(Note: This is one of an occasional series of articles on saving money.)
We took the second batch of apple rings from the dehydrator this morning. Made from windfall apples, they have a mildly sweet flavor that at first seemed bland. Yet after eating two or three, I was hooked. Really looking forward to snacking on these this winter.
The cores of those apples wound up in the slow cooker along with other cores from the freezer; they’d come from the previous batch of dehydrated fruit and from two batches of apple pie filling. When DF judged them done, he drained the liquid through a cloth-lined colander and poured the juice into wire-bail bottles, then stored them in the chilly basement.
And the gloppy pomace left in the colander? That went into the compost pit out back. One day it will become part of a garden bed.
Not everyone can (or wants to) garden, or to preserve food. But you can observe the “waste nothing” ethos in other ways, too.
Not-wasting is a central tenet of frugality. A life without waste is a life in which each decision means something. This doesn’t limit our choices, however. It merely refines them. Rather than drifting through life reacting to every trend or advertisement, we decide what’s really important to us.
DF and I didn’t set out to become Super Green Eco-Consumers when we chose to reduce, reuse and recycle. We were merely living the way we grew up, i.e., not spending more than we must on food, clothing, utilities, housewares and the like.
Sure, this affects our impact on the Earth, which I guess does make us eco-friendly. But it also dovetails nicely with my frugal mantra (which he now shares): I save where I can so I can spend where I want.
Because we’re careful with money, we can afford to save for retirement, which means we won’t be a burden to our families as we age. We can also afford to give to charity, help relatives and friends in need, and allow ourselves special treats (a trip to Phoenix, a massage, a really good meal at Kincaid Grill once or twice a year).
Living without waste makes our lives better. And one or more of the following tactics might make your life better, too.
Understand: I’m not going to insist you use both sides of the toilet paper. Extreme frugality is not about miserliness. It’s about getting the best use of the money you have, and the most use out of the things you buy. The money you save can be used to shop sustainably or locally, build an emergency fund or a Roth IRA, pay cash for the next car or follow a dream (homeownership, starting a business, et al.).
Entire books have been written about low- or no-waste living. This article is limited to a few main categories, with links to previous posts that elaborate on certain tactics.
Shopping and eating
As I’m fond of reminding readers, food is generally the budget category with the most wiggle room. You probably can’t negotiate your rent or your car payment, but you can usually finesse the food bill.
Cheap groceries don’t necessarily mean substandard groceries. Not everyone will go to the lengths we do, but even a few basic tactics can reduce your weekly spend. For example, you might:
Stop making meat the star attraction. Try out a meatless Monday, serve stews and stir-fries instead of giant slabs of flesh, and use a slow cooker or Instant Pot to make cheaper, tougher meat meltingly tender.
Consider alternative proteins. Eggs, tofu, tempeh, seitan, lentils, quinoa and, of course, a mess of beans.
Join a warehouse club. This might not make sense if you don’t have room to store large amounts of food. But Costco et al. can also save you a bundle on smaller amounts of stuff. Instead of a 50-pound bag of beans you can buy 20 pounds, a bag that’s not much bigger than a bed pillow. Laundry soap, paper products, vitamins and OTC meds are also incredibly cheap here, and you can also find great deals on useful stuff like wool socks or fleece clothing. (Pro tip: Ask a friend or friends to split the membership cost with you, then carpool over to shop. You can also hold each other accountable, e.g., “If you hear me start to justify buying a big-screen TV, please slap me several times.”)
Related reading:
- 12 ways to save money on groceries
- Extreme frugality: Be a frugalvore
- The low-maintenance preppers
- Bonus earnings with the Fetch Rewards app
- The boiling bag
- Don’t throw it out until you’ve smelled it
- Garbage in, supper out
Rethink holiday giving
Full disclosure: I love giving gifts. Really love it. In fact, every November and December I need to rein(deer) myself in so as not to break the bank.
And to add to the problem, which is: Too much of a good thing is sometimes pretty stressful.
Tempers rise. So do credit card bills. The pressure mounts to make each passing year even more elaborate and special. And once it’s over, very few people remember much about the holiday. (Pop quiz: Can you name every single thing you got for Christmas last year? Probably not. And I bet your kids can’t, either.)
A previous entry in this series, “Extreme frugality: Holiday shopping edition,” lists ways to save when buying gifts. I would like to add these tactics:
The “four-gift rule”: Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read.
Or a different limit: A certain dollar amount, say, or a Secret Santa vs. buying presents for all extended family members, or “gifts only for those under 18 or over 80.”
Emphasize activities: This might be tougher thanks to the dadgum virus, e.g., no more heading to a holiday play or a “Messiah” singalong. But you could still do things like take a walk/drive to view decorations, bake cookies, or watch cheesy old holiday specials.
Focus outward: Spend some (or all) of your gift budget on someone else. Suppose it’s just you and your spouse/partner: Do you really need more gifts, or could the money go to a shelter, a favorite charity, a struggling local arts group? Or maybe you’re hosting a big family get-together: Float the idea that instead of gifts, people should bring shelf-stable food to be dropped off at the food bank, or pet supplies to be gifted to a no-kill shelter.
Note: Such tactics could also apply to Hannukah, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day and any other day you want to recognize. Sometimes less is more. And sometimes more is just clutter.
Related reading:
- Do we need a little less Christmas?
- 12 ways to spend less on stocking stuffers
- The REAL way to save on Black Friday
Everyday workarounds
The old “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” rhyme has a lot of truth to it. Within reason.
For example, I would never suggest sending your kids to school in worn-out, ill-fitting or otherwise unsuitable clothing. You shouldn’t dress yourself that way in public, either.
But there’s no reason not to save the beat-up stuff for evening and weekend wear. Why put kids in expensive clothes if they’re headed out to play in the dirt? Why wear your good khakis if you’re painting the guest room?
Once clothes are too ragged to be worn, turn them into cleaning cloths. (Pro tip: Save the buttons in a jar, for future repair jobs. Take the shoelaces out of shoes before discarding them, too.) Ditto sheets and towels. There’s no reason to buy shop rags when the average household will eventually create its own.
Our home is rife with this kind of improv. One of those annual popcorn buckets from Cinemark (buy the bucket, get discounted refills) is what I use for berry-picking. The cloth belt from an old bathrobe suspends the bucket from around my neck, so I can use both hands to pick.
While using the downstairs sauna DF sometimes likes to pour water on the rocks. The dipper is a tin can nailed to a piece of scrap trim. No doubt he could have purchased a special ladle or dipper from a sauna supply place, but why would he?
Also downstairs are storage shelves that DF built with more scrap lumber. He’s been lucky (although he’d call it “cursed”) to have the kind of outbuildings that lead people to give him wood when they move out of state, or when they come to their senses about how handy they aren’t.
The shelves hold a bunch of gallon-sized glass jars in which we store oatmeal, cornmeal, rice and other items bought in bulk. DF saved these jars from long-ago purchases of bulk mayonnaise and other foodstuffs. These days, people pay big money for glass storage jars.
DF starts veggie and flower seeds (many of them saved from the previous year’s crops) in all sorts of old containers. He used scrap lumber to build raised garden beds and a derrick-like device that support several hoses. The greenhouse was mostly made from recycled wood, old windows and a couple of storm doors he had on hand (and a couple more frugal hacks saved us $117 on the other supplies). Our “rain barrel” is a 30-gallon trashcan he got for $1 at the Habitat ReStore.
He used still more of that old lumber to raise my laptop up to an ergonomically correct height; to build a lectern that brings the dictionary up to eye level; and to make a wheeled platform for my file cabinets, in case we need to get to the phone jack that’s behind them (where we plug in the modem).
Ever mindful of marauding moose, we took an old dog run and reassembled it around our two apple trees. Strips from a worn-out sheet became slings that support the branches, now heavily laden with fruit.
Speaking of which: The apples we’ve been drying are stored in empty plastic containers from a bulk oatmeal purchase three months ago. We knew if we hung on to them long enough, we’d probably find a use for them.
Related reading:
- Why I sewed my underwear
- Ode to the junk drawer
- Scenes from a frugal weekend
- How often do you wash your jeans?
Think outside the mall
“Fast fashion” from the Emporium of Shoddy Churn is no bargain if the clothes fall apart after a couple of launderings (to say nothing of the other issues surrounding this trend). The same money could have been used to buy well-made clothing from the clearance section of a “better” store, or even from a thrift shop.
You knew I’d bring up thrift shops, didn’t you? I happen to love them, and have had great luck there: jeans with the tags still on, 100% wool sweaters for a buck, silk blouses for a couple of dollars. My favorite score was an elaborate jigsaw puzzle, still in the shrink-wrap, for 49 cents. It became one of my cheapest (yet still appreciated) holiday gifts ever.
Not everyone has thrift stores nearby. Or maybe you live in a place with slim pickings. It’s like a treasure hunt – and these don’t necessarily end at a trove, either.
A few other tactics for no-waste clothing, housewares and such:
- Facebook Marketplace
- Yard sales
- The Freecycle Network
- Buy Nothing Facebook pages (we got a new-looking red enamel colander that way)
- The clearance section in all stores
Note: You shouldn’t buy stuff you (or your kids) don’t like just because it’s cheap. You also shouldn’t buy stuff you don’t need just because it’s cheap. I’m not a Marie Kondo minimalist, but I believe that less clutter means more room in your life as well as in your house.
Related reading:
A learning curve
It might take time to identify places to cut waste in your own household – and still more time to develop the habit of mindfulness. Sometimes doing the sensible thing, the right thing, the frugal thing can feel like deprivation. (Why shouldn’t I get takeout/more collectibles/yet another new outfit? I work hard for my money and I deserve nice things!)
Again, frugality is about choice, not deprivation. Deciding to spend less money means doing a little work to follow through on that decision. The good news is that new choices can quickly become habits.
Do you remember a time when you couldn’t tie your shoes, park a car, use a computer? Chances are you can’t. You don’t think about how to do these things. You simply do them. They’re second nature.
Reducing waste can become second nature, too. Making a specific, informed decision about how you’ll spend your money doesn’t mean living without joy. It’s just the opposite: You determine what makes you happy, and you trim away all the stuff that doesn’t.
Readers: How do reduce waste in your life?
Brought back memories of helping my mother make applesauce, apple butter, and dried apples. We dried them on a window screen laid on the trunk of the car. The peels and cores from all these were put in a big pot with water, boiled and distilled into juice, and turned into apple jelly. The jelly and apple butter were put into my grandmother’s old snuff jars and sealed with a coat of wax. We saved the “good” jars for things that required pressure canning to preserve.
My grandmother used to use paraffin on top of her jam in peanut butter jars, mayonnaise jars or whatever was handy. While living in Seattle I picked up several boxes of paraffin from the “free” boxes at yard sales. Haven’t used it yet, but if there were ever a canning lid shortage, I’ll be ready. For jam-making, anyway.
In fact I just made the last batch of raspberry jam on Friday. We have probably 15 jars (plus the two small ones we gave to DF’s mom). On a dark, cold winter morning I’ll have some spread on toast made from DF’s rustic bread, and I will remember summer.
My hubby, the Eagle Scout, uses paraffin to make fire starters. He rolls up newspaper (about the size of an empty TP tube), ties it together with twine, and dips it into melted wax. One batch lasts several years.
I remember sealing strawberry jam with paraffin in the early 1970’s, but that’s not considered safe these days.
I went to a wedding a couple of years ago where the favors were pinecones dipped in something that appeared to be paraffin and were labeled as fire starters. It was fitting as it was an October wedding…great time for fires on a cool New England night. My frugal self loved the inexpensive favors and my creative side loved the beauty of the pinecones on each table.
We started the ‘four gifts’ rule last year.
My adult children loved it. (‘Something you need’ was a check.)
Isn’t it always???
I love this piece. Good advice on back to basics to save and to gain. It has always given me an incredible feeling of control over what my finances when I use intention and direction how it is spent. Frugality is not a “bad” word
quite the contrary. Shopping for food with care ( especially now) and finding ways to save while shopping is still possible. I do it all the time.
Keeping extras in a pantry, however small the space we have is very wise.
I also love thrift stores. I buy one outfit and an extra top and I am set to go.
Thanks for this piece-it is encouraging and a good reminder of what we can do when we become thoughtful about how to sustain ourselves and our families. Your down to earth suggestions are great and inspire me to get better at being frugal.
In terms of storage space for extra food, try putting it under the sofa and/or the bed(s) — assuming there’s space vs. a tight-to-the-floor design. You can buy under-bed boxes, or just use boxes you pick up here and there.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
I’m using under the bed storage for a box of Bath & Body Works foaming hand soap. Got it on sale and dh likes using it.
When the early part of the pandemic made finding paper goods impossible, I invested in a big box of cotton cleaning rags. Now I realize this was a great idea. Washable and usable over and over again, saving the planet from paper waste. We can get paper towels in the stores now, but they are really expensive; no sales at all! But the cotton rags are like that famous bunny: they just keep going and going and going…
I have learned to be content with what I have. No more mindless shopping; I only go if I need to replace something.
I stopped giving gifts to anyone over the age of 18. I don’t need anything; as a matter of fact, I have begun to hate “things.” I adore minimalism because I hate clutter.
One can almost make it a game to see how many days can go by without spending money. My best is 19 days, and I plan to beat that in September after the bills have been paid on the first of the month. That’s the best time to start the spending freeze.
I love your column, Donna, and I recommend to all my friends. We spent a wonderful evening last week just reading through your various pieces.
Thanks so much for your kind words…Now all I have to do is start posting more regularly.
And yes, going days and days without spending is fun. Sometimes I have to think pretty hard to remember when the last time I spent money was; haven’t kept count, but I doubt it was 19 days. My hat is off to you, ma’am.
My “aha” moments this year had to do with different kinds of packaging materials. I’ve always saved some of the packaging that came with deliveries for mailing gifts and such but there was still a lot getting trashed or recycled if possible. In June, I needed to make a banner for my car for a drive-by birthday celebration. I wasn’t going out shopping due to the pandemic. So instead of going to Amazon, I went to my closet and found big sheets of packing paper that I’d flattened and folded, and old ribbons, gift bags, and wrapping paper from gifts gone by. With scissors and tape (and a sense of humor, as I’m not an artist), I made a nice colorful banner for the parade out of that “junk”! (Thrilled to recently see a Facebook post showing this banner in the background, still hanging up in the birthday gal’s home.) Inspired by that experience, I started thinking more carefully about other packaging materials and realized that all the paper and plastic grocery bags coming into my home, while the reusable ones aren’t allowed, will make great packing material for an upcoming household move. Between that and blankets, towels, etc., I don’t think I’ll have to buy any packing paper or bubble wrap. I’m so happy to save the money and give stuff another life. I love this frugality series, Donna, I’m picking lots of good ideas. Thanks.
I keep the packing materials, too, for mailing holiday gifts — and, sometimes, prizes that I give away on my site.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
My sis couldn’t find any disinfecting wipes in her small part of S.C. so hubby got her some from the grocery store and we put it together to ship with one of hubby’s huge shoe boxes, plastic wrap from a purchase of shoes from me and wrapped it using a big brown shopping bag. Sis got her wipes and we had fun wrapping them. We used UPS as the postal service had lost a card for my niece’s wedding. I mailed it July 11th and they got it August 17th.
Yikes. That’s quite the lag time.
My daughter couldn’t find disinfecting wipes in Phoenix. DF and I were at Costco and they’d just put out some five-packs of large Clorox wipes containers. “One each, please,” the young employee stationed there kept repeating. I mailed two to my daughter, along with a specific brand of peanut butter not sold there (and no longer available for mail order thanks to the pandemic), gave one container to a friend with health issues and am hanging on to the other two in case schools reopen because my niece is a teacher.
I’ve told DF that if he ever sees them at Costco again, please buy another package. If nothing else, the shelters can use them.
It’s nice to save and reuse packing materials but double great to keep it out of the landfill. I have a box of packing peanuts…which I really hate seeing used…but will reuse them when I send a fragile gift. Great job.
If I don’t have packing material I use air popped pop corn. Sometimes I’ll put it in plastic bread bags and mold it around object… because I know the popcorn will be eaten when the package arrives…for people or birds.
You can also do that with packing peanuts: Put them in plastic bags and mold them around the shipped items, so the recipient doesn’t have bits of foam go everywhere once the box is opened.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
This is a genius idea! The protection of packing peanuts without the mess. Thank you!
Wish I could say I’d come up with it myself, but nope: I read it someplace.
My local UPS store will accept used packing peanuts as they recycle them for their packing needs. Good idea about the bread bags!
Genius!
One of the things that I don’t waste is money. I certainly subscribe to “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” as well as “I save where I can, so I can spend where I want.” Recently, I was at Old Navy and seriously in need of some pants (slacks) since all I own are jeans. There was a sale, but only one pair left on the sales shelf, which was my size but marked “petite.” I am 5’8″ tall. But, I tried them on anyway and they were a perfect fit, which means they were miss marked and probably why they didn’t sell. Took them to the cashier—99 cents!!! For frugal Christmas, I partially have YOU to thank, Donna. Seven years ago, I joined swag bucks on a link that you provided. Now all my Christmas gifts are purchased with gift cards that I earn through this site. I buy all year long when I have points accumulated, so there is no cash lay out and no buying frenzy for me on Black Friday. A forever thank you for posting that link!!!
Wow, 99 cents? That is a deal.
For anyone who hasn’t jumped on the Swagbucks train, here’s the link Carolina references:
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Newlife1114
Some people try and hide that they work to save money, not me—I let everyone know and that, furthermore, I am happy to take things off their hands. This means I have gotten some useless stuff, which I try to pass on to someone who will turn it into useful stuff. But often I have received really useful stuff. Off the top of my head: books, a cast iron skillet, puzzles, pots for my plants, compost, seeds…but my favorite by far is the bag of lobster tail shells a friend gave me. Her family was having a reunion and serving lobster and steak to about 2 dozen people. Unbeknownst to me, she set up two special recycle spots, one for shells after people were done eating and one for pieces of steak fat or leftover steak bits. The next day, she came over with a bag of shells that I turned into delicious stock for future soups and a bag of meat scraps for my dogs. (There were some huge pieces of steak and I had to force myself to give them to the dogs rather than wash them off and eat them myself! HA!)
My friend did this despite thinking that reusing lobster shells was gross (she thought that when I told her I save all seafood shells from the meals my husband and I eat for later stock and chowder), but it is not like people gnaw on lobster shells (like they do steak bones) and I boil the bejebbers out of the shells to get out every bit of goodness so any germs are long gone. Would I dig them out of the garbage? No, but this felt safe. Of course, this was before the virus…
Anyway, not being too proud to take cast off items from others has saved me all sorts of money. And I remember to return the favor. When my father died, he left behind really quality shoes that he had worn only a few times. One pair had been hand made when my father worked in Italy for a few months. I offered them to a friend who wore the same size and he was thrilled to get them—we are talking $300 shoes that my friend would never have been able to afford. He wears them still!
Everyone knows that DF and I are frugal — and yes, sometimes that means people saying, “Could you use this [whatever]?” And we make sure to pass along the love by donating stuff to the local Buy Nothing Facebook page or to a charity thrift shop.
Is there a Buy Nothing Facebook group in your region? It’s proved a treasure in ours, both for giving and getting:
https://buynothingproject.org/find-a-group/
Lindsey, re: the steak scraps, I wouldn’t have been so noble: I’d have rinsed those suckers off and eaten them. A habit dating from my college days in Florida, when I worked as a dishwasher for an upscale restaurant near the school, and the busboys/busgirls used to salvage the uneaten or barely eaten entrees and balance them on top of the tubs of dishes they were sending back on the conveyor belt. For a hungry college kid, I ate extremely well that winter!
And I reuse all the lobster shells Dr. Bestest Neighbor sends me, too. He has a lobster habit dating from his childhood days in Fall River, MA, when his mother (a devout Jew in all other respects, but a secret lobster addict) used to take him and his brothers over the state line to RI and order lobster, so that no one in their community would find out!
A. Marie: I might have rinsed off the meat before the virus but I don’t like to overcook meat, which I would have to do to destroy all germs, and with this virus I am a bit more…hesitant, I guess. But lobster shells were boiled to within an inch of their lives so no germ concerns there!! Glad to hear I am not the only person who accepts empty seafood husks with glee!!
Good point about the virus, Lindsey. I suppose I got carried away with happy memories of prime rib and so on.
Hey A.Marie I know you from another site! I never knew you could make stock from lobster shells til my friend told me about it. My big thrill a couple of weeks ago was getting two dozen sharpened Ticonderoga pencils at Walgreens for .99. Today I passed them on to my neighbor who has two school aged kids. Made me so happy to get a bargain and give it away!
Very kind of you to do that! When I lived in Seattle my sister and I used to hit those amazing deals at Office Depot et al. and get 10 pencils for a penny, notebook paper for a nickel, etc. We’d each get the limit and after a few weeks would drop them off at a food bank that also gave out school supplies.
One year we also scored a dozen backpacks at very low prices (about $2.99 each, I think). That was the year my niece brought her two kids down to visit me. She color-coordinated everything: pink backpacks got pink pencil box, blue backpack got the blue notebook, etc. It was so much fun to drop off those bags loaded with paper, pens, crayons, notebooks, rulers, pencil sharpeners and a few other things I can’t remember offhand. Although we knew it was a drop in the bucket, need-wise, it was good to give whatever we could to help.
LOL, I saw “Dr Bestest Neighbor” and thought “that sounds like A. Marie from another sites comments I read and it is you! HA! I see Lindsey from that site too. Too funny! Great minds think alike I think. (:
What a great article!!!! I’ve loved your writing since your MSN money days! I’ve picked up quite a few great tips from you!
Awww, thanks! I appreciate your longevity.
Genius! Both the peanut and popcorn wrapping!!!
I don’t know about you, but if I grow something, by golly I eat it! If I buy it at the grocery store sometimes I forget and it goes bad.
I should have the second crop of squash by this weekend.
Summer squash or winter squash?
I have made zucchini cookies. They’re pretty good.
Summer squash. The zucchini is slower.
We had a bountiful first harvest. Donna, only you will get this. My cherry tomato plants were putting out a half gallon of bite-size fruits each day. I apologized to my dad for sending him food in a recycled yogurt container. He filled my truck with containers he saved! Every day I would take tomatoes into work to re-home them and get rid of containers. Folks kept returning the containers. I stopped accepting them and they would put them in my chair when I wasn’t looking. They would put them in the mailbox or on the car windshield. The tomatoes finally stopped bearing and I put most of the containers into the recycling bin. Yes, there is such thing as too much.
As Mae West is alleged to have said, “Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.” Unless, of course, you have to store it and/or recycle it.
Thanks!
Thank you for this great article…DW and I call this lifestyle “living intentionally”…I have socks that are well… embarrassing. I will share that you can use duct tape to repair garments. I have pants/jeans that I use for painting, driveway sealing…oil changes…that over time have gotten thread bear or torn…Just turn them inside out…apply the tape, using a putty knife smooth it out so there is good contact. And yes you can send them thru the laundry and dryer. I usually get my duct tape from tenants who move out and leave it behind…I have one pair of pants that I have been using since the “Carter Administration”….Thanks once more for an insightful article…
You are an example to us all, Jack.
DW….has actually declared it’s a “sickness”…
I prefer to think of it as a fine and pleasant madness, myself.
There is another way to not waste. If you purchase soon-to-be-expired food on clearance, you keep the store from binning it and you save money. My local grocery store discounts all meat to $1.50 a package once it meets its sell by date. I can pick up roasts, whole chickens, family packs of chicken breasts for $1.50. Cheese is marked down to $.50 and we know cheese lasts a long time after the sell by date.
You have to commit to cooking what you buy that day. With $1.50 I can make chicken chili and chicken salad for a week’s worth of lunches. If it is ground beef, I cook the beef and then freeze spaghetti size portions.
You know those food network “reality” shows. They are amateurs!
Amateurs indeed!
DF calls that the “used meat” section. I call it “late-date carnivore bait.” Either way, if we don’t use it immediately then we freeze it.
I try and humbly make myself available for freebies or garden overabundance. Everyone’s garden performed better than ours. One of the guys I van pool with asked if anyone wanted apples and pears. No one said anything, so I piped up and said my hubbie is looking to make cider. If successful, we’ll pass some of completed product back to say thank you. Like you, the scraps will be applesauce/butter or vinegar. Then maybe the chickens might get anything left. I have a coworker that saves his expensive flip top beer bottles for us.
Donna I am new to your site. I like your writing and I recognize some of your commentators from other sites I visit. I reckon I’ll set a spell and see how things go. (:
I too take most free things offered to us. I am happy to drop it off at GoodWill if we don’t need it. Being one to always say yes means folks think of us when getting rid of stuff.
My favorite is leftovers from a party. I can do amazing things with leftovers. I liked your comment about a time when we couldn’t use a computer or drive a car. These are skills indeed and practice makes us better at anything. I have tons of practice on making leftovers yummy.
Recently I took to dividing all meat I buy into 1/2lb packages and making do with recipes for the two of us. it is barely noticeable, the drop from one lb to 1/2lb. I reference Budget bytes recipes a lot for this approach. Her stuff is spot on.
Welcome! And I’ll just leave this here:
http://donnafreedman.com/shopping-office-potluck-plus-book-discounts/
Great article! Thank you (:
Thank you, ma’am.
No comment
Um….okay?
I buy bulk wash clothes at a discount store, which is far better than individual ones. I got lots of fresh figs from my tree out side. I find lots of planters and a few wreaths that people toss out. I go only long walks 4 days a week.
Crushed potato chips or tortilla chips Have gotten a new life in our house as a topping on salad. I’m embarrassed to say how incredibly delicious this is. I know a lot of those salad kits at the store include things like wonton strips. That got me thinking about how nice it is to have something crunchy and a salad. I’m Excited now to have the bottom of a bag of chips!
We like eating them on top of chili, but have never tried them on salad. Thanks for the tip.
Oh, and the salt at the bottom of pretzel bags gets used in soup or stew. The pretzels cost as little as 50 cents per bag at the bakery outlet.
When I was first married my husband went fishing often. A bucket of fish got brought home to be used as fertilizer. I planted a row of veggies and then a row of fish. Worked great and didn’t cost anything.
My uncle used to net fish from the river and put them in his garden. For a while he also raised a few pigs — first in a pen on one part of his garden area, then the next year on another part. Both options were organic. Stinky, but organic.