Saving Money Saturdays

This week I'm going to talk about how to spruce up your couch without spending a lot of money.

If you are crafty at all and can sew a straight ish line, you can make these!

I absolutely love to change the decor in our apartment from season to season. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is by making new pillow covers for our couch. It's super easy and doesn't take much time.

This time I was looking for something with a bright, summery feeling and I came up with these...

Nice and bright. The good news is that it only cost me about $8 to make both of these 18" covers! How's that for saving money and changing the decor?!

It's really easy to make and can be done in a short amount of time!

Saving Money Saturdays-Grocery Edition

I don't know about you, but groceries can be expensive...especially meat. We try to save money in this area in many different ways, but today I'm going to focus on how to save money when buying meat from your local grocer.

My husband and I are meat lovers. We eat a lot of chicken and ground beef mostly, but sometimes we get pork chops or steak when it's on sale as well, but it has to be a really good price.

The way that we save money when buying meat is simple. We buy in bulk. At Wegman's, it's called the Club Pack. Usually this means that you are purchasing six pounds {or more} at a time. It usually comes in a big pack that has all of the meat in it and looks like you are going to have some kind of a party with how much you're buying!

What I like to do is to look for the best price for what we can get. This time, I was able to find 95% lean ground beef on special for $1.99/lb. Yes, that is amazing! It just so happened to be on sale because it needed to be used or frozen by today's date. I purchased two packages that were just under 3 lbs. each. What I did next was to set up my freezer bags and cut the ground beef into approximately 1 lb. increments. Then, I put them into the bags and straight into the freezer. This way, when I need some ground beef {and most recipes call for 1 lb.} I just pull a bag out of the freezer, thaw it, and I'm done! And, I got a great price!

Now chicken is a little bit more of a hassle, but it's worth it. I can buy chicken breast for $1.99/lb. in the Club Pack. It comes with a lot in there so I set up a station and get to work. Again, I use my freezer bags to store them in and I need a knife and cutting surface as well. I take each large chicken breast and start by cutting off all of the extra fat. We like our chicken lean and it's so much easier to do it all at one time and not have to worry about it later. Once the chicken is ready I take my knife and cut it in half. I try to cut it in half width-wise (not top to bottom, but from the side) so that I get two pieces of single-serving sized chicken. So, basically, I'm turning one chicken breast into two! It does take a lot of practice to get it right, but if one isn't cooperating, I just cut it into bite-size pieces for the crock pot or to make sandwiches or a casserole later.

By the time I'm done, I have six pounds of ground beef {in 1 lb. packages} and about 8 servings of chicken for two (plus an extra one in each bag so there will be enough for leftovers).

 So there you have it, super simple and by buying in bulk and cutting it into serving sizes rather than using the whole piece as one, you are saving even more!



Saving Money Saturdays

Around here we really like saving money. We also really like for our apartment to be clean. Even if it has some clutter to it which never happens I am very particular that it must be "clean." I have no desire to turn into a hoarder and feel like I'm constantly picking up around the house.

One product that I absolutely love to use when cleaning is a carpet powder. I love that it makes my carpet smell clean and gives the apartment a fresh smell.

Carpet powder is relatively inexpensive, but I found out that by using the main ingredient baking soda you can save tons of money!

Baking soda will neutralize the odors and is super cheap. It is easy to find and works well for so much more than keeping your fridge clean!

To use baking soda as a carpet powder, lightly sprinkle your carpet with the baking soda, let it sit for 5 minutes, and vacuum. It's that easy and works so well!





Saving Money Saturdays #1



Saving Money Saturdays (via)

 Since I love saving money, I figured that I should try to do a weekly post on ways to save money!

This week I'm going to talk laundry. We know that I make my own

 laundry soap and love the fact that I can customize it depending on what scents we like and how scented we like our clothes. But, this post isn't about washing our clothes, it's about drying our clothes!

My husband and I grew up on different coasts. I was born and raised in California and he was born and raised in Maryland. To say that the way we grew up was a bit different would be an understatement. At my house, we always used a washer and dryer for our clothes. At his house, they used a washer and line dried their clothes in the laundry room.

I have to admit, I was taken back at first. I mean, who does that? I really thought that was for people who lived on a farm or the Amish. No, really I did. So when they let me do laundry at their house for free I had to change from using the dryer to line drying my clothes.

Line drying worked well there. Of course we use the dryer for towels and unmentionables, but other than that we hung them up on the line.

Once my husband and I got married, our laundry privileges were taken away and we started doing laundry at our apartment complex. The washers are small and it costs about $2.95 per load to wash and dry and we do about three loads of laundry a week. That comes to $460.20 per year just for the facility cost! Ouch.

Since we live in an apartment and don't have a good spot to hang an actual line, my husband found drying rack at Joann Fabrics while I was looking at fabric. It was compact and with a 40% off coupon it came to $18. It was easy to assemble and fits perfectly in our living room off to the side.

As you can see, it holds a good amount of clothes (30 pieces) and can be out of the way so the clothes can dry.

Right now we have a fan on it to get it started for a couple of hours, but when the weather is nice tomorrow we will keep the windows open so it will dry faster.

We are hoping to do this with all of our clothes throughout the week by spacing out our loads since it will take 2-3 days to dry before we can put the clothes away. If this works out, we can save $140.40 per year! {Based on drying only one load per week in the dryer for towels and personal items}

Line drying might not be for everyone, but it's defintely worth trying out!