Thrift store decorations

Its important to me that my house be attractive. Of course I'm on a budget and not willing to pluck down large sums of money for an attractive house. I shop clearance, yard sales, craigslist, and the thrift store for gems. Lets face it there is a lot of unattractive items at the thrift store. But if your patient and check frequently, you can find awesome stuff. (or not so great stuff you fix up yourself, but that is another post)

Hubby and I decided to be bold and paint our bedroom purple. Hubby wanted a darker color then I did and we went with his choice. Which was fine in the summer when we get long hours of daylight, but in the winter its pretty dark in there. I have NO intention of repainting it. My job is to lighten up the feel with accessories. I'm looking for new curtains, and a new comforter. While i wait for those i was super excited to find this:

It was marked $6. Lately I've been trying to buy only thing that are half off that day, and this wasn't. I splurged and paid full price. I added flowers I already had till I can find some (at the thrift store) other ones I like. This piece if HUGE and looks wonderful against the purple. I love it!

I keep neglecting my blog!

This time was because we were supposed to take placement of a baby. Unfortunately politics (which has no place in child services) came into play and we were unable to do so. After a week spent bonding and preparing for the baby. Our most devastating heartbreak yet.

Last night my husband and I were hunting the thrift stores for a book. We were not able to find the exact one we needed but the last thrift store yielded some wonderful treasures. A used but in perfect shape Battle ship game for $2, this game for $1, a 1.99 first aid book (originally $10.99) and the best find a CLEP study guide for $1.99. (marked $23!)

My hubby and I had a lot of fun playing two rounds of Battleship last night. Sometimes I forget in this technology age just how much fun a low tech board game can be. For $2 no less! Its also quite interesting playing your spouse. My husband goes for a logical search grid pattern when hunting ships. I do a sort of pattern but mainly use my spacial sense to figure out where the ships are. The first game he barely beat me, but the second I whooped him. We laughed, talked and teased the whole time it was great!

How do you manage your spare change?

Dh and I use a cash budget. Coins accumulate quickly and are quite heavy in my purse. We keep a glass vase in the living room to dump change. When full the vase is equal to $50-$60. Usually its filled up once a month. We could roll all that change and put it in savings. But we don't. We use that as fun money. Coinstar charges 8% of your coins to use their service. In less you buy a gift certificate with your coins. Which is exactly what we do. Sometimes we use it to buy a movie gift card, sometimes old navy, or amazon. Frequently we use it to fill up our Starbucks card. Hubby and I decided if we don't need the coin money for something (clothes, bark collar refills, or a Lowe's project gift card etc.) we will spend half the coins on Starbucks, and half on something else. I'll do a post on how we keep our latte love somewhat frugal, but a latte is a nice treat. Even if you have a latte machine at home. . . .

That is our method for coins. Buying a gift card saves us the time of rolling the coins, and it allows us a little extra luxury. A little bit of fun. Other people will choose to spend their coins for savings, debt, or needs. That is fine too! We use ours for fun because it helps keep us from feeling deprived, and lattes are YUMMY!

Thrift store bento box!

I was thrilled to find this BRAND NEW bento in our local thrift store! There was also a hello kitty square bento, and a small side car with lids that did not properly latch. I paid a hefty $2 for this gem. And packed it the very next day (after a through cleaning!) I was sure dh and I would never find a bento box in our local store but a bento fan must have been cleaning out their stash.

I packed mango, pretzels, hummus, bear shaped cucumber hummus sandwiches, carrots, and light yogurt.

Our new goal.

Hubby and I have made an agreement to really buckle down with savings. We live fairly frugal in general but we don't deny our selves the things we want very often. In other words, not really as frugal as we can live. We spend money on things that really don't matter while seeing our adoption fund creep slowly upwards. We agreed starting January 1st, we'd really really buckle down. I am super excited about it because its making us think about whats really important to us.

We've already had some pinchy moments! For instance dh was off all last week. Normally we would have eaten breakfast out at least twice. We didn't eat breakfast out all week. And when we ran out of eggs, we had oatmeal. Very unusual for us! I put down a $1.50 pack of scrap booking stickers that I didn't really like and certainly did not need. Hubby loves boxers from old navy (last for years, great quality) and even though they were on super sale he didn't buy any. Because he really didn't need them. We spent more time at home working on projects. Hubby is fixing the pantry that has been on his to do list for months. I can already feel a change, and its not all financial.

Adoption fund $1,450 (we've had 3 very expensive repairs in the past 2 months)
can we make it to $10,000 by January? I do not know for sure, but we intend to do our best!