In my original no- or low-spend February post, a reader named Jenzer talked about wanting something “adjacent” to that concept.
“I want to transform some of my sunk costs into useful life material, i.e., take stuff I’ve bought and do actual things with it… ‘Sunk Cost Salvation’ – that’ll be my theme for the month.”
Judging from the comments left on last week’s post, “sunk cost salvation” is a thing with other folks as well.
After a modest shopping trip, a reader named Ruby went through the pantry and freezer, “and let what I found dictate what I cooked.” Strawberry baked oatmeal used up some frozen strawberries. Banana-apple-oatmeal muffins were made with the last of an open jar of applesauce plus some bananas from her workplace that no one was eating. Chicken and black bean chili included kitchen staples such as canned black beans and crushed tomatoes, and frozen corn and spinach; it was served with a packet of on-sale Spanish rice that earned her rewards on the Fetch shopping app.
Ruby noted that she’d done the math for the cost of the meals, snacks and beverages she takes to work. Her estimate is $65 a week, as opposed to using the workplace cafeteria and vending machines, or $3,250 for a 50-week work year.
Cheryl did even better: She used sunk-cost ingredients paid for by someone else. Because her boss retired, the office staff got two company-provided meals – and both times were sent home with leftovers.
“I got three dinners (out) of what I was able to take home,” Cheryl reported. She also has four chicken cutlets in the freezer for later meals. (Incidentally, this is the Cheryl from “Cheryl paid off her mortgage.” Frugal tactics like shopping the office potluck helped her become – and remain – free of debt.)
More no- or low-spend February hacks
“Sunk cost salvation” worked for a bunch of other folks, too. Nancy, a longtime reader, had gotten a free turkey at Thanksgiving and cooked it at Christmas. Last week, she pulled the leftover turkey breast and gravy out of the freezer and started strategizing. One meal was turkey, scalloped potatoes made with spuds she already had, and some of the gravy (which she doctored with a few on-hand ingredients to make it thicker and tastier). There were enough “planned-overs” to fill three big containers, one of which she gave away.
Bonus: There was additional meat to make hot turkey sandwiches for another meal – and again, this was a free turkey.
Nancy also made a big batch of vegetable soup with on-hand ingredients, including fast-food packets of salt and pepper. (Those things do accumulate.) She and her husband are still eating that soup. Their lunches were often sandwiches made with six-for-89-cents sub rolls from Aldi plus deli meat and cheese purchased as a specific number of slices.
Nancy also found an $8 mistake on her grocery receipt, and got refunded; later she found a second error, for $2, and plans to request that refund as well. Frugal reminder for everyone: Watch the register as closely as you can, and give the receipt a once-over as well in case you missed something. That will be $10 back in Nancy’s pocket.
Gotta spend? Get a deal!
Spending to save sometimes works, too: A. Marie reported a frugal slip in that she went to the Salvation Army in her area, a regional hub for L.L. Bean new-with-tags returned garments. She bought two pairs of sweatpants for $3 apiece, at a friend’s request. “So those don’t count.”
Personally, I think she should go back and get a few more pairs for birthday/holiday gifts, or maybe for herself. After all, she’s experienced “abominable” weather in central New York lately, and cozy sweatpants help ward off the chill.
Remember, everyone: It’s no- or low-spend February. Why pass up a deal like that? It’s the same reason DF and I bought all that (relatively) cheap ground beef: Because we won’t see $2.49 per pound for a long time, or maybe ever again.
Along those lines: Sometimes you have to get a specific item, so you just look for the best deal you can find. Suzanne had a tech item die, and couldn’t wait until March to replace it. So she achieved a frugal trifecta:
- Found the item on clearance (50 percent off)
- Paid with a rewards credit card
- Shopped through the Mr Rebates cash-back site
Well played, Suzanne.
Both she and another reader, BethC, received small checks from class-action lawsuits. Neither was for much money, but everyone who reads this site already knows how small amounts can add up. Among the money-saving things BethC did last week were:
- Canceled three subscription boxes
- Brought her own snacks and water to a nature center hike
- Grabbed $5 sandwiches to eat a friend’s home rather than meet at a restaurant
- Signed up for a wine subscription service to get four bottles of wine for a little less than eight dollars each (to share at book club)
About that last: Yes, she was getting rid of subscriptions a minute ago. But this subscription was strategic, i.e., Beth will cancel it once she gets the four bottles.
Creating healthy financial habits
As for Jenzer, creator of the “sunk cost salvation” theme? She tackled her three goals:
- A dozen pounds of soup bones got simmered into broth, some of which went into a multi-meal minestrone.
- The four pieces of barely worn clothing went to ThredUp.
- She started reading the bookkeeping tome, taking lots of notes and brainstorming how they could work for her. It’s part of a longer-term goal: a little continuing education work done on most days of the week. Jenzer quoted Anthony Trollope: “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
And that, friends, is how I think of frugality in general: Practiced in small ways every day, it saves us a ton of money.
Big-ticket items, such as looking for a better deal on car insurance or utilities, will also save us money. But these tactics are annual, if that. Everyday frugality, on the other hand, is a gift that keeps on giving: to our budgets, to our savings, to our peace of mind.
Readers: How did your Week 2 go? Share any tales of stirring thrift below, please.
Wow…I didn’t realize just how much gets stashed in freezer. A new goal will be to keep a list of things that get stored to make better use of everything. Found some large chicken breasts that I had bought on sale. With frozen leftover pie crust dough and carrots nearing the end of their natural life made a tasty pot pie for a couple bucks. Served with baked apples..the last off the tree. Spent very little at the market. When I looked at receipt, the cat food and supplies outpaced the human vittles!
Sounds good to me!
My second week went well. There are some things I realized we will need to buy after the end of the month, but we can live without them until then.
Our freezer continues to provide wonderful dividends. I made a homemade pizza that was jazzed up with some chopped sweet red and yellow bell peppers from the freezer. I had a grocery coupon for $1 off Cajun sausage, and made a skillet meal of the sausage, frozen cherry tomatoes and more frozen chopped sweet peppers, added a fresh chopped onion, and served it over some seasoned rice cooked with canned organic mushrooms leftover from pizza night. Very yum. The leftovers of that meal were plated up to make brown bag work lunches for me.
For breakfast this week, I used up more of the bag of frozen strawberries and a can of juice-packed peaches to make baked oatmeal. A few months ago, our local supermarket renovated and restocked with their own brand canned goods with a new label. I found the peaches on a low shelf on clearance just because they had the old label and made out like a bandit.
In the make do and mend category, I noticed that my husband’s house slippers had a small rip in the suede and mended it with some thread that was handed down to me by a long-ago neighbor via her grandmother.
I also trimmed my own hair this week to stretch out the time until my next trip to get it cut.
Because it is the depths of winter and I work in an office, I have been hanging up my work clothes when I get home and smoothing out any wrinkles. This lets me wear them again at least twice and cuts my laundry down to just one load a week.
I want to have dinner at your house.
It’s a bit of a ride from Alaska to southeastern Tennessee, but you’re welcome any time. I’m of the opinion that as long as you have peppers, an onion, and something else: potatoes, an egg, rice, what have you, you’ll not only never starve, but have some tasty eating as well.
Indeed you will.
My mom’s people were from outside of Newport, Tennessee. I’ve been there only once.
Yes, Yes, yes! This is what I can do with some of those lbs of chopped sweet peppers of all colors in my freezer! I already have lbs of rice in the house.
Thanks for the ideas.
I have been chopping at my bangs. They seem to grow a lot, very fast, and they get on my nerves.
Mine went well, I shopped my freezer and cobbled together enough for lunches for the week. I had eggs, and a coworker gave me a green pepper that needed to be eaten (as she was going out of town) , another friend gave me a bag of spinach she thought was on its last leg – turned that into crust less quiche for my dinners! Same co-worker that gave me the green pepper also brought me some very overripe bananas – I recycled those into bread with ingredients I already had in pantry.
Our annual Super Bowl office luncheon provided pizza and wings for all of us on Friday – and a few slices to take home 🙂 I froze the take home slices for future lunches.
Not sure if you saw the Hellmanns Mayo Super Bowl Ad – it was about food waste, and as I watched it at my friends, she looked at me and said “this is YOUR commercial!” HAHAHA….my friends know I do not let good food go to waste, and they are always bringing me the “last little bit” of a random bag of carrots or cheese or anything, as they know I will turn it into a meal ingredient! 🙂
Those “last little bit” things can sometimes mean big savings, or at least inspire us not to make a trip to the store or get takeout. And during the early days of the pandemic, it kept me fed when shopping was chancey:
https://donnafreedman.com/quarantine-soup/
The week went well. Still using what we had in stock for meals. I only spent about $35 of my $100 a week grocery budget for a few things we needed. That is 2 weeks in a row to be way under our grocery budget. My best deal was avocados. They have been crazy expensive but we were interested in them for our Super Bowl meal. Kroger had them for 47 cents each which is unheard of. Plus, Ibotta offered 50 back for purchase of 3. That was a big win!
Didn’t have to buy gas this week either which is a big savings.
My Mother was a big on “Life sayings” She said during WWII a popular saying was:
Eat it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Or do without
Something we could still all live by today when necessary
Let’s hear it for being under the grocery budget, everybody!
And for those who don’t know what Ibotta is:
https://donnafreedman.com/rewards-programs-ftw/
I, also, am doing fine.
However, a lamp that came from my grandparents that is over 100 years old was blinking and finally cut out. OK. I could have dumped the lamp, but it is still beautiful and fashionable. I could have bought one at the thrift store for around $10. I really wanted to keep it. So I took the lamp to a lumber store that sells everything, and a kind clerk showed me how to install new innards. $30 and 15 minutes later, I have a lamp that I cherish. Had it been any other lamp in my home, I probably would have replaced it. I remember how beautiful the lamp was in their home, so now it sits in my home reminding me of those 2 wonderful people.
I’ve not been out for dinner and I have not bought junk food. Grocery bill halfway through the month is $35. And I do not need to buy anything until next week.
It struck me, though, that I live this way most of the time. If I’m grateful for what I have, I really do not want much.
This right here.
WORDS TO LIVE BY!
How brave of you to work on anything electric.
First, I need to clarify what I said last week about the LL Bean and other pants at the SA. (Shame on me as a retired copyeditor for not wording my original comment more clearly and specifically.) I got one pair of sweatpants for $3 for myself, and this was another name brand (not LL Bean). The two pairs of NWT LL Bean pants I bought for my friend (who has just returned to the working world after a long period of pandemic unemployment, and who wears a hard-to-find size) were chinos, and I paid $7 and $6.50 for those. But Donna’s point that the LL Bean hoard is a pretty freakin’ good deal remains the same, and I intend to continue keeping an eye on this situation.
In other news, I did OK on no unnecessary spending, except for Saturday–when I got out to our Regional Market for the first time since before Xmas, and splurged on some smoked trout (from fish farmers who raise their own) and some spanakopita (from our favorite Middle Eastern vendor (who misses my DH sadly). Otherwise, I’ve been joining other folks in using things I’ve got. I was particularly pleased with a dish I made from some chicken that had been in the freezer for just over a year, half of an elderly head of cauliflower, some of a neighbor’s excellent pesto (also from the freezer), and the last bits of a jar of tomato sauce (I shook the bits up with some water).
Wow, Donna. You made me sound like a genius.
Thanks!
Everyone please keep the comments coming; I learn so much.
So far have spent less than $14 for food for the month. We will go out to Valentine’s Day dinner on 2/16, to a local steakhouse that offers discounts on Wednesday’s on steak dinners. It will not be crowded, have jacked up for the holiday prices, or have lots of crying children up too late on a school night.
Did go to Bath and Body Works and spent $$$, but took my calculator and figured out that the air fresheners were a better deal at 5 for $15, than 7 for $24, and then used my 20% off coupon.
Did go to Target and got a Dustbuster of a different name, on an unadvertised special for the larger stick type, for $30. The one I have been using for years, with a coffee filter for the filter that was inadvertently thrown away, no longer has any suction power. Also got two bags of frozen snap pea pods for 99 cents each. Found a winter coat for a niece, reduced from $45 to $13.50. Found a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt for me, for less than $20 combined.
Did go to Burlington Coat Factory and spent some more. 2 pairs of stretchy leggings for exercise class and physical therapy for $6.99 combined, 5 pairs of women’s panties for $1.99 for a relative, 6 pairs of women’s panties for $1.99 for a relative, 3 pairs of women’s large/extra large jeans (one pair needs to be returned as wayyyy too short), a bra for $4.99. Total with tax was $66.66. New clothes planned for an upcoming vacation. Church shop is only open sporadically at present and Goodwill is closed pending opening in a new location, so forced to shop for new items.
Used a points card for all purchases.
Several of my existing pairs of jeans are getting threadbare and one now has a hole near the pocket rivet. Time to go!
Used some of the funds not spent on food to make an extra payment on the large water and sewer bill due to a leak.
On to more savings!
You may have been forced to buy new, but you sure didn’t pay retail. Well done.
Hope the leak gets fixed promptly.
Thanks for the mention in your post.
Week 2:
2/8 No spend except for going out and getting my free Wawa (NJ convenience store chain) French vanilla coffee-birthday freebie.
2/9 Nature Center hike-$5 donation.
2/10 no spend other than a free Starbucks coffee using loyalty points. DH spent $21 on groceries but got essentials such as milk. He also spent $34 to buy a replacement igniter for our dryer-not sure if it works yet, but if it does, it sure beats $$$$ for a new dryer. He watched YouTube videos to try to diagnose the issue.
2/11 Got $65 worth of wine for a wine and food tasting class that we’ll be taking in week 3. Not cheap, but I got the cheese for free using a lurking Whole Foods gift card, will pair a lurking apple with the cheese, and will make overnight crusty bread to accompany. Donna, I believe that you mentioned making an overnight bread a while back. I tried making an olive and rosemary loaf in Week 2 using that technique and ingredients that we had on hand-outstanding! I will make bread with herbes des Provence for the wine and cheese tasting using items that we have on hand. We also got takeout using a gift card but had to pay $27.17 above the gift card value. $10 of that was tip-we try to support local food service employees even though we are not dining in right now. I was surprised at the jump in pricing for this restaurant-a sign of the times, I guess. I forgot to mention that we also did takeout from a local taco place last weekend. That meal was free with gift card (including tip), with some $$ left over for another meal.
2/12 no spend, and attended a free Valentine’s chocolate making class hosted my friend’s food co-op. Friends that clue us into free stuff: priceless!
2/13 .50 cents to buy 3 cute outfits for my brand new grandson using a credit on a credit card that I hold. I bought 24-month sizes, based on my assumption that they will fit next winter. I also went to Moe’s and got a free burrito for my birthday which served as lunch for 2 days. My birthday was in January, but the hits (freebies) keep on coming,
2/14 I made DH a lovely V-Day chicken parm meal with sides of pasta and spinach, using ingredients that we had on hand. DH spent $77 at Costco for staples such as flour, nuts and Valentine’s Day flowers for me (well, the latter is not a staple, but cheaper than delivery). Used Hallmark rewards for V-Day cards. They have free shipping and seem to send random rewards even in months when I don’t buy cards. If I see a reward, I plan ahead and buy cards before the reward expires.
Last item is not free, but is an example of kindness and its value. I have a group of friends that I met in a Zoom class held via a well-known university. We live in different states. We meet a couple of times a month on Zoom even though the class is over because we really like each other. One member of the group sent me a handmade Valentine’s Day card. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness. It shows that with a stamp and some craft supplies, you can really brighten someone’s day.
I miss Wawa.
Sounds as though you had a pretty good week. And a belated Happy Birthday to you!
Thanks!
Continuing freezer clean-out: A few months back sweet bell peppers, mushrooms and onions were on sale. I chopped/diced, bagged the lot into meal-size portions, popped them into the freezer and promptly forgot about them until recently. Coupled with meat from the Meat Managers Bargain Bin, also frozen and forgotten, they became frugal stir fry meals with leftovers both last week and this week. Decluttering my pantry and freezer has our grocery costs way under budget so far this month.
For a treat this past weekend we got pizza and breadsticks from a local pizza restaurant that made 3 meals for us. Paid for with a gift card of course.
Filled the car with gas using up this month’s gas rewards after researching the cheapest price on Gas Buddy. Should be good to go until next month.
You’re on fire!
Eating from freezer and cupboard. Groceries are limited to milk, purchased with a gift card that has been hanging around for some months.
Sold a purse I have never used. It was a gift and I felt a bit guilty selling it but I made $60 on eBay.
Did four gas shops so made $20 worth of gas and four bottles of pop, plus $5 per shops as the fee. $5 is low but the gas was a draw.
Getting paid to buy gasoline…! I love mystery shopping.
Hey all! Thanks so much for all your inspiring shares.
I am not sure if I am totally on the Low Spend February ship, however since Jan 1 I HAVE been paying much more attention to what is in my freezers and pantry, and we have been eating very interesting and tasty meals out of random things that (ahem) need to be used up. In addition, I am recognizing my love of grocery shopping, so have deliberately chosen to avoid my local grocery store for all but a very few items. For example, their recent flyer had a kind of cereal I didn’t know for .97 cents a box! I picked up 4 boxes during a fly-by trip, and a bag of Valencia oranges on steep discount. My son’s eyes lit up when I got home: “OH, I love that kind!”. So I made another trip and got 4 more boxes, and then had a girlfriend pick up 4 MORE on the last day of the sale. My so is 6’2″ and loves cereal as a snack, this is one way-cheap snack!
As for that bag of oranges? 3 of the 8 were moldy, so I took the package back to the store and the produce guy and teller gave me another bag for free. They aren’t particularly good though…
My indulgence is going to our local DISCOUNT produce store. If I avoid any of their packaged goods (which are tempting and expensive) I can walk out of there with two stuffed bags for $30. I picked up a discounted bag of red onions, and thanks to the reminders here I am going to slice up half of them and package for the freezer. Some of the rest I am going to pickle for the fridge – a new condiment to me that I love. I got a pineapple (not cheap but #2 son loves them) and will take those not-so-great oranges and make a fruit salad. I have a bunch of veggies in the fridge that need some chopping time, which I am going to do this morning before my gardening buddy shows up!
As for frugal saves, that same grocery had green peppers on extra discount, and I got a lot of them. I followed a recipe to make a kind of pepper sauce to go with chicken, but it wasn’t tempting me, so to save them I took my stick blender to the stuff, added a bunch more tomato sauce, and called it spaghetti sauce – which REALLY tempted me. Still have a bunch of the sauce so am wondering what to make, or shall I freeze it (which I rarely do)?
As for that lovely “sunk cost” approach, my big freezer has a lot of fish (salmon, cod, halibut) that is in need of eating. I have found a couple of really delicious ways to make the salmon, however the halibut was turning out watery and tasteless. I researched and found some halibut patty recipes which have resulted in REALLY good patties (a re-do for sure).
I have my old bread machine out and on the floor (no counter space, which was a reason I wasn’t using it. The floor in a corner is just fine, someone else on one of these blogs used hers in another room – we just need to carry the pan to and fro! I have been making buns since January, and using them for the random patties that I have been putting together out of what is in the pantry and freezer. So homemade halibut patties, home made tartar sauce, and homemade buns – YUM!
I love your comment about freezing onions. I have been freezing onions for years when I buy them at the farmer’s market in the summer. In the summer, the price on onions at the grocery store is around 99 cents a pound and it goes up to around $1.99 in the winter. Last summer, I actually grew onions and wow, that was an experience. I had around 50 to go in the freezer and I am still eating them. LOL!
Love it!
I cut up the citrus peels and combine them with ground cloves, then sprinkle them outside, to keep the neighborhood skunks out of my yard and alleyway. Must be careful to keep fingers away from eyes when doing so!
Everyone’s stories are making me HUNGRY.
I suppose it is not revolutionary, but I get a $20 bill to use to buy my daily iced tea. (I know, I could make my tea.) However, whatever money is leftover at the end of the week pays for part of my grocery bill on Saturday. Then, I roll that amount over to an extra payment on a credit card. When I get the card paid off, I will roll it over to savings. I also “shop my freezer and cupboards.” I look and see that I have ingredients like canned beans, tomatoes, spices, and onion and will often make chili, a burrito bowl, or something like that. I rarely go out to eat, as the food is far more expensive than buying ingredients and cooking it. I have been buying canned beans with no salt added, but pinto beans and garbanzo beans that are canned and unsalted are impossible to find here, so last week, I bought a pound of dry pinto beans and cooked them, cooled them, and then froze them in freezer bags. I paid $1.29 for a pound of beans and got 4 8 ounce bags, which is about the amount I typically put in a supper meal for two. It’s so much less expensive, and less waste to dispose on in the trash.
We cook and freeze black beans (bought in bulk from Costco) now and then, for use in various dishes. When we want a batch of pintos (also bulk-bought) we cook them as needed.
https://donnafreedman.com/mess-beans/
A clarification: I did indeed find a total of twelve pounds of beef soup bones during my freezer inventory last week — but so far I’ve only used up four pounds to make broth. The next four-pound round will go into the slow cooker tomorrow morning with water, salt, and veggie trimmings to make broth batch #2. Batch #3 will happen towards the end of the month. I’m pacing myself so the task isn’t overwhelming … or so irritating that I never want to make homemade beef broth again.
Tomorrow’s broth will probably feed us dinner in the form of shoyu cabbage soup: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/shoyu-cabbage-soup . I will swap out Napa cabbage for green cabbage, since green cabbage is what I already have on hand.
My reading goal for Week 2 was a few pages on four out of seven days. I hit three out of seven. That’s still more progress than zero out of seven, so I’ll take it!
Everyone is doing so good! One nice about New Jersey – besides Wawa – is there is no tax on clothes.
We’ve actually gone up on spending for groceries. This week I forgot to take something out for dinner so hubby and daughter had frozen french bread pizzas that were bought on sale. I’ve had gastric sleeve surgery so I will eat about an ounce of tuna salad for dinner.
Catalytic converter went on my car but dh got the price down $1200 by getting an aftermarket replacement.
I can finally get into hubby’s company car which is a Durango and he has a company credit card for gas. He’s been working from home for most of the past 2 years so he really hasn’t spent that much in gas.
We used that car to go down the shore to visit with hubby’s sister and exchange Christmas gifts. We gave her Bath and Body Works foaming hand soap which she loves. I bought it on Black Friday when it was half off.
One of my B&BWs soaps was sort of empty so I put some water in it to get the last bit of goodness out. I’ll shop the freezer before hubby goes grocery shopping this weekend.