How PBS Changed My Life

I was transferring some craft items to a new place in my room, and while doing this it brought back memories from my early childhood beginnings for my passion of crafting. Now maybe you’re first thought could be I possibly gain an interest from my mom, grandmother, or maybe an aunt; however,   I gained mine from another being….

                                                          

At 6 years old watching this show on PBS was a real treat! I thought this creature was a creative genius!  He made the catchiest songs full of wisdom about brushing teeth, road signs, loving your neighbors, along  with  putting on plays about 3 little pigs/chicken little and many others.

Yet, of all the fun filled activities which occurred in the shows, the one portion I eagerly looked forward to was craft time.  Everyday this big, bright, beautiful bag would magically appear.  Now it wasn’t just any bag, no this bag was the “Barney Bag”.  This bag was mesmerizing not only the kids in the show, but me as well.

The bag withheld contents of the most obscure knick-knacks and odds and ends; however, regardless of what they had to work with, the kids would make the COOLEST things! Who knew I could make a kazoo out of a comb and wax paper, crazy hats out of feather/glitter/paper, and cars out of giant cardboard boxes and suspenders!  Sure now those all seem trivial, but seriously at that age, that was pretty gnarly!

To this day I still collect random items  I know can use(which I make sure I do)<insert random pics> But my  only exception is that I keep them in a drawer rather than a bag in order to take advantage of space saving.

                                         

                                        (This matches my room so much better than a bag)

                                   

So if you’re a crafty kind of person, I encourage you to think twice before tossing and item away, because you may never know what you could create with it!

Junk to Jewel Mail (why saying yes could be a good thing)

How annoying is it when sales associates ask you for you email/address? I equally was irritated with myself for having to ask that same questions from a few previous jobs.  When I was asked, my thought upon these requests was “Dude! Why would I want your obnoxious emails trashing my inbox!?”

Then again…I’m questioning that maybe saying yes might not actually be a bad thing...

Just hear me out…

My mom has been infected with “coupon clipping craze” syndrome.  I swear if buying time was possible, she would find a coupon for it (then again she probably has one).  For awhile mom kept badgering me to set up a separate email account just so she could “con” companies into giving her multiple coupons. After shutting down her requests, I started thinking about how one of my favorite restaurants has an email i have signed up for in the past.   See they give new members a free appetizer with the purchase of any entrée upon signing up their emails.  The gears started turning, and I started wondering, “Maybe mom actually has a good idea?”  So I decided that IF I was going to partake in this “con” I was going to keep it clean and play it safe.   Now some of you might be thinking “what do you mean by that?  Well my thirst seeking readers…I will quench your thoughts!  

Before agreeing to give out ANY information, I made sure to ask the business what their policies are when it comes to possible information leaks. I strongly believe if you’re going to sign up for anything you might to make search their site/ask an employee what their policies are for confidentiality.

                                    

Amongst a few places I did decide to give my information out to Victoria Secret.  I love their bras and panties so I said “what the heck why not”. Guess who got coupons for $10 off a bra and a free panty no purchase necessary!?! What is even better was mom also was apart of this deal and selflessly gave me yet another set of the coupons! 

Well as much as I would have enjoyed getting 2 free panties, I decided that since mom was generous that I should be too.  My girl Leney drives me around a lot, so I figured she totally deserves the other coupons.  She happily accepted them and then insisted we should go together and retrieve them.  Making our (what we jokingly referred to as our “hot date") night even more interesting.

Now of course also there’s only so much one can do to keep your postal mailbox junk free; however, before nonchalantly throwing out the junk mail, I want to  encourage you to open it!  Sure odds are they’re for credit cards with high hidden interest rates, but not always.  I actually found a diamond amongst a pile of rubbish!  I ended up finding some legit recipes which were samples to entice people to buy their new cookbook. One of the recipes was for oven fried chicken. I took the liberty of trying it out for myself and it was awesome! 

I hope you take my advice and run with it so that you can start exploring the world of sweet savings!

To get you started here are a few sites that are safe for saving:

http://www.victoriassecret.com/

http://www.chick-fil-a.com/Connect/Email-Insiders

https://www.godiva.com/member/rewardlogin.aspx

https://www.tgifridays.com/gmms/givememorestripes.aspx

http://chilis.fbmta.com/forms/chilis/join.aspx?imm_cid=93-9C&inputsource=HP

How some friends and I were saved from the dead[presidents]

Recently I was invited to girls only movie night.   I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I last watched some quality “chick flicks”!  Then again by that I mean chicks watching these hilarious zombie flicks.

                                    

Of course with any movie night with girls, there has to be munchies!  My girl Katie introduced me to chips and guacamole dip (yes I have in fact been living under a rock).  As soon as I tried it, my taste buds and my mind were both blown away because she made it with cheap ingredients (still waiting on this recipe!)

                                     

                                                 (it was prettier in better lighting)

So to recap:

I enjoyed a great night with zombies

                                     

(zombie Katie (left) & zombie Elsbeth (far left) unaware Kelly will kill them in the kitchen w/ the candle stick)

Ate fantastic snacks and got to know these lovely ladies better!

Kelly (left) Elsbeth (top middle) me (bottom middle) Katie(right)

P.S in case you didn’t know the term “dead presidents” it’s an old slang term for cash J

Oh and if Katie is super nice I will totally post the dip recipe ASAP!

A positive outcome from being outgoing

For over 20 years I was that chick who was easily freaked out just the thought of meeting new people.  Within the last year and a half I decided to take a chance and put myself out there.  Sure the fear of meeting someone super clingy is still there; however, I'm starting to rake in the benefits of this change in personality.   One such blessing of this transformation was the pleasure of meeting an even more creative lass named Leney.
(pictured right)                                                                                                                                          

Through this newly created friendship of ours I have attained great inspiring ideas, creative help, and rather large amounts of random she no longer wanted. Amongst some of them were popsicle sticks.

At first I thought to myself “uh…what in the world am I going to do with all of this?”, but then creative juices started flowing, and I ended up making a VA pendant from a few of them.        (picture taken by Leney)

Stay tuned for more posts to see what you and your friends both old/new can do on a tight budget!

P.S   for more creative inspiration also visit Leney’s blog: agirlnamedleney.blogspot.com because I’m more than sure you will totally be impressed and inspired by it!

The Prologue

I know too many people who struggle everyday to make ends meet. As hard they work, wasting money on a good time just doesn't make sense.  I decided to tap into the world of blogging and share my creative mind on how I save money while still having great experiences!  My hope is to encourage others with this blog and who knows maybe this will help keep some money stay in your bank accounts! Enjoy!

Please feel free to send me questions/comments/anything to my email address:

zerocentschick@gmail.com