Thrifty Wife Happy Life

Teacher Gifts Under $20!!

December 5, 2016 by Katie Haller

When it comes to buying Christmas gifts, I’m not one to go overboard and try to find the perfect gift for everyone I know. I usually just stick to family members, however, there are certain people that I feel do deserve a Christmas gift and that is my child’s teacher. After being a teacher myself, I know how much we appreciate the thought. There is nothing cuter than seeing your students all proud to give you something that they picked out or helped wrap up. This year is the first year that I get to go to teacher shopping for Jack’s daycare teachers. I know they work so hard and take such good care of my little guy while I’m at work, I want to give them something so that they know that I appreciate them.

I decided to put together a list of some of my favorite teacher gifts that I’ve come across this year. Best of all they are all under $20!

One| Cable Knit Mittens $12.97
Winter outerwear always makes for a great teacher gift. Preschool and elementary teachers do spend a decent amount of time outside on the playground, so mittens like these ones from Nordstrom Rack are the perfect gift with the perfect price!

Two| Plaid Blanket Wrap $16.97
I love getting accessories as gifts. Plaid is everywhere this season, so I love this Steve Madden Plaid scarf from Nordstrom Rack. Us teachers love our scarves, especially if we have a chilly classroom.

Three| “I Teach there for I drink” Wine Glass $14.94
This teacher wine glass from Walmart makes a great gift! Trust me, most people who spend all day working with children, like to come home and relax with a glass of wine. If you want, I’d even throw in a bottle of wine to go with the glass, I’m just saying 😉

Four| Kate Spade thermal mug $18.00
Teachers always end up with tons of Christmas coffee mugs. What about trading out the traditional snowman mug with this adorable Kate Spade thermal mug? Teachers are on the go and it’s so much easier to fill your thermal mug on the way to work, rather than a regular coffee mug.

Five| Knee High Boot Socks $5
Socks always make a great gift, because if you’re like me, you don’t like to buy socks for yourself. Any kind of cute socks will do. Personally, I love these knee high socks from Target. They are perfect to wear with your boots or just around the house.

Six| Antica Farmacista Pomegranate Candle $16.97
If you want to play it safe, you can never go wrong with a candle as a teacher gift. I love these Antics Farmacista soy blend candles at Nordstrom Rack. They smell great, and burn nicely. Any teacher would appreciate a gift like this.

Seven| OPI Breakfast at Tiffany’s Nail Mini Set $14.50
I always love all the gift sets out there this time of the year! Sometimes giving a teacher a little something to pamper herself at home can be just what they may need. For me, I personally love this OPI gift set at Macy’s! It has a good mix of colors that anyone can appreciate.

Eight| Alex and Ani Apple of Abundance Bracelet $20
Sometimes you want to give something a little more sentimental. Jewelry is always the perfect gift when you want to show that you really care and appreciate all the hard work your child’s teacher puts into their job. This charm bracelet at Nordstrom says just that, without an expensive price tag. (The price has been fluctuating with sales over the past week, but its original price is $28.)

Those are my teacher gift ideas. If your still at a loss for a teacher gift, I will say that you can never go wrong with a gift card. My two favorite teacher gift cards are always Starbucks and Target. What will you be giving your child’s teacher this year?

Thrifty Looks- Favorite Thrift Store Dresses

November 28, 2016 by Katie Haller

The last couple of months have just been a blur for me. Jack is so busy that my days are filled with chasing him around the house, feeding him, cleaning up after him and pretty much spending every moment thinking about him. I’ve been wanting to get back into doing some more outfit post, however, it’s not as easy as it used to be in my pre-baby life. Sometimes I feel like I’m lacking in my creativity. I decided that I would do a “Thrifty Looks” series of posts to share some of my favorite thrift stores finds. I always like to stay true to the theme of my blog and show off my affordable clothing. I thought that by sharing my favorite thrift store finds and how simple it can be to incorporate them into my everyday wardrobe, would be the perfect way to do just that!

Today, I thought that I would share some of my dresses that I’ve bought at either the Salvation Army or Savers in the past few years. I was recently looking through my closet and I realized that probably about 50% of my dresses have been bought at thrift stores. Dresses are just one of those items that are always a great find at a thrift store. They are usually cheap, and unless its something too flashy, they usually won’t go out of style anytime soon. I love to adopt dresses into my own closet and accessorize them up.

Here are 4 thrift store dresses, all under $5. This is how I am accessorizing them for fall and winter this year.

This first dress is a simple brown dress that I bought a few years back at the Salvation Army. Brown isn’t always my favorite color on me, but because of how comfortable and basic this dress is, I’ve kept it. This fall, I’ve decided to style it with an infinity scarf and taupe ankle boots. The purse is also a thrift store find from this past Memorial Day sale at Savers (post here).

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I bought this Forever 21 t-shirt dress at Savers last year at the Labor Day sale (post here). I love how comfortable this dress is. I recently styled it with my denim jacket, ankle boots, a silver scarf, and my thrifted brown purse again.

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This dress is actually a hand me down from my mom, but it was purchased at a second-hand store. I love how simple and classic this dress is on its own, but it also looks great layered up as well. For this look here, I added my leopard scarf, denim jacket, black wedge shoes, and my brown purse again.

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I bought this simple fitted black dress at the Salvation Army a few years ago. I believe I only paid $2 for it. I love black dresses because you can never go wrong with an LBD. I feel that you can never have enough black dresses in your closet, especially when you’re buying them for only $2, right? I styled up this dress with my grey blazer, turquoise pendant necklace, my blush crossbody purse, and black peep-toed shoes.

Being a thrifty shopper will always help out your bank account and you can still have a great collection of clothes. Just keep your eye out for those special pieces. Do you have any great thrift store finds hanging in your closet?

Gifts That Give Back

November 21, 2016 by Katie Haller

One// Two// Three// Four// Five// Six// Seven// Eight// Nine

With the holiday season quickly approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting ready to do some Christmas shopping. To me, Christmas is so much more than just gifts. It’s a time to count my blessings and try to give back in some way or another. That’s why this year, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about purchasing gifts that give back.

I love how there is such a big movement right now with more and more companies being charitable and trying to use their business to better the world. I’ve been doing a lot of research to find some gifts to purchase this season and I’ve found that you can find a gift that gives back for pretty much everyone on your shopping list.

Here is a list of some of my favorite companies and gifts that give back.

One | The Little Market
The Little Market is a fair trade online shop that was co-founded by one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Lauren Conrad. The company helps support artisans and empower women from all over the world. While browsing their website, I found a number of beautiful and creative gift ideas that were also quite affordable. I really love these soy blend holiday candles. They would be perfect for a teacher gift or co-worker, even a friend or family member. I also love these cute little aprons. Aprons always make great gifts, because they are not something most people buy for themselves.

Two | Hand in Hand Soap
Hand in Hand Soap is a company that I came across in my search for charitable companies and I was drawn to them because of their products and their affordability. For every bar of soap that you buy from Hand in Hand, they donate a bar of soap and a month of clean water to a child in need. They sell bar soap, bath salts, candles, lotion and all kinds of fun bath products. It’s a great place to find gifts and I love that they sell their products at Target! It’s perfect because you don’t have to go anywhere fancy to find their soaps. I am eager to try out their Coral Sugar Scrub and the Juniper Berry Bar Soap. These also make great teacher gifts!

Three | Cuddle + Kind
This is my first Christmas as a mom, so I decided to look into baby and kid companies. I ended up finding Cuddle and Kind, which is a really great company that gives back to children. For every dollar you spend, they provide 10 nutritious meals for children around the world. I love their adorable hand-knit dolls. I thought that this doll, Aspen the Penguin would be such a cute gift for a little one in your life. I also love the wall art. It is the perfect gift for an expecting parent this holiday season. I know that I would have loved one of these adorable gifts for Jack while I was pregnant last year.

Four | Better Life Bags
I was so excited when I came across this company, Better Life Bags, because not only do they sell handbags, which what girl doesn’t love handbags? But their business is set up to help support local women from low-income households in Detroit, MI. With me being from the Detroit area, this company’s mission is really close to my heart. They sell custom made handbags, made by women living in Hamtramck, Michigan, which is a very culturally mixed area of Detroit. I love that you can pick out your own material for your bag and design it however you want or you can pick from their collections. I really love this black and white striped crossover purse, also these cute little nesting pouches are perfect for organizing your purse or closet. I definitely encourage you to check them out and learn more about their mission.

Five | AUrate New York
If you are in the market to splurge on something special for someone, or maybe you are making a wishlist for your significant other, AUrate New York is a company that sells beautiful gold jewelry. From white gold, to yellow gold and rose gold, they have it all in beautiful modern styles. I‘m really in love with their collection of necklaces, especially this absolutely gorgeous gold bar necklace. What I love most about this company is that with every purchase that you make, the company donates a book to an underprivileged child. Being a preschool teacher of low-income children, I realize how important this mission is. So many of the children that I work with do not have books in their homes, so it’s my job to encourage them on how to find books and teach them the importance of early literacy. That is why I love that this company is giving back through reading! I would definitely recommend checking out their site and browsing their beautiful jewelry collection.

That’s my list, I hope these companies will inspire you the same way they did for me. What are some charitable companies that you will be shopping with this year? I’d love to hear them!

Making the Most of Your Wardrobe- Stripe Tunic

November 12, 2016 by Katie Haller

I just couldn’t help myself and I bought another piece of clothing in black and white stripes. Back in September, while doing some fall shopping, I found this long sleeve tunic at Old Navy (exact). It was on sale for 50% off, which came to $8.49. I thought about buying it in another color, but they didn’t have my size, so I ended up with the stripes.

I’m really loving this top right now. I wish I had it in every color because it’s perfect for fall and winter in the desert. It’s lightweight, so it’s perfect for layering and I love the length on it. It’s perfect to wear with leggings or jeans.

Here are 4 ways that I accessorized the top.

I love this first look. I’m wearing my favorite pair of distress denim jeans from Target (similar) with my ankle boots (exact). I accessorized with my black satchel purse (exact) and my turquoise pendant necklace.

For this next look, I wore black legging and a jean jacket with some leopard flats and my black satchel purse.

I’m always a fan of mixing stripes with leopard, so I love this look here. I wore my distressed jeans and ankle boots again and accessorized with my leopard scarf (similar) and cognac tote purse (exact)

This last look is great for a cool fall day. I wore black leggings with my brown boots. I accessorized with my fuchsia knit infinity scarf (similar) and my black satchel purse.

Hopefully, these looks can help you finger out how to accessorize your stripes.

Baby Update- 9 Months!

November 10, 2016 by Katie Haller

In my belly for 38 weeks, now in my arms for 38 weeks. He is just as active on the outside as he was on the inside

It’s hard to believe that I already have a 9-month-old. For the longest time, I was just thinking about him turning 6 months and how big of a milestone that would be, and now he’s already 9 months. 12 months is right around the corner. Where did the time go?

The words to describe Jack these days are cute, loving, smart, crazy, busy, funny, cuddly, exhausting, wild, playful, determined…. those are just to name a few. At about 6 months Jack started crawling, 7 months he started to pull himself up and by 8 months he was everywhere. Our house is a complete mess on most days. I find baby toys everywhere, but I love it. We have baby proofed the living room as best we can, yet he still finds ways to get into the places he shouldn’t.

I just recently started feeding Jack finger food and he seems to do really well with it. Since he’s still so young, I still feed him his baby food, but I give him bits and pieces of our dinner. He just got his first tooth the week of Halloween and a week later he had another one pop through. I feel like he’s been teething forever, so it’s exciting to see his little teeth finally coming through.

Some of the cutest things about this age are how playful Jack is these days. He loves it when we chase him. He says “Uh Oh” now and “dadada”. He also likes to wave and shake his head. I’m trying to work on some sign language with him, but I think that will come with time. His favorite song is the opening song to the show Dexter. It’s funny because Kevin and I have been watching the show on Netflix now for a few months and every time we start a new episode, Jack hears the song and starts dancing and laughing. It’s too cute, I just hope he doesn’t realize what the show is all about.

I’m still struggling to get him to sleep through the night. That has been the most exhausting part of parenting for me. I really don’t know what to do at this point. I just hope and pray that one day he will stay asleep every night and I will finally get some sleep.

With each month it brings new joys and new challenges, but one thing is for sure, this little guy is very loved!

Instagram Outfit Review

November 7, 2016 by Katie Haller

It’s time for another Instagram outfit review. I’ve been posting so many of my daily outfits on Instagram, it’s kind of replaced my weekly “What I Wore” outfit posts. It’s just easier lately to take a quick outfit selfie, rather than put together a full blog post. When I find the time, I like to do an overview of my favorite looks from the past month or so.

I am loving the weather right now. It’s absolutely perfect. Mornings are cool and the afternoons have highs in the 70’s and low 80’s. It’s the perfect kind of weather for layering, which is my favorite way to dress.

Here are some of my looks from the past month. As always, I try to link my clothes, but because many of my clothes are older and I buy so many of them on clearance or at thrift stores, I’m not always able to link it to the exact item. However, I always try to find similar affordable items to link up. Unfortunately, I’ve had a hard time finding similar items for a few of my accessories, so I will just list the stores.