Decorating Your House for Pennies-Part One: The Basic Principles

Free and Low-Cost Ways to Transform your Humble Home into a Holiday Paradise

Some people think that living the frugal life means a barren home, tasteless decorating and a minimalist attitude towards home décor. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, being frugal opens up one’s eyes to the world of possibilities that exists in using just about anything as a form of accent for one’s dwelling. As a military family, we’ve lived in just about every type of housing imaginable, from a 1700 sq foot double-story home to a teeny tiny apartment, and never once failed to furnish some sort of décor for our humble housing. Following are some helpful tips that we have both researched and learned over the course of our lovely living experiences:

Some Basic Principles for Inexpensive Decorating:

o Be creative: You’ll find this is a theme in most of our articles, including this one. Frugality is about thinking outside the box and discovering that almost anything can be redesigned to serve another purpose after its intended life has been worn out.

o Designing is in the Details: This is all about YOU. Your home should make a statement about you: who you are, where you’ve been, what your passions are. Don’t feel boxed into how you think your home “should look” according to the latest Good Housekeeping. Be yourself, and make your home YOUR home.

o Try to pick a neutral color scheme. I’m a little weird when it comes to this, but I try to follow my own advice every once in a while. I pick one or two key colors for each room of my house and build from there. My kitchen is red and black, my living room is red, my bedroom is brown, etc. If you have a main color in your head for each room, its easier to shop and look at things with a discerning eye to know whether or not they’ll look good in your home. For example, I know that a red vase might look good in my brown room as a complementary color, but a blue throw isn’t going to harmonize quite as well in the bedroom.

o It’s okay to Shop…if you know when to do it. Some of the best accent pieces in my home have been purchased from stores like Ross or Marshalls a few days after the holiday has passed. Five years ago I scored a beautiful three tiered harvest-adorned candle holder at Ross for under five bucks, and I still use it each year.

o Yard Sales and Thrift Stores are my best friends: You can score amazing finds at these two shopping locales. Some of the best items to look for include random pieces of dishware (pretty bowls or teacups for displays), throw pillows in decent condition (the key here is mostly that they are clean smelling… we’ll talk about why later), tablecloths or bed linens (relatively clean so they can be made into curtains, if desired) and pretty glass bottles or vases.

o Don’t underestimate the Dollar Store: This is my favorite place to pickup fake flowers. Since I have little kids, its not exactly practical to be running to the store every three days for fresh flowers, and that can get rather costly as well. I prefer to buy the nicer-looking fake flowers from the local dollar store, since they’ll last forever. Different seasons bring different varieties and hues, but they pretty much have a great selection year round. I like to stick with solid hues: a white bouquet, a red bouquet, an orange bouquet; this way I can mix and match according to the holiday or occasion.

o Buy Décor that can be displayed for multiple holidays: The abovementioned candle holder is adorned with fall colored leaves and tiny pumpkins; it gets put out in September with the harvest decorations and lasts through Halloween and Thanksgiving. By buying items that are color themed, ie, brown and orange for the fall, red and white for Christmas through Valentines Day and possibly even 4^th of July, you’ll get the most use out of your decorations.

o Take good care of your decorations. I try to carefully pack away my decorations in newspaper after each holiday and keep them away from moisture and bugs (*Military Mama Tip: Be careful to make sure and label the boxes fragile so multiple moves won’t take their toll on your treasures) so that they’ll last as long as possible.

o Take advantage of the best resource you have—sunlight: Sunlight is my number one accent in all the rooms of my house (wherever it is that we are calling home at that particular moment). Open the shades and let it cast it’s beautiful glow on your belongings. Sunlight makes everything appear more open and spacious, plus it’s good for your skin, kills germs, and can help you sleep better at night. And bonus: If you have good enough sunlight, you won’t have to use the lights in your home hardly at all during the day, saving on your electricity bill. So open those drapes and let it shine!

Nadia is a young Army wife and stay at home mom to two adorable little kids. She enjoys bargain shopping and finding the hottest and cheapest deals for her readers, and blogging about her frugal living adventures as a military mama at A-B-C Frugality. When she’s not blogging or chasing a naked toddler, you can find her working hard to finish up her Bachelor’s degree in Education or reading the latest Twilight book.

Today’s post was written by The Wanna Have Fun Hen at FiveHens.com!

Today’s guest post comes to us courtesy Devon of Mama Cheaps!

When I was a Mama-to-Be, I just assumed that I would breastfeed. I didn’t really give it a second thought. When that turned out not to be the best option for us, I was faced with an important decision to make. What kind of formula should I feed Lily Bean? Of course I wanted only the best, while at the same time, I wanted to save any money I could. I had received some samples while pregnant of Similac Advance and Enfamil Lipil. They are very similar formulas from two different companies.

I signed up for the Enfamil Family Beginnings
and Similac StrongMoms programs. Both send samples and valuable coupons for formula. They were a big help, but as the coupons starting to come fewer and farther in between, I started to look for something more economical. I started to investigate the various store brands out there.

In the end, Biker Bob and I decided to go with Costco’s store brand, Kirkland Formula with Iron. I’m happy to say, after several months on this formula, Lily Bean has done great, no problems at all! We had compared ingredients with the Costco brand to Similac and Enfamil and found them to be nearly identical. In fact, Costco’s formula even has a handy comparison chart on their label:
As you can see, it’s pretty much the same.

Here’s the big difference: THE PRICE. The Costco brand is less than HALF the price of the Similac and Enfamil. Here’s how it breaks down (these are the prices that I got today at Costco and my local Giant Grocery Store):

Costco: Formula comes in a 2 pack. Two BIG (25.7 oz) cans (51.4 oz total) for $19.95.

Enfamil: ONE 25.7 oz can is $23.69.

Similac: ONE 23.2 oz container is $21.19.

And there you have it, Costco is the clear winner.

Of course, your pediatrician will tell you what’s the best choice for your baby, and breastfeeding is still the best option. But if your doctor gives you the go-ahead, and formula feeding is your choice, there are great deals out there!