Baby Bargains

Note to all parents. Old Navy has some really good end of the season sales going on. I got three pairs of shorts for Hannah in the size she'll be in next summer for $.50 each. That's right $1.50 for three pairs of shorts. You couldn't get a better deal at a thrift store! Since I was there and had gotten such a good deal for Hannah I went ahead and picked up a couple of things for myself. Thereby negating the positive affects of my good deals. Oh well, you can't be thrifty all the time.

Free food (not as sketchy as it sounds)

Dan, Hannah and I were walking to the library yesterday and came across a rather surprising sight. We saw many people walking by holding 3 boxes of these Red Baron microwave paninis. It turns out there were some reps for the company who must have been tasked with handing out samples of this new food product. They clearly were being paid by the amount of boxes they could get rid of because they gave both Dan and I three each, along with anyone and everyone else who passed. Frankly I am surprised they didn't try to give some to Hannah. Now we realized this food product is not the height of fashionable dining, but every now and then it is nice to have a microwavable lunch option. Now we that option six times....actually that is way too many. We may have to pass a couple of these on.

Cute little espresso cup

Here is a cute little espresso set I found at the Ballard Goodwill for $1.50. I love these little pieces of kitchenware. There is something so cute about a cup and matching saucer. Sort of like matching outfits for twins. This cup is marked with an FF (c) on the bottom, but my not too intensive internet search came up with nothing for this brandmark. Does anyone know what company that is from? In the meantime, I have a new cute little cup to enjoy. Too bad I don't drink espresso.

Thrifty family fun

For those readers who may not know, my husband Dan is quite the biker. (He has actually biked across the country, but that is a story for another blog) He has tried to get me into biking for years but has pretty much admitted defeat. Lucky for him we now have another family member he can try to mold into a biker. Although it may seem like I am shamelessly using my blog to post cute pictures of my family there are actually relevant thrifty deals in the above picture.
1. The bike - my bike was stolen off the rack behind our apartment building. There is some debate between Dan and I as to whether or not it was actually locked up at all when it was stolen, but again I digress. This blue bike, pictured above, had been sitting unused with a flat tire for almost a year when Dan asked our building manager if he knew anything about it. It appeared to have been left behind by an old tenant. Dan reclaimed it, fixed the tire, gave it a quick tune up and I had a new bike for free.
2. Baby bike seat - a hand-me-down from JJ. Friendship is thrifty!
3. Baby bike helmet - found at goodwill for $2.
4. Bike basket - found out goodwill for $1 and fastened on with zip ties.
Total cost of family outing - $3. Recruiting another biker to the family - priceless.

Long time between posts means lots of finds

Well once again I find myself going too long between posts. I hate reading blogs that are always apologizing for not posting, but here I am doing it myself. Maybe this is a lesson about removing the speck from my own eye...Anyway, I did have some good finds last week. The best one was another trash find. I was taking out my recycling, ok actually I was digging through the recycling to find a paper bag to wrap a box in (I hate to admit that, but its the truth) and I found this cool stationary set:
It has an unused hand sewn journal and some paper and envelopes in a really nice box. Sort of hostess gifty. I grabbed it an under it was a printer cartridge still sealed in its box. I posted the printer cartridge and already sold it for $10. (so no pic) Its so weird. No one would throw away $10, why would they throw away something that so clearly could be used by someone else? Anyway, that is all my garbage finds for the week. Just to be clear, I don't dig through people's garbage to find all this stuff, it just seems to come to me. It does kind of make me wonder what I could find if I did dig though....

I found this votive candle holder at the Goodwill on Dearborn. It was pretty heavy, which is usually a good sign for quality. It had a name on it - Kosta Boda - which I had never heard of, but it was in great shape so I got it for $1.99. I came home and found out this normally sells for $40. I think I will try to sell it on Ebay.

And finally a totally random freebie. At the Fair this year they were giving out these "gardening gloves." They are camo and have a picture of a hunter on the label so they may actually be hunting gloves, but beggars can't be choosers right?
Well those were my blog worthy finds this week, but stay tuned, because I already have the rest of the weeks posts planned so they'll be more to read soon.

Slow week for thrifty finds

Well it has not been that amazing of a week for thrifty finds. However, no one wants to lose readers on their blog due to lack of posts so I decided just to post some of my moderately interesting finds so I can cross 'update blog' off my list of things to do.

Below is a new Creative Memories album I found for $1.99 at the Capitol Hill Value Village. For those of you who are not into scrapbooks, you should know Creative Memories is the brand that put scrapbooking on the map. They have really nice stuff that is supposed to last a long time. Anyway, this album has all 15 original pages and is in new shape, even though the plastic wrap has been removed. It is a nice smaller size one that would be good for a baby book. Which is my plan for it if it doesn't sell on Ebay.


Another Ebay find - a Chatsford teapot. Very cute. Very cheap ($.99 at Goodwill) Its already been bid on (so far its up to $7.99 with three days to go) so it should sell this week. Ebay is such a good excuse to buy stuff like this! I can't believe it took me so long to discover it.

Finally, another baby toy. This is just getting embarrassing. Listing all the stuff I buy for Hannah really shines a light on the extent of my baby shopping problem. (that's shopping to buy stuff for my baby, not to buy a baby, just to clarify) However its almost her birthday, so lets all just agree that it is a birthday gift.

So nothing too interesting, just run of the mill treasure someone else once called trash. Ok, thats one more thing off my to do list.