Shopping | Prudent and Practical

June 3, 2009

Save up to 50% on Groceries… I’ll show you how!

Filed under: food — Tags: bargains, discounts, food, shopping — K @ 12:18 AM

: Image via Wikipedia

If you need a little extra help with groceries, there are a couple different ways to get more bang for your buck without applying for food stamps or obsessively couponing.

The following two programs offer discounted groceries with no strings attached. The food is purchased from the same companies that your local grocery stores use. They are not giving you old, outdated food.

1 – SHARE Iowa began in 1992 and states in the local paper: “If you eat, you qualify!” You’re expected to do two hours of community service in exchange for the discount. The volunteering options are many! You could do some work with your church, help the SHARE program, knit for a non-profit group, or even call a sick neighbor. They currently serve around 8000 Iowan’s per month, but would love to serve more! (Note: There are many other SHARE programs in the US – not just Iowa!)

2 – AngelFood Ministries is a nationwide program that was founded in 1994. The main difference between this program and Share Iowa is that you do not have to volunteer. This group also takes food stamps. Their main “box” is $30 but is worth approximately $65 based on the national average price of food, and will feed a family of four for one week! There is no limit to the number of boxes you can purchase.

Here’s what’s available for the month of June (descriptions can be found HERE):

Signature box – $30
Senior Citizen’s / Convenience box (10 heat and eat meals) – $28
Allergen free box – $25
Seafood box – $35
7 lb assorted meat/grill box – $23
4.5 lb Meat and Chicken Combo box – $22
11 lb. Chicken Combo box – $22
Fresh Fruit and Veggie Box – $22
“Latin Flavors” Fruit and Veggie Box – $22

3 – Grow your own fruits and veggies from seed and make baked goods from scratch. This is by far the cheapest way to get food!

4 – You may find some good deals from vendors willing to barter more if you visit your local farmer’s market late in the day. As I was leaving a large downtown farmer’s market, I was handed three loafs of bread from a vendor. I refused at first to which he replied, “Please take it for free, I have so much left over today and I don’t have room for it at home.” It was delicious!

So, that was just a small list to get you started. If you have any other ideas you’d like to suggest, please do so!

Comments (0)

May 1, 2009

A Beginner’s Guide to Making a Kentucky Derby Hat

Filed under: Headline — Tags: crafts, DIY, save, shopping — K @ 7:57 PM

Although the Derby is tomorrow, it’s not too late to make a very special hat. Once you start thinking creatively, you’ll be able to make wonderful hats for any upcoming event with limited resources and limited funds. I don’t have hundreds of dollars to be spending on a hat that I’ll wear once so I decided to create my own. This was my very first attempt at creating a (somewhat) fancy hat and I’m quite proud of it. I’ll definitely be making more of these in the future!

Handy helpers:

Scissors
Hot glue gun
A large mirror
A clean space for assembling

Some ideas for materials:

Fabric – satin, silk, tulle, ribbon, chenille, crinoline
Feathers – peacock, dyed chicken
Flowers – a single big bloom, many small blooms
Paint – according to the morning news shows, a popular trend this year was two colors on one hat (for example: 1/3 white and 2/3 black or 1/2 and 1/2, not including the embellishments – similar to this one)

Step 1 – Get some inspiration and gather all materials. Going to your local craft and fabric stores can help you get ideas too.

For inspiration, you can visit:

Step 2 – Trim extras off the hat if needed. Mine had “decorative” straps that hung off of it and a tag.

Step 3 – If you’re doing a band around the base of the hat, it helps to either wear the hat or have something wear it for you so that you have a steady work surface. I rolled the fabric, wrapped it around my head and then knotted it once. I took the hat off and placed a dab of hot glue under the knot and also on the opposite side of the hat to keep the band from slipping.

Step 4 – Now we have to hide that ugly knot! This is the place for a cluster of flowers, a single large bloom, or a big bow. I chose a single large bloom. I purchased the stem and once home just plucked the bloom off. I used hot glue to place it over the knot.

Step 5 – I really like the way the hat looks right now, but I think it needs a little something more. I hot glued the ends of feathers and then placed 3 black ones behind the band by the flower.

Step 6 – You’re done! Take a photo and then go show off!

plants hat cari 067 300x225 photo A Beginners Guide to Making a Kentucky Derby Hat

This photo just doesn't do the hat justice!

Dollars and $ents:

Designer Kentucky Derby Hat – $100-$800+

My imitation hat:

Hat – $7.00 at Walmart
Fabric – $0.25 ($0.74 for 1/4 yard) at Walmart
Flower – $2.00 at Dollar General
Feathers – $0.34 ($2.74 for pkg of 24)
TOTAL: $9.59 +tax

Update: My hat got a lot of compliments at the party on Saturday! It cost under $10 and took less than 30 minutes of my time to create!

Comments (3)

April 22, 2009

Free Stuff? How Can I Mystery Shop Too?

Filed under: money — Tags: free, job, online, shopping — K @ 3:36 PM

How I Got Started & A Word of Caution

A while back, I stated that I would write an article about mystery shopping… so here it is! Back in my early college days, I got an email that said something like, “Get paid to shop!” I knew little about spam and scams at that time, so I paid a $20 fee to get started. Although it was dumb of me to not only spend money I didn’t have, but I spent money on a company that I knew nothing about in attempt to make money. When I got into their “portal,” it was a never ending list of surveys and complete-this-offer-to-mystery-shop. But there were a couple real mystery shopping companies on that list and I was lucky enough to find them and write down their names. Knowing I was scammed, I called the company to cancel my membership. The line was constantly busy, even at off-peak times, so I called my credit card company. I explained what happened and they reversed the charge – thank goodness!

(I tell you this little back story, not to scare you, but to let you know what happened to me. Granted this is a very small incident compared to the cashier-check scams out there, but there are scams out there! Don’t fall for them – listen to your intuition. Don’t ever ever ever cash a cashier’s check or money order that was sent to you by someone you don’t know. This scammers send you a check/money order. You deposit the money into your own account and then send the majority of it back. Time goes by and then your bank contacts you saying that you owe them hundreds or thousands of dollars for a fake check/MO. Guess what? When you contact the company you got the check/MO from, they are looooong gone and don’t exist anymore. They have the money and leave you to pay up what is owed plus the fees. Many scammers are also impersonating MSPs now too, so you need be cautious.)

Fast forward a few years to 2006, I hit my worst. I quit school, my Mary Kay director quit, I was in a town one hour from any family and friends (except for D), and I had creditors calling me left and right. Desperate, I found that little piece of paper with mystery shopping companies on it and started doing assignments. Mystery shopping provided me with something to do with my time, a way to interact with people, and a way to make money. I’ve been consistently mystery shopping since January 2006, but got more serious about it in June 2008.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Comments (0)

April 19, 2009

Get Our Favorite Items at Our New Store

Filed under: General — Tags: bargains, discounts, online, sales, shopping — K @ 11:18 PM

Now you can find our favorite products at our new online Prudent and Practical Store. We will continue to add new inventory. Right now, we have listed some of our favorite household cleaning products. In the near future, we will be adding our favorite kitchen and workshop tools as well as helpful books. Now you don’t have to search everywhere trying to find the products we talk about on the blog!

Please visit The Prudent and Practical Store

Comments (0)

April 1, 2009

Free Movies! Need I say more?

Filed under: entertainment — Tags: computer, discounts, entertainment, free, movies, shopping — D @ 1:00 AM

: Image via Wikipedia

Redbox has become my favorite way to rent movies. It’s conveniently located in our grocery store, so I don’t have to waste time and gas going all the way across town to rent an overpriced movie. The Redbox locations are usually in busy places that are open long hours such as fast food restaurants and grocery stores. You can also see what movies are available at all kiosks and reserve movies from the comfort of your own home before picking it up.

The movies are only $1 + tax per night and I like this “freedom”. I feel like I pay for the time I watch the movie. With RedBox, I return the movie by 9pm the following night or I get charged another dollar for another night. When I rent a movie elsewhere, I usually don’t watch it over multiple days – I watch it once. At this point I forget to return it three or four days later, incurring another $4 charge.

In addition to the dollar movies, RedBox offers multiple ways to get one night free.

Sign up for their emailings – you get a free rental for being a new member
Enter your cell phone on their website and opt in to receive texts every Monday
Free movie Wednesdays (so far only for March) by getting a code off their blog

The following messages have come straight from RedBox.

GET A FREE NIGHT’S RENTAL EVERY MONDAY… Sign up for Free Movie Mondays! Join the Redbox Free Movie Monday SMS program and get a promo code sent to your phone every Monday!

It’s March Movie Madness for Redbox, so get in the game… on Wednesdays! Visit Redblog every Wednesday in March for your Free Movie Wednesday code. Then visit your local Redbox kiosk for your FREE 1 NIGHT’s RENTAL.

I’ve used multiple cards and email addresses to receive the codes. One that I’ve gotten twice is BREAKROOM. There are also sites and forums out there catered to finding new RedBox freebie codes.

InsideRedBox keeps track of all new and expired codes, passing them on to you for free.
Slick Deals also has an entire thread devoted to RedBox codes.

Happy Movie Watching

Comments (0)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »