Thrifty Thursday (a day late)

Dad took my Mom for some more tests this afternoon, leaving my Ohio Aunt all alone for a few hours. So, I saved my thrifting for today and toted her along with me. She is truly the Thrift Shop Queen, says that up home the only thing she doesn't buy from thrift stores is undergarments and nighties! We had a nice time, a little reprieve for her from the caretaking of Mom, and I got some good bargains:

*Two vintage Pyrex bowls and one Fire King pie plate for Kali

*One vase for my dining room table, the colors are perfect!

*A wicker basket that I plan to use for bread & rolls

*10 brightly-colored cloth napkins, they look brand new!

*3 Hawaiian-type shirts for Beren, one of them a Pierre Cardin!

Grand total: $27.00. Not bad, huh?

Thrifty Thursday

I did a bit of "retail therapy" as my friend Jersey calls it..grin..stopped at my fave thrift store and found some lovely treasures!

*A nice sturdy bamboo silverware caddy, perfect timing since the bottom fell out of my old one just last week! Here in the land of forever-summer we do bbq and entertain year-round so these things really take a beating.

*A fabulous straw bag, really love the faux-snake handles and details! I happen to have a pair of shoes that match perfectly, but that doesn't surprise you does it? *grin*

*A stack of blue & cream sunflower cloth napkins, again perfect for the season!

*Two boldly-printed skirts, can't wait to pair them up with colorful tanks!

*An armload of books - I rarely buy paperbacks at the thrift store because for only $1.50 I can have the hard-cover version.

Total spent: $30.00. Not bad, eh? I couldn't have purchased two new books for that sum! Have any of you read these?

*The Good Wife Strikes Back by Elizabeth Buchan
*Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
*The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn
*Multiple Choice by Claire Cook
*Coal Run by Tawni O'Dell
*Comfort me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
*True to Form by Elizabeth Berg

Now, I'm off for cocktails with my sweetie, Kali & Kevin, going to celebrate Mom's return home and many other things that we have to be grateful for.

Tropical Cuteness

I've decided to take another day off from work, am going to putter around the castle for a bit but when my fabulous cleaning lady Josee arrives I'll have to hightail it outta here lest she invite me to scrub the floors with her. *shudder* At that point I will probably run some errands including another trip to Target (do you all pronounce that store's name with a French accent like I do? I thought so, makes it much more elegant and fun, don't you think?) to return the closet organizing items I didn't need.

After that I was going to take my Mom "junkin'"as was our Wednesday morning habit years ago when I was married and worked from home. You see, Wednesdays was 50% off Senior Citizen Day at our favorite thrift store so Mom would meet me there, we'd wander around the store searching for treasures, load up our cars and then celebrate our good fortune and good buys with breakfast at Denny's next door.

Well, Mom has some extensive testing this afternoon and wants to conserve her energy so she declined my offer for a morning of junkin'. That's ok, she promised me a rain check once she starts feeling better and I fully intend to hold her to that. In the meantime, I'll share my slightly-less-thrifty but still fun finds from yesterday:



If you have been reading my blog for a bit, you'll know that Kali's wedding theme was "vintage Florida." She and Kevin looooove all things tropical and her favorite flower is the hibiscus. So, yesterday when I saw these adorable melamie dinner plates and accessories on clearance at Target I had to scoop them up! I purchased the large serving bowl, some plates and some glasses (not shown), two hand towels, 6 wash cloths and two kitchen towels, all with hibiscus flowers on them! Aren't they precious?! I just love that happy little monkey! I plan to wrap them up and have them waiting when they return from their honeymoon, a nice little "welcome home" gift for the bride and groom.

The cost: $2.08 each for the kitchen & hand towels, $1.04 for each salad plate, $5.58 for the washcloths and $5.58 for the serving bowl. While not thrift store prices that's still not a big expenditure for something that I know will put a big ol' smile on her face as it did on mine!

P.S. I took this pic with my new herbs as a background, promise I'll post more on that later..

The Green Stuff

With St Patrick's Day right around the corner I find myself focusing on the green stuff, and I don't mean just cabbage and colored beer. Since it's also tax season and I work for an accountant, my mind is also on money. I am constantly running numbers through my head, my own finances as well as our clients'. I've always been careful with cash but am not a tightwad, think I know when to pinch a penny and when to indulge. I tend to cut corners on things that don't matter to me such as clothing (I don't care what label is on my jeans) but am more than willing to pay a cleaning lady twice a month to keep the castle in good shape. I've found some really good blogs & websites to assist & inspire me and really consider frugal living a hobby as well as a way of life. I could do much better, however, and in fact have made that a goal of mine for 2008.

Fortunately Beren and I have the same philosophy; I clip coupons, shop sales and discount stores, he loves to hear how much I saved on our grocery bill. We have a budget and do our best to stick to it, record nearly every dollar we spend in Quickbooks. We both adore thrift stores and rarely visit a new town without doing some junkin'. That's what we're headed out to do today as a matter of fact. I'll let you know what treasures we find!



P.S. We found a few goodies today: some really pretty cobalt blue salad plates, two pieces of vintage Pyrex casseroles which I use constantly and am always searching for, and a traveling bar which we're going to fill with a few bottles and gift to Kali and Kevin for their honeymoon. Shhh..don't tell them!