SAVING MONEY

     I am starting a new blog.  I think I'm going to call it The Frugal Bugle.  Silly, I know, but it was something my 85 year old mother-in-law thought up.  She told me I was so frugal and when I wrote my family newsletters I should name the newsletters The Frugal Bugle.  For me, I liked The Leavitt Lodge - since I am a Leavitt and my home seems to lodge my kids or grandkids when they want to visit.

     I live, breath and sleep "saving money".  I read blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, The Wisdom Journal, Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, providentliving.org, homemaking manuels, make-it-from-scratch books, and... the most inspiring...is the voices from those people who have first hand accounts of living as a child through the Great Depression in 1929.
     So, if you are interested you can go on my new blog

                   saveanicklesaveadime.blogspot.com

and learn a trick every single day at how to shave lots of dollars off your budget :)

See you there!!!

I LOVE FALL

     There are many things that I love besides my wonderful husband, children & grandchildren.  I love Pinterest.  I love Facebook.  I love the internet.  I love that I'm a Mormon.  I love writing and I love Fall - even here in Southern California where our high this week is 86 degrees.
     The changing of the season paid no mind that it was 96 degrees when it made it's debut.  In fact, I didn't even know when the 1st day of Fall was, but ironically while Barry & I had our breakfast I could almost smell something different in the air - something that spoke of the few pine trees that still dot this valley.  A few years back construction went crazy building more houses than occupants and many of our tree filled lots disappeared - some hills were leveled.  With them some of our beautiful old, traditional Pine and Eucalyptus trees fell to the ground & became someones firewood.

Eucalyptus and Pine Trees are to me are Gods gifts
        A Eucalyptus tree is on the left.  In the picture on the right are 3 pine trees.  These 3 trees literally cover my my friend, Charlene's house.

     When my children were small, we'd go around town picking up baskets of pine cones for our Fall decorations.  Now my grandkids would be lucky to fill one basket.

A lone pine cone from the tree in Charlene's front yard.

     But, today, I opted to go to JO-ANNs  Fabrics & pay $2.50 for a bag of mini, scented pine cones for my wicker cornucopia - or Horn-of-Plenty - a yard-sale find.

My wicker, Cornucopia stuffed with my mini scented pine cones

                                 
     While out shopping, I stopped at Cardenas Markets for their rock-bottom prices on some of their produce (last month I snagged yellow onions for .10c a pound).  While stocking up on their sale items I saw a mexican squash that resembled a pumpkin.  I paid $5.00 for it.

Calabaza (a mexican squash).  Still don't know what I'm going to do with it, but for now, unopened, it's my most expensive Fall decoration

Hope you find a lot of sales this fall season... hope you pick a lot of pine-cones... hope you have a fun Halloween... hope you find 31 ways to save money!!!
See you soon,
Nancy