12 Ways to Use Up Leftover Halloween Candy!

Halloween might be over, but it is not forgotten at the Frugal Upstate household. Despite the fact that we get over 200 trick or treaters a year, we still somehow wound up with leftover candy and the perennial question: “What do we do with leftover Halloween Candy?!”

I asked my friends on Twitter and we came up with 12 great ideas for using up leftover Halloween candy:

1. Save it for your holiday gingerbread houses (via VisitFingerLake)

2. Freeze it for later.

3. Add a cup at a time to rice crispy squares (via Jeremy Wright). If it’s chocolate or easily meltable let the mix cool a bit first

4. Chop and roll candy apples into crushed candy.

5.  Chop and use as icecream topping or as a decorative/tasty topping for an iced cake.

6.  Toss into homemade trail mix.

7. Chop and mix into brownies. Peppermint Patties or any chocolates/candy bars are especially good.

8. Make Molten Candy Cookies. Just take chocolate chip cookie or sugar cookie dough and wrap a ball around a mini chocolate bar.

9.  Make Leftover Candy Cake.

10. Make Chocolate Candy Corn Cookies (via Feels Like Home)

11. Donate the extra candy to a rehab center (via MommyBlogExpert) a nursing home (via backhomeagain) or a shelter (via luciagia)

12. Sell it to your dentist (via KingdomFirstMom and jodirotondo). Really! There is a program called “Halloween Candy Buy Back” that many dentists participate in.

So what do you do with your leftover candy. . . besides eat it!

Guest Post: Keeping After School Activities Frugal

A couple of weeks back I had a reader’s question on how to save money on after school activities.  Long time reader and fellow blogger Jennifer contacted me saying “I started to write a comment but realized it was too long-would you be interested in having a guest post about the topic?”

Never one to turn down great knowledge I readily agreed! I hope you agree that she brings us some fabulous ideas. Enjoy!

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We have 4 children and kid’s activities can really add up.  My oldest son is 11 and he loves to play sports.  Not being one to get locked into one thing, he wants to try them all.  My oldest daughter is the opposite.  She fell in love with gymnastics at age 3 and hasn’t looked back since.  She has been competing for a few years now and I don’t see an end in sight yet.  My third child is just starting to get interested in activities and my fourth child is only 5, so I am trying to hold off on activities for her.  Here are some of the things we have done over the years to save money on sports and activities for children. 

1. Pick and choose what you sign up for. There is plenty of time to try different things out; you don’t have to try them all at once.  Aside from scouting my son does one thing at a time.
2. Analyze the hourly rate of each activity. The $125 baseball season that meets 3 times a week for 3 months is a much better deal than the $125 soccer that plays once a week for 2 months.
3. See if you can get a sibling discount. Both my boys wanted to play soccer.  We got a small discount for the second child and rather than being pulled in different directions, we go to the soccer fields just once a week and they play at the same time on neighboring fields.
4. Stick close to home. I know many people that drive to gyms 30-40 minutes away several times a week.  We prefer the gym that is 4 minutes from our house.  It saves time and money.  We have also chosen to do things through the schools that happen right after school.  Rather than making 2 trips (to drop off and pick up) we have only one trip to pick up the child.
5. If your child has a sport or activity that they do a lot, once you are established with a facility or organization you can look for opportunities to barter. By getting to know the coaches and letting them know what my husband would love to do, when they had a need they talked to him.  Now he is the strength and conditioning coach in exchange for our monthly tuition.
6. Pick sports or activities that have low equipment or start up costs. My son prefers soccer and baseball.  The equipment for these are very minimal compared to the hundreds of dollars I could spend getting him suited up for tackle football or ice hockey.
7. Look for free activities. Our schools and our library offer numerous free things.  From cooking classes to story time and everything in between, my kids can try plenty of things for free through these places.
8. Remember you have 18 years for your child to spend trying out sports and activities. Don’t get burned out on them before they even start school.  Besides up until age 5 or 6 they really won’t remember it all.

Jennifer is a stay at home mom of 4 kids, ages 5, 7, 9, & 11.  She lives a very frugal life in Ohio on a single teacher’s salary.  Jennifer has been blogging at Getting Ahead for 3 years.

3 Ways to Save Money on School Pictures

It’s that time of year again.  I have already been hit up for school pictures as well as soccer pictures.  And I have a confession to make.

I caved.

Yes, I have now shelled out a grand total of $75 for school pictures. $29 for each of the kids for one of the smallest packages, then $17 for Buddy’s soccer pictures.

Yeah. I know.

Honestly though, I could have just gotten the class/team pictures.  I do think those are worthwhile-I love looking back at my old 2nd grade photos and seeing the clothes, and what everyone looked like back then.  Then I could have implemented some other cost saving measures to get something very similar to a school photo for the kiddos~but it became a time vs money issue for me.

We have the money so I decided to go ahead and just purchase them.

But I feel guilty.

So what else could I have done? What other options are out there if it really just isn’t in the budget?  Here are 3 ways to save money on school pictures.

#1-Take it yourself.

I mean really-which of these do you like more:

I think mine is just as nice as the school photo. I could have done a similar shot to the school photo of him against a solid background.

Need help?  Check out this article over at “Love to Know” with tips on Taking School Pictures. For even more tips, here is a great list of 19 Portrait Tutorials at Digital Photography School.

#2-Find someplace cheaper.

Many retailers and big box stores have small photo studios that ALWAYS seem to be running some sort of deal.  A quick we search brought me up a couple of  examples.  JC Penney had free sitting, an 8X10, 2~5×7’s, 4~3 1/2×5’s and 16 wallets for $7.99.  Walmart had a similar package.

Be careful when using these services.  Typically the FIRST POSE that you say you like (and at Walmart you can’t go back to a previous when you say you don’t like it-they erase it) is the one that gets the package price.  They frequently will take subsequent shots.

First: Make sure that you are not going to be charged a sitting fee for those other shots.

Second: Resist the temptation! The other shots will be SOOOO cute. You will want them all. The photographer will try to upsell you to other packages, add in other shots etc.  Even when you go to pick up your photos they will have some of the other shots in there and you will want to buy them because they are right there, in hard copy. THIS WILL COST YOU.  Resist!

#3-Skip the pictures.

I know, it is practically heresy to say this.  You could just skip the photos all together. If you don’t have them taken, they won’t cost you money.

Just writing this article has inspired me. I am going to attempt to take my own version of the kids school pictures and Buddy’s soccer picture, and then I will post them side by side and see what you all think!

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