Frugal Tips (Could someone sticky this?)

I wear skirts or jumpers 99% of the time.  My jumpers are nice & most of my skirts are too.  I really don't have anything to work outside in other than my good denim skirt.  So today I took some material I had on hand and the pattern I had bought for skirts & whipped one up.  It's not perfect, this is the first one I've made but it will do the trick I think.  I've got some more of the stretchy material in a blue so tomorrow I think I'll try making another.  I already have the material on hand, might as well use it and it saved money from buying them at the store.

I do not have this area set to auto prune, too much good information here. So it will not be deleted. Is there some other reason you'd like this turned into a sticky post?

Probably so we don't have to hunt for it Keith, it will be easier to look for if it is a sticky.

Good job kerrig on making what you needed from what you had on hand.

Back to school shopping tips:

Watch for sales on underclothes and socks---buy now and put away for Christmas or birthday gifts.

If you have small children to buy for or you like to donate to charity for Christmas, now is the time to buy crayons, markers, pens, pencils. School supplies make good stocking stuffers and additions to gift boxes for organizations like Operation Christmas Child.

If you like to take hot lunches to work, now is the time to look for a wide mouth thermos in the back to school aisle.

Buy any office/school supplies now while cheaper for your home office.

Frugal tip for those that use an ice bath while canning:

Freeze water in containers or bottles to float in a large pan or the sink to make reusable ice packs. No need to keep making/buying ice cubes for chilling things quickly. Just wash the outside of the container/bottle and toss back into the freezer until needed again.

These freezer packs can also be used in coolers when transporting perishable items back from the store during warm weather. Just make sure they do not come in contact with raw meat or meat juices. You do not want to spread bacteria from meat to anything else you may cool with them.

Ok, it's a sticky

We buy three newspapers every week. Why? The P@G brand saver coupons.  Costs us about $7.00 per week, saves us no less than $30.00 at the store. No not the same paper three times, but the local, a wider audience tri-state regional paper, and a state wide paper aimed at a large city.

fascinating cook book...

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=3276680&pageno=4

it's from WW2 and tells how and where to cut corners to save meat, fats, milk, etc. While saving resources for a war effort is far from the minds of everyone, the tips could help save a few bucks here and there.

Thank you for the link to the cookbook. I bookmarked it to look at later.
The ice pack thing is a great idea. We have frozen water in half/gallon milk jugs to use in a cooler on long trips.
I also buy school supplies this time of year even though we only have one left in school. We use the notebooks throughout the year, I use the loose leaf paper in my budget book, we go through the pens & pencils also.
I know most of you know this already but taking your lunch to work instead of buying it there or going out to eat saves a ton of money. I've been fixing dh's lunch for 15 years now for him to take, except on Friday's when I go see him for lunch. We normally get something cheap but I think I'm going to start taking our lunch from home instead. He likes to eat lunch out once in a while as a treat so will continue to at least a couple times a month.

Thanks for the link Keith, I too bookmarked it.

I get an extra set of coupons from my BIL, he doesn't use them.

Now is the time to shop for small appliances if you are in need of a new one. They will be on sale aimed at students heading off to college next month.

Another idea but you would need to wait until semester break probably. But at EIU in Charleston, IL (I don't know about others) when the kids go home at semester break & at the end of the year they throw out things like t.v.s, laptops. mini-fridges and many other things that they or their parents don't want to haul back home. I've never gone and picked any up yet but I've heard of others who have. Then they can use them or turn around and sell them.

I'm reorganizing the kitchen today so I can have my canning equipment ready for processing small batches of my garden's bounty. Usually I don't process just a few things at a time, but I don't want to waste any fresh produce. If I have the jars and my small canner ready to use, I'll be more likely to process every bit of what my garden gives me daily.

I have a wood topped rack next to my stove that will hold the canning pots and the shelves below will hold the jars in various sizes as well as the other tools necessary for canning. If everything is at hand I'm more likely to can than if I have to go hunting in the shed for jars and then gather up all the other needed tools.

My tip is to make your kitchen more canning friendly by creating a canning station.

That's an excellent idea Patrice. Mine are all scattered out. I have jars on a shelving unit on the back porch, jars in a big box on the back porch, jars in a cabinet in the shed, in boxes in the pantry. My canners are under a table in the kitchen so they are handy and my food processor is handy too but I could do much better.
I know a lot of people don't like leftovers but they do come in handy. I send them in Joe's lunch & I also eat them for my lunch, cuts down on the grocery bill.
If you have an Aldi's nearby I can't stress enough how they really do save a person money. I can get double for my money there as I can somewhere else. And their produce is wonderful. Unfortunately ours is an 1 1/2 hours away so when I go we do other things while in town & also stock up for 2-3 months.

We have an Aldi's about an hour away from us, in Evansville, IN. Cornish hens are regularly sold for $1.25 and less. At other stores they run $6.00 to $8.00, so when we go, I always 10 or 12. One will make a meal for the two of us, add in garden veggies, home made bread, and iced tea or lemonade, and we eat for less than $3.00. Hot dogs, chips and a soft drink cost more than that.

That's the Aldi's I'm talking about. We're 1 1/2 hours the other direction, toward Vincennes. That's a good buy on cornish hens.

Love Aldi's

kerrig wrote:That's the Aldi's I'm talking about.  We're 1 1/2 hours the other direction, toward Vincennes.  That's a good buy on cornish hens.

I was guessing it was the same one, you had said you were familiar with Newburgh some time back.

We also do a of of shopping at Aldi's. We have one aboubt 2 miles form us and another one about 8? miles from us. The one that is the furthest often has better deals than the one tha tis close. Lol. Just the way it goes for us.     

We also have one at Effingham, IL which is the same distance as the one in Evansville.
I am making chicken & dumplings for dinner. I was given the bag of dumplings & the chicken was very inexpensive. Then I'm making a spiced pear pie (tastes just like apple), a lady let me get all the pears I wanted a couple years ago to put up. The only non-frugal part is that Joe won't eat chicken or turkey so I have to fix him something else. Going to make him a steak & baked potato. Still fairly cheap. We bought a box of filet mignon's off a guy selling them & he gave them to us for $40 instead of the $100 he was supposed to charge because he needed the cash then for gas.

won't eat chicken??? that's almost un-american  

this is the easiest dumpling recipe I have ever found, I do not add pepper as the recipe calls for.

http://www.food.com/recipe/light-as-a-feather-dumplings-for-soup-or-stews-182140

I know, tell me about it. His dad was in the Korean War & I guess the smell of napalm hitting the body smells like fried chicken. He commented one time when Joe was 3 that what she was fixing smelled terrible and he's never eaten it since. He will throw up because of the gag reflex if he eats it. We keep telling him it's all in his head but I've learned to adapt and fix things he likes when we have it. He works long hours to provide for us so I don't mind.

I love Aldi too! We have one in town about 4 miles away and 2 others nearby in surrounding towns.

My husband won't eat chicken or turkey......he ate too much growing up on his grandparent's farm. It's funny because they moved up here when he was 4 but he says they ate chicken every Sunday. He has become even more picky since the dementia has been getting worse, he'll only eat BLTs or McDonald's hamburgers and a bowl of Fiber One cereal for dinner. It is so true what they say about people reverting to child like states with dementia/Alzheimer's.

kerrig, he sounds like a great provider, and as someone who puts in 56 to 64 hours a week I commend you for taking such good care of him.

my FIL, among other side interests, was a career firefighter. To this day he will not eat anything grilled. Says the smell is too much like a body in a house fire.

When I cook dinner, before the food hits the table, I dish out a portion for dh to take to work the next day for lunch. I have a certain microwave-proof dish for this purpose. Sometimes dh will take a jar of home-canned chili or veggie soup with a tube of saltine crackers. It's funny, because his co-workers usually go out to eat for lunch, but sometimes if I make chicken n' dumplings they will tell dh I packed him too much and they make him "share" it!

mountainmama that's a good idea to do. I need to remember and do that for Joe. I am making a double batch of taco tonight so that he & my son can take it in their lunches tomorrow. I mix refried beans in with the taco meat as it makes it go further. I started doing that years ago when all 3 kids were at home to make the meals stretch further.
Something you can do to make hamburger go further is to add some torn up bread in with it. My mom used to do that when she would fry cheeseburgers.
My daughter has inspired me to plan a month's dinner menus so that we do not eat out at all. To save money that is. In addition to grabbing something on Fridays we also do on the weekend if we're out to town. So I figure if I plan meals that can go in the crockpot, maybe on Friday night, then on Saturday we could eat before going somewhere. I really need to tighten our belts up with the holidays coming up and us going to Virginia for Christmas.
Other than hotwire & priceline does anyone have suggestions for inexpensive lodging? My daughter doesn't have room for guests so we have to get a motel when we go there.