For the third year in a row, my post from way back in 2009 on making your own laundry detergent has come out on top again. I noticed this year that someone over on Pinterest.com liked the post and the ingredients I was using–and was sending a ton of traffic to my blog. (Mystery Pinterest person, thank you so much.) In case you’re not aware of Pinterest, it seems to be an Etsy-like site for DIYers. Drum roll please…..the #1 post for the 2011 Best of Suddenly Frugal is….
If you were to highlight phrases and terms that best describe some of the trends in 2011, I would think that “extreme couponing” would be in there. I know that extreme couponing is on my radar 24/7 these days, as I try to learn more about how to spend less at the store using coupons, and clearly I hit a nerve with this #2 post from 2011. It’s about extreme couponing and self esteem. Not only did this post from June 2011 generate a lot of comments, but also it got picked up by other media, including CBS Moneywatch.
I hope by now you took advice from my posts on finding free and low cost flu shots in 2011, and have gotten your flu shot. (I got mine at the beginning of November.) If not, hopefully the information in this #3 post on the Best of Suddenly Frugal list will help you to find a last-minute flu shot that won’t cost you a lot of money! This post first appeared in September 2011.
It’s amazing that two of the top 10 blog posts from 2011 focused on cooking using a Crock Pot or slow cooker. This post is from 2010 and focuses on making French toast in your slow cooker. Yum! It’s one of my favorite recipes–still!
In my opinion garage sales, yard sales, tag sales–whatever you like to call those treasure hunts that you embark on during warm-weather weekends–have always been popular with shoppers in America. However, with the economy the way it has been, I think they are even more popular with folks looking to make extra cash from their stuff–the topic of my most recent book Toss, Keep, Sell!: The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Cleaning Out the Clutter and Cashing In. Not surprisingly, my 2010 post about organizing a yard sale appeared in the top 10 for 2011. Actually, it’s #5.
Yet another popular post for 2011 that first appeared on Suddenly Frugal in 2010. This one, number 6, focuses on spare change. Since you won’t hear from me again until Monday, Merry Christmas to my reader who celebrate Christmas!
As you know from my various posts on coupons this year, including my decision to start reviewing coupon books, one of my goals for 2011 was to get better at couponing. Clearly, Suddenly Frugal readers had similar goals, as this is one of a handful of posts on couponing that appear in this “Best of Suddenly Frugal” series. Additionally, this post first appeared more than two years ago.
This 8th most popular blog post in the 2011 “Best of Suddenly Frugal” is on a topic that shows up frequently in this year’s top 10 list–cooking with a Crock-Pot or slow cooker.
Here is the 9th most popular Suddenly Frugal blog post for the “Best of Suddenly Frugal” series. Ironically, I wrote and posted this piece on thrift store shopping back in 2009! With Chanukah starting tonight, I hope that my Jewish readers have a blessed and happy eight days of the Festival of Lights!
In this edition of Best of Suddenly Frugal, we start with #10 on the Top 10 list, a blog post from 6 months ago called “My Extreme Couponing Moment.”
Each year at about this time, I like to do a top 10 list of the popular posts from the previous year. That is, the posts that have gotten the most traffic in the past 365 or so days, which I called the “Best of Suddenly Frugal.” I figure it’s a great way to recap the year and reprint some of the posts that Suddenly Frugal readers enjoy reading. So starting tomorrow (Monday, December 19th) and running for the next 10 business days–ending on December 30th–I will be doing a top 10 countdown of the Best of Suddenly Frugal....
The top post on Suddenly Frugal, for the second year in a row, appeared on February 19th, 2009 4 Easy Steps for DIY Laundry Detergent I always try to do inventory of the house before I go grocery shopping. In the past when I haven’t done this, I’ll come home with, say, two bottles of maple syrup, only to discover I already had two bottles in the pantry. The same is true with checking other household goods. That’s why I’m glad I checked in the laundry room before heading out to the store earlier this week to go...
The Top 2 Post just appeared two weeks ago–on June 21st, 2011 Is Extreme Couponing Hurting Self Esteem? OK, so yesterday I posted about the brighter side of “Extreme Couponing.” Today I’d like to talk a bit about the trend’s darker side. Could the TLC’s Show “Extreme Couponing” be hurting shoppers’s self esteem? Phil Lempert, a leading food industry expert and editor of SupermarketGuru.com and The Lempert Report, thinks it might be. “When I saw the first episode of ‘Extreme Couponing’ last December, I thought the viewing public would learn new ways to save money and be reinvigorated to...
The Top 3 Post appeared on March 1st, 2010 14 Birthday Freebies Today is my dog Buff’s 12th birthday. (Happy birthday, Buff!) Too bad he can’t get any freebies at pet-friendly places like PetSmart. However, the humans in his life can enjoy more than a dozen freebies on their birthday. This list of 14 birthday freebies comes courtesy of Kate Arcieri, editor of Red Plum: Enjoy free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery when it’s your big day. The way to get your freebie is to sign up for the Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Club. Dairy Queen also will...
The Top 4 post appeared on April 18, 2001 Earth Day 2011 Freebies It’s no surprise that with our current economy, people want something for nothing. And it’s no different when it comes to Earth Day. Perhaps that’s because a few years ago companies started the tradition of giving away Earth Day freebies, such as reusable shopping bags, and now everyone expects those freebies every time Earth Day comes around. (Earth Day this year, by the way, is April 22, 2011.) Happily, companies, retailers, and organizations have gotten the memo, and are offering up plenty of Earth Day freebies...
Top 5 post appeared on May 21st, 2009 Guest Blog Post: Frugal Container Gardening Stretches Grocery Dollars During the May Blog a Thon, we’ve declared today, May 21st to be guest blogger day. I’m the guest blogger over at Parenting by Trial and Error, and here on Suddenly Frugal, we have our own guest blogger. She is Jodi Torpey, a garden writer, master gardener and author of The Colorado Gardener’s Companion: An Insider’s Guide to Gardening in the Centennial State. Jodi writes the Western Gardeners blog and, if you’d like, you can follow Jodi on Twitter @WesternGardener Jodi is...
I’m taking a long-overdue vacation this week. Just being offline from July 4th through the rest of this week will be vacation enough. But I didn’t want to leave the Suddenly Frugal readers with nothing new in their in-box this week. So starting today through Friday, I’ll be rerunning the most popular posts of all time on Suddenly Frugal. I hope you’ll enjoy taking this stroll down blog post memory lane–even if one of the top posts occurred pretty recently. If in reading these posts you come up with topics you’d like to see me address in the near...
Today, I am re-posting the MOST popular post of 2010, which actually isn’t from 2010 at all. It’s my February 19th, 2009 post on DIY laundry detergent: I always try to do inventory of the house before I go grocery shopping. In the past when I haven’t done this, I’ll come home with, say, two bottles of maple syrup, only to discover I already had two bottles in the pantry. The same is true with checking other household goods. That’s why I’m glad I checked in the laundry room before heading out to the store earlier this week to...
Today, I am re-posting the 2nd most popular post of 2010–small ways Americans are saving money, from March 1st, 2010: Today is my dog Buff’s 12th birthday. (Happy birthday, Buff!) Too bad he can’t get any freebies at pet-friendly places like PetSmart. However, the humans in his life can enjoy more than a dozen freebies on their birthday. This list of 14 birthday freebies comes courtesy of Kate Arcieri, editor of Red Plum: Enjoy free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery when it’s your big day. The way to get your freebie is to sign up for the Cold...
Today, I am re-posting the 3rd most popular post of 2010–the Grocery Game coupons, from July 20, 2010: Bill decided that he wanted to try to stock up on more items this week, based on what was on sale at Stop & Shop. So I went to this week’s Grocery Game link for the store and made sure I didn’t forget to get the GG (or Grocery Game-specific) coupons associated with this week’s sales. Except I discovered two things I didn’t expect. GG coupons actually link to external coupon sites, such as the ones I already use–Coupons.com being one...
Today, I am re-posting the 4th most popular post of 2010–small ways Americans are saving money, from November 17, 2010: There are always small ways to save a little bit of money. Bringing lunch to work or skipping the morning latte may not feel significant, but the cost savings add up over the long run. A number of Americans have done or considered doing these things and have cut back in other small ways to save money. Over the past six months, three in five U.S. adults (62%) have purchased more generic brands and over two in five (45%)...
For this last week of the year, I’ve decided to revisit the Top 5 posts from 2010 on Suddenly Frugal. This isn’t based on what’s my favorite but rather by analyzing stats and seeing which posts were the most visited. Technically, the blog’s home page got the most views–hundreds of thousands of page view–but there’s no way to post that content since it changes every day. Also, the “About Leah” and “Leah on TV” pages are popular, too, but I figured what you most wanted to see or re-read was the actual content. Today, I am re-posting the 5th...
