Well folks, I’m ready for spring! We’re staring down another nor’easter and all I can think about is my plants and how much I’d like to have my hands in the dirt. I pre-ordered some mulberry trees about 2 months ago and I’m wondering if they’ll show up before the snow is melted. Where is spring?!
As per usual we’ve been pretty busy here, and we’re planning a no spend month for the month of April. In preparation for that, I’m trying to make sure that any required purchases are being made now (ONLY required purchases, I’m not using this as an excuse to buy whatever I want). With that in mind I realized that all 3 frugal kids are going to need sandals and summer clothes, and this is also generally the time of year that I buy their winter stuff for the following year because it’s on clearance.
So, I went upstairs and started sorting through everything I have on hand, this includes hand me downs from my awesome niece- and items that I might have purchased on super clearance. What I found was…. not much. I have LOTS of 4t clothes but I don’t think #3 is going to be ready for 4t until the fall, so she has a gap of 3t summer that needs to be filled. Frugal kid #1 has pants but not much else, and Frugal kid #2 had NOTHING.
So with that in mind I started to think about my options which generally include going to the outlets to see what I can find on super sale- better than buying full price, but still not cheap. As luck would have it, a post showed up on my feed for a somewhat local family selling a huge bag of clothes in #1’s next size up- it was $70, but I took a leap of faith and when I got home and pulled it all apart it was all name brand, some new with tags and was more than enough to cover him for summer AND winter next year! This sent me down a (great) rabbit hole of searching out more posts to fill our gaps.
I jumped on a similar post for #2 and the clothes was summer and all in great condition so I messaged the woman selling it and let her know that if she decides to sell more to let me know and she said she had all of the winter clothes in the next size up as well!The girl clothes is extra awesome because I know whatever I buy will get used again.
After pick ups this week, all 3 kids will be completely set for this summer and next fall/winter for a teeny tiny fraction of what we usually spend and we don’t spend that much. It definitely took some planning, time and determination, but I think it was totally worth it in the long run. Extra bonus? I sold some clothes in the process too!!
Ok so I count that as one gigantic frugal 5, but we also did some other things too- with all the cold and snow we had soup twice last week. I also combined a trip to go and pick up clothes, with a trip to Aldi to stock up and took my Mom with me. I’ve been very diligent with unplugging and turning things off to see if we can’t knock down that electric bill a little more. We also had several days running the wood stove which saves us money on propane.
Phew! That’s it for me- do you all use the facebook market place? Gotten any awesome scores?
I’ve never done a facebook yard sale. I don’t even have a facebook account, but Rob does. Do you trade things off in parking lots? Have people coming to your house a lot? What? I’m not even sure where I would start, except to start a facebook:). Or find some one’s facebook that is selling things I want!
I’m by no means an expert (although I feel like I’m becoming one 🙂 ), but there are 2 options, there are usually local to you yard sale groups that you can join just by searching yard sale and your state in the group search.
The other way is to look at the market place- it seems people usually post items for sale on both their local groups and the market place. The market place is nice because you can search within a certain mile radius and by categories of items.
I try to always meet at a public place, so far it’s been mostly gas stations or our local grocery store. I have gone to people’s houses, but always during the day and my Mom has come with me and waited in the car- I also never ever go inside 🙂
Oh and the really good stuff goes fast! First step will be joining facebook. Good luck!
I’ve sold and bought on Facebook marketplace. When I sold an item, I met the lady in a parking lot of a shopping center. When I purchased something, I just went to the house and picked it up. It was pretty easy. It seems to me that most people on FB marketplace know how it works and are easy to work with.