Frugal Tips and a Free Giveaway

You know those net bags that onions, some apples, and the Thanksgiving turkeys come in? Save it and use it again. Wadded up it makes a very nice pot or potato cleaner. Or run a bit of a shoelace through it to make a drawsting back and hang it up over the bathtub faucet and use for letting toys drip dry. Or put a sweater in it and tie it closed and put through the gentle cycle on the wash to keep it from snagging on something.

Using two pairs of pliers, Amy Dacyczyn worked out a replacement buckle for a broken one on a pair of overalls using a bit of old wire coat-hanger- it lasted through several more children, too!
Using pliers and wire-cutters, my husband made an over the door hanger for my bulletin board from a wire coat hanger.
Using part of a wire hanger he also fashioned a hook to help pull hair out of our drains (long-haired girls shed).
Using a wire hanger I I made a heart-shaped frame for a wreath, then wove long, grassy weeds from the yard all around it.

Take your old socks, stitch the toes together and clamp them in an old clamp style mop for a fresh new mop with lots of cleaning power.

Have a law-mower that doesn't work? Remove the motor from the base, bolt a board to the base, and you now have a dolly that does work for moving heavy items.

Sometimes your windshield wipers don't need to be replaced- they need to be cleaned. Vinegar and water should do that.

I just read about a woman who saved 30 percent of the electric bill by telling her older teenaged son that instead of charging him rent, she was making him responsible for the electric bill.

These and other great ideas are nearly all found in The Tightwad Gazette Two by Amy Dacyczyn.

I picked up an extra copy at the thrift shop yesterday. It's a paperback in very good condition, and I'm having a drawing for it- leave a link back to this post from your blog (or leave a comment if you don't have a blog), and I'll enter your name in the drawing!

P.S. Other helps with the budget:

Sign up for Swagbucks, use their search engine for your regular, every day, common searches and earn swagbucks, which you can use to buy all kinds of things.
Earn points for your normal web searches, I mainly use mine for five dollar Amazon gift certificates, but there are other things, too, and right now there is a great deal running on gift certificates for Euphoria Baby (five dollar gift Certificate for ten swagbucks). I used my Amazon gift certificates to buy birthday gifts, and now I'm saving them for a new camera.

cashbaq: You get five dollars just for signing up, then various businesses will give you a certain percentage of cash back (cashbaq, get it?) when you shop through them- and these ARE businesses you might just be shopping at anyway. We've purchased eyeglasses online for 30 dollars and then got six dollars cash back, and I bought school books through Abebooks (I found several cheaper than Amazon) and got six percent of my purchase back. I bought a cool connecting blocks set and Burt's Bees lip balms at deep, deep discounts through drugstore.com, and these are both for gifts where I would have had to come up with something anyway. There are all kinds of things- it's really worth it to look and see if there aren't some regular places you already shop on the list- I bet there are, and that is the key to using this to save money rather than spend it- if it's money you were going to be spending somewhere, somehow anyway, try it through a cashbaq participating business to get a further discount.

Updated to add: If you've been using Cashbaq, it's time to switch to ebates.  They have been around longer and they picked up the outstanding amounts owed to Cashbaq's customers! Sign up and start saving money now!  They give you a five dollar bonus right away, too!

Book closeouts has some awesome deals, I have purchased CDs and books both for reference and for gifts there:
Support Literacy: Find Bargain Books at BookCloseouts!

PPS- I just found out Money Saving Mom has a whole Mr. Linky post full of free giveaways!!

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