this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

For awhile, I've toyed around with the idea of starting a weekly feature featuring things I make with things I already have, but I've never felt like I could create enough for a weekly post. I decided to just go with it and do my best - it doesn't have to be every week, right? And I'll even start the bar low with this project, there's not a whole lot of "make" involved, but I'm counting it anyway.

For a long time, I've been using an old kleenex bos to store plastic grocery bags. They are good to have around for bathroom trash bags, to transport things, and many other miscelleaneous uses. The kleenex box was doing its job, but it was also taking up space on a shelf in my pantry.

So, I hung it up on the wall by pushing some thumbtacks through the back of the box.

It's not cute, but it's practical (and frees up shelf space!). Normally I like things to be cute, but if it's hiding in my pantry, practical is good enough for me.

• Overstock.com Coupons - $20 off orders of $500 or more on tents from ALPS Mountaineering & Black Pine Sports
• Sierra Trading Post Coupons - save from 30-50% on camping gear from Sierra Designs & Catoma Outdoors
• Sahalie Coupons - receive up to 70% off clearance items including lanterns, hammocks & more
• Camping World Coupons - 50% off shipping with purchase of $99 on sleeping bags from Coleman & CW Gear
• Cabelas Coupons - enjoy rock bottom deals on binoculars, GPS, airbeds & sunshades

Just popping in quickly to share some links.

Two of my articles have been part of the Festival of Frugality in past weeks, so I definitely want to link up to these!

Festival of Frugality at My Life ROI
Festival of Frugality at Stretchy Dollar

And from my reader:

Project Procrastinators: Unite! - Join Melissa's Project Procrastinator's Party
Some Things I Learned From Helping a Homeless Person
Great Gifts for Kids that Don't Involve "Stuff"
The Weeds Come First

After reading this article on Gather Little By Little about a chapter from the book Farmer Boy, I started to think about my son and what his thoughts on money are. I decided that he knows the following:

• He knows that people go to work in order to earn money.
• He knows that he can earn money by "being good" and doing his chores.
• He knows that money buys things.
• He knows that sometimes you have to save your money for awhile before you can buy what you want.
• He knows that you can't have everything you want.  Or does he?

Not too bad, I don't think, considering he's just shy of five years old.

My current dilemma is this - when he wants something he will ask me if I have enough money for it, and technically, yes, I do have enough money for whatever he is asking for. But to simplify matters, I'll often tell him that I don't (he has very little concept of greater than and less than).

Instead, I should probably impress upon him the fact that I have to choose which things I spend our money on, and while sometimes I can buy things that just he wants, most of the time I have to think of what the whole family would benefit from. Sometimes in this case, I point out a more inexpensive option. For example, during our last grocery store trip, he requested yogurt. Though he wanted to choose individual flavors, I showed him that if we bought the 8-pack, we would spend less money. Other times, I explain that if we buy item A, we won't be able to buy item B. But most often I resort to telling him that I just don't have enough money. It's not true, but it works.

What do your kids know about money? What do you wish they knew?

Yesterday, I was over at fabudaily with a guest post on grocery shopping. Be sure and stop by and leave your favorite money-saving tip!

This past weekend The Tall One and I began our search for bunk beds for our boys. The last time we looked at furniture was almost a year and a half ago when we were looking at dining room tables. I remember some huge sticker shock when we were looking at tables. During this visit to the furniture store, however, I kept thinking to myself "hey, that's not such a bad price for that!". These are prices that seemed so high to me just 18 months ago. I'm not quite sure what changed.

I mentioned this to TTO and he said that that's what tends to happen as your income increases. Our income hasn't increased very much in that time, but I do see where he's coming from. Does this mean I think that people with less money value it more? Not at all, but rather perhaps the more money you have, the easier it is to spend larger amounts. In the past, we've defaulted to inexpensive furniture, which usually tends to be of low quality and not last too long. We want a set of bunkbeds that will. If anything positive comes from this change of perspective, it will be that we purchase higher quality bunkbeds because the higher prices won't scare us as much.

Once upon a time, The Tall One got bored while I was at work and decided to remove some rocks outside of our apartment (with permission, of course) and start a garden.  He planted lots of tomato and squash plants, and we harvested enough for our immediate use - many of the plants died due to viscious garden pests, and the lack of pollinating insects meant not too many zucchini and yellow squash.

Soon after that we moved to Pennsylvania, where gardening is a whole different story.  The soil was incredibly fertile (much more than we were used to) and all we needed to do was plant. One tomato plant would yield enough for us and then some (so you can only imagine the harvest when we planted, um, more than that).  One bag of green bean seeds would feed us for the time being and with plenty left over to freeze.  You get the idea.  Gardening there truly was a money saving venture.


Now it's a different story.  We live in an area where the soil is more like dirt and it's very difficult to get anything to grow.  So we spend an awful lot of money on fertilizer and peat moss and whatnot.  We compost a bit too, but our garden area is so large that more is needed. Having the garden saves us no money and instead costs quite a bit. But does that mean it's a waste?  Of course not. The Tall One loves gardening and it's so much fun (and healthy!) to grow some of our own food. Gardening doesn't have to save money in order to be "profitable" because our family benefits in many ways even if our bank account doesn't.


In times where many are looking to save a buck, gardening can help out, but it's important to keep in mind any extra expenses that may occur. Don't be mislead by the fact that a packet of seeds is so inexpensive because there may be other costs involved.

Last Thursday, when deciding how to spend my time while Bug was at school, the word "need" was popping up in my head an awful lot.

I NEED to go to Target because I NEED to buy Easter things for the boys and I NEED to buy them Easter clothes and I NEED to buy candy for the Easter Egg Hunt.


Right.

The boys love our sandbox in the backyard, but their shovels and pails are due for a replacement (i.e. they are all broken), so that was what would go in their Easter baskets.  And I decided that the basket itself would become a sand pail after Easter. I kinda sorta wanted to buy separate baskets for them to use for egg hunting (the old ones bit the dust last year after several years of use), but decided we certainly didn't need two baskets for each boy.  So, I pared down all the Easter things I wanted to a more reasonable list.

I quickly talked myself out of the Easter clothes.  Normally I get at least a new tie for the boys to wear to church on Easter (or make something), but this year I, ahem, uh, bought myself a new dress which didn't leave much money left for anything for them.  Plus, when I asked Bug if he'd like to go shopping for new clothes (something he normally thinks is pretty cool), he first said yes, but then changed his mind citing the fact that he could just wear his blue shirt and his blue tie for Easter. Fair enough. I still wanted something for them, but decided it certainly didn't fit into the need category.

The candy, I guess I could have done without.  The parents would probably not care if I filled the eggs with animal crackers or cereal, but I imagine the kids wouldn't be amused.  And it would serve me right when my boys managed to choose only our eggs and I ended up with a bunch of candy-less eggs.  At which point I would not be amused.  So, though it's not a need in the true sense of the word, I decided I needed Easter candy.

And, though it's further away, I still maintained that I NEEDED to go to Target and chose it over a certain other store.

The word "need" seems to pop up in my vocabulary an awful lot. What about you?  How do you filter between the genuine wants that you can easily survive without and the wants that you kinda-sorta need, but probably really don't?

Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you are enjoying your celebrations, whatever they may be.  We went low-key over here.  I wanted to do a special brunch, since we always do a brunch-type meal before church anyway (usually just pancakes or eggs), but I didn't want a lot of work.  So I made a breakfast casserole the night  before that can go into the oven when we're ready to eat and bought some Pillsbury rolls in lieu of making some.  Easy, but different from our usual Sunday fare, so I'm excited.

Now, onto the links.

5 Foundations of Personal Finance #3: True Savings at Small Notebook
Back to the Frugal Basics: Controlling Your Spending at Almost Frugal
Frugality Builds Character at Domestic Cents
Getting Out of Debt Builds Character at Mrs. Micah.com

Except that I really didn't.

While visiting my parents in another state and reading their local paper, I caught a few articles about saving money.  One of them featured a woman who saved a lot of money by couponing and taking advantage of store specials.  You know how grocery store receipts often print out how much you save?  This woman said that she had saved as much as 95% before.  Don't get me wrong here, that's totally fabulous, but unless I'm walking out of the store with a week's worth of groceries that I just purchased for $4, I didn't save 95%, no matter what my receipt says.

Today's receipt told me I saved 35%.  The total before all the store specials took effect was $109, I believe.  The reason I won't claim that I saved 35% is I wouldn't spend $109 in one grocery trip.  I just happened to take advantage of a lot of specials this week, specials that caused me to stock up on many things.  Had many of the items I bought not been on sale, I wouldn't have bought them (or I would have bought less of them).  I walked out of the grocery store paying the same amount I do every week, thus I saved nothing.

It's not what you save that matters, it's what you spend.

So many really high numbers are being tossed around these days, and it can be hard to conceptualize what they really mean. This construction project in Las Vegas brings a whole new light to how much money a  trillion dollars really is.

Everything in Vegas is big, but this set of buildings dwarfs them all.  This is (or will be) the Las Vegas City  Center.  It will consist of nine highrise buildings including, but not limited to, 500,000 square feet of retail and entertainment, two towers that together house 2400 residences, a 61-story resort, and a monorail to link it all together.  It has provided 8,000 construction jobs and, once it opens, it will employ 12,000.  And all that comes with a price tag of $10 billion. 

So, that's what $10 billion looks like.  You can only imagine, then, what $1 trillion would look like.

I had a lot to catch up on this week in the blogosphere (and I'm still not caught up!).  Being out of town is great because it tends to force me away from the computer, and it is fun to have so much great stuff waiting for me when I do get back to the computer.  Here are a few things I've enjoyed over the past few weeks.'

Letting Go of Perfection at Remodeling This Life
Is There Any Entertainment As Good As Being Out in Nature? at Simple. Orgainzed. Life
A Monthly Menu Plan for the Spring at Simple Mom
Cheerful Frugality Refinances at Frugal Hacks
Family Budget Committee Meetings at Frugal Dad
Bargain Secrets: Bakery Thrift Stores at Like Merchant Ships
Spring Has Sprung: How to Make the Most of Your Family's Clothing Budget at I've Paid Twice For This Already
Frugality: How Far is Too Far? at Being Frugal
The Most Important Item in Your Expense List at No Debt Plan
What's Frugality All About Anyway? at Almost Frugal

The Tall One and I just returned home from a few days in Las Vegas (without kids!).  Las Vegas is not a budget travel destination by any means, but one way we cut our costs was to sit through a time-share presentation in exchange for a free show and two free meals.  The point of this post is not to debate the pros and cons of time-shares (or sitting through the presentations) and we did not buy in (nor do we plan to any time soon) so any such talk would be pointless.  Instead, I just wanted to bring up something that has been on my mind ever since.  It's a concept that any money savvy person knows, but something I keep dwelling on nonetheless (so now you can all dwell on it with me).

We were intrigued by this particular concept, but agreed that in the future it could be potentially money-saving (assuming we had a large amount of cash burning a hole in our savings account), but right now it isn't, though of course the nice sales people tried to convince us that we would be saving so much money with this! But we wouldn't. Right now we aren't taking week-long vacations (mainly because TTO hasn't had enough vacation time from work to do so) and when we do go on trips, we tend to stay with friends or family.  Thus, we wouldn't be saving any money since we aren't spending very much in this area in the first place! 

The phrase "saving money" seems to be tossed around so casually that it's almost annoying.