Three Frugal Things -- Hydrangeas & Basketweaving
1) I took my $1.99 thrifted ball of twine and got to work weaving a liner for this curb picked hanging basket. Did I delve into research to begin with a logical plan? Nope! I jumped right into the deep end, which is how I kind of live my life.
I figured no one was going to be viewing it from directly below, so it was okay if that part was less than perfect. You can see that I wrapped a piece of duct tape around the end to keep it from unraveling.
I lay a scrappy towel down to protect my vintage coffee table.
Unfortunately I ran out of twine before the project was complete, so I made do with a skein of twine-colored yarn that I picked up at the neighborhood cleanup event a few months ago. That area looks different, but I've faced it towards an area of the yard where no one ever hangs out. Make it do, bay-bee!
There's not a single natural fiber in this yarn, so it should stand up to the elements.
Lastly I lay the last of my Goodwill bins burlap across the inside and filled it with free Fred Meyer potting soil. I planted propagated spider plants and purple heart in the basket, which should fill in nicely. (The purple heart doesn't even need to be propagated!)
Now I have three entirely different baskets filled with exactly the same plants, which should present as a cohesive aesthetic.
And before you ask, yes -- my hands are ravaged from the twine. No pain, no gain!
2) I cut tremendous amounts of rosemary for someone in my Buy Nothing group, who's getting married over the weekend. She'll use it in her floral centerpieces, which makes me so happy!
I also gave her some some hydrangeas, as I clearly have enough to share.
Buy Nothing groups are pretty much the best thing that Facebook has to offer.
3) I'm listening to Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow, even though I read it just last year. The library's free Libby app makes it possible to instantly access almost every book.
Such an amazing read!
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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The bride has to be happy to have met you!!! Gorgeous Rosemary and hydrangeas!
1. I walked an hour while
I did my laundry at the laundromat at 6 a.m. laundromat cost me $4 today.
2. I, of course, fixed my breakfast and packed my lunch. I will have salmon salad on a bagel tonight. This one habit of seldom eating out has saved me thousands over the years and has often meant the resources to pay my mortgage, way back when I had one. Now a days it means being about to pay the d$&@ power bill.
3. I plan to go to the farmer’s market this evening for tomatoes.
I love that you shared your rosemary and hydrangeas with the bride to be. Good for her for looking for free options. Weddings are so ridiculously expensive. Her centerpieces will be very beautiful and fragrant.
I know you have an embarassment of riches at GWs and the bins, but you dont mention estate sales. Is there a particular reason?
I sold a college discarded dumpster lamp to a teacher at a Title 1 school (low income students) near me. I also gave her a fluffy white area rug for free, also dumpster picked, and offered her a bag full of school supplies that my kids are too old for. She was thrilled and I was thrilled to be able to give her bonuses from her purchase.
Used To Good to Go twice this week while on vacation and it was so much food! Love that app.
Too Good to Go is a wonderful app.
Wow! Gorgeous basket! Plus, I have serious hydrangea envy!!
I've eaten copious amounts of free blackberries.
I printed 20 copies for free at the library and picked up books for my grandchildren. Rode my bike to get there and back.
Eating copious amounts of cucumbers and tomatoes from my garden. We eat these every day of the summer and I never get tired of them. And it's pretty glorious to not have to shop for fruit or veg.
Got a refund on a shoe pocket thing that I'd ordered for my mother. The quality was appalling. Still working on optimizing her small space in assisted living. I've had to go over several days this week for medication issues (advanced heart failure requires a fine dance of medication). I get a cup of coffee from the lobby every time I go. I bring it home for dh to drink the next day.
I had my handyman remove a metering pump that was attached to the wall in my basement when he painted down there. My husband had used it for adding chemicals to the sprinkler system. It was no longer in use. I listed it on Ebay and it sold for $160. Crap out, money in.
I very much love your twined baskets and plants. Another idea for hanging plants that I tried (not my own idea) is to use a large metal colander. I have noticed them frequently available at thrift stores. They are perfect due to the good drainage holes and side handles for stringing macrame lines. I lined mine with moss. I got this idea from the baskets on a deck of a pizza place in Bellingham, Wa.
I love the colander idea! Sounds very easy and pretty. Thanks!
It's another cool day, very welcome.
Clear, too.
My car was looking like a leopard, only in reverse, light spots on black -- so I went through a car wash to get rid of the dirty spots. It was $5 for the basic wash, which is an excellent price around here.
I exchanged two books for three more at the library.
I washed a load of laundry, but it cost $3 instead of $2, because the first dryer I picked wouldn't start, but ate the money.
My stomach has been iffy today, so I've eaten very lightly.
I decided to keep the marbles I was hoping to sell, because there is no obvious winner in the batch, and eBay is inundated with marbles of dubious value. They look nice in a jar on one of my bookcase shelves, so that's where they'll stay for a while.
My pal TK came over this morning and we transformed the west-facing window that has been giving me fits for all the time I've lived here in this house. It was so hot last night that I tried sleeping in the den on the sofa. But we solved the problem today!
We had enough thrifted window film to do the job with some left over. After scrubbing the pane clean with store brand Windex, the first bottle for which was bought at an estate sale for 25 cents 16 years ago and has been continually refilled with big jugs of product, we applied the film. It had a clear backing that we had to take off, per instructions, and I saved this clear plastic stuff to recycle at H-E-B. (They take plastic bags, plastic wrap, dry cleaner bags, and other such items and remake it into their trash bags.) We discovered a squeegee in the box of secondhand window film so I can take the unused one we bought at Lowes back for a refund.
TK took and cut plywood and Pink Panther lavender-colored foam insulation to size, sandwiched the foam in between the wood, and we stuck it in the window. He screwed it to the sides of the window frame and I put back the thermal drapes just like they were before. That may sound easy but it took all morning.
From the inside, my bedroom looks the same but is many degrees cooler, as the sun hitting the window pane is not a factor anymore. From outside, the window film reflects the sun's rays but is a dark enough color so you can't see the plywood behind it.
The insulating materials we bought last night at Home Depot (TK doesn't like going to Habitat, it is across town and might not have what we needed) set me back about $100 and I had to pay him, and I don't recall what I paid for the thrifted window film (not much, probably not more than $5 or 6) so it was all under $250. It wasn't exactly cheap, but not as expensive as hiring a real contractor or putting in new windows. (The latter will have to wait until I win the Powerball, haha.)
I am already noticing my room is quite a bit cooler and not as noisy. The other window was left alone, it just has blinds and drapes covering it, so I have a view and a way to escape should there be a fire. Usually I keep the drapes closed so the 2 windows will match.
We removed the west window's blinds, and can use them in another bedroom. Same sized window. So that is another frugal win.
The only drawback is that the indoor TV antenna is not picking up some of the channels that it did when there was just the window glass; whether this is due to the weather or the new insulation, I'm not yet sure. (I had set it in the window, against the pane.) It will be sad if I can't receive Buzzr OTA subchannel anymore, bc I like Family Feud Canada a lot more than I like Steve Harvey's more risque version of FF. I also got a kick out of seeing Irene Ryan on Alan Ludden's Password, one of the few times I've seen her not dressed up like Granny Clampett. She was actually quite pretty IRL. And I sometimes enjoy the Southern Gospel music on the TV preacher Jimmy Swaggert's subchannel, even though I don't watch all the wild hollering and yelling, what they call "preachin'" and I call theatrics.
Meanwhile, Snuggles was a stinker today! For real: He decided TK and I weren't paying him enough attention and when we made him go outside, Mr. Snuggles Dog rolled in you-know-what --and later came in stinking to high heaven. So he got exiled outside again and he also got a soapy bath with the water hose this afternoon. Which he needed anyway.
Beautiful baskets!
I agree about Buy Nothing; I wouldn't have a Facebook account otherwise. Just yesterday, I requested and received two charging cables. My husband was planning to go to the store and I said, "Just give me a couple days. I bet someone will have them." Sure enough!
1. I hung my chenille bedspread outside to dry after washing it on the heavy duty cycle.
2. Our company couldn't come over for dinner due to a death in their family. DH and I will eat the food I cooked tonight and tomorrow night for dinner.
3. I went to my Kiva group at the indy bookstore.
4. On the way home I stopped off at the library to pick up a book I had on hold, The Subtle Pleasures of Indiscretion by my favorite cozy mystery writer Alexander McCall Smith. While there I also borrowed two recent copies of the New Yorker magazine.
5. It was nice to see lots of kids and their parents partaking of the childrens free lunch program on the library's lawn on this perfect New England summer day. SNAP benefits may be cut but it's good to see babies and kids still getting nutrition.
Hmmm, let's see what I can come up with.
1. Made pizza dough yesterday for the first time in months, totally forgetting that somehow, someone broke both of my [thrifted] pizza stones. I zipped over to the nearby thrift shop where I volunteer and found a round pizza pan for $1. It'll do until the thrift gods decide it's time for a new-to-me pizza stone.
2. The batch makes two pizzas, so "free" pizza again tonight.
3. I'm in a medical study. Today's visit came with free parking and eventually a check for $250.
4. Today's appointment was in two different places. Instead of hassling with moving the car, I walked to/from the second place. Free exercise! Happily, it was an unusually lovely day.
5. Part 1 required fasting, so I tucked some fig bars into my bag for later. I realized it wasn't going to be enough to get me through the rest of the day. There's a fancy neighborhood grocery on the way to the Part 2 appointment. I stopped in and got a lovely banana and a fancy-pants tangerine for $1.61, which I ate on the walk.
I am unfamiliar with the Too Good To Go app and how it works. Could someone please share its benefits and how you use it? Thanks!
Hi Mary - Too Good to Go is an app that helps eliminate food waste. You can get "close to its sell by" date food from local grocers, bakery's, restaurants, convenience stores, for a very low price. (Your mileage may vary based on the local places that participate in your area.) You secure your "bag" on the app (you rarely know what's in it) , and pay (usually $2.99-$3.99), then they give you a time frame to pick up -- you show your app with your code and walk out with your bag of food! In my area - I have gotten 4 pizzas for $3.99 from a local pizza place, or a good amount of bagels from Einstein Bagels --- I keep what I want, freeze some, and share if I can't eat it all.
Thanks for that great explanation. I will check it out!
Warning: a rant or a "woe is me" post is on the way. And none of it is frugal or not frugal. ROFLMBO!!
So I've been working 6 days a week for at least two months. Hours per day can range from 12!! to 8!! Right now I'm doing 8 hour days because of a trigger finger surgery that went off the rails when it came to healing.
So imagine how happy I was when I looked at next week's schedule and saw that I was scheduled off tomorrow and Sunday. I thought that I might get tomorrow off because nobody is on vacation and the one guy who was on sick leave came back.
But that happiness didn't last long because I later noticed that the other person who does my job when I'm not there was also scheduled off.
It gets worse because the THIRD person who knows the job already has to cover the dock as all THREE of our mail handlers are also OFF (one is sick, one is on vacation, and the third one is on military leave). There is a FOURTH person but Saturday is her day off.
So my boss begged and pleaded ROFLMBO for me to come in and after some serious whining/moaning/bitching and otherwise complaining I agreed. I'm going in 2 hours earlier than I usually do so I can possibly get most of Saturday off.
Grumble.
I'm guessing you work for the Post Office. I'm very, very familiar with the 8 to 12 hour days, 6 days a week. The exhaustion is real.
Yes I work for the post office. Retire in 7 months and I'm looking forward to it immensely
1. Volunteering with a community group and learned how to truss a chicken last night. After food prep was done the founder took us out for pizza. It was a beautiful night to enjoy dinner outside with the crew.
2. My lunch today is leftover pasta and I am loving it!
3. I actually seasoned my ground turkey and baked the chicken I meant to. I hate food waste and am thankful to be able to afford groceries. I'm not wasting them! The chicken will turn into protein for lunches this weekend and the ground turkey will go into meal prep for the freezer, keeping us fed and happy without being tempted by takeout.
4. DH is traveling which means having the house and bed to myself (sleeping like a starfish!) this also means that with the cooler weather, the ACs are staying off most of the day. Happy to stay in my little office cave set to 75 instead of cooling the entire space for both of us to stay comfortable.
5. Watched Grey Gardens for free on streaming. Baffled that little Edie could keep her shoes that clean and white in that house.
I turned all my frustration into cleaning and decluttering. 7 big bags of garbage out of the house, 3 big indoor trash cans relined, all the bottles and cans are in the trunk for a bottle drop run tomorrow morning. I can actually see the floors in the kitchen, office, and laundry room now plus the dining room floor is much better. Several loads of laundry done as well.
Yes, buy nothing, and marketplace sites,makes Facebook worth while
One of my lavender bushes is enormous (it's the "Grosso" variety, so...). I think last year and the year before I had a couple of brides-to-be take huge bunches to use at their weddings. I've also offered up other purple-flowering perennials for wedding flowers. So nice to be able to help them with flowers! When my husband and I got married eons ago, most of the flowers in my bouquet and head wreath, and all the flowers for table vases, came from my garden and my sister-in-law's.
I meant to say that the women are also in our Buy Nothing group.
I love that other people are also sharing their flowers for weddings!