Free and Frugal Friday Ramblings

Yay, it's Friday! I am just about as excited as that camel is on Wednesdays! I hope everyone has enjoyed the Lord's blessings of a wonderful week. I know I have. I especially love it when He blesses me with an abundance of freebies and "cheapies", and it has been a good day for these things indeed.

During my lunch break today, I went to Walmart. I had other business to do there and it is within a mile of my workplace, so it wasn't like I made a special trip. Do you remember me telling you about a $7.00 off any Tena product? Well, I redeemed that coupon today. I was able to score a $4.97 package of 20 Tena Serenity pads AND $1.73 in change!!! You see, Walmart's coupon policy states that the customer will receive the difference in money if the coupon value exceeds the product purchase price. I encourage you to read and print the policy, found HERE. Also, you can still request a Tena coupon HERE. Since I literally got PAID to grab these Tena pads from Walmart, I will find someone who can use them. I mean, why not??

All that freebie finding can be pretty rough on a gal, and by the time I left Walmart, I was parched. I needed some refreshment, and fast! I remembered the coupon that Dunkin Donuts had sent me in the mail for signing up to receive their emails. It was good for any medium beverage, which includes hot cocoa, tea, hot or iced coffee, or one of three flavors of Coolattas. So, into the DD drive-thru the Chrysler went, and out I came with a yummy Minute Maid Orange Coolatta, which you can sign up to receive HERE. Not only will you receive (by postal mail) a coupon for signing up, but you will also receive one for your birthday. Sign up your honey, too! Doesn't this look refreshing?!?

I am always busting through the door of my house just as weak and starving as if I had spent a fortnight trekking across the Sahara. This afternoon was no different, to be sure. For supper, I decided to try one of the FREE Kraft Recipe Maker kits I got from Dollar Tree the other day. I chose the Chicken Bruschetta since I had some pasta and a can of chicken on hand (also from DT). In my usual rebellious style, I DID NOT follow the directions on the box. They asked for bow-tie pasta and I used macaroni. They asked for 1 1/2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breast and I used a 5 ounce can of Butterfield Farms White Chicken chunks. Ha - - take that! All in all, I had about $1.60 total in the dish, between the macaroni and the chicken. Get your own $1.00 off Kraft Recipe Makers coupons HERE to get FREE boxes of this kit at Dollar Tree. Look how yummy and totally Italian (in a cast iron skillet, of course):

Yes, folks - - God is good to me and I am having such fun sharing the wealth with you. Please say an extra prayer tonight for the hungry and cold. Have a fun, frugal and fabulous evening, from our house to yours!

Warm, Homemade Sugar Cookies - - Yummy

You've been there - - we all have. You've just finished supper, it's freezing cold and pitch black outside, and you want something sweet.  Pronto. But who really wants to traipse out into the foreboding cover of night to make that dreaded trip to the grocery store or............dare I say it...........Walmart?!? Besides, if I set foot into Kroger hungry for something to satisfy my snack attack, I may not make it out alive. Well, okay........I will actually make it out alive, but with 576 pounds or 3 grocery bags of fatty junk in tow. Who wants that? Why not take the easy AND frugal way out, stay in your warm and cozy kitchen and whip up a simple, tasty treat tonight! You probably already have the ingredients on hand, and the family will love you. Sugar cookies are humble little nuggets of goodness that are not too flashy yet always satisfy that sweet tooth. You could even gussy 'em up with icing or sprinkles if you wanted to. I found a recipe not too long ago, tweaked it to make it my own and have since baked up several batches of soft, yet chewy sugar cookies. In fact, the scenario above describes my own dilemma tonight as I searched the cabinets for something sweet after our supper of chicken fried rice, mashed potatoes, macaroni & tomato and rolls. Here's how they turned out:

There are several reasons why I like these cookies:

1. Spoon them straight from the mixing bowl onto the cookie sheet (NO rolling and cutting) and enjoy super easy cleanup.
2. No special ingredients need to be purchased. This recipe is made with things you probably already have.
3. The cookie is light and soft, yet slightly chewy, which is a good thing!
4. Since it is, in fact, made with a few standard pantry items, it is inexpensive. I haven't calculated the actual cost, but I might do that out of my own curiosity later on.
5. They are quick to mix up (5 minutes) and bake (10 minutes).

Without further adieu, here is my recipe:

Tanya's Sugar Cookies

2 Cups sugar

1 1/4 Cup margarine

2 eggs

3 Cups self-rising flour

1/2 Teaspoon salt

Directions:  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar and margarine in a mixing bowl with mixer. Add salt and eggs and continue until mixed. Turn off mixer and add flour, mixing by hand until batter is smooth. Drop 12 evenly spaced walnut sized spoonfuls of dough onto each cookie sheet. Bake 9 - 10 minutes or until edges appear slightly brown. They may still appear a bit under-baked on top when they first come out of the oven, but this is okay. They will firm up in a matter of minutes. Enjoy with a cold glass of homemade sweet tea. The recipe for that can be found HERE!

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous evening, from our house to yours!

Oh, fiddlesticks..........er, tobacco sticks!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone's week is off to an awesome start. Need a new and crafty idea to get you going on this chilly winter day? Primitive and rustic country decor is in great abundance wherever you look these days. One popular and sought after accessory that goes quite nicely with such decor is anything made from tobacco sticks. Usually I post on things that I have made, but there are many more creative folks hanging from the branches of my family tree. Today I thought I would share the fruits of the efforts of these fine folks! At one point in time, my family grew tobacco on their farm; however we are now left with the remnants of this page in history in the form of oodles of "baccer" sticks once used to hang freshly cut tobacco in the barn rafters to dry. I have been fortunate enough to have received several pieces of furniture and decor made by my mother and father as well as my sister and brother-in-law. Let me share, shall I?

• Chair. Just look at this little chair made by my Mommy and Daddy. I think it looks so cute, and the bears (given to me by Mommy) think it is super comfy.
• Ladder. My sister and brother-in-law surprised all the ladies in the family at Christmas with homemade tobacco stick ladders, embellished with a cream colored bow and red berries. I thought it was the perfect spot to hang my hay hooks given to me by my Daddy.

• Star. This huge star, made by my Mommy and Daddy, is the perfect size for the gable end of my garage on the front of my house. 

• Tree. Mommy and Daddy made this also. This picture was taken at Christmas, and as you can see, i have it all dolled up with a bead garland, feathers, berries, twigs and greenery. It is great because it is so versatile and can be decorated for each season.

I am so proud of my creative family and the things they turn out. I can't wait to see what they make next (hint, hint Mommy, Daddy, Tammy and Damon.....).

So, you don't have access to tobacco sticks, you say? Well, almost anybody can come up with some sticks that could be whipped up into something fantastic. Take a look at this cute little willow twig table I spotted while surfing the internet:

You can read more about it HERE on the Woodworkers Workshop website. Maybe you will get some inspiration. It's not too early to get started on Christmas gifts, you know! These primitive pieces and pieces like them are all wonderfully frugal as well as fab gift ideas.

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous day from our house to yours!

Saturday Mail Call

Brrrr! Happy chilly Saturday to everybody. I would venture to say that poor Keith the mailman wished he had chains on the tires of the little mail jeep today! Ridgewood Circle was quite the treacherous place this morning as snow fell from the sky and coated the streets like parmesan cheese on lasagna. Nevertheless, Keith delivered a smorgasbord of goods all week long!

What did I get this week? Feast your eyes:

1. Petersen's 4-Wheel and Off Road Magazine
2. Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine
3. Ontario Outdoor Adventures Calendar
4. Bigelow Cozy Chamomile Herbal Tea sachet
5. Cantu Shea Butter hair cream for dry hair
6. Guitar picks in assorted colors/designs from Marlboro.com
7. Tena product $7.00 off coupon = FREE Tena product at Walmart
8. Dunkin Donuts coupon for FREE small hot or iced coffee

The magazines may have come from Rewards Gold, freebizmag.com or Mercury Magazines (access to free subscriptions on all three sites). The calendar, which has some nice photos, is STILL AVAILABLE HERE (select "add to cart"). The Bigelow Tea sample and the Cantu Shea Butter sample were Facebook freebies which are, sadly, over. The guitar picks are no longer available, there is a new Marlboro freebie that you should be able to score. If you or someone in your household is a smoker (my husband smokes), then you might want to go over to www.Marlboro.com and create a free account. They have nice freebies every two or three months, and they have cigarette coupons monthly that you can request. The Tena coupon is still available from their website. You can get it HERE, and can request a $7 or $14 coupon by mail. The $7 Tena Pad coupon is the one that you should request because Walmart (and possibly other retailers as well, but I am unsure) has the pads for less than $7.00, thereby making them free with the coupon. The Dunkin Donuts coupon is one reason why you should look through your sale papers before trashing them. I cut this little coupon out of a DD coupon booklet that was stuck in the midst of Kroger, IGA, etc. sale papers. Many people automatically toss these out, but they are worth at least leafing through. You never know what might lurk!

Even if some freebies don't appeal to you, someone else might be able to use them. Like the incontinence pads or the hair cream, for example. Nobody in my household needs these things, but why pass them up if they are free? Get them anyway and keep them until you can pass them along to someone else. You never know when you might be able to bless someone with essentials that they need and cannot get for whatever reason. When I look for freebies, 9 times out of 10 I am thinking of who else might need it.

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous weekend, from our house to yours!

Free Fun with Phone Books

I can honestly say that I have never lived in a place where more telephone directories are distributed than in Somerset, Kentucky. It seems as if my driveway becomes home to a bagged phone book, tossed haphazardly from a speeding car at least three or four times a year. As evidenced by my collection of glass jars, plastic grocery sacks, bread ties and straws, I just don't feel right about the thought of tossing the poor phone book into the trash. For one, it has already suffered so much in its short life, narrowly escaping serious injury in the midst of a rough landing on the surface of my concrete driveway. But also, much like a bright eyed child, it has SO much potential! So what do I do? I rescue it and give it new life! Just so you know we're not getting all hoarder crazy here, I only keep a couple of phone books at a time. I actually do put excess ones in the recycle bin (but don't tell their friends).

IDEA #1:  One big advantage of saving a phone book from the trash is the fact that it is essentially FREE craft material! Consider this wreath I made from phone book pages, a pizza box and a wire clothes hanger. For this thrifty wreath, the only things I had to actually purchase were the letters. The letters were less than a dollar each at Hobby Lobby, and I already had the ribbon on hand. I used probably 25 cents worth of ribbon overall. I just love the little areas of yellow peeking out from the rolled pages, don't you? To make this, I taped the lid shut on a clean (yet used) pizza box. I then cut the pages from a phone book, rolled them and hot glued them to the box. For the hanger, I used duct tape to secure it to the back of the wreath, and then hot glued ribbon to the front to conceal it. If you want a totally free wreath, just omit the letters and ribbon!

IDEA #2:  Use as gift wrap! At one time, this may have been considered really cheap and tacky. However, I have been noticing more and more printed scrapbook paper and decorative items that have newspaper and similar print. It has become fashionable to wrap gifts with newspaper and book pages tied up with a pretty burlap or jute bow! Or, you could also cut a pretty flower out of the pages and tape to the top. This is awesome if you are caught suddenly in need of gift wrap and have none OR just want something different and cute.

IDEA #3:  Tissue paper or gift basket filler. You probably saw the gift bags I made using recycled calendars. Instead of the traditional tissue paper, I stuffed these gift bags with phone book pages. They turned out cute and helped to reduce trash can waste created by more and more store-bought tissue paper

IDEA #4: Have you ever gotten caught out someplace and needed to make a call but didn't have the number? If so, you probably called somebody in your family, had them find a phone book, look up the number and wasted several minutes of your day. Why not use one of those extra or old phone books to carry in your vehicle? My husband actually gave me this bright idea a few weeks ago when he asked for one of the phone books from my "craft stash" to keep in his truck. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that the extra phone books could be used as...............................phone books!

I hope you have a blast using some of my ideas or your own awesome ideas for your old phone books. One thing I REALLY want to do next is to figure out how to make paper from old phone books. I'll keep you informed of the results. Have a fun, frugal and fabulous evening from our house to yours!

Cheap Eats = Good Eats, or... Directions? What Directions?

Good Tuesday night, dear readers! I may have mentioned in another post about the Hamburger Helper and Chicken Helper coupons I used at Dollar Tree to score eight 80 cent boxes of those respectable products by the wonderful Betty Crocker. I was super anxious to get home after work this afternoon. It was cold, snowy and windy, and all I wanted to do was rush home and cook something hot and yummy. However, I was also really hungry. It seemed eons ago that I had eaten lunch (or at least 4 hours, LOL). After rushing through the door, tossing off my coat and proceeding to look through the cabinets, I decided that some Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo would fit the bill perfectly for some warm comfort food on this snowy afternoon. As I assembled the things I needed, I made a grave discovery..............................NO MILK IN THE FRIDGE!!!

The kid. It had to be the kid. I glanced in the trash can only to see the empty jug just lying there. I could tell it had put up a good fight, but had met its match in a 12 year old growing boy over the course of a mere 24 hours. Panic ensued as I pondered my next step.....should I? Could I...........use............water?!? At this stage in the game, I had NO desire to make the grueling 5 minute, mile and a half trip back to Kroger. I just wanted to cook. And eat. I took the plunge and boldly went where few culinary purists have ventured. I measured out not the 1 1/2 cups of water and 2 1/2 cups of milk that Mrs. Crocker directed me to add to my Chicken Helper, but 4 CUPS of good old H2O and proceeded with the rest of the directions as if nothing had happened. I used tap water, even! We live on the edge here on Ridgewood Circle. It's just how we roll.

So, how did it turn out, you ask? Quite delicious, I must say, and the guys in the household thought so as well. I didn't tell them about the lack of dairy products in the dish until after the meal. They would have "missed" the milk in it had they known the truth. Go on - - try it for yourself. Here's what to look for, and as I said, they currently have it at Dollar Tree:

And...........here's the final product in the absence of the side dishes with which it was served tonight (baked potatoes, fried apples, cornbread and cheesecake):

Coupons are still available, folks. You can print an "80 cents off four boxes" HERE OR you can find a nice "90 cents off four boxes" by signing up on the Betty Crocker site HERE and clicking on the "coupons" tab. Both sources allowed me to get two prints out of each coupon. Don't forget to follow your Dollar Tree coupon policy, which you can find HERE. 

I'm gonna go ahead and let you in on another secret: I used canned chicken chunks from Dollar Tree in this recipe instead of cooking fresh raw chicken. It worked great, and gave me the added bonus of not having to wait for chicken to cook before I could get started with the rest of the recipe. I guess I really just threw the directions for preparation out the window on this one, huh? It turned out yummy AND my family of three will eat it for leftovers again tomorrow night. Total cost for it as the main entree was $1.80 plus a few pennies for the minimal amount of margarine and water used. Both cheap and good. Mission accomplished!

Have a fun, frugal and fabulous night, from our house to yours!

My Dollar Tree Deals this week - WOW

If you have never checked out the grocery section of Dollar Tree, then you are definitely missing out - - especially if you are fortunate enough to have a Dollar Tree in your area that has a refrigerator / freezer section! Unfortunately, the Dollar Tree in my town does not have a refrigerator / freezer section, but the one in the next town over does. We had to drive over there this morning to take my husband for an MRI so my son and I went to DT while we waited on him. Well, we were thrilled to score 3.5 ounce RIBEYE STEAKS there for a buck each for my husband's birthday meal tonight! We also got some other cool name brand grocery items for cheap and free using coupons. For those of you who didn't know, Dollar Tree has been taking coupons for about a year now. Read their coupon policy HERE. In order to abide by their coupon policy, be prepared by taking someone with you and perhaps doing multiple transactions as well.

These pics represent two different days of Dollar Tree finds. I went a couple of days ago as well, and decided to go again once I found that some of my coupons had reset and I was able to print more copies.

Haul #1:  ALL FREEBIES - Two Kraft Recipe Makers kits and Two Progresso Recipe Starters Cooking Sauces. I used two $1.00 off Kraft Recipe Makers coupons and two 50 cent off Progresso Recipe Starters coupons (my DT had them priced at 50 cents each which is already great).

Haul #2: Two Kraft Recipe Makers (Free with coupons), eight boxes of Hormel Pepperoni (four free with the use of 4 $1.00 off 2 coupons) and three ribeye steaks for $3. This is $13 worth of items for only $7. Now, I am by no means an "extreme couponer", but that is a pretty significant savings to me!

If you only have a few coupons, making a special trip would not be worth it. You would spend more in gas than you would save. But, it is worth checking out the coupons.com website and being familiar with what your Dollar Tree sells so that you be able to match coupons up to score some free groceries. I get most of my coupons from www.coupons.com. The Progresso, Kraft and Hormel coupons are still available, as are some Hamburger / Chicken Helper coupons (80 cents off four = $3.20 = 80 cents total per box at Dollar Tree!). Also, there is a Progresso SOUP coupon for 50 cents off two cans. The soup is delish, and the coupon makes it only 75 cents a can. Folks, you just can't get it for that price at the grocery store. In fact, here are the current Walmart prices for some of these items: Progresso Recipe Starters or Soup is $1.88, Hamburger Helper is $1.68 a box and Kraft Recipe Makers is $1.98. So, go to coupons.com, turn on your printer and get ready to save some dough! Keep in mind that my free items were totally free this time because they were grocery items. If you have a coupon that covers the cost of something like toothpaste, then you will have to pay tax on it. But, hey - - I don't mind spending 6 cents on a tube of toothpaste, do you?

Unfortunately, Dollar Tree isn't paying me to say any of this, although I wish they were! I just wanted to make sure and pass along these great free and cheap grocery ideas to you. I love it when others share deals with me! So, have a fun, frugal and fabulous day from our house to yours!