“On a Budget” Decor
Have you ever watched a video on YouTube where the video is about how to be frugal and save money “on a budget?” You watch them take a dollar store item, disassemble it, and then create something similar to what they took apart using more items that they had to purchase. Sometimes it looks nicer than what it was, but many times, it would have been better to not purchase the initial item in the first place or leave it alone.
I have seen good pictures being repainted and then made into shelves, and these are not sturdy to hold much of anything. I would rather go to Home Depot, pay for a large piece of wood (sometimes you can find some spare pieces for real cheap), use the same paint to cover the wood, and make your shelves stronger and they will last longer as well.
“On a Budget” Furniture
Another joke about being “on a budget” is when people go to IKEA or another store and buy furniture for “cheap.” These items are at least $60 at the cheapest and go up from there. If you go to a Humanity Restore place, Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other Thrift Store, you can find similar items for this cost or cheaper. Sometimes the items are nicked and need a little bit of TLC, but if you are really on a budget, the nicked furniture will do the same job and you can touch it up or add your own personality to it should it need it. You would be also helping these items get a new home instead of being thrown in a landfill. Craigslist is also a great way to get a good deal on cheaper furniture. There are some people offering items for free!
“On a Budget” Shopping
Grocery Shopping “on a budget” is also interesting to me as you have different price ranges for food. You have the processed foods that are shoved in a box and require little time and ingredients to prepare at home. These are not so healthy due to all the added unnatural ingredients in them so you cause digestion and hormonal issues later. Then there are the regular foods like fruits, veggies, eggs, and other ingredients that are healthier, but have somehow been tainted by something or other (grains, pesticides, or other additives) and these are somewhat affordable, but require more time to prepare and can spoil more quickly than the processed foods. And finally, there are the foods that are GMO free, chemical free, not processed, no dyes or added sweeteners, all natural foods which cost an exorbitant amount of money in which you can barely feed yourself for a week let alone your entire family. And even then there have been some studies done to show that there are still some processing done with these foods in order to get them in the stores without spoiling.
My suggestion here is to pick your battles. Find out what foods or ingredients irritate your digestion or mood. My kids can’t handle the red dyes, so we avoid foods with these in them. I have PCOS, so I am unable to tolerate processed sugars, so I also avoid these foods. I also “shop around.” I prefer to shop in one store and save on the gas that it would take to go to other stores, but there are times and places that always have a cheaper price on certain items. To avoid going to other stores for groceries, I will try to bulk buy – sugar, raw honey, diapers, etc, so I will not need to go to the “other” store as often as I would to the grocery store.
I buy the sale fruits and veggies first and purchase frozen next if a weekly meal plan calls for an out of season fruit or veggie. Eggs (regular as they are cheaper) blocks of cheese, and organic milk (without extra hormones) are how we purchase the next items. Many cage free eggs still feed grains, and we go through so many eggs in a week that to go organic, cage-free, and grain-free, would make our budget go overboard. I buy the blocks of cheese as the shredded kind have added wood pulp to them to keep it fresher. We buy organic milk as the hormones added to the cows can cause issues with not only my hormones, but my kids as well. We watch our grain intake as most of it is processed. We go with rice and oats mainly and buy Ezekiel bread in bulk when it goes on sale. Chips, nuts, juice, and other snacks are a rarity in our house unless they are pretty clean and need to be on sale. When they are on sale, we stock up so they will last a while. We try to make snacks from fresher ingredients as opposed to buying them premade (homemade cookies, avocado pudding, and plain yogurt with fresh fruit and raw honey added).
Other shopping “on a budget” really would be slim to nothing if you are really on a budget. How many times a year do you need a new shirt? How many times do you need new nail polish or another small kitchen appliance? How many dollar tree bins is enough? How many crafts do your kids go through? Many times I watch shopping hauls and I think to myself, “Yes, I need to go shopping for that!” Only to find that the item really isn’t the best quality that I was looking for, it is smaller than I thought in the video, where would I actually store it after I bought it, and do I really have time to make/use it or would it clutter up my house? I will also admit that I go to these stores often, but due to rationalizing I tend to purchase a few items that I do need or use often and pass over the extras that I really can live without. It is hard as I do like to craft, but I have so very little time in which to do things.
