I’m so excited! I have a close family member who is in the process of buying his first home. I think it’s wonderful and I really want to help him get started. He needs furniture and well, pretty much everything.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any extra furniture I can give him right now and don’t exactly have a budget to go out and spend a lot of money. However, after giving it some thought, I came up with a solution for what I can do.

Since I use coupons to get so many household things for free or for very little, I thought the most practical housewarming gift to give would be all the things you have to buy when you move into your first home.

Things like:

• Dish Washing Detergent
• Laundry Detergent
• Paper Towels
• Hand Soap
• Kleenex
• Air Freshener
• Misc. Cleaning Supplies
• and so on….

Well, I recently started a stash of some of these supplies just for him. I’ll be piling them into a laundry basket to surprise him with it all after he finally gets moved into his house. He’s a very practical and thrifty individual, so I believe he’ll be very grateful for this gift.

What you see in the picture is an example of the kinds of things I’m collecting. I also have a few other things in mind. So far, I’ve only spent about $10 dollars on all the items in the picture, not including the laundry basket. Aren’t coupons great!?!

I love this idea because I can give someone a very useful gift that will save them money from the start and it doesn’t break my budget either. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a win-win situation.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Would you rather give/receive something pretty or something practical?

This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

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Have you ever loaned a book to someone, never got it back, and couldn’t remember who last borrowed it? Well, if this is you, I have a simple solution for keeping track of all those favorite books.

I love reading to relax and therefore, I buy a lot of books. Believe me, I have quite a collection.

Not only do I love to read, but I also enjoy allowing my friends and family to borrow books from me. However, I do want them back once they’re finished reading them.

My simple solution was to create a spreadsheet listing all the books in my home library. The listing includes a column for recording who borrowed a particular book and when the book was borrowed. This way, if the book is not returned within a reasonable amount of time, I know who to ask about it.

My Columns

• Title
• Author
• Series
  
• Series Book Number
  
• Borrower
• Date Borrowed

I keep this listing in alphabetical order by author’s last name so it’s easier to locate the books and also helps keep each individual series together.

Most of the books I own are fiction novels, but this organizational method could easily be done with any books you own.

If by chance you don’t have a spreadsheet on your computer, you can download a free one at OpenOffice.org. It is very similar to Excel, so if you’re at all familiar with Excel, you should have no problem using Open Office.

What is the best way you’ve found to organize and keep up with your books?

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

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If you’re like me, you feel like there’s not much on television worth watching anymore. As a family, we like to be able to sit down and watch a movie that makes us feel good when it’s over and not guilty for allowing ourselves to watch it.

For that reason, some of our favorite movies are the good ole’ movies from several years ago. I’m talking - the classics.

Just in case you’re interested, I’ve included here a few of our favorites.

1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

2. Mary Poppins

3. The Sound of Music

4. Lady and the Tramp

5. Singin’ In the Rain

6. The Swiss Family Robinson

7. Peter Pan

8. It’s a Wonderful Life
   

If you haven’t seen any of these movies, you may want to have a family night and give them a try. Although I haven’t actually checked my library, I bet there’s a good chance several of these are available for you to check out since they’re older and classics.

What are some of your all-time family favorites? I’m always on the lookout for good wholesome family movies.

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