Yard Sale Finds

On Saturday, Hubby & I went yard-saling for free. That’s right; the money we spent was not a part of our budget. It was a glorious thing.

You see, Friday evening, a friend called and needed his air conditioning fixed. Hubby went out at 11:30 p.m. and fixed the problem. He charged $65 for going out and $5 for the part. Not a bad deal considering the friend’s landlord (aka in-laws) will be paying the bill for him. That money became our yard sale cash.

At sale #1, Hubby found some nice fabric. I found a picture frame. For $20, we got tons of fabric and my frame. Hubby sold one roll of the fabric for $20 to a friend.

We ended up getting 2 pairs of Old Navy & 1 pair of Tommy jeans for me ($3 total), a pair of shorts & 2 pairs of pj pants ($1.50), a picture frame, a scarf, and a nice summer weight quilt ($6), 2 books that each contained 4 books ($1), Smart Girls by Judy Blume (50cents), a toaster oven for me to use while baking polymer clay ($2.50), and a few other odds and ends. We felt that we were done. We were heading home. The street just before ours had a sale. We stopped, more to show community comradery than anything else. This sale was where we hit the mother lode!

Hubby found 8 pairs of jeans and 6 pairs of shorts – all name brands (mainly Old Navy and a few Levi). I also found a dress for my sister, a shirt for me, a set of nice heavy weight blue glasses, a board game for my mom, and a Barbie anniversary style clock for mom. Total spent was $10.75! Hubby wears a common size (32x30) so clothes are sometimes hard to find. We were thrilled to be so lucky at this sale. It allowed us to clean out his closet and set up a big lot of his clothing items to sell. These are currently listed on our local Yahoo Yard Sale group. If they don’t sell, I will donate them to Goodwill for the tax credit.

It's Sandal Time!

I’ve been looking for sandals for a long time. I wore out my flea market purchased $3 Birkenstocks (real ones, gently used) in June of last year. They were good shoes and they served me well for over 2 years. I spent all last summer looking and finally resorted to purchasing a pair of cheap black sandals from Freds for $4.

I have looked online for the Naot sandals that I fell in love with a few years back. Sadly they are over $100 and well beyond my budget. Ebay sellers have Naot sandals but not the style I like. I was determined and kept looking.

At Sam’s I found some for $60 that were made by Birkenstock. They were a tad bit pricey for my tastes and even though Hubby said I could have them, I chose to pass them up.

Last Friday, my parents wanted to check out Khol’s department store. The store is pretty new to our area and none of us had been there. They were having a big sale with many items 50 -80% off. I walked around for a while before finding the one thing I’d come for – the shoe department. I found sandals in a great style which I love for $15.99. I also found some black Birkey style sandals for the same price. For just under $60 ($59.51), I got two pairs of sandals for me and a pair for Hubby. That means that I got 3 pairs of shoes for the price of the 1 pair at Sam’s. I was thrilled!

The Pressure to Cook Frugally

I have finally succumb to temptation and bought a pressure cooker. I was reading on Frugal Veggie Mama’s Blog about pressure cookers and finally took the plunge. Thankfully it wasn’t a deep plunge. I can easily re-coup my losses if we hate the thing and re-sell it.

That’s right, I was lucky enough to find one in great condition, with the instruction manual, circa 1960’s, on our local Yahoo Garage Sale Site. For $5 I got a very sturdy, albeit ugly harvest gold colored pressure cooker. I can’t wait to try it out. Feel free to share pressure cooker recipes. I need all of the help I can get!

Memorial Day Projects

Memorial Day is a day to remember. My husband has used this day for the last few years to remember his father. In doing so, he likes working in the yard, being alone with nature. This year he chose to do some back yard projects. He built a deck and installed a pond.

“How is that frugal?” you may ask. Read on.

Our deck was made in a somewhat unconventional way. Hubby researched it and found that it was much cheaper to purchase fence boards rather than 2 x 4’s to build with. He went further to find the best possible deal on the wood. Our deck was built for about 2/3 of the ‘normal’ cost.

The pond was on sale from $159 to $103 at our local garden store. They did not have another one available so we asked if they would discount the floor model which had not been used, just set up. The manager gave us an additional 20% off, making the cost $82.40, leaving us with a savings of more than 45%!

We got a few pond plants from our neighbor, some 33 cent goldfish, and now our yard is complete. It is beautiful for a fraction of the price.

And yes, we save up for these projects. They improve the value of our home as well as improve our overall happiness.