August Frugal chatter

[MaddensMomma]

I have started making a list of everything I can think of that can be bought and kept for a long period of time. I thought I'd share my list so you ladies could offer your input and advice for anything and everything you feel may be helpful to me as I try to stock up my stockpile! :p

Household Items

Bathroom cleaner
Body wash (baby/men’s/women’s)
Comet
Conditioner (baby/men’s/women’s)
Dish scrunge refills
Disinfectant wipes
Dish soap
Dishwasher tabs
Dryer sheets
Garbage bags
Jay cloths
Kitchen cleaner
Laundry soap
Liners
Liquid fabric softener
Liquid hand soap
Lotion (hand/body)
Mousse
Paper towel
Razor refills
Shampoo (baby/men’s/women’s)
Shave gel (men’s/women’s)
Stain remover
Tampons
Toilet bowl cleaner
Toothbrushes
Toothpaste
Vinegar
Wipes (baby/facial)

Pantry Items / Non-Perishables

Beans
Canned vegetables
Cereal
Crackers
Fruit snacks
Granola Bars
Kraft Dinner
Pasta
Pasta sauce
Rice

Do you use Pledge and Windex? Toilet paper? Pads? Diapers? Make-up? Jet Dry and Cleaner for your dishwasher? Leather cleaner if you have any leather furniture? Facial scrub? Tampons and pads? Tin foil, ziploc bags, freezer bags, parchment paper, saran wrap?? Hair spray? Floss? Kids toothpaste? Nail polish remover? Cotton balls, q-tips? Band-aids and polysporin?

As for food.... condiments such as Ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles, BBQ sauce, jam, PB, Nutella, spices, soup mixes, OXO? Canned tomatoes? Frozen fruits vegetables last quite a while as well, and so does yogurt frozen for smoothies.

Also a good time coming up to stock up on crayons, pencil crayons, etc from back to school sales for throughout the year (or stocking stuffers)

[MaddensMomma]

im with you Gisel.. my dh likes to do fall baking (lasagnas, sheperds pie, cabbage rolls) this year i think we'll get together with my Mom and sister and share.. alot less work. in the middle of winter when alot of things aren't on sale, its great pull something out of the freezer and enjoy it.
so far budget wise.. holy cow!

Let me know if you want a partner for making some freezer meals, I would be all for this in the fall

[Caseythegoalie]

Has anyone seen the MIR forms for the Harvest Crunch Quinoa bars?

Yes do you need one? I could mail it to you.

[MrsSunshine]

sure i'll talk to dh and see what he thinks.

[blueeyetea]

By liners in the cloth diapers, I meant those sheets that resemble fabric softener sheets. Kushies makes one variety and they're quite expensive. Is there another option?

What about knitting or sewing your own? They should be fairly simple to do.

I also saw that Walmart sells re-usable ones.

[Caseythegoalie]

Good morning all.......I'm off today and survived the last two busy weeks thank goodness! My friend took me to mandarin for my birthday sunday after my company left which was very much enjoyed After that we popped into winners to kill some time and I picked up a clearance purse for my daughter (will be 11 next week) for $15 and nailpolish kit $12.99. The purse will have $50 in it that she wants to use for an Ipod touch......she has been saving for a while and will have enough with her birthday $ so she is very excited. I also picked up a huge specialty spatula (think pizza size) to put in my Mom and step-dad's Christmas basket as well as some jalapeno/cheddar popcorn for 75 cents. Its shaping up to be quite nice as I'm just collecting cheap items from coupons/sales. I hope they like it and if they don't too bad lol. Its been a really expensive month for us and finally starting to slow down I hope. I've got a good handle on back to school clothes and will pick up supplies when I head to Buffalo sunday at the walmart there. I'm hoping to get us to the end of the week on the groceries and leftovers we have on hand as we are at the end of the money and the tree in the backyard has stopped blooming dollar bills.

[blueeyetea]

Then there's all the work involved in scrubbing the cloth diapers, soap, water, then operating the washing machine, ... I wonder if it's really saving anything?

sweet sparrow, not that I'm an expert by any means, but I do remember reading in the Tightwad Gazette that the author would scrape the "solids" into the toilet, and throw the soiled diapers in a pail with water to soak. Then, when she did a load of laundry, she'd drained dirty water out of the the bucket and put everything in the washing machine.

Now, she was using the plain cloth diapers. You know the one that are a piece of cloth that you fold so many times depending on the size of the baby?

The only time I've bought diapers was when redeeming SDM points and buying supplies for the food bank. Those disposibles are expensive!

[blueeyetea]

Wow. This thread is like wildfire! I just looked in and it's at page 17 already, with 6 days in...

[jasperandchar]

Morning! Soccer tonight for my youngest and meeting my sis at the tuxedo shop for my boys fitting for her wedding. They are going to look so cute! Took a small roast out last night and let it thaw but didn't do anything with it lol. Think I will pop it in the oven when I get home tonight around 9pm. Have a work social fun day tomorrow so free lunch so will maybe use the roast for hot sandwiches tomorrow or Friday night with salad. Today's lunch is a fresh omelette that I will make at work in the kitchen. Have been so good bringing my lunch to work that I have so much fun money in my wallet left after each pay period. Which is good since I will be needing to go on a shopping spree in the fall- I'm down 8.8 LBs and 9 3/4 inches since the end of June Hoping to pass on my size 12 pants to my mother in September for good!!

congrats on the weight loss

[blueeyetea]

I have to admit I have often wondered how subsidized housing works, what are the requirements. I know locally there is one guy that lives in subsidized housing yet he owns a local business and is driving a newer BMW (probably a couple years old now) and if you see him out shopping when he goes to pay he pulls out wads of cash (we are talking 50s and 100s).

Just makes me wonder as the town is always going on about the fact we do not have enough subsidized housing for the need and have even turned a few motels into subsidized apartments but you have people living in subsidized housing who seems to be living the high life.

It all depends on the housing corporation that looks after it. Some places are very strict and you have to meet certain criteria. Other places go only by making you pay a percentage of your take-home pay, not necessarily poor people.

Of course, some people do manage to cheat the system. If the person owns their own business, there's a good chance a lot of the revenues are under the table, so on the books, he doesn't make any money. You'd be surprised at how many people get away with that. I personally know someone who declares his salary as being 15K a year on his tax returns, yet he owns a business with 7 employees, can afford a new truck every two years, and goes away 2 weekends a month travelling to motor-cross events in the US.

[MaddensMomma]

I'm a little slow posting this this month. My august goals - try not to spend too much while we have company for 10 days. My mom did send me 100 for groceries for when they are visiting which really does help offset some of the cost. I took the time to renew my CAA membership and we have decided that we are no longer renewing the costco membership as its 9 hours away and if we do go we go with family that has one so....saving ourselves $50ish a year.
continue to have my grocery mastercard fully paid off after each use.
We want to do a yard sale when the boys are at hockey camp. (theres toys that have been stored for a few years that they will decide they dont want to get rid of if they are present for the sale)
We still want to paint the living room and dining room areas of the house and remove the extra china cabinet from the house.
I want to stay under my snacks and entertainment budget for the month - not sure if i will manage it. I also want to make it to 3000 swagbucks so i can have my 25 dollar paypal and a 5 dollar amazon card with a bit of a step up on next month. So far im at 1002 points. I like to have it at my goal by the 25th of the month.
I am almost to cashing out out so many cents per litre at esso cash card. I have 2025 esso points as well...need 4500 for 25 dollars gas....

For the amount that we go to Costco and what we buy, we don't bother buying our own card. We just make arrangements with IL's to go. They get the more expensive card where you can get $ back and between us, IL's and BIL/SIL that go, they always get enough back each year to pay for their card.

I also need to start working on collecting my swagbucks, have been to busy at work for leisure stuff lately lol.

[MaddensMomma]

you. You do not owe them anything and if at the end of the day you are going to feel they are lying to you or taking advantage of you is it worth it?Thanks for your feedback it's greatly appreciated and as they say "great minds think alike"since some of the points you raised I was starting to ask myself.

She said the PS3 was borrowed but I don't know anyone kids or adults that have a game systems that could or would be willing to lend it out (this is in the circles of people I know) and those things are not cheap like $300.00 or so plus the games and whatever.

She also told me that the bell satelitte people were out but couldn't do the install that day . Plus they have a landline & internet which are not cheap.

We just got satelitte in December 2012 and it's expensive.

I don't think they are looking or posting that they are looking for items on facebook or freecycle. She told me she signed up for freecycle and posted some stuff but I never saw the post which I would have seen because I belong to those groups and only today did I notice the guy post that he is looking for baby gates and someone posted they had 2 for $15.00 each and he said to email him but when I've asked if they needed a crib or whatever it's always been we don't have $$$$.

I was told that the leather couch they have which looks pretty new is borrowed and the person wants it back. This was only told to me once I started bringing them donations of furniture and now she tells me they need a couch. I told her straight out the big stuff like couch, freezers, mattress no way as my dh had back surgery. Yet today when I pointed out that there is someone on freecycle local emptying a cottage and is giving all contents which would fill a cottage/house she said I'll take....and I said no I told her to arrange to get someone they know to pick the items up for them (it was a freezer, table, vacuum++) I am almost positive that they won't make arrangement to get the stuff.

I do feel like I am being take advantage now and I know if my husand was here he would say enough is enough if I really feel that they are taking advantage of me.

SO I guess my gut is telling me enough is enough, time to stop the gravy train.

I am getting the same feeling as you are J&C and it sounds like you and your big heart are being taken advantage of.

If they cannot afford the basics (clothing, furniture, food and hygiene supplies for their children and themselves) how can they afford the extras such as ps3, internet, satellite?

I would imagine DH and I are in a much better place financially with 2 working incomes than this couple, and even we do not have a ps3 or xbox (DH sold his when we bought the house to go towards moving/reno expenses), we do not have satellite/cable or a landline telephone, and we recently downgraded our internet to a better plan to save us money so we CAN afford the bare essentials.

[blueeyetea]

For the amount that we go to Costco and what we buy, we don't bother buying our own card. We just make arrangements with IL's to go. They get the more expensive card where you can get $ back and between us, IL's and BIL/SIL that go, they always get enough back each year to pay for their card.

We use a Costco giftcard. My husband is the one who goes to Costco because it's the only place where he can get paper coffee cups for his club. I made arrangements with a friend to get a Costco giftcard, so no membership is required. When the balance gets very low, I go back with my friend to add more funds to it.

Apart from the (small) hassle of getting a supervisor to authorize the purchase, it works well. We don't buy enough at Costco to justify the $55. I believe I've honed my shopping skills enough by now that I can get the same or better deals at other stores.

[Natalka]

sweet sparrow, not that I'm an expert by any means, but I do remember reading in the Tightwad Gazette that the author would scrape the "solids" into the toilet, and throw the soiled diapers in a pail with water to soak. Then, when she did a load of laundry, she'd drained dirty water out of the the bucket and put everything in the washing machine.

Now, she was using the plain cloth diapers. You know the one that are a piece of cloth that you fold so many times depending on the size of the baby?

The only time I've bought diapers was when redeeming SDM points and buying supplies for the food bank. Those disposibles are expensive!

Those are the oldie type of diapers which we used, too! When you use liners, there's rarely a mess anyways.
We were in an apartment at the time, with washer and dryer right next there, diaper pail was right beside - so it was never any hassle.
We used cloth diapers til the first time our son got a stomach flu at eight months (oh, that was awful!) - and we used disposables for that, then just continued with them because we would have had to have gotten larger diapers at that point anyway.
It was MEGA savings for us. I was at home, so it really wasn't a big deal - just used disposables for travelling before that, really.

I know now with these shaped diapers and covers, it's a much bigger expense to invest in. Using the old flannel type diapers, we had dozens and dozens because Sears often had them on sale.

[Caseythegoalie]

Ohh I am buying myself a Costco card for my birthday! Excited!