It's almost summertime, are your feet ready?

Nan of Momstheword and Five Moms and A Blog fame wrote about getting her first pedicure on Monday. Can you believe she waited so long? I couldn't, either. I love the way my feet feel after a pedicure. I introduced Buttercup to pedis (as we call them) when she was just four years old and we've been doing them ever since. There is just something so cheerful about brightly colored toes in a pair of cute sandals...they just say summer, don't they?

Springing for two spa pedis once a month started to really add up, though, so I had to come up with an alternative. For the price of one of our pedi outings, I outfitted us with all the stuff we need to do at home pedis. We girls put on a chick flick and we go to town.

We soak our feet first in a nice foamy bath, then we buff our heels and callouses (mostly mine!). We trim and file our toenails, then we use the cuticle remover and the orange stick and get those cuticles pushed back, and soak them again. Then we pull them out of the water for the last time, pat them dry, and rub them down with a soothing lotion. A little nail polish remover on the toenails (to get the lotion off them) and we're ready to start painting our toenails. We like quick dry polishes (a life saver when doing kid polish!) and are known to put on beautiful decals or rhinestones, too.

For the investment equal to the price of one pedi outing, we've been doing this for two years. Proof that being frugal doesn't mean you can't enjoy a little pampering. Just think out of the box and you can enjoy the things you've always enjoyed.

For Buttercup's birthday two months ago, I was her pedicurist and gave her the works (even the foot massage). She liked is so much that she said she's going to learn how to do all the elements of a pedicure, so she can be my pedicurist, too. Not only are we getting cute toes, but we're having fun together while we're saving money.