Sunday Round Up

We’ve had a great weekend.  I worked on refinishing an end table that I picked up at our local thrift store for $4 last week (pictures coming soon – hopefully tomorrow if I get it finished).  We had dinner with some friends and I took along cherry chocolate brownies – a recipe that I found at Kristen’s Raw.  As usual, I didn’t have all of the ingredients, so I improvised.  I left out the lucuma powder (still don’t know what that is), and used dates instead of agave nectar.  I don’t have a dehydrater, so I just used regular almonds and ground them up in the food processor.  And I used chocolate hemp protein powder and flax seeds in place of the hemp seeds.  But it turned out amazingly good.  And takes about five minutes to make, which is a big bonus.

I just got caught up on my blog reading, so here are my favorites this week from around the Frugal Blog Network:

Almost Frugal has some good babyproofing tips.  The best thing we’ve done on that front is getting rid of all of the toxic chemicals in our house.  We still have a small number of things that would be harmful to a baby, but they’re in a cupboard above our washing machine, so I think they’re safe for a while.  All of our ground-level cabinets have things that are ok for him to play with (pots and pans, etc.).  We do need to put locks on some lazy susan cupboards we have, just so that he won’t pinch his fingers in them.  And we have two baby gates that we’ll be installing very soon on our stairs.  But we’re not going to need to do massive amounts of baby proofing.  That’s our plan for now anyway…

Frugal Zeitgeist has an article about how frugal is as frugal does.  Frugal doesn’t mean you have to cut coupons and wash out ziplock baggies.  To me, it means living on less than we earn, saving systematically and consistently, and not making impulse purchases.  Now that the only debt we have is our mortgage, we do spend a little more freely than we did a few years ago.  But our savings still come first.  When I deposit our paychecks, the first thing I do is send money to our various savings accounts.  And although we do buy some wants now (instead of just needs, the way we did when we were in debt), we plan and save for them.

The Frugal Duchess writes about fixing a pair of scuffed black shoes with a sharpie.  I love it!  I have been known to fix bleach stained jeans with a scrapbooking pen. 

Tight Fisted Miser writes about keeping urges from turning into splurges.  His example is gambling, but it works for just about anything.  A little taste now and then might be all you need to keep yourself from going on a bender.

Not Made Of Money has some strategies for getting the most bang for your buck on Black Friday.  We’re going to be going to my parents’ house on Friday for Thanksgiving Part Deux (Thursday we’ll be with my husband’s family).  We’re going to help them build a fence in the morning, and then eat in the afternoon.  They live out in the boonies, so we will be very far from any shopping.  I think I’ve only done Black Friday shopping once.  It was fun (I don’t mind crowds), but we usually just have other plans, and not a lot of shopping to do.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I’m feeling quite creative at the moment, and will soon be posting pictures of the end table I’m refinishing, and a sleep sack that I’ve got planned for my son, along with a few more diapers for him.  Stay tuned!