Fresh Flowers on a Budget: How I Spend Just $10 for 30 Days of Fresh Flowers

Fresh flowers can brighten up a gloomy day and make a girl feel special. I work from home, so I'm stuck in my home office eight to ten hours a day. Setting a bouquet of fresh flowers on my desk gives me something pretty to look at just a whiff of my flowers can reenergize me after sitting at a desk for seven hours. Unfortunately, flowers don't come cheap. I've paid over $70 for a not-so-impressive bouquet from 1-800-Flowers in the past. Since I don't like to part with my money or flowers, I've found a way to keep my hard earned bucks while keeping a fresh bouquet of flowers on my desk each day. Read below, for my ingenious tips to buying budget flowers.

Buy Discount

Frugalistas that want to buy fresh flowers on a budget need to get rid of the romantic notion of having flowers delivered to your door. Though it is a nice touch, it's completely unnecessary and way too costly. Instead, I hop in the car and head to Walmart. Yep, that's right; the lovely flowers that you all see in the pictures of my office are from the "flower fridge" at Walmart. All of my budget flower bouquets are purchased between for less than $10 at Walmart. Walmart (or any other supermarket) offers decent quality bouquets on the cheap. At times, I've scored bouquets for $5 because they were marked down 50% from the original budget price.

Drop your Expensive taste

For the record, my favorite flowers are ivory calla lilies. They are absolutely gorgeous. I have a bouquet of calla lilies as my screensaver, but I don't physically plop them on my desk unless it's a special occasion. If you're wondering why, it's because they can easily run over $70 for an "eh" quality bouquet. When purchasing flowers on a budget, I don't go into the store with a specific flower in mind. I just focus on finding a bouquet that has some give to it, looks lively and has a fresh floral scent. Another tip: don't buy roses. Roses are the most expensive flowers, yet the first to wither away.

Care for them

Like all living things, flowers need a little TLC to reach their peak condition. Take the time to cut off the leaves of your flowers, snip their stems on the diagonal and crush the tips of the stems. Why? If you allow the leaves to submerge under water, they will decay and make the water unhealthy for the flowers. Snipping their stems on the diagonal and lightly crushing the tips allows them to better absorb the water. A lot of folks recommend changing the water every day, but I don't bother. I just mix the flower food into the water and let it sit for a week or so while adding a little more water to the vase as it evaporates. It may not be the "right" way, but this method makes my flowers last anywhere from two weeks to a month.