Frugal Living

One of my friends asked me what websites I use for saving money and being frugal. She is attempting to learn to be frugal. So here are some of my favorite sites on living frugal in no particular order...

For general money saving...



Living On A Dime is pretty good. Has some great advice. And if you want to impulse buy one last thing before being frugal, they offer e-books and real paper books series on living on a dime.

All Things Frugal is pretty good too. I use it but not as often.

Menus4moms Menu Archives. if you are learning that a making a menu will help you save money, then here is a menu plan for you. It has 5 dinner menu plans that come out each week on Thursday. Sometimes I post them here. You can follow the link and browse the menu plans for a better idea of what she offers. She also has a $5 a month frugal menu plan.


Speaking of food! You have to have the A-B-C muffin mix recipe! You start with one big batch of muffin mix and you can make any muffin from A to Z! How frugal does that get?


And if you're in a time when food prices are killing you, Hillbilly Housewife (stop laughing and look at the site) has an Emergency $45 menu that feeds 4 to 6 people. 

If you want to spend a little more money you can try the less frugal (but still frugal) $70 Low Cost Menu for 4 to 6 people. I prefer the $70 menu. The $40 menu is more for when we are completely broke and drowning in debt.  

The best part is that they assume you have nothing in your cupboard and that you aren't growing carrots in the garden. So there is no hidden crap like "Next, pluck two heads of lettuce from your garden".



Interesting bit about Hillbilly Housewife... Awhile back while we lived in Tennessee, I used the $40 menu (back then it was $30 a week) to feed our family of 4 for TWO MONTHS! I got a little creative and then found Angel Food Ministries to help stretch our frugal wallet. Hillbilly Housewife is my hero and my favorite frugal site because it has SO much information. Check out the old website... it's a lot more tempting to the frugal eyes and a little more exciting too.



If you are in an area that has Angel Food Ministries, I highly suggest you try them! They help tremendously! And if you aren't sure what to do with all that food, Menus4Moms has a Ministries Menu that will help you figure it out for only $4.95 a month. Honestly, with the money you'll save by buying Angel Food, it is worth it! Just start scrolling down. You'll see what I mean.



Hopefully these sites help someone out. Enjoy... and if you find a site that you like, let me know and I'll add it.

At Mama's Mug.

Miles sitting in the tire shop.

Mendel sitting at the light coming to pick us up.

How to Set Up Gmail in Microsoft Outlook 2002 (Without the Test Email Failing)

I finally got fed up with trying to get Outlook 2002 and Gmail to work together. I found the directions years ago and had to play around to get it right. I figured I would share my frustration with all of you to spare you the urge to toss your computer out the window. Here is a blurb from the article:

While trying to set up my gmail in Microsoft Outlook 2002 I ran into the problem of my "test email" failing every time. Sound familiar? I went to my online Google email account for help but the walk through they gave me had the same result with "test email" failing.

How to Set Up Gmail in Microsoft Outlook 2002 (Without the Test Email Failing)