By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
Love book made from deck of cards
I am so glad that it is finally time to start making Valentine’s Day crafts. I just love them. Can’t get enough of those hearts and flowers and rainbows and paper doilies.
I found eight lovely and do-able Valentine’s crafts.
- Little felt heart pins. These are so simple and yet so sweet. Just a bit of felt cut into heart shapes, hand stitched and stuffed with a little pin backing.
- A garland of love. Print out pictures of your loved one(s) and cut into the shape of hearts. Glue picture on a heart shape red card. Tie heart onto a string. Make a garland of love. (more…)
A baby nursery for less than $260!
Remember my post from October about looking for a pregnant Halloween costume? Well, the time has *almost* come. Here are nine ways I’ve saved money in preparation for parenthood.
- We compared the prices of popular baby gear on Amazon, Babies R Us, and Target to make sure we got the best deal on a car seat and other items we wanted to buy new. You’d be surprised which retailer was the cheapest!
- I stalked craigslist, Freecycle, and my local Mommy & Me consignment store to furnish our nursery, pictured above, for less than $260. I can’t believe how much used baby stuff is free or extremely cheap. Here are more places to look to avoid paying retail for baby clothesand gear. (more…)
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
TFDuesing/flickr
If you want something you don’t have the money for, figure out how to make it. (I’ve already talked about getting things by swapping or repurposing).
Personally, I have found that learning to make something is the best way to go. I get what I need, and I know how to repair it. Here are my five favorite sites to go to when I want to learn new things:
- General instructions - Instructables - You can learn anything from how to carve a pumpkin to how to build your own computer to how to construct a rocket ship. Instructables has more pictures and instructions than videos. (more…)
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
rachel_titiriga/flickr
I live in Southern California, the land of the lemon tree. With so many donations from friends, I have found tons of uses for the mighty little lemon.
Here are ten of my favorites:
- Lemon juice and salt on your copper bottom pans make an instant cleaning miracle. Just sprinkle the salt on the copper bottom, then squirt on some lemon juice and give a gentle scrub. Your copper will shine like the day it was made. This works on any copper surface, not just pot bottoms.
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
Urban Woodstalker/flickr
Do you know the main idea that separates people who live over-budget from those who live under-budget?
People who go over-budget do so because they think they must have NEW stuff. This often translates into buying at the highest price. Go to the mall and buy a new shirt. Top dollar. Go to the car dealer and buy a new replacement part for your car. Super top dollar. Go to the bookstore and buy a just published book. Very expensive.
Some people feel that it is “bad” or “uncool” or “low class” to buy recycled, used, or discounted. Well, if you are super rich and have money to burn, then, be my guest and buy retail. I surely want to go to your yard sales and I certainly don’t want to try and balance your budget.
Make a gift through Kidworth this Christmas.
As a kid, I loved discovering a mound of presents choking the tree on Christmas morning. But I can’t help but wonder, now that I’m familiar with the website Kidworth, if some of those gifts could have been given as investments.
Did you know that the average child, according to Kidworth founder Rudy DeFelice, comes across $25,000-$30,000 in gifts by the time they are 18? And yet, how many 18-year-olds do you know that have more than a few bucks to their name?
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
wuestenigel/flickr
Now that Halloween is past us and we’ve eaten all the candy corn and miniature Snickers bars that we can hold, it is time to turn our attention to one of my favorite of holidays – Thanksgiving. Although Thanksgiving has become as commercialized as all the rest of our holidays, you can still create a special family event that brings years of memories without destroying the budget.
Here is a list of ten wonderful frugal and homemade Thanksgiving decorations.
Behold, the gyrobowl! Credit: BuyGyrobowl.com
I have lost the right to call myself the Bargain Babe.
To my horror, an item on my baby registry is being sold in a catalog I recently ridiculed for it’s high prices and absurd products – SkyMall!
How did this happen? At Babies R Us, my husband caught sight of the Gyrobowl, a small dish kept in balance by a gyroscope. In theory, the tot eating from it never spills her
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
Daquella Manera/flickr
I am a firm believer in returning products. If I get it home and find out that it doesn’t fit, work, or do what the advertising promised, I return it. However, I hate the time, effort, and gas it takes to make a return.
Most stores have very good return policies. However, it often costs more to return the item than its purchase price. For instance,
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
MegaMind mask on cool dude
With Halloween only moments away, here are six last minute frugal activities, costumes, and decorating ideas.
- The MegaMind website. This site is full of activities that will keep you and your kids busy through Halloween week and beyond. Click above to enter the site, then click or skip intro (or watch it because it’s cute), and click on games, and activities. This will land you on a page where you can select an action figure to download. There are other activities as well – a board game, comic books, bookmarks, brainteasers, card games, and coloring sheets. There is enough cool stuff here to make an entire MegaMind party. A truly great site for a MegaMind fan who is young or old, as you can see from the picture to the right.
creativedc/Flickr
This post is brought to you by Reader’s Digest. Find more great tips on saving money from Reader’s Digest.
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
Halloween can be a fun family time. But, with all the costumes, decorations, parties,
and candy giving, the costs add up, even if you are having an old fashioned Halloween.
My advice for Halloween is the same for any annual holiday – think ahead. Look for costumes and accessories all year long. Anything that you have to buy in a hurry will cost more. That being said, here are the 10 best places to go looking for Halloween items NOW.
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr
When I was a little girl, Halloween was a simple and cheap affair. We’d make costumes out of stuff we had at home, grab a pillow case, and walk up and down our block. Everyone who opened the door knew who we were, and we knew them. We returned home with warm homemade cookies, fruit, and my very favorite, a little envelope with 10 shiny pennies from the man who worked at the local bank. That, my friends, is what Halloween is supposed to be.
Unfortunately, Halloween has gone the way of all holidays: a commercialized spending spree. The average person will spend $72.31 on costumes, candy and decorations, adding up to a total holiday splurge of $6.9 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
fun3MD/flickr.
I just paid $24 dollars for 12 quart-sized cardboard containers of water. WHAT??? The Bargain Queens paid that? WHY?
I paid $24 dollars for those 12 containers because I was in San Diego a couple of weeks ago when the south western section of the country lost all power. I was lucky enough to be in a hotel that was prepared for emergencies. They had a back up diesel generator that kept lights on in the hallways and a flashlight for each room.
megrje / Flickr
This is a post by BargainBabe.com writer Yazmin Cruz.
A couple of my friends are soon-to-be-mommies and one major expense for them is their changing wardrobe. I set out to find the most inexpensive way to getting maternity clothes. Below I compare the pros and cons of renting maternity clothes, buying them at discount stores, and getting hand me downs.
Renting maternity clothes
By Bobbi Burger Brunoehler of BobbisBargains.
nSeika/flickr
No matter how you educate your children, it is pretty hard to miss the start of the new school year. While parents of students going to traditional schools are saving money on school supplies, parents of homeschoolers, like me, look for ways to save money on curriculum.
There are as many different ways to homeschool as there are homeschoolers. But in general it breaks down to either following traditional academic age/grade appropriate guidelines on what a student should know (so that you can pop your kid back into a traditional curriculum at any time and they wouldn’t be behind) or following a child-led curriculum, called unschooling in some circles.
If you are following a traditional curriculum,
