Jumping over the Clif

When at his office, my husband used to survive on microwave popcorn and pots and pots of coffee; not the healthiest thing in the world. For a while I packed him a lunch but most of the time it came back uneaten. I’ve fitted him out with nuts and dried fruit only to have him complain of gas. (Believe me, this is an occupational no-no! Who wants to spend an hour talking about his problems shut up in an office with a gaseous man?) He really likes Odwalla Bars and Clif Bars but in order to eat them regularly they’d need a budget line item of their own. So I experimented with ingredients and came up with these moist and tasty bars.

Homemade Energy Bars

Ingredients:

2/3 cup honey
2/3 cup natural peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
2 2/3 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup dry milk powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 cup dried mango, chopped
1/2 cup slivered raw almonds

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix honey, peanut butter, vanilla, and eggs.

3. In a separate bowl, stir together the rest of the ingredients. Stir this mixture into the peanut butter mixture to make a uniform dough. Press it into the pan.

4. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Cut into bars while still warm but allow to cool completely in the pan. Wrap each bar individually and store in an airtight container for up to 1 week, or freeze for up to 1 month.

I used apricots and mangos because that’s what my husband requested, and almonds because I had some left over from making granola. Feel free to substitute other fruits and nuts or add chocolate chips, and leave me a comment about what you came up with.

The magical fruit

I never used to eat beans except the green variety coated in mushroom soup and covered with french fried onion rings. Then I met the sweetest boy from Texas...and married him! Let me tell you, this girl from Ohio was shocked to find they eat all sorts of beans and the cardboardiest cornbread you've ever tasted not just as a run-of-the-mill fare, but on holidays, too. So I've learned to take the sugar out of my cornbread and smack it on the lips of my boy, and cook up everything from pintos to black eyed peas. (Sorry Dallas family, I have yet to embraced the greens. Yuk.) Not only is it tasty but frugal, as well. Because we eat so many, I soak dry beans and cook a couple pounds at a time in my crock pot and freeze them, saving myself a few more pennies, but canned will work just as well. This was today's dinner:

Black Beans and Rice

2 cups water
1 cup brown rice

1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 banana peppers, chopped
2-15 oz. cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1-14.5 oz canned diced tomatoes with juice
1-1/2 Tbs. chili powder
2 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Put water in a pot and bring to a boil. Add rice and cook for 45 minutes while you chop veggies for beans and make cornbread.

In a large skillet, cook bacon until lightly browned. Add onions, garlic and banana peppers. Cook until softened. Add beans, tomatoes and seasonings and cook until thickened.

Serve beans over rice and serve with a cucumber salad and Laura's whole wheat cornbread muffins.

Do-overs

I'm in love with refashioning! What's not to love when thrifty meets crafty and rendezvous in the wardrobe? I found Wardrobe Refashion a while back and have been mulling over lots of ideas, but after a play-date with my seamstress friend Arla I finally got the guts to put a couple under the needle.

Here's what I came up with:

This is all that's left of a corduroy jumper I bought at the thrift hoping I could alter it. (My camera corrupted the "before" picture I took of the whole thing. bummer.)

The shoulders proved to difficult to try to petite, so I cannibalized it to make elastic waist church pants for L.B. I created the pattern by minimizing instructions for adult pajama pants I found in Sew What? Fleece. Great series, by the way, if you're into sewing without patterns.

Sissy is really hard on jeans and I was going to cut the bottoms off her latest victim and add a ruffle to make capris.

Arla suggested I make a skirt instead. I had done this before for myself and followed the same instructions found here. But, of course, I couldn't stop with a simple skirt; I went cowgirl princess! I left the bottom of the denim rather ragged, added some eyelet lace I bought on final clearance when our Walmart closed, and sewed on some cotton flowers I used on the curtains in her nursery. The added length should give her at least a year of wear since the jeans were still a bit large in the waist.

I'm going to try a couple more "safe" projects for myself and then I want to try some of the wilder stuff over at Wardrobe Refashion. Not sure I want to take their pledge, but who knows? I'm feeling some eccentricity coming on...

Buddy, can you spare four dimes?

While we don't "go" to school, we do eat breakfast, and it's the meal I have the hardest time getting on the table. I never feel like eating until about 10am but my hungry hoard is ready at 7:30. Meijer has helped me out with this deal--

Meijer is running a 5 for $9 sale on Kellogg's cereal products and has Eggo products on sale for $1.15. There are quite a few $1/2 coupons available from recent newspaper inserts, as well as a $10 Kellogg's Fuel for School rebate. Here's how I did it:

2 Eggo Waffles $1.15 each (-$1/2 coupon)

2 Eggo French Toast Sticks $1.15 each (-$1/2 coupon)

2 boxes Frosted Mini Wheats $1.80 each (-$1/2 coupon)

4 boxes Nutri-Grain Bars $1.80 each (- two $1/2 coupons)

________

cash out of pocket= $10.40

after $10 rebate = $ .40

If you plan to try this deal yourself, be sure to take the rebate with you; it specifies certain box sizes. All purchases must be on the same receipt. No problem this week!

Big Splurge/Great Deal

I've got some pretty artsy kids and this year we are going to take some do-it-yourself drawing lessons via Mona Brooks' Drawing with Children in hopes of creating some nice looking nature journals. The colored pencils we've been using are the kind that go on sale for about fifty-cents this time of year. The lead breaks easily, the color goes down less than smoothly, and the kid's are tired of never having the right shade from a box of 12.

So I've had my eye on some professional sets with tons of colors but the price tag has been extremely cost prohibitive. Thanks to a generous 40%-off coupon from Hobby Lobby and $10-rebate from the manufacturer I found on a tear-off pad at the store, I picked up the $90, 72-color box of Prismacolor pencils for about $40. (Gasp!) I know it's hard for you to believe I'd shell out that kind of money for art supplies even at that discount, but with proper care they should last us a whole lot longer than those stink'n Cra*olas!

Design Carnival

Let me say upfront that I have NO talent for decorating. I am not fashionable or stylish--my living room had absolutely nothing in it but a piano for years--but when I saw on Monica's blog that Mary at Not Before 7 asked about decorating ideas, I just had to add my two cents' worth. (Are you surprised?)

My big revelation is that decorating does not necessarily need to be expensive. My style is "late grandma"--and I do mean late grandma. Most of the things we have in our home come from a relative that has passed on to a place where they no longer need furniture and accessories! This works out very well because I love the beauty and the stories that come with old things and it just so happens that our budget can't handle new ones.

So here are my ideas especially for those on a low budget:

1. Utilize the gifts (or trash) of others. Much of our furniture is cast off from others, including our dining room table and chairs that were pulled from a neighbor's trash. This is my living room:



Most of the furniture came from my husband's grandmother. The mirror was his mom's from way back, the piano was purchased for me by my parents when I was in the first grade, and the accessories came from various grandmas. The only things we've added are the rug that was purchased with a gift card from Kohl's and the curtains from Walmart.

2. Scour your grandma's attic. The cabinet below was made by my great grandfather out of a peach crate. I guess cheap is a family trait! I decked it out with old tea cups. The fan was found wrapped in newspaper in my great-grandmother's attic.

3. Visit thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales and discount stores for things that are beautiful and useful. The plates above the mirror in my living room are old Stangl dishes I found at a flea market for about $3. I love pitchers. The one at the bottom was purchased at a thrift store for $.75 and we use it for our cereal milk in the morning. The top one came from Williamsburg Pottery Outlet--a store you can't miss if ever you're in that part of Virginia. The little people belonged to who else--grandma!

4. Utilize your family's talents. I have pricey taste in art and love real paintings. Lucky for me my dad is an artist. I went through his stacks of watercolors, picked ones I wanted, and then took them to Hobby Lobby to find in-stock frames on half-off day. I believe this one was matted and framed for less than $20. The green pottery pitcher on the table next to my couch was made and painted by my grandmother.

My mom made this quilt hanging for our family room which has a cowboy theme. The Fiesta Ware came from thrift stores.



One of my great grandmothers did these needlepoint birds that hang in our dining room.

5. Find someone who has a Woolie Roller you can borrow to paint your walls; it uses very little paint and covers a multitude of wall imperfections. When we bought our 35-year-old house everything inside and out was painted a dull blue-gray. I was able to paint the living room, foyer, and hallway in a little more than a gallon of paint without having to prime. The brown you see above is a mixture of a creamy yellow and a fudgesicle brown.

So there you have it, a frugal girl's guide to sprucing up your pad!

I love it when that happens!

I've been eyeing a pair of wide legged corduroy pants at J. Jill since the fall catalog came out in August. They started out at some ghastly amount--somewhere around $80--and were reduced to about $30 when I went into the store to try them on. But $30 is a lot for me to spend on pants.

Today I went into the thrift store looking for jeans for the boys when what should apear but a pair of brown cords in my size! (Of course they need to be shortened, but that's nothing new.) Yeaaaa! And for $1.50.

I then wandered through the household area and happened upon a cake plate that matches one I already have--nothing like a matching set when serving deserts--and it also for $1.50.

But wait, there's more! When I got up to the register the cashier announced that ladies pants were half off today. Yippie! A pair of pants and a cake plate for $2.25. I love it when that happens! It reminds me that my Heavenly Father knows my inmost thoughts and even my petty desires. And sometimes, just like with me and my kids, it pleases Him to make me happy.

Beauty Rest

It's here, the 7th Edition of Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, and I'm taking a bit of a hiatus to read the 1,167 pages of frugal informed shopper bliss for the girly-girl.
I love Paula Begoun's (aka the Cosmetic Cop) no-nonsense approach to reviewing cosmetics. She systematically dissects both skin care and color products, informing her readers of the effectiveness of their components and the validity of their marketing claims. She then makes nice and neat lists of her "Paula's picks"--the best products out there--which you'll be surprised to know, contain items from the cheapest of the cheapest at the drug store to the very pricey French-sounding items from the cosmetic counter at Neiman's.

As is true to form, I'm making my list of the Paula's Picks that can be snagged at Walgreen's or CVS for pennies. And, of course, I've borrowed the book from the library so I've got to work quickly--don't want a fine, you know!

Frugal Friday

In a helpful article called Managing God's Money, Randy Alcorn points out a misconception many people have about saving:

Saving is setting aside money for a future purpose; it stays in our wallet or in the bank. It can be used for other purposes, including our needs or the needs of others. Money that's spent leaves our hands and is no longer at our disposal. If we buy an $80 sweater on sale for $30, we've spent $30. If we think we've just saved $50, we simply don't understand the concept of saving. If we keep "saving" like that, we'll soon be broke!

With that in mind, and inspired by Chris's year off from shopping I offer you my 5 easy ways we saved $100 last year:

1. I cut everyone's hair but mine. (You're now saying, I thought that family looked funny!) A few years back I ordered the book Cutting Your Family's Hair and purchased scissors, clippers, and a cape. It has truly saved us a bundle.

2. Another "mane" savings is that I am willing to go gray. Hair color is expensive, and it's even more expensive to have it professionally done. Besides, isn't gray hair a crown of splendor?

3. We ditched the TV. There is no local television reception in our area and when we moved here six years ago we decided we weren't going to spend the money for cable. We haven't missed a thing.

4. We love our local library. It's a treasure trove for movies, books, magazines, and audios all for the bargain price of local taxes.

5. Redbox. Quite a few people have mentioned this one lately, but the video vending machine has been great for family nights and date nights. If you do pay for them, it's only $1 per night, but they've actually sent us more free codes than we've had time to use.

Those are my five. What are yours? Be sure to stop over at Biblical Womanhood and see what others have to say.

Just another day at the CVS

For those of you who haven't yet tried bargain shopping at the drug stores, here's another trip's bounty laid out to try to convince you that it's both worth the effort and quite fun!

I did fairly well at the CVS this week. I bought:

1 Garnier Fructis Hair Gel
2 bottles of Palmolive Dish Detergent
4 Reese's Whipp Candy Bars
1 Simply Asia dry soup
2 bars of Johnson's Buddies Soap
4 Rubbermaid Take Along 2 Packs
3 Colgate Toothbrushes
2 tubes of Colgate Toothpaste
1 box of Excedrin Sinus
1 tube of Neosporin Lip Treatment


With store sales, manufacturer's coupons, CVS coupons, and ECBs I paid a whopping $0.38 out of pocket and got $16 in ECBs back to spend on my next trip. Not too shabby.

The only thing that wasn't a great deal was the Neosporin Lip Treatment that I needed for my son's desperately chapped lips. And of course I realized when I got home that I had two additional $1.50 CVS coupons for the toothpaste that I didn't use. Oh, well! It no longer ruins my day. (I guess the fact that it did once is pretty sad.) Also Money Saving Mom pointed me to a free bag offer from Colgate to top it all off.

So far this coupon shopping is making my husband very happy!

Lookie, Lookie!

Christmas has come early this year. Look what Sani had delivered to my house yesterday--

For those of you who are saying "so what?" this is a genuine hardwood library truck that retails for $265 at Gaylords. A homeschoolers dream!

Years ago when my dad worked for a major accounting firm he salvaged it from their trash where it ended up on account of a bum wheel bracket. He fixed it for my mom and she's used it in their church library. Mom recently resigned her post as church librarian and brought me the treasure, knowing I'd value both the truck and the fact that it was a trash pick.

Thanks Mom and Dad! Now to fill it with books!

My Re-Made Christmas

My Christmas decorations are a collection of things co-workers and clients have given my husband as Christmas gifts, those first few decorations I bought with little cash and less decorating know-how when we were newlyweds, and a strange assortment of hand-me-downs from my mother and mother-in-law. While I'd like to upgrade both my style and my decor, there is no remodeling mullah.


So this is what I've come up with:

Our table needed a centerpiece that was easy and festive and could stand up to three children. I took a tray I've had for years, put clear glass marbles in some of the tray's divots, and added a 25-cent ring of artificial berries and beads from the thrift store to one of my usual table candles. Fire and ice!

We live in a raised ranch and I needed a focal point that would draw visitors' eyes upstairs instead of into the basement when they come in the front door. I took my kids' old rocking horse (purchased 9 years ago by my mother at a garage sale) and painted it red with some spray paint we'd used on a trash-pick wagon. I distressed it with some sand paper around the edges and added some decorations I'd found at the dollar store.

While I'm not Martha Stewart, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. Who says you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Oink!

My Handmade Christmas

Last night I finished up the gifts for the folks at my husband's office. Don't the jars look festive? I usually make chocolate goodies but this year wanted something different. My mom made this jam for me when rhubarb was fresh. It was so tasty and beautifully colored that I thought it would make perfect Christmas gifts, so I chopped up some of my rhubarb and put it in the freezer. Besides, it was so easy!

Cherry Rhubarb Jam

4 cups diced fresh or frozen rhubarb
1.5 cups sugar
1 (3oz) package cherry Jello
1 (21oz) can cherry pie filling

Combine sugar and rhubarb in a large saucepan and let it sit of 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Jello until dissolved. Add pie filling. Transfer to jars and cool. Cover and store in refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. Makes 8 cups.

I put the jam into $1 jars I found at Big Lots and tied on tags I found at Razzle Dazzle Recipe's Artist's Cafe with a raffia ribbon. Voila!

Savings from the Money Saving Mom

Crystal from my favorite bargain blog Money Saving Mom is having a "Just to Say Thanks" Thanksgiving Sale at her other blog Biblical Womanhood. All of her books and CDs are $2, yes, just $2 through the end of this week. In addition, she'll add her Make Ahead Batters E-book to any order for free.

Their affiliate Fashionably Modest Patterns is also having an end of the year sale. All of their patterns are 10% off until December 15.

So hurry on down, don't you wait, to get a great deal at Biblical Womanhood. Tell 'em Saralyn sent you, and don't forget to say "thanks y'all". (I'm thinking about auditioning for a spot in advertisements for either carpet or used cars. What do you think?)

Strange Fun

I went on the hunt yesterday and bagged some serious game! It worked out that between the visiting we're doing and what I already have stashed in the freezer, I don't have to cook but 2 meals this week. So I used most of the grocery money on extras we like but don't need--known to some as "junk." (My husband claims it's the preservatives in such "junk" that keep us so healthy. He also admits it's just a theory.)

Here's how it worked out:

CVS--These bargains were found with some great coaching from Crystal the Money Saving Mom. Total spent out of pocket was $14.48. I received $14 worth of ecbs for my next trip and the Tums had a rebate for $4.79. I made a $4.31 profit on this trip!

Target--thanks to some info from Angie at Thrifty Florida Mama I picked up some pantry essentials and some of our favorite "junk" for a whopping $4.71.

Meijer--Between the loss leaders and the manufacturer's coupons, I got the peanut butter for $.50 a jar, the pies for $1.48 a piece, the crescent rolls for $.85 a tube, The Spray n' Wash for $1.42 a bottle, and the cheese for $1.50. The oranges were from the reduced produce cart for $.90. Grand total--$10.68.

And last but not least is the Mom's Best Naturals Cereal from our local market. Mom's Best is a Malt O Meal company in disguise that makes great tasting, low priced cereal. You can find a dollar-off coupon here . We got all four big boxes (each being between 18 and 23 oz) plus the bananas from the reduced produce cart for $5.54.

I think this is pretty good for $16.62 (and I'll break my arm if I pat myself on the back any harder)!

It's Fall in My Hall

I'm no decorator, but I was quite happy with the seasonal look I was able to pull together in my front entry. The pumpkins were a nuisance all summer as they overtook my flower garden but are now quite useful (and all over my house)! I plopped the pumpkins in a thrift store basket, added a candle I bought on clearance at W-Mrt a while back, a Thanksgiving book from our personal library, and two artificial berry rings from Big Lots. Voila!

By George, I think she's got it!

I'm doing the happy dance today! I've been working out the kinks on saving at Walgreen's and today I purchased all this for (drum roll, please)

$11.62 plus tax. I'm sure the pros could do better, but I feel like Napoleon--next on to conquer CVS!

Thrifty

Found this fun guy at the thrift store the other day. He looks like he has a purpose,like he should hold something, but I've no idea what that would be.

Also decided that after five years the kitchen needed some curtians. I made these out of dish towels from Big Lots. The whole ensamble, rod and all, was about $13. My kind of price.