So I'm a stay at home Mom and my husband and I are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. We have three children, so we have a household of five. I'm diligent in finding the best deals I can. Let me give you a run down on how you can live frugaly but well.
Clothing: If you have a little girl, all those pretty sun dresses can still be worn in the Fall & even Winter. For toddlers buy 2 or 3 mock turtle neck, long sleeved onesies. Not the Onesie brand but its a thick one piece just like a onesie. You put on some white stockings & there you go, instant new outfit. This also works with older girls, just instead of a one piece, you buy a plain mock turtle neck.
If you have boys & girls, buy unisex clothing. You can get away with this for babies very easily. My daughter is the oldest & while I loved all the frilly, girly clothes, I thought she was especially cute in some things that weren't necessarily for girls. As she got a little older I bought her "boy jeans" because they fit her better.
Shoes are great too. Buy Saddle Oxfords, because they can be used for boys or girls & the same goes for penny loafers. Every time Abbey grew out of one pair of oxfords, we just got her another pair. By the time Brother came along, he had four pairs of oxfords in four different sizes and because little one's grow so quick, all shoes clothes look brand new.
The older they get, you can go to 2nd hand stores or thrift stores in upscale neighborhoods. Those places have brand & even designer names (if thats important to you) for a fraction of the cost. I've bought several brand name overall & one piece suits for prices as low as 99 cents & they all looked brand new. Also take advantage of season change sales at department stores. In early spring you can buy an obscene amount of winter clothes for extremely cheap. Buy the sizes larger & by winter, they'll fit perfectly.
Toys: You can find alot of expensive toys at good thrift stores. One Saturday about four months ago, I bought nearly two hundred dollars worth of toys for 35 dollars. They were Leapfrog brand & Fisher Price. Leapfrog brand toys are expensive. Also go to whatever close out stores are in your area. Here in Dallas, I love Tuesday Morning & Big Lots. When it gets near Christmas, Mattel opens outlet shops that are only open through the Holidays. You can go to Mattel's website & find out where the one near you is. Last year we bought Hot Wheels cars for 25 cents & whole Hot Wheels race track sets for nine dollars. I mean the BIG track sets. We had Barbie & High School Musical dolls, clothes & playsets coming out of our ears. I think we ended up buying something like 700 dollars worth of Mattel toys for about 200 bucks. If you buy from the Mattel outlet, they have coupons online that you can use at the outlet so you end up getting another 25% off.
Dollar stores: All dollar stores aren't dollar only stores. The best dollar store is Dollar Tree because everything there is a dollar. They have good quality stuff too. I buy all my cleaning suppies there, yes they are off brands but they clean just the same. However, I don't buy their off brand pine cleaner because theres not as much pine oil in it as there is in Pine Sol. If I can't smell the pine fresh scent, then what good is it? Then theres Dollar General. Everything's not a dollar at Dollar General it's more of a discount store. I go there for just a couple of things in particular, Diapers & Pull Ups. Yes, I buy off brand diapers & pull ups & they're terrific. I'm really, extremely pickie, when it comes to diapers so these diapers must be * off the chain. They don't have a brand name, the bag just says Ultra Premium Diapers. They have the cloth like feel, they don't smell like some other brands do & I get just as many diapers for about 10 dollars less. The same goes for the pull ups. I get the same amount of pull ups for also about 10 dollars less. The actual Pull Ups brand are wildly expensive for the quantity you get. The final coup de grace of Dollar General is, they have clothes. Every now & again they have good name brand clothes. I bought Brian a pair of Hagar Slacks for 7 dollars. I smiled for the rest of that day. Whenever I think about it, I smile. Nothing feels as good as a great deal. Next there's the 99 cent Lucky grocery store. Everything there is 99 cents. They don't have meat (if they did I wouldn't buy it) but they do have produce. They're produce is great & they have a large variety of groceries.
My last tip is one of my favorites. The Swiffer Sweeper is wonderful if you have a house that's mostly carpet, like mine. There are only three areas of the house that need to be mopped, two bathrooms & a kitchen. The thing about the Swiffer is the refill cleaning solution & the pads. CVS & Walgreens now have their brand of Swiffer pads, which are about four dollars cheaper. You still have to buy the solution which is expensive, but I've gotten around that. When your Swiffer cleaning solution bottle is empty, you get a pair of pliers & twist the top off. After you've opened it with the pliers once, you never have to use the pliers to open it again. Once you've got the top off you mix your own solution with Pine Sol and twist the top back on. When you use it all, you repeat twisting off the cap & refilling it.
That concludes my money saver tip post. I hope that this helps other people's families to save money. I'm almost positive that I have more money saving tips, but for now, that's all I've got.
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