creme de la creme.

you know what really gets my goat?  expensive natural creamers that are used up so fast.  my husband and i, we like coffee.  him more than me, but i do drink it pretty much on a daily basis.  so when our "good" creamer is used up so fast, it makes me not want to get more.  because i'm lazy.  but i love my creamer!  so what should i do?!  oh, and did i mention that it's about $2.50 for a 16 oz bottle?  herein lies the problem.

lazy + cheap = diy coffee creamer!  okay so i guess i have to be a little unlazy to actually have to make the creamer, but it beats going out into the snowy tundra that is western, pennsylvania just for some coffee creamer.  and it makes so much more creamer!  i was spending $5 on 32 oz of creamer, where with this i spent about $6 for 56 oz.  and it tastes just like the sweet cream flavor the brand carries!

and all it is is sweetened condensed milk and whole milk!  and i added a bit of vanilla (because... vanilla).  it's that easy.  i conveniently also had an old Aldi coffee creamer container that only had a drop left, and we neverrrrrrrrr used it so we washed it out (and by "we" i mean adam did all the cleaning) and we used that for most of the creamer. the rest that didn't fit i just left in the bowl i mixed it in, and added it to the container when it was emptied a bit.  as far as containers go, i imagine you can do the same with an old container!  or maybe the dollar store sells some, i have no idea!

i love this recipe so much, because you can really play with it.  if it's a little too sweet, add more milk than the sweetened condensed milk.  want a new flavor?  idk, add some extract with a flavor you like.  so simple, so fun and so cheap.  

pancakes, anyone?

okay i admit, i am slightly if not obsessed with pinterest.  you got me.  but most of the time, pinterest is not just a tool to motivate me to get off my butt, it's my saving grace.  it's been there for me in times of trouble.  like when i was bored, and really wanted pancakes, but had no mix!

one pancake recipe i pinned included corn starch, and shoot, i had none.  but alas, i found another, corn starch free recipe!  and my friends, my friends.  they were the most freaking unbelievably amazingly delicious freaking pancakes i've ever had the joy of munching on.  and my husband and his friends thought pretty much the same.  go make this.  now.

not only was it fantasticly delicious and better than any pancake i've ever had, but this mix lasted a while!  i don't know about how many pancakes it made, i can estimate around 30, but they were all different sizes so it's hard to tell.  either way it stayed in my fridge for a few weeks and the last batch was just as delish as the first.  i also added some vanilla (because, vanilla) in the wet ingredients and some cinnamon and those turned out yum.

after i made these pancakes, i went out with my husband adam's grandma to her favorite restaurant where i ordered blueberry pancakes.  dude, it was like $4.99 for 2 pancakes. i then had the realization that this pancake mix recipe was so worth it.  it probably cost $3 for my 30+ pancakes!  i'm more than likely exaggerating but you get the point.  the best part of the recipe was that i had all of the ingredients, and you probably do too!

cleaning, cheaply.

it's been so long, oh my gosh!  hey!  i'm back!  and today, i am going to talk about cleaning products i've been using.

i guess it's good i've been gone for a while, it's given me a chance to really use my homemade products and test them before i blabber on and on about how great they are.

but they really are great!  it was shortly after i settled in to our apartment that i realized one of the first, more important things was to make some homemade cleaners that leaned more toward the natural side.  my husband has allergies, and i have read that not having all sorts of chemicals in your everyday cleaners can help with allergies and asthma.  so because i'm trying to live cheaply, i headed to the dollar store with my list of what i needed.

(by the way, i played with her recipes, and i found her on pinterest, so i need to give credit where credit is due!:
http://littlemsrobinson.blogspot.com/2012/03/homemade-cleaning.html)

so i found everything i needed at the dollar store, for $12.  that was about 6 spray bottles, 2 baking sodas, vinegar, ammonia, dish detergent, and the alcohol.  seriously.  and oh, it's true that the biggest ingredient is water.  i only made the window cleaner, the multi-surface and the kitchen magic.  i keep the kitchen magic in the shower (shower magic?) and have used it in there and on the sinks and whatnot. the window cleaner goes slowly because we don't have really nice windows that need to be cleaned so i just use it on the bathroom mirror and it's fantastic, no streaks. and the multi-surface, or the "cure all" as she calls it, i freakin' use it on everything. everything! it's so wonderful.  i don't even really mind the vinegar smell (that's the new clean smell to me!), but if you do, add some nice smelling essential oils.  i've just been too lazy to remember to buy the oils, and like i said the smell doesn't really bother me much anymore.

those $12 i spent at the dollar store in october have stretched until now, and i'm not even close to out of cleaner.  okay i admit i came close to running out of my multi-surface and i just added more vinegar, so it's a tad diluted now but i don't mind that much.

also, i know i have no children or messy, slobbery animals so that's another reason these sprays have lasted longer in my home. but it's so, so much more worth the price.  without the cost of the spray bottles, the ingredients would have came to $6, for 3 cleaning sprays.  i don't think you can beat that, man.

the dollar store, so legit.

i swear i wasn't paid to do this...

hello!

so my last post was all about the wedding.  we now move forward to... the apartment!

this was adam's apartment so we pretty much had everything we needed as far as appliances went (his mom bought the fridge, and the stove was given to us for free).  all we needed was a washer and dryer.  adam has lived here for nearly two years with no washer and dryer.  he lived at the laundromat because he's a germ-a-phobe!

as we settled in a bit, we decided we had to get a dang washer and dryer.  so we did some shopping around, and settled on a set we just loved.  it was $699 each at lowes, where the delivery was free but installation was $145.  we kept it in the back of our heads and moved on to home depot.  unfortunately they didn't have the set there, and the comparable ones were just not as nice but we were open and kept them in mind as we went on.

our search ended at a wonderful little place called h.h.gregg.  to my knowledge, there are none of these on long island.  i mean, i've never heard of it.  so we are looking around and voila!  we found the set that we fell in love with at lowes!  but this time, they were each on sale for $629.  the sale ended the next day, but we didn't want to make that the deciding factor.  we talked to the salesperson and he informed us that h.h.gregg does the price match guarantee thing.  if they find that set for cheaper anywhere else, they'll match it.  so while he's looking it up to see if he'll be matching this price, i'm doubting that he'll find it cheaper.  and because i'm oh-so optimistic (sarcasm alert), i was assuming he would just lie and tell us that was the cheapest anyway.

mr. john salesperson comes over with the news.  he found the same set at sears (this was going to be our next stop), but for $575.  damn. we were sold.  but, h.h.gregg didn't stop there!  they don't match prices, they beat them.  he sold us the washer and dryer for $550 each.  stfu.

oh, and did i forget to mention that the installation was only $79.95, and you get that money back if you send in the rebate?  you can choose the $79.95 visa card, OR $100 h.h.gregg gift card.  we went with the latter, so we can get our tv there too!

i know this will sound super cliche and a bit lame, but shop around.  i wasn't too happy to go to h.h.gregg at first, because it's not as big a chain as the other stores so i did not think for a second we'd get a better deal.  they showed me, that's for sure.  oh also, these guys sing when they're done!

gettin' married.

whoa hey!  i'm back!  it's been a while but i swear i'll actually update this thing.

so since i've been gone i went ahead and got hitched.  i'm now living in western pennsylvania in our quaint little apartment.  since this blog was meant for being thrifty, let me touch on the wedding and how we tried to keep the price down (also we really didn't set out to do radical savings everywhere, we just tried to do things as cheaply as we could):

• having the wedding on a sunday helped a lot.  it cut the cost in half, if i remember right. and it was just as much fun, too!  don't think that sunday weddings are lame just because they're not saturdays!
• my dress was from david's bridal, and the bolero jacket was off the rack at a place in rocky point, ny called fantasia bridal (they're great).  it had a small stitch that was pulling out a bit, so they took $10 off the price and seamed it right there in the store.
• the favors were all put together/baked by my wonderful second mom mrs. vargas.  shout out to her because she's so great and helped SO much!  and philippia!
• my brilliant mom decided to take a bunch of leftover save the date pictures that i screwed up and cut them to create the tags on the favors. this was a great idea, because i hate being wasteful, and we didn't have to waste any of these messed up save the dates!
• for the dj, we went with tommy's tunes who did SUCH an amazing job.  everyone came up to me and them afterwards just raving about them.  for the dj package i went with the basic, no zap shots, no emcee, just the dj and his assistant (they threw in him and an extra hour for $100).
• the honeymoon was a living social deal, and it was awesome and peaceful and wonderful.  we stayed at shorecrest bed and breakfast in southold, ny.  they have amazing breakfast!

i think that's about it.  like i said, we just tried little things to cut cost wherever possible.  the biggest expenses were the venue itself and the dj.  it was such a blast, here are some pictures from my best friend michelle's blog!

http://mrubyseverything.blogspot.com/2012/10/krista-gets-married.html

a little explanation.

i just want to explain the point of this blog a little bit more, and since i'm still in the very beginnings of it i figured i'd be forgiven for not inserting it in my very first post.

the point of this blog is not that i am this awesome thrifty person that spends such little money on extravagant things.  that i'm some "queen of thrift" expecting my minions to prostrate before me because of all the great deals i've seen.

the point of this blog, really, is that i think being thrifty and frugal is just plain awesome, and i want to be a part of this club.  this is a challenge to myself (and my future hubby, even though he doesn't know it yet).  the way i see it is, what better time to start than right after i get married?

for my whole life i've lived with my family.  i only lived on my own away at school, so coming back home was hard after i had already established my independence.  even though it's been almost 3 years since i'm back home, i've been itching to get back out there and be on my own (mad props to mom for cooking for me all these years though!).  part of this re-independence gaining is not being in debt, you know, pretty easy to do.  no bigs.

enter: the blog!  in all it's cheap glory.  all this being said, i'm inviting you to challenge me.  keep me accountable.  help.

:)

living room!

so about a month ago, i went looking for couches for our living room apartment!  adam has been living in an apartment for about a year and a half, but his couch and chair in his living room were free.  like i've said before, if it's free it's for me!  but, this couch has seen it's end.  when you sit on it you're practically on the floor.  and now it's started scratching people with it's claws/staples.  that being said, it has served it's purpose and needs to move on to the couch heavens.

blah so anyway off i went in search for a decent (and cheap!) couch.  i went to a local jennifer furniture store literally 5 minutes from my house, not really expecting to find much.  i walked around the entire store twice, and while stalking every piece of furniture in the store, a salesperson approached us and mentioned that most of the furniture they would be able to take the price even further down.  okay cool, thanks salesperson.  through all of my meandering, i kept going back to this one couch.  not only the couch, but the rug and ottoman/coffee table/storage container were thrown in as well.  if i remember right, the tag said this whole set was about 850 dollars.

while i'm laying on this couch i'm thinking, man this is a nice set but i'm not paying 850 (even though, think about it, that's a decent price!).  the salesperson comes over and chats with my mom and i, and she asks what he can do for us.  he gets all "intimidating" and says he needs to go figure it out so i'm thinking he'll take like 25 bucks off, maybe a bit more but nothing crazy.

he can give it to us for 750.  SOLD.  sold.  guys and gals, i've done some couch shopping and that was such a good price i couldn't pass up.  so basically that's our entire living room, finished in one trip!

here's a tip: the reason why he went so low and threw in the whole set was because they were getting rid of the old so they can move in the new.  the tag said "as-is condition," so there's that catch, but how much damage can be done, really?  there is a good amount of traffic but c'mon.  it's not sitting in an airport!  my point is, if it doesn't weird you out, buy what they want to get rid of!  as-is!

we are pretty excited about this living room, and there she is in all her glory!

update: i found this same exact sectional in the American Freight commercials and their fliers for $700, with no ottoman or rug. so if i can beat American Freight, i can do anything. rather, Jennifer Furniture can do anything, i guess, because technically they beat A.F.

wedding flowers!

hey!

so as i've stated, my wedding is in october.  it's coming.  soon.  -cue "jaws" theme song-

today i went to a second florist to check out prices.

background check:  i am always looking for the cheapest price, but oh my gosh am i lazy.  i'm so not a shopper.  if i feel that something is too expensive, depending on the item, i put it down and walk away.  "i can either make it or get it cheaper" is my motto.  also, i'm not a flower person, so this part of the wedding planning was not something i was looking forward to.

that being said, i did in fact go to a first florist.  this florist priced us 1,100 dollars for 3 bouquets, 4 boutineers, 5 corsages, and 15 centerpieces.  when you think about it, that's not such a shabby price (she included tax and delivery too).

but when mom and i figured out that the centerpieces alone were going to cost about 600 dollars, well that was that.  off to michaels we went, where we opted to go all fake floral centerpieces.  we spent about 120 dollars.  and now people can have these centerpieces forever!  that gives me tingles just thinking about the savings!

so this second florist charged us 360 for all of the above named flowers needed for the wedding, minus centerpieces.  and because we paid cash, tax was not a factor in the price.

tip: seriously, find out if the place will deduct tax if you pay cash.  this is also how i purchased adam's wedding band.  tax free is for me (and you)!

so this was my thrifty day in search of flowers, and she even added more flowers than the first place did, at a much cheaper price.  i wish you could take pictures, because they're going to be very beautiful.  i guess you'll see them after the wedding!

so for me, the lesson of the day is: shop around!

hey guys!

i have a blog!  so normally, i don't do blogs.  i'm not good at keeping up with them or reading other people's blogs.  i like popping my head in every now and again, though, and getting little tips for how to live my life and whatnot.  so why should i start a blog now, all of a sudden?!

i'm getting married.

and i'm moving from long island, new york to irwin (near pittsburgh), pennsylvania.

i mean, okay, people move all the time.  they also get married all the time.  but my beautiful friend michelle (who LOVES blogs, by the way) suggested i track my progress through a blog.  after a ton of convincing (really not much at all) i decided i'd take the plunge.  so here i am!

i named it "thriftsburgh" because my future hubby and i are going to be pretty damn broke.  since i'm moving there right after the wedding in october, i'll be unemployed until i can find a job.  and then i'll find a job and i'll (hopefully) be going to grad school.  so we are going to be on a tight budget.  i love this kind of stuff.  thus this blog!  it will provide thrifty tips and hints and whatnot, sometimes maybe even picking out awesome finds or stores in the western, pa area specifically.

but i'm getting ahead of myself.  before the move-in, and the honeymoon, and the wedding, i'll be here on long island planning it all.  so i'm going to be updating all that i am doing, kind of just for my own entertainment.

so that is that!  this is now my new home, being able to eventually connect me to friends and family on long island and beyond.  welcome!