Fun Items for Frugal Dress Up Play

There is a quick and easy way to entertain your preschooler for at least half an hour or so. Let him or her play dress up! Preschoolers tend to love this activity because it lets them “become” someone else for a while. Dress up is a great opportunity for using one’s imagination. Here are some frugal ideas for dress up play. Frugal Dress Up Ideas for Preschoolers Old Costumes Previously worn Halloween costumes are great for playing dress up in. Your child can become a princess, a superhero, or both in the same day. Reuse the Halloween costumes that your … Continue reading

Frugal Ways to Entertain Your Kids this Summer

Summer vacation is a time that most children excitedly look forward to. It is easy to see why. They get a whole lot of free time! Parents are going to need some frugal ideas for fun activities that will entertain their children. Here are a few ideas to try. Bubbles Little kids cannot get enough of bubbles! You can pick up small bottles of bubbles, complete with bubble wand, from a dollar store. Check the dollar racks at Target, too. Parents can sit down outdoors and blow bubbles that their toddlers will chase. Older kids can blow bubbles on their … Continue reading

Frugal Tips for Summer Activities

Summer vacation is a great time for families to go out and do things together. Visiting amusement parks, dining out, and staying in hotels can end up costing a lot of money. Travel expenses can quickly add up, too. Here are some frugal tips that will help your family enjoy summer vacation without having to go into a lot of debt. Pack some snacks. Make use of your child’s lunchbox this summer. It is the perfect container for easy to eat snacks that your family can bring along on car trips. Instead of stopping the car at the nearest fast … Continue reading

The Most Frugal Cities of 2013

How frugal is the city that you live in? Are you living in a city filled with spendthrifts or savers? Take your best guess as to the answer to those two questions before you read this blog. You might be surprised about which cities Coupons.com found to be the most frugal places in the United States for 2013. Coupons.com is an extremely popular website. It is where coupon clippers go to find awesome coupons for groceries, household items, and more. Using coupons is a great way to cut down on your grocery bill. If you are serious about saving money, … Continue reading

Does It Cost More for a Homemade Lunch?

I started out making homemade lunches for my first-born child for financial reasons. It just seemed cheaper that way than to buy lunch from the cafeteria. Years later, all of my kids still pack their lunch bags every day. They actually prefer it because they don’t have to spend time waiting in a cafeteria line or trying to decide on food they might not like. A friend of mine agrees with the preference but not with the cost. She says she winds up spending more money when her kids pack a lunch compared to when they buy it at school. … Continue reading

Frugal Is as Frugal Does

Life may be a like a box of chocolates, but for the really frugal minded, those chocolates were half price and purchased with a coupon. Pick a random group of 25 people and ask them what it means to be frugal and how they make choices to be good stewards of their money. Chances are that you will get a lot of different answers all across the board concerning frugality and saving money. It tends to mean different things to different people. I recently read an article in a national women’s magazine about a family that decided to be frugal, … Continue reading

Frugal Friends are Priceless

If you surround yourself with frugal friends, saving money will be easy. Yesterday, after the town parade and free hot dogs and games, my family headed over to an area attraction that was sponsoring free admission for the day. The promotion wasn’t widely advertised. It wasn’t mentioned on the website or put on any community calendars, so not too many people knew about it. Thanks to a faithful frugal friend, though, who alerted me to the event, my family of five was able to enjoy the afternoon, which included a free tour, a narrated tram ride, and time in “the … Continue reading

Getting More Bang for Your Hotel Buck

Is there anything more irritating to a frugal traveler than having to pay hundreds of dollars for a single hotel room that you only have access to for less than 24 hours? In many cases, hotels are cutting corners even more by pushing back check-in time to 4 p.m. and moving up check-out time to 11 a.m. What a rip-off. Fortunately, some hotels are offering budget-conscious guests a reprieve by allowing for later check-out times on Sunday morning.  For example, Westin Hotels & Resorts recently debuted a “Make Monday Better” deal for travelers looking to extend their weekend stay.  The program … Continue reading

Invest Your Time Wisely

“Time is money” is an old saying that is meant to convey the urgency of rushing ahead because any time wasted could be time spent earning money. Many times in our frugal lifestyles, we trade off time in order to save money, such as cooking from scratch instead of going through the fast food line, taking out the time to create a grocery list and clip coupons before shopping, etc. Most of the time these are good choices and have a secondary benefit. The time I spend hanging laundry means saves some money, but it also means that my kids … Continue reading

Have Fun Repurposing School Supplies

Forget about packing lunches; unpacking my kid’s backpack on the last day of school has got to me the worst mom job ever. The sheer volume of crud that is shoved into that Scooby bag is mind-boggling.  While I’d love to dump the contents of the entire bag into the trash, I am far too frugal to let even the smallest pencil stub enter the garbage if it can serve a purpose somewhere in our home. If you are looking to save money this summer, don’t give into the temptation to dump your child’s old school supplies.  Rather, sort through … Continue reading