (What??!) I now feel like I'm a size million. Ugh. On the bright side, I did save a lot of time this year (and money, I guess) in clothes shopping. I haven't tried on anything new except for flip flops all year. That's a new record for me.

Another win was a discount from our insurance. We were eligible since we renewed last November, but I thought I needed the paperwork as proof and called in during March. The rep told me he couldn't help since he wasn't able to go back before the current date. What's a girl to do? Well,.... I found the contact info for the ombudsman and sent an email. The worst they can say is no, right? I got my money back! I actually did a happy chair dance! "Found money" to go towards debt. I am all smiles today and told my mother over lunch.

Small victory for me, and compensates a bit for a non-frugal dinner out to celebrate our seventh anniversary. Though I will say it was worth all $23. Yum! I imagine once the baby comes, we won't be eating out for a looong time.

[jasperandchar]

Hiya everyone, It appears that my enter button is no longer cooperating again, I think the computer needs a good cleaning, so I apologize because I cannot reply to peoples posts. The kids cleaned out their no longer used toys and I posted on our local facebook page, so far they $105.00 not bad and still a lot of the outdoor toys left. I asked them to go through their dvds and ps2 games and I could post them for sale if they wanted. My youngest who is 10 years old, really have issues parting with items, so I am proud that he has parted with some of his items and made some extra cash. It sounds like we are going to have quite a few road runners over the summer from on this thread, we haven't set a date yet for our Kingston trip, I guess time will tell as the weather has been really crappy in my area.