I was sitting here talking tonight to a friend in messenger and we was talking about being frugal. Well we always see samples, coupons but always for the same old thing. Which is good I mean household cleaning, food so forth. Now I am going to put you all to the test. I am going to list some things I don't see frugal to often and I want you to tell me what you do to get these items as frugal for your family as possible.
1. Towels, washcloths, sheets, blankets
2. Furniture
3. Decorating needs
4. School Supplies
5. Appliances
6. Toys
7. Dishes
8. Winter heating
9. Summer cooling
10. Entertainment
Do you have any other saving tips for items not mentioned? You can't include the common sample items or food items.
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Comments: 55
For heating and cooling we have a program called LIEAP...I assume it's everywhere. You apply for help on your bill...they help some in the winter and then in the summer. Other ways are just to make sure you are more energy efficient in your home even if that means covering windows in winter with blankets or plastic.
We just bought a really nice couch at the Salvation Army for just $25...but yard sales are great for furniture.
School supplies are easy this time of year. Wal Mart has a nice selection cheap...places like Office Max (where I got 3-24 ct boxes of crayons, 3 pairs of scissors and 2 packages of erasers today for a total of $1.21), Walgreens etc, change their cheap specials each week.
We also have a backpack program here for those in need that provides a backpack and all needed supplies from the list free. (This year my grandson and granddaughter are adopted by the Police Dept and get to shop wal-mart with an officer, not only for supplies but also clothing)
I never knew police department adopted kids for school supplies how wonderful!
School supplies - I shop at Target & Walgreens & use the coupons at Walgreens.
also found things for around the house...throw pillows, pictures & things. sometimes you can find coupon codes for free shipping, too. :)
2. Furniture - shop the holiday sales, like memorial day sales, take advantage of so-long no interest (and pay it off by the time the interest kicks in)
3. Decorating needs - search Target's clearance, they have some awesome decorating items and the put all of last season's stuff on clearance
4. School Supplies - walgreens coupons (19 cent packs of paper, pencils, etc)
5. Appliances - see furniture answer
6. Toys - shop clearance sections, also sometimes the toy companies put coupons on coupon.com you can use
7. Dishes - i think dishes are pretty cheap actually, shop flea markets, yard sales, etc for dishes
8. Winter heating - keep the heater low and use blankets
9. Summer cooling - walk around naked hahaha I don't have a real answer for this one.
10. Entertainment - buy an entertainment book for your area, many bogo coupons
For toys, set up a group with other mothers and have it maybe once a month and exchange toys. That way it's a new toy to the child who gets it, and you don't have to throw toys your kids no longer play with away.
school supplies - Staples has great deals in mid-summer ... NOW. Dollar stores often have great deals. Also, there's Oriental Trading - great for many things. I haven't used them in a while, but their quality used to be very good. (They also have decorative items for the home and gift items.)
decorative items (and many of your other categories) - thrift shops
2. Furniture - purchase high quality well constructed furniture that will last for years no to replace (hopefully)
3. Decorating needs - make do with what I have don't buy frivilous what-nots, as to rugs, drapes etc... buy well made and they last forever.
4. School Supplies - store coupons and sales
5. Appliances - shop around, compare prices, read reviews... don't buy cheap, but find deals that will deliver, install land haul off. If one is lucky, appliances won't need to be replaced often if at all. The fridge is the only appliance that I've had the most trouble with over time.
6. Toys - don't buy them
7. Dishes - Garage sales!
8. Winter heating - set thermostat low, winterize
9. Summer cooling - only use AC when heat is extreme and set at a higher temp
10. Entertainment - TV works
2. Furniture - Yard sales mostly. Although out last couch we bought at a store, however we got a floor model and got it for $2K less then it retailed.
3. Decorating needs - Yard sales, craft stores and things of that nature. I make a lot myself. I paint (a little) draw (a little) and do a lot of photography.
4. School Supplies - No kids, so I don't do this. However, CVS and Staples have great deals, and I usually go there for office supplies when they are on sale.
5. Appliances - These I would buy retail. Only because my house was built in 1905 and I believe the appliances we have were installed around that time. I would count my savings here on the energy savings.
6. Toys - no kids so I don't buy toys. However, I have 2 big dogs, and I get their toys on sale, clearance racks, things of that nature. They just destroy them anyway :-)
7. Dishes - I have not bought dishes in 6 years. But when I do next, they will come from a clearance center somewhere!
8. Winter heating - Wear a sweater lol. We keep the heat at 60 all winter. We just dress warm. The animals have gotten used to it as well. Our greyhound, which they said would never shed, has now developed a thicker winter coat. So its all good :-) We buy about $300 of oil a month, and that gets us through. This year though, I am going to fill my tanks in the summer while the prices are lower, so that I just have to 'top off' all winter.
9. Summer cooling - We rarely use an A/C. I dress lightly, and sit still lol. Its not the heat that gets me, its the humidity, which is what I use the A/C for more lately.
10. Entertainment - We watch a lot of movies at home. We tivo a lot, but I am considering getting that netflix box for $99, where you can download anything and watch it directly. I think that would save us mucho. We do not rent movies - if we do its once per year... we rarely go to the movies or out to eat. For the most part, our entertainment is outside with the dogs. They need to be out at least 1 hour per day to run around, so we take that time to play ourselves, frisbee, or catch, whatever we have on hand. This also keeps us in shape a little.
Great questions - I enjoyed this post!
Furniture ~ use craigslist or freecycle. Buying used will save you lots of cash.
Decorating needs ~ Home Goods is a great store for items like these. I sign up for stores websites so I get coupons for fliers in mail
School Supplies ~ use coupons and shop sales. I buy enough now to stock up for the year. ;)
Appliances ~ sales and coupons, I have never bought used but you could....
Toys ~ craigslist, clearance sales after Christmas. Also, swapping with friends is a great idea.
Winter heating ~ we use plastic over the windows that have curtains (mostly just in the bedrooms), the kids wear fleece pjs, lots of blankets. Last year I also sewed draft blockers (measured the windows length and made a snake like object and filled them with rags) and put them between our storm windows and normal windows.
Summer cooling ~ fans and open windows as much as possible
Entertainment ~ there is a $2 movie theater around here. The normal theater shows older movies for $1 at 10:30 on weekdays so sometimes the kids and I go to that. Slip in slides are great fun for cheap $6 at walmart.
For bigger furniture and appliances we either buy second hand or buy it when there's no interest for so many months, and then pay it off on time. Another option would be saving for it. Unless it was a true emergency, I wouldn't put it on credit card where I had to pay interest.
We try to stock up on school supplies at this time of year, too. We buy extras so that we won't have to buy any for the rest of the year.
Most of Elliott's toys that I've bought have come from the clearance section. :) He also has his fair share of toys from yard sales and a few from thrift stores. His clothes also generally come from the clearance sections or second hand as well.
Dishes...I don't know that I've ever actually bought dishes (aside from plastic ones for Elliott) so I'm not sure. We got three sets as wedding gifts and still use them, along with the various ones that I already had before we got married. My mom bought new dishes and gave me some old ones when I moved out the first time.
I'm not really all that frugal on the next two. I have to be comfortable, and that means that during the summer I keep it cool, even though it costs more money. My husband can't deal with too cool during the winter so we pay a fortune then, too.
School supplies I have always gotten at Staples and Walmart. Staples always has some killer deals starting at one cent and going up from there.
Furniture is not an issue for us. We had most of the stuff before we got married. We did, however, buy a new couch at a discount warehouse when we bought our house and went to Rooms To Go for our bedroom suit. Otherwise, we yard sale/thrift shop for stuff we might need.
Decorating, well, I had the majority of the stuff before we got married, and we have hit up the yard sales/thrift stores for everything else. Since we are eclectic, it matters not if it matches or not.
Appliances I would be buy from a reputable company and new. We had to buy a fridge when we bought our house, so we got a nice one from Lowe's. It is white because it was just plain cheaper than stainless. It is a side-by-side because that is what hubby insisted on and the one I REALLY wanted (freezer drawers on bottom) was WAY too expensive! LOL
Dishes, well, I paid full price for a set of Corelle at Walmart. But they are the sandstone color and I can easily find replacement pieces at The Shops on the Parkway strip mall in Blowing Rock if need be. Plus, they will last for a long time. (Longer than when I was a clumbsy kid dropping the dishes on the tarazo floor!)
Toys I tend to buy on clearance when I have the extra money. Many times I can find stuff at yard sales as well. I buy stuff at the end of the holidays when they clearance it for the next year.
We heat with natural gas and I keep the thermostat set at about 65-68 degrees. We have a gas fireplace as well, but I haven't bothered to use it. I figure if I am really cold and can't get warm, I have an afghan that my mom made me years ago and I cover up with that.
In the summer, I set the thermostat for the air conditioner at about 75-78 degrees. It depends on how hot I am for the day. I also run the ceiling fans in the living room and my bedroom. I will run the one in the back room and kitchen only when I am in there. The same way with the spare bedroom that the grandkids use. (My dog sleeps on my bed, hence the reason the fan in my bedroom stays on.) I eventually want to put in some kind of attic or whole house fan for extra savings, but I can't afford that just yet.
Entertainment has always been us buying books for me to read, audiobooks for my hubby to listen to while he driving and DVDs to watch. We have cut down on the DVDs. We have bought them at yard sales, thrift stores, flea markets, the $5 bin in Walmart, as well as new releases from Walmart or Target if we are in that town. We also have DirecTV and I watch a lot of movies on there. If it is something I want and it is showing on TCM without commercials, I will record it on my DVR.
For school supplies, I wait until after school starts back and they clearance them out...my son's not in school yet, so right now we just stock up on the art supplies.
I shop after season for clothes as well, and buy them for the next year. It's much easier to buy them 1 or 2 pieces at a time then to wait until he needs a whole wardrobe.
I keep coupons on me, and match them up with sales/clearance. I try to remember which stores sell which items for the best prices, which is especially useful on items like diapers and such, so I can buy them when they are cheapest.
I love freecycle and craigslist for this. Even thrift stores are awesome, I bought a coupons sheet sheet for my son of spiderman for 3 bucks. There were no stains or tears either.
Wish I could get James a spiderman sheet set that cheap. He wants his room done in Spiderman and Batman.
2. Furniture - second hand - mostly from family.
3. Decorating needs - What decorating? No such thing here.. we don't bother to decorate since there's not much TO decorate her (brown, brown, brown)
4. School Supplies - There's really one place to go: Walmart. Not much to choose from here. Walgreen's is here but it's always more.
5. Appliances - we got a new fridge from a state program. New oven after a gas leak (we switched to electric after that)
6. Toys - Some second hand some new.
7. Dishes - pretty much all second hand from family.
8. Winter heating - New furnace paid 10% of cost from a state program.
9. Summer cooling - Central air.
10. Entertainment - Cable and internet. Rarely rent. Even rarer do we BUY. We have a paid subscription to Pirates of The Caribbean online (we get gift cards at Best Buy) and will have one to Wizard 101 this week. This is for Gideon and I and it's family time, so we allow the cost.
If I need to buy these I will look at stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army first to see if they have any new items for cheap. These I can't buy used! If I can't find anything there I will shop online, looking for the most return in rewards and free shipping. It isn't worth it if you pay out in shipping the amount you saved.
2. Furniture
Always buy second-hand or ask around to see if anyone has anything to get rid of and Freecycle.
3. Decorating needs
Yard Sales, second hand, things lying around. The congratulations balloons we got from the birth of our daughter decorate one wall of her room. A shower curtain from Jason's mom was turned into her window curtain. Decorations from her birthday party are hung from her ceiling. All of her pictures were castoffs from other people (and are all cute!). Amara's entire room was done for free! Freecycle offers (we never make requests, just ask for the offers that might work for us).
4. School Supplies
CVS ECB deals! Mostly the school supplies what we need. But I got a backpack for about $5 and Z has been using the same lunchbox for years. Buying after the school year starts.
5. Appliances
Used if we can find them (though I'm re-thinking this one after going through our THIRD refridgerator in 6 years). If we have to buy new I will comparison shop and usually buy online using one of my reward programs.
6. Toys
Second-hand if possible.
7. Dishes
We went to a local fair where they were selling discontinued Pfaltzgraff items. We went on the last day when everything was marked at it's lowest. For $12 we got 4 coffee cups and 4 saucers, 4 bowls, 4 dinner plates and a serving platter all in the same pattern. Walmart has 6 packs of forks or spoons for a dollar each. Since those get lost at our house all the time it isn't worth it to buy the nice stuff.
8. Winter heating
Lots of blankets, co-sleeping (not heating the unused rooms). We use Liheap because we don't make much money.
9. Summer cooling
Spray bottles of water or wet washclothes cool you off and work even better if you sit in front of a fan. A little cheaper than running the a/c though it's more work.
10. Entertainment
Library, free events, mall walking, the park (all free!).
I get toys on clearance alot of times. I save them for holidays and birthdays.
I get school supplies when they are on sale during the summer and save them for birthdays and christmas. I also donate some to the school if I have enough money to afford that. Even if its some crayons the teachers sure appreciate it.