Hate To Peel Potatoes? A Simple Tip, No Peeler Required!

I absolutely hate to peel potatoes. I ran across this video that was
posted at Coupon Queen Diaries, and she has tried and confirmed
that this is as easy as it looks!! I can't wait to try it out. This would
be a time saver if you are going to boil the potatoes anyway, and
would be helpful to those of you with arthritis or something else that
would make it hard to peel potatoes. Hope you find this helpful!
Let me know if you try this, or have tried it and how well it works
for you!

(This video is a bit corny but useful!)

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Great Make-Up Deal at Rite-Aid... and I'm Still Here!

I know I haven't been posting many deals on this site lately, and
wanted to let you know I will still be posting deals here, however
I have been spending the majority of my time creating our new
Frugal Community. I launched it a few days ago, and happy
to be working with some great people and bloggers! If you would
like to take a look at what I have  created, you can check it out
the site here FrugalXchange.com I am pretty impressed with how
everything has turned out. I have been  posting many  deals there,
as well as so have other people. 


I've tried to share those deals on Facebook and Twitter so my
followers don't miss out, but realize some of you may not have
a Facebook or Twitter. I invite you  all to come on over and be
apart of our community. I say "Our" and not "MY" because this
new site is a place where you have more control. You can even
post deals yourself, as well as upload your own photos and
videos of  your deal finds, and connect with other people who love
to save just like you! There is even a Referral contest going on
right now if you want to invite your Frugal Friends over with you!
You just might score a $25 Visa Gift Card!

So now that I got that out of the way, Let's move on to the Rite Aid deal.





I don't usually shop at Rite Aid, but unfortunately my little girl is sick and
needed some prescriptions filled. While we waited, I had a chance to browse
the store and spotted a whole area of $2 Make-up! Now some of you may
have known about this deal, but I hadn't a clue! There were so many Maybelline
Mascaras, Cover Girl Foundations and Powders and tons of Lipstick. All just $2!

What makes this even better, is the fact that there are coupons available on these
products making these cheap! $1/1 Maybelline Mascara Coupon in RP 3/6
and $1/1 Cover Girl Products in PG Sunday inserts. So grab some
name brand make-up for only $1! (I found these at my store in Cleveland,
but it may be everywhere)

This is a stock-up price, but the expiration dates may be close on these. So keep
in mind that make-up can start to break you out or cause other skin problems when
expired! It's still hard not to want to buy a ton! However here are some great ideas
you can do with any extras you purchase that you wont use.

• Donate them to a Womens Shelter

• If  a friend has a birthday coming up, you can include some in a gift basket.

• Host a girls night where you can do makeovers on each other.

• Throw a makeover party for your daughter and her friends!
  Publish Post

What are your ideas to do with extra unopened make-up?

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Our Journey To Prepaid: $140 Less per month! Could You be Saving?

*According To Us!

How It Started:
About 6 months ago, we made a switch from Tmobile to AT&T so that we
could use the iPhone. The switch only bumped our cell phone bill up about
$15 more a month. When I got my iPhone, I set it all up and loved it.

We don't use many minutes, So we chose a low minute Family Plan.
We do however use a lot of data and messaging so we chose the
unlimited family texting for $30 a month and got unlimited data for
the phones which is another $60 a month for both phones.

Our bill ran right at $190 every month, but we were alright with it because
we felt we were really putting these phones to use, we used them for what
seemed like everything. I simply didn't know how I could manage without
my phone and all it's unlimited allowance. So every month, we paid that
expensive bill.

The Idea:
A couple of days ago, my husband had brought up the idea of switching
to Virgin Mobile prepaid. At first, I was totally against it and really just
wanted to drop the conversation. I saw it as losing my cool phone that
I use all the time and replacing it for one that wouldn't fit my needs, on a
plan that would be extremely limited. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I sat down with our AT&T bill and ran some numbers, We still had 18
months of our contract left so we knew we were going to incur an
early termination fee, So I had to be sure we were really going to be
saving some money. I called AT&T and inquired about the amount of
the ETF, the rep advised me that it would be $530 at this point to cancel
both of our iPhone lines. But if we chose to continue service with AT&T
for the next 18 months we will  have paid a total of $3420! If we chose
to go with Virgin Mobile, we will only pay $900 over the next 18 months
instead!

I checked out Virgin Mobile's site and looked at plans and phones and
features. I checked the coverage map, and saw that we are in a great
area with full coverage.Virgin Mobile had 2 phones that I felt would meet
my needs very well. The Intercept and the Optimus V. Both of which are
Android phones and come at a price tag of $150 each, but without a
contract!!

So I spoke with my husband about all the prices and about the fees to
cancel service. He assured me that by selling our iPhones, we would
have enough to cover the cancellation fees and some of the cost of
buying our new phones. So we ended up heading to Target purchasing
our phones and prepaid cards and started the process of porting our
existing numbers over to our new phones. (Which was quick and done
in under 2 hours!)

We chose the $25 a month plan from Virgin Mobile for each of our lines.
It gives us 300 anytime minutes(each phone), UNLIMITED Texting
and UNLIMITED Internet! We both have Google Voice phone numbers,
so we can make free calls from home on our computers if we need to
conserve our minutes, or we can always add more money to our Virgin
Mobile account should the need ever arise for us to talk more.
(We don't talk a lot on our phones)

The Outcome:

We will pay a total of $50 a month for both of our phones, to do the same
thing that we were paying $190 a month on AT&T! That saves us $140 a
month that we can put towards paying off other debt each month, or put towards
savings!

I have been using the phone for a couple of days now and I absolutely
love it! I chose the Samsung Intercept, so that I would have the keyboard,
and my husband chose the Samsung Optimus V. He is impressed with the
speed and abilities of the phone for the low monthly price as well! My husband
was also right about selling our iPhones to pay the cancellation fees. As soon
as he listed them for sale, there was tons of interest in the price we were asking!

I am very happy about this decision, and I wanted to share this story with my
readers because everytime I use my new phone, I seriously say to myself
"Why would anyone pay $190 a month for something you can get for $50! I
wish I had known about this sooner!!"

Virgin Mobile has other phones available as well, There is a Blackberry, The
Rumor Touch and a few simple phones for those of you who don't want all the
bells and whistles. I know everyone's situations and needs in a phone are different.
But If you can, it's probably a good idea to sit down, look at your cell phone bill
figure some numbers and see if you can save some money each month by switching.
I really wish someone would have talked us into prepaid six months ago when we
went with AT&T! There are lots of other prepaid companies out there, but I have
never tried any of them, nor do I have any info about them. So if Virgin Mobile
isn't in your area, I'm sure there is another one that could save you money off
a contract plan.
Anyone else using a prepaid company and saving lots of money vs contract?

This post was 100% written by me. I am in no way affiliated with any cell phone
companies other than being a regular customer, and was not asked to write or
compensated in anyway for this post. I also wish to add that we had no problems
with the service of AT&T only have found it to be way more expensive vs.
our new service. The post is of true account and is written with meaning of hoping
you can save money as we did.

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How can you save money if you indulge in stockpiling?

The Following is a Guest Post by RP.

Author’s Bio: RP is a regular writer for various finance related Communities including Debt Consolidation Care. She is a PG degree holder in Marketing and Finance and right now working in a reputed bank as a relationship manager. She is well equipped to write articles on debt consolidation , debt settlement, frugality, savings, economies of states etc.

How can you save money if you indulge in stockpiling?
Stockpiling helps you save loads of money. It is a way to strategically use your coupons to buy items so that you never have to pay full price on everyday items, especially groceries, other household products and personal care items. It is best to stockpile when the cost of the items you need are at the lowest. Stockpiling is when you buy each of the items - which you need - in large quantities when they are cheap so as to save money.
How can you start stockpiling to save money?
In order to start stockpiling you will have to:

• Decide what your family needs and then make a list of those items. Some of the items that you use daily might include tissue papers, toothpaste, soap, etc. You will also have to decide if you want to stick to any particular brand or if you can switch as and when needed. For example, if you are using toothpaste of a certain brand you may find it cheaper if you switch brands. Some drugstores even offer free toothpaste. So, you need to find out if other brand’s toothpaste will suit you and your family. However, you may not be possible for you to switch brands for all items that you use. You will also have to determine how quickly you finish off these items and how much you will need to buy and stock up so that it lasts at least a month until the sales of the next month.

• You can also start collecting the discount coupons and wait for the sales. This can be the hardest part because you may even run out of an item before you get an offer. So, if it’s an essential thing that you have run out on, you may have to buy that item using only the coupons. But, if you run out on such items that are not essential for your everyday living, you may wait till you get the best offer. For example, if you run out of some food items that you just love to have but are not essential, you should wait for the discount offers.

• You should also make sure that you have a fixed place to store your stockpile items in groups. It’s essential to store them at the right place so that they last until the expiration date. You may have a definite place in your house to store items but you may not have that space to store large quantity of items together. In that case try to create some space to store your stockpile items. If you organize your kitchen, it is quite likely that you will be able to invest places where you will be able to stock items.

• In addition, keep in mind the shelf date of the items you are buying in stockpile so that you can use the items before the expiry; so that you don’t lose money on expired items.  Make sure you rotate your stocks while putting those away in piles. It’s good to store the items in such a way so that the older ones stay in front. This is mainly important for food materials rather than other everyday items like brushes or toilet papers.

As for the food items, it is best to store them in a freezer. So, if you have two freezers, sue one mainly for stockpiled food items. Even such food items like milk, cheese, honey, etc can be stored away for months. Also, make sure to check the expiry date of the items before buying them in large quantities.

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Helpful Tip of the Day- Newspaper Uses!

I actually posted this back in March or April, I found it saved in my documents, but cannot find the post on my site? So Here it is again. My newspaper pile is getting bulky so I needed this refresher! 

Those of you who do major couponing probably run into the same problem as I do. Each Sunday comes and new stacks of newspapers are bought, only to be used and abused for their wonderful coupon inserts lurking inside. But aside from just taking those stacks of newspapers to be recycled, what more can be done with them?  It does seem to be of such a waste to see them sitting there.

I have researched various sites and found some really neat ideas of how newspapers can come in handy!

Tip #1  Always keep a couple copies in your car, they work well incase of rain. Especially if you have extra passengers and not enough umbrellas!
They also work well in your car during wet or muddy days to give your mats and carpet extra protection keeping your car in great shape!

Tip #2 Newspapers can come in handy in all types of art and craft projects such as scrapbooking and Paper Mache', even when not used In the actual project, it can help protect tables and carpets from the glue, paint or paste used in these projects and makes clean up easy! Donate papers to local schools so that can use them for their art projects as well! HERE is a link to a great site if you want to get into the Paper Mache' thing! It's a very interesting site and has lots of great videos and instructions, really, go check it out! (Thanks, Dan!)

Tip #3 Use old newspapers to clean windows. Simply crumple a couple sheets of newspapers, spray glass with window cleaner and rub the glass with sheets of newspaper. The glass will sparkle. (found at ehow)

Tip #4 Think of any friends or family members who are planning a move soon. Newspapers make perfect protective wraps for breakables or box fillers to make things fit more tightly. Also if you plan on shipping something out, wadded newspaper can make great replacement for those expensive foam peanuts!

Tip #5 Painting jobs: lay newspapers on the floor to catch paint splatters, Or wet sheets of paper and stick on windows when painting window trim, then there are no more splatters on window glass to wipe up!

Tip #6 Line bottoms of Trash Cans incase a garbage bag rips the newspaper will soak up any leaks. Newspaper is also a great odor absorber! Use it to line bottom of Cat Litter boxes, to make changing them and cleaning them easier!

Tip #7  Lay sheets of newspapers in garden beds about 1/4″ inch thick before covering with wood chips, mulch or decorative rocks, will help prevent weed growth. Make sure to thoroughly moisten the newspaper before covering with the mulch so they stay in place. (taken from TipNut)

Tip #8 Instead of pricey wrapping paper, wrap your gifts with newspaper! You can add a pretty bow to take away from the blandness or wrap using the comics section!

Tip #9 When you have used all the Toilet Paper, save the cardboard tube. Then tightly roll newspaper to fit inside the tube long ways. Then store in a dry place. Do this each time there is a new empty tube and when Winter comes, you will have your own Newspaper Logs to burn! (reader shared idea!)

How do you Reuse the Newspapers you have? I would love to hear your ideas!

See More Helpful Tips HERE and be sure to subscribe below!

 

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Spread freshness throughout your home!

This is a really simple trick for making your house smell nicer throughout.

1. Drier Sheet

2. Vacuum Bag

3. Vacuum

First:

Before you vacuum, get a drier sheet and put it into the vacuum bag.

Then: 

 When you use the vacuum, it will smell great and put that smell into the carpet as well.

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Helpful Tip of the Day 5/15/10, Frugal Breakfast and Snacks!

Since I began couponing, I have really learned to stretch my grocery budget. But I am still looking for ways to stretch it more! I do my grocery shopping once every two weeks, and just pick up any really good deals in between. During this 2 weeks I decided I wanted to do something a little different to stretch my grocery budget.

I made a batch of Breakfast Burritos and froze the servings individually. These are great for a quick breakfast on the go, very easy to eat with little mess. By making my own instead of buying the manufactured products at the store, I saved lots of money and they are healthier than what's at the supermarket. Here is what I bought and how I made them

2 Packs Flour tortillas  (whatever is the best price) Mine were $1.24 each and gave me 20 in a pack!
*if you are good in the kitchen you can  make your own!

2 Dozen Eggs, I found mine at Cooke's for $0.89/dozen

1 Pack Oscar Mayer Turkey Bacon-Got at Walmart for $1.03 with coupon.
(Use can also use sausage if you prefer)

1 16oz pack shred cheese- got for $0.49 at a past Kroger sale!

1 Large onion chopped $0.69

How I Made them:

~I cooked my Turkey Bacon in the Microwave because it is faster and the bacon is crispier and crumbles better. I laid 6 strips at a time and cooked 2 minutes then flipped and cooked an additional minute for each batch.

~Spray some Pam cooking spray in a Large Frying Pan and cook all the chopped Onion until tender

~Crack all the eggs into a large bowl and whisk, then add eggs to the Onions in Pan
(you may have to cook half of the eggs at a time if you have smaller Pan)
Scramble the eggs until fully cooked.

~Lay Burritos on a microwave safe plate and heat for 30 seconds (I did 10 burritos at a time)

~Put a couple spoonfuls of eggs in a burrito, crumble half a strip of bacon on the eggs, sprinkle some shredded cheese, then fold one end of the burrito a third of the way up, then Roll to form the burrito.

I put two finished burritos to a ziploc bag, then froze. I was able to make a total of 40 Burritos out of these ingredients for a total cost of $6.47 or, only $0.16 per burrito! I estimate them to have about 180 calories per burrito

When you are ready to eat just take them out of the baggies and heat 2 at a time for about a minute and a half!  I like to put some hot sauce on mine when they are done, or you could also dip in salsa!


Easy Snack Plan

The next thing I did to stretch the budget was pre-make some snacks! I chose Peanut Butter Crackers.

These Peanut Butter crackers are an easy enough Idea to think up, I just never really thought to do it before in "bulk" I guess you could say. This snack is great because they are already divided up in an appropriate portion, you can grab them when you are leaving. They are great for the kids when you got to make a run to the store and don't want to hear them asking for everything because they are hungry now! I put these in my husbands lunch for work, and since I have them made before hand it makes putting his lunch together easier!

I just purchased a Store Brand box of Saltine Crackers for $0.79 and the Peanut butter was on sale at Publix last week for $0.74 after a coupon! I put 5 Cracker sandwiches per bag and was able to get 15 bags of snacks for only  $1.53, or about $0.10 a bag! I actually still had quite a bit of Peanut butter left too!


Do you guys have any easy things that you pre-make to grab and go! I am always looking for easy and super cheap ideas! Let me know!

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Helpful Tip of the Day 5/13/10

If you are like me, then you HATE waiting on hold! Most of the time that we are on hold, we are trying to fix a screw up that a company has made in the first place! My husband has a website where he likes to talk about things that interest him and one of his posts I found very interesting and possibly helpful to some of us who do not like to wait on hold. He has a post he wrote recently about Lucy Phone, It is a free Service so I figured I would direct you to his post and more about it HERE at Br8nd4on.com


His site can lean towards a more Techy side at times, sometimes, it's just something he finds really interesting but it often has some great tips that sometimes we wouldn't think about in using technology to make our lives easier! It will also give you a chance to see what's in the mind of my other half. (If you dare) No, seriously, he's pretty smart we can learn a lot.

Since he is really really tech saavy, visit his site and leave him a comment and let him know of maybe something he can post about regularly that may be of help to us frugalistas!

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Helpful Tip of the Day 4/23/10 ~Recycling Electronics for Some Cash~

Even though Earth Day has come and gone, hopefully many of you are still feeling the need to do better for the Earth. Plus you may have some extra cash in your home and not know it. If you have any old working electronics that you aren't using, you can recycle them and make some money in the process with MyBoneYard!

MyBoneYard is a great site that allows you to ship your electronic items to them free of charge, and depending on the quality and some other factors, could  make you some extra cash. The items they are looking for are:

Mp3 Players
Digital Cameras
Cell Phones
Game Systems
GPS
Laptops
eReaders
Film Cameras
Flat Panel Monitors
Camera Lenses
                                                                


So if you have some things like this lying around your house, you can see what they may be able to offer you HERE! You may be surprised at what you find out! Plus you are helping by recycling!

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Helpful Tip of The Day 4/21/10 ~Making the Most of Paper When Printing Coupons~

Last week during my weekly podcast, I answered a question from one of my readers on how to maximize the use of paper when printing coupons.

Many of us have been through it when we print coupons online. Sometimes the coupon we request will be printed solo and at the top of the page, leaving the bottom half blank, other times the coupon may be at the bottom with the top half blank, but sometimes the coupon will have a recipe or advertisement at the bottom taking up the rest of the sheet of paper and using unnecessary ink.

I found it very hard to just clip a coupon and have all that blank space wasted. I mean sure, my daughter can draw on it, or I can use it to jot down notes and such, but I print a lot of coupons and really want to reserve my paper for that purpose!

What I do to really stop the paper waste win printing coupons is have my settings to where it ALWAYS shows me a print preview before it prints. I have found this to be extremely helpful!

Now when I go to print a coupon, a window pops up on my computer showing me the exact preview of what is about to be printed. I can then accept it or cancel it. If it shows a single coupon with just blank space all at the bottom, then I know that I can use half a sheet of paper that I may have previously cut a single coupon from!  But if it shows me a Coupon at the top with an advertisment at the bottom, I know that I can let it print a couple of seconds and then hit Cancel printing once I feel the coupon part is completely done printing! This saves my ink!
 

Get to know your Printer
Each printer can load paper differently so get a feel of how yours loads, and which side of the paper loaded that it actually prints on that way if you are using a sheet that has something already printed on it, you want have a "Print Over" issue.

Once you get the hang of how your printer works, and when it is safe to cancel printing when the advertisements or recipes have started, I am certain you will be saving your paper too!

Though computers are different, you should be able to change your printer settings doing something similar to this:

Go to your Control Panel, then select the Printers Icon. Next right click on the printer you want to change the settings to then select Printing Preferences. On the General Tab, Make sure the box for "Display Preview before printing" is checked. Then click Apply at the bottom and then OK.

Now when you are printing you can see what is going to come out before hand, and be ready to insert the right size paper to just fit your needs!

Another tip on printing is to set your print settings to print in only black ink. Many people are not aware of this, but internet coupons do not have to be color to be accepted! Black ink is less expensive and lasts longer when printing text documents.

To change the setting to Print in black only do this:
Go to your Control Panel, then select the Printers Icon. Next right click on the printer you want to change the settings to then select Printing Preferences. On the Advanced Tab, simply check the print "Black and White only" button. Then click Apply, and then click Ok. (Do the same thing but click "Color" if you ever need to print in color later.)

Some of you may already be using this method, and some of you may be doing something better than this! But I do hope I have managed to make this easy enough to make sense. If you have any questions I will try to help you the best I can!

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Helpful Tip of The Day 4/20/10 ~Cleaning Time With Preschoolers!~

I just realized that I never posted a tip yesterday! Sorry, and I will try to do better!

Today's tip is going to be pointed towards parents with Toddlers and preschoolers, possible children of other ages as well!

Most parents can relate to having young children at home with them during the day.
This can make housework more of a "chore" than it has to be! The best way to less the burden is to get your children involved with what you are doing. There are lots of tips online when it comes to getting children to "help out" in the task of cleaning! When my daughter was younger, one of the things she LOVED to help with was folding wash cloths! She would help me out, Help the grandparents out. Don't they look just so darn cute when they are trying their hardest!

When she was a little older she enjoyed helping load the dishwasher, or holding the dust pan in place.
Getting your children involved is more then just the ability to entertain them while you get things done it will also build their confidence and show them the importance of staying neat! It helps to build character and makes them feel important! Not to mention, you don't have to feel guilty for not spending time with them while you complete your daily tasks!

The following are some tips gathered online to help get your little ones involved in your daily house cleaning lifestyle!

*Feather Duster's are a wonderful tool when it comes to children! They love them! Let your child    go around and dust some things while you do other work, that may not require their "help".

*When it is time for you to clean or dust your knick knacks and such, fill a small spray bottle with water and have them "clean" some of their Plastic Toys.

*Play delivery person. Put various things that need to be put away into a large basket with a handle. Have one of your children be the delivery person and put everything in its place.

*Let your children use Grill Tongs to pick up their toys! If you have more than one child you can make a game of it, to see who can pick up the most!

*Put on one of your child's favorite CD's while cleaning is in progress. Dance around and act silly to help lighten the mood and take "Chore" out of cleaning!

Remember to always give positive feedback for their efforts no matter how well the job was completed. Children love to feel important. They will love the praise and be more prone to helping you clean up in the future!

So how do you have your little ones help out with household tasks?

Resources
Parent-child-activities.suite101.com
Illinoisearlylearning.org
FamilyGo .com

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New Edition, Tip of the day!

I have decided to start sharing a useful tip each day that I have found while searching online, or a reader has sent me. Maybe even one I have come up with on my own! It is in the hopes that we can all learn something new to make our lives easier in one way or another!

So with that, Today's tip goes along with what many of you are probably doing, and that is Spring Cleaning! One room that probably doesn't get tackled so easily is the kitchen!

I don't know about you guys, but my kitchen drawers and a holder on my counter top is full of all kinds of Utensils! Spoons of many sizes and colors. There is spatulas and basters, Peelers and Mashers! Even some things that I'm not even sure what they are for! Are all of these necessary? Probably not, but yet we hold on to it all! I found a great tip from Organizational expert Peter Walsh, who has even been featured on Oprah.

If you want to see what utensils you're really using, Peter recommends the cardboard box test. "Take all the utensils out of your drawers, put them in a cardboard box," he says. "For the next month, whenever you use one of these utensils, put it back in the drawer. If after four weeks it's still in the box, you don't need it."

From there, think of donating those unused items, putting them in a yard sale, Or if they are in nice enough shape, you may be able to make a gift set out of them included in a pretty basket for a newlywed couple, or bring to a housewarming party!


I see this Cardboard box test working to help declutter other ares of the home as well!

If you have a helpful tip to make life easier, please email me at Maranda@thefrugalfreeloader.com. I will be sure to give you full credit for it!

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