What's Checked Out in January?

We love the library. I can save a fortune by never needing to buy books. I save space by not needing the room to store them all. I even save time by requesting my wish list online and having the library pull the books for me so I can just go in and grab them. Here's a quick peek at what we checked out this month:

Movies:

I check out Movies.com to watch trailers and figure out what I want to see.

Despicable Me 2: Adorable kids movie.

Man of Steel: I loved it. Jon wasn't a fan since he preferred the older movies.

Music:

I use Shazam when I listen to the radio to tag songs I love. I can then search the albums and reserve them.

Of Monsters and Men: "Little Talks" got added to my running playlist.

Pitch Perfect Soundtrack: "Cups" also got added to my running playlist.

Books:

I went back to classics this month and re-read my favorites. Mostly because I've had a lot of changes this month and my brain can only take so many new things at once.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer: The theme for this whole list is outstanding teen sci-fi.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead (Movie comes out this February!)

Divergent by Veronica Roth (Movie comes out this March!)

Life Skills Books:

The Spark Solution: A weight loss book from the guys that brought you sparkpeople.

Your Best Body Ever by Anita Goa : A power yoga book that incorporates strength training and cardio into your yoga routines.

$5.00 Dinner Mom by Erin Chase: I just returned this because I received my very own copy at Christmas. As far as I'm concerned this is the best cookbook in the world. It's been my favorite for almost 3 years.

Kids Books:

Peace Baby! by Linda Ashman

The Thingamabob by Sung Na

Signing in My World: Sign Language for Kids by Kathryn Clay

The Berenstain Bears Home Sweet Tree by Stan Berenstain

We also took out puzzles! Most libraries stock wooden puzzles for kids. Ours even has Melissa and Doug puzzles!


Head out to your local library and take a look to see what you're into!

Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament Party: Amazingly Fun and Ridiculously Cheap! $31.00 for the whole party!

My absolute favorite party to throw is a poker party. It's such an awesome night. You can mix social circles that would ordinarily make for an awkward party, put them at a poker table together and suddenly everyone is best friends for life. By making it a tournament, you're teaching those new to the game how to play in a tournament in case they ever have any interest in playing in a casino, you're donating $10.00 to one of your friends (or yourself!), and your giving people an opportunity to gamble $100,000 (in chips of course!). It's also an incredibly frugal party, My budget for poker parties is $50.00, but I normally spend much less than that.

Here's how I make it work:

1. Know the Law!

If you don't check beforehand, it's unlikely that the local SWAT team will raid your house (and if they did, you up your party reputation significantly). However, being the law abiding citizens that you are, just call down to your local police department and ensure that a poker party is ok as long as "the house" (you), doesn't make a profit. That's the law in most places (including here). If you want to get really fancy, the house can count lodging, food, drinks and entertainment provided for free against the profit. So technically, you could make a profit as long as you can prove that you spent more than you made.

2. Pick your Guest List:

Ultimately, you want to have a group of 5 to 10 players. Choose 10-12 friends to invite and let them know the details. Make sure to tell them the time (normally after dinner, about 7 or 8pm), the date, the place, the buy in (we do $10.00), what the buy in gets you ($100,000 in chips) and if it's winner take all or tiered winnings. Winner takes all means that whoever is the last man standing, gets everyone's money. Tiered winnings means that the last 3 people standing get some money. If you have 10 friends, with a $10.00 buy in, you have a total of $100.00. With tiered winning, the 1st place winner would get $50.00, the second place winner would get $30.00, and the third place winner would  get $20.00. Since we keep our buy in so low, we just go for winner take all. When you send out your invites (by invites I mean text messages, this isn't really formal), also let them know that if they don't know how to play, there will be a tutorial before the game.

3. Count your Chairs:

You can have up to 10 people at one table, but make sure you have enough chairs in the house to seat everyone. If you only have 8 chairs in the house, just adjust your invite list to 8.

4. Buy Drinks:

You have two options, alcohol or no alcohol. I don't drink, but Jon does. If we do something non- alcoholic, we mention that it's BYOB. I grab a case of Dr. Pepper and a case of Coke in a 2 for $5.00 deal and we call it a night. If you end up doing alcohol, I suggest just picking a signature mixed drink to make. It's cheaper, easier, and you won't spend the next day picking up beer bottles. Since I don't know a margarita from a martini, I won't try to advise you on a good signature drink.
Total Cost: $5.00

 

5. Buy Snacks:

Think simple, easy, and not too messy! You're looking for snacks that people can get up, grab quickly, take back to the table and enjoy without having to juggle with their cards. I found these on pinterest (for the original post... Click here) and fell in love!  I went to Party City and bought tiny plastic disposable shot glasses for about $2.00. I don't remember how many came in a pack, but I've used them for 2 parties and still have some left. Bonus points because they come with tops, and you can use the extras in your lunch box to add dips and sauces.

I bought a bag of baby carrots ($1.29), a bottle of ranch dressing ($1.29), a bottle of blue cheese dressing (1.29), a can of honey roasted peanuts ($5.00), and a bag of pretzel sticks ($1.00). Squirt ranch or blue cheese in the bottom of the shot cups, add carrots on top. Separate the peanuts into the cups, separate the pretzels into the cups, add peanut butter to some of the pretzel cups. Have a plate of cookies available (if you don't have time to go all Betty Crocker- buy a mix for about $1.50).
Total Cost: $14.00

 

Buy Poker Chips:

You're only buying this once, so get a decent set that will last you a long time. You need 35-50 chips per person. Unless you have a lot of chairs and multiple dining room tables, its unlikely you'll ever have more than 10 people, so aim for 500 chips. We got ours at Walmart (frugal capital of the world). A similar set can be seen by clicking here for $39.99. I don't count this into my $50.00 budget, because we already had a set, and you'll only need to buy it for the initial party. This set also comes with 2 decks of cards (almost all chip sets do). We keep using the same decks of cards, but if you have a friend that always seems to be "that guy", invest the extra $2.00 in a new deck for each party so he can't say your cheating.
Total Cost: $39.99 for initial party.

 

Ensure That You Have 2 Decks of Cards:

Make sure that you have two decks of cards. You're only going to use one (trying to swap and use a second while the first is being shuffled is an invitation to have mixed decks), but you want the second as a back up in case something happens. Keep one deck in its wrapper, ask at the beginning if everyone feels comfortable using the old deck, if anyone wants the wrapped deck- use that one. It's never happened to us, but in the unlikely event that you end up with lots of opened decks, donate them to the neighborhood kids.
Total Cost: $2.00 if you don't already have an unopened deck.

Have Change On Hand:

We live in a plastic society. When you tell people to bring $10.00 for the buy in, almost all of your guests will show up with a 20 dollar bill because that's what the ATM gives them. Stop by your bank on the way home one night that week, and get a bunch of ten dollar bills to make change.

Determine Denominations:

Determine how much you want each chip to be worth. Take one of each colored chip, write the denomination on it and glue it to cardboard (or anything- paper plate, block of wood, whatever). Put it in a place where everyone can see it easily.

We use the following denominations:

White- 500.00
Green- 1,000.00
Blue - 5,000.00
Red- 10,000.00
Black- 25,000.00

We distribute a total of $100,000.00 for the buy in to each person.

Find a Bank:

Grab an old mason jar, coffee can, mug, or vase to use as a bank. When people buy in, they put their money in the "bank". It's just a nice neutral place to keep the winnings. Plus, it's kind of cool to be handed a giant jar of cash when you've won. If you want to sweeten the deal, stick candies, and other treats in the jar with the money, stick a ribbon around the jar and let them take the jar home as well (bonus points for you since now you're decluttering while you host!).

Learn The Rules:

Even if you know the rules (or think you do), do a little research. You want to make sure you know what your talking about since you'll be teaching other people. You can click here for more information about the rules of Texas Hold Em Tournaments.

Have a Practice Round:

Unless everyone is sure they know what they're doing, have a few slow tutorial rounds, encourage questions and make sure that everyone knows the rules before any money is stuck in the bank.

Increase the Blinds at Allotted Time:

Tournaments can take a while depending on your players, the soonest you'll be done is 3 hours with 10 people. It can go on much longer though. At the last poker tournament, I was so exhausted that I went all in on a pair of 8's just to be able to get out. Then I fell asleep on the couch and awoke at 1 am to find the party still in full swing (caution- this is not great hostess behavior). If you increase your blinds at allotted pre-determined times, you can avoid that situation. For example, every half hour, you can increase your blind by three. Start off with a 500.00 blind, at the 30 minute mark, increase to 1,500, then 4,500 and so on.

Have Alternate Entertainment for When You're Out:

The first person that goes out always becomes the dealer, since there's no one else for them to mingle with yet. When the second person goes out, we normally have them alternate dealing. After that they move to some alternate form of entertainment. We have a few standby's: kinect on the xbox, bean bag toss in the back yard, or a "2nd Winners Table" (an optimistic way of saying losers table), where you enter a free tournament for a prize (this can be anything from a real gift, to baked goods to take home, to something silly like a cardboard crown decorated in feathers). Just have something for people to do that requires little direction since (hopefully), you'll still be in the tournament.

Keep a Low Buy In:

There's always one guy in every crew, the guy that's ultra competitive and freaks out over a novice dealing the wrong way or an accidentally flipped over card. There really isn't anything you can do about "that guy", but if you keep a low buy in, at least you aren't fueling that type of behavior. Most people won't take this very seriously if it's just $10.00. This is about having fun, and learning a  new skill together. As a bonus, one of you will leave with about a hundred dollars.
Total Cost: $10.00

Total Cost for Party: $31.00! (Except for First Party, if you don't have poker chips, then you'll need $71.00)

DIY: Dry Erase Boards and the Ikea "As-Is" Aisle

Ikea is one of my favorite stores. It's the only place that I've found that can beat even Walmart on kitchen gadgets. I've always been impressed with their products (as long as you have a basic understanding that you aren't purchasing heirloom pieces). I love the way that they think outside the box and come up with ingenious designs.

Recently, we needed to pick up a shelf for the baby's room. We headed to Ikea and picked out the lack wall shelf in white for $14.99. When we headed toward the checkout, we made our usual stop to the "As-Is" aisle. The "As-Is" aisle is an elephant graveyard for ikea rejects. They have everything including damaged goods, discontinued items, show room or display models, and random parts of furniture. They have a tall shelf in the corner that has doors, table tops, and pieces of wood. They had several base pieces of chairs (the rolling parts). They even had a GIANT backyard gazebo tent that was discontinued for $75.00!

To be perfectly honest, I have always stopped at the "As-Is" aisle, but before I started bringing Jon, most of it was lost on me. I couldn't figure out what any of the pieces were or what to do with them. Last time, I brought Jon and he grabbed a really cool lighting fixture for $10.00. He knew exactly what he needed and where in the house we had a closed fixture outlet where it could be installed. The result was great and I'm thrilled he could do it for only $10.00!

This time, we found a pile of discontinued white corner shelves for $5.00, that worked even better for where we wanted to install the shelf so we grabbed two of them so we could stack them. We put the lack wall shelf back.

Jon found two high gloss white boards that appeared to be parts of a larger piece in the cabinet of boards. He recognized that they could be used as dry erase boards because they were covered in the blue sticky protective film. There was a very large board for $3.99 and a smaller board for $1.99. We  took them home and set the large one up in the kitchen as a Menu Board, using command adhesive to adhere to the wall. The smaller one, we'll set up in the nursery.

For an example of the savings... This dry erase board is being sold at Staples for $45.99

Quartet® Contour® Melamine Dry-Erase Boards with Textured Plastic Frame, 3' x 2'

• Standard melamine surface
• Textured plastic frame with rounded-corners
• Dimensions: 3'W x 2'H

Price:

$45.99

The next time you're in Ikea, stop in to the "As-Is" aisle to see what can be used! You can also check out the Ikea Hackers site for inspiration by clicking here.

The Ingham Family Mystery Gift Challenge: A cheap and hilarious date night challenge.

The Ingham's are friends of ours that are the perfect example of how to have a solid marriage after 20 years and many challenges. We both look up to them as marriage inspiration and I love hearing about their traditions and the way they solved common marriage problems. When I heard about the Mystery Gift Challenge, we immediately adopted it.


Here are the Instructions:

1. Take two white envelopes and label them (either with your names or with #1 and #2). You can actually keep these and just re-use them every time you do the challenge.

2. Take two pieces of card stock that are envelope size (or cut them to envelope size) and label them with the The Mystery Gift Challenge. Then write out the rules and regulations. They are as follows:
                                                 
                          A. You may buy as many or as few gifts as you would like, but you must not spend more than you are given. You can also add the clause that you must spend every cent that you are given. This is much more difficult and will likely need much more than an hour.

                          B. You have exactly one hour to meet back at the store closest to the entrance that you used to come in. You can change the time allotment as well, if you would like.

                          C. First Come, First Serve. If you enter a store and see your partner already there, you must leave the store and try again later. This keeps purchases a surprise, so you can't check out what the other is doing.

                           D. All Purchases must be kept secret until the big reveal at lunch.

                           E. All purchases must be made with your partner in mind. For example, Rowy may not buy Jon a scrapbook album.


3. Include the set amount of cash in each envelope and give one envelope to each person. The cash limit should be between $5.00 and $40.00, depending on your budget. This makes the date night cheaper than if you wanted to go to a movie, or go out for dinner.


4. Pack an awesome lunch into a back pack. You can use the soft cooler for anything that needs to stay cold and stuff that into the backpack too.


5. Grab two large gift bags from your gift bag stash and tons of tissue paper. Make sure each person has one gift bag and an assortment of tissue paper. It's easiest if the guy carries the book bag so he can stash his gift bag in it, since girls can fit that into their purse. I mean, seriously, what can't we fit into our purse?


6. Head out to your local mall. Start at a store closest to the entrance and set your watches. Happy hunting!


7. When your time is up, meet back and find an aesthetically pleasing part of the mall (like a fountain) or head out to a close park, trail, or waterfall to have your picnic and exchange gifts.



The first time we did this, my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. We have a large mall, and the idea of covering what you needed to cover in an hour is laughable. I was running full speed through the mall trying to get where I needed to go when we had about 10 minutes left. I turned the corner, and of course, Jon was in the store I was headed for, so I ran full speed back to the other side of the mall to get to my second choice. It was one of the best work outs ever. It's really an adrenaline rush, though when you stop to think about it, it's kind of funny that you feel like your trying to disarm a bomb before it blows, when all you're really trying to do is spend $20.00 in an hour.


 I found that the more sales people you tell about what you're doing the better. They know all the deepest discounts and can quickly give you your best options for your budget. A Target saleslady told me about a $9.00 blueray sale they had going, and a Macy's employee filled a 3 month sample spray bottle of Eternity for Men cologne for free to sweeten his gift bag. When I had $1.06 left, a Hallmark employee found $.99 Superman Silly Bands for me and used the "take a penny" jar to make up the tax difference. Even the Mrs. Field's employee threw in a free mini cookie.


If you have a larger family, you can adapt this by creating as many cards as you have family members and marking each with a name. Have everyone pull a card. If someone gets a card with his or her name, they can choose a person to switch with until everyone has a name that isn't theirs. I suspect the little guys will have their money spent in a few minutes on some rather interesting gifts, leaving the older family members time to get their gifts.


Other variations would be a Christmas Mystery Gift Challenge, a Double Date Mystery Gift Challenge (you can pick names as in the larger family variation above), or a "Buy for yourself" Gift Challenge.


Here are the examples of what we got on our first challenge:

Jon got me a revolving waffle iron (on a great sale!), and a chip that goes into my new sneakers that links to my iPhone to send information on how far and fast I walk, run etc.

I got Jon an American Psycho Blueray (He thinks Christian Bale is the greatest actor of all time), an 8GB thumb drive (he had lost his), a bag of mini cookies from Mrs. Field's, a chapstick (he always steals mine), "The Cool Fix" aftershave lotion, and superman silly bandz.

Free entertainment! Things to do for free when you're trying to save money.

There are tons of things to do for free when your trying to save money. The following is a list of our favorites. Be creative and add your own!

FREETAINMENT!

1.    Board Games- Why do we have 20 board games but never use them. Especially chess or two person games.

2.   Gym- We complain about not having enough time to go to the gym and being bored in the same day. Insanity. Especially if you live in a community association with its own free gym. Feeling particularly unmotivated? Just make the agreement to go for 15 minutes. 15 minutes worth of exercise is better than none! Especially when done on a consistent basis. Most likely once you start, you’ll be motivated to stay longer.

3.   Pool- If you have a community pool this is a fantastic option. But wear sunscreen! We have a free community pool that’s not even a block from our home. We keep a soft insulated cooler bag (I think ours came from five below for 5.00 – it looks like an insulated tote bag) stocked with our 2 beach towels, bathing suits, books, a hair tie, and sunscreen. When we want to hit the pool, we just add our water bottles and head right out.

4.   Walking around the neighborhood- One of my favorite things in the world is exploring the things that everyone passes but no one sees. I used to call up random friends to have them come over and walk through the “woods” (well, the small clusters of trees that count as woods in northern Virginia) behind my house to see what we could find. Eventually, we found a river! I had some of my best memories from those walks!

5.   The Library- I know, I know. The library is lame.  But I dare you to give it another shot; it’s hands down my favorite place to be. Chill out and read glossy magazines so you can find out what went wrong with Tom and Katie. They have pretty much every magazine known to man and they’re all FREE to read! If you just can’t bring yourself to hit the library, then head to Barnes and Noble. They have a very relaxed magazine reading policy and comfy chairs. I suggest this only to those with strong willpower, or else you’ll leave the proud owner of a $32.00 book on organic botany that you’ll never look at again once its home.

6.   XBOX- Our XBOX is entertainment central. We can watch free movies on Amazon Prime or TV Shows on HULU PLUS (We cancelled our cable and saved a fortune by switching to these services- see my archives for “Saving a Fortune by Using Your XBOX”), or we can play any of the games we have previously purchased. If you’re not really a “gamer”, but your partner is… I suggest you try out the free trial of minecraft. It’s a world of infinite Lego’s. You can create anything. It’s very easy to play and highly addictive. Plus, you can play split screen (that means up to four people can play on one screen). If you end up liking it, the full version of the game is only 20.00 (Most XBOX Games cost about 60.00). My husband and I have been obsessed with minecraft now for about 3 months. That’s a pretty good use of 20.00 if you ask me! You can also Kinect Chat if you already have a Kinect. We mostly Kinect chat with my family. It creates a widescreen image of your room with everyone in it, and video conferences with each other. You’d have to do it to understand but when I Kinect chat with my family, I literally feel like I’m sitting in their living room hanging out with them. It can be a huge help if you’re far away and homesick. If you have a Kinect and you have kids, there are about a million silly free games you can play that uses the kids body as the controller and takes photos while he plays.

7.   Organize the house! This may seem like more work them play, but we aren’t talking about cleaning. We’re talking about organizing. There’s only one rule. No spending money. So, you have to figure out a way to use what’s already in your house to get what you need. For instance, our pantry has the metal rails in the shelf that make it hard for our shelf organizers not to fall through. I wanted to my husband to go buy plywood and cut them out to the dimensions of the shelf so that our shelf organizers wouldn’t fall. Instead, we upcycled our moving boxes, cut the shelf’s out of them, and when we put them in, they looked great and it worked beautifully! The next project we’re planning is my husband’s tool closet. We have a list of projects so that when we have time, we can pick one that interests us.

8.   Start a Blog! This blog was started by accident when I was trying to add something to pinterest. I began the blog to pina simple idea. The first day, I had 5 page views and called my mother ecstatic because someone actually read it. The second day, I had 700 page views and freaked out. Today, (Which I believe is day 10), I have a total of 170,000 page views and have made over one hundred dollars. It’s one of the few free hobbies that can actually make you money. Most important though, are the amazing things you learn from other blogs like yours and the fact that you’re passing along things that work for you to others.

9.   Cooking Date Night: While it has a lame name, this is one of my favorite things in the world! We still stick with our 100.00/week grocery budget and we plan to make a really fancy dinner on either Saturday or Sunday night. It normally takes us about 5 hours to make. We have a blast, learn to work together and sit down to a phenomenal dinner that we’re ridiculously proud of. As a bonus, all that time without the TV encourages conversations about everything under the sun.  I use tasteofhome.com to create the menu (you can save recipes to your recipe box and they create a shopping list for you based on those recipes). Since we’re using whole ingredients for the recipe, the costs are low and I’ve had no problem keeping within my grocery budget. Plus, you typically have some awesome leftovers. For the last cooking date night, we had a loaf of Cranberry Walnut Bread, Skillet Mac and Cheese, a Herb Roasted Whole Chicken, a Spiced tossed salad, and Twice Baked Potatoes stuffed with sour cream, bacon, salt, pepper and cheddar cheese.

10.  Spa Night – Every girl in the world has an enormous pile of beauty products that she never uses. You know the one I mean; it has years of Christmas gifts and CVS impulse purchases in it. Take a night and pull it all out. Soak in a bubble bath, deep condition your hair, give yourself a manicure and a pedicure, exfoliate, self-tan, pluck and arch your eyebrows, give yourself a face mask, moisturize, and spray on the perfume you only wear for special occasions. Feel like a million bucks, because your worth itJ If you have a particularly awesome partner, and he’s brave enough to join in, it can be a fun couple’s activity (as long as you swear on a stack of bibles that you won’t tell anyone).