Make your own sidewalk chalk

I always loved writing on the sidewalks surrounding my home as a child and thought I would share the recipe I am now using for my own son’s sidewalk chalk:

Mix 2 cups of water with 2 cups of plaster of paris.  Add 2 TBSP of tempura paint in your choice of color.  Covering one end with packing tape, stand empty toilet paper tubes on end (with packing tape down) on a piece of cardboard.  Pour the mixture in slowly to fill the toilet paper tubes.  Allow the mixture to dry for 2 hours.  Remove and discard the toilet paper tubes and packing tape.

Traveling cheap – food

My son and I are heading to West Virginia to visit my family today. It can be easy to spend a fortune when traveling between gas and food and tourist traps but one easy way to save money is to simply pack your own food. Packing your own snacks, drinks, and meals.

This all depends on what your family likes to eat. For us it is pretty simple. He likes peanut butter and jelly – quite possibly the easiest food to pack and travel with. For snacks he likes peanut butter on crackers – sometimes we bring honey in a squeeze bottle too. Apples, oranges, bananas, dried fruit, even a can of tuna (with a handcrank can opener) are all also great frugal (and healthy) travel choices.

Whether you eat it while driving or if you actually stop and have a picnic lunch is up to you. We love a picnic lunch at a rest area because it gives us a great opportunity to stop and stretch our legs.
Be creative! Depending on the length of your trip, this can save you quite a bit of money. Our travel time is usually no more than 12 hours, but think about the saving there. Most fast food meals are $5 each or more and snacks at rest areas can run as much as $1 each. If my son and I eat 2 meals and a snack on the road, this is a $22 savings just for being prepared!

The things you find at Goodwill!

Today my little guy and I popped into a Goodwill. I was hoping to find some clothes for fall – which I did – I found tons of clothes actually. But thats a separate little story. What I want to talk about are these great TOYS we found!

Today we found this adorable little Winnie the Pooh chair. It’s foam with a washable cover and just my little guy’s size. The cover is currently in the washer and unfortunately requires air drying which means little man won’t get to sit in it until tomorrow. But it is going to be PERFECT for his pooh bear bedroom…or maybe in the reading corner. I priced this sucker online once I got home and found out that it is around $21. We paid just over $4. This is the one:

Now on to my next great find!! And this one is HUGE!! Just as we were getting ready to leave I looked over in the corner and spied this bright beautiful rocking airplane!! As if being big and beautiful and solid wood wasn’t enough, it turns out that this guy actually makes real airplane sounds as the child rocks on it. It even still had batteries in it!! Priced this one online as well – over $150!! We paid $12. What an awesome day!

Little man is taking a nap right now to wear off the excitement of his day…and it’s killing me. I can’t wait to watch him play on his new plane!!

Oh! And about the clothes…I walked away with 8 long sleeve shirts in absolutely perfect condition (some still with their original tags on them), a nice light sweater, and a great hooded jacket. Those alone would have been hundreds of dollars at retail. Grand total of my entire shopping trip (including tax of course): $56.37

WOOHOO!!!!

Mmm lentils!

I just wanted to talk briefly about lentils. These things are amazing! No matter what you put them in, they taste like whatever it is. They’re unbelievably cheap. A 1 pound bag is 68 cents at my local supermarket. They super nutricious – high in protein and fiber. And they’re tasty! Even if your family isn’t a big fan of eating beans, they will probably like lentils – I know my husband does and my son eats them up.

I thought I would share a couple of great lentil recipes I’ve tried out in the past. I always cook them in the crockpot because they tend to take a lot of time to cook and time is money when it comes to that electric bill!

Brown Rice and Lentil Casserole

This great recipe came from The Tightwad Gazette (A GREAT read for ANY tightwad or frugal wannabe!) and is absolutely perfect for times when money is running tight and you want a great homecooked meal

3 cups chicken broth

3/4 cups lentils (sorted and rinsed)

3/4 cups brown rice

3/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp each thyme, oregano, and garlic powder

1/2-1 cup cheese on top

The original recipe called for cooking it for over an hour in your oven but I can’t stomach the thought of using that much electricity when the crockpot does just as good of a job. I usually start this one before I leave for work in the morning and let it go until I get home. It’s so nice to just come home to a premade meal.

Sausage and Lentil Casserole

• 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1-2 onions chopped
• 2 cups water
• 3-4 sticks of celery chopped
• 6 sausages
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• 1 bay leaf (crunched up)
• 1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
• fresh or dried parsley (optional)
• Pinch of dried thyme
• 1 1/2 cups dried lentils (sorted and rinsed)

Mix all ingredients in your crockpot and cook on low for 5 or 6 hours. Yum.

Grow your own tea

I’ve always loved herbal tea. To just sit back and slowly sip a steaming cup of herbal tea has always been one of the most relaxing simple pleasures that I have ever experienced. The cheapest box of 20 bags of spearmint tea is $2.19 at my local supermarket. This means that you are paying almost 11 cents per cup! So I figured why not try it on my own. I purchased a packet of seeds at our local Walmart for 10 cents of which I only used half of the package. I scattered these little seeds in a small plastic pot that was leftover from a boxwood plant that we had purchased to landscape our yard. This was about 3 months ago. Since then, we’ve already had one successful cutting which yielded enough for 23 cups of tea and I am headed out to cut it back again as soon as I finish writing this.

In order to prep the spearmint for tea, you simply gather the leaves in a bunch with a piece of string and hang them upside down until they dry. Once dry, just crumple the leaves a bit and store in a cool dry location in a sealed container (freezing is ok too). When you’re ready use, place the dried leaves into a tea ball and steep until you are satisfied with the strength of your tea.

I have not yet had to water it, fertilize it, or anything crazy like that. I just threw the seeds in, topped it with dirt, and walked away for a few weeks. This is amazing! Obviously 23 cups isn’t going to get me through too long so I wish that I had planted the entire packet but I will leave that for another day. This has been a great experiment in frugality!

By the way, spearmint is also a useful herb in dessert and alcoholic beverage recipes so it’s not just for tea anymore

Charles Schwab Investor Checking

A penny saved is a penny earned. That’s the old cliche right? But does it have some merit? So I found out recently that yes, it actually does. I am new to investing, but I’m learning more and more everyday that the more money that is sitting there being invested, the more likely I am to get a return out of it. Seems pretty simple right?

I still don’t really understand stocks and all of that, but thankfully I am using some of Charles Schwab’s online tools to learn and to better control my 401K. In the meantime, I discovered Charles Schwab Investor Checking! I was on their website researching investing because they tie in with my company’s 401K plan when I noticed that they were offering 4% APY. That’s for a checking account! So I signed up right away (for FREE!!). Now I do nothing. I just keep my money in my account (and of course spend as little as possible ) and in return for keeping my money in their account, they deposit interest into my account once a month. That’s it. It’s amazing.

Here is a link if you want more information:

http://a15.g.akamai.net/f/15/5616/5s/schwab.download.akamai.com/5616/m/q307/hyic/index.html

sanitizing spray = big fat waste of money?

I was spraying my son’s highchair down with Clorox sanitizing spray the other day and I realized that I was flushing money down the toilet in an naive effort to protect my son by paying for something that I could have made for WAY less. After reading the bottle, I found out that it contains 0.0095% sodium hypochlorite and 99.9905% “other ingredients”. I’ve come to realize that the “other ingredients” are little more than vinegar and water. Crap.

In my research, I discovered that EPA.gov has the clear instructions for their version of such a spray is listed: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/bleachfactsheet.htm

From my understanding of this, I need to add 2 cups of water to 1 cup of bleach. Then add 1 cup of vinegar and then add 6 more cups of water, mix, spray, let sit and done. Sounds kinda like the directions on the sanitizing spray, huh?

Soap Crayons

I used to envy those expensive soap crayons I would see in the children’s bath aisle.  I knew my son would enjoy them if I could just figure out how to make them for cheaper.  Well look no further friends!

Mix 1 cup of mild detergent flakes (Dreft is a mild choice) with 2 TBSP of hot water.  Stir constantly – the mixture will be thick and hard to stir.  Mix several drops of liquid food coloring into the mixture until a deep hue is mixed throughout. Make sure it doesn’t get too thin because this will increase the drying time!! Just a few drops! It should be about the consistency of white glue when you have added enough.

Spoon the mixture into candy molds, ice cube trays, or muffin tins and allow them to dry for several days until they begin to harden.  Once they have begun to harden, pop them out of the molds and allow them to continue to dry for a few more days.

Cinnamon Applesauce Dough (for ornaments)

You can make your own cinnamon scented Christmas ornaments by using the recipe below:

1 cup applesauce (store brand of course!)

1 1/2 cup cinnamon

Mix together applesauce and cinnamon until a thick dough is formed.  Roll the dough out in between two sheets of waxed paper until it reaches approximately 1/8 inches thick.  Using cookie cutters or a knife, cut out shapes as desired.  Using a straw or toothpick, punch any holes you would like for hanging the ornaments.  Allow shapes to dry on waxed paper on a flat surface until thoroughly dried and hard (usually around 48 hours).  String ribbon through holes to hang.

The scent should last a long time on these ornaments.  Once it does begin to fade, lightly refreshen with a cotton ball dipped in cinnamon oil.

Window cleaner recipe

Mix 1 cup white vinegar, 1 1/2 cups rubbing alcohol, and 2 drops of dish soap in a spray bottle.

Spray like windex and wipe with a lint free rag (or newspapers – they are great for a streak free shine)