Thriftism

It seems like lately everybody is pregnant, recently had a baby, or is looking at starting a family in the near future. While I am nowhere near catching the baby fever that seems to be going around, I have caught the love of knitting tiny things for those adorable babies. Besides the fact that I love to knit, making my own gifts for showers is a great money saver and adds that nice touch of personalization to your gift. Anyone can go out and buy toys or clothes or diapers, but how many people hand make their presents these days? Anyway yarn is one of the cheapest things you can buy. Granted your time counts for something, but if you're like me, it's a fun hobby anyway so you're not really giving up time that you'd be using elsewhere. Plus, knitting during movies/tv shows will keep you from snacking and I know this has really helped me reduce my calorie consumption. Back to my baby projects… I decided to start simple and work my way up to things like toys, cl...

Just earned $20 on Mysurvey.com and am only 100 points short of another $10. I'm also less than $1 away from being able to redeem my inboxdollars money ($30). For those of you thinking taking surveys isn't worthwhile, how can an easy $30 not be worth your while? I'm hoping to catch up on some of my other survey sites later today as well so I might be able to make even more today after I catch up on cleaning and other not so fun chores. The best part of the morning was that some of my surveys had trailers that I had to watch and I was able to complete the baby hat I was knitting- double bonus! I had a goal of earning an extra $10/week with surveys. This isn't a lot of money obviously, but it definitely adds up. If nothing else, you can use it to eat out a little more often or by the end of the year take a short trip. Vegas anyone? That's almost always under $500/person. Anyway, today I more than doubled my weekly goal and didn't even account for surveys I took ...

Months ago I began knitting a towel, but I lost focus about halfway through. In fact I knitted a pair of mittens for a friend's newborn, made soap, and basically forgot about this project. Good news is that I found it again and finally finished it. I missed Valentine's Day, but it will be ready to go for next year.  This was a trying project for me as I made up the pattern as I went and I hadn't ever done that before. Turns out not to be as hard as I expected, but one tip I figured out- don't watch tv or talk on the phone while you're doing the first couple rows of a pattern you created. J I ended up pulling out several rows and reknitting and after all the trouble, I got a towel covered in hearts.  It's actually very easy once I got going and paid a little attention to stitch counts and stopped dropping stiches. I used size 7 needles ( gauge doesn't really matter, make it whatever size and however tight/loose you want) and Rose Pink Sugar and Cre...