Pinching Pennies

As I may have mentioned before in my other blogs, I am kinda poor due to a trip I made in December/January for visiting family and a wedding of one of my best friends.

I am trying to figure out ways here and there to make a bit of extra cash, so I help my little sister pack up her room because she is moving out of my dad's in a few weeks, I give Trenton's old clothes to Once Upon a Child consignment (http://www.onceuponachild.com/locations.aspx) and I get a few bucks, I'm putting things together for a garage sale this summer, so when people I know just want to get rid of something that has some value to it, I take it off their hands and offer to sell it for them.

My issue is I have a small amount of credit card debt (less than $500.00) and I have been borrowing money from my dad, my best friend, my boyfriend, and holding off on paying my step-mom for childcare... I have a few outstanding medical bills, and repairs to make on my car....I made the decision to apply for a small consolidation loan/personal loan so that I can pay everyone off and just have that one loan until I get my tax return.... then I will be debt free except for my Mortgage.

In attempts to "pinch my pennies" I have been trying to cook with ingredients I already have in the house, so as you will see in my cooking blog( http://happinessishomemade-meg.blogspot.com/ ) I have been doing pretty good so far and only buying the one or two items that I don't have in order to make dinner. I only spent $13 or so on 2 tubs of sour cream, 2 packages of lunch meat, an energy drink(which I didn't need), and some dinner rolls on discount at the bakery section of our local Fred Meyer (http://www.fredmeyer.com/Pages/default.aspx). Also on the way out they have a Red Box (www.redbox.com) where you can rent a movie for 1$ per night. So total amount spent last night at the store was about $15. My boss pointed me in the direction of a distributing company in our area (that has wonder bread and such) that does an outlet on a certain day and you can get bread for about $1 a loaf. 

I was also reading an article the other morning about how you shouldn't pay full price for anything, so before you buy that amazing shirt, or shoes check and see if they have something similar on sale, shop around even sometimes a competing store will have a lower price, maybe even wait to see if they go on sale.... 

They only thing that I pay full price for is cheese and a few other foods, I like to go to the grocery store and stock up on the good stuff when it goes on sale, but I don't believe that my taste buds need to be on a budget...