One small step for frugality

You know the Softsoap Ensembles decorator hand soap dispensers? I was so glad when those came out. I kept looking at hand soap dispensers at places like Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but never could bring myself to fork over the cash for the ones I liked.

So I was fairly excited when I saw these babies. Until the first time one ran out of soap. I got out my Sam's Club gallon-sized soap refill jug and discovered how crafty the Softsoap people are. They made the bottles in such a way that it is nearly impossible to refill. It is not just an open bottle when you take the top off. Oh no, they are too clever for that, there are little tiny slits that take forever for the soap to drain down through. Most normal people would not spend the time it takes to refill it, cha-ching!

But I am no normal person. I spent forever refilling it the first time. Pouring in about a tablespoon at a time and waiting, waiting, waiting for it to ever so slowly drip down. Mike kept walking through the kitchen saying supportive things like, "Are you kidding me?" and "You are crazy." I said, "Oh no, I will not throw away my pretty soap dispensers and I certainly will not pay $3 for a refill jar when I can buy a whole gallon of liquid soap at Sam's Club for $6!"

I was determined. After spending roughly the entire afternoon filling that little puppy (okay, maybe not quite an afternoon, but it seemed like it), the next time I figured out that if you put a funnel in the jar and fill it with liquid soap it will slowly seep down (takes about 20 minutes without my needing to stay and babysit it) and be good to go. My funnel is the perfect size and it only takes one fill of it to do the job.

Three dollars for an 8.3 oz. refill bottle or $6 for a gallon refill jug? Let's test our math skills. Umm, I think I'll take the gallon jug!

Of course the funnel thing would work on refilling any hand soap dispenser (I always make a mess filling the regular ones too) and I'm sure most of you already had that figured out, but don't tell me, it will hurt my feelings.

Their website has a coupon for $1 off the dispensers.

I heart satin nickel

I have a slight addiction to Satin Nickel spray paint. It ever so slightly reminds me of the mirrored furniture from Pottery Barn. So I use it everywhere in my house. Kind of kidding. It's not exactly the same, but I'll take my $100 second-hand hutch plus $10 worth of spray paint over paying $800 for a smaller Pottery Barn dresser, thank you.

Above is a before shot of the hutch. I took the handles off and puttied the holes only to realize it was going to be a lot of trouble and expense to replace the handles so I ended up putting the original handles back on and painting them right along with the hutch. I don't have a before picture of the mirror hanging above the hutch, but it is just a plastic mirror that was red and black.


Below is the only "before picture" I could find for my next victims, er, lovelies. Notice the gold mirror above the fireplace and the two floral pictures hanging above the couch with gold frames.

In a side-note: this is the world's heaviest mirror. I bought it for $50 at a consignment store over 10 years ago and will probably use it somewhere in my house for the rest of my life. It was a good purchase. You can't tell from the picture, but it is really simple except for this dental molding feature at the bottom. (The picture is from our old house.)



The mirror is now black (this I painted before discovering Satin Nickel).


The no-longer-gold frames.



Below is an unusual little table I bought second-hand. I really had no use for it, but thought it would be cute painted. The white part is kind of iridescent in real life.



I have the perfect spot for it now, in between two wing chairs my mom gave us for our bedroom. For the first time in my life I have a sitting area in my bedroom and I feel like a real live grown-up person! I need to get slipcovers for the chairs and a new lamp for the table. I'll post a picture of the sitting area when I get it all done. It is not top priority though, so that may be months or years from now.


Don't look at the base on that table. It's a tad off-center. I didn't realize that it was not totally fixed in place when I painted it so if I center it now the original faux wood is exposed. I could, of course, paint it when I am painting one of the other fifty-eight items I have painted, but then that would make too much sense and Mike would never be able to poke fun at me about it.

This is the paint that made it all possible. Roughly $3 at Walmart. But don't take my word for it. I paid $2.50 for some white spray paint at a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store over the weekend. I told Mike, "This is like $3 or $4 at Walmart." So I bought some. I then went to Walmart and noticed that the particular brand of spray paint I had just bought for $2.50 actually only costs... $.97 at Walmart. Oh well.

Emergency fund

Continuing on my last post about not paying down debt...do you know what you would need for 3, 6, or 8 months with no income?

I went to my monthly spending plan and figured out a couple of different scenarios. In both emergency scenarios we cut out obvious things like savings, vacation, entertainment, etc.

I figured out two scenarios: desperate and really desperate. In Scenario A we keep our van and our life insurance policies, but Scenario B involves selling our van and canceling those policies.

Scenario A we would still need about 2/3 of our current income and Scenario B cuts what we spend now by half. Do you know how much money you actually need to live on a monthly basis? What about a bare bones/desperate measures budget? Multiply that by 8, is that what you have in the bank?

I like knowing the numbers and I can get excited about saving, but I still haven't come to terms with carrying credit card debt until we get our emergency fund back to where it should be. Argh, still wrestling with that one.

P.S. A couple of people have mentioned Dave Ramsey to me. (Thanks!) From what I know, which isn't a lot, his advice is along the lines of Mary Hunt's from Debt-Proof Your Marriage (which I read), but I am curious to see what his latest advice is on savings/debt in this economy and the best way to allocate all that extra money we have laying around (ha!). I'm on a hunt for a recent book by him and I'll let you know what I discover.

Don't pay off your debt

Okay, so I am behind the times because this news is approximately a year old, but it is new to me. Have you heard this? Financial guru, Suze Orman, advises in our current financial climate to not pay down your debt. To only pay the minimum monthly amount and instead divert the rest to building your emergency fund. This emergency fund, which is commonly advised to be enough to cover 3 to 6 months worth of expenses, is now recommended to be enough for 8 months of expenses.

I shared before that we never carried any credit card debt, but that has changed because of our recent FET (frozen embryo transfer). We used to have about 5 months worth of rainy day savings, but most of that went into our down payment for our new house. So we find ourselves in uncharted territory. We have almost no savings (well, not counting retirement stuff) AND we now have credit card debt! Woohoo! Oh, wait, nevermind.

This advice from Suze Orman throws me for a total loop. It goes against everything I've ever learned and kills me to think of carrying a balance on our credit card in order to start padding our emergency fund again. What do you think? Have you heard this? Are you still paying off debt or are you building your emergency fund?

Double the dose

Have you heard that honey soothes coughing? I had and I tried it unsuccessfully a few times for myself and Kyle. This week Kyle had a terrible, virtually non-stop cough so I was on-line looking for tips and came across this from Mayo Clinic regarding honey. The article specifies a dose of up to 2 teaspoons. I had always done just 1 teaspoon. It was killing us to hear Kyle's constant coughing so we woke him up and gave him 2 teaspoons of honey and voila! his coughing stopped! He slept cough-free through the night and was much improved the next day. The next night he was again coughing quite a bit at bedtime so we repeated the honey and he had another great sleep. So, if you have tried honey for coughing and it didn't work, next time try upping the dose. (Of course you all know that honey is not to be given to children under age 1.)

Easy, chocolate cookies

Dangerously easy and yummy! I have had a major sweet tooth lately (well, actually my whole life, but kicked up a notch recently). I found this recipe on Betty Crocker's site and had to try it.

1 pudding in the mix chocolate cake mix (I used Aldi's brand)
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Mix by hand, put on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 12 minutes. So good! As I was eating my 14th cookie I realized these would also be really good with some of that marshmallow cream/cream cheese concoction or even made into ice cream sandwiches.

I rolled half of mine in granulated sugar before baking and left half plain. I don't have a taste preference either way, but they do look a little bit prettier with the sugar. They appear cracked on top like gingersnaps when they are done.

Cream of the crop

My computer died for the second time in less than a year. Thankfully, I was able to back-up my photographs and files, but I forgot to save my bookmarks. I have no idea how many blog links I had saved and likely many I will never find again, maybe simplifying was a blessing in disguise. These are a few that I like enough to have remembered and was fortunate enough to be able to track down.

Just a Girl She has great decorating ideas of her own, but my favorite thing she does is Feature Friday. She posts about other bloggers with exceptional ideas and I've found some neat blogs through her.

Nesting Place Another great design blog. She lives in a house full of men, but has lots of pretty stuff! For a while after I had Kyle I thought I had to become a boy too and only have blue, masculine things. I got over that.

Eat at Home Probably pretty obvious by the name, but it is a cooking blog. She has a really good white chicken enchilada recipe and butterscotch cookie recipe, those are two that come right to mind that I have made more than once.

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam Great inspiration for saving money, on clothes, cooking, decor, etc. She is currently doing a challenge to spend $100 on groceries for her family of 7 this month.

I've been playing with the idea of challenging myself to not buy anything new this year (or actually it could be new, but it would have to be bought second-hand) other than, of course, things like food and toilet paper. I'm not really taking myself seriously and I know I'd like to try it, but I'm weak and would easily give in to myself if tempted. We'll see.