Frugal Yard Maintenance + Landscaping

And that's it. That's what we're talking about today, Jill. Everybody says, it's what they want to talk about. I'm excited about this for many reasons, one of them being that I am about to own my own yard. Because I'm purchasing a home in Florida, and we're going to be a gather so much. We're gonna be eating the fruits of our labor. It's gonna be your only home. It's not like you're purchasing a second home in Florida. Did I make it sound that way? Independently wealthy thanks

to this podcast. Yes, No, it's my first home. It's my only home. It's the home I will live in and it's the home that I will frugally maintain my yard. Yes, so I'm excited to talk about this and we will probably have some more home buying and other episodes coming up. If you're in the Frugal Friends community on Facebook, you already kind of have an idea what's coming up this summer. So let's get into this episode. But first, our sponsors.

Our first sponsor comes from listeners like you. We love you, guys. You are the third most important reason we keep doing this podcast, behind of course Jen and I actually liking each other and the money. Let's be real, and if you would like to support the show, head over to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash support and you will find free and inexpensive ways that you can continue helping us and supporting us with very little effort. And just

so you're aware, we're not just asking for donations. This is like a compilation of all of our referral links that we believe in, we use, and we think helps to save us money. But when you use these links, we also get a kick back. So it's a fun way to support us. And you can see the plethora of different links and ways that you can do that Frugal Fans dot com slash support. No Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash support. Yeah, don't go to Frugal Friends

dot com. I don't know what's there. Yeah, I mean the podcast doesn't make us enough money to afford second homes. But if it didn't support my taco bell addiction and fund itself, I probably wouldn't do it. So if I couldn't even lupas, then we out, we out, we out. And this episode is also brought to you by neighbor Shame. Want to get your neighbor to mow their overgrown lawn? Send neighbor kids to knock on their door with the

lawnmower various days throughout the week. The neighborhood kids will either make some money mowing the lawn, or the neighbor will eventually be so shamed they will do it themselves. Neighbor Shame. If you care more about your neighborhood looking nice and actually being nice, then partake. This is inspired by a true story. I was gonna ask how did

this How did this idea come to you? Because so I sit in my office is right in front of the window that looks out over my neighborhood, and my across the street neighbor, his lawn was an overgrown mess. And so these kids went up and knocked on the door with their lawnmower, no answer, and then they left, and fifteen minutes later, dude comes out with his lawnmower and death this lawn. And I was like, oh, he

felt some shame. That's how it's done. I don't normally condoned shame as a motivator for action, but you do, you Yeah, so that's how I thought. Oh, so I wonder that that could be a good way to get your neighbors to mother lawn. I would neighbor gentle nudge you. Old neighbors just don't work. Have you seen the news?

Oh my gosh, yes, good point. So today we are talking about how you can maintain your yard, whether you live in a house or an apartment or any thing that you live in that has an outdoor space around it, how you can make the most of it for the least amount of money, and so that you don't get shamed by your neighbors. Yes, so I would imagine that we've got people on a on a whole spectrum here, people who want nothing to do a third yard they

just kind of wanted to maintain itself. And others who want everything to do with their yard and this is their area of biggest spending and challenge and where a ton of money goes. And so I think, I think we, I mean, we want to talk to all of you. Find yourself somewhere on this spectrum. I will say, for myself, I'm very excited to have a yard, not a big yard. I don't want a lot to maintain. I do travel a lot, so my goal is to make it pretty self sustainable. But I also want to have edgies. So

that's where I'm at on the spectrum. Yeah, where are you at on that spectrum? I am almost the opposite. I hate growing things, and I think it stems from the fact that I have a black thumb. I can't maintain a lawn, a garden, a flower and herb. Like my father in law is a farmer and he will give us things and be like, oh hey here, you can't kill this plant it and I was like, I'm watch me, and I kill it every time I get a challenge, like yeah, oh yeah, I'll show you. I

don't try, I just do it. And so My idea of a frugal um maintenance for either plants or garden or anything outside would be as little maintenance as possible. Essentially, I would just have to put it in there and not do anything to it. So Travis takes care of most of the lawn maintenance thankfully, but that would be that's my definition of I just wanted as zero maintenance as possible. But you do spend time outside, so it is important for you to be able to host outside

and have it look nice. So I think, yeah, there's something for everybody with these articles that were going through, even if you just use your area, like I just want to be able to sit there. I don't want to engage with the things that are outside, but I would do want to be able to sit outside and put that together nicely in a frugal way. Yeah, and I think so long longevity is one of the things

we'll talk to talk about later. But we spend a lot of money putting down pavers in our backyard and our side and that was not cheap upfront, But those are areas of our outdoor we will never have to maintain. We might, you know, spray some weed stuff on it once a year. But so that to me is saving a lot of money. That's dirt I don't have to look at, that's grass, I don't have to you know, so it I don't have to put down every so often. So stuff like that. That's kind of the mindset that

I know. And it's time and energy, which is money as well. Yeah, you don't have to spend Yeah. So anyhow, one of the things that stood out to me on this first article is did you say where it is from? Go ahead, budget dumpster dot com. We didn't say where it was from, I know, and I picked it because it was one of the first ones on Google, but be because it was from budget dumpster dot com. And it's ten ideas for backyard landscaping on a budget. Bag

is budget dumpster. They rent dumpsters on a budget. Oh it's a budget dumpster rent, right, It's great, it's great branding. Good for them. The first thing that stood out to me on this article is a vertical garden. Yeah, and so I like this idea first of all, for people

who are short on space. If you've got a tiny yard or even just a little apartment and you don't have much outdoor areas, then creating a vertical garden on your wall or along your fence or somewhere, and it can be an inexpensive to make this, especially if you're reusing recycled materials. They suggested some bottles or maybe different containers that you can kind of string together or wired together. And I really like the different ideas that they list.

Depending on your style and maybe what you have laying around, there's like four or five different ideas of how you could create your own vertical garden. One of my favorites on here was using like an old ladder or a fence or a wood palette, and then using wire to string up terra cotta pots and hanging that in line or scattered, and putting some different herbs or veggies that

can grow in pots along that vertical garden. I even had the idea, I don't know if this is why that it's not listed in this article, but I was even curious if maybe even in watering it, if that would even help to conserve water, if you had like little holes in the bottom of each planter that would trickle down into the planters below it. I think that

could be a benefit of having a vertical garden as well. Yeah, I like the idea for if you have an heart mint and you have a very small balcony, yeah, getting an old wooden ladder. You can for sure find one for free on marketplace or something. Take some spray paint. Spray paint that thing a color that you love, um

and then planters sit very easily on a ladder. If you're worried about the terra cotta, then a plastic pots are very easy to find, and I would maybe just drill a few holes in them and secure them like that way with like some kind of wire or something. But this is a really great option for people with small spaces. So I also liked if you have a small if you just have enough for maybe like a garden or something like a small box with some herbs or something. Then the first one they had on the

list is multi alternatives. I actually it's very easy to find mulch, free mulch from like tree people. That sounds so bad. How do you find these tree people? Umies and yes that's the word I'm looking for. And stump grinders, so you can look those up and call. If you don't need a lot, you can usually just take a little or it's very inexpensive. Do never buy mulch from lows or home deepot Those bags are expensive. Yeah, you definitely do not need to do that. But compost. Compost

makes this luxurious, rich, dark looking mulchi material. You don't want to use it very thick, which is even better. You just want to put a thin layer. So not only will it help your plants, but it just looks really good. We have we compost just for the environmental reasons, and I am I don't have gardens, so I'm like, I don't know where to use it. But it's just create beautiful soil. Yeah, yeah, we're essentially just creating great soil.

It's so beautiful. And I'm still I put a little bit on my plants here and there, but yeah, it's really good. Probably sprinkle it through your grass. It's probably great for your career. I don't know if food and just make it dirty or something. I don't know. If you have recommendations on how I can use my compost, let me know. Nice. I also like the tip just to consider color where you can utilize pops of color

in your backyard. One of the things that I realized so I had a garden and a veggy garden in some lawn when my husband and I lived with my grandmother and took care of her for a year, and that was such a great experience gardening and all of that.

But one thing that I realized is I didn't it can be so expensive, Like we can get caught up in wanting our yards to look really nice, especially at the start of spring and throughout the summer, and we're spending more time outdoors, but it's a lot of money. And so to look around what you already have, or what the thrift stores have, or what's being sold on Facebook marketplace, and even if you have mismatched planters or mismatched kind of lawn things, spray painting it all the

same color. I had a ton of different plastic planters that were all different colors and I just spray painted them all black, and they weren't all the same style planter, but now they were all the same color. So I prefer a more clean look, and that I was amazed. I didn't realize that plastic could be spray painted as well as it could, and it was a really inexpensive way to make the outdoors look a lot nicer and not investing a ton of money and planters, which can

be very expensive. Planters are super expensive, but they do make spray paints that are scifically for outdoor furniture, specifically for plastics, specifically to you know, whether outdoor material or on outdoor materials. So it's easier to find durable spray paints and much cheaper than buying new planters. You can go to plant swaps. I know that. So we when you know, when there's no global pandemic going on, we have plants swaps every quarter and there will be places

you just look. There's usually in like an agricultural society or some kind of like hobby club in your city, and they will do plant swaps either four members, sometimes they will invite the public and then look at you can swap plants for free, and you can take people's leftover pots that they don't want, their leftover like garden tools and stuff that they don't want. And so unfortunately, usually the ones that are open to the BLIK happened on Earth Day, so nobody had any of this year.

But so just keep this in mind. Look on local Facebook groups and local you have time just to look on what your community offers in way of like agricultural and plant clubs and meetups. Love that tip, Jen, mm hmm. Yeah.

So with like plants, if you're looking to put plants in those planters that are full grown, we find that, like Facebook Marketplace, there will be So we got ours this uh nursery was going out of business and unfortunately you might find this is a great time to find going out of business sales, which is extremely depressing, but be on the lookout for them. And we we found one that was going out of business. This is a while ago, and we were able to get really good

deals on buying all of our plants there. And we found that on face marketplace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tons of ways to get what you need without just resorting to buying immediately from the easiest place. Did you like anything else on this list? I also liked how they describe planting useful plants. I know we're going to get a bit more into what to plant in our next article, but this just speaks so it resonates with me so much of this idea of form and function that it's

beautiful but also serves a purpose. And so with this we can think planting items that might deter or repel insects or items that produce veggies or fruits that we can be taking advantage of. So gardens don't just need to be flowers, although that's great too, because that conserve the function of keeping me happy in a nice mental

steak because I have something pretty to look at. But yeah, I learned recently that there's all sorts of plants that you can betch yourself that I'm going to be planting immediately when We're in Florida that keep away different types of pests, lavender being one of them. The lavender is like the Cadillac of plants. Apparently, it repels moths, fleas, flies, mosquitoes, Basil repels mosquitoes and house flies. Peppermint keeps away ants

and spiders, mosquitoes, Rosemary keeps away fleas and ticks. So even if you don't have a green thumb, but you've got a ton of pests in your backyard, even just consider a lining your property with this. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a lot. It can just be like a plant here and there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that you can use it and then my grass will be latizer. I can see that if you said

that I wouldn't not believe you. The last one I liked on this list is to opt for natural perennial groundcovers. So and it's saying that weed killers are they're expensive, they're not good for the environment. So instead of going with like things where maybe you can see weeds, go for these inexpensive natural perennial groundcover options, and you won't have to worry about weeds, like killing weeds. You won't

be able to see them. So a few of the ones that they recommend would be creeping pairwinkle that one's one of the most least expensive, violets and pansies, early snow glories walk on me time like the and then moss flocks that one sounds fun. But yeah, so just maybe adding some of those and skipping the round up. And a lot of these grow really quickly too. They will spread. My mom has seed them in what as an alternative to groundcover and to kind of keep out weeds.

And it has spread so much and it looks really cool. It doesn't, I mean, weeds aren't growing up through it. It's kind of spread around or other shrubbery and hostas and that kind of thing. And yeah, it's very unique. I really like it, so yeah, and then you don't have to worry about like changing it out. I'm sure every year it just kind of goes season, oh my word. And then you can just dig up a chunk and put it someplace else and it spreads even in one season.

It really Yeah. So I mean you got to keep an eye on it because some of these things can be quite invasive because they're so hardy, but great groundcover. Yeah, but this is like one of those things where it you're going to go to the you know, plant exchange, just dig up a little bit and bring it over, so it would be really easy. Just a few other

notes that I liked in this article. I won't spend a ton of time on them, but I like their suggestions of considering lighting in your backyard or front yard wherever you spend the most of your time. And this doesn't have to be an expensive outdoor lighting that you get from the store. This could be your Christmas lights that you just keep out from Christmas and hang them up in your you know, in your tree or on your patio porch or wherever, and that can make the

outdoors really nice. I also like the recommendations for considering fire pits and outdoor seating and inexpensive ways. Again, they list out a couple of ideas under each of these categories of how you can find these things in inexpensive ways. Yeah, fire pits do not have to be expensive. You can look around your yard and do it. You don't have to excavate and level your ground and do all this crazy stuff. You can just make a fire pit. Yeah.

And for outdoor furniture, that's one of the best things to find for free on Marketplace or Craigslist because it's going to be outdoors anyway, so it doesn't need to be brand new quality. It's something that you can stand down, restain and leave outside and not care if it only lasts for two or three years because you've got it for free. So and that's honestly, even if you buy something new, it only last for a few years outside anyway, So why would you spend money on it. Spray paint

covers up a world of troubles. Yes, it's so good. It's so good, all right. For our next article, just it's not, you know, dumpster budget, but it's from an Oregon cottage and it's gardening to save money. Ten plants to grow. Yeah, this is the one. I liked this one because I think especially for beginners or newbies, there's always this question of what should I grow? Like if you might get to the point of I want to try to plant a couple of things, what should I do?

Or we can get super over zealous and I want to just do it all And this kind of helps us find the radical middle of Okay, here's some suggestions of the things that grow well, the things that can be really useful, the things that can produce high yield through the growing season. So this is a handy article to have. And certainly the first one on this list is herbs. So they say, and I'm sorry, Jen, maybe this just does not run true for you, but herbs

are easy to grow. Herbs are not typically bothered by pests. As I mentioned with the last article that there's it's mostly herbs that can repel pests. Even so you're not dealing with these things getting eaten up all so they can grow in mediocre soil. You can keep herbs indoors, you can grow them in a little pot on your porch, doesn't have You don't have to have an entire garden to grow herbs. So I like their suggestion for basil. There's so much that you can do with basil, everything

from caprici salad to pesto. Holy smokes, gen, I've gotten into pesto hard lately. Who hasn't. Pesto is is the besto and it we just kind of expect it. I knew I shouldn't have said it before it came out, and then it did, and then it just already did. Now you gotta do a jig, do like a mom jig. That's it. If you're on the YouTube channel, you with my jig. Yeah. So I picked this article because yes, the author says these are tend high yield, low cost,

easy to grow vegetable fruits and herbs. So yeah, definitely I am inspired to maybe try basil again. And this is so Basil and parsley are her too, like major herb recommendations, and I do think like basil and parsley are just beautiful. And her second recommendation is lettuce and greens.

And I can tell you my father in law, he has a mostly blueberry farm, but he always is growing lettuce because it grows so fast and so easy, and I mean, it doesn't sell the best, but it takes him like nothing to grow and maintain, so so he doesn't love some salads in the summertime. So yes, perfect, You've got a whole meal right there, just in lettuce. And she says romaine is the highest yielding type of

leaf lettuce, and I know that one. And then kale is always abundant at his farm, so but yeah, I love romane. Yeah, and squash is also super high yield. And there's so much that you can do with all of these things that she lists, which I think, yeah, there's so many reasons why they're great. But with squash you've got the opportunity to veggie noodles and make breads with it, and do stir fries and roasted veggies and

grilled veggies and so many different combinations with squash. Picked the squash that you like, and yeah, it's known to do well. Yeah, And she says one zucchini plant is legendary for feeding entire neighborhoods at the height of its season. It is no lie. We had a garden one time, even at the at this home that I worked at, and one year we grew as zucchini. I don't know how I didn't notice it. It's like overnight it grew

to the side eyes of a toddler. One zucchini. We were holding it like, I mean, maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but it was definitely the size of a baby, like you could hold it in your cradle. It like a baby. We were a little stressed, like, how are we going to finish this whole thing? Oh? How to one zucchini we made? We made breads and spaghetti and sliced it up and stir front like like, yeah, it's not it's no joke. You you will have food for weeks.

You gotta like zucchini, though. You gotta like zucchini, or sell it to your friends for that money, or give it away to be kind. Yeah when people to you, Yes, I like that. Hot peppers are on this list, like hallepenos Anto and him. I love me some hot peppers. But it's a little it's lowered down on the list, so I don't know if I would make it. I don't know if my skill would make it this far down list. I'd probably start with with basil and zucchini. Yeah, yeah,

I I only did decent with my jalapenos. When I did them. I maybe got four or five in the whole season. I'm not I'm not like an amazing green thumb. I can do a garden. So yeah, maybe start with something else, I mean, or try it whatever, try it. I do think it's important to pay attention to the climate that you live in and the different varieties or types of roots and vetchies that can be grown in

your area. I think it's just a given, but I do think it's worth stating because I saw raspberries on this list and I was like, yeah, I want to grow raspberries, and then I'm like, wait, I don't think I can in Florida, And sure enough I can't. Yeah, so that's unfortunate. But strawberries. Yeah, so actually in Florida, at my in law's farm, their entire thing is blueberries, blackberries, strawberries. So literally that's the only berry that you shouldn't do.

But all the other berries, that's fine. It's just that raspberries are my favorite. Sorry. You can also do real good tomatoes here too, Okay, so that's beautiful. Different from raspberries, Okay, I do like proshetta. It is very different from raspberries, and some vanilla ice cream. Okay, okay, Well, it's the one thing that North has going for it. I know I have a zucchini in the fridge. Do you think I could plant it? Just put it in the ground? Can you do that? I think that you would start

by like slicing. I mean, look up propagation, but I think you'd slice the top off, put it just above water, let it grow some roots, and then you'd put it in the ground. You lost me a propagate shin. But hello, I have nothing else to say about this. Do you have anything else? No? Alright, so now it's time for the bill. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage.

Maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's built buffalo bills. Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. Hi, this is Amanda. My bill of the week is my utility bill. We have equal pay, but they adjusted every six months. I just got the new one today and it's gone down by dollars. I know that's not a lot, but I'm still pretty excited because that's less a month for the next six months. One more thing, My son loves listening

to the Bill of the Week with me. He's fifteen, and so when I said I was excited about this one, he encouraged me to call it into you guys instead, go do it right now. So I just thought it was fun that my teenage son is so excited about the Bill of the Week and helping us save money. Thanks. Yes, I love that too. I mean, teenage boys are not our demographic, but like, I'll take it, Amanda and your son, this is so amazing. Thanks for listening, Thanks for enjoying

this crazy segment that we just thought was funny. But people are calling in so we appreciate it. And I'm excited with you for that thirteen dollars that you're saving. That is a HOGI and a bag of chips right there. Oh. I was like my mind, it was like, that's like two dinners at Chipotle, that's like five lunches at Taco Bell. That is something that you can go do with your son now that he's listening. You're welcome. I'm sure you can find some inexpensive lunch or dinner options that those

thirteen dollars you saved or put it away. Put it away for college. Yes, put it away for books. Do the responsible thing. Amanda, You're you're doing great. Amanda was part of my five weeks to course and yeah, so she's she's doing great. If you want to do great like Amanda, then you know, do something like that and then call us with all the money you've saved in your own bill of the Week Frugal Friends podcast dot

com slash bill. Yeah, and now it's time fuller the round. Yes, it's been a while since I got intense, and I just thought I need to keep people on their toes. I feel you, I feel you. So today we are going to share how we maintain our lawns personally and Jail's plans for maintaining her laan that she will do and so soon. So yeah, so this is kind of first person accounts of frugal lawnmanance because we do maintain everything very inexpensively and so that we can splurge in

other places. Until what are your dreams? What are your plans? Oh, I've got well this is part of the problem and I'm going to need you Gen and probably the entire Frugal Friends community to keep me honest, because I have so many things that i want to do indoor and outdoors, and I've got to be good at prioritizing and budgeting

and being patient and content and everything that we talk about. Okay, so deep breath with that, I will say that I am personally most concerned about decreasing the degree of maintenance that my lawn overtime requires. So I am willing to put in some upfront money to make it so that I don't have to spend a lot of time, energy

resources in the long run on maintaining my yard. What I partly mean by that is I don't plan to have any grass in my backyard, so between dirt between pebbles and stones that you walk on and gardens and my patio, Like, we're not mowing in our backyard. We'll keep the grass in the front yard. That's fine. And we got a free yea friends that don't use their lawnmowers and decide to give it to us, a free battery powered lawn mowers. We're like, we're not dealing with gas,

we're not doing none of that. We're getting battery powered law mower and we're only having grass in the front yard. I also plan to plant usefully. As we talked about, I do like flowers, but I also really like food. Let's be real, so veggies are a priority for me. I am hoping to compost, get some of that good soil, grow my veggies out of it, feed myself and my husband and you, probably to Gen and Kai and Travis and whatever other friends I make in Florida. With my food,

I plan to live outdoors quite often. That is my hope with Florida that I want my backyard to be like quite an oasis. But we do plan to do all the work ourselves. I don't plan on hiring anybody need to come in and do that for me, So yeah, it'll be a lot of our own labor, but making it look nice using things that I already have on my property. So something I also plan to do, as

we've talked about already, is propagating. So if I have a plant on my property that I know, I already like trapping a honk off of it, rooting it, putting it in the ground someplace else. But also, like you mentioned Gen, finding plants swaps or friends who have plants that I like, And yeah, you can take hunks of plants off. I mean research how to do it. But you can take pieces of plants off and help them to grow into their own plant themselves. And that's a

way to not have to buy plants. Although I will say that nurseries and lows and home depot do have some great clearance plants. If you check the clearance sections, sometimes you can get some really nice plants for like a dollar or two. So that will probably still stay in my repertoire. Okay, there it is that I'd probably kill those even faster because those are already half dead. You have to be really good at keeping plants alive

to buy clearance. We did it, but I'm telling you, Jen, I think I don't think you actually kill plants, So so this is okay. This is another side note. You bring up a really good point. First of all, let's not collect plants. If we do constantly kill them, that's not frugal, it's not sustainable. Don't take plants if you haven't figured out how to do it yet. Get one plant, figure out how to care for it well, then then

go from there. But also check with people who know about plants before you say, oh, this is no good and toss it so that plant that hangs in your corner of your dining room is not dead. You think it's dead, It's not dead. I should have like shown you things to do to it, but then I got distracted by probably your cute baby. But yeah, cleaning off the dead pieces, not overwatering it, making sure that it's getting the right amount of sunlight for what the plant is. Like,

these things can be learned. I think sometimes we just throw up our hands and say like I can't do it, I'm no good, and then we like waste. Don't we do that with so many things in our life? Yeah, well yes, and this is one of those things that I think like it can help us develop problem solving

skills and really like a recycle mentality. And yeah, there's so much that just caring for plants has like cultivated in me as a person that I really do think it's one thing that has perpetuated frugality and me, I can't really quite put it towards to put more thought to it, but it really has helped me to kind of be more in tune with like what I'm doing to care for it, notice things, figure things out. It's I do encourage it for all people to learn how

to keep a plant alive. Yeah, and I have been able to keep a few succulents alive at this point. Well done, thank you. And you know, but if anybody knows how easy a succulent is to keep alive, then you get it. You'd be surprised people think that you can just put them in your non sunny bathroom and they're going to be fine, because all of these magazine pictures show you that, and it's not true. Succulents need light. You can't just like put them on the back seat

of your toilet. Yeah. I gave my mom a succulent like I got to from a swap, and I gave my mom one and mine just stayed the same size and hers quadrupled because it was on her patio and yeah, and I was like, well, this is this is me, This has to be me. They were the same and uh, it's still alive. Yeah, it is so for me. I love being outdoors, but I'm not passionate about immaculate landscaping.

So we are goal was to put in landscaping and do measures like maintenance measures that would increase the val value of our home. And so that was our ultimate goal is to maybe spend a little more upfront, but it would increase the value of our home because we do plan to be here for a long time, but it's you know, we don't plan to die here. So we did in the front we are grass is almost

non existent. It's very patchy, but we do have an area of tropical plants that we got from that nursery and free mulch that we got from a stump grinder company, and then we put sawed down. We went directly to a sawed supplier, so not to a landscaper. We went to where like landscaping companies get their sawd from and we bought like a palette and a half of sad and we put a lot of water into it to

make sure that it's stayed alive. So our utility bill were you know, through the roof, but for the else part has been maintained and and our house actually had a well water system in it and we didn't know what it was. Eric actually was the one that told us that that's what it was. And so now we've connected the well water to our sprinkler and that saves us because well water is much less expensive than city water.

And so that's the way that we are saving money on watering our grass, right Eric, Yeah, so thanks Eric. And then the only other thing that we have done is put down pavers. So we put down a paver driveway in the backyard. So we paved, like with pavers, about half of our backyard. So when we do do something with the other half the backyard, it's going to be a lot cheaper than having to grass or whatever

the entire backyard. And we don't We virtually don't have to maintain it at all, which was super important to me. And then we had some yeah, we had some extra pavers that we did the side of our house that didn't need it, but it was looking kind of busted, and so we did it with the extra papers. And so again we didn't have enough papers to do the whole thing, so we actually we found these guys on Facebook and they did our papers and did a great job.

And then we hired one of the workers from the guy's crew to come back and help Travis, and he brought some pavers with him that we paid for and they worked on it together, and so that saved us some money doing that small part of our house. Look at you guys so creative in the ways that you tackle these things that could be much more expensive. It sounds like you did invest in it, but you spent less than you you could have spent on the very same thing. So just being creative with that. Yeah, and

we did do. If I had to do it over again, I would hire the the guy that was advertising on Facebook in a heartbeat. But I probably wouldn't have had the dude from his crew come back and do it that way. I probably would have just hired this guy again because it wasn't like it was a licensed company. He was just not a big one. He did really good work and so that was really great. But do it that you know, his guy and Travis doing the side. It's fine. It looks and functions fine, but just not

as well as our driveway. So that would be my advice if I had to do it over again. Yeah, yeah, so that is I mean, those are how we're doing it. I can't think of any other things that you would do to your lawn that we have not covered. So a pool, yeah, well, the frugal way to do that is to not get a pool moving on it yourself. We do plan to do our own natural pool eventually. Oh yeah, very inexpensive. Yeah, pools can get pricey and

you just have to be prepared. So if a pricey thing is something you want to put in your backyard, you just have to compromise on other things in other places. So if landscaping and your backyard is super important, then you have to compromise on something in your kitchen or your bathroom or something else. But also look into natural pools. We'll do an episode on it when Eric can I do our pool, which could be in a while. But it's essentially like it filters through plants and that kind

of a thing. You just need a pump. You can dig it out yourself, not by hand necessarily. You might want to rent something. But yeah, is it like dirt. Do you put down concrete or use it? Just you put down like a black matt like that they have like thick Yeah, and then water and we'll talk about it later when we when we do that episode. But yeah, you can do it really inexpensively. All right, Well, TBD, that is our show today. Thanks so much for listening. I want to share with you one of the best

reviews they've ever received for this show. It's from Candid Cats, and she says, the Taco Bell of podcasts. These girls are crunchy, saucy, and we'll save you a ton of money. I love listening to the practical examples they give about real life situations that I can actually apply. There's an episode for everyone. Try the Dollar Menu today. I didn't even know we had a dollar menu. We are the

Dollar Menu, so thrilled. I love to represent the Dollar Menu at any fast food restaurant, but Taco Bell Man. And this is referencing a previous episode where we said if anybody he wants to review us and call us the Taco Bell of podcasts and Candid Cats, you came through for days in the best way and you are everything right now. Thank you, Thank you Candid Cats, and thank you to all of our frugal friends who share these episodes on social media. And there's treats in it

for you. There's there's there's dollar Dollar Menu items in in this for you. So still cinnamon twisties. Yes, if you tag the latest episode, so like today's episode, if you tag us on Facebook or Instagram with this episode, you automatically are entered into our monthly drawing. And what that monthly drawing. Is it looks like us given away at ten dollar Amazon gift card for every tag and review general talks to you about the reviews. But every five tags, sorry, every five tags, one we pick out

of every five still really good odds. Yeah, if you want a ten dollar tackle Bell gift card, you just have to make that. You just have to preface that in an email. That's fine. So keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher and sending the screenshot to Frugal Friends Podcasts at gmail dot com. And don't forget to tag at Frugal Friends podcast anywhere you are on social sharing. The latest episode Cia by Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Sirian. I had Taco Bell this morning,

and to celebrate. Do they do breakfast? Chill? Do they not do breakfast in Pennsylvania? I don't know. I gotta be honest. I do like Taco Bell, but I do not go there as often as you do. I haven't been in a very long time. You just went this morning. But before this morning, Jill, I got it to celebrate this, okay, So I got a breakfast crunch trap with bacon, and if you know, Taco Bell breakfast. You know that's the

only thing to get. It is the best and only breakfast crunch trap with bacon or sausage crunch because of the bacon or is it crunchy because of mystery? It's crunchy because of a large hash brown disk where you're at. Yes, and so I bought one, but I did not get one for Travis because he was supposed to be sleeping.

He got home at seven am from work, and uh, I took Kai to daycare at eight and I got home and he's he wakes up and he sees me eating the crunch trap and he's like and I was like, I'm sorry, did you give him the other half of your crunch trap? He I let him have a bite. I let't have a bite. He was supposed to be sleep. Dude. If I know Travis and his food, you're going to have some making up to do. He said he was going to put his pants on and go to Taco Bell,

and I was like, you are not. You don't have to put your pants on and go to Taco Bell. Said you are going to Taco Bell with no pants on. We're stopping you right there.