Frugal Babe

We spent today painting our house.  It’s starting to really come together and look nice.  We’re doing the same colors that were already there, but the new paint looks all shiny and fresh.  The sides that are finished look fantastic - the trim really makes it look great.  We should be able to finish it [...]

We spent all day Sunday painting our house.  My husband was at the top of the ladder most of the day, and I split my time between scraping old paint off the trim, and taking care of the baby.  He was a trooper, but I think he was very tired of his bouncy chair by [...]

We got a letter from our HOA yesterday saying that we have to paint our house.  We have until July 7th to get it done, or else they’ll fine us for non-compliance.  Apparently they sent letters to a lot of people, because it seems like half the neighborhood has started painting their houses in the [...]

I’m happy to report that we seem to be back on track financially.  We’ve had a long-standing self-imposed spending limit of $1000/month for everything that can possibly be charged to a credit card.  This includes things like our phone bill, gas, food, entertainment, etc. but does not include things like the mortgage and our health [...]

It’s Sunday, and the first day that we haven’t had plans in months.  We’ve finished pretty much all of the home improvement projects we had set out to do.  We still have to stain, varnish, and install our new bedroom doors, but I think we’ll hold off on that and do it after the baby [...]

My parents helped us build a set of shelves for our bedroom yesterday, and we spent part of today putting on the finishing touches.  We used high-grade birch plywood to make the shelves, which cost about $120 (as opposed to $1000 if we had used solid oak - the shelves are 6 feet by 8 feet [...]

My husband and I both currently work full-time (probably more than full-time if we were to actually keep track).  We don’t make a huge amount of money, but it’s plenty for us.  I know we could be earning a lot more money if that were our primary focus, but we decided a long time ago that [...]

Our shower got a bit of a make over yesterday.  It is lined with four inch white tiles, and the grout between the tiles had seen better days.  Most of it was still secure, although there were a few places where I noticed that it was coming loose.  And almost all of it was discolored; no [...]

I have a guest post up at Being Frugal today.  I wrote about all the money we’ve been spending lately to remodel our house, and how we’re getting back on the frugal wagon.  We still have to get some stuff this weekend (lights, rugs, window blinds…) but we’re just about finished spending money on the house, which [...]

Every year about this time, I start thinking about spring and flowers and gardens.  Normally that would mean a trip to the nursery to buy a wide range of annuals, and sometimes seedling vegetable plants.  But last year, we xeriscaped most of our yard with perennials, rocks, and mulch.  So we won’t be buying any [...]