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Tightwad Tuesday: A Frugal 4th
We generally spend a frugal fourth of July with our church family. Fortunately, our church has a large parking lot and a grandfatherly gent who loves to buy lots of fireworks!
We gather outside around 8-8:30 and everyone brings munchies. This year we’re having a “movie” theme. I’m bringing nacho cheese that I’ll keep warm in a crock pot and others are bringing tortilla chips. Others will bring Whoppers, Milk Duds, Dots and the like. And, of course, we always have watermelon.
We pool all the firewarks and have a couple of designated pyrotechnics set them off. (This safety precaution was learned the hard way after our pastor’s wife ended up getting her eyebrows singed by an escape firework) We start with the “little kids” stuff and work our way up.
The adults are able to sit on lawn chairs and visit and enjoy the show. This is low-key and inexpensive and our kids LOVE it. So what about you? What do you do for a frugal 4th? Be sure and share your ideas at beingfrugal.net.
~Free Paint and More!~
Be sure and check out this great Freebie post on Econobusters. I just ordered the quart of Glidden Bittersweet Chocolate paint that I’ve been needing for my family room coffee table, with no problem. Saved me $$ and a trip to town! YAY! They have lots of other goodies as well.
Cheap Closet Make-over
After all the work this house took, the closets were way down on the list for improvements. When we moved in, I just put our stuff in there and ignored the rest. For some reason, right before Christmas I got motivated to spruce up the master bedroom closet. It took me one day, some left over paint and peel and stick tiles. Cost aprox. $30
How to Make Lemonade for Pennies!
A quick video on how to make delicious, homemade lemonade for a fraction of the cost you would pay for frozen at your grocery store. It’s so easy, my children make it! I would suggest to get your cost down even further, to buy your lemon juice by the gallon, like at Costco.
An old headboard gets a new life!
Here’s a great use for a yard sale find. Take an old headboard, add some paint and a board (to hold books, stuffed animals, etc.) and you’ve got a nifty “shabby chic” shelf. It’s amazing what you can do with a yard sale treasure.
To see more great ideas visit www.wearethatfamily.com.
Build a Word Game
Here is a fun way to strengthen spelling skills and have a blast at the same time!
What you need
To make your own Build a Word Game, all you need is index cards and multiple letters of the alphabet. For the letters of the alphabet you can use things such as; Scrabble game pieces, foam letters (that can be bought at most dollar stores) or simply cut out squares of heavy card stock paper and write the letters on yourself. You will also need to write approximately 20 “word challenges” (see below for example) on 3×5 index cards. Now that you have your materials, lets get started!
A sample of Word Challenges you can use!
Something that is hot.
An animal.
Something furry.
A mountain.
A word that starts with the letter “R”.
A city.
A verb.
Something you put on pizza.
A girls name.
A color.
A tool used for building.
Something that gets wet.
A toy.
Something green.
How it works
Lay the alphabet letters in a pile between the players. The first player picks a “word challenge” card and reads it out loud to the other players. Once he puts the card down, the race has begun! The players sift through the letters to see who can make a word that fit’s the challenge first. For example, the word challenge card reads, “Something that is hot”. One player may try to spell the word “stove”, while another may spell the word “fire”. The player that gets his word done first, then gets to keep the card. When there is no more cards left in the pile, the player that is holding the most, wins!
Tip! Give slower spellers a small head start to build their word. For example, once the card is read, the quick spellers must count to 5 before they can start building their word.
Homeschool Truants!
Recently, my two boys (13 & 11) and their homeschooled neighbor friend, had a run in with the law! It all started with a seemingly innocent bike trip to the local store for school supplies. They weren’t gone for more than ten minutes when I got a call from the police department. The officer told me he stopped the kids for truancy on their way to the office supply store. I immediately informed him (in a nice way of course) that they are homeschool students and not under the truancy laws. He insisted that although they are homeschooled they are still “students” which are required to be “in school” during certain hours. I went on to explain that I am required to school my children 180 days out of the year but not necessarily at the same time the Public Schools run. He back peddled a bit and said that in future, please send them with a note explaining where they are going.
Well, for the next week, whenever my kids went out (without me) during Public school hours, I had to write a note! This note writing got very old, as they are out a lot during “school hours”: paper route, riding bikes or playing in the park across from our house. How did this story end? The police officer called a week later and offered an apology. Apparently, he had checked it out with his police chief and discovered that homsechoolers (in our town anyway) are exempt from truancy laws. I thought it was nice that he did that but more relieved that I didn’t have to keep writing notes.
Pull Em’ Up or Pay Up!
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Well it’s about time! A city in Louisiana is fed up with young men walking around with sagging pants and exposed underwear. This baggy pants thing has become so silly, it’s comical. I kid you not, I have seen some of the these ”saggy baggies” so far down, the guy can hardly walk! I just don’t get it, how does one interpret that as looking cool!?!?! By September 15th, young men in the town of Mansfield had better pull up their pants or risk a $150 fine being in a state of nudity. Good for them! At what point does our society finally say “enough!” to this latest bare-it-all fashion…when they youth of today are walking around totally nude?
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Paper Mache Fun!
This little cat is made from nothing more than newspaper, flour, aluminum foil, some paint and decoupage.
Cheap Cupboard Make-Over!
This House Make-Over post is for all of you who don’t think you have the time or the money to fix up your house. This “kitchen cupboard painting project” was done in one day, with one adult (me!), 8 children (ages 4-13) and for less than 100 bucks! See, you have no more excuses not to get started on that project you’ve been putting off. Need more information on how to do your next project? CLICK to see lots of great “How To” home improvement videos.
I didn’t mind the stain on the cupboards too much but in many places the wood had water damage or the stain was worn off, so to make them nice again, it would have taken ALOT of sanding. Since we plan to do a major kithchen remodel (when we get enough $$ saved for it) down the road, I only wanted to spend minimal amount of money and time making this kitchen look better. Painting the cupboards was the solution. Of course those GIANT knobs from the 60s era had to go!!
Even though it takes more work than painting while still attached, it’s just too hard to not get paint on the hinges, which looks awful.
Step #1: Take down the cupboards. Even though it takes more work than painting while still attached, it’s just too hard to not get paint on the hinges, which looks awful.
Step #2 Remove hinges and screws: We had the daunting task of removing total of 360 tiny screws.This is where the 8 children came in! Pictured above is the “hardware crew”. Three kids at a time would work for about 20 minutes and then I would rotate a new group of kids to spend 20 minutes, until all hardware was off the cupboards.
Step #3 Lightly Sand: While the hardware removal was going on INSIDE, the sandpaper crew was working OUTSIDE. You will notice that even my four year old was sanding. This job was perfect for the little ones as it just had to be lightly sanded or as I told them, “scratch it up kids!”.
Step #4 Prime and Paint: I used less than a half-gallon of KilZ primer (water base) and a little more than half-gallon of creamy white, semi-gloss paint. Primer dries very quickly which meant by the time I finished with all the cupboards I was ready to paint. Yes, the children even helped with this. While I don’t have the pictures to prove it, I do have the paint stains now permenantly on my cement. Oh, well… Tip! Before allowing children to paint, double up on the plastic covering!
Step #5 Reattach hinges & knobs: The knobs were the cheapest I could possibly find and actually were the bulk of the total cost to do this project (I already had the paint sitting around). To stain them, I had one of the kids dip each one in a bucket of stain and then let dry. IF I had decided to replace the hinges this project would have cost double (or more!). Since my hinges were covered in dirt and grime, I soaked them in TSP/water solution while we painted. We scrubbed them a little and they came out shiny and clean.
A few days later, I ended up priming/painting over that ugly wallpaper. Did you know you can paint over wallpaper? When we remodel the kitchen down the road, we will put in new drywall, so painting it seemed the best choice for now.
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