Affluent but Frugal

In my opinion, salon manicures were THE affordable luxury for middle class women starting in late 90s. The proliferation of mall-based salons offering walk-in manicures for under $30 contributed to the rise (I think the mall salon in my hometown did them for $12!). It was so accessible and what is more basic white lady than pretty nails? Painted by someone else? Well, these days are kind of behind us now. First, we had gel upsells on nails (+$5) and then toes and then fees to remove your old gel. Now, in my area a basic mani is $35-40 and starting at $40 if you want gel. That is still affordable as an occasional luxury, but the damage to your nails gel causes is insane. After a few rounds, your nails are paper thin, flakey and just trashed.  Photo from when I gave mine away on Buy Nothing Group So what is our solution to save money and keep our nails looking good, strong and healthy? Ok well I have tried many things and here is my take. Impress Press on Nails I saw these recommende...

If you are looking for a great little gift this holiday season, this homemade vanilla extract is perfect! It makes a great small gift on it's own or wrapped up with a holiday cookie cutter or gift card. During the holidays, I like to have a small gift ready for those I encounter. This makes a great gift for: Neighbors Coworkers, the ones I like ☺ Teachers in combination with a gift card Household helpers (nanny, house cleaner, pet sitter) Friends Relatives that you're going to see but don't normally buy a gift for To make your own vanilla extract, you'll need: Instant Pot , or other electric pressure cooker Mason jars which are intended for canning and their lids Vanilla beans, grade B Vodka or bourbon Small bottles with lids for gifting Cute gift tags , optional A few safety precautions to keep in mind: DO NOT use a stove top pressure cooker to do this, it would be very dangerous. You must use an electric pressure cooker. Use mason jars whi...

I am a DIY landlord with only two properties (so far!) so I don't feel like I have luxury of a big team to market my properties but I think we all know that photos are what gets people to come and look at our rentals! Recently, I was marketing my second property and wasn't quite getting as much interest as I'd have liked; I lowered the price but what else could I do to spark more traffic? New photos! I didn't want to spring for professional photos because they're spendy and frankly, it seemed like work for me to line up a photographer who takes good real estate photos (it's a specific niche!) to spend my money on something and possibly wait several weeks to get them ready. Meanwhile, my property would be sitting on the market. I decided to buy a wide angle lense to make my camera phone photos look as good as possible. I did a little Amazon research and for less than $30 really upgraded my photos and with Prime shipping it was at my house the next day! New ...

Like many of you, our wedding is on a budget but we also want it to be nice for our guests (over half of which are traveling from out of state to attend). To keep on budget and be able to splurge on things like a nice dinner and open bar (for me an open bar wasn’t optional) I am DIY’ing where I can. This includes both of the favors - yes, we’re doing two one that is “me” and one that is “him.” Mine was easy, I made soap . I’ve been making soap a few years and have given it as gifts in the past so that was a no brainier. His favor was harder to come up with…we considered the trendy succulents because my fiancé is a plant addict and succulents are his favorite but we thought they would be hard to travel with for guests with many people leaving them behind or killing them immediately. So that idea was nixed.  I was looking online for ideas with could replicate with a DIY and found some custom spice favors on Etsy that were really cute and we were thinking about ...

We set out to have a small, economical wedding...well that didn't exactly happen. I think we had a nice wedding which wasn't a fancy, black-tie soiree but also not cheap, it was mid-range. Simple but nice. I did several DIY projects which saved us a lot of money, we looked for deals where we could find them and negotiated where we could. We had two splurge items. The first was our venue, which was a little pricier than we'd originally planned on but also in some ways a good value because we could use the venue for the ceremony and reception, included with our catering costs. The catering wasn't cheap  but it also wasn't expensive and they were overall very flexible with our budget. The venue was also wired for sound so we skipped a DJ, which saved us around $800 based on the few quotes I got. The second was our photographer. Not only did we choose a full-time photographer who was really a professional (part-time semi-pro photographers seem to abound!) but we a...

For me, making the bouquets was the hardest part, it was very time consumming. I tried several different "stems." The floral wires and bamboo sticks (suggestions of what to use I'd seen online) were both really rigid, which I found made it hard to put them together and shape the flowers in the way I wanted. After some trial and error, I chose a main flower to put in the middle of the bouquet (a large one) and put that one on a bamboo stick (the kind used to make shish kabobs) and attach floral wire to all of the other flowers which I then wrapped around the main flower's "stem." If you are planning to do this, start at least a month before your wedding - it took FOREVER to make the bouquets and I only had mine, 3 bridesmaids, 1 flower girl and 1 toss. If you have a big wedding party, you will need help. Unfortunately none of my girls lived nearby and I did not ask any local friends because I wasn't aware that it was going to take up my entire life for ...

Let me say, this was my first time making boutineers and this is was the part I was the most worried about when DIY’ing my flowers for the wedding. I was comfortable doing it because my mom, who had done it before was going to help me but an issue arose close to our wedding and I ended up being on my own for flower making. So while I was concerned about it, I think it was possibly the easiest part, especially the boutineers, the bouquets on the other hand I wasn't worried about but they were a pain the rear! These are not the beautiful works of art you will find on pinterest but I would say they are as nice as a basic model from a florist. They are simple, in part, because my fiancé did not want a huge flower for himself, so I made his fairly small and then all the ones for the other men slightly smaller than his. Making the boutinners was really straight forward, I suggest you start with these because they are the easiest. Supplies needed: ·     ...

Freshly cut soap Do you ever see the fancy handmade soap at craft fairs? You can make your own at home! I've seen them for up to $6 a bar at craft fairs but I make my own for less than $1 bar. A couple of years ago, my friend and I bought a Groupon for a soap making class. It ended up being one of those Groupons where they tried to make something that should take an hour take three hours so you felt like you got your money's worth. On the bright side, it got us past the idea that making soap was hard and we left with a couple of bars of soap after a fun afternoon. You can make soap by yourself but it's really fun to have a one or two friends over for soap making party and share the soap wealth. We've tried a few recipes (hint: buttermilk soaps are a pain!) and we like this one the best: 21 oz olive oil 8 oz palm oil (will be semi-liquid at room temperature) 8 oz coconut oil 5.20 oz Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH, also known as Lye) 13 oz distilled water 2 oz...