January 2015 frugals

[Blackdog Lin]

We had unexpected company Friday night so I needed to scramble for some snackies for the crew. I always have saltines in the pantry and cheese in the fridge, so cheese and crackers were a no-brainer - but also remembered a summer sausage in the freezer that DH bought for a Christmas treat for himself and we hadn't gotten to yet. Along with a can of peanuts, also left over from the holidays, I was able to throw together a decent snack tray for everyone. Without running to the store and spending money.

I have found, in our set of friends at least, that it doesn't matter WHAT you serve. In the middle of all the beer-drinking, it's enough that you put out SOMETHING for everyone to snack on. I always keep popcorn on hand too, for this very reason.

[Stella]

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Zach built the baby gate last night and it turned out really nicely. I'm going to rig up an alarm with a non-annoying sound (I'm thinking birds chirping) to remind the kids to shut it, or alert me to intruders. Hopefully this works to keep the kids out of the kitchen. It cost about $50 to make, which is less expensive than the nicer baby gates and this sucker is sturdy.

[Stella]

I don't know why that picture posted sideways.

[awakenedsoul]

Excellent frugals that everyone's been doing. Great reading. December was an expensive month for me. (Had to replace the hot water heater and replace a gas line outside.) January is looking better. My boyfriend fixed my toilet for me. Sure is nice having a plumber as a mate! He thought he was going to have to buy a new part. Instead, he took apart the old one and removed the rust and particles. (I have hard water and old galvanized pipes.) He added some lip balm, (I didn't have any Vaseline,) and the toilet is as good as new! (I spent $400. fixing that toilet with a different plumber last year.) It's an American Standard from the 1970's. I like the porcelain, and it goes with the style of the house.

The next day he was fixing the bathroom faucet at 5:30 a.m. We had just had our coffee. Barely any water was coming out of it after the freezing weather. Now it's working perfectly. I washed his sheets here to save him money and time at the laundromat. Sent him home with some homemade sourdough bread with Laughing Cow swiss cheese spread I got for a great price at Costco.

Had a romantic weekend together which was free. We drove up to Wrightwood, which is a cute little mountain village. Went to a museum there that had a darling cabin from the 1930's with vintage decor. I could have stayed there all day. I loved it. It was decorated with linens and antiques, just like my cottage. There was also an upstairs fire station from that era. It was like going back in time. It only cost us a couple of dollars as a donation. It was so charming...made me nostalgic.

We drove around the area, looking at the houses and picking out our favorites. I've always been drawn to the mountains and pine trees. There's something about the energy of them that rejuvenates me.

[lessisbest]

This whole thread is full of great ideas and the reason I enjoy the Simple Living Forum. There's always something to learn from everyone.

My frugal save for the day.... Last week I made a recipe of The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread (http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2013/...loaf-of-bread/). It was a good way to use up a lot of ingredients I had on-hand, it was very tasty, high-protein, gluten-free, a really healthy bread alternative, unbelievably filling, and it toasted fairly well in a toaster oven, BUT, many of the slices crumbled. At the price of all those ingredients, I had to repurpose the crumbles. I took a page from my bread crumb recipes and put the crumbles in my food processor making them into fine fresh bread crumbs. I developed a recipe to make 4 hearty pancakes per 3/4-cup of the crumbs. I made 8 pancakes (placed in the freezer to use at a later date) and portioned the remaining crumbs to use later and placed them in the freezer.

I just hate wasting food, so this was a good "save".

[rosarugosa]

You all are leaving me in the dust - not too much frugality around here lately. We took Mom to Portland for the weekend to celebrate her 80th birthday. We all had fun and I have no regrets, but we spent a lot of money. So now I'm feeling that "gotta get back on track" vibe. We were very disciplined at the grocery store today, so that's a start. I've been doing some decluttering, and I realize there are some opportunities for combined decluttering/frugals. For example, I have a pair of boots that need to be resoled or retired. I think it will be kind of expensive, but I really love these boots and don't want to part with them. So I'm going to re-sole them. Otherwise I'll end up buying another pair - or two - that I probably won't even like as much. So resoling these will ultimately cost less and transform the boots from clutter back into something useful. I altered a pair of pants today that I haven't worn in years and now I'll be able to wear them. I have some other pants that need to be donated or sent to the tailor for alterations, but they can't just hang in the closet without earning their keep.
Lessisbest: Good job on the avoided food waste. We aren't very good with that and I keep trying to get DH on board. When I talk about using something up before it goes bad, he says "You can eat old food if you want to." I told him that his challenge will be to cook it before it gets to be what he considers "old food." We'll see how that goes.
Danna & Lin: You are always admirable with the food savings; you are good role models!
Awakened and Stella: So nice to have in-house carpentry and plumbing capabilities - I am jealous!

[kimberlyf0]

I joined a local Buy Nothing Project group and so far I have given away five items and have received a pair of knit gloves and a scarf. I am loving the local community vibe and even though it is more work to take a photo, post an item to give away, and set it outside in a bag (vs. taking everything in a box to the Goodwill) I believe in the local gift economy and am looking forward to this being a way to help me be frugal and help me to help others in their frugality. I have always loved to give things away but for some reason for a long time I was hung up on the idea of things going to people I knew. Perhaps I just didn't have a way to connect with strangers to give things to.

In general, we've not been very frugal for the past several weeks (although our Christmas itself was one of our most frugal, and definitely the most frugal since having kids). I've decided not to be cold all winter and am happily heating the house everyday; I never realized before how grumpy I get when I am cold. We have a birthday to celebrate this week and after that I hope to buckle down with the frugality, staring with freezer and pantry eating (+ produce) for at least a month.

We have instituted a weekly leftovers meal which is going over better than expected and is helping us avoid food waste. My DH doesn't like "old food" either, with a special hang up about old black beans, so I have been finding ways to incorporate them into new meals without his displeasure. I find that reboiling them again in their cooking liquid before using them in a recipe helps quite a bit.

DH and DS#1 replaced our broken kitchen faucet; it was a tougher job than expected but they managed it and saved us the plumber's fee. We'd repaired the faucet multiple times and DH wanted to choose a different brand and style.

We are getting better and better at walking or biking our errands.

[SteveinMN]

Half into January and here are the frugals I can think of:










Yeah, this hasn't been a very frugal month either. As I wrote in another thread, we've gotten rid of some good-sized expenses and added an income stream, to the point where we now have about 50% more money to spend each month than we had twelve months ago at this time.

It has struck me that the challenge is not not spending money; it's making sure that what we're getting is worth what we're paying for it (everything old is new again). The thermostat has gone up when DW is home, making her significantly happier. So be it. We've spent some money on replacing tech items which were failing or no longer supported. We're in the process of adopting a rescue dog (home visit coming up in the next week or so!); it's hard to put a price on what that's worth.

[EDIT]
I don't mean to infer that our outgo is going to rise to meet available income. We're still careful about where and how we spend our money. The expenses that ended were choices: a car loan and an insurance policy we no longer needed. The car loan money will continue to be earmarked for future car expenses. The insurance policy money probably will automagically turn into a couple of new windows in the house. The additional income? We have plans to spend it. Later.

Just thought of a frugal: this weekend a friend of ours was celebrating his birthday at a local waterpark. Admission -- even with the coupon we found on the park's Web site -- was $20. We weren't going to be able to stay very long. And I'm just not a waterpark kind of person. But we did want to help our friend celebrate. So DW went (and had a great time) and I stayed home. (I guess that's a frugal.)

[Azure]

In order to help me waste less food I have begun to write the leftovers & don't forget to uses on the side of the fridge with a dry erase marker.

Today is the first day. Hope it works!

[merince]

My frugals revolve around food. I did my meat stock-up trip on Sun.

Pork and beef prices have been through the roof lately, but Meijer had a sale on pork shoulder but roast for 1.69 lbs. Those were in 6-7 lbs packages. I repackaged them in 2lbs roasts (including the bone) and I was able to grind the rest of it into ground pork/sausage. The pork tenderloin was also on sale for 2.19 lbs. I roasted one after rubbing it in honey and brown sugar to make lunch meat. Turned out really good.