Summer Fun on a Dime

I am a cheapskate.  There, I said it.  It is no surprise to most of you, because you know me.  I am always looking for ways to cut our spending.  I have noticed this year that we are doing more fun things together that don’t require money.  I love me a good fair (and fair food!), but the prices are becoming outrageous at $7+/person, plus $6 for a sandwich, $3 for a bottle of water…you get the gist.  When all is said and done, a few hours at the county fair became a $50 ordeal!

Instead, we have been doing the following this summer:

Scenery

Mill Creek State Park 

Mill Creek State Park 

Nelson Ledges

Nelson Ledges

Big Creek State Park

Happy Puppies: Salt Fork State Park

Stony Brook State Park (New York)

Stony Brook State Park (New York)

Stony Brook State Park (New York)

Pool

We don’t actually own a pool, but we got out a few times with the pups to go swimming!  Our Buddy boy just loves the water!  The pups love to swim, and we get a great laugh at watching our little otters in the water having a good ‘ole time.

Big Creek State Park

Salt Fork State Park

Salt Fork State Park

Car Show and Petting Zoo at a Local Festival

(We spent $3 total to get into the petting zoo and to feed the animals – it was worth it!)

Celebrating

4th of July Fireworks 

4th of July Fireworks

Cousin's Wedding Out of State

Camping Weekend with Family

Making Memories with Niece

Exploring

I’m sad that summer is officially over; however, I look forward to the leaves changing and the cooler temperatures.  We have plans of enjoying another season (fall) on a dime by going on hikes with the pups at surrounding state parks, taking a road-trip through the county north of ours that has 18 covered bridges, and getting away to Cook Forest in western Pennsylvania the first week of November

What have you been up to this summer?

Celebrating Hubby's Birthday

We don’t do much for birthdays around here, but birthdays have always been a big deal for me.  This is probably because my mother spoiled us rotten on our birthdays with breakfast in bed, a gift with breakfast (I always had a flower in a vase and a piece of jewelry) and anything we wanted for dinner.  Mom took special requests for our birthday dinners and I vaguely remember french onion soup and crab legs for dinner for one of my birthdays and everyone had to suffer through it.  We also went out that weekend for a birthday meal as a family to our favorite restaurant where we could order whatever we wanted.  My brother and I both always chose Red Lobster.  So yes, my mother made birthdays extremely special in our home.  As a teenager, my mother had balloons and flowers sent to high school, and even as an adult, she had them sent to work and she always made me feel special on my birthday.  For my 31^st birthday, mom took me to get my first (and only, thankyouverymuch) tattoo.  The best part – she got one too.  We have them in the same inconspicuous location and the same design.  (Side note: Mom wanted to do this for my 30^th birthday; however, I was on blood thinners due to some medical issues I had 6 months before my 30^th birthday.)

Todd’s family is quite the opposite.  Birthdays are just another day to them.  When my birthday rolled around a few months after we started dating and nothing was planned, I was upset.  It took only that first birthday for Todd to realize how important they are to me.  Todd wishes we (my mom and I) would forget his birthday altogether.  He doesn’t want to get any older and doesn’t want to have to feel any more aches and pains.  I should probably honor his wishes, but I don’t.  For his 40^th birthday, Todd got to fly a plane!  He will never forgive me for that gift, but I will tell you, it was a lot of fun. J

On the in-between birthdays, I try to make his day as simple, carefree and special as possible.

This year, I made him a nice dinner with foods that we don’t generally buy.  Unfortunately, he had to work on his birthday this year, but this was his menu.

Breakfast: Glazed doughnuts (his favorite)

Lunch: He ate whatever he took to work for lunch

Dinner: Steak with mushrooms and onions, shrimp, pasta salad, corn on the cob and a baked potato

Drink with dinner: Sparkling Apple Cider

Yes, I went all out for his dinner.

I am suffering from the worst case of poison ivy I’ve ever had and Todd mentioned that we should just go out to a local restaurant for a burger on his birthday to make it easier on me.  Though I appreciate his concern, I enjoy preparing for birthdays as much as I enjoy celebrating my own!

This is what dinner looked like on his actual birthday yesterday, May 30th.  Yes, it was a feast.  After all, we like our food!

We ate like a king and queen on Todd’s birthday and enjoyed every minute of it.  This meal cost a total of $18.38 (including his breakfast), which is steep, but well worth the splurge.  We wouldn’t have been able to order two burgers from the local restaurant for any less than this large meal.  The best part is that there were leftovers to enjoy!

How do you celebrate birthdays in your home?

Investing in Time Together

In January, Todd and I were talking about where we would like to go and what we would like to do in 2013 as we usually do at the start of each year. One thing Todd mentioned wanting to do is go to the ClevelandMuseum of Natural History.  Honestly, I didn’t even know Cleveland had a Museum of Natural History!

I was talking to one of my co-workers about Todd wanting to go to the Natural History Museum and he had mentioned that they had a blue whale exhibit going on until the end of the month.  I immediately went online to see what it was all about.  Low and behold, the exhibit went through January 27^th.  We only had a couple more weeks to go if we wanted to see this exhibit.

 

I mentioned to Todd that there was also a Mayan exhibit coming to the Museum starting February that I wouldn’t mind checking out.  At $12/person plus parking, Todd wanted to look into a yearly membership.

Come to find out, we can get a 1 year membership for the two of us to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for $75.  This includes unlimited visits for the two of us, 4 extra tickets if we wanted to bring guests, and 2 free parking passes.  At this price, if we attend 3 exhibits, the membership pays for itself.  But wait, there’s more.

In front of a true-to-life size whale heart!
It is over 6 ft tall!

 

As part of the membership, we can get into hundreds of othermuseums around the United States for free!  This got us to thinking.  We are trying to save money this year and stay close to home.  We can travel all over Ohio and to Pennsylvania and see all of these cool museums and science centers for free!  Not only would it be fun, it would be inexpensive (we are within driving distance to many of the locations within Ohio and Pennsylvania), and we are spending time together.

 
 

Both Todd and I share the secondary love language (if you haven’t read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I highly recommend it!) of quality time.  This means we feel most loved when our love language is met (his is physical touch - mine is acts of service) as well as our secondary love language is being met.  We have also decided that we are investing in a membership to the Cleveland Zoo as well.  This way, we can spend quality time throughout all seasons this year.  I absolutely love animals and by purchasing a yearly pass to the zoo, we would only have to go twice before it pays for itself.  You will most likely find us at the zoo on our 6 year wedding anniversary this year on May 3^rd!

 

Todd and I are complete nerds when it comes to museums and learning.  Even though the budget is tight this year, we are investing in time together:  Just the two of us – exploring the world (OK, Ohio and Pennsylvania…but close enough).  There will probably be some mishaps along the way, but we are going to be making memories together…and I cannot wait! 

 

 

What do you do to invest in your marriage?  Do you have a yearly membership with your spouse to the gym, musicals, concerts or museums?  Do you feel they bring you together as a couple?

Repurposing Christmas Cards

I absolutely love the beautiful pictures and creativeness of Christmas cards.  Each year, I have a handful that I fall in love with and I hate to see them go when Christmas is over.  There are a few ways that I am now repurposing Christmas cards that I receive.

Postcards*

I write to our Compassion child regularly.  Sometimes, instead of writing her a message through their online site, I like to send a physical card.  If a Christmas card does not have writing on the front cover, I cut the card in half, write a little note for Anabel and put a postcard stamp on it to send it off.  This way, not only do I get to enjoy the postcard for some weeks, our Compassion child is able to enjoy it as well. 

**Please note that in order to use a postcard stamp, the card cannot be any larger than 4.25" x 6".

Frame It!

We keep our Christmas decorating to a minimum, but I like having a few things dispersed throughout the house.  Picture frames are available for $0.10-$0.50/each at flea markets and garage sales.  When I find one that I like, I snatch it up and display the holiday cards in the picture frame.  The great part is, on the “Happy Holidays” cards, I can leave them out until February before putting them away for the season (or taking them out and using as post cards for next year!)

Original Card

New Winter Decoration

 

Gift Tags

I found a website that shows how one person recycles their Christmas cards into gift tags for the next year!  What a great money-saving idea.



Source : A Spoon Full of Sugar Designs

 

Do you recycle the gift cards you receive each year?

Midgilist

It is a little known secret that at work, my nickname is Midge.  It is an inside joke because I had a vendor call me from another country and ask for “Midgin.”  Lucky for me, it was one of the sales reps that took the call and the nickname has stuck ever since. (Please note the sarcasm.)

My coworkers think I am absolutely crazy for all of the things we do in our family.  I have been told by a friend that he is creating a new term for people like me and it is called Midgilists.  What kind of person is a Midgilist?  Someone who goes above and beyond to find ways to do everyday tasks for little or no money.  He is pretty much telling me that I’m cheaper than cheap.

I asked him why he felt this way, and he fired back with about a dozen of the following things I have done over the years.  When I thought about it, I added to his list just to give you an idea what a Midgilist does:

• Raise chickens for eggs
• Raise chickens for meat
• Going no ‘poo
• Researching (and still considering) bamboo as a renewable heat source
• Research solar panels and windmills (and ways to make them ourselves for less!)
• Grow a garden
• Cut our own hair
• I touch up my roots using hydrogen peroxide (for pennies a month)
• Plant perennial fruits, vegetables and herbs
• Crochet some of my own sweaters
• Create a chicken garden to help cut the costs of chicken feed
• Breed mealworms as a food source for our chickens
• Harvest mealworm poop to fertilize the garden areas (a new infatuation of mine)
• Make homemade vanilla
• Brew our own beer/wine
• Can the overabundance of apples
• Make homemade jams
• Freeze vegetables to consume throughout the winter
• Make our own soap
• Convert our vehicle (Kia Rondo) into a mini-camper
• Do our own oil changes and car maintenance
• Home improvements using recycled materials
• Cancelling the satellite and installing an antenna instead (we get over 30 channels now, by the way!)
• Homemade laundry detergent (a new recipe for our HE )
• Homemade dishwasher detergent (another new recipe)

…and the list keeps going on and on.  Until I sat down and thought about all of these things, I completely forgot we do most of them!  We do these tasks on such a regular basis that it is second-nature to us and we don’t feel it is really out of the ordinary.

There are some people who are preppers and others are survivalists…but I’m a Midgilist and I’m OK with that.  I am proud to be thrifty and willing to put some elbow-grease into whatever we do to help save money and become self-sufficient.  There is much more we could do to improve on our Midgilism in the upcoming years.

Until then, may the Midgilists unite!

(I know there are a few of you out there. J)

This post is lined to the Farm Girl Blog Fest.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo Credit

Today we are spending the day at my grandma’s house with family for a wonderful home cooked meal and great conversation.   

I love this time of year with what is remaining of the fall colors and a little bit of a chill in the air.  It is a reminder of all of the things I have to be thankful for in my life.

I am thankful for...

• My husband - who agrees to help me with all of the crazy ideas I come up with 
• My family - who has been there for me through everything
• Our homestead - though it's not picture perfect, it's ours
• Our animals - who make us laugh on a daily basis and provide free-entertainment without having to turn on the tube 

What are you thankful for today?

What are your plans for this beautiful day?
Whatever they are, I pray that you are safe and have a wonderful time.

Thanksgiving 2011

Before Todd and I met, he would host Thanksgiving every year for his family. This year, for the first time since we’ve been together (5+ years,) we are having Thanksgiving at our house for his parents and my mom!

I enjoy having people over, but I tend to go overboard with the food. We have decided to keep things simple this year for Thanksgiving. This is what our menu will consist of:

• Turkey
• Mashed potatoes and gravy
• Stuffing
• Green bean casserole
• Corn
• Cranberry sauce (I don’t like – but his parents do)
• Deviled eggs (my mom is bringing)
• Relish tray (my mom is bringing)
• Biscuits
• Apple Pie using apple filling I made
• Pumpkin Pie (the in-laws are bringing)

There may be a couple of hors d’oeuvres, but not much more than that. Pretty simple! I am looking forward to spending time with family!!

What are your plans for Thanksgiving this year?

Finding Frugal (and Fun) Things to Do

My husband and I love to explore and learn.  I am quite fortunate that I found someone to share my life with that enjoys an adventure just as much as I do (if not more!) 

Todd was not scheduled to work last weekend and we had no prior plans with either of our families (for the first time in a while!)  I am perfectly content with sitting at home in my pajamas and relaxing for the entire weekend, but Todd always has to be doing something.  I decided to see what I could find for us to do (locally) to change up our frugal dates together. 

Whenever Todd and I are traveling or even when we are looking for something to do close to home, I Google “Things To Do” and then the City we will be close to.  Nearly every single time I do this search, I can find something for us to do within a 5-20 mile radius of where we will be located.  The great thing about doing a search like this is that it pulls up a lot of museums, parks, and landmarks among other places that are either free or very inexpensive!

Two other website I like to use to find activities to do for our frugal dates are:

• www.thingstodo.com
• www.tripadvisor.com

This weekend, I ended up finding a house tour to go through in Youngstown which is about 25 minutes away from where we live.  Todd and I went to lunch and then headed over to the Arms Family Museum.  We had no idea that such a beautiful piece of architecture was in Youngstown or even the history behind the mansion.  We spent over 2 hours with our tour guide and it cost us a total of $4 total for the two of us to tour this beautiful home.

A brief history of the Arms family is that the home we toured was built by Olive Arms and her husband who also had the Arms last name (he was a first cousin.)  The home was built next to an enormous stone castle which is where Olive grew up with her family.  The castle has since been purchased and used as a church.

The Arms family was generally wealthy from coal and other material.  They did not create anything, but it was an inherited wealth among the generations.  To read more about the family, you can visit this link.  

What I think is incredible is that Olive Arms left the house to the Historical Society under a couple of conditions: 

• The first floor would remain unchanged
• She decorated the home exactly how she wanted it to be for people to tour

This is so awesome because she planned every tea cup and book on the bookshelves, every setting on the dining room table and where every chair would sit.  Nothing has been changed since Olive Arms lived in this home, and I love that!  She was a very detail-oriented woman and it reflected with the intricacies throughout her beautiful home.  Another awesome thing about this home is that Olive Arms had a trust fund for the home so that people would never forget the Arms name.  Olive and her husband never had children, and it was extremely important to her for their name to be carried on, and she did this by deeding the home to the Historical Society.  The tour guides are paid tour guides and the upkeep of the grounds is done through the trust that she provided.

Todd and I had never heard of the Arms name, but now, we do.  We are actually looking forward to going back sometime in the next year when the second floor will have the original furnishings and layout as the house had while Olive inhabited the home. 

We were the only people on the tour with the tour guide, who was extremely knowledgeable.  We talked to our guide for two hours about places we’ve been and where we’d like to go.  I never realized how many places we’ve been (and how inexpensive our adventures) in our short 4 year marriage together until we were talking with our tour guide last weekend.  We can thank the internet for affording us the possibility to experience so many great places for very little money!

Power Outage!

Todd has had off this past week from work during the plant's annual shutdown.  He will also be off of work next week as well.  Since he has had off of work, he makes dinner every.single.night for us.  Yum!

Yesterday, our power went out just before I got home from work.  There has been a heat wave going through NE Ohio making it extremely hot in the house. 

So...what did we do during the power outage?

Eat Dinner Outside!

Use a phone book for the first time in years! (to call electric company)

Chill out on the front porch...

Go to the local Twistee for ice cream cones...

Spot a deer on the way home...

Try to find things in the dark...

Drive around taking pictures of the sunset...

(I love this picture of the sunset...)

Find a rainbow after a short drizzle and take a picture...



Come home to find the lights are back on!

We had a great evening together...without electricity!  We should do it again sometime soon! 

This post is linked with Homemaker By Choice's weekly blog hop and the Homestead Blog Hop!

Saving Money on Vacation: Day 3

Yesterday, I wrote about our excursions through the Smoke Hill Caverns, Dolly Sods and Spruce Knob.  Todd and I decided to make Day 3 of our trip a more relaxing day.  Todd and I are both early birds, so we were up before 6:30!  I made up some homemade biscuits with sausage gravy for breakfast.  They were so good!

We stayed around the cabin after breakfast, watched Rocky Balboa on DVD, played with Lana and spent some time in the hot tub.  It was so nice and relaxing.  By 10:30, we were ready to roll! No more being lazy!

We drove the 10 minutes “into town” which is named Beverly.  It is an adorable little town with absolutely nothing but old historic buildings. There is also an old cemetery that we went to visit.

I love all things old, and going to the cemetery (started in 1762), I was on a mission to find the oldest person in the cemetery.  We found someone who was born in the early 1700’s! 

Todd and I both agreed that this is most likely the oldest person we’ve ever seen in a cemetery.  I realize that the tombstone had been replaced, but can you imagine what it was like in 1739 when this person was born?

After the cemetery, we went on a walking tour of Beverly.  It was absolutely free! The houses were gorgeous!  Here are pictures of just a couple of them:

That was the last full day in Beverly, WV.  We had a great time on the trip and look forward to going back.  The only money we spent was on the cavern tour ($27) and we went out to eat twice (less than $50 for both meals).

To read about our trip from the beginning, please read:

Saving Money on Vacation: Day 1

Saving Money on Vacation: Day 2

Saving Money on Vacation: Day 2 (…continued)

What do you do to save money on vacations?