And I do the opposite. The DH works 50-60 hr weeks during the summer and only 40 hr weeks during the winter. So we stock up on items during the summer when he has overtime, plus the weather is nice enough to go out of town (we live in a VERY sm town). I like the idea of putting $X on a gift card each week for the time when it is slower/or for the sumemr months for a teacher. That is AWESOME! I think i will put that into OUR budget for this winter. (Sm town grocer = HIGH prices)

Lena, wife to Sam (SGT Hall), Momma to my fur baby, Rollie, & my 10 Angels

Since bar soap is usually fairly inexpensive (I get 3 bars of ivory for under a dollar thanks to the p&g insert) try buying borax and washing soda and making your own laundry detergent. It's easy and cheap. 2 batches lasted me a year. And when you buy fabric softener, water it down. It still works just as well. The smell might be weaker but your clothes will still be soft.

As a previous poster said, try a container garden. You can grow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, melons, all in containers! My grandfather stuck stakes in a bag of miracle gro soil and grew his tomatoes out of that bag. i'm sure there's more you can grow but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

I also agree with the suggestion to meal plan. That alone has saved us at least $100 in groceries every month!

There is a post in the tightwad tips forum about saving money making things yourself. It works believe me! Since becoming a regular in the tightwad forum I have learned so many things that save my family money. Not to mention the amazing friendships I've made.

If I think of more I'll let you know but you've already gotten a lot of great advice from everyone! Good luck to you!

TrishWife to Chad Mom to Luke

A few people have mentioned meal planning and I wanted to highlight that I'm doing a series on it this week on my blog, in case you needed some help getting started. Just let me know if you have any questions!

I agree there is so many things you can grow in pots that will stretch your budget further
I also do the same with the giftcards some weeks I'll only put $5 or $10 and some weeks I can put $20+ but every little bit helps during the times that you are broke lol
Each week I take $10 and buy things like paper towels, toilet paper, garbage bags, and some canned items to put in my stockpile... Although I don't need them at the time I know if I'm low on cash one month I can skip buying these things all together.
If you have cable I would consider canceling and getting Netflix and hulu plus, it is so much cheaper.
And like someone said above get your menu planned out and start shopping for some of the items now and put them away.
Also make big meals and freeze the left overs then during the summer you'll have meals already prepared
As far as gas going up sadly there isn't much we can do I read the other day that Wednesday is the cheapest day to fill up so I'm going to consider that, I will not be making pointless trips, and I will be planning out my trips before I leave the house so I'm not wasting gas driving around and going all over town.

Gasoline hit a record $4.22 a gal here. The last time it was close was last summer @ $4.20.

I have kept in mind the fact that I won't be driving much in the summertime. I also find a lot of solace in having a board game night with the family, a library night, as well as a very strict menu. But getting started is the challenge. I'm motivated though!

I am shopping a lot at Aldi, checking out the sales, making coupon match-ups as much as I can. It's Baby-steps I know...

What about getting a summer job somewhere? Something part time then you will have some income all year round.

This is a good idea and I am planning on spending some of my Spring Break looking and submitting resumes. Today is the first day of the break, I have an incredible to-do list for the whole week and I hope I can get the kids doing some outdoor stuff too!