School Supply Savings

Last year, Ben started at one school and ended up at another school. By the time we made the decision to switch him back to the original school over the summer, it was too late to buy the prepackaged school supplies. Turns out, I saved A LOT by doing it myself. Buying them from the PTA costs $54.00. I spent a total of $15.53 -- a savings of 73%!! And, I have extra pens, dry erase markers, hand sanitizer, scissors and tissue to contribute to the classroom. I think I'll definitely be doing it myself from now on. It may take a little more time, but if you think of it in terms of Ben's school career + Nick's school career, it's a potential savings of about $1000. And, it still takes time/aggravation to try and park/fight the crowds at school on supply pick up day. Ugh.

Decorating Project

I was flipping through a Pottery Barn catalog the other day and noticed a picture of a bedroom with some grayish tiles on the wall above the bed. I thought something like that would look good in our bedroom, especially since we recently painted it gray and have gray and white linens. Then, I remembered that I ALREADY HAVE four tiles, just like this. Except, they are dark. Hmmm. I have white paint in the garage. I wonder....?

So, I took the picture from the catalog, the tiles, some white paint and an old t-shirt and headed up to my sewing room,

I grabbed the t-shirt, stuck it in the paint and sort of dabbed it against itself to spread around the paint. then, I put it on in a circular motion (wax on, wax off). It dried pretty quickly, then I hung up three of them above the bed and one in the bathroom (not shown). What do you think?

50% Savings

Today's deals from Randall's - spent $27.97 and saved $28.31.

Flower Corsage T-Shirt

I love all of those tops that are popular right now at places like J Crew and Anthropologie...you know the ones I am talking about:

And, I was thinking it'd be pretty easy to do this myself. So, I Googled it and found a simple tutorial here. So, last night I pulled out a plain, v-neck t-shirt and went to the sewing room. I decided to start with a circle shape (they show hearts in the tutorial - I'll be doing that next). I just found a roll of tape, traced the center onto card stock and made a template:

Next, I looked to my wall of old t-shirts that I have for my other projects and picked a color:

I found it was easiest to cut the template while holding a square of fabric in my hand. At first, I cut two at a time (per the tutorial), but found my scissors could handle 6 layers. Much faster when you need 16!

The last pic shows the heart template for the next round. And, the paper scissors vs fabric scissors. NEVER use fabric scissors on paper! Okay, on to the sewing machine...

T-shirt before

I just kept placing circles randomly and adding a few stitches to the center of each and voila! Before too long, I had a new shirt.

The End!

98% Savings

After some coupons and Extra Care Bucks, I paid a whopping $.66 for these items at CVS:

Savings update....

A couple of weeks back, I posted How to Save $1362 This Year. In the post, I talked about having a goal of reducing the grocery budget by 10% a year. There are two sites I am currently using that are helping with that A LOT. First, The Grocery Game. It takes a little work at first to get the hang of it, but man is it worth it. Here's what I scored last weekend at Randall's for $5.00 (total savings of 86%):

And, here's what I got at CVS for $15 (total savings of 83%):

The other is Money Saving Mom. She posts deals all day long.

If you want to try the Grocery Game, send me a note and I'll send you a referral for a free trial.

On The Cheap

Hmm. What should I call it when I find something really cute and affordable that looks a lot like something overpriced that I covet? On The Cheap. Done.

My super adorable fellow blogger and friend, Lauren, posted these ah-maaaaa-zing pieces a few weeks back:

all images via Mika Organic

Alas, each piece retails for around $200. Sad face.

But wait...what's this I see, Parts and Labour?? Screen printed A-line skirts from Angie's Sweatshop for $38? Very similar vibe for a lot less? Done.