April 2015 Frugals

[cdttmm]

Time to get the new monthly thread started. Who's got frugals?!?!?

[danna]

April 01
---made Jello from gelatin and a bottle of orange Gaterade the had been in the pantry for ages...it was good
---cleaned by fridge and rearranged things and to the question last month I have a hard time keeping it organized
but my biggest frugal for last month was putting a lid from a plastic storage container on the the very middle shelf and
that is were I having been putting the little containers of leftovers and low and behold I can see them and they are getting eaten.
--$30.00 on groceries yesterday but it was a lot because it was all on sale, with coupons and/or markdown.
---went to the library and got out a bunch of books and DVD's so lots to do.


Unfrugal wasted peanut butter on a trap for a pesky mouse (hope that is all it is) who managed to eat the peanut without getting caught.
Frugal is to totally declutter and clean out the garage this spring because that is where they are coming in....urrrrgh!!

[lessisbest]

April is a no-shopping month, other than groceries, so that always keeps spending down. Spent $7.96 on groceries yesterday. Didn't purchase any meat.

There were two bananas left after I made g-f banana bread yesterday with the marked-down bananas I bought when I got groceries. With the warmer temperatures I knew they wouldn’t last long, so we split one for breakfast in a fruit combo (1 banana, sliced, 1 grapefruit, segments, with a few goji berries tossed in for some color) and I made G-F cookies with chopped dates and pecans with the last banana this morning. The recipe makes approximately 12 small cookies and I bake them in my convection/microwave oven or solar oven. I can stack 2-pizza pans in this oven so I can bake as much as I would in my regular oven, but using less energy since the oven is much smaller and has a convection feature.

SUPER-SIMPLE BANANA COOKIES
(yield: 12 small - 2” cookies)
1 banana (I only purchase and use small bananas. If you purchase large bananas, you may need to double the recipe but still only use one banana.)
1 c. quick oats
¼ to ½ c. dried fruit (or mix of nuts/dried fruit/cacao nibs/nuts only/dried coconut…) Get creative with what you have.
2 T. coconut oil (or vegetable oil)
½ t. vanilla
pinch of salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium-size bowl break banana into 5-6 small chunks. With a hand-held electric mixer, blend the banana until it’s smooth. Add the oil, vanilla and salt and mix again. With a spatula, mix in oats and any fruit/nuts you are adding. Blend well. Using a #50 portion scoop (or about 1 T.), make 12 balls of cookie dough. Place on a 12-inch pizza pan (or baking sheet) covered with parchment paper. Press the dough balls until the cookies are about ¼-inch thick (note: use your spatula, or cover your hand with a fold-top sandwich bag to press the dough balls). The cookies don’t spread so you can place them fairly close together. Bake in 350° oven until lightly brown - 23-minutes for soft cookies, 24-minutes for between soft and crunchy, and 25-minutes for crunchy cookies. Cool completely on a wire rack. Note: be sure to make small cookies. Large cookies don’t hold together well since there is no sugar or flour in the recipe. You can easily double or triple this recipe.

Frugal tip #1: I wipe the used parchment paper off, fold it to fit a small plastic bag, and store it in the freezer (so the oils on it don’t go rancid) and reuse it many times for baking cookies.
Frugal tip #2: Do the washing-up in the mixing bowl by using 2-4 cups of water heated in an electric kettle (saves energy).

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Danna, we had a problem with mice the fall before last. We had to replace the rubber strip on the bottom of each garage door. They were letting mice in. They have to be so close to the ground so that you cannot see a light on the . Outside of them...good luck! Chris

[danna]

Thanks Chris that is something I was thinking about because you can see light at the bottom of the door.

Today..I volunteered and brought water and a snack with me.
-------had leftovers for supper
-------balanced up all my spread sheets for the end of the month and now were I stand with money...
That is all for now........

[Selah]

Bought a chive plant for $2 instead of spending $2 on dried chives. Now we can have fresh chives whenever we want them, indefinitely...that is, unless the cats eat them down to the nub!

We are house hunting (!) and dropped the top of our price range DOWN by $50K. Lo and behold, we found a great house up in Blaine, WA, viewed it last night, and are making an offer on it tonight. Fingers crossed we get it. We are financing it through a government home loan program via the USDA's department of Rural Development that covers the entire loan...no need for a down payment. Whoo hoo!

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Danna, was reading one of your posts and saw that you used Gateraid (sp) for making homemade jello. Sports drinks like these are very toxic. Please look up Dr. Mercola on the internet and do a search on his site to get the facts. Don't mean to be a nudge but thought you might like to know! Chris

[lessisbest]

They changed the type of paper towels and dispensers used in bathrooms where hubby works and he brought home bundles of obsolete towels since they were going to throw them away. We avoid using paper towels (we have a roll in a really cute holder, we just don't use it, we are cloth rag kinda' folks), so we'll be able to use these small paper towels for icky things.

I was inspired by Danna's frugal use of a sports drink for a gelatin dessert, but I'm with Tussiemussies about it being "toxic". We consume a LOT of gelatin (the dry unflavored type), but I'm more inclined to mix it with real fruit juice, and for each cup of liquid, I'll add 1 cup of plain yogurt (homemade, or plain kefir curd - also homemade). You can also make a small box of flavored gelatin by adding the 1-cup of hot water and dissolving it, then add 1-cup of plain yogurt. I also use unflavored gelatin to make "Herbal Tea Gummies", "Pumpkin Pie Gummies", "Creamy Pumpkin Mousse", and a snack favorite - "Coconut-Pineapple Gummies". There is even a "fudge" like recipe I make at Christmas. Unflavored gelatin powder is a real frugal pantry item that is much overlooked these days.

[lessisbest]

[QUOTE=Selah;201484]Bought a chive plant for $2 instead of spending $2 on dried chives. Now we can have fresh chives whenever we want them, indefinitely...that is, unless the cats eat them down to the nub!
QUOTE]

Be sure to save the seeds so you can plant more chives - you can find plenty of information and YouTube videos if you need a "how-to". I pot chives from the garden before the first killing frost and grow them in a sunny south window all winter. They get a little spindly by this time of the year from being grown indoors, but I have my starter plants already planted from seed I saved from last year.

[Selah]

Thanks for the tips, lessisbest! The cats are doing a job on them, but there's still some left that can be salvaged.