My home is heated using Oil and forced hot water. Because of the price of oil these days, and the fact that the price is going to keep going up, we have decided to heat our home during the daytime hours with our wood stove. Not only has it been very effective, but it costs next to nothing and it keep our home warmer than our radiators do. Our wood stove is located in our living room where we are the majority of the time, so we stay nice and toasty all day long.

I have oil heat in my home and the cost to heat my home is costing me more than double what it has cost in the past years. It is very hard to keep the heat up in home when you just don’t have the extra money in your wallet to do so. I cannot believe the price of oil and the price is just going to keep going up and up. Luckily when we bought our home there was a wood stove. The people who lived here before did not live here year round, and their only form of heat when it was cold was a wood stove, later on they added heaters. So, we will definitely be using our wood stove every day now this winter to save on our oil costs. I do love the smell of a wood fire, so this isn’t soo bad, but still annoying to have to deal with this whole oil crisis.

I have to say that even though I do laundry almost everyday, I am scared to use bleach. I am scared that I will bleach my dark clothing and then I will not be able to wear them. I own a container of bleach, but I just don’t want to use it. Does anyone else have this same feeling when it comes to bleach?


I think I would feel better using colorsafe bleach, the only thing with that that I do not understand is how the bleach knows what is colored and what is not. I guess I will have to just give it a shot and see what happens, and hope for the best, but I am still a little scared.

If you have your own business, or even have a degree in a specific field you can easily barter your services. Bartering your services with other people is a great way to get to know people in your area and to get services at no charge. When you barter your services with others, you basically exchange services of about equal value. We do this with our website development company.


At COLEwebdev we barter our services for other services. We just had our floors refinished and we are building a website for them in return. Craigslist.com is a great place to barter your services.

Do you like to save money? Do you like to save as much money as you can so that some day you can buy yourself that expensive car or vacation that you have been dreaming of?

Well I certainly do, and I’m a very frugal spender for those reasons and many more. Even if I had money to spend on whatever I wished, I think I would still try to find good deals and save as much as possible in all my projects. I’m not going to reach Bill Gates’ level of wealth with this strategy but it will go along way towards helping me save money for more important things.

We’re going to start with a local favorite; your local dump or transfer station. At our local transfer station we have 3 important sections that I never overlook when I’m there dropping off my cast-offs and recyclables.

1. The first section to scope out is the “swap shop”. The swap shop is the best place to find great used and sometimes new items left by people who simply didn’t want them anymore. At the swap shop you can bring your unwanted items and leave them for other people to come by and take for free. In some towns you do not even need to have a dump sticker to use the swap shop, you just tell the attendant that you are going to the swap shop and they let you right in. Check with your local transfer station to see if they have a swap shop or equivalent, you’d be surprised at what people leave.

Our swap shop has new items all the time, and items go fast. I have seen people not only drop off items but pick up more items on their way out, that is how fast items go. I have gotten great stuff at my swap shop including: an antique dresser, antique cabinet, infant walker (retails $70), Infant excer-saucer (retails $65), wine rack, infant bath tub ring (retails $30) and much more.

2. The second section to look for items is the metal pile. The metal pile has all kinds of metal items such as: old appliances, screen doors, lawnmowers, windows, metal cabinets, bicycles, sinks and more. There are always people walking around the metal pile searching for an item that they can use at home, it takes a creative eye but you can find some great metal items before they get crushed.

3. The third section is called the “construction debris pile”. Here you can find dressers, tables, chairs, mirrors, benches, couches, windows, bed frames, plywood and more. This debris pile is great because you can find a piece of furniture that may not look so great, but with an inexpensive refinishing job like painting, it could turn into a great piece of furniture.

4. Next on the list and not at the transfer station is construction dumpsters or containers. You know the big yellow, orange or red dumpsters you see at construction sites around your neighborhood? Inside these dumpsters is usually a mix of wood, and miscellaneous debris trashed at a construction job site. I have found a lot of scrap plywood and wood boards in construction dumpsters just around town. Keep in mind that this is not something you should do without #1 informing the company who owns the debris and #2 being very careful as the debris in these containers is dangerous and unstable (think nail in foot). Using what I’ve found in containers I’m building a small shed on my property to store gardening tools and our lawn mower.

5. Use COUPONS! Coupons in the mail, coupons online and coupons locally are all great ideas to save money on your purchases. I recently got some coupons from my local hardware store, one coupon was for $20 in total savings, all I ended up spending was about $1 and I got $19 in return. If you sign up for the blizzard fan club at Dairy Queen you get emails monthly that have a buy one get one free coupon. If your local stores have mailing lists, sign up, they will send you coupons and you will save money, I guarantee it.

All 5 of these tips will save you money and best of all, most of them cost you nothing at all. If you have any tips to add to this list leave your idea in the comments and we’ll add it to the list. Happy hunting to all of you!

My husband and I like to recycle materials, it is very good for our environment, and it saves us money. This past weekend we built a table for our deck, so we can eat outside on nice sunny days. We build the table out of scrap wood we had here that we have been collecting. The table top wood cam from a construction container and the legs were 2×4’s we had used for another project at another time. The screws e bought we actually got with a $10 coupon we got in the mail from True Value. So, the table cost us nothing. And it looks pretty nice. We just needed to sand the top, and use some polyurethane that we already have to coat the top. We are very proud of our deck table.

I use a shop vac as my main vacuum. It has the best suction by far that I have found of any vacuum. I have tried so many household standard vacuums, and none of them compare to a shop vac. It is great for getting up in the corners of your ceiling for cobwebs and getting into the corners of your house and under your furniture.

A Shop vac has a nice long hose which you can by all kinds of attachments for. I have a carpet/hard floor attachment, and a brush attachment and the standard attachments that came with it. It has a filter that you need to change a couple times a year, and its not very expensive. A good Shop vac will only cost you about $60-75 and is well worth the money. It may be a bit bigger than a household vacuum, but you will notice a difference in the suction right away.

A screwdriver is a necessity for every household whether you own or rent. There are so many times when a crewdriver comes in handy specifically:

When you want to hang a picture. You will need a screwdriver to put a screw into the wall to hold it.

For opening many small appliances that take batteries.

For furniture you may have that uses crews to hold it together as they may become loose.

Building many types of furniture you will use screws and need a screwdriver.

And Many more.

Make sure to keep a screwdriver on hand at all times, trust me you will use it. I have a great screwdriver that holds several different sized bits right in the handle so that I have all sizes depending on what I am going to be using it for. It is very helpful.

Today my tool of choice to talk about is a miter box saw. This saw is amazing and can do so many things. These days they even can come with a laser so you can line up your cut perfectly.

I have a great Miter box saw and it cuts in all angles. You can cut moldings to fit together so they have a nice corner cut and it can do straight cuts for your most everyday use. There is 1 blade usually 10″ or 12″ and some miter saws have an adjustable swing arm so you can actually cut larger pieces of wood. I use mine all the time and it is a must when building projects come up.
They can range in price from the low 100’s to up to 600 or so. Mine was not so expensive and it works great.

You wouldn’t think the “dump” would have such cool things just laying around waiting for you to pick them up. People throw away many items daily that can be reused and recycled and if you check out your local dump you will agree. My local “transfer station” has a huge metal pile that gets bigger daily and they also have a building where people can bring furniture, toys, sports equipment, books, kitchenware and more.

I have found awesome things there such as antique dressers, antique tables, dish racks, wine racks and more. I know of 2 other towns nearby that have these “swap shops” too. Others have clothes and magazines and baby items. If you have not yet, you should definitely take a drive to your local “dump” and check it out, you never know you may find something great.