What is with naming all these stupid days? For those of you who don’t listen to the media, supposedly Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving where people start looking online for deals.

If you’d rather eat shoe leather than get up at 4am and risk getting trampled or decked by someone’s granny on Black Friday, you’re probably thinking of taking advantage of some of the deals, so here are a couple ways to make sure you’re really getting the most bang out of your buck.

1. Make a list. As I’ve been saying all along, a deal isn’t a deal if you never planned to buy the item in the first place. Sure a $75 Blu-ray player is tempting, but if you’re perfectly happy with DVDs or plan to own a PS3, it’s just a waste of money.

2. Comparison shop. There’s no excuse for not doing this online, because almost every store is at your fingertips. At the very least check out a competitor or two of whomever you’re buying from.

3. Use an online rebate program. A lot of them are running double back. My personal favorites are ebates who pay you in cash and SwagBucks who pay you in ‘swagbucks’ which you can redeem for cash, giftcards or other items. There is also MyPoints, but I haven’t been as pleased with them lately.*

4. Use a credit card with rewards. I just got $94 back from my credit card, so I’m actually ‘up’ on credit cards right now. We usually use Mr’s Upromise card and thanks to several large purchases in the past (furniture, appliances, etc), we’ve actually got a couple thousand back from them. If you use your card responsibly, they’re not actually evil and can help you out.

The only thing I bought this year was 10 maternity shirts for $50 at Old Navy (well, $52 including tax and S/H). We’re not really doing Christmas this year because of the impending arrival of Junior Frurbanite, so the family is getting a nice framed portrait of us and maybe a small personal gift.

Are y’all shopping today (or were you brave enough to do Black Friday)? Are the holidays a little smaller for you this year?

*yes, those are referral links.

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I got this idea from a catalog, where the silly thing was close to $60. I took one look at it and said ‘I can do that’.

Baby Onesie Bouquet

This project requires no artistic or crafting ability. If you can fold your own clothes, you can make this.

The whole project cost me about $22, although I did go whole hog and buy fancy flower stems at full price. If you wait until they go on sale (usually 50% off every few weeks) or until you have a coupon, I’m sure you could do this for under $20.

Ingredients:

Pack of onesies – I actually chose 8-12 month size because everyone gets newborn sizes.
Pack of baby washcloths – You can also use socks, burp cloths, etc. the cloths just happened to be on sale.
Artificial Flowers/Greenery – I used baby breath, whatever those blue things are (never claimed to be a florist) and fern leaves.
Floral Wire
Ribbon – I bought the $1 a roll grosgrain. You only need maybe 8 inches so scraps are fine.
Clear adhesive tape.

Step one: Roll your onesies. The goal is to get them into a nice spiral/rosebud shape so you might need to rearrange a few times to get it right. Use a little piece of tape to secure the roll. Reserve one washcloth/burpcloth for the outside wrap or find a nice piece of scrap cloth.
Step two: Arrange the onesies in bouquet. Use the floral wire to wrap around and secure them.
Step three: Add in floral pieces. Try to avoid putting dark flowers next to white or light fabric because the dye could rub off. Use floral wire as necessary to secure.
Step four: Surround bouquet with greens. I had to chop off a lot of stem to get the fullness I wanted. Secure with more floral wire.
Step five: Wrap base with reserved cloth. This just hides the stems. You could also just wrap the stems in ribbon. Use tape to secure.
Step six: Add ribbon band/bow. Secure with more tape.

The whole thing took me an hour, and that’s because I kept rearranging things. It’s simple, easy and pretty inexpensive, especially if you know the shower is coming and can shop sales ahead of time.

Popularity: 100% [?]

This has been bothering me for awhile, but where do you draw the line on being frugal? I’ve read some suggestions (real ones) that to me just smacked of entitlement, a lack of understanding how businesses work, and a complete lack of empathy and sense of community.

For example: stealing the toilet paper out of hotel room bathrooms.
Yes, I did use the term stealing. I’m of the opinion that there is quite a bit of hotel ‘swag’ that can be appropriated, including the little bottles of shampoo, tea bags/instant coffee, and the plastic ice/water cups.

To me, the difference is that the hotel expects you to use those items and provides them for their guests’ convenience. They’re usually individually packaged and there’s usually a little sign or note that says they’re there for the taking (mostly because it’s built into the room price.) The hotel doesn’t expect the next guest to be able to use them.

TP, on the other hand, is not a single guest item. Well, maybe the individual sheets are, but the roll isn’t. Just because the hotel wouldn’t charge you if you needed to use it all doesn’t mean you should run off with it. You wouldn’t walk into a public bathroom, open the toilet paper and run off with the contents, would you?

Example Deux: Abusing free appetizer/meal/drink coupons at restaurants
I love me some free appetizers, but it drives me crazy when someone uses one and then orders a water and sits there for 3 hours chatting and don’t tip the wait staff because they didn’t spend any money.

If you have one of these coupons, by all means use it, but remember that restaurants issue these things in the hopes that it will bring in more paying customers who will get a free appetizer and then order a drink with it or a meal afterward. Using one once in awhile to avoid paying anything but the tip because you’re broke or on a tight budget isn’t a heinous crime, but doing it consistently is a) going to encourage restaurants to stop giving these wondrous coupons out and b) going to result in body fluids ending up in your appetizer. I’m not encouraging contaminating food, just telling it like it is.

Example Three: The sample buffet.
This is the act of going to either a tasting (like at a winery) or a place where you know they give our lots of samples (like Costco or an ice cream parlor) without any money or without the intent of possibly buying anything.

Please note that I’m not insisting you buy a product every time you have a sample. It’s perfectly reasonable to take a few samples at the grocery store while you’re shopping or go with a buddy to have a few sips of wine at an open house even if you don’t think you’re going to like the selection.

The problem comes when you take more than your fair share of samples, act entitled to the samples and don’t even consider buying any items. Those little ice cream spoons aren’t there for you to treat the store like a free ice cream bar and then walk away without a cone. Samples are for paying customers (and prior paying customers.)

Example Four: Violating Coupon Policy.
This one drives me nuts, because it gives those of us who use coupons like reasonable human beings a bad name.

You’ve probably been behind a violator as she (sadly, it’s usually a she) tries to use multiples of the same coupon (usually a no-no according to the fine print), invalid coupons from the internet, expired coupons, coupons from other stores or other asshattery and makes the cashier want to close the cash drawer on his or her own head. Jerks like that make stores institute draconian coupon policies (not to mention slow everyone in line down.)

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me, but I hate when people screw over businesses or other people. I don’t see it as ‘sticking it to the man’, I see it as causing some poor shmuck to get laid off because the profit margins aren’t high enough or running someone’s shop out of business because of cheapness.

Where do you draw the line? What ‘frugal’ activities won’t you do because of your personal ethics

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I always end up overbuying Halloween candy because I always hated showing up to a house only to find out that they ran out hours ago. Consequently, I have a metric crap ton of candy left, despite a pretty good turn out.

So what to do with all this leftover sugar-laden goodness? Throwing it out would be wasteful, but eating it all would have horrific effects on your waist.

It really all depends on what kind of candy you have and how handy you are in the kitchen.

If you are not much of a master baker, I would suggest freezing enough so you can have one or two candies a day and then attempting to donate the rest. Whether you put a bowl of candy on your desk at work, leave it in the employee breakroom or try to find a shelter or food bank that could use a little fun stuff for incoming kids is up to you.

If you DO like to bake, start sorting your candy into the following categories: Hard Candy, Chocolate Bars, M&Ms, and ‘other’. We’re going to use these supplies in ‘holiday’ baking, so be prepared to store chocolates in the freezer until you start baking.

Hard Candy: Stained Glass Cookies.

You can follow the recipe or use your favorite roll-out cookie dough. Basically you roll out your dough, cut your cookies and then use a smaller cutout on the inside. Fill the cutout with crushed hard candies and the candy will melt to make a pretty stained glass effect. I prefer to use plain sugar cookie dough, but I don’t hang mine as decorations so I don’t care if they’re sturdy or not.

Chocolate Bars: Surprise Candy Bar Cookies or chop up the candies to use as a topping on ice cream or on cakes/brownies.

M&Ms: Use instead of chocolate chips in your favorite cookie recipe, use on ice cream or use as decorations on a gingerbread house (with hard candy stained glass windows, of course.)

Hershey’s Kisses and other ‘plain’ chocolates: Try chocolate dipped pretzels, Kiss/Thumbprint Cookies, microwave S’mores, or chop up and use instead of chocolate chips in any recipe.

Skittles: Skittles Infused Vodka

‘Other’ candy: Colorful candies make good gingerbread house decorations. Red Hots make delicious baked apples (core the apples, then fill the hole with the candy), caramels can be melted into a sauce or caramel dip.

So what will you do with the leftover goodies?

Further Reading (parenthood.com).

Popularity: 25% [?]