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What!!! Has JCPenney been caught raising their prices just so they can mark them down? They had a pretty bad year when they stopped giving customers coupons, then they fired the CEO and now this? It doesn’t look good for them! If you don’t want to watch the whole video then begin at 1:12 to see the stickers!
What do you think? ME, I think it’s Shady!
Thanks My Crazy Savings!
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I like cooking with recipes that call for Cream Soups like Cream of Mushroom, Celery and Chicken, so here’s a great substitute for those.
They are usually pretty easy to put together. I do not like paying for the soups though! I’m frugal or thrifty – whatever you want to call it. I’m glad my best friend found a recipe called Cream of “Something” Dry Soup Mix! You make it up with dry ingredients and store. When you have a recipe that calls for Cream of XXXX you can use this mix! It was really simple to whip up and I had all the ingredients in my house.
Here’s how I did it. Scroll down for printable directions:
You will need:
1 Cup Non Fat Dry Milk 3/4 Cup Cornstarch
1/4 Cup Bullion (you can crush up cubes if you have them) choose any flavor
4 Tablespoons Dried Onions 1 Teaspoon Dried Basil
1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme 1 Teaspoon Pepper
Put all your ingredients in a bowl.
Stir until completely mixed.
Pour into a container.
Label your container. When ready to use mix 1/3 Cup Dry Mix with 1 1/4 Cup Water. Cook Until Thick.
One child didn’t notice and ate a lot. The older one noticed it was different and said he didn’t like it. My husband and I could not taste the difference. I kind of think the older one saw me cooking in the kitchen and got it in his head that it was different. I’m not sure he tasted anything different.
I got my recipe from One Orange Giraffe!
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I wanted to give everyone an update on the Homemade Taco Seasoning, Ranch & Dry Onion Soup Mix post I did. I made all the seasonings, but had not been able to try them when I posted the recipes. Now I have and I have to give all three mixes a thumbs up! You can see in the picture above I made a pork roast. I put it in my crockpot with 1/2 cup water and 1/3 cup of the Dry Onion Soup Mix. I just poured the mix on top of the roast – no stirring. I let it cook 8 hours on low and it was perfect! Of course we know the reason the pork cooked so well was because the crock pot keeps it tender, but the flavor was awesome! I like this EVEN BETTER than store bought onion soup mix. I think the difference was the turmeric I don’t normally cook with that, but it sure does add a wonderful flavor! I don’t think I’ll ever buy Onion Soup Mix again!
I didn’t get a picture of my tacos, but the Taco Mix tastes EXACTLY like what you buy at the store (mild flavor.) It was also perfect and I won’t need to buy it again! My mom is going to use it in the Simple & Delicious Black Bean Taco Soup (Freezer Crockpot Meal!)
I made the Ranch Dip with 1 cup sour cream and 2 Tablespoons of the dry Ranch Mix. This is the one I was most leery about because I love RANCH! I’m a Ranch snob! Well, this one tastes exactly like the Hidden Valley Ranch packets you buy in the store! In fact, it’s a little more flavorful than the store bought ones! My only recommendation on this one – cut the salt in half. I will be making this again!
Have you tried them? Leave a comment on your thoughts!
View more Recipes – some food, some not!
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Since I learned How to Make Laundry Detergent I heard about something to help clothes in the dryer. They are called Wool Balls. I’ve seen them on TV infomercials and pretty much thought they were “hokey.” Then I started talking to one of my best friends who absolutely loves them! She makes her own and says it cuts her drying time by half. This in turn saves her money because she runs her dryer less. She says you put 4 in a small load or 6 – 8 in a large load into your dryer. The balls bounce around (like shoes) with the clothes and make them dry faster. I’m not exactly sure how they work, but my friend says they DO WORK.
She was going to make more and taught me how to do it. We took pictures and I thought I would share “How to Make Wool Balls” . They are simple and all you need to make them are old pantyhose (I used knee highs) and some wool. There are printable directions at the bottom of this post.
Here’s how to do it:
First you need to purchase your wool. You do not have to buy colorful wool. You can buy a one color wool. My friend has made these before and just thought it would be fun to have some colored wool balls. We got 2 Skeins. These were about six inches in length. You can buy longer ones. This colored wool was $6 a Skein. It’s more pricey than the plain non colorful wool.
The kind of wool you buy is very important. You need it to say 100% wool. This means there are no synthetic fibers in it. You do not want any synthetic fibers or this will not work. So make sure you check the label or ask someone to help you.
To start your ball just take some wool and tie a little bow or knot. This will give you your base to start rolling the wool around itself.
Then you start wrapping it around. Just keep wrapping it around your starter piece until it starts to form a ball.
You do not have to be perfect. My ball was messy looking. That is okay and will not matter for the end result.
Roll the wool around itself into a ball shape until it is the size of a baseball. Then tuck the end under to finish it off. You can see where I tucked mine under. It is okay if it sticks out a little.
Stuff your first ball into a nylon stocking.
Push it all the way to the bottom.
Tie a knot and then as you make the balls add them in and tie a knot at the top. Since I used knee highs I put two in each stocking.
Place them all into boiling water.
Boil for 30 – 40 minutes. Your house will begin to stink from the wool. It reminded me of a wet dog. I aired out my house afterwards.
Remove the stocking with balls and drain. I just put mine in a colander. Now you need to get creative to squeeze some of the water out. They are hot so I just used a glass and squished down on them to get extra water out. They don’t need to be completely dry. You just don’t want them dripping too much at this point. You can see the wool colored the water and dyed the stocking. That’s not a big deal because I can’t use them again.
Leave them in the stockings and put them in your dryer. This is very important. Put the dryer on high heat. This is the felting process. The wool will “felt” to itself. You dry them about 40 minutes. Mine actually took (2) 40 minutes cycles on high heat. They DO NOT have to be perfectly dry, but they do need to be felted.
Take them out of the stocking and check to see if they are felted when they are mostly dry.
To tell if they are felted when you hold them up close the wool around the balls looks flattened. It reminds me of a felt board. It’s not completely smooth, but the pieces are all basically “stuck” or “felted” together. At this point the balls are ready to use and will not unravel.
That’s it! You are done! I didn’t make my balls very uniform. Three I made smaller than the first. The 2 Skeins would really only make 3 baseballs size wool balls. Now just throw them in the dryer of your next load of clothes and see how much time they cut out!
Thanks Emily for teaching me to make Wool Balls!
Here’s a printable list on how to make them:
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Here’s another article in this money saving series to help you save on Air Fare.
Sometimes you just have to fly. Everyone has their own reason. Regardless of our family saving money I did have to buy airline tickets a few months ago to attend the wedding of my sister. As much as our whole family wanted to go we had to make the decision that only I could go to this one. That is one of our first considerations on saving money. It would have been $3000 all of us to go, but we knew that the furlough is coming and will affect our family so we decided it would only be me.
I buy all my airline tickets online. I can find the better deals and look for the times I want to fly. I recommend using a search Engine like Travelocity, Orbitz or Cheap Tickets. There are more out there than those you just need to find the one you like. Here’s a quick tip from Reader TJ about search engines, “There are several airlines who choose not to participate in the mentioned search engines (Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia…) including Southwest Airlines. If you are lucky enough to have Southwest at your airport, check their rates first. Then go to the search engines to see if they can beat it. Another alternative is to go directly to the Airlines website. They may be $5-$10 lower than the search engines.”
I know there are people who do use Priceline where you can name your own price for a plane ticket. Sometimes the airlines will accept your bids and you can get cheap planet tickets. There is a downfall to using this system. The airline gets to pick your itinary. That means they pick what time your flights leave, layovers, cities and more. The reason I don’t like this is because I usually have a time schedule to keep. They can have you fly out and between layovers you may not arrive until the next day. This is very hard to do with children. If you don’t have a schedule to keep and don’t have to worry about others this may be a good option for you.
I prefer using Travelocity myself. I like that I can pick an option to search 1 – 3 days around my original travel date:
This allows you to see lower airfares in a range of days like this:
The highlighted area show the original dates I put in. But if i change my dates a bit i can get a lower fare. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t picked the option to display other flight dates.
CAUTION: You need to be aware when you use places other than the actual airline to book your tickets if there is some type of problem it can be a pain to have it fixed. I have never had a problem, but I do know others who have because they needed to change a portion of their ticket. You have to deal with the actual company that booked the ticket to make any changes. You cannot call the airline to make those changes. With a lot of outsourcing this can be difficult. If you think you will need to make changes to your ticket it may be best to call the airline directly and book your ticket with them.
No matter how you shop for tickets there are a couple things to keep in mind:
For example, I want to fly the week of May 5th. The days that are cheapest are May 7th (Tues) and May 9th (Thurs). Today (the day I write this) is Friday. It will cost me even less to book either May 7 or 9th if I wait till Tuesday next week. My dad first told me this and I thought it was strange. So I tried it. I looked at rates for all the days of the week and Tues/Thursday’s were cheaper. Then I waited till the next Tuesday to check again and they had dropped even more. I did this for months just to test the theory and it was true every time. It may only be a few bucks, but I saved several hundred dollars on a ticket to my sisters wedding. I was flying across the county so I saved more than if I just flew one state away.
Just because a ticket fare looks low there may be hidden fees. Most airlines these days are charging for baggage. Each airline has a different price. When I flew on United Airlines it cost me $25 (within weight limits) for my first bag and $35 for my second. This was an extra $60 EACH WAY on top of my ticket price. Frontier Airlines charges $20 for each bag (within weight limits) so the same baggage would cost $40.
Southwest Airlines currently doesn’t charge for the 1st or 2nd bag, but if you decide to bring a third you will be charged a $75 fee. If your bags weight more than 50 lbs or are over-sized then you would be charged $75 per bag.
Whenever possible look for discounts. When I flew Frontier Airlines they asked for my ID. I showed them my military (dependent) ID and they waived all the baggage fees! We aren’t active duty anymore, but still waived the fees.
Some airlines will charge other hidden fees. Southwest airlines charges $12.50 per person for Early Bird Check in. I didn’t see hidden fees on United or Frontier.
You will find extra fees for pets, carrying dry ice, or certain sports equipment.
If you have an airline’s credit card, you can often accumulate miles and save on baggage fees. Try to get one without a yearly fee, unless you travel a lot.
Recently on my flight with United they asked me if I wanted to upgrade. They asked me this the day before I was going to fly when I did my online check in. I had 3 flights to take and on one of them I could upgrade my ticket to first class for an additional $69. I did some checking and decided it was worth it – not because I would be in first class. It was worth it because first class passengers don’t have baggage fees and this applied to all 3 flights even though I only upgraded one leg of my trip. I was going to pay $60 for my checked baggage anyway so this was only $9 more. And to me riding in first class was worth $9! Besides free luggage I was also received 1st boarding on all my flights so I could be the first on and get comfy. On the leg of the trip with first class of course there were lots of nice benefits and I definitely enjoyed it.
On my return trip I checked all my flights to see if I could at least upgrade one and get the same benefits (especially no baggage fees.) There were none, but at least I tried.
Before you do any type of upgrade make sure you find out what it includes. If it is free baggage make sure to ask if it is for all legs of the trip. If I had tried to book a first class ticket it would have cost me 4 times the cost of my ticket, but by waiting till the last 24 hours I was able to get it for cheap!
Here are some helpful tips other readers left in my last article on Lowering Your Monthly Bills. I hope they help.
From Reader Roxanne: Try paying all or as many of your bills that you can a year in advance. For example, my husband and I have annihilated our credit card debt. But because our income is so low, we had to have our student loans deferred. That left our utilities, mortgage and insurances. Our health insurance comes out automatically on my husband’s check. Car insurance goes down by almost $30/month when paid with tax return money. We have our Dish bill which is at $20/month when paid for a year. Our home owner’s is in escrow as well as our taxes in our mortgage which leaves us with utilities. 3 bills a month, gas and groceries. That gives us enough to save our extra money every month for rainy days and higher utilities than we may have expected. One day, we hope to have saved enough that when we combine our tax returns with our savings (not retirement), we can kill those student loans!
From Jen’s friend Gloria: Paying car insurance in full when it’s due (usually every 6 months) amounts to quite a savings annually. Get your utilities set up on level pay . . . or, better yet, set up your own level pay. For example, we pay a set amount toward our water bill each month. It’s always much more than is due, especially during the winter months. But, when summer comes and we water the lawn, we don’t have to worry about how to come up with the money for a huge water bill in June, July, or August. Same goes for gas, electric, etc. That way you always know the amount of your monthly outgo. Keeps things balanced.
