The purpose of this blog is to share with you everything I have learned about saving money, becoming debt free, and getting on the path to financial freedom.
I’m excited to share these passions and more with you. My hope is that I help you not only save more money in many areas of life but also learn something new, or that the experiences I share in this blog are helpful to you in a similar situation in your own life.
Wishing you a happy New Year! Thank you for joining me on this new journey. I am very excited to see how we save money in the year ahead.
Designing a room can be difficult. Some people may have trouble visualizing the finished product, while others may have no trouble at all. This was especially true for my husband and I. I could visualize a design in our space but my husband couldn’t.
I would show him pictures on Pinterest similar to what I was thinking, in an effort to help him see what I saw in my mind, however it was a bit of a struggle since we had varying tastes. Since there wasn’t a single photo we could agree upon, I gave up on Pinterest and set out to find an interior design app I could create my own designs on to show my husband. But it would need to be free. Not only would the ability to create my own designs allow me to come up with something we could agree on, it would also give us a plan to follow, help us find items quickly, and drastically decrease the chances of having to return an item.
After some searching, the best free digital interior design app I found was Homestyler. It allowed us to take pictures of the rooms we wanted to design, see items in our space through AR, or use images of empty rooms already available on the app.
This app was also the most realistic 3D interior design app I found, with lots of furniture and decor items to choose from, and fairly easy to navigate.
I want to share some of our favorite room designs I made through the app with you. I hope this helps inspire you with new ideas for your home, to better visualize a room layout, or to combine ideas for a design like we did:
All about neutrals in this one. We spiced it up with the black and white pattern in the rug. Grays, oranges, blues, and browns oh my. This dark gray almost black wall really helps the photos pop! This photo feature wall is balanced with a comfy sitting area and rug to help define the space. All about black and white for this contemporary modern look. Yellows, blues, and browns give a softer and warmer feeling to this bedroom. One of my favorite color combinations is gray, black, and white. It’s accented with teak wood chairs and lovely green plants. Country sitting area with a cow skin rug, subtle tans, and whites to help brighten the room. This room has light and dark gray seating accented with black, white, pink, and gray. Also, mixing patterns that match the same color scheme is a fun way to add cohesiveness to a design.
Cheers to new ideas and fun new room designs for free!
While fixing the financial mess my husband and I were in after getting married, we quickly learned just how important budgeting and living below our means actually was. The chains from our debt severely limited our ability to freely use our money in ways we wanted. This was due to thousands of dollars of our income going to various banks every month in an effort to pay off the $120,000 in debt we owed. In hindsight, we would have been exponentially better off paying MUCH less for college, and either cash flowing a business startup or saving a down payment to invest in a house.
In all of this, we learned how to be extreme cheapskates. Or to sound more appealing, you could say we learned the art of frugal living. While budgeting and stretching out the value of every dollar, we also set priorities for our money. This meant when I wanted to buy plants to help decorate our living room, I knew we didn’t have much money to prioritize to it and I would have to be creative in figuring out how to purchase the plants I so desired.
I scoured the internet, read various gardening forums, and eventually learned how to get plants for free or at very low cost. This blog post aims to share that knowledge with anyone who may be looking for the same thing.
Here is what worked for me:
Look for plants on clearance at your local gardening centers or nurseries. Especially after a storm comes through the heavy rain and wind tends to knock over plants making them look less appealing even though they are still good. You will instantly save anywhere from 50% to 75% off their original sales price.
I got this purple waffle angel plant originally $3.98 for $1.00 on clearance. You can see just how rough it looked when I first got it, but it perked up nicely after a few days. In the following weeks it was thriving. Well worth the dollar I spent. It lives year round and is easy to care for, which is an added bonus.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask if they have any plants they are going to throw away. This may sound silly, but you would be surprised at what they throw out. If you know a lot about plants and have experience with them you can find clippings and plants that will grow for free!
Another way to save is using apps like Nextdoor, which help neighbors connect and see what people are selling or giving away for free. I have found plants on this app for free or extremely discounted. You will need some patience though, it is not often they come up, but when they do act fast to get one.
Friends who garden. At work, school, or in your neighborhood you quickly learn who loves gardening, and who is very eager to share or trade plants. This is a great way to get plants absolutely free. I have a coworker who grows avocado trees all the time and gives them away freely. I have another friend who loves to trade plants, so when I get my second free baby avocado tree I will trade it with her for one of her baby fig trees. WIN! WIN!
It took some time and patience, but we have some really lovely plants cheap and for free. Hope this is helpful to you.
Cheers to cheap and free plants for your growing garden! 😉
Budgetarian 