The Sweet Life On A Budget

Making small changes that have big results.  On Friday’s I share 5 frugal ideas to help you maintain The Sweet Life on a budget.  These things will have money saving ideas and/or a way to enhance your lifestyle for very little money. Our household is a little tired this week from all the travel last week. We needed to really break the tasks up into small pieces and do a little bit each day because we didn't have our weekend preparation time for the week and I worked all week. Soooo- Here we go. 1. I made sure we packed lunch every day. This was a little challenging because I usually pack all of our lunches on Sunday and we just didn't have the time. However, with a 15 minute commitment each night to pack lunches for the next day, we were able to make it through the week. Our lunches were basic (e.g. salads, sandwiches, or left overs, fruit and vegetable), but everyone enjoyed them each day. 2. We ran out of strawberries on Monday and waited to purchase m

Our son likes to host a game night for his friends every 4-6 weeks.  Our first game night was not well planned.  We payed the "Stupid Tax" to the tune of $37.00 - pizza order ($32.00) and snacks ($5.00).  WOW! I was amazed at how much we spent on such a small event. Well, you can't go back so I decided that I would try to decrease our out of pocket expense for hosting this night by at least half which put my budget at 18.50.  Our first idea was to change the time and just provide a few snacks, but unfortunately most of the group couldn't attend at an earlier time.  So, here we are again, hosting game night over dinner time. What's a girl to do?    Tip 1-Take inventory of what you have and plan around it.             I checked my pantry/refrigerator and found --taco shells and black olives (both free from previous grocery deals), tortilla chips, taco seasonings, sour cream, cheddar cheese, onions, cilantro, cucumber, head of lettuce, tomatoes and c

Making small changes that have big results.  On Friday’s I share 5 frugal ideas to help you maintain The Sweet Life on a budget.  These things will have money saving ideas and/or a way to enhance your lifestyle for very little money. Well, last week was an unusual because we decided last minute to attend a regional swimming meet for my son and we are glad we did. Unfortunately, the timing didn't allow us to do our usual level of planning in order to complete a travel event on the least amount of money, but as we went we changed and shifted our behavior to maximize our savings. We decided to travel with a fellow competitor for 3 of the events, which saved us on gas, approximately $29.00 in parking fees and a lot of stress.