Friday, September 30, 2011

Weekend Goals--Weekend of 10/1

Since the last goals post that I did was so successful in getting me to actually accomplish my list, I figured I'd try it again.  I think there's something about being accountable to a group of strangers via the internet that lights that fire under me to get things done.  Whatever it is, I'll take it!  So, like last time, I'll post my goals list here and then on Sunday (or Monday. . .depending on time), I'll post an update as to what I got accomplished this weekend.

  • Enter consignment items for Women's clothing sale in October
  • Pack yardsale stuff in car
  • Sell stuff at yard sale
  • Donate unsold yard sale items to Goodwill and drop off at Goodwill
  • Mow front and back yard
  • Homework for school
  • Unpack all of Tyler's fall clothes and hang them up
  • Work for 20 minutes in office--still trying to get that office decluttered
  • Pay bills--ick. . .blech. . .boohiss
  • Place Thirty One order
  • take Tyler somewhere fun on Sunday (movies? mini-golf?)
  • Football game Saturday night
  • Kohls
  • WalMart
  • Target
I'll post an update later in the weekend.  Wish me luck. . .it's going to be a long weekend!

My Little Baby's First Day of Kindergarten

I swore this day would never come.  I prayed it would never come.  I tried as hard as I could to make sure it didn't come too fast.  Sure enough, it did.  It came WAY too fast. :(  My little baby started school at the beginning of the month and I've been in a weird funk ever since.  Those of you who have walked this path before me probably know what I'm talking about.  Or, maybe I'm just crazy.  It's possible.  There are these milestones that our kids hit that just remind us so very forceably that they are growing up.  Too fast.  Their first birthday, first steps, first words, first haircut, first day of school. . .it goes on. 


Earlier in September, my baby started Kindergarten.  Being the incredibly overbearing Mommy that I am, I documented (almost) most every movement that we made that morning.  That is, until we got the front door to leave.  It was at that point that I broke down in tears and could no longer see through the lens of my camera to take anymore pictures.

Here's what I was able to capture:



This is what the little man looks like when he wakes up.  He's grumpy.  Very grumpy.  Must get it from his Dad.  I'm sweet as a Georgia Peach when I wake up.  Hmm. . .


I guess he didn't have too much patience for me and the camera that morning.  Okay, I'll go find something else to do, then. 

Like start my coffee.  I have to start my morning off with coffee.  Otherwise, I act like a rotten Georgia Peach.  It can get very ugly.


And I started making my baby breakfast.  Poor baby needs to start his day off with a nice hot breakfast.  Every good mom does this, right? 


Still making that nice hot breakfast for my baby. . .


Almost ready!


That's right!  Getting my sweet pea's morning started off right.  I guess now is the time that I let you in on a little secret.  Ty started school almost a month ago.  I think that's the last time he got a hot, homemade breakfast.  Unless you count a toasted Pop Tart.  In that case, he gets a hot breakfast every morning!


Nevertheless, my little school boy loved it!  As you can tell from the picture, he's in a much better mood now!

OMG. . .he makes my heart hurt!  I swear it just explodes with lovey goodness when I see him. 

And. . .at this point, the pipes behind my eyes broke and I couldn't stop the water from overflowing out around my eyeballs.  Horrible flooding.  Lasted forever a while.  I've filed an insurance claim for the damages.  It was massive. 

Overall, the little dude likes school and feels so grown up now that he goes to "big boy" school.  He keeps asking me when he's going to high school.  I tell him that if I have my way, he'll never go to high school. Still working on that formula to keep him little forever!

How about your little ones?  Anyone else have a little guy or gal who started their first day of Kindergarten recently?  Share your (sob) story with us!

Okay. . .Call Off the Search Party. . .

I'm alive and well.  I know, I know. . I shouldn't have scared you all like that, I'm sorry!  I had taken a short absence from my little ole blog to take care of some personal things.  Okay, that sounded alot better than reality.  In truth, I started having tons of stuff piling up on me at once and I quickly found myself buried underneath a mountain of. . .well. . .stuff. 

I definitely didn't forget about you all, though.  Oh no, no!  I thought about you all very often.  Every morning, I would wake up and say to myself "I really need to write a blog post".  And then I would hit "Snooze".  Every night, I would think to myself "I really need to write a blog post".  And then I would pass out.  From exhaustion, not booze.  No, booze might have made it more bearable.  It might have made it more interesting.  But, no. . .I just passed out from exhaustion. 

I'm back now. . .and I see that I've gained a few extra followers in my absence.  What an awesome surprise!! 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Thrifty Thursday: Dressing Kids on the Cheap

**I have to apologize in advance for the length of this post.  It seems that I'm somewhat passionate about this topic so once I get started, I just can't seem to stop!  I hope you don't fall asleep while reading!**

It's no secret that kids are expensive.  Keeping them in clothes that fit when they grow like weeds is a difficult task!  However, there are ways to get good brand names clothes, in excellent condition, without buying new and spending a fortune.  Of course, it requires a little bit of planning.  My system isn't necessarily going to be everyone's answer but it works well for me.    Kids grow and they tend to grow fast.  Luckily, my son is past that stage of having to buy clothes in a different size every few months like when he was an infant.  However, he's at the age where he wears out clothing quite quickly.  He's a boy.  Boys are active.  And tough on EVERYTHING.  Including their clothes. 

First and foremost, you've got to know what you've got and what you need.  I typically write out a list of what items I'm going to need for each season.  I usually do this at least a year in advance and my list is pretty similar from year to year.  For example, my list for Tyler's fall clothes looks something like this:

  • 8-10 pairs of underwear
  • 8-10 pairs of socks (I always buy white socks and usually the same brand of white socks so that they can be matched up easily after doing laundry)
  • 5-7 pairs of jeans
  • 1 pair of khakis
  • 1 pair of black cordouroy pants
  • 1 pair of brown/tan cordouroy pants
  • tennis shoes
  • 1 pair black shoes
  • 1 pair brown shoes
I don't usually have to define a set number of shirts because almost any top I buy will match at least one of the pairs of pants above.  That's where knowing what I've already got on hand comes in handy. 

What I do is write out the list and keep it in my day planner (which fits in my purse and goes everywhere with me) so that I always have it on hand when shopping.  I hit the stores at the end of the seasons when everything is on sale.  If I can get clothes on deep clearance from Gap, Old Navy, Childrens Place, Ralph Lauren, or other brand name stores then I'll buy clothes a size or two bigger than what he is currently wearing.  Then, I start marking off what I've bought on my list.  I store everything in a Rubbermaid tub that sits in the bottom of his closet.  However, I would venture to say that only 30-40% of Tyler's wardrobe is new and comes directly from a retail store.  Most of his clothes come from yard sales, thrift stores or consignment sales. 

I will preface this by saying that my son is always dressed in great condition brand names clothes and shoes.  Goes hand in hand with that champagne taste on a beer budget mentality that I have.  I am extremely lucky enough to live in an area where yard sales happen pretty much March through October so there's never a shortage of yard sales to surf.  I also happen to LOVE the activity of yard sale surfing so it's not like it's an inconvenience for me.  I will surf Craigslist on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays to find yard sales in my area that mention that they will be selling kids clothes.  Good yard sale ads will define what gender/sizes the clothes are and then really good ads will preview what kinds of brands will be sold.  However, if the ad doesn't say, I will email the poster and ask.  Many people will respond and that helps me to determine whether or not that sale needs to be added to my Saturday morning plan.  Now, I don't go to yard sales every Saturday.  Not even close.  Out of the four (most months!) Saturdays in a month, I probably only go to yard sales one Saturday a month.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  I have found some of the best deals on clothes for myself and my son at yard sales.  For example, for Tyler, I found a North Face jacket for $3, Rainbow sandals for $2, GAP Jeans for $.50 a pair and a Ralph Lauren button up for $1.  I found a Brand New with Tags BCBG sweater (still had price tag of $158 attached!) for myself for only $3!  My best ever deal was a fleece North Face pullover for myself for $.50-- FIFTY CENTS!!!  It was awesome!

Another avenue that I have for getting great brand name kids' clothes for cheap are consignment sales.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with consignment sales, they are sales where a bunch of different owners will get together and "lend" their items to the owner of the consignment sale or shop for sale.  Once the item sells, the owner will get a percentage of the sales price and the owner of the sale or shop will take their cut.  In my town, there are a bunch of different consignment sales that happen at least twice a year: usually in Fall and Spring.  My favorite consignment sale, Ring Around the Rosy, is having their Fall sale right now.  There are a couple of reasons that I like this sale so much:
  • They take a lot of consignors--200--where as other sales don't take quite as many consignors so their selections aren't usually as large.  RAR has a great selection of different sizes because they allow so many consignors. 
  • The Ring Around the Rosy sale is held over 4 weekends.  Most sales happen over only one day or one weekend.  With this sale being held over several weekends, it allows shoppers more flexibility in getting there to get a good deal and the owners of the sale typically put out new items each week. 
It is at this sale that I get the majority of Tyler's clothes.  I may shop throughout the entire year as I find great deals here and there from clearance racks at my favorite stores and then the gems that I find at yard sales, but it's at consignment sales where I round out the list of what I'm needing for the upcoming season. 

So, last week, when the Ring Around the Rosy sale opened for its first day, I headed to the sale with my list in hand and shopped my little heart out.  The deals that I find at these sales are absolutely amazing.  Rather than take my word for it, just check out some of the items I scored below.  In order to get the retail price, I went online and looked up exact or very similar items that are currently selling on each retailer's website and used that price for the full retail price. 


Brand New, Never Worn Sketchers black & yellow tennis shoes -- Retail Price: $37.00, I paid $5.50


Mossimo (Target) brand brown shoes -- Retail Price: $19.99, I paid $4.00


Lands End Snow Boots -- Retail Price: $44.50, I paid $3.00


Old Navy corduroy pants -- Retail Price: $19.94, I paid $3.00


GAP red hoodie sweatshirt -- Retail Price: $32.95, I paid $4.00


Gymboree shirt -- Retail Price $21.95, I paid $4.00

Overall, if I had paid retail price for everything, I would have spent $176.33.  But, by shopping at a consignment sale instead, I spent only $23.50.  See the difference?  Huge. 

Some of you might think that I'm nuts for putting my son in secondhand clothes.  I was there once.  Before I had my son, I was so completely snobby and thought that there was NO WAY that my son was ever going to wear anything second hand.  Oh boy those words tasted bitter when I had to eat them.  It wasn't long before I realized that kids grow so. extremely. fast.  Keeping up with their changing clothes sizes is a job in itself!  Keeping up with the expense that goes along with buying new clothes is really difficult on a limited budget.  I started looking into other options that would allow me to get Tyler the high quality, brand name, and really cute clothes that I wanted him to wear while minimizing the hit to my wallet.  I found that yard sales, thrift stores and consignment sales really are a gift!  Sometimes you have to dig, but there are treasures to be found! 

What ways do you have to get cute clothes cheaply?  Do you shop thrift stores or yard sales?  What awesome deals have you found?

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Weekend Goals Update

As promised (but still a little late--eek!), here is the update on how I did on my weekend goals list. 

  • Send out September Thirty One specials email (I'm a Consultant for Thirty One Gifts and I send out an email at the beginning of each month to my customers about the specials for that month)  DONE!
  • Blog Posts--get at least one post published and one post started for next week for my own blog and then get post written for the blog that I'm guest blogging for.  More on that to come.  Yes, I'm famous already. Mom, you should be insanely proud! I did better than I had expected on this one. . .I wrote three posts for my blog and my guest blogger spot!
  • Pay bills--I think the mortgage company likes it when I pay them regularly.  The rest of the companies seem to too.  I hate paying bills.  It's all adult-y and stressful.  Where's the fun?  DONE--It was painful and now I'm totally broke (Mom, SEND MONEY!) but it's done.  For now.  Until the 1st of next month.  Where's the fun in life??
  • mow the grass--front yard and back yard WOO HOO!!! 
  • Start planning Tyler's birthday party--Is there any way I can get out of that???--We've settled on a date, place, and somewhat of a guest list and menu.  Still a little fine tuning to go, but at least we've got somewhat of a plan.
  • Finish painting the office--2 walls of that damn (yes, I occasionally let it slip.  Sorry!) office have been painted for weeks MONTHS and it's high time it got finished.  I'm such a procrastinator.   Holy Ba-Jeezus I'm glad that's done!
  • Clean at least 1/2 of the office mess--my office is a total disaster.  As in, STUFF all over the floor.  The madness needs to stop.
  • Grocery shop--Irene helped me to clean my fridge and freezers. Now it's time to see if I can start filling them again.
  • Costco-need to get a dog bed.  Apparently, Pete thought it would be wise to eat his last one.  There are little bits of stuffing all around my room and an empty shell of what used to be a fluffy dog bed in the corner.  It's crazy business.
  • Homework for school
  • Sweep & mop the hardwood floors
  • Vacuum the carpet
  • Clean Tyler's room--I will have assistance with this or else the miniature man who lives in my house will start sleeping in the garage.  I keep telling him that we had a hurricane named Irene come through the neighborhood, not a Tornado named Tyler.  Geez. . . .
  • Clean the laundry room--the cat lives in there and he knows no boundaries when it comes to the litter box.  He doesn't exactly do his business outside of the box, but he likes to fling litter all over the floor.  That, and he's not exactly the neatest when he eats.  Therefore, there is a mess of litter, dry cat food bits, and wet food smears all over my laundry room floor.  Gross. 
I even accomplished some extra things this weekend!  Adding to my list of accomplishments for the weekend are:

  • laundry--mine and Tyler's
  • hooked up the plumbing for my kitchen sink after the new countertops were installed last week--technically, I didn't do this but I managed to talk someone into doing it for me.  I know nothing about plumbing.
While I still left a few things un-done, I feel very accomplished!  Since I didn't get my floors cleaned or the mess in the office cleaned up (not even close. . .painting made a much larger mess), I'm going to add those to my goals list for next weekend.  Stay tuned. .

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Wilmington

Oh gosh. . .In reviewing my monthly posts, I realized that I had completely forgotten to post a trip recap.  While Ty and I were on vacation down to my mom's beach house, we got to see and do some amazing things.  Rather than talk (write?) your ear off, I'll let the photos do the talking. 
















































There you have it. . . our vacation.  What vacations did you take this summer?  Did you get any great pictures? 

Friday, September 2, 2011

The downside to stockpiling. . . . :(

As some of you know, we had a Hurricane hit us in this area of Virginia.  Actually, she managed to do a number on the entire East Coast.  So, like a heinous Mother-in-Law, she left destruction in her wake.  Anyways, it was while cleaning up the aftermath of the storm that I found out (full force, I might mention) that there is a downside to stockpiling.  In fact, a very expensive downside. 

The hurricane knocked our power out. . .to be expected with any big storm, right?  Yeah, I thought so too.  What I wasn't prepared for was how long the power was actually out for.  It went out Saturday afternoon and didn't come back on again until Wednesday night.  Tyler, the dog, and I got through it all okay because my ex was very gracious and allowed us all to come over to his house and stay until my power came back on.  However, the massive amounts of stockpiled food in my freezer did not. 

Yep, the downside to stockpiling, as I found, is the fact that you can't always foresee or prepare appropriately to catastophes like hurricanes and power outages.  What was once a badge of honor and a running list of impressive savings quickly became a nauseating amount of money down the drain. 

Once the power had been off for a full 48 hours, I knew that there was little-to-no hope that I was going to be able to salvage anything.  So, I armed myself with some large trash bags and went to work clearing out the fridge and freezers.  The fridge wasn't really all that bad.  I think I only ended up throwing out some mayonnaise and a tupperware or two of leftovers that were in the fridge.  Most of my condiments made it out okay.  I had already taken the eggs and milk out of the fridge when we decided that we were going to head over and camp out with my ex.  Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the freezers.  All three of them. 

Overall, I was able to salvage a few different packages of meat from the bottom of my deep freezer and a few packages of (what used to be) frozen veggies (they were still cold, I figured they'd be fine if I refroze them) but most of the contents of each freezer ended up needing to be thrown away.  I would have taken pictures of it, but A) I didn't have my camera with me, and B) I don't think I would have been able to get a focused picture through the tears that were pouring down my face.  Loaves of bread, packages of frozen rolls, chicken stock, ice cream, frozen waffles and pancakes, 12 (yes, 12) frozen pizzas, packages of shredded cheese and cheese slices, frozen herbs, chicken breasts, steaks, pork tenderloins. . .I'm sure the list doesn't end there but it's starting to make me cry again.  It was awful.  Absolutely awful.

So, for anyone who ever wondered if there was a downside to getting food for pennies on the dollar, the answer is 'yes', there is a downside.  Does this mean I'll stop stockpiling?  No, I'll keep at my stockpile because out of the 5 years I've been stockpiling, this is the first (and I hope ONLY!) time that I've had something like this happen.  I save THOUSANDS of dollars each year by shopping and stockpiling the way I do so it's not worth it to me to stop stockpiling.  Plus, I would totally miss the thrill of finding the kind of deals that I find.  However, I plan to be more prepared the next time that I know a storm is coming.  I was completely naaive and thought that my power would for sure be back on within 48 hours.  Next time,  I won't wait so long.  Next time my power goes out, I'm giving it 4-8 hours to come back on and then I'm going to start moving my stuff if at all possible.  Or at least start putting it all into coolers and icing it down.  I'm still heartbroken to know that I had several friends who never lost power during the storm and the days afterward and they had plenty of freezer space.  I could have saved most of my stuff if I had known this and not been so sure that my power would come back on.  But, you live and learn, right? 

Goals for this weekend

To (attempt) to make up for my lack of thought provoking posts this week, I'm going to post my goals for things to get accomplished around my house this weekend.  I can't quite figure out if I'm doing this so that I feel like you guys can all hold me accountable or if I'm inviting you all to gossip about what a slacker I am when I fail to be able to mark off the items on my list.  However, it's a 3 day weekend and I'm REALLY hoping that I can manage to get the list totally done.  So. . .here goes:

  • Send out September Thirty One specials email (I'm a Consultant for Thirty One Gifts and I send out an email at the beginning of each month to my customers about the specials for that month)
  • Blog Posts--get at least one post published and one post started for next week for my own blog and then get post written for the blog that I'm guest blogging for.  More on that to come.  Yes, I'm famous already. Mom, you should be insanely proud!
  • Pay bills--I think the mortgage company likes it when I pay them regularly.  The rest of the companies seem to too.  I hate paying bills.  It's all adult-y and stressful.  Where's the fun?
  • mow the grass--front yard and back yard
  • Start planning Tyler's birthday party--Is there any way I can get out of that???
  • Finish painting the office--2 walls of that damn (yes, I occasionally let it slip.  Sorry!) office have been painted for weeks MONTHS and it's high time it got finished.  I'm such a procrastinator.
  • Clean at least 1/2 of the office mess--my office is a total disaster.  As in, STUFF all over the floor.  The madness needs to stop.
  • Grocery shop--Irene helped me to clean my fridge and freezers. Now it's time to see if I can start filling them again.
  • Costco-need to get a dog bed.  Apparently, Pete thought it would be wise to eat his last one.  There are little bits of stuffing all around my room and an empty shell of what used to be a fluffy dog bed in the corner.  It's crazy business.
  • Homework for school
  • Sweep & mop the hardwood floors
  • Vacuum the carpet
  • Clean Tyler's room--I will have assistance with this or else the miniature man who lives in my house will start sleeping in the garage.  I keep telling him that we had a hurricane named Irene come through the neighborhood, not a Tornado named Tyler.  Geez. . . .
  • Clean the laundry room--the cat lives in there and he knows no boundaries when it comes to the litter box.  He doesn't exactly do his business outside of the box, but he likes to fling litter all over the floor.  That, and he's not exactly the neatest when he eats.  Therefore, there is a mess of litter, dry cat food bits, and wet food smears all over my laundry room floor.  Gross. 
So, that's the plan.  Do you think I'm crazy?  Should you all start taking bets on how many things that I accomplish?  I will make a very concerted effort to post an update on Tuesday as to how well I did over the weekend.  Wish me luck!

No Thrifty Thursday post this week

Y'all (yes, we say that in the South!), this week has been really hard on me.  Between having no power and staying at my ex's house (THAT was a test of of my patience in and of itself!), getting my kitchen countertops replaced (more to come on that. . oh yeah, it happened without power), school, work,. . . .the list goes on. . .I just didn't have time to get a post put together.  I considered just throwing something together real fast so that I could say that I had followed through on my TT committments, but that would be short changing my readers.  And I just don't want to do that.  If I'm going to post, I want it to be meaningful, or funny, or . . . .worth the read?  Does that make sense? 

Anyways, I promise that I'm trying to get everything back up and running and should be up to the challenge soon.  Forgive me?

Thursday, September 1, 2011

August Challenge Update and September Challenge

First things first: August Update.  This is painful.  I haven't actually posted the last two weeks of August's challenge update because I fell off the wagon in a BIIIIG way.  While I was on vacation, I clearly lost sight of what my goal was and just stopped tracking my spending.  To make matters worse, I started deviating from the "essentials only" rule and found myself making little frivolous purchases here and there.  Unfortunately for me, my budget, and this challenge, a little frivolous purchase here and there added up to a completely blown challenge.  I'm embarassed to admit that I fell so deeply into that hole that I'm not sure where the surface is again.  So, to try to make up for my abissmal failure of a challenge, I sentenced myself to some serious reflection time (I had plenty of time on my hands since the power was out!) to try to figure out what I could possibly to do get myself back on track.  Obviously, taking just a huge leap in one month wasn't the right formula to success.  So, that brings me to September's challenge. . . .

For the month of September, I have come up with a slightly different way to track my spending.  Instead of cutting myself off from all things "extra", I'm going to save each of my receipts in an envelope in my purse and each week, I'm going to enter each receipt into an Excel spreadsheet budget that I've already set up and each week, I will update what my weekly expenses were for that week.  I'm hoping that just the need to save the receipt, enter it into my budget, and then post it here will be incentive enough to not overspend on needless things.  But, actually getting my expenditures on paper (or on a computer screen.  . you know what I mean!) will help me to identify what areas I'm overspending in so that I can determine what my next steps should be.  For example, if I find that I'm spending too much money on eating out, then I can try to formulate a plan so that I always have lunches/dinners on hand so that I eat out less.  That sort of stuff. 

What about you?  What will you make your challenge this month?