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Frugal Finds

Tuesday Tidbit

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New Trader Joe’s discovery thanks to my friend, Janet!

Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant & Garlic….it’s great on all sorts of sandwiches, especially turkey and avocado! I have started using it in place of mayo. I love mayo on my sammies and prefer to use the full fat stuff rather than the light, but this new “wonder condiment” totally gives the old white goo favorite a run for it’s money.

According to TJ’s it’s a “seasonal” item, so if you try it and LOVE it like me, then be sure and grab an extra jar or two for when they don’t carry it. You will miss it on your ‘wiches once you introduce yourself to it!

Here’s the breakdown per Tablespoon:
Mayo 100 cal, 11 g fat
Spread 15 cal, 0.5 g fat

I’ll save the mayo calories for my tuna or egg salad!

Just For The Record…

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…my fake Ugg boots (“Fuggs”) that I purchased from Ross for $16.99 kept my feet perfectly dry & warm during our trip to the snow last weekend! I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had fallen apart after trudging through at least a foot of snow, BUT….

I now want a real pair. I bought the cheapo pair first because I wasn’t sure if I was Ugg-wearin’ material (with a blog called flipflopfollies and all) but I LOVE them and can’t wait to graduate to my first “real” pair!

Can’t decide between the classic camel color or a nice chocolate brown pair………hmmmmm?

Maybe one of each.

Birthday Invites ~ 5 cents each!

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For Elliott’s 1st Birthday we spent almost $80 on her invitations! Eighty Dollars! Wow…..that was ridiculous! I ordered them from Polka Dot Design and had THEM print them off for me! Duh! Never again!

For her 2nd birthday I ordered the invites from Polka Dot Design again, but printed them my damn self! Still, I spent too much.

I vowed never to do that again and just make them myself based on the party theme. BIG SAVINGS and fun too!

Holden is turing 3 next month and I’ve been on the hunt for some cheapo blank note cards that I can feed into our printer. Voila! At Michael’s I found a couple packages in the $1 section that were marked down to 3/$1 – 33 cents each for 8 cards! With my 20% off coupon, I got them for 26 cents a pack!

I picked up some outer space stickers ($1 bin @ Target) to go with the theme for embellishing the inside, wrote up the wording, formatted it, downloaded a few free fonts, and printed them off. Seriously, I will never buy fancy schmancy invites again.

Here’s the front of the cards:

No, they’re not very outer spacey, but I liked that they were blue…going with blue & silver color scheme.

Here are the envelopes that I doctored up with some rubber stamps:

Easy peasy!

Here is the inside of the invite:

It’ll cost me over 7 times more to mail them than it did to make them!

Hammer Time!

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I’ve been wanting to do some sort of photo gallery in our stairwell. Something to “cover up” the white walls…..they’re killin’ me! I don’t like white walls, but since we’re renting, there really isn’t much I can do….I guess I could get the OK to paint from the property management peeps, but since I also don’t love to paint, I will just live with the white walls while we’re here and try to spice them up a little. I haven’t wanted to hang too much, but since I don’t know how long we’ll be here, I wanted to make the place as homey as possible.

So, I was at my second home last week (hint: red bulls eye) and came across a set of 10 black frames in differing sizes for $6.24! (marked down from $24.99!!) They even included some layout suggestions on the box. The frames are lightweight which is great so I was able to use tiny nails and didn’t have to drive big nails into the wall. Yesterday I grabbed a hammer, some nails and a measuring tape and went to town.

But the frames themselves were a little TOO simple ~ I needed something else to liven them up a bit…

At Michael’s I found some black letters with little hooks on the back for $1.00 each. I had a coupon for 20% off so they came to 80 cents each! So, for an add’l $3.20, I was able to complete my gallery and be pretty pleased. For a total of $9.44 (not including tax or the cost of the photos) I created this:

I’m pretty impressed.

Now, I am SUPER DUPER anal about picture hanging. Must. Use. Level. It was hard for me to kind of “eyeball” this project. What I did was get a large piece of paper from Elliott’s easel, layout the frames in the order I wanted them, traced the frames, hung the paper on the wall with tape, hammered the nails into the wall through the paper and then removed the paper before hanging the pics. This worked pretty well.

I am constantly going to be on the lookout for crooked frames here since that is another one of my pet peeves! But all in all, I think it turned out OK for a temporary fix! Now I just need to find four more of my favorite pics to complete the gallery…shouldn’t be too hard.

First “crafty” project of the year….cheap & successful. Can’t beat that!

Frugalicious!

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Last Spring we discovered Golden Spoon!

All of a sudden Pinkberry and Red Mango took back seat.

Golden Spoon may not be as probiotic friendly as Pinkberry and the others, but they have all sorts of fancy flavors, the majority of them being fat free!

Check out their website here!

Jay took the day off today and after a trip to The Picture People and Rubio’s, we stopped at G.S. for a quick treat before naps!

Missed out on the Gingerbread flavor today, but Jay & I shared Egg Nog and St. Nick’s Mint (my holiday fave!)

Being the frugalista I am, I love punch cards! That is one little extra that Golden Spoon has. This thing fills up QUICK over the Summer months!

I was happy that today put me at my FREE yogurt on our next visit! A little all around guilt-free treat in our future.

If you haven’t tried G.S. yet, I hope there is one in your area. Go in and check it out and get yourself a punch card ~ you’ll have your “free” one in no time.

Merry Christmas to Me!

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So, at the holidays you’re generally supposed to over tip your housekeeper, gardener, babysitter, etc., right?

Well, it dawned on me that I could sure use a tip or a little extra something special this holiday season…

It gets pretty chilly here in the semi “high desert” Santa Clarita area. I have a nice black herringbone-type coat, a lime green trench coat, a short black trench, and a yellowish Spring trench…

I needed a festive red coat for the holidays!

Coats last for years so I justified the purchase that way. I am a total bargain shopper so I knew I wasn’t about to drop $200 on a cute red coat.

Then I spotted one at Ross for $24.99!!! Exactly what I was looking for and it even has a little extra pizzazz ~ some built in sparklies….perfect for the holidays! I LOVE IT!

Seriously? $24.99? That is like a “disposable coat” price if coats were disposable!

I know that I will get several good years out of it. Fortunately here in So Cal I may only wear it a handful of days (not rubbing it in!).

coat

I am so happy with my new purchase! Isn’t is SO cute?

Can you see the little bits of “bling”? I LOVE IT!

I look forward to wearing it this weekend when we take a walk through Wakefield Wonderland ~ the super pimped out court in our area!

What have you treated yourself to this holiday season?

Hope it’s something nice because you deserve it! XOXO

Confession

OK, I have to spill the beans…

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on my top from Jay’s Holiday Party!

I’ve been embarrassed to divulge where it came from…

About 4 hours before the party I ran to Wal-mart to pick up a few odds and ends and was walking past the Women’s clothing section. Some $5 workout shorts caught my eye. As I was checking those out, this gorgeous aubergine top came into view. I thought, “Hmmmm, this is kinda cute and more of what I was looking for.” Checked the tag and, it too, was $5. Seriously??

Sssoooo, yes, I wore a $5 (Lord only knows what material it is) top to Jay’s party. I am amazed that it is still in one piece and I may actually be able to wear it again!

Moral of the story…if you run into Wal-mart for cough drops, keep your eyes peeled because you just don’t know what you might find!

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Check Out These Beauties

gold

Aren’t they gor-ge-ous? I cannot walk past a cheap pair of Havaianas and not bring them home with me. (I take that back…I did it once at TJ Maxx. Still regretting it.)

These were $7.99 at my local Ross. They also had them in a breathtaking metallic blue, but not in my size. Bummer for me, great for the bank account!

A festive pair of gold flip flops ~ just in time for the holidays!