Works for me Wednesday - Toothpaste

If you do any shopping at Walgreen's you probably have a closet full of FREE toothpaste and will never have enough dirty teeth to clean!

I was recently having a conversation with a man from work and I was complaining about how dirty my wedding ring was. He told me that his wife cleans hers with toothpaste! I tried it and it worked great! It got me to thinking about what other great uses their could be for toothpaste.

I came across this article in Reader's Digest online and was amazed with all of the choices. You can read the article HERE.

The ones I have tried are:

-Clearing up pimples (this works great!)

-Cleaning my wedding ring

One that is not listed that I have done is use it as a temporary filler for holes in the wall - this was white toothpaste, but it worked surprisingly well!

I love finding new ways to use toothpaste, it works for me!

Looking for more great Works for me Wednesday ideas? Check out We are THAT Family!

-Michelle

Make it do! - Frugal Friday

The last few weeks for frugal Friday I have been sharing ways to live by the motto, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!" that I heard a lot growing up. I have shared ways to "Use it up!" and ways to "Wear it out!"


I think "Make it do!" has a lot to do with being creative to make what you have work. We live in a society where people want things now! They don't want to wait so they purchase things on credit, like furniture, a vehicle, or day to day stuff. I think about how, as newlyweds with no money, we had to "Make it do!" As I look around my house and think about the things I do, there are several instances where we continue to practice the philosophy, "Make it do!"



We desperately need a shade for our kitchen window. We have a valance, but during certain times of the day, the sun shines right in the window and blinds anyone sitting at the kitchen table. We looked at blinds that would work for this window, but found they were very expensive. I plan to make a shade, but for now our shade is an over sized towel (above). It isn't pretty, but for now it works perfectly!


Speaking of uses for towels...the door from our kitchen to our garage has a huge gap in the bottom (that brings the cold in and the heat out). We should either A. get a new door, or B. put some sort of weather stripping there, but again that is an expense. The solution, a rolled up towel fits perfectly and keeps the cold out!


Another example would be the month of October when I had a $100 budget for the whole month. There were many times I wanted something more "fun" than what I had, I had to make it do. We ate things that weren't necessarily restaurant quality or utterly delectible, but we decided to "Make it do!" (and we lived!).


By the way, we are also making it do with the UGLY green trim in the kitchen (as you can see from the pictures) - there are ugly green cabinets to match along with ugly green sponge painted french doors. We won't be getting new cabinets and trim, we are going to paint. It is quite an undertaking, so we are taking it slow - and "Making it do!" for now!

So...what about you? What are you doing to "Make it do!"?

Frugal Decorating

I have never spent a lot of money on decorating – ever. I am not the type of person that “needs” designer whatever. I do, however, like my home to look nice and to be a comfortable place. Here are some inexpensive ideas of things that I have done around my house:


This is my hallway. I decorated it with all black picture frames. They all came from Walmart except the long one in the middle. That came from Target. Altogether I spent $25.00 on these frames and pennies on the prints to put in them.


There is nothing like a fresh coat of paint to change the look and feel of a room. We paid $19.99 per gallon for this paint job (it took about 1.5 gallons). (Isn't my daughter a cutie?)

This is another view of my daughter's room. The lace curtains came with the house (FREE). The garland around the window I got for $.50 at a yard sale. I purchased the nesting tables on clearance at Shopko for $9.99 and the picture frame was a gift. The flowers were given to me by a friend who was redecorating and wanted to get rid of them. Last but not least, this wreath is on display in my living room. It was a Christmas wreath that was on clearance at Home Depot. I got it for $2.50. It isn't super Christmasy, so I keep it up all year!

I am sharing what I have done, not because I think you should do the exact same things I do, but to show that you can decorate for less.

• Look for items that you can re-purpose, like my wreath.
• Shop yard sales
• Use what you have (the curtains in my daughter's room wouldn't have been my first choice - but you can't beat free!)
• Shop clearance sales
• Accept free items from friends and family and look for ways to incorporate them
• Be creative and have fun!

The $16.00 Birthday Party

Earlier this summer my son (who just turned 3) went to a fun dinosaur themed birthday party. He left with tons of great toys and had a great time. Since that party, he has talked about his own birthday party, but I knew I couldn't and didn't want to spend a lot of money on this party. I came up with a plan to spend $20.00 or less.

My son loves sports, especially soccer - so he chose a soccer themed party. I was thrilled because we already had some soccer stuff and it would be easy to come up with games centered around soccer.

Here is what we did:
For our first game game we played "Get the Soccer Ball in the Goal" - my version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. This did not cost anything because I used leftover computer paper from my work and printed soccer balls from my computer I wrote each kid's name on the soccer ball and glued them to their paper sacks that they used for the pinata (see below).I decided to make a pinata in the shape of a soccer ball. I found some great instructions here. It was time consuming, but it was fun and the whole project only cost $2.00 for the crepe paper. I filled the pinata with fruit snacks and rice krispie treats that I had from the Kellogg's deal. The kids all colored their own brown paper lunch sacks to collect their goodies.

Then we went outside played "Kick the Soccer Ball in the Goal" the goal was a big toy tub. One of the three year olds actually made it in! This was also free.

For the cake - I mentioned that I was having a soccer birthday party to many people (putting the word out). One friend offered to make the cake as a gift! It was gorgeous and the kids loved it. If she had not offered, I would have come up with something myself. I paid $1.20 for some Happy Birthday Candles, $1.00 for cups, and $1.00 for plates. I had napkins and plastic forks already.

The bulk of the expenses for the party came from the loot bags. I had some clear plastic bags already, so we filled them with a soccer ball pencil, a soccer ball key chain, a soccer ball plastic maze, and a soccer ball noisemaker. The total for 8 treat bags was about $11.00. As a game, I hid all the treat bags around the yard and the kids had to find theirs.

The party turned out great, and all the kids had a great time. The point of it this post is not for you to copy exactly what I did. The point is to show that with some creativity and using what you have, you can have a fun frugal party (my son is the one in the red shirt, blowing his noisemaker)!