Living Large on a Limited Budget
It’s back! I’ve been busy updating and making the BIG List of Stocking Stuffers under $5 from Amazon even better.
Click here to check out the list and find ideas for the entire family. This is a helpful resource especially if you need an extra item to add to your cart to reach free Super Saver Shipping!
Check out more hot Amazon Deals that I’ve posted.
The Amazon Subscribe and Save Deals Under $5 list has been updated for the month of November. These items are a great way to help you reach your 15% discount when you have 5 Subscribe & Save orders in one month.
Head over here to check out the Under $5 list. Click here to check out the latest Subscribe & Save offers I’ve posted.
I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which is a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to amazon.com. Thank you for supporting Cha-Ching on a Shoestring. For more information, see my disclosure policy.
One of my favorite things about using Swagbucks is that I can get rewards for searching the web through their search engine. Every now and then they have “Collector’s Bills” that you can collect by simply searching the web. Collect them all, and you get an SB Bonus!
Here’s all the information for this week’s Mt. Swagmore Collector’s Bills
How Do I Get Collector’s Bills?
It’s simple. Search the web through the Swagbucks search starting Monday, November 7th at 12:01am PT/3:01am ET through Sunday, November 13th at 11:59pm PT/Monday, November 14th 2:59am ET, and when you get a search win, you may get a special Collector’s Bill valued at either:
5 SB
10 SB
13 SB
22 SB
What happens when I get a Collector’s Bill?
When you get a Collector’s Bill you’ll receive the value of the bill and the bill will be added to your “Collector’s Bills” ledger. Collect all 4 Collector’s Bills and you’ll instantly earn a 20 SB Bonus!
Is it possible to collect the same Collector’s Bills multiple times?
Yes, you could collect any of the Collector’s Bills multiple times
New to Swagbucks and want to join me in earning free gift cards every month? Sign up here for your free account. Be sure to use my exclusive code CHACHING70 to start off with 70 FREE SB! (Just click on the words, “I have a sign up code.”) Then get started earning free $3 – $50 Gift Cards or PayPal cash by taking surveys, searching the web, watching videos, or shopping online. They’ve already awarded over $100,000,000 and have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. You won’t regret giving Swagbucks a try!
Click here to find out how to earn a FREE $25 Amazon gift card every month with Swagbucks!
The winner of my $50 ALDI Gift Certificate giveaway is:
Angela R: amr3mommy@
I have contacted you by email with details on how to claim your prize.
Thanks to all who entered and stay tuned for even more fun giveaways soon!
See part 1 of this post here.
The gift of a handcrafted journal is such a lovely thing.
Once my friends and I decided we wanted to create some small gifts to bless special people in our life who have blessed us, this idea seemed the perfect place to start.
I searched online for journal-making ideas, and I found some impressive tutorials. But they included scary words such as tapestry needles, binding awls, coptic stitch binding, and screw punches. That all sounded a bit too ambitious for me.
Then one day I came across a roll of elastic cord in my craft cabinet. Inspiration struck for an incredibly simple binding–without one scary word included. And, then, look what I found at the Dollar Tree–exactly the elastic cord I needed. And, of course, for only one dollar.
Five Easy Steps for a Lovely Journal:
First, print double-sided these Lined Journal Pages. [I print six or seven for each journal–that equals 12 (or 14) pages with 24 (28) sides.] Be sure that when you print the second side you have put the sheets in the printer correctly so that it will print out the same as the front side.
For the cover, fold in half a sheet of decorative 8 1/2 x 11″ heavy paper or cardstock. Then fold the sheets of lined paper in half and flatten the folded edge. Place the lined paper inside the cover.
Here’s where my inspiration comes into play.
To create an it-couldn’t-be-easier binding, use scissors to snip two tiny cuts in the fold–one at the top of the page and one at the bottom. (See slideshow tutorial below.) Then cut a length of the elastic, slip it through the two snips and wrap it around the journal.
Finally tie the elastic in a bow and double-knot.
How easy is that?!
My crafting friends also used rubber stamps, painted them with water colors, and adhered them on a plain cardstock cover.
If you want to add a belly band for a final touch of spice, print a selection of thank you sayings. Trim the saying of your choice, mat it with a wider strip of 12×12′ colored paper, wrap it around the journal over the elastic binding, and adhere the two ends. [Don’t adhere the belly band to the back of the journal because it will tear the journal when it is ripped off.] Or use your own handwriting to express your warm thoughts. The easy steps are explained in the slideshow tutorial at the end of the post.
One of the beauties of this gift project is that several can be created at one time–and ever so quickly. And they can be sent in the mail–ever so easily.
Some of the people I want to bless are not local, so I like to send journals in the mail. I discovered that 6 folded sheets of paper fit comfortably in an A9 envelope (5 3/4 x 8 3/4″) ] and mail with two first-class stamps.
Wouldn’t you like to find a journal like this in your mailbox?
Enjoy the following 2.5 minute tutorial.
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For those of you who haven’t met her, the Dollar Store Diva happens to be my Mom who has a special power. She can transform Dollar Store and other inexpensive finds into super fun gifts and crafts that would brighten anyone’s day! Check out more from her here.
The AMAZING Star Wars The Force Awakens Chewbacca Electronic Mask is in stock on Amazon and marked down to just $19.19 – reg. $31.99.
If you use the internet at all, chances are that you enjoyed the Chewbacca Mom viral video this year. I have to say that we had the Chewbacca mask before she made it famous. 😉 It is truly as awesome as it appears. Our family had so much fun on Christmas morning when my boys received it last year and this year, my son used it as a Halloween costume. Score!
About the product:
Get FREE 2-Day shipping with Amazon Prime or FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders of $35 or more. Not a Prime member? Find out you how you can get a FREE one month trial here.
Remember – Amazon prices change frequently and without notice. Please verify that this price hasn’t changed before purchasing. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which is a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to amazon.com. Thank you for supporting Cha-Ching on a Shoestring. For more information, see my disclosure policy.
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
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The year was 1957 and the grass was just starting to grow over my father’s grave. With the stop of my father’s heartbeat, my mother had been thrust violently into the role of breadwinner, and during that summer of my tenth year, she sat at a desk miles away from home working on a teaching degree. For those six weeks, my two teenaged sisters were left to care for my younger sister and me. In their bobby socks and ponytails, they spent their summer feeding us from cupboards that were too often bare, hanging our clothes on the line to dry, and keeping us safe at night.
In the afternoon of the day of my memory, I was taken to the doctor’s office with a dangerously infected toenail. Dr. Barrall bent his head, with its blazing red hair, over my foot, injected a shot of Novocain into my big toe, and proceeded to rip off the nail. My screams shot down the hallway and filled the waiting room.
That evening I lay alone in my rumpled bed. There were no pictures on the walls of my bedroom; there were no curtains at the window to sway in the breeze. This was the house we had escaped to after our house on Main Street had been taken away from us, after my father had sat down in the living room chair and died.
With my leg stretched out in front of me, I watched the stain of red seeping through the fat wad of gauze around my toe. The aching pain moved up my leg, and I sobbed. I had no mother; I had no father. I felt so very alone, in a house on the edge of town, with no pictures on the walls and no curtains at the window.
My sisters’ friend Flossie had stopped by the house, and the three girls were whispering nervously in another room. They should have been giggling together, like teenagers do on hot July evenings, but instead they were responsible for a wailing, inconsolable child.
Quietly, Flossie stepped into my room carrying a pan of cool water and a washcloth. She sat down on the edge of my bed and placed the pan on the nightstand. As she reached into the pan to saturate the cloth, she started cooing soft and soothing words.
I can still see her hands—dipping the cloth in the pan, wringing out the water, wiping my face, my damp forehead, my swollen eyes. Her hands—dipping the cloth in the water, wringing it out, wiping my face, my forehead, my eyes. Making soft, soothing sounds.
My sobs stopped, my body relaxed, and now it was just the murmuring of Flossie’s voice, the swishing of the water, the cool cloth to my face.
A gentle grace-filled quiet entered the room—and I slept.
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Though I hadn’t seen Flossie for decades, I located her so I could say thank you. She was stunned–she had absolutely no memory of that July evening. And I was amazed that for all these years she had been unaware that she had wiped away the tears of a desolate little girl. I started thinking of other people who had shown kindness to me over the years. Like Flossie, perhaps they, too, had no memory of the gift they had given me. I wanted to thank them.
Recently, some friends and I decided to spend a few Wednesday evenings together creating small gifts with the specific purpose of blessing others. And what fun we had laughing and working together, all of us with a desire to bless or say thank you.
Click here for a tutorial for these super-easy journals along with a free printable.
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For those of you who haven’t met her, the Dollar Store Diva happens to be my Mom who has a special power. She can transform Dollar Store and other inexpensive finds into super fun gifts and crafts that would brighten anyone’s day! Check out more from her here.
Just a quick reminder that my $50 ALDI Gift Certificate giveaway ends on Friday, November 4 at 10 am EST.
Head over here to enter to win now. It only takes a second and you can’t win if you don’t enter!