Today I’m spending the day with a reporter for a national news outlet (can’t reveal it quite yet) who will be shadowing me as I hit the stores to haggle. My goal? To get the best deal possible on cabinets, countertops, appliances and furniture for our kitchen renovation. I’m used to haggling in my freelance…
Shopping
5 Tips for Bartering Goods and Services
I’ve been looking at the photo header on the blog (the pinecones and candle) and feeling like it’s out of date. Well, not only is it out of date since I took it to illustrate a story on free Christmas decorations, but I’m not sure it represents “suddenly frugal” as well as another image might….
Reusable Shopping Bag Savings Going Down the Drain
A few weeks ago I’d written about taking reusable shopping bags with you when you go to the grocery store. Because I wanted to highlight the stores that reward you for bringing your own bag. In response to that post, I started doing some research into exactly which stores gave what kind of benefits. I…
8 Simple Rules For Using Freecycle
One of the fun things about running a blog is keeping track of stats. That is, the statistics that show not only how many people read my blog daily but also what websites are linking to my blog–and leading readers here–and what search terms people used that eventually had them showing up at Suddenly Frugal….
7 Ways to Stay Warm and Cool Your Heating Bills
We got the shock of our life the other day when the heating oil bill arrived. No, the price hadn’t skyrocketed to a point that we were feeling faint. Instead, we had a $600 credit because oil prices had dropped so much. You see our oil company has a monthly payment plan that, last year,…
5 Tips for Buying Gift Cards
Black Friday is three weeks from today, though you’d never know it. Been to any stores lately? I’ll bet you that they’re fully decked out in Christmas and other holiday decorations. Heck, I ran to the supermarket on Election Day and found employees at the local shopping center affixing giant wreaths and candy canes to…
Suddenly Frugal Seal of Approval: Pampered Chef Kitchen Shears
It wasn’t until I moved to a “real” neighborhood almost 10 years ago that I began to experience direct-selling parties. Growing up I knew that my mom went to Tupperware parties, but now that I was the mom, I was going to parties for all kinds of companies I’d never heard about before–Southern Living at…
Q&A: Recycling Prescription Bottles
In my house when you finish a bottle of ibuprofen or cough syrup, or a box of allergy medicine, everything goes in the recycling bin. We rinse out the bottles and flatten the boxes, and then put these containers out with the rest of the recyclables on trash/recycling day. I figured it was standard operating…
Holiday Shopping on a Shoestring
Attention K-Mart Shoppers–well, and all other shoppers. It seems like it’s going to be a shoestring shopping season for the 2008 holidays. At least that’s what some experts are predicting, saying that the small increase in holiday spending in 2008 will be the weakest since 1991. And guess what? Technically, our country was in a…
Grocery Shopping on a Shoestring
One of the first things that I always do soon after we get back from vacation is to grocery shop. If you can plan things right before you leave, you can buy just enough food to get you through the days before you leave, and you leave enough non perishables at home so that you…