Tightwad Tuesday: Preparing for a Baby

It is hard to believe, but my second child will be here in 10 weeks or less. Although I was late with my first child, this one is on the large side and they are not letting me go past my due date with him. Last week my friends told me they decided to throw me a shower so we went and registered last night at Babies r Us. While creating my short registry, I was reminded of how much excess the baby industry tries to sell us. I bought in to some of this with the first child but I tried to keep it minimal. With this one, we need to replace a few things that didn't survive or we simply did not like the version we bought. Most of these items I've already replaced thanks to Craigslist and garage sales.

Here are the essentials for a newborn:

* Diapers (disposable or cloth)
* Wipes
* Bottles
* Crib
* Crib sheets
* Clothes - be careful to not go overboard here
* Diaper bag
* Infant bath soap
* Infant Tylenol

Here are a few of the splurges I want or already have:

* Sling
* Swing
* Bouncy seat
* Boppy
* Stroller of various types
* Electric breast pump (if working and breastfeeding, this becomes a necessity)

While registering, I could have added hundreds of items to this list, but I kept it minimal. With our first, we did not even buy the swing until he was a few months old. Some babies love them, some hate them. When we discovered he really liked it and it was lifesaver for us, we splurged. With this child, my big splurge is a sling. I know it will be hard to chase a toddler around while holding a baby and I think a sling would be handy. I already have a front pack carrier but I like the concept of the sling better.

Another word of warning is to not go overboard on the necessities either. Do you really need the most expensive diaper bag? I wound up using the free one from the hospital because I liked it better than the one I bought. Do you need excessive amounts of bottles? No, a few will be fine and it is ok to only buy the larger ones as the baby will eventually need them anyway.

I see nothing wrong with splurging on a few items as long as there is room in the budget, but my point is to pick and choose wisely.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I pray all of the mother's are enjoying their day and taking a few moments to thank God for their precious children. Don't forget to thank your own mom for raising you too.

Food Friday: Mexican Cobb Salad

This is one of my favorite salads in the summer as it does not warm up your house to make it and it can easily be adapted to everyone's tastes. Feel free to experiment with different cheeses and veggies to make it your own. Once my garden comes in, most of the veggies will come from there.

Mexican Cobb Salad with Salsa Dressing

3 cups finely chopped lettuce (I use romaine or red leaf)
1/4 cup diced red onion
1 cup diced red bell pepper
10 oz drained black beans
12 cherry tomatoes
2 1/4 oz reduced fat shredded pepper jack cheese
3/4 cup salsa
3 Tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tsp ground cumin

Place lettuce in a large bowl. Layer across the top of the lettuce with the onion, bell pepper, beans, cheese, and tomatoes. In a small bowl whisk together the salsa, lime juice, and cumin. Serve with the dressing on the side. Serves 4.

Tightwad Tuesday: Stay Away from the Stores

People often ask me for my top tips on how to Live on Less. I would have to say one of the top tips on how to save money is to stay away from the stores. Too often we run out to get one needed item and come home with a ton of junk that just happened to jump into our cart. My biggest weakness is Target so when my husband first had his hours reduced, this is one of the first things I cut. Sometimes I would head there just to get out of the house with my son. I went six months without stepping foot in a Target and I'm sure I saved hundreds by skipping that one store.

I also began limiting shopping to only necessities. I grocery shop on Monday and very rarely go to the store again throughout the week unless I am making something for a special occasion. I switched my grocery shopping to Dillons in order to take advantage of double coupons matched with sales. I quickly noticed that I was not only saving money on groceries, but I was saving a ton on non-essential items I picked up every time I did my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.

My tip this week is to find a few stores that are your downfall and have a fast from them.

Garage Sale Update

Despite awful weather, I hit my goal on my garage sale. The first day we had about 2 hours before it started raining. Once the rain hit, we stuffed everything in the garage but kept the sale open. Surprisingly, we had several die hard garage salers stop by. The rain stayed away most of Sat. but it turned cool and threatened rain the entire day. Even though the weather stunk, we still made $400! I'm sure it would have been higher had the weather been better but this was exactly my goal so I'm happy. The few items of decent value we still have will be posted on Craigslist today and the rest is being boxed up for Goodwill. My intention was to box it all up Saturday when we closed but lucky me came down with a migraine Saturday morning and I was too wiped by the afternoon to clean it all up.

Hosting a Garage Sale: Part 4

If you missed the first three parts of this series, here are part 1, part 2 and part 3. This week's focus is on marketing the sale. Here are a few of the ways to market your sale in order to gain the most customers:

Newspaper: Yes, newspaper readership is declining, but for many people this is the first stop when deciding their garage sale strategy for the day. I used to always advertise my sales in the paper and received many customers directly because of it. The few sales I haven't advertised turned out to be pretty pathetic sales. This year the paper drastically increased their price so I'm trying my first sale in years without advertising in our local paper.

Craigslist: In most areas, Craigslist is free to advertise and is rapidly gaining popularity. I put up an ad earlier in the week about the sale and then relist it the day before and day(s) of. I recommend not putting your actual address in for safety reasons but to put a good starting point as to where your signs will be. I've actually presold a few items through my postings so I find this an easy way to gain customers.

Local media websites: Many TV and radio stations in our area have a garage sale section on their website and the majority are free to advertise on.

National websites: More and more national websites such as Garage Sale Tracker are popping up to promote garage sales. I do not have a lot of experience with these sites but my best guess is that they will grow with popularity since our economy has tanked and people are having to bargain shop more than ever before.

Signage: This is probably the most important marketing tool as it gains drive by customers. Start your signs at a major intersection and provide easy directional signs all the way to your house. I live on a cul-de-sac kind of hidden back and I always put out a ton of directional signs so people can find me. I've received many compliments on the signs because most people would turn on the street attached to mine, not see the sale, and turn around but that last sign telling them to keep going let's them know they are close.

My other piece of advice for signage is to keep it simple. As people drive by, it is hard for them to read a lot of wording, therefore I usually just put SALE and an arrow. I'm not a fan of putting times or addresses as people abuse this.

This is the last in my garage sale series - I hope you have enjoyed it. If you have a garage sale, I would love to hear how it goes. Ours is going on right now and I will update everyone once it is over. So far, it has rained almost the entire day but our sales are still good considering.

Food Friday: Fruit Salsa

This is a super simple recipe I learned about at my latest Tupperware meeting. It is meant to be used at our parties to show off our Quick Chef food chopper but can easily be made in a regular food processor or blender. I like to serve it with graham sticks but have been told it is really good with mini rice cakes or cinnamon sugar tortilla chips.

Fruit Salsa

1 apple, cored
2 kiwi, peeled
8-10 strawberries, hulled

Cut apple into wedges and process in chopper until slightly chunky. Add kiwi and strawberries and continue chopping until desired consistency. If not serving right away, add a little lemon juice to preserve the apples and store sealed in the fridge.