Luv Saving Money – Page 590

Framed Art A Gift To See All Year

We were blessed this year to find a house that’s just perfect for us. The funny part was, we weren’t really even trying. We planned on expanding our old house because we were getting kind of cramped. We had the money saved and had a contractor come give us an estimate. After we saw how much the estimate was and realized we still wanted to build a garage we had tossed around the idea of looking at other houses. (The cost of the addition and a garage was going to be almost as much as buying another house in our small town). We were still planning on going forward with the contractor until one of my facebook friends shared a house listing. The house was beautiful. 4-5 bedrooms, garages, a bigger yard, a bigger kitchen, more square footage, everything we wanted and then some. I happened to see it the day it listed on Zillow. It wasn’t being sold by a realtor. I showed it to my husband and he said “I want to go look at it” I told him “I kinda want to too” After touring the house we both loved it. We had a price in mind we were hoping to talk them down to. We didn’t even have to talk them down. They said the price we were hoping for without haggling. So of course we went ahead with it.

One of the purposes of sharing my story is that we are still working on decorating our new house. We got some new furniture, curtains etc. But it still needs some finishing touches here and there. That’s where FramedArt.com comes in. I found some pieces to give color and depth to some of them rooms but I really wanted something personal. I wanted something relaxing. I searched FramedArt.com and saw a lot of beautiful choices. Then I came across the fact that I could have my own photos framed. I thought back to a photo I had taken on a walk on a nature trail in our town. I remember the fresh air, the temperature was perfect. It was a beautiful scene. I just had to snap a picture.

I wanted this picture in our bedroom. Something to look at when I need to take a deep breath and relax. The other thing about getting this framed was that it was more meaningful for me. I took the pictures, I was there, it’s right here in our hometown. Think how great it would be to have a picture of all the grand kids framed for a grandparent, to have your a photo you love framed to hang anywhere you wish in your home.

If you’re not into framing your own pics there are tons of framed pics to choose from on FramedArt.com, just click here and see for yourself. I’m not very good of taking a picture of a picture. Particularly a framed picture. I feel like with light you get the glare and without the light it’s too dark. My picture really doesn’t do it justice.

Anyway, I’m happy with the way my picture was framed. There’s so many size and framing choices on the site along with pics and artwork to choose from. You could certainly find something you like for any room of your house. Perk up a room in your house for the new year with some new art from FramedArt.com.

I received the above mentioned product in order to complete a review. Any opinions expressed are my own.

Affordable Charm Bracelets That Compare to Name Brand

I’ve seen a lot of women wearing those cute charm bracelets. You know the ones that you can buy the bracelet and add beads that are significant to you. Maybe a birth stone, a charm that signifies your job, whatever. I looked into those one time. Super cute, lots of choices, but way out of my budget. I couldn’t bring my self to pay $40 or more for 1 small metal charm.

Soufeel offers charm bracelets similar to those name brands but at a price that’s much easier to actually create a bracelet. They still have lots of options: birth stones, careers, children, pets, love, whatever you want your bracelet to represent. They even have a good selection of charms for the holidays!

I had the opportunity to choose a few holiday charms for review. They had so many pretty and cute choices that I had a hard time deciding.

I love picking things like snowflakes and the cute hot cocoa charm above because it doesn’t have to be necessarily Christmas but I could wear it all winter. It’s nice to have the Christmas ones too like the poinsettia charm. You can easily add to your Soufeel charm collection and change out your bracelets depending on the season or occasion.

The charms are compatible with Pandora and other name brand charm bracelets. Every charm on my bracelet was $20 or less. The snowflake charm is actually on sale for $9.99 right now! These charms have a little weight to them. They are not made cheaply. You can get the starter bracelet for as low as $20 too.

Charm bracelets don’t have to break the bank. Visit Soufeel.com and tell me which charms are your favorite.

I received the above mentioned products in order to complete an honest review. Any opinions expressed are my own.

How To Use Digital Coupons at Dollar General

I had heard about digital coupons from Dollar General, but I’ll be honest, I never tried using them. As a frugal lifestyle blogger I felt like I should probably know how to use digital coupons at Dollar General. I mean, I shop there fairly frequently. I didn’t really understand how the digital coupons worked at Dollar General but after reading about them, decided to give them a try on the SCOTT® paper towel and SCOTT®bath tissue bonus packs.

I visited one of my local Dollar General stores with digital coupons for SCOTT® paper towels and bath tissue loaded to my account. We go through paper towels and bath tissue like nobody’s business in our home. Having never used the digital coupons before I picked up the SCOTT® bonus packs and checked out. I asked the cashier if she could make sure I do it right. She took the time to explain it to me but it’s really quite simple. Say you want to get the coupons for SCOTT® paper towels and bath tissue bonus packs like I did, you follow these steps:

To redeem Digital Coupons:
1. Sign up at or visit the DG App
2. Create account and load which SCOTT® coupons you would like to load
3. Visit your local Dollar General to redeem coupons at checkout. Find a Dollar General near you by using the store locator:

Digital Coupons: Valid – December 6 to December 31
Save $1.00 off any (1) SCOTT® Paper Towels
Save $0.50 off any (1) SCOTT® Extra Soft Bath Tissue
Save $1.00 off any (1) SCOTT® 1000 Bath Tissue

Bonus Packs: Find 3 special SCOTT® Bonus Packs in-store through the end of February 2016.
• SCOTT® 1000 Bath Tissue, 16 pack (2 Free Rolls)
• SCOTT® Choose-A-Sheet Paper Towels, Mega Roll 6 Pack (Bonus 15% Sheets)
• SCOTT® Extra Soft Bath Tissue, Double Roll 16 pack (2 Free Rolls)

**There is a little button the touch screen pad when you check out that says “DG digital coupons” you touch that and input the phone number you registered with. The digital coupons will automatically be applied to your order. Simple right?**

With my coupons I bought the SCOTT® Choose-A-Sheet paper towel bonus pack. The biggest bonus pack they had. As a family of 6 we go through a lot of paper towels and bath tissue. I also got the SCOTT® Extra Soft Tissue Double Roll 16 pack.

The choose-as-sheet towels are great. Take a small sheet when you bump your coffee and just a little splashes out of the cup, choose two or three sheets when you completely knock it over. Not..not that I do that on a regular basis or anything..tee hee hee. The absorbency is great. These are not flimsy paper towels. The ridges really help with the extra stubborn spots. I can actually clean with these when I want to, not just sop up spills. SCOTT® is a no-frills, affordable, premium brand paper towel and bath tissue.

Ready to try the Digital Coupons at Dollar General? Just think no worries if you forget your clipped coupons! Clip the SCOTT® coupons and grab the bonus packs for even more savings!

Tight Purse Strings: 4 Thriftiest Cities in America

Are you looking to move to a city that is known for being thrifty? Don’t worry; you’re in good company. A surprising number of the best places to live in the U.S. are considered thrifty. Whether it’s because of the number of consignment shops in the communities, or how frugal the residents tend to be, make sure you check out the top thrifty cities in the country.

San Jose, California

One of the most credit-conscious and frugal cities in the country is San Jose, California. Residents there have had a difficult time in the last few years. At the height of the recession, the city had an unemployment rate of over 12.5 percent. In recent years, this has dropped, and it is currently 4.3 percent. However, the residents here have stayed on top of their debt. Even when things were the worst across the country and in San Jose itself, those who live here only had about an 11.5 percent debt-to-income ratio when considering only credit cards. This is significantly lower than the rest of the country, which averages 22.6 percent.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

In the Midwest, you find much lower cost of living than on either coast. The average cost of living in Minneapolis is about 21.64 percent lower than somewhere like New York City. Of course, cost of living doesn’t necessarily make a city more frugal. However, in Minneapolis, residents are also conscious of what they spend and how they spend it. There are websites dedicated to frugal things to do when you’re in the city, including a number of great outdoor activities. Those who live in Minneapolis are also well-known for being coupon crazy when it comes to shopping.

San Francisco, California

It’s kind of surprising that several cities in California have made the list of the most frugal cities in the country. Most people think of high cost and expense when they think of San Francisco. However, because of the high cost of living, residents of San Francisco have had to learn to live frugally. You’ll find a huge number of consignment shops and thrift stores. On top of that, Coupon.com has named San Francisco America’s Most Frugal City for 2015. This is due to the $56.3 million saved in coupons yearly in the city. Even though the San Francisco has one of the highest household income rates in America, it’s also one of the best places to go to save a little.

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago has a huge number of resale shops for the frugally minded. In fact, it has over 150 consignment stores within the city borders. And if you go to some of the suburbs, such as Barrington, you’ll find the highest number of resale stores per capita in the country. If you’re looking for somewhere to get a great deal, Chicago and the surrounding area will give you a great option.

Living frugally is important to being able to save money. When you’re looking for a new location with frugality in mind, check out any of the cities listed to save a few bucks.

RawSpiceBar Affordable Subscription Box for the Foodie

This is a cool little subscription box that I have a few people interested in even before I posted this review, because I loved the concept and had to talk about it. RawSpiceBar is an affordable gift idea for the foodie or cook. The idea is simple but for someone like me who is always looking for new dinner ideas, this subscription box is the key to the “what’s for dinner” question, at least for a day or two. My family and I aren’t afraid to try something different when it comes to food.

Each box is themed with a different region or country. The one I received featured Ethiopian spices and recipes. As far as I know, I’ve never tried Ethiopian dishes or spices before. I received 3 recipes to use my spices with: A main dish recipe, a side dish recipe, and a dessert recipe. And three spices: Ethiopian Mitmita, Berbere, and Pumpkin Pie Spice.

Here is a little about RawSpiceBar spices:

Freshly ground: Our spices are whole toasted, ground and blended just a few days before we ship directly to your door so you can have your spices the way you have your coffee (fresh!).
Perfectly sized: Each of our spice blends are perfectly portioned to create a dish serving 8-12. Our recipes are kitchen tested and loved- and almost always will include an option for vegans, carnivores and vegetarians.
Spice discovery: Our blends are from old family recipes or our curated chefs- so you can explore new spice blends from experts all year long.

I love that each of the spice packets have a description of the spice itself and what actually is used in the packet. There’s no crazy scientific or chemical sounding words. Just simple stuff like “sweet paprika” and “star anise” to highlight just a couple.

The dessert recipe called Pumpkin Spice Dabo Kolo (Ethiopian Pumpkin Spice Ricotta Donuts) sounded really interesting to me. I already had all the ingredients at home. The Main dish recipe Key Wat (Spicy Ethiopian Stewed Beef) sounded absolutely delish and I couldn’t wait to try that as well. Especially because someone actually helped me out with a dinner idea. If I ask the kids or my husband it’s “whatever you feel like making”. Gah!

I made the Key Wat for supper. The spices were fragrant. I could tell though that this was gonna be a spicy dish. The spices tingled my nose while I was cooking.

It smelled so good. The recipe recommends serving it with something like injera, couscous, or butternut squash. I had couscous in my cupboard so that’s what we went with.

I took a few bites and it was very flavorful. Then the spice crept up on me. My kids like spicy things (except my 2 year old). They all ate it (with a big glass of cold milk handy). It sort of reminded be of a General Tso’s beef with 3 stars. I know my husband is going to love it, this is right up his alley.

So after all the spice I decided to try out the Pumpkin Spice Dabo Kolo. As I was mixing things up I realized there was a bit of a discrepancy in the recipe for this one. The first step tells you to mix up several of the ingredients including butter. Unfortunately, butter is never mentioned in the ingredients. So I went online to the site and found the recipe where the butter was listed as an ingredient. Then MY ingredient list had 2 tsp of baking powder but never said what to do with it. So I checked the site and baking powder isn’t listed at all. So I added it anyway. They seemed to turn out alright lol.

They aren’t sweet at all. But they suggest using honey as a dip which really made the difference. The idea kind of reminded me of sopapillas. The kids seemed to like them.

We broadened our palates today. I probably would have never tried these dishes without rawspicebar. For only $6 a month, this is the perfect way to to add some adventure to your dinner routine and try some new spices. You can start your subscription at rawspicebar.com.

You can find RawSpiceBar here too:

Twitter: @rawspicebar

Facebook RawSpiceBar

Pinterest: pinterest.com/rawspicebarLA

I received the mentioned product in order to complete an honest review. Any opinions expressed are my own.