April daily frugal's

[redfox]

I want to start making yogurt. What equipment do you recommend?

I bought a simple yogurt maker off Craigslist. It's Euro Cuisine, and is basically a small incubator. It comes with 7 glass jars, and holds the yogurt at a constant temperature for however long you set the timer. I love it because I only paid $15 for it (I think they are $20-$25 new), and I can set it when I go to sleep & wake up to fresh yogurt.

I also use the thermometer I got for use with my espresso machine - the one I use when foaming milk. It's a metal one with a clamp, and I use it while heating the milk.

My process:
Heat milk to 180 degrees while stirring constantly for 2 minutes. I use 36 oz of whole organic milk, & add 1/2 cup maple syrup for a touch of sweetness.
After 2 minutes, then cool to 110 degrees. I do this by immersing the sauce pan into a larger pot filled with cold water & ice, and stirring until the temp drops to 110.
Remove and add the 'mother' yogurt. I use Nancy's whole milk organic, and add 6-8 oz. to the milk. More 'mother' yogurt makes mine tangier, which I like. Whisk in rapidly to make sure there are no lumps.
Pour the mix into a pyrex glass measuring cup to pour into the small bottles. I have them on the counter, because if I drip, I don't want it in the yogurt maker - it would be messy. I fill the jars till about 1/4" from the top, put them in the yogurt maker, and top off to the very brim with a small ladle.
Put the lid on the yogurt maker (not the plastic lids on the jars - that's for storage in the frig when they are done), set the timer, and anticipate amazing homemade yogurt in 7-9 hours.
Clean up!

[babr]

i have continued eating on the potato soup i made earlier in the week; went to visit his family on sat.; brunch bought by his mother; which we thanked her profusely; went for a hike on sunday; i walked and used the bus today for one dr. appt. and two errands; tonight we will be going to a student poetry reading at the university

we are so fortunate to have the university close by; they really add to the communtiy as a whole; and there are many free, different things to do there

[Maxamillion]

I had leftover chili for breakfast, instead of going to McDonald's. I was craving a breakfast burrito.

[Greg44]

I had leftover chili for breakfast, instead of going to McDonald's. I was craving a breakfast burrito.

I caved - McDonald's cheese/egg biscuit -- though my favorite -- McSkillit Burrito (no sausage/roja sauce)...I'd probably eat them everyday, but I save it for Saturday a.m.

[Kat]

Oh, now I want McDonald's! ;-)

[early morning]

One thing I forgot from last Friday - took my travel mug to Boston Stoker for a free Earth Day cup of Highlander Grogg coffee, a real treat for my drive to work. Today - used a $10 off $10 purchase at Penny's and got two shirts for work for $5. Cheaper than Good Will! I wanted brown socks, but there were none to be had. Gas was down today (to $3.82.9 from 3.99.9) so I filled up and used DH's reward card plus MY rewards credit card. He almost has enough points for a $50 gas card (which won't begin to fill the truck tanks, but hey, money is money!).

[Stella]

Dance party in the living room! We're listening to pandora radio on the roku box. Zach put on some quieter music so we could kind of wind the kids down a little. It's ridiculously cute. We added a few channels to the roku box tonight. Pandora, TED, Khan Academy, the NASA channel and a couple of others, all free.

We set up accounts for ourselves and the kids on Khan Academy. Cheyenne started with the math section today and spent quite a long time working on it. I set myself up as the kids' coach so I can let them work on their own and still monitor their progress. I am remembering now why I went to school for computer science. I'm kind of on a techie kick lately.

I'm going to rearrange my living room. It's functionality has changed dramatically since we set it up and it just isn't efficient anymore. I keep thinking that I need to get this piece of furniture or replace that one, but ultimately a lot of my problems could be solved by reorganizing the setup in here. I could rework it to solve some of my storage problems in the dining room too. I asked Zach to help me think about how to do things differently. Because I've lived in this house off and on since I was seven years old I get stuck in thinking things should be more or less the same as they've always been. It's time to shake that up a little. It's not going to happen until the weekend, though. I've been up with the baby since 4AM. I'm so tired I can barely see.

[Stella]

I think this is the first month in a long time I have had more No Spend Days than not. That is a nice feeling!

Outside of cafeteria food for Zach when I was in the hospital and a couple of pie night dates we haven't eaten out all month. It hasn't even been hard. Inertia is on my side. Once we're at home it's just easier to stay here than to drag four kids to a restaurant. That doesn't sound enjoyable at all.

That's about it on the frugals today. We're having a free dinner at the Faith Formation Fair. That's the only thing I can think of.

[dovergirl]

It's funny, Stella, but one of the main reasons I cook so much is that it seems crazy to pay more for food in a restaurant while trying to keep 3 children quiet. Not enjoyable. One of the only ways that my kids save me $!

[flowerseverywhere]

on jury duty this week. It's funny to see the behavior of the jurors. The three oldest jurors park at the cheapest garage, with a ten minute walk and bring lunch every day. The younger kids park close for an extra $3 a day, eat out and complain they have no money. They estimate it will be six or seven days so between lunch and parking that will add up to $100 less us older people will pay. And a couple of them smoke, which has gotten ridiculously expensive. It's been a while since I have been exposed to this behavior so I forget how people live and spend.

Unfortunately being on jury duty I wasn't able to set up the library used book sale, but the good side to that is I didn't buy any books. I have bought hundreds of books for my grandkids at these sales already to encourage them to read or be read to. Living in a house full of books is a really good thing I think. With working parents the library is hard to get to but they do a lot of reading thanks to all the books around.

Remodeling our laundry room, so I have no washer and dryer for a few weeks. My choice is to wash by hand or go to the laundry mat (however you spell it). I wash a small load each morning and put it on a drying rack in the tub as we have had days and days of rain so can't hang outside. So far so good. I do need to iron though but I don't mind.