Saturday morning thrifting

I got my once a month thrifting fix today and spent $9

4 vintage cookbooks - 25 cents each

I was especially pleased to find the book by Sophie Leavitt as Precious at Frugal Makes Cents just mentioned that it is one of her favorite books and I had never heard of this author.

2 big rubber stamps - this store had a big tub of interesting stamps and I thought about buying more as they were such a deal but they were not really my taste

Little JJ needed some more winter clothes and I found quite a few- 

1 pair of GAP overalls, 4 pairs of athletic pants, 1 pjs, 1 long sleeve one piece, 2 shirts and a zippered heavy weight hoodie. Most were 50 cents and I think 2 were $1. Most are Carter's and Old Navy brands. 

I am very selective when thrift shopping- I like good deals but I sure don't want to buy stuff that will add to the clutter level in our home. 

Oh, I almost forget these 2 25 cent goodies. Grandson Gavin will especially have fun wearing these hard hats . 

Homemade carpet shampooer machine solution

Another idea from Pinterest is this simple cleaning solution to run through a carpet shampoo machine.

I had to make a double batch to fill the tank on our machine. 

I used about 3 quarts of hot water, a half cup of hydrogen peroxide, a good squirt of dish soap and a good glub of vinegar.  The original blogger added essential oil for scent.  My scented dish liquid was scent enough.
 

It seemed to work fine and certainly as good as the expensive store bought kind that is more than $10 a jug.

This dish soap is Meyers Lavendar scent. I really liked the scent for carpet cleaning, but I don't much care for it on the dishes.  I don't plan to buy store bought solution again so this pin is a great money saver. 

I did not take before and after carpet photos. The carpet I cleaned is 14 year old white carpet that is in our 3 extra bedrooms and the big hall that connects them. The carpet is much cleaner after today's cleaning but it hardly looks new. It is better and for now, that is fine. 

 

 Pin #3 done for 2014. 

Money management- how we buy Gas

    When I watch news stories with money experts helping people with their budgets or debt, it seems the people usually have all their bills in a grocery sack or 2 that is full.  I just cringe and can't imagine how they ever keep up with so many accounts.

When I was working on my homekeeping notebook and looking at sites with printables and forms to keep up with your money, I realized our spending is more simple than most. 

So, how we do things might help somebody, so I will share.

We use cash for most local spending but we don't like having to go inside the gas station twice when buying gas with cash. We tried using our credit card for gas but it seemed when looking at our credit card statement, those gas purchases were just so much. 

My husband likes to buy gas at Walmart, it is convenient to us and they give a discount at the pump when you purchase with a Walmart credit card (no thank you) or with a Walmart gift card. 

Gas prices change often but we tried to budget an amount to spend on a Walmart gift card to use just for gas. At first we were buying a $250 card every month but that was too much as after doing this for just about 4 months, we still had a full card in December and did not buy one that month. The January one was $200 and so far, we think it will be just about right.

If there was an emergency and we needed more gas than we had prepaid for, that would be OK, as we have a credit card and emergency funds too. 

My husband pumps the gas and he keeps up with the card and balance. Some families who choose to do it this way might need their own card. It might be a great way to budget your teen's gas. 

Financial people would say we should not tie up our money like this with no interest but for us, it works and keeps our gas expense at an amount that fits our budget.

JJ clapping

Just because he is so cute, too cute not to share......

Old fashioned Tea towels

back in the fall,  Manuela posted about ways to make and decorate tea towels.  She had them hung on her stove and I thought they looked so cute.   I remembered I had embroidered some and I found them in my sewing room and got them out. All the embroidery was done but I thought they needed a little something more,  so those towels sat longer in the sewing room......

Until this week,  I wrote in my homekeeping notebook on my things I wanted to
sew quilt squares together
iron
put rick rack on towels
start Valentine dresses for granddaughters.

well,  I did sew rick rack on those 4 towels last night. 
And then I was reading blogs and saw on Lil Red Hen is going to do hope chest things for her 2014 project.  She posted some beautiful red work tea towels.  I am looking forward to seeing what she makes in 2014.  In 2013, she made an apron every month.

 

So,  for now I have a pretty towel hanging on my oven.  Until one of the toddling grands walks by and pulls it off :)