Thursday, September 1, 2022

Thursday, Just a little left and thriftyness


 I just have a few things left to do in the shop.  I will not finish the wedding dress for next week but will get a start on it.

Yesterday was frustrating, I had so much patching and mending to do and that is time consuming, and I am not charging nearly enough for it.  After 4 hours I realized I could have gotten 2 wedding dresses done and I had monetarily gotten little funds for a lot of patching.  I will address this with the next client that brings me a bag of patching.

I do want people to be able to save clothing with rips and tears as I think we are way too much of a throwaway society, but not at my monetary expense. You have to change the thread color on every item, and I spend the majority of my time rethreading my machine. Some of these tears are and inch long and minor, I feel silly even charging for them, but after a whole afternoon of this, I am losing money by the hourly rate I charge.  Anyway, the piles are done.

Lil sis did my hair last night and I am so grateful, this would have cost me close to 200 dollars at a salon.  She foiled in some blond and then colored the rest and gave me a haircut.  I also was able to get in and get my nails redone. I was too tired when I got home to do anymore sewing.

So, for today, I am going to finish a skirt, and work a little on a wedding dress, and alter a swimsuit for Lil sis, then I have a list of things to do before we leave in the morning.

1. go to bank and cash checks

2. pay all the bills for the month

3. make sure items that I need to return to Talbots are in the car

4. make sure mom's things are in the car

5. make sure skirts I remodeled for Jess's mother-in-law are in the car

6. do a load or two of laundry

7. pack

8. vacuum

9. mop

10. check in with sitter for chickens and watering

I want to come home to a clean house, as I know next week will be crazy. Kim is trying to make her life a little simpler, I think.....

I was not able to do a Thrifty Thursday post last week as I was out having fun. So here goes.

1. saved all my $5 bills, I have $1045.00 saved and had $65 in fives the last two weeks

2. I saved all my spare change

3. I saved a $1, $5, $10, $20 bill

4. I put $80 something into the penny a day can for the month of Sept.

5. I downloaded all receipts to fetch

6. searched for the least expensive place to gas up

7. Used many things from garden for meals, cabbage, beans, cukes, tomatoes, peppers squash.

8. Used coupons at Joanns

9. used points at Albertsons and found two large packages of Chicken legs for 50% off. making 8 pounds of chicken legs $3.47. 

10. used the clothesline instead of the dryer to save money

11. freezing small bags of tomatoes for enough to can a larger batch

12. hubs did up the apples for the year yielding apples sauce and pie filling

13. Strung up hot peppers to dry for seasoning later.

14. Made sure to come home from camping and use up all the leftovers.  Made three meals of soup to freeze for later

15. fed all food scraps to chickens to save on feed

16. using our sip and save promotion for diet cokes in the morning this really saves us money although I really love MCd's diet coke.

17. Had Lil sis do my hair; the product cost was $30 opposed to $200 in a salon.

Well, I am off to get a few things done in the shop, and then pay bills and attack my list.  This is going to be an easier day than the last three and for that I am grateful. 

Have a great and productive day staying positive while you are in the negative.

Kim

14 comments:

  1. Good golly gosh - you keep busy. I love all the ways of saving, getting and using food - you did a great job. You will be more than ready for a little R & R

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    1. It was so nice to come home to a clean house, but after I unloaded everything I had to clean again!

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  2. Mending is the pits for making any kind of headway or substantial money. I usually had to change the thread on at least two machines, so that was four spools of thread and one bobbin to remove and replace with the correct color! Hopefully, I had already would a bobbin with the color or I had to wind a bobbin, too. It is too bad you cannot figure out a system for mending only in the off-season for wedding dresses.
    You certainly have a lot to do. You have made me tired!

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    1. Well I am just going to tell clients that patching costs money and it never looks great!

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  3. Wow, you are a whirlwind! I like practical parsimony’s idea of only doing mending in the off season, not sure if that can work for you. Seems like a genius idea. Enjoy the time off! Hilogene in Az

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  4. You certainly made a dent in your list, and your savings are moving right along.

    God bless.

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    1. It was sure nice to come home to a clean house and know exactly where I stand in the shop!

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  5. You have to look at your value. If the small jobs are too time consuming for return, limiting them makes sense when you're at your busiest.

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    1. I am going to really address this with clients. Patching is time consuming and never looks great so really think if you want to pay the price.

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  6. Sounds like a good thrifty week, Kim. How nice that your sister saves you so much money on your hair care.

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    1. I know I have not had to go to a hair dresser for over 6 years. It is wonderful.

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  7. Time is money whether you are mending, altering, or plain sewing and you should charge accordingly!

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  8. It's always the "simplest" things that take the longest! You should totally hike your prices for mending.

    That is awesome of your sis to do your hair! I have coloured my own hair for decades - imagine how much I've saved, considering I've been colouring it since I was 17, nearly 40 years!

    My apologies for not being around/commenting - it's been a rough week.

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