Saving Money through Pinterest Projects

I can still remember the day I found out about pinterest. It was described to me as an online pin board where you can pin the things you like. Honestly, it sounded like something that I would download onto my iPhone, play with for a week and then delete. I forgot about it shortly after hearing about it. At some point, I went to download it out of sheer boredom and found out that I couldn’t join without an invite. This led to a 12 hour search of mass hysteria where I contacted every single person in my life (or former life, or that I once ran into at a party, etc) trying desperately to find someone who had an account that could invite me. The longer I spent trying to find someone, the more obsessed I became. I still wasn’t even completely sure what it did, but I knew I had to have it. I finally started leaving comments on blogs that referenced pinterest asking for an invite. 12 hours later, I was in. Thankfully, pinterest was worth the wait. I mention this because if you’re in the same boat I was (though I doubt it as pinterest is much more mainstream now), leave me a comment asking for an invite and you’ll be my first priority. Don’t forget to leave your email in the comment.

While spending hours looking through crafty people’s inspiration is heaven on earth, we’re not actually saving money unless we start doing the projects we see. More importantly, unless we start doing the projects that we need, or that replace things that we would have to spend money on. For instance, how many people joined pinterest, pinned like crazy and started doing ridiculously expensive projects that required a ton of time and equipment we didn’t already have. Yeah, that would be me. There’s nothing wrong with that if your looking at it as entertainment, but if you’re trying to save money than let me introduce you to a different way to pin.

When I found out I was hosting thanksgiving dinner for 8 people, I wanted a way to make it special but frugal (without resorting to the dollar store paper turkeys). I had a few challenges though. I didn’t have a large table, or enough chairs, our dinner plates were purple, and our budget was not representative of the impression that I wanted to make as a newly married couple. I didn’t want to waste a lot of money on decorations that I would never use again. I searched pinterest for “Thanksgiving” and “Dinner Party”, to see what everyone else was thinking. I came up with this:

I picked up thin Hershey’s bars for fifty cents a piece, added layered scrapbook papers and used them as place cards.

Total cost for my thanksgiving dinner decorations?
Hershey Place Cards: $4.00
Tablecloth: $6.00
Votive Holders: $4.00
Flowers and Vase: $9.99
Napkins and Scattered Leaves: $2.00
$26.00 total.

There are a million genius projects out there that can save us time and money. Pinterest is a life changing tool to help us think outside the box. If you found something on pinterest that saved you time and money, let us know!

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