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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.


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Sweet Deals on Soup, Country Gardens Magazine, Toys, Audible Deal and More

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Quote of the Day “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passion; your passion chooses you.” ~Jeff Bezos

Hello Thursday! We are looking at a high of 49 degrees today here in the PNW, how’s the weather in YOUR neck of the woods? Do you still have snow on the ground? I’d love to know.

Have a great day everyone,

♥ Mavis

*This deal post will be updated throughout the morning so be sure and check back for deals. * Amazon prices can change without notice. Please verify price before ordering. Amazon offers Free Shipping with a $49 purchase or Amazon Prime. {Sign up for a free Amazon Prime 30 day trial!}

Available Kindle Books I think look interesting…

The prices on Kindle Books can change quickly, so grab them while you can. Don’t have a Kindle? Download the kindle app on your other devices. It’s easy! 🙂

Subscribe and Save Deals

Subscribe and Save prices reflect a 15% discount for ordering 5 or more items in 1 month.

Snag a 1 Year Subscription to Country Gardens Magazine for $14.97 a year.

Home and Kitchen Deals

Amazon is offering a 30 Free trail for Audible. I LOVE audio-books!

Audible Free Trial benefits:

• Get two free audiobooks to start — after 30 days, get 1 book each month for $14.95/month

• Get 30% off the price of additional audiobook purchases

• Cancel anytime. Your books are yours to keep, even if you cancel.

Add on Items

*These are all Amazon Add-on Items and they will ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping on $25 orders with Amazon Prime {or will ship FREE on $35 orders without Prime}. 

dig-for-your-dinner-1

If you’d like to map out your next few months of garden chores, grab a few Dig For Your Dinner eBooks. That way, you can read about gardening, even when the weather is not nice enough to be outside gardening.

Kid’s Stuff

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Show Me Your Hobby – Ida from Guelph, Canada Shares Her Love of Crocheting

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A big THANK YOU to everyone who has sent in their photographs and stories. I hope by sharing other people’s hobbies and stories here on One Hundred Dollars a Month we can all find unique ways to spend our down time in creative and enriching ways.  Keep them coming!

Dear Mavis,
I was so excited to see ‘crocheting’ on your list of goals for 2017, and seriously mourned when you didn’t get hooked. Gone was the dream of lots of inspirational posts… As I love crocheting I would want to share a few of my thoughts and projects with your readers – showing that it’s so much more than just dish cloths!

I first picked up crocheting in 2011 when I was set to travel from Toronto to Seattle. My then supervisors had purchased the cheapest (i.e. longest) flight ticket possible and I was so upset that I decided that I wasn’t going to read papers for the flight but rather do something for ME. I can’t remember why I decided on crocheting, but I boarded the first of those many flights with a hook, some cheap yarn and a few downloaded instructions. 17 hours later, and numerous glasses of wine and curses, I arrived with a 7-cornered granny square. It was A MESS, but I was ecstatic because I felt like I almost had it!

A little more practice and crocheting has become my favourite way to keep my hands busy. I crochet on long drives, flights and while we’re watching TV. My first love will always be the basic granny squares; they’re just so versatile! I love to find a new beautiful pattern and to combine them in various ways. My go to ‘welcome to the world’ gift is a small stroller blanket with a lining (Photo 1), but I’ve also combined them to make clutches. Here’s an example of a small pencil clutch I made for my mum when she went back to school a few years ago.

Generally I don’t sell the things I make, because as soon as there’s a price tag involved I feel like it’s more of a chore than a hobby. However, I’ve made a few exceptions. I’ve sold a couple of these little lamb hats as I had a bunch of friends that wanted them for their friends and insisted on paying.

I’ve also crocheted lots of these little baby booties and sold in order to raise money for breast cancer research. But that’s it – everything else has either stayed in the family or been gifted.

Having a baby of my own also sent me into crocheting overdrive. I’ve never crocheted as much as I did when I was pregnant. When I was 8/9-months pregnant I essentially did nothing but mass-producing little elephants.

I guess it sort of echoed how I felt about myself at that point in time! 🙂

Now, when my little one is a little older, I’m making fun hats, essentials (because seriously, everyone needs an egg apron!) and gifts for all his little friends.

To sum it up: I love crocheting because it keeps my hands busy and it’s excellent if I have too many things buzzing around in my head – I can zone in on my project and shut everything else out. It also allows me to be creative, and I love that I can make a personal (non plastic!) gift in just a couple of hours/days!

~ Ida from Guelph, Canada

Bracelet by Kathy from Artful Accents

If you would like to have your Hobby featured on One Hundred Dollars a Month, here’s what I’m looking for:

  1. Your hobby has to be submitted as a well written post. A one sentence “I make homemade kites” will not do. Now, 4-5 paragraphs about how you got into kite making, how long you’ve been doing it and the different types of kites you make WILL DO. That’s what I’m looking for! How long have you been doing it? Do you make money off of it or is it just for fun? Can you teach me how to do it?
  2. Be sure to include a little information about yourself, like your hobby’s backstory and how you got into it. Also, please include your first name and what state or country you are from.
  3. Your submission MUST have 5 HIGH QUALITY photos attached. You do not have to be a professional photographer, but your photos do need to be clear and well lit or I won’t be able to use them.
  4. All photos must be original, and they must have been taken by YOU. All photos you submit may be used on One Hundred Dollars A Month once submitted.
  5. Sadly, I might not be able to use every submission if I am overwhelmed by responses. A $20 Amazon gift card will only be awarded if the submission is published.
  6. If you have a blog and would like me to link back to it, please let me know, I’d be happy too.
  7. Although you must submit at least 5 pictures per submission, you can always include more. The more the merrier just in case I do not select them all.
  8. One submission per person.
  9. Send submissions via email to onehundreddollarsamonth @ gmail.com {remove the spaces} and be sure and put Show Me Your Hobby in the subject line.

I can’t wait to see all of your fascinating hobbies! Might just encourage me to take up a few new ones.

Hobby on,
~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Lucy the Beach Dog, Deals on Hair Color, Car Seats, Vittles and More

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Quote of the Day  “The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too” ~ Vincent van Gogh

I’ve been taking Miss Puggle Love to the beach for her long walk the past few days, and each time we are there she discovers something new. Yesterday it was the sand dollars. She must have thought they were a cookie because she dug one up and had it in her mouth and walked about 100 feet real slowly like she was sneaking a treat. Once she put the sand dollar down though and did some more investigating, she wasn’t so impressed and dropped it. Silly dog!

Here’s hoping you have a wonderful Wednesday. And for all of you who chimed in on the wood heat post… THANK YOU. You gave me a ton of ideas!

♥ Mavis

*This deal post will be updated throughout the morning so be sure and check back for deals. * Amazon prices can change without notice. Please verify price before ordering. Amazon offers Free Shipping with a $49 purchase or Amazon Prime. {Sign up for a free Amazon Prime 30 day trial!}

Amazon Deal of the Day for 2/28/18 – Up to 30% off select Britax car seats

Available Kindle Books I think look interesting…

The prices on Kindle Books can change quickly, so grab them while you can. Don’t have a Kindle? Download the kindle app on your other devices. It’s easy! 🙂

Subscribe and Save Deals

Subscribe and Save prices reflect a 15% discount for ordering 5 or more items in 1 month.

Discount Mags is offering a 1 year subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine for only $11.99 a year when you use code MAVIS at checkout. This deal will expire 3/1/17 at midnight EST.

Home and Kitchen Deals

Craving a casserole? This Chicken Casserole with Mashed Potato Topping is crazy delicious and a fantastic way to use up leftover chicken. You can find the recipe HERE.

Add on Items

*These are all Amazon Add-on Items and they will ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping on $25 orders with Amazon Prime {or will ship FREE on $35 orders without Prime}. 

Get a Free 30-Day Free Trial to Amazon Music Unlimited

Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to on-demand, ad-free streaming from a catalog of tens of millions of songs!

After your 30 Free Trial, you will be billed $7.99 a month BUT if you try it for 30 days and decide you don’t like it you can simply cancel the subscription. Sounds like a win/win to me. Here are the benefits of Amazon Music Unlimited:

  • Stream over tens of millions of songs ad-free with unlimited skips
  • Thousands of expert-programmed playlists and stations
  • Hottest new releases from today’s most popular artists
  • Download their favorite songs, albums, and playlists for offline playback

Thinking about placing a bulk order with Zaycon Fresh but not sure what to do with all that meat? Read my post on How to Process and Prepare Your Bulk Chicken Order for some great tips. Zaycon Fresh is now taking orders for their upcoming events.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Do You Heat Your Home with Wood Heat? If So, I Have a Few Questions for You.

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One of the things that was SUPER high on our list of “must haves” when we were looking for a home in New England, was a wood stove. Or at least a good chimney to have a wood stove installed. Word on the street is New England winters can be brutal some years and the thought of huge heating bills {oil} was something we wanted to try and minimize as much as possible.

In previous years, heating our home with natural gas during the winter months here in the Pacific Northwest, our peak heating bills came in at around $300 – $325 a month. Which of course seemed high to us. I think one year during a long cold snap we had a bill around $360 and I was freaking out.

So naturally one of our questions when we were looking at the potential house on the East Coast was…. What are the heating bills going to be like?  How much does it cost to heat this home during the winter months? Because HELLO… the Northeast is much, much colder than the PNW. Is the size of this home and the cost to heat it going to be a deal breaker for us? And how often do the current owners use their wood stove to heat the home?

After going over the fuel and electricity receipts for the home for the previous 12 months, we learned the current owners spent about $2750 to heat the home {with oil}. Here in the PNW we paid about $1,400 for natural gas during the same 12 month period. And honestly, I didn’t think an increase of $1,350 a year for heating costs was all that bad considering how long the winters are on the East Coast.

Plus, when my friend Heather from Massachusetts and I were there for the home inspection, we noticed the wood stove in the home looked like it was barely used {as did all of the fireplaces}. Which gave me hope. I LOVE wood heat. And the thought of using it to heat my home during the winter months is one of the things I am most looking forward to.

So, obviously I have a few questions for all you wood stove experts out there:

  • Is it really practical to heat an entire home with wood heat?
  • I’m assuming we’ll need some sort of steamer/humidifier to place on top of the wood stove. Can you recommend one?
  • Do I need some sort of fan to circulate the heat?
  • How about a tea kettle? I have visions of heating my water for my afternoon cuppa on the wood stove. Do you do this? Do I need a special kettle? Do you have any tips I should know about?
  • How many cords of wood do you think someone in the NE would need during a typical winter?
  • We plan on buying our first winter’s worth of wood, but hoping to harvest our own in later years. What kind of wood should we be buying/looking for?
  • What is a fair price for a cord of seasoned, cut firewood these days?

I am BEYOND excited for this next chapter in our lives, and I know that moving to the other side of the country will be a bit of a culture shock {but one I’m ready for} and I just want to make our transition as smooth as possible. So thank you in advance for all your help. You rock!

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy