Clothes By the Pound

I mentioned in my last post that I bought 12 pounds of clothes at a clothes by the pound place in Boston, and I've gotten a lot of questions about that. Here's the scoop:

A friend of mine lives in Boston, and he's also a bargain shopper. He made a special point of showing us The Garment District, which is an alternative department store/costume shop. They had A TON of secondhand and vintage clothes, plus their famous clothes by the pound area! (pictured above.)

My husband scurried off to a museum, and I spent three hours sitting in a nest of clothes with a garbage bag. You can check your purse and shoes at the desk. You can even try on the clothes in the bathroom if you like! It's definite bargain digging in the most literal sense- they had a gazillion types of clothes in different sizes, but most of them were in reasonable shape. I dug through and replaced my entire winter wardrobe with Land's End clothes, Gap shirts, and even a long, dressy, wool coat. They had purses, shoes, accessories...you name it, they had it. I bought 12 pounds for around $18, which beats even my yard sale prices. I'm most excited about the coat- it's in perfect condition and it is beautiful. I took it to the $2.00 dry cleaner when I got home, and now it's ready to go. I'm almost excited for winter this year- I've never had so many "new" things to wear!

If there's something like this in Wichita, I don't know about it. I'll have to do some research.

Do you have a clothes by the pound place in your area? How did you find it? Is it worth the digging? Sing it in the comments!

Frugal Travel: Boston

So we're back from our vacation...to Boston! We had a wonderful time there on (mostly) minimal cash.

Here's a few of the things we used to maximize our vacation dollar:

1. We got our room and flight on Travelocity. I've heard people complain about them, so cravat emperor, but we've always gotten amazing hotels for reasonable prices. We've had decent luck with the Priceline Name Your Own Price feature as well.

2. We did not rent a car. If you're traveling to a large enough city with subways, busses, etc, you ay not need one. By doing this we not only saved the rental fee, we also saved on parking fees. It would have cost $27 a day to park at our hotel! Instead we got an unlimited one week Charlie Card- at $15 each, it sure saved us a lot! For our longer side trips, we bought commuter rail passes.

3. We did not eat breakfast out. Instead, we made oatmeal in our room using our coffee maker. We also sometimes had lunch in- simple things like peanut butter sandwiches and Easy Mac (made using the coffeemaker) plus fruit. We also would eat leftovers from previous meals at restaurants.

4. We googled "Boston free attractions" and found this site. We plan to google "free attractions" for our future vacations as well!

5. We bought a Boston Entertainment book online. We got it cheap because the coupons are near their expiration, but even if we had paid full price it would have saved us money. This had buy one get one free for a lot of museums. There were also a lot of restaurant coupons that helped save money as well!

So why did we do all this? A friend of mine wanted to know why bother- after all, do we really need to be frugal on vacation? Isn't the reason we're frugal in the first place so we could have nice things like vacations?

Yes- it is. And a vacation that is one sacrifice after another is no fun. However, doing these things was not a sacrifice for us. We did these things so we could put our vacation dollar towards other things that we wanted to do! Because we saved money in the little things (eating breakfast in, not renting a car, etc) we were able to take in some of the more expensive attractions that we wanted to do. It's true that doing a few of these things would not cost all that much, but those little expenses add up!

Let's take a look:

An inexpensive breakfast at McDonald's would have cost us about $5 each, or $70 for the week.

The car would have run us about $25 a day (we always get compacts), or $175 for the week. To park it at our hotel would have added an additional $189 to that bill, without the cost of gas or anything else.

We saved around $75 in ticket fees using our Entertainment book.

That's $509, for very small sacrifices.

What did we do with that money instead?

We took a DUCK tour ($60 for us both). My husband visited the Science Museum ($15). I bought 12 pounds of clothes (about $18- replaced my winter coat too!). We ate at a few nice restaurants and ordered what we wanted, not what was inexpensive. (This alone added up quite a bit!) We went to Rhode Island to visit an old friend and see The Breakers. ($18 each to get in- expensive, but worth it!) We may not have been able to do these things if we had not make those other sacrifices.

How do you save money on small things so you have more for the big things on your trips?

Making Vacations a Bit Less Expensive

Are you going on vacation in the next few months in the United States? Consider ordering an Entertainment Book for the city you're visiting.

We buy one every year for our town after the prices drop, and we've always been happy with the museum buy one ticket get one free and half price restaurant meals. If you wait a few months after they come out, the prices drop dramatically.

I just bought one for next to nothing at this site (AND got a $5 bonus for signing up!) for a city that we're visiting in a few months. (Location and time to be announced after we return!) Hopefully it will be stuffed with buy one get one admissions to some of the places we hope to visit, saving us some of our hard earned vacation cash.

Frugal Travel Tips

Are you planning on taking a vacation this year? We're doing our vacation/wedding attendance at the Super Secret Exotic Location to be announced after we return in March, and I've been looking for ways to cut costs while we are there. We got our tickets through Travelocity, and got a package deal with our hotel. I've also had fabulous luck with Priceline in the past, especially with the "Name Your Own Price" feature.

In the meantime, I've been reading up on frugal travel. This article by Women's Day on travel and thrifty family fun had some interesting advice, including shopping online for deals (done!) and asking about discounts. (

They also mention major cities (such as NYC) having "restaurant weeks" once or twice a year, where you can enjoy prix fixe meals on deep discount. (I did not know about that one!)

One of my favorite money saving travel tips is not eating out for most your meals. If your hotel offers breakfast, eat your breakfast there. I try to get a room with a kitchenette or a least a mini-fridge and microwave. If you're traveling in your own car and have access to a fridge (or a large family to eat everything up in one night), take your crockpot. Your meal cooks up while you're out sight-seeing, and you return to a fabulous home cooked meal.

Another favorite of mine is to have sandwiches make with a bakery roll, a few slices of cheese, a few of meat, and available condiments at the deli counter. Top that off with fresh fruit and a yogurt. Mmmm...good, and inexpensive. By eating inexpensive meals most the time, we are able to super splurge on a really good meal or two. If I travel to somewhere new, I want to eat something more exciting than what's available on the McDonald's dollar menu.

What's your favorite money saving travel tip? Leave a comment or e-mail me at Frugal.Homemaker.Plus (at) gmail.com

Visions of Spain

It's cold in Wichita today, so dreaming about a sunny vacation in Spain is a nice diversion. When I'm experiencing frugal burnout, one of the ways I deal with it is to remind myself why I'm frugal. Traveling is one of my favorite expensive things to do. I drink ten cent milk so I can hang out on warm sandy beaches in Spain someday.


Who wouldn't want to spend a week at the Costa Brava Hotels, lazing around on sandy beaches, spending the day in nearby Barcelona, eating delicious Spanish food?

Or swimming in the Mediterranean sea while staying at Costa Del Sol Hotels?

Or experiencing two countries in one while staying at the Bienidorm Hotels in Alicante, Spain? Apparently this is such a popular destination for British tourists that there is a ton of British food and entertainment in this area. Since I do not live in England, I like the two for the price of one angle.

Alicante is working hard to become the cultural capital of Costa Blanca- wouldn't in be nice to go find out if their hard work is paying off?

*Fun Fact: This entry is brought to you by our friends at Cheaper Than Hotels! They also have my favorite kind of deal- the Last Minute Deal!

After taking an inventory of our cars...

We decided to rent a car for an upcoming wedding that we'll be driving to. My car burns so much oil that I keep an emergency bottle of it in my trunk, and my husband's car is 18 years old and makes funny noises that the mechanics can't quite figure out. Both our cars have about 230,000 miles on them. The wedding we're going to is only about a six hour drive, but we were concerned that neither of our cars are reliable enough to take such a trip. We have no interest in trying to find a mechanic in Nowhere, Oklahoma, or being stranded in the middle of nowhere. Plus my husband's car does not have air conditioning, and I am a delicate, delicate flower when it comes to heat. Hours in a sweltering car was not sounding fun to me.

Then we had one of those *ding* moments, where a little bell goes off- rent a car. For 34 bucks (including tax) we have rented a car for the weekend. 34 dollars is a small price to pay for my sanity, and it is likely far, far less expensive than a breakdown (and believe me, we're overdue on my husband's car) and an emergency fix. Thanks, Travelocity!

Bridesmaid Beauty on the Cheap!

This weekend I'll be on the East coast to be a bridesmaid in one of my dear friend's wedding! This is the first time I've been a bridesmaid, and I've discovered that it is rather expensive! Here are some small ways to cut down on the cost of clothes and staying there-

Beauty:

• If at all possible, buy your dress, shoes, purse, etc on E-bay. If the bride is using a chain like David's Bridal, this is a bit easier. Try on the dress in the store to be sure of the size, then try to find it on E-bay. Be sure to know the style number and the color. The same goes for shoes and accessories. Get that worn once dress at a fraction of the cost!
• Even if you buy the dress new, get the alterations done by a local seamstress. The bridal stores charge an arm and a leg.
  
• If the bride wants you to have your nails done, get them done at a local beauty college before you travel to the wedding. I got silk wraps for 15 dollars (I had a coupon!) at the beauty college. If the bride wants you to have a specific polish color that you can't get at the beauty college, get the fake nails at the college and do the polish at the bride's salon. A polish is much less expensive than acrylics or silk wraps.
• Getting your hair done at a beauty college can save you a small fortune as well.
• After the wedding, have your dress cleaned and sell it on E-bay. If you bought it on E-bay, you may well be able to get back all the money you paid. If you bought it new, you still will make something back. Be honest: will you really ever wear it again?
  

Hotel tips:

• If you stay in a hotel, try to stay in one with a kitchen. I have a long weekend- the rehearsal is tonight and the wedding is on Sunday. I am staying at a place with a kitchen, so I can go buy groceries and cook most meals for myself. Even if I buy full price things, it will be more healthful and less expensive than eating out three meals a day for four days.
• Use services like Priceline to find a hotel. If the bride and groom have reserved a block of rooms, compare the price to nearby hotels. Just because you're sleeping somewhere else does not mean you can't hang out with everybody.

Since I live so far away, I did not have to do any of the hen parties or showers, which I hear are getting quite ridiculous these days. Maybe my readers can leave some cost cutting tips for those in the comments.

*drumroll*

We will be gone from March 17-31. I do not know how much internet access we will have on this trip, so this blog likely will not be updated until April 1. See you then!

The Travel Purse- Now with pictures!

My husband, roommate, and I are going to be taking a long planned trip starting this weekend. Here's one quick way to save money (and time!) when traveling- take a big purse! My mother did this when we traveled, and I have kept the tradition. In my Big Travel Purse I put snacks, a bottle or two of water, emergency rain ponchos (check the dollar store- I got two packs of two for a buck each), band aids, aspirin, tissues, toilet paper, travel guide, a few books (to pass the time in long lines), and other such items. If you buy souvenirs, you can throw them in the travel purse and eliminate hauling tons of bags across town.

The snacks and water really save money- it's too easy to shell out five or ten dollars apiece a few times a day for eh snacks. This saves time (no lines) and money. Some people have the attitude of "Oh, well you're on vacation, just spend the five bucks for the snack." I prefer to bring my own snacks and spend the money at something more exciting on the trip. Five dollars each a day would add up to $120 for a two week trip for my husband and I- that's a pretty nice night on the town!



For this trip I got a bag at Goodwill for 1.50. I decided to get this bag because it's not super feminine- it's just a small messenger bag. I'll rename it the Travel Bag and then the guys can help carry it around, and I won't feel like a pack mule.

Where are we going? The (shockingly unfrugal) location will be revealed Friday evening! Have a great day!

Frugal Travel: Think Outside the Box

I am done with my Master's thesis. DONE! I can hardly believe it. Writing this thesis has been one of the most stressful things I have done, but now that it is over, I am glad that I stuck with it.

There's just one more thing that I have to do to finish my MA in English- defend my thesis. My defense is scheduled for Monday, November 20 at 5 PM! I'm so nervous and calm at the same time. I know that it will be fine, no matter what the results are.

For those of you who don't know, I was working on my Master's degree in Colorado when my husband got the job in Kansas. Since I only had one semester to go and had completed all necessary classes, I was able to write my thesis long distance. It has been very strange doing this from afar. Homemaking and graduate studies are very different worlds.

The plan has long been that I would drive to Colorado when the time came. I know that I likely would not be able to fly, since there is a very short time between approval of your thesis and the defense. However, my car is no longer dependable. My husband's car is also kind of iffy for such a long trip.

My husband decided that I should try to get a last minute flight, but since my defense is the week of Thanksgiving, that idea died pretty quickly. Tickets were in the 300-400 range, which is way over our budget.

Then we thought I should rent a car for one day, drive to my parent's, drop off the car, and have them take me. This seemed very sensible. However, this would have cost over 100 dollars. It costs more to leave the car in another location, and I had not considered that fact.

I looked up Greyhound fares, but they wanted over 100 dollars for a 22 hour bus ride. No thanks.

As an afterthought, I looked up train fares. For 88 dollars, I get to ride in comfort, not worry about driving myself, not worry about being stuck on a bus for 22 hours, not worry about getting lost. The downside is that it leaves at 4 AM in a town an hour away from here, but that's not too big of an inconvenience for me. I'm very excited about my train journey, and I am glad I checked that option. I figured it would be much more than flying, as that has been my experience in the past when I checked train fares. Be sure to check all your options- one may be much cheaper than you expect!

Sadly, it does not look like it will be cheaper for any of the other places I will be traveling over the next year, but you never know.

Tip for College Students or people near a college: See if your school has a rides board. My husband's school did. People would post where they were going or if they needed a ride during school breaks, and many people carpooled great distances that way. I frequently saw nice vacation destinations, such as LA, Washington DC, New York, etc on those boards, so it may be a way to save money on transportation when you take a vacation, if you don't mind sharing a car with some random college student.