❈Sac Thrift Chick❈

When it comes to acquiring new furniture for the house, I have two rules I almost always follow. The new piece has to be free or under $11. Otherwise, I have to sell something I already have to pay for the new piece. And then it still has to be a stellar deal. For example: When I wanted a different chair in the family room , I sold our rocking chair (picked up for free, 5 minutes away) for $35 and bought this cushy, zebra print chair for $20. Because I'm diligent about following my self-imposed rules, I sometimes wait a bit to get what I want, especially since I'm picky and obsessive-compulsive about matching. Lately, I've been frustrated using with my hope chest as a coffee table in the living room . We use baskets and decorative boxes to hold all our stuff, but those storage containers take up a lot of space atop the chest. That's space where our feet and cups like to go. And even with the top of the chest cleared, we still have limited to spac...

"Free" just makes everything more enticing, doesn't it? As part of its Audience Appreciation Month, The Sacramento Bee hosted a free event at the California Automobile Museum on Thursday night. I predicted the event would be primarily attended by an older crowd, and I was not wrong. I don't know why more "young people" don't attend these things, but I don't mind trailing behind a group of white hairs. By comparison, I must have looked positively youthful. I found out about the event on the BeeBuzzPoints website , which is a great resource for local events and contests. The Bee's business writer and car expert , Mark Glover, gave a short talk about his background, which coincidentally, I related to. Glover said he's originally from Dayton, Ohio, and when he meets people from Dayton living in Sacramento, they often came here via transfer to McClellan Air Force Base. Both my grandfathers worked at McClellan, and my dad's family is fro...

I refer to my back porch as my outdoor oasis, not because it's the most beautiful or detailed, but simply because the furniture is comfortable and the atmosphere is peaceful. It's where I go to unwind, relax and read. And now thanks to a recent project to turn a futon into a porch couch, I have the ultimate reading and napping spot. Last year, I wrote about getting rid of my busted up outdoor furniture, updating the salvageable and buying a futon to to use as my new outdoor couch . Shortly after I painted the $20 queen-size, solid-wood futon with outdoor white paint, I got busy getting ready for my move and never updated with the final result. I love it.

The family room is where the music happens. It's where marathon hours of video games are played. It's really more my husband's room. I mainly use it to watch Jeopardy because it's easier to get ABC reception in that room. Sometimes I play Jeopardy on Playstation, too. This room has had the most transformations in the 7 months we've lived here. First, it was the video game and Netflix room, back when we had the most massive beast of an old-school TV you've ever seen. When my brother moved in, we sold most of the furniture in the room, gave away The Beast and moved in my office furniture. About a month later, our other roommate moved out, and I got my office back. Without The Beast taking up a quarter of the room, furnishing the family room was pretty simple.

Since we moved into my childhood home on Halloween, I've been busy furnishing, decorating and then re-furnishing and re-decorating as we replaced the old with the new-to-us. I made about $1,000 selling furniture and random items in the move, but have only invested a very small portion of that into the new house. I am finally getting to the point where the house is just about done. I love many things about this house, and having a living room and a family room is at the top of that list. Growing up in this house in 90s, the living room was the formal room. A floral sofa, matching wingback chair, curio cabinet filled with mom's collectibles, a beautiful old piano and lace curtains filled the space. Entering that front room, you wouldn't even know two kids lived there. You wouldn't see a teenager parked in front of the TV, video game controller in hand, soda bottles scattered around him. That mess was hidden in the family room. And while I don't have a tee...

Talking about our charitable contributions is not something my husband and I do a lot of. For us, it's mostly a private matter, but we do like to promote the charities we support. When you don't have a lot to begin with, supporting a charity is not always as easy as writing a check. Giving to charity, however, doesn't have to be about money. Charities need physical items -- new and gently used -- and you can supply these with a little shopping savvy. My first tip may be obvious to most deal-hounds, but it wasn't always to me: Sign up for store mailing lists left and right and use those points and coupon offers to shop for charities. It's so simple, and I find, really fun and fulfilling. My husband and I favor women and children's charities, such as W.E.A.V.E. and the Sacramento Children's Receiving Home , both of which have wish lists of needed items. At Christmastime, they have gift wish lists . It's important to check wish lists as charities...

California Automobile Museum, 2012 It's that time of year in Sacramento: 30 museums will offer free or half-price admission on Saturday, Feb. 1. Check out Sacramento365 for a list of participating museums and all pertinent details.

If you had visited my house once a week for the last couple months, every week you'd notice something different. I've been on a mission -- changing furniture, adjusting decorations and getting a little crafty with it. When I'm on a mission, there's not much that can stop me. This can be to my detriment. If my back could talk, it would say, "She's a mad woman! She keeps moving furniture and hanging pictures and adjusting and readjusting everything even through the extra pain I'm giving her!" And it's true. One of my copy editors once told me I have "an eagle eye for details." In the area of the details of decorating (colors, balance, alignment) it's to the point I'm a bit obsessive compulsive. Room by room, I'm updating my house while making profit. I sell the old for far more than the new, so I have no guilt about indulging in my domestic diva side.

Shop Your Way Rewards from Sears and its affiliated stores is my new favorite thing. I briefly mentioned it in this post, but I had only just begun to get into its awesomeness. I am not a paid spokesperson, although I kind of feel like it with the regular freebies they offer week after week. Now, to some people, receiving $4 (4,000 points) to spend almost weekly (in store or online) may not seem like that big of a deal. But I put that $4 to good use. Recently, I needed to buy a baby girl shower present. After looking at the registry to see the kinds of things the parents needed, I went to work browsing Sears and Kmart. With my first $4, I bought this Carter's kitty-face hooded towel in pink . Normally $20, on clearance for $10. With my points, I paid $6.43 after tax. Then another 4,000 points arrived. So I got a six-pack of cute Gerber washcloths . Normally $5.49, on sale for $4.39. I used $4.10 of SYW rewards. They shipped free to my house for a grand total of $0.31...

I am the person stores lose money on. I cash in my freebie offers and rarely spend a penny more. I'm not in for BOGOs; I want truly free stuff! I use a secondary email address to join mailing lists from all my favorite stores. Here are some of my favorite lists to join: Victoria's Secret : At least twice a year, VS sends by-mail vouchers for free panties. VS also sends cards for $10 off any purchase of $10 or more. And VS rewards its paying customers, offering "secret" cards. During one of these promotions, if you spend $10, you receive a secret gift card with a value of at least $10. Some cards have values into the hundreds. Bath & Body Works : Beyond the endless by-mail coupons they offer (spend $10, get a free item up to $12 value is one of my favorites), every once in awhile, you'll receive a freebie offer. The most recent was for a free pocket hand sanitizer. Love those things. JCPenny : At least once a year, I get an emailed freebie offer for J...