Monday, January 25, 2010

Episode 5- Water- Shownotes!

~Welcome/ Intro
~January Sponsor: Sunset Fibers
~Contest: Share your best "Money Saving Tip in the Kitchen" in the contest thread in the Ravelry Group! Last day to post a tip is TODAY! Once the thread is closed, let the voting begin!!
~Knitting and Spinning
- No new knitting this week!
- Spinning
- Sunset Fibers Corriedale
- Dog fur + mystery wool carded together and spun on my spindle!
- 75/25 SW Merino/ Alpaca on my spindle.
- I got my first issue of Spin Off!
- I get to go to the Exotic Fiber Spindling class at Madrona Fiber Arts Retreat!
- I sewed myself a totally cute spinning apron for about $2! Yay!
~Sales:
-Yarn
- JimmyBeansWool
Regia JetSet Color- 55% off
Berrocco is 25% off
Crystal Palace is 20% off
Free Shipping on orders over $75!
- Royal Yarns
Join their email list and get a $5 coupon!
Lots of brands 15-50% off!
Free shipping on orders over $100!
- Elsewhere
- Use TurboTax Online and save a ton on your tax preparation!
~Tips of the Week: Water
-Drink water instead of soft drinks or other beverages
-Shower less often
-Flush only solid waste
**New Segment**
~ How I Saved the Week!
- Filled up the gas tank in my scooter with the change in my purse!
- Cooked lots of yummy goodies! It cost about $12- $13 to make it all, would have cost about $34 to buy similar items!
~Worth It!
- Knitting Pretty book by Kris Percival: Simple Instructions for 30 Fabulous Projects
- Suggested retail price: $19.99
*Pros:
- All projects are easy enough for a beginner, but also easily adaptable to use other ways for more experienced knitters.
- Patterns progress through the book by general difficulty
-Photos of almost all the projects
- Projects are timeless and classic
- Patterns are easy to read and follow
- Projects don't list specific yarns to use, but the yarns used for the project are given in the back.
- Lots of different types of projects
- Amazing book for beginners
*Cons:
- How-to section in the front doesn't do a very good job of showing how to make stitches.
- Only gives instructions for one type of cast on
- Difficulty levels assigned to projects are arbitrary and can be misleading.
**Overall: Totally worth it!
~ Contact info:
email: cleverroue@gmail.com
Ravelry: Roue
Twitter: Roue0824
If you like the show, please leave a review on iTunes! Thank you!

Friday, January 22, 2010

KnitCents has a Facebook Page!

Hey everyone! If you are on Facebook and you want to be a fan of the podcast, click here and let's see how many fans we can get!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Episode 4- Hot Liquids- Shownotes

~Welcome/ Intro
-Thank you to everyone who left reviews on iTunes!
~ Show Sponsor: Sunset Fibers
~Contest: Visit the Ravelry Group Page to enter your best money saving tip in the kitchen! You have one more week before I lock the thread for voting! Prize: Choose from either 4 oz of hand dyed, pin drafted roving from Sunset Fibers, or 200 yds of mill spun yarn from Sunset Fibers in the colorway of your choice!
~Knitting and Spinning
-Nothing new :/ My friend loved her Easy Baby Cardigan and matching Pixie Bonnet!
- Knitting some cabled socks, and am going to restart my wedding shawl this week, because it needed to be put in timeout.
~ Sales!!
- Yarn sales:
- Dollar Yarns has weekly specials of yarns for just $11
- YarnZilla has 25% off Malabrigo all the time! Also, 20% discounts off purchases over $60!
-Stitchy McYarnPants has awesome buttons, dog tags and knitting goodies, and is donating 50% of proceeds for January to Doctors Without Borders to aid in the relief to the earthquake in Haiti.
-Elsewhere:
-MyFavoriteJava has gourmet coffee for under $12 a pound!
- Market Spice has boxes of 50 tea bags for $12.95, and 1 pound bulk loose leaf for $13!
~Tips of the Week
- Give It Up!
- From WillieTattoos (aka Dee): Cut open your bottles of hair, skin and face products and you will find several days' worth extra hiding in the corners!
~DIY
-Make your own tea bag by using loose leaf tea and wrapping it in a fine cheese cloth!
~Worth It!
-Deborah Norville Serenity Sock Weight Yarn
*Pros:
-Only $2.79 for 230 yds, just over 1 cent per yard (at stores, more online)
- Machine washable and dryable
- Comes in lots of colors
- Doesn't pill
-Not splitty
- Wears well
*Cons:
-Some knots in balls where they attached a new piece
OVERALL: WORTH IT!
~Thank you's and conclusion
-Contact:
*Ravelry: Roue
* Email: cleverroue@gmail.com
* Twitter: Roue0824
*Check out the Ravelry Group Page
* Please leave a review on iTunes if you liked the show!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Give when you can

As I'm sure many of you know by now, yesterday, Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake. I know this blog is about saving money, but I want to remind you that is important to give when you can. Even a donation of $1 will add to the funding for relief in this area. If a donation is not in the cards, consider donating your talents. Maybe knit or crochet something to send, or sell your handmade items and donate that money. It will help people in need, and you will be using your talents for the good of humankind. Thanks for taking the time to consider joining this cause and others.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Episode 3- Bulk and Lace- Shownotes

~Welcome and Thank yous!
-Thank you to Jasmin and Gigi of The Knitmore Girls and Jackie of Kiping It Real for playing my promo this past week!
- Thank you to GrammaJewell and everyone else who left reviews of my show on iTunes!
-Thank you to everyone who has sent me feedback via email and messages! It makes my day!
~January Show Sponsor
- Sunset Fibers Check out their 2010 line!
~ What I'm Knitting:
- Finished Easy Baby Cardigan, and now am working on a matching bonnet out of the leftover yarn!
- Cast on (and tore out 3 times) the Raindrop Shawl by Renee Strouts out of Knit Picks Gloss Sock Yarn. Yarn cost me $3.99 a skein, and I bought 3 skeins so my wedding shawl will cost me about $12! Way cheaper than buying a veil!
- Cast on a pair of simple cabled socks with Knit Picks Stroll in Eggplant.
~What I'm Spinning:
-Still working on my Sunset Fibers Corriedale for my Grandma's socks! I've done 2 bobbins, and Navajo plied adding up to about 200 yards! I'm on my way!
~Contest:
- We are still running a contest to find the Best Money Saving Tip in the Kitchen! Either go to the Knit Cents Group in Ravelry to enter your tip, or if you are not a Ravelry member, send me an email at cleverroue@gmail.com and I will post your tip for you!
- Prize this month: Choose either 4 oz of handpainted, pin-drafted roving, or 200 yards of mill spun yarn from Sunset Fibers
- Get your entry submitted by January 25! We will be voting from January 26- 31, and winner will be announced on February 1!!
~Sales!
-Yarn sales!
- Webs has a lot of different brands, sizes, styles and colors in their closeout for 50% off!
- Numei sells wholesale yarn, 10 skeins in a bag for between $15-$40 a bag! Great deal!
-Elsewhere!
-Office Max has OM brand paper, files, file storage, binders and Post-Its on sale, buy 2 get 1 free!
- Audible is running their deal where you get your first 3 months membership for only $7.49 a month, and $14.99 a month after that! This is an awesome deal!
- Podiobooks has free audiobooks from unpublished authors! Just type in Podiobooks.com into your podcatcher (ie iTunes, Zune Marketplace, etc.) and check out all the awesome free audiobooks!
~Tips of the Week!
- #1: Join the club
- #2: More is Less!
~ Worth It!
-Reviewed Knit Picks Shadow Laceweight yarn A 100% merino laceweight yarn, comes in 440 yard skeins.
*Pros:
- Only $2.99 a skein- averages to be just over 1/2 a cent per yard!
- Drapes beautifully
-Comes in a lot of beautiful colors
-Not splitty or knotty
- Very soft
*Cons:
- Tiny itty bitty yarn- If you don't want to knit dental floss on toothpicks, this is not the yarn for you.
- Not machine washable.
*Overall: Worth It!!
Contact Info:
email me at cleverroue@gmail.com
Follow me on Twitter: Roue0824
On Ravelry: Roue

Monday, January 4, 2010

Episode 2- Food Shownotes!

~Welcome, happy new year!
~Sponsor
-Sunset Fibers
~What I'm knitting
- I finished Molly's Headband and I am now working on the Easy Baby Cardigan by Diane Soucy.
- I'm using Lion Brand Wool Ease, which I bought on sale for 1.99 a skein! Each skein is 197 yards so each yard costs about 1 penny! The pattern calls for 385 yards (I'm not going to need that much) so the project will cost under $4 to make! I'm hoping to have time to make at hat and socks to go with, and it will still only cost less than $10!
~What I'm spinning
-Still working on the Sunset Fibers Corriedale for my Gramma's socks. Just finished a navajo 3 ply last night, haven't yet skeined it to find out the yardage I've gotten out of it!
~Contest!
-Go to the Ravelry Knit Cents group page and tell us your Best Money Saving Tip in the Kitchen!
-Contest winner will receive 4 oz of hand-dyed, pindrafted roving from Sunset Fibers in the colorway of your choice, or 200 yards of millspun yarn in the colorway of your choice! Check out Sunset Fibers to see all the color options! We will leave the thread open until Jan. 25, then I will close it for a week so we can vote for our favorites! The winner will be announced on Feb. 1!
~Sales!
*Yarn Sales
-JoAnn stores and JoAnn.com have every single skein of yarn on sale!
-KnitPicks.com has a lot of laceweight and fingering weight yarn on sale! Perfect for stocking up for summer projects!
*Elsewhere
-Check out Alice.com It is a grocery delivery company, and they have free shipping with no minimum purchase, they automatically find all manufacturer's coupons for items in your purchase and apply them, and they guarantee the best prices!

~Tip of the Week!
-Eat In Instead
We always make our own Chinese food from options at Trader Joe's, and we can usually get 4 meals (dinner for both of us, and lunch for both of us the next day) for about $6.
-We buy:
*Trader Joe's Mandarin Orange Chicken- $4.99/ bag
*Trader Joe's General Tso's Stir Fry Sauce- $2.49/ bottle
* Steamed White Rice- $5.99 for a 10 lb bag
*Frozen mixed veggies- $ 1.99 on sale for 1 lb bag
-We cook all the chicken, use half the orange sauce, and half the GTC sauce on the chicken so we have 2 different kinds, and cook the rice and steam the veggies. Overall, it costs about $1.50 per serving!
-If we were to buy this same meal and have it delivered from the local Chinese food restaurant, it would cost about $40, for all the food, tax, delivery fee and a tip! That's about $10 per serving!
~DIY Section!
-Add your own toppings! We occasionally get pizza from Papa Murphy's (which is a take-and-bake pizza chain). We will order a family size pepperoni pizza ($9.99) and use a $2 coupon (which makes it $7.99) and then take it home and add all our own toppings before we bake it! If we were to add those toppings at the pizza shop, it would cost $1 per topping ($.50 for smaller pizzas) and it would end up being 5-7 dollars more! (We like a lot of veggies) Instead, we add our own at home! The extra bonus of having a lot of toppings is that you don't eat as many slices, because there is more food on your slice so you get full faster, leaving you more leftovers for the next day!
~Worth it!
What I reviewed:
*Williams Sonoma Bread Cookbook
Pros:
-All the recipes look AMAZING!
- Everything I have made so far has tasted wonderful
- Beautiful photos of each recipe
- Only $16.95 retail, I used a coupon, Amazon has it for $12!
- Instructions are easy to follow
- There are lots of varieties of breads, so you don't need different books for sandwich breads, and dinner breads and muffins! They are all here!
Cons:
- Most recipes require a heavy duty mixer (like a Kitchenaid) and don't give other directions if you don't have one
- Most recipes require lots of different types of flour, instead of all using "all purpose flour" so the different flours might add up to being kind of expensive
- Some recipes require a lot of ingredients that most people don't always just have, so you might have to make a special trip for the extra ingredients.
**Overall** Worth it!

Thank you! Please write a review on iTunes if you like the show!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Food!!

Don't forget to check out next week's podcast episode! It's going to be all about food!