Are you a frugal fashionista on a budget? These days everyone is trying to save money in any possible way they can, which unfortunately for many means spending less on new clothing. If you love fashion and designer prices but are on a budget, then you’ll love our frugal fashionista tips below:
1. Clean Out Your Closet & Clothes: If you love clothing, then there’s a good chance you already have quite the selection in your closet but may have forgotten about what you already own. The best bet for organizing your clothes is to first drag it all out and then lay it out in piles where you can see everything. You might just be surprised how much you have and what new combinations you can make. Set a special pile for clothes that no longer fit you or you don’t really wear too much anymore.
2. Organize a Clothing Swap: Organizing a clothing swap can not only be a great free way to update your look but also can be a lot of fun to do as well. Invite up to as many friends as you’d like and tell them to bring a bagful of clothes they no longer wear. Then lay it all out on a pile and let everyone fight for what they want. (Hopefully there really won’t actually be any fighting!) You may want to set a few ground rules such as all trades final. If you find that there are leftover clothes, you can always donate the to thrift stores or charities near you.
3. Choose Solid Basics: The cliche of the little black dress remains true: having a few solid anchor pieces can greatly stretch any wardrobe. Rather than buying all new clothes, consider having just a few basics that can be dramatically changed just by a few accessories.
4. Look for Designer Trends in Cheaper Clothing: If you look at what styles you like, the prices of high end designer items can be daunting. However, many times you can find comparable items and styles shopping at most discount retail stores. Nobody is going to realize or notice that what you’re wearing isn’t the name brand designer label.
5. Thrift Shopping is Cool: A lot of people roll their eyes at thrift shopping or second hand and consignment stores, but there is a lot to be gained by going to these types of stores. Often times you can find the designer labels if you have the patience to look – you can also almost always find something that imitates the style as well.
6. Set a Spending Limit: It’s important that you set a spending limit if you want to save money when shopping for clothes. Try to stretch the dollar as far as you possibly can – you can either buy one pair of jeans for $48 or you can go to a discount or thrift store and get 5 or 6 items for the same price. Keeping a budget will help you make sure that you are getting value.
7. Avoid the Temptation of a Sale If something regularly $159 is on clearance for $79 it sounds like a great sale, doesn’t it? However, tempting as it may be, think about how else that money could be spent or if you could find something similar somewhere else for less. If you’re spending money, you’re not really saving it.
8. Read the Care Labels: Clothes that require dry cleaning, steam cleaning, or other special care can cost you money in the long run, or you may even not wear it that often because it does require special care and that extra effort in keeping it clean. If something can be washed in the washing machine instead that can save you much more than taking it to the dry cleaners.
Do you have any frugal fashionista tips you’d like to share? Tell us what you do to save money on clothes and fashion in the comments below!
Finding time for family bonding activities can be difficult sometimes, especially if everyone in your household has their own individual schedules. However, even when you may find that it’s hectic or hard to schedule, a little forced family fun (also known as FFF) is important to do.
A lot of the different things you can do together as a family will greatly depend on the ages of everyone in your home and the number of people as well. To make our list of family bonding activities, we tried to make it so that they only require a minimum of two people but can be expanded for larger groups as well. We also tried to come up with as much as we could that is all ages friendly. Want to plan something with a two year old, a grandma, and a teenager? We’ve got you covered here.
Here are our ideas for family bonding activities:
1. Make a Collage: This can be a really fun activity to do with each other that might even become an addiction over time. It’s a great way to spend time with each other and you’ll be able to talk about almost anything. All you will need is a few magazines (at least one per family member), a piece of poster board or cardstock, and scissors and glue sticks. You can decide whether you’ll choose a theme, make the picture into a story, or cut out all of your favorite quotes and phrases. When you’re finished, you can hang it up on the wall, the fridge, or make smaller ones to save in a special book you make.
2. Play Cards: Card games have been a longtime means of entertainment for families and can also be a lot of fun. Younger children can play memory, go fish, old maid, uno, spoons or war. Older children and adults will like games like Rummy or maybe even pull out a few of your college drinking games (minus the drinking of course!)
3. Take a Walk: This is not only a great way to spend quality time together, but gives your whole family a great way to get some exercise as well. Even younger children may enjoy riding in a stroller and taking in the sights and sounds. You can walk in your neighborhood, the park, and many other places.
4. Family Movie Night: Pop some popcorn, pick a movie everyone in the family will enjoy and watch it together. Make sure that everyone gets a chance to watch something they enjoy to avoid fighting. Some might not think that watching tv together makes a difference, but it does – make sure you talk about the movie afterward.
5. Cook Together: Even younger children can get into the fun by measuring, mixing, and pouring ingredients into the bowl. Family dinner night is important but with our hectic lifestyles it is easy to overlook and forget about this classic way for spending time together.
6. Play Catch: Yes, this might sound like something from the fifties, but it’s a classic way to get to know your kids better. Catch doesn’t have to be reserved for just fathers and sons – moms and daughters can get on it as well. You can all stand in a circle and throw a large ball to one another or go with the old baseball and glove if you’d rather do that. If this is something you want to try and do on a regular basis, consider switching it up each time – maybe throw a frisbee or water balloon.
7. Go Shopping Together: While yes, it can be a lot easier to shop by yourself, taking a shopping trip together can mean a lot. Children can feel special and important helping you make choices, read labels, and push the cart around. The more you shop together the easier it gets and you’ll have time to talk to each other out of the busy schedule.
8. Family Makeover Night: Something that can be fun to do is to have everyone in the family get a makeover – this means where clothes they wouldn’t normally wear or wear their hair in a new way. While yes it’s likely girls will like this one more (especially if you involve non-toxic nail polish) you can still get the boys and Dad involved by spiking their hair or making them try on some silly clothes.
9. Karaoke Dance Party, Anyone?: All you need is a stereo and some speakers for this one. Dance around or sing to your favorite songs together. Go ahead and break out that air guitar.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions for what family bonding activities you can do together are? Share them in the comments below!
Deciding what to wear for a family portrait is probably one of the most important things to consider when getting a picture together with everyone. After all, these types of pictures with the family are the kinds that get passed around, made into calendars, photo cards, and more.
To help you decide what you should wear and get a beautiful family picture together, here are some tips below:
1. Timing is Everything: If you will be going to a professional photographer for the portrait, you’ll want to make sure that it’s a time when you and the other members of your family are not stressed. Make sure the kids are well fed and rested since this usually helps them be the most cooperative. If you go when you are all feeling rushed or stressed out, you’ll end up with pictures that show it.
2. Choose a Color Scheme: A color scheme is very important and can help determine what all of you should wear. You can stick to just one color, or choose several colors that compliment together naturally. Having the same colored shirts or shirts that are complimentary to one another will help you get the best looking picture.
3. Minimize Logos, Writing, Etc.: Your family portrait should not be an advertisement for your favorite clothing brand. Make sure that whatever you are wearing it doesn’t have any writing or emblems on it. The only exception to this rule would be if you are going for a sports theme and everyone in the family will be wearing their favorite team’s jerseys.
4. Avoid Patterns: Too many patterns of different clothes can make it difficult for one to determine where they should focus when they look at the picture. Choosing solid colors may be the most simple way, but some can be successful with mixing and matching patterns if you have a good eye for it.
5. Pick the Right Background: The backdrop of the photo will be another important determination in deciding on what you should be wearing. If you are going to a studio, most backgrounds will either be blue, gray, or white. Some photographers also have the ability to change the background. If you’ll be having the photo done outdoors, you may want to consider what colors will contrast well against the sky or the greenery.
6. Look at Galleries for Inspiration: Most photographers will have an online gallery of their work, or you can always spend some time surfing the internet by searching for images. Looking at examples of what others have done and what you like the best can also help with deciding how you should all dress for a picture that will look professional and be memorable.
These are just a few tips and pointers that will help you achieve the best possibly family portrait. Remember the most important part: Smile and Have Fun!
It can be somewhat of a challenge trying to keep a house clean, especially if you live with several people or young children who are busy and getting into everything. I’m often complimented on how clean my house seems even with three kids under the age 6 running underfoot, so I thought I would share some of my tips and pointers on what I do to make sure that the place isn’t a disaster area most of the time.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1. Get Rid of Everything: Okay, well this may sound a little bit extreme. But it is true. If you get rid of everything, you don’t have very much to put away or dust and clean. We don’t have knick knacks on a coffee table. Heck, we don’t even have a coffee table. The kids have a few toys, probably more than I would like them to have. However, I usually purge through all of the things they get and either donate it or toss/recycle anything that is broken, worn, or missing pieces. It’s just a lot easier to clean up when there is not a lot of stuff you don’t use or need laying around everywhere. If you’re a packrat, this can be really hard to do. But once you get in that “simplified life” kind of mentality you’ll realize it’s a heck of a lot easier.
2. Establish a Routine: I try to keep a pretty consistent routine with the different household tasks I do. Obviously some days will be better than others and maybe sometimes I can’t always do my usual schedule. But by having a typical schedule of “Tuesday is laundry day” or my usual routine of doing the dishes right before bed is a good way for keeping the house a cleaner place.
3. Never Leave a Mess: Cleaning up after yourself seems like common sense, but most of the time if we get distracted or have a lot of things going on we might forget to put the peanut butter back in the cabinet after we made a sandwich or the kids might want to play with a different toy before cleaning up with the one they already had. By making a conscious effort to try and put things away as soon as you are done using them it will really help. (Note: Hopefully you already have some closet organization systems already in place for where things belong.)
4. Delegate: No one person can do all of the housework alone, unless maybe they are a maid and it is their full time job. (And even then, who is cleaning his/her house?) You have to delegate chores to other household members if you want to ever have a little time for yourself – otherwise they’ll be able to go enjoy everything and either your house will be a disaster zone or you will be stuck doing all the dirty work while they have fun, which can certainly add up a lot of resentment. Even young kids can have fun dusting or wiping down the bath tub, so getting them involved in it early will help them stick to it for a longer time.
5. If All Else Fails, Cheat: There will be times when you have unexpected company coming and you don’t have time to do a whole lot before they get there and arrive. When this happens, it is perfectly acceptable to cheat. Make the beds, light a richly scented candle to make the house smell nice and fresh, pick up everything off the floor and throw it in a box until you have time to return the items to their rightful place. (Just be careful you don’t let it go for too long, otherwise you’ll have worse problems!
These are just a few of the things I do that help our house stay nice and neat. A lot of people cannot even believe that we have kids – many of them are people without kids who say my house is cleaner than theirs! If you do these few simple things hopefully you’ll notice not only a difference in how good you feel about your house but also how much more simple your life seems as well.
You can’t really write a blog about being a mom and not write a post in honor of Mother’s Day. So to all the moms out there who have stopped by to read Loud Mom, Happy Mother’s Day to You!
I’ve decided today, since it’s a busy day filled with visiting hubby’s mom and of course my own mom, to spin off an article I wrote and published last year, so hopefully you will enjoy it.
The 10 Things I Love About Being a Mom:
1. An Excuse: Kids are wonderful excuses. Showing up late? It’s the kids fault. There’s chocolate all over my shirt? That’s from all the sticky hugs and kisses I get. Want to get out of somewhere you don’t want to be? Oh geez, the kids are really getting tired/hungry/restless – we gotta go!
2. On Demand Hugs: While this might change as my kids get older, for the time being I can always get a hug or a kiss anytime I ask for one.
3. Handmade Gifts: Who needs fancy store bought gifts when I get the best presents of hand drawn cards and dandelions picked out of the backyard? This year for Mother’s Day my son wrote a book all about me. Apparently he loves me the most because I go trick or treating with him. (Hard to believe he’s thinking about that in May!) He also wrote that I was a few years younger than I actually am and only weighed 95 pounds. Smart kid.
4. Watching the Kids Sleep: No matter how much your kids annoy the crap out of you during the day or what they’ve managed to destroy or make impossible to do, when you tuck them in at night and they fall asleep, there’s just nothing cuter or more rewarding.
5. All the Great Books: If I didn’t hae kids no doubt I would miss out on reading fantastic stories such as IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE
6. Great Movies: It’s always relaxing to snuggle up with the kids watching a good movie or cartoons. We just watched Meet the Robinsons
7. A New Language: Kids teach you all kinds of new words that you wouldn’t know otherwise. I doubt few people beyond moms would understand words like Boppy, binkie, bubba, gamote (remote) and elegator (elevator).
8. My Mini Van: I can’t believe I drive a mini-van and love it. It is seriously scary to me, since I thought as a teenager I would never drive one. But as the guy at the car dealership said, “Nobody wants to drive a mini-van, but you’ll be glad you do!” It’s super comfortable, the kids love it, and it’s got a built in DVD player to entertain them and lull them to sleep on those long car rides.
9. Let’s Play: I get to play with all kinds of cool things all the time. Legos, play dough, tea parties, pirates. I doubt if I didn’t have kids I’d be enjoying those things half as much.
10. I’m never lonely: Kids like to follow you everywhere and getting a minute to yourself can be tough. It’s good to know that even when I want to be alone I usually never am. I can’t even take a shower or go to the bathroom without some company usually!
If you’re a mom, share what you love about being a mom in the comments below, or what you love about your mom. Have a good one everyone!
