Trolling at Target

I originally started shopping at Target because they have (in my opinion) prettier stuff than Walmart for about the same prices. But, I've recently learned a few tricks that have helped me get some killer deals at Target. It isn't all essentials, but there's nothing like getting exactly what you want on the cheap. Basically, there are 2 things you need to know to shop Target effectively:

Tip 1: Scour the endcaps that aren't facing a main aisle, basically, the hidden endcaps. Clearance stuff gets put here and you can find some awesome deals.

Tip 2: go to coupons.target.com Target's coupon policy allows you to redeem 1 manufacturer's coupon AND 1 store coupon per item. I wait until I have both coupons and the item is on special (look at the weekly ad) and then I snap it up: I can usually get Nivea body wash for about 50 cents, Garnier facial moisturizer for about 2 bucks, and toothpaste (typically Aquafresh) for free-50 cents. If you're watchful, you can also find great deals on shampoo&conditioner, coffee, and other pantry items, too.

So, here's where #10 (a ridiculous amount of situational awareness comes in):

I noticed in Target's weekly ad this morning the the TargetHome curtain panels were on sale for $12 each.  We needed 4 panels for our living room, so that would have been $48 bucks, which would have been decent on its own.

But, Target had a coupon online for the same curtains, "Buy One, Get One 50% Off." So, off we went, expecting to get our curtains for $36 bucks- an awesome deal.

Buut, when we got there, I checked the endcaps, just in case. And there they were. 4 panels, marked down from 24.99 each to 7.48 each. 

All four panels cost us $22.44 after coupons. Not too shabby. Sorry for the picture quality, btw.

So, that concluded #9 of my top 10 list for cheapo living. Next up: #8- online shopping.

This Is How My Brain Works

I get asked (a lot) how we can afford for me to stay home with our two kids on a military salary (hint: it a'int the commissary!) So, I figured I'd share my "top ten list" of cheap living strategies over the next few weeks. None of this is rocket science, just stuff I've learned through trial and error. If any of this helps you find a little extra money in your budget, great! So, without further ado, and yes, I/m kind of working backwards....

 #10: A ridiculous amount of situational awareness
So, what does that mean?

That for me means:

 a) the grocery store I frequent is offering 4x the gas rewards on each dollar spent on gift cards this week

 b) the grocery store offers home depot gift cards

 c) we really need mulch for our flower beds right now...and it's on sale this weekend for Memorial Day @ Home Depot

 d) there is a $5 off a 50 dollar purchase coupon in my inbox from the Home Depot garden club newsletter

So.... 1st, I bought 2 $25 dollar Home Depot gift cards and received 200 points in gas rewards, which equals 20cents off per gallon. Combined with my grocery reward, I'll actually get 30cents off. Getting 30 cents off per gallon means I've saved $6 for the entire fill up on my 20 gallon tank. That may not seem like a lot, but it gets better.

 2nd, The mulch we like is 4 for $10 dollars at HD, so with my $5 off coupon and gift cards, I can get 22 bags, which should more than take care of our needs.

Does that make sense? By anticipating our family's needs and planning carefully, I can usually make our purchases do double duty for us. I shelled out 50 bucks, got a free $5 to spend, and saved $4 at the pump. My fifty dollars spent like 61 dollars. Roughly, 22% more bang for my buck.

 The big picture: let's assume you can do this (or better) with all of your cash. For the sake of argument, we'll use a 2,000 per month take home pay. Getting 22% more for each dollar means you actually have the buying power of 2,440 month. That 440 should about cover a car payment, or more :) But, I can almost always make our money go farther on everyday items...

 Stay tuned for #9, Trolling at Target. (yes, I know it's trawling, but I like trolls. They are short, like me, so it's "trolling.")

Cheap Chair Makeover

A while ago, we picked up this chair for 15 bucks off of craigslist.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it, but I thought she had some serious potential with her wavy back and curvy legs;)Yes, please feel free to enter that sentence into the Top 100 Things That Sound Really Dirty but Aren't contest. The black paint had been applied pretty badly...also, it was oil based, so I knew I didn't want to try and sand it all off. After removing the seat, I scrubbed the frame down with deglosser and a green scrubby pad. The "upholstery" was just a very thin piece of muslin, so that had to go, too. I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money, either, so I painted it with some leftover teal and gave it a quick gloss to protect the finish form two adorable little children who shall remain nameless. After I pulled off the thin piece of muslin, I discovered that our chair was one of those chairs:

Yep, she was one of those fake needlepoint kind of girls. We sort of had one of those, oh, honey moments. And then we got over it and bought her some brand new fabric in a great shade of tangerine. A 50% off sale combined with coupon meant we walked out of there with a 1/2 yard of upholstery fabric for about 5 bucks.

I just centered the pattern on the seat and began my faux-pholstery, as we like to call it ;)Once centered, I flipped the seat over and used a staple gun to secure the fabric to the left side.

I started on the left since I am right handed- that meant I had my dominant hand free to really pull the fabric tight (like so tight you think it's going to rip) before I secured it. Then, just pleat the 4 corners and staple them:

sorry for the blur

Secure the front and back:

And, done!

The finished product:

Not counting drying times, I spent just slightly over an hour working on the chair. I originally planned to re sell, but I think I'm going to hang on to this one ;)


Linking With:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/" title="TDC Before and After" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/beforeAndAfterButton_thumb1.gif" alt="TDC Before and After" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Tulips and Bubbles

Since this is probably? maybe? our last year in the Pacific Northwest, my husband's parents (I hate saying "in-laws," it just kind of has that icky connotation, ya know?) flew in for the weekend to catch the month-long Tulip Festival in our little town. I had visions of getting the perfect Christmas-Card-ready photo of our family, but the toddler had other ideas. We did get some good ones that I was able to edit in Picasa, though.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, the tulips are just as lovely without the edits. We just like things a little surreal in our house. Here's the world's cutest couple- 40 something years together!

 

We also got in some bubble wand time with the toddler:

 

So much fun, back to reality today...we're hoping to have the house on the market in the next 2 months. Wish us luck! Or even drop by to help- we pay in beer :)

Painted Hardwood Floors

We are facing a small dilemma with our hardwoods. In the area we live in, most of the original hardwood flooring in older houses like ours is actually fir...which is a softwood. Which means it doesn't really perform like one would expect. We're going to polyurethane over what we've got and see what happens. A full scale sand/refinish just isn't in the cards right now, for a multitude of reasons. But here's the thing: I really love painted hardwoods. It's a pretty common sight in Texas, so I grew up with it. And it's cheap and easy. The results last, it's easy care and it really keeps the wood from deteriorating. If we weren't ultimately planning to sell, I'd slap the glossiest white marine paint on those suckers I could find. However, I know that not everyone feels the same about painted hardwoods as I do. We posed the question to several family members, " Would you rather buy a house with perfect, painted hardwoods, or hardwoods that were really going to need a rehab?" And they rained on my marine paint parade. But I guess that's okay, there's always the next house, right? Here's some of my lovely inspiration:

I think the hardwoods really help transition an older style home into a more updated, eclectic space:

                                                                          Source: adelightfuldesign.com via Sharon on Pinterest

Love how airy these rooms look:

                                                                                       Source: alvhemmakleri.se via Jane on Pinterest

                                                                               Source: 3.bp.blogspot.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

My fave...old house, modern furnishings:

 

                                                                                      Source: decor8blog.com via Grace on Pinterest

So what do you think? If you looked at a house with painted hardwoods, would it immediately be off your list? I'll share before and afters of our poly coat adventures, too. Hopefully, it will be a quick fix for a floor that could use a little love.

From Decorating to Juicing

This is a bit of a departure, but since it has to do with our home, I figured I'd just put it out there. Our Juicer arrived today! We got  the Champion Commercial and after one use, I love it. We settled on Champion for two reasons: first, they are American made by a family owned company and second, the motors are warranted for 10 years. We figured if they'd stand behind their workmanship for a decade, it had to be a pretty good product. We ordered it from Harvest Essentials. I should note that I am not in any way being compensated for this post by Champion, Harvest Essentials, or anyone else. Harvest Essentials simply had the juicer we wanted for the lowest price we could find. There are prettier juicers out there, but here it is:

Source: google.com via Justina on Pinterest

Not sure why, but the promo shots always look brown, even though it is definitely black!

A little background: my husband has a chronic condition that he sustained during military service. A large part of managing his condition is nutrition. He's a very private person, so I'll leave it at that. Let's just say that the old adage "you are what you eat" really applies in our household. Though we probably eat better than average, we were still really deficient in the fruits/veggies area. We thought long and hard before we made the purchase, but I'm so happy we did. For our first batch of juice, we used 3 oranges, 2 small apples, a lime, and a half pineapple. The resulting 4 cups of juice was thick and almost creamy. We thinned it down with water, half and half, to get the thickness more in line with what we know as "juice," essentially producing 4 servings. The taste was incredible and nowhere near the level of acid found in commercial juice. For me, the best part is that with one single glass of juice,  I'd successfully gotten my husband to consume almost a full days' worth of fresh produce. We plan to experiment with a different attachment tomorrow...we'll make smoothies as a meal replacer. Incidentally, our toddler loved the juice, too. I must say that I feel really good about offering her fresh, homemade juice instead of just poking a plastic straw into a juice box.

Our next purchase is going to be a food dehydrator. Our on-the-go type snacks could be better and we plan to start making banana chips and fruit leathers for the kids to munch in the car or on busy afternoons. I've also begun keeping a small notebook with with entries detailing our progress and the husband's condition. I was inspired to do this by Kristi and Matt of Deflate the Mate. Their story is truly inspiring and they also have recipe ideas, etc. Check them out! If you have any questions about our juicer, just drop me a comment and I'll be happy to answer :)

DIY Burlap Wreath

And....we're back! It's been forever, a camera malfunction, and a trip to Texas (literally and pics to come) since I've posted. Things at home have been hectic- what with my husband getting out of the military in 6 months and all of us getting sick, we've logged 11 doctor's appointments in the last 15 days. Anyway, onto my latest door wreath. I whipped this up while watching a movie with the husband. It was so cheap and simple. It came out a little more "fall" than I was hoping for, but I still love it.

First I took an old grapevine form I happened to have laying around. Even if I had to buy one, I've seen them on sale as cheap as 3 bucks at Michael's.

This past Christmas, we'd gotten a section of burlap to serve as our tree skirt, but it wasn't as full as I wanted, so I just cut it up into strips about 3 inches wide along the length of the material.

Then, I just started wrapping away, securing the ends of each strip with a hot glue gun.

Once I got it halfway wrapped, I went ahead and placed the zebra striped flower where I wanted it, then continued with the burlap. The flower came from a floral stem at Michaels's...I used the husband's tin snips to cut the stem and that was all. I really love the zebra print. I wouldn't say I went wild over it or anything, though. Haha, oh I crack myself up.

After I'd finished with the burlap, I took a chocolate satin ribbon and placed bands over the burlap, first working diagonally right to left, then placing them left to right. Does that make sense?

I realized I needed away to hang the sucker, so I cut another strip, folded it in a triangular fashion, and liberally hot glued it to the back. Voila. It's been hanging for a couple of months now, even holding up through a small wind storm, so it's definitely sturdier than I thought it would be.

And TaaDaa! Love it. My mom-in-law saw it and asked me to make her one :) Big smile there- the lady is ultra artistic and creative. Then, she said, "No make me two; I have more than one door." I think we're actually going to make these for everyone's Christmas presents...the plan is to swap out the chocolate for everyone's favorite color. So simple and inexpensive. If you make yourself one, do send me some pictures!