As an artist I am always eager for the creative challenges provided by frugal living and the quest for unconventional solutions. I view limited means and materials as a criteria or assignment and constantly ponder over the possible uses and adaptations of old, broken, or left-over items. My sister and I have always viewed saving money as winning at a game and making something useful out of something unwanted is the same as getting it for free, which is quite a victory.

Even while growing up in very comfortable circumstances, I had a fascination with the potential of objects to be used as they were not intended. This interest may have begun with finding furniture for a doll house from household objects and making clothes for my dolls and cats from old clothing and yarns.

My pursuit of improvisation in furniture and clothes was furthered by literature such as novels by Charles Dickens which portray extreme poverty with infinite charm. There is also a children’s series by Mary Norton describing the lives of resourceful little people called Borrowers who see caviar tins as bathtubs and postage stamps as wall art. In one instance of borrower-like behavior, I used for a drawer pull the steam control knob from a clothes iron which had suffered a fall. Close examination will reveal that the knob bears the words “Max”, “Low”, and “Off”. The other embellishments used on this drawer were 2 pieces of star anise and untidy swirls of hot glue under a coat of paint.

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The Problem

Being first time homeowners, we were unaware (until a few days ago) that the main drain in a house needs to be regularly maintained to prevent clogs from developing. So those of you who are savvy homeowners should not be astonished to hear that after 6 years, our drain developed a serious clog. While copious amounts of Liquid Plumr opened the drain enough to allow for a little water use, we were not able to do laundry in the modern fashion or take a shower lasting more than 10 seconds. Therefore, after washing our hair in the kitchen sink, we decided to try the baking soda and vinegar remedy.

The Solution

On the internet, we found many versions of this plumbing fix. Everyone had a different prescription for baking soda-to-vinegar ratio or how long to wait before pouring in the boiling water. After considering our situation, we came up with our own procedure for clearing a clog with this wholesome home remedy. Read the rest of this entry »

. . . we receive this lovely notice from our health insurance company:

1. We’re discontinuing your automatic credit card payments so you can’t get any cash back or reward points to make up for our continually increasing premiums.
2. We’re going to start sending you monthly bills in July because everyone can use more clutter and who cares about trees anyway?
3. Use the enclosed form to enroll for automatic check withdrawal … (Oops, wait, we forgot to enclose it.)
4. Sure, you can by phone … we’ll just charge you $15 to do it.

If this is this some sort of plan to get insurees to leave because they are losing so much money on their customers, it just might work.

[ . . . If I seem to be overly sarcastic and negative about this, it's because we've been dealing with huge customer disservice issues for months with this company involving a $400 bill that they were supposed to cover (it said so on the statement they sent us), but which we've had to pay due to administrative inadequacies on their end. Plus, we just sent in forms less than 3 months ago at their request to update our credit card information for our automatic payments . . . ]

I don’t often post deals on this blog, but thought I’d share this one today as this promotion led to my first purchase of MP3′s on Amazon and there are some pretty good deals to be had.

Click on the following link to get Free $3 credit on MP3′s at Amazon.com.

This promotional code expires Nov. 29th so hurry on over and get your free $3 worth of MP3′s.

Happy Black Friday!

It is generally understood that cosmetics should not be used longer than 6 months because they get contaminated with bacteria and other substances. Instead of throwing away your cosmetics upon reaching a certain date, try some of the following.

Uses for Expired Cosmetics, Lotions and Other Beauty and Personal Products

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Over the weekend, our biological father emailed and asked me to purchase a $2.00 money order on his behalf for an FAA certificate (he’s a pilot) and mail it to him in Japan. While I wasn’t sure how much a money order cost these days, my initial reaction was “What a waste of money to buy a money order for $2.00.” But it was a busy weekend, so I just planned to go to the Post Office this week to buy the money order and gave it no further thought.

When I got to the post office this afternoon and told the clerk that I would like a money order for $2.00, he told me, “OK, but it’ll cost you $1.50.” At that moment it occurred to me that I could have just made out a check for him instead. It was quite embarrassing to not have made the realization sooner, but in front of someone else who must think me a simpleton for not having thought of it before going all the way to the post office. (Luckily, I was also going to the library next door and could also ask how much postage I would need for 1st Class Mail to Japan, so my trip didn’t seem totally in vain.)

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Many of us who have been practicing the frugal lifestyle already know about the ability to borrow books, audiobooks, movies, music, software (maybe not all libraries), etc. for free from our local libraries. But it occurs to me that fewer people might be aware of the many more resources available online through our libraries’ websites.

Most library websites these days go way beyond the ability to check your account and renew books. Rather, you have access to:

• Free e-book, audiobook, video and music downloads
• Periodicals
• Career and skill building resources
• Homework help for students
• School and career test preparation
• Databases of resources on a variety of subjects including (but not limited to):
  • Consumer information
  • Health
  • Genealogy
  • Grants
  • Business and Career

e-Books, Audiobooks, Videos & Music

Many California libraries belong to a program called Califa, where users of participating libraries can log-in with their library card numbers and check out e-books, audiobooks and music. I’m sure library systems in other states have similar programs.

Materials available through Califa include fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young adult literature. The Califa system offers public domain and non-public domain items. Copyrighted material is copy-protected so that while you can use them, they can’t be copies. Non-copyrighted material can be copied to your computer to keep indefinitely.

My favorite of the offerings are the audiobooks. The system is quite up to date and offers contemporary works and bestsellers such as The Da Vinci Code, Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as classics such as Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, etc.

Our favorites that we have listened to several times are the Chronicles of Narnia. The recording quality is good, download is fast, installation and operation of the software was easy.
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