Frugal Things

**I have not done a frugal things post in awhile so this list is a compilation of the past few weeks

1. Home Improvements

My grandmother had given me an old china cabinet of hers that I loved. The problem is that I do not have china and I am not into knicknacky things so it basically was just sitting in my dining room taking up precious space. One day an idea popped into my brain that I could easily split the cabinet in two and use each part for a different purpose (the top just rests on the bottom part) So I settled on the idea of making a beverage station out of the bottom compartment which would then open up some counter/cupboard space in my kitchen when I removed our Kcup brewer and coffee accessories.

For the top part of the cabinet, I decided to add legs and remove the doors to create a storage shelf for my living room. The only things that I had to purchase to make both of these renovations were four legs (with braces) and a small piece of plywood to create a flat top for the upper cabinet piece. **I already had stain, sand paper, nails, and screws.

Another home improvement that I did was to repurpose a small bookshelf (that was replaced by the bottom china cabinet piece in my living room) to use as storage spot in our bathroom. To finish off the remodel, I stole a painting from my upstairs bedroom to fill a void on the wall above the toilet and add a splash of color. **We had an over the toilet storage system that we hated because we always were knocking things into the toilet so this was a long time coming:)

2. “New” dining room chairs

Our dining room chairs have slowly been breaking one by one over the past few years. This year I was determined to buy some new ones for our family and have been keeping an eye out on deals.  I quickly noticed that every wood chair we tried out creaked or was a little shifty when we sat in them…so no to wooden chairs! Since we use our chairs for homeschool, family game nights, crafting, and eating I knew that we needed something a little more sturdy than the typical dining room chairs that I was seeing in the stores. Luckily, one of my friends suggested office furniture (Thanks Olivia!) as a solution and that was a great idea. I headed over to a local used furniture store and found an almost matching set of four office chairs for just $35 each. *To cap it off, they did not have stains and do not wiggle when we sit or slide them back

3. New shoes

My mother in law gave me a giftcard to Academy Sports for my birthday and I was happy to match it up with a $10 off any purchase over $50 coupon that came in the mail the same week. I ended up finding the exact same pair of shoes that I bought last year, but at almost half the price. Apparently they have deals on older styles?? I also found a new pair of yoga pants and a new workout shirt. After using my coupon and gift card I only had to pay $6 to cover the taxes and a slight overage.

4. New kitchen sink faucet

My kitchen sink faucet had started to leak last week and I wanted to see if I could fix it on my own, but failed. After three trips to Home Depot and many YouTube videos my wonderful father came over to see what was going on. Apparently the entire faucet had corroded in the inside and one of my sink drains had a gaping hole in it (which I did not even notice!) So my dad took out the whole sink, flipped it upside down, removed the old faucet, and replaced the crappy metal drain pipe with a new PVC pipe all in under an hour (It had taken me 7+ hours trying to replace the faucet cartridge….) **This was frugal because the labor was free (Thank you Daddy!) and I fixed a leaky pipe that could have eventually rotted out the bottom of my cabinet.

5. Random things

I signed a 2 year contract at the gym in order to lock in a great monthly rate for a couple’s membership for me and my daughter. I saw that Children’s Place was having an early sale on shorts for the summer and stocked up on a few pairs for my son for $5-$8 each. Used a gift card that my mother in law gave us to treat my son to Chick-fil-a during a long errand (which made for a happy child) Took Ben to the Library event at the park while Emma was volunteering to decorate a cookie and fly kites.

How was your week frugal??