Southern Savers

I grew up in Florida and now I live in South Carolina… I have to be near a beach! Every year we take a beach trip and after only a couple of trips I realized that I had sea shells coming out of my ears. You can only comb the beach for sea shells so many times before you realize that you don’t know what to do with them all. So, I searched high and low on Pinterest for some ideas because I know I can’t be the only one running into this problem.

Here are some of the favorite ideas I found.

This letter would be so easy to make! Get a letter from your local craft store, collect all of your shells (you’ll want lots of small shells) and hot glue them on. You’ll need the small shells to fill in the spaces between the big shells. You can always break some of the shells to make them fit. Tie a pretty ribbon around it and hang it on your front door or somewhere in your home. The letter above is from Etsy, so if you’re not up for actually making the letter, you can always buy it.

Here’s another craft that doesn’t take much time, but it looks great hanging on the wall… frame your shells! Get a shadow box from the craft store and just fill it up with all of your shells. I don’t think there’s a real science to it, if you don’t like the arrangement that turns out, you can always just pour it out and fill the box back up. Fill up a lot of shadow boxes even if they’re small and hang them together to make a gallery wall for a bigger impact.

If you’re more of a neat and tidy art person, hot glue just a few shells onto a pretty background in the shadow box to make a collection of shells.

I love this idea from We Heart It to make either coat hooks or jewelry hooks using your sea shells. All you have to do for this one is hot glue your favorite shells on top of plain hooks and screw those hooks into the wall. It’s an awesome alternative to plain old hooks. I’d much rather see the pretty sea shells on the wall to hang our things on when we walk in the door!

You can always get a head start on Christmas tree decorations with your beach collection. Either thread a string directly through the shell, star fish, or sand dollar (just drill a hole if there’s not one already) or create a globe ornament with your tiny shells. Simply fill a clear ornament with either sand or glitter, insert your tiny sea shells, put the cap back on the ornament and tie a string for it to go on the tree!

The possibilities are endless with your beach finds. You don’t have to just bring them home and put them in a glass jar when you have Pinterest to inspire so much more.

For more ideas, follow the Southern Savers Beach Crafts Pinterest Board.

Love Kate Spade? Zulily is offering a sale where you can get Kate Spade items for up to 65% off! Save on purses, wallets, sunglasses and more.

This brand is generally pretty pricey, so it’s fun to see them at good discounts!

Items seem to be selling out quickly, so grab what you want while it’s available.

This sale is valid through 5/28. Shipping fees apply, but you’ll get FREE shipping the rest of the day for other orders.

See more online shopping deals!

Printable Shopping List

Here are the Lowes Foods weekly ad deals that start today, 5/26. Get Beyond Burgers for 99¢, Blue Bunny sundaes for 4¢, and more.

Buy One Get Ones

Kobe Ground Beef, 16 oz, at $9.99 ($4.99)
Baby Back Pork Ribs, at $17.97 ($8.98) lb
Food Club IQF Chicken Breasts or Tenders, selected, 2.5 lb, (price not listed)
Smokehouse Fully Cooked Baby Back Ribs, Original, Honey Bourbon or Robin Hood Amber Ale, 24 oz, at $16.99 ($8.49)
Argentine Extra Large Raw Shrimp, 21/25 ct., 2 lb pkg, at $24.99 ($12.49)
Fully-Cooked Tail-On Shrimp, 41/50 ct., 1 lb, at $14.99 ($7.49)
The Beyond Burger, 8 oz, at $6.99 ($3.49)
-$1 off Beyond Meat Product printable
-$1.50 off Beyond Burger, 8 oz, Ibotta mobile app
(use coupon and Ibotta, makes it 99¢)
Nathan’s Beef Franks, selected, 11-14 oz, at $5.99 ($2.99)
Smithfield Sliced Bacon, selected, 12-16 oz, at $7.99 ($3.99)
Delia’s Chicken Breakfast Sausage Patties or Links, selected, 9.6-12 oz, (price not listed)
Simek’s Meatballs or Lasagna, selected, 17-32 oz, at $9.99 ($4.99)
Star’s Private Stock Chicken Salad, 12 oz, at $5.49 ($2.74)
Star’s Private Stock Pimiento Cheese, 12 oz, at $4.49 ($2.24)
Sara Lee Pound Cake or Cheesecake, selected, 11-30 oz, (price not listed) prices vary
-$1 off Sara Lee Mini Cheesecakes, 4-ct, Ibotta mobile app Read More→

If I wanted to save the most money possible while shopping for groceries and other items, Walmart would not be my first choice. I can get much better deals at other stores like Publix and Target by combining coupons with store offers. But that doesn’t mean Walmart is a bad place to shop! It’s great if you don’t want to have to watch sales—you can just consistently shop at Walmart with coupons and get many items at very low prices. For a further explanation of this, check out my Facebook live video on saving money at Walmart and Target from a few years ago.

There are also other reasons to shop at Walmart outside of your regular grocery shopping. And if you do decide to make Walmart your main source of groceries, make sure you take note of these secrets to save money at Walmart so you don’t miss out on any good deals!

20 Secrets to Save Money at Walmart

Look for clearance deals on end-caps

This requires taking some time to walk around the store, but especially look at the inner endcaps that aren’t visible from the outer perimeter of the store. You can find some amazing deals there!

Get free travel-sized or small personal care items

Sometimes there are high value manufacturer coupons for personal care items that don’t specify a size. When that’s the case, you can often get these items for free! For example, there may be a $2 off Banana Boat sunscreen coupon, and a small tube of sunscreen in the travel toiletries section for only $1.97!

Order groceries online

Walmart grocery pickup is available at almost all stores. You can’t use manufacturers’ coupons or other store coupons, but you can use a coupon off your total purchase. I get one of these in the mail about once a month, and there have been times when the service hasn’t been great and I have contacted customer service and they’ve given me one of these coupons. Even if you don’t have a coupon, though, you can save money this way by adding items to your cart online and making sure you don’t go overbudget. It also prevents you from making spontaneous purchases in store!

Use apps like Ibotta + Fetch + Checkout51

Did you know that at least 30% off the current Ibotta offers (right now over 150 offers) are only good at Walmart? Definitely plan to use Ibotta for deals you can’t get anywhere else. The way I like to use Ibotta is to go to the Ibotta app first and then sort by best value at Walmart. You will quickly see the highest value rebate offers and may see something you need. Then you can check our Walmart deals list and try to find items where you can pair an Ibotta rebate with a manufacturer’s coupon to save even more. (Fetch Rewards, and Checkout51 are also good apps to check if you shop at Walmart.)