DIY wrapping paper

Quick wrapping paper idea

Just a quick post today as Christmas comes closer and closer and the wrapping of presents are a must! So I do have ALOT of Christmas wrapping paper (there was this whole unsupervised trip to Costco last year that banned me from going to that establishment alone ever again), but sometimes its nice to be a little different. This idea came to me as something that could work for Christmas or birthdays. 

Needed: Comics - black and white or color (we stocked up on both over the last couple months)

Tape

Anything to add a little pizazz 

Step one: take item being wrapped and measure paper, if needed tape to pieces together to make larger.

Step 2: wrap present

Step three: Add embellishment if wanted such as ribbon or name tag. I ended up using some yarn I had lying around.

And the final product: This particular gift was a white elephant gift so I didn't add a name tag but I think that would be a nice added touch. 

Until next time! 

Bre

DIY cookie Christmas

DIY COOKIE MIX CHRISTMAS GIFT

On a budget? Want to still have a meaningful gift for a friend of family member? Like to bake or have a favorite cookie? Well if you answered yes to these questions then I've got a great project for you! 

What you will need to do: Firstly, find your favorite cookie recipe and gather all the dry ingredients! You will also need a clear jar of some kind to display the ingredient layers in. 

 Next measure out the dry ingredients and put them in the jars. I have a bunch of relatives and friends so I made a kind of assembly line for this process. I also found that using a funnel helped a lot contain the mess (although my husband says no matter what project I do in the kitchen it looks like a tornado went through).

Once the jars are filled the next step is to add the left over instructions and Christmas touch. For this part I grabbed some tissue paper and bags from my stash. I also typed up the full recipe for the recipient's future along with the abridged version of the recipe for the jars. 

I cut the recipes to size and punched a hole on the top. 

I also upcycled the bow and elastic from the original jar to attach the recipe card. 

Finally I took the full recipe and a little festive ribbon, rolled the recipe and tied it with the ribbon. 

 After placing them in bags with the tissue paper and a gift tag I think this is a fun inexpensive gift for any family or friend.

As always please feel free to follow me on instagram for more up to date posts on mine and the hubby's lives! 

Until next time

-Bre

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hello family and friends! It's a week before Christmas and we have been working like crazy to decorate our house to match the season. However, we have only lived here for two years and on a budget, so we've taken a simplistic budget approach to christmas this year. So here's the deal/goal I'm going to try and make a post every day up to Christmas with our budget Christmas works. Things like awesome but budget friendly gift ideas, decoration idea, projects etc. But for starters here's a look at some of the Christmasy area of our big house!

Since the hubby made the enormous table downstairs, my large Christmas tree spot was taken so we moved the "people" (you'll see below) tree upstairs to the loft.

We don't have a mantle of any kind or a fire place so I got this cute stocking holder

This beautiful card holder was made by the hubby and will be featured in a post later this week!

This awesome table was made by my hubby and cost close to nothing to decorate!

The tablecloth was a gift from a neighbor. the candles and cancel holders were wedding gifts. The centerpiece was $3 from goodwill. The antlers were graciously provided by the desert. And the ribbon cost $1 from Michael's last year. 

Each year I get a "pet tree" I make sure to load it up with unbreakable items such as plastic ornaments and ribbon and burlap. I also made the tree skirt last year and since its pretty big it does a great job of covering up the water bowl for the tree so the pets can't add to their water bowl collection. I also made the tree topper bow last year for about $3. 

Did I mention it's a PET tree?? complete with a coal treats, squeeky elf and yule log from barkbox.com 

Santa even is in the bathroom!

This is our "table for two" Christmas table 

Our cats even joined in the festive decor :)

Last but not least for those of you who follow my instagram you will recognize this advent calendar. (I was bad this year and didn't refill it.) It came with a daily family advent calendar book that me and the hubby like to read. It is however pretty funny as we don't have kids and when the book suggests including the children in the nightly activity my four legged children rarely cooperate. 

So as for tomorrow's post I all be starting some of the money saving christmas ideas! Until tomorrow! 

-Bre

Price matching Pays

So I've been MIA on this for a couple weeks, but for good reason! Firstly I needed some R&R and spent some time with family (with out my camera). Second, the wonderful hubby has been under the weather. :( And now he has strep! (Everyone avoid my house!)

So anyway, I have been still doing the whole meal plan, clean the house, organize, house wife thing. I've even started working on the rooms in my house (Post on home stuff soon!) And in this time I've been really trying to stick to our budget of $100.00 a week... I have to be honest and say I've gone over each week, but only by like $5-$10. BUT!! and  BIG BUT!! I've been saving money consistently!

I thought I'd share my savings since my last post where I talked about how I saved money. In those three weeks I've started being a little more aggressive with my coupons (still not too extreme where the whole shopping trip is free) and have made it a goal to get something free each time!

Three weeks ago I saved $32.56 making it a 27% savings and got a free shampoo for my husband, I also did some retail therapy and got an entire outfit; shoes and dress, for less then $3!!:

Last week I saved $42.79 with a 26% savings and got a free shampoo for both me and the hubby, free deodorant AND a free air freshener :)

Then there was this week... I went a little crazy I have to admit... So this week I had a total savings of $143.73 making a 57% savings and here is my freebie list:
12-Herbal Essence Shampoos/Conditioners
8-Head and Shoulders Shampoo/Conditioners
4- Tampax Boxes
2- Cheerios Boxes
1- Honey Bunches of oats Box
1- AXE deodorant

So Yay me! now I don't have to buy shampoo or Cereal for a while! The point I really want to make is price matching. I know people hate going to Walmart but I love it. If I had gone to all the stores where I would have gotten free stuff I would have had to go to 4 different stores! And I live far so I wouldn't be saving too much money if I had to fill up on gas today! With a little bit of work and lots of math (mainly after buying to calculate my savings) I now have a little stock pile that I won't have to buy for a while.

Now, some people may say, but if they are on sale later, why not get them again?! Well, like I said in my last post, I only get what I know what I will use and need. I may have a nice sized house, but I don't want to break down the guest room I'm working on (POST COMING SOON!) to make a stock pile room like you see on TV. I refuse to be a hoarder. So, I'd rather share my knowledge and help others save money too!

If you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment and I'll try to set you in the right direction! I'm still new to this too and we can do this together! And as always you can always follow my Instagram for more up to date saving trips and the occasional meal and lunch posts!

Nothin' wrong with Walmart

It's been about a month and a half since I left my job and took on being a housewife. My house is slowly getting in order (that will be a later post) and my life is starting to get its own daily rhythm. Because of my husband's job, our weekends lay on Tuesday and Wednesday; this also happens to be the days we go and run all our errands. I will make a little post later about how I organize my week and what tasks I do each day, but today I thought I'd make a post about how I've been saving money on food each month!

So when I was working, my hubby and I were on opposite schedules and didn't eat together very often. We didn't shop together and would usually buy food for ourselves, make the food, throw the leftovers in the fridge, forget about it, and throw it out. When we did eat together we would usually go out to eat because neither of us planned to make anything and couldn't just hop next-door to the store (we live 20-25 min away from the closest grocery store by freeway...aka we use the term "going into town" because we live far enough out in the boonies). So I'm kind of sad to confess that we were easily spending at or over $200 a week... for just two of us!! And to make things worse a TON of food was going to waste.

Since I've been home I revamped our budget and set a $100.00 a week budget for food. Its really around $80.00 with $20 saved each week for a monthly Costco trip/ good meat sale stock up trip. I'm happy to say we have been doing that and pretty successfully too! So here's how it happens:

All my local stores start their weekly sales on Wednesdays so my Sundays (remember earlier how I said my husband's weekends are Tuesday Wednesday?) start with me getting the sales papers in the mail and writing down all the sale items (that we would actually eat). The local papers I get are Sprouts (DOUBLE ADD WEDNESDAYS!!), Safeway, Frys, Bashas, and Albertsons. I also price match El Super and Food City but have to look online for their adds because they don't get sent to my house.

I then open up an Excel spread sheet (or Numbers on Mac) and type up all the sales were I keep track of the Item, Price, Quantity allotted to sale (gallon/each/ per pound), Place of sale and a area in the store I'll find the item (meat, dairy, produce, etc...). Then I alphabetize and organize the items by category just to make my life easier at checkout when I have to find the items I price match.  I recently added an ending column: Walmart Price because in the last few months I know I've been saving money, I just wanted to keep track of HOW MUCH???? I wanted to know if I was saving a couple bucks or if this amount of work is actually worth it and I was saving ALOT of money. So I've kept track of my savings for the last two weeks so far. 

Once I have my list of sales I then sit down and decide what to make for the week based off the sales and what I have on hand. The first few weeks I did this, I planned a different meal each day and still found that I was throwing out too much food. I had to remember there are only two of us and most recipes feed 4-6 people. I found that having at least two leftover days balances that. Also I have to note I plan DINNER meals only. I do make a shopping list for breakfast items I need and what things my hubby needs for lunch (items on the sale list as well, but those are stock up items so I usually buy lunch and breakfast stuff 1-2 times a month) but don't include it on the meal plan list for dinners. I end up eating dinner leftovers throughout the week too for my personal lunches. :) 

I recently started coupling (by recently I mean I cut them today haha) but I by no means am going to be an extreme couponer! Sure I would love free stuff, but I only cut coupons for items I would actually buy. Also don't let the pile fool you; on this last trip I only used one coupon, but I'm saving the little pile in hopes that the items will be on sale and I can pair them up for additional savings!

Once I have my sale list/shopping list I head out to Walmart, that's right I go to Walmart. Don't get me wrong I would love to go to each individual store and get all the fresh stuff but I live in the boonies and when we go into town (see told you we use that term!) I'd prefer a one stop shop after planning sales and meals for a couple hours. I grab my stash of Thirty-One bags, (super durable canvas bags that eliminates the flimsy, not to mention non eco friendly plastic bags) my sales paper and list and head to the store. Walmart price matches all competitor add prices So when I check out I just go off my list and tell them the sale price. I bring the adds with me (even though Walmart does not require you to have the adds with you at checkout) just in case there are questions (there have been sometimes.. usually when I find an amazing sale on meat). As I go around the store I have also started to write down the Walmart price to see at the end how much I really save. 

Once I get home I put everything up and collapse from the exhaustion of shopping. Staring last week I was curious to see how much I was actually saving so now when I get home I sit down and go through the receipt and my table of Walmart's original prices to see the difference. Soooo, last week I bought 86 items and saved $52.53. 32% savings! Not bad considering last weekend I had my wonderful mom and dad come for the holiday and fed four people for three of the seven days. And this week, I bought 44 items and saved $42.16, that's 40% savings! Now the fun will be when I get to the end of the month and I can see how much/ the percentage of saving for the month is!

To follow future savings of mine and to see what meals I make through the week (my hubby's lunches and our dinners.. and the occasional breakfast) follow my INSTAGRAM. Also if you have any of your own tips please let me know! I love saving money and meal planning!