frugal hacks

Spring, and cake, and springy cake.

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Spring has sprung,

The grass has riz,

I wonder where the flowers is?

That’s a little poem my dad used to recite when I was a kid. He was also fond of:

Spring has sprung,

The grass is riz,

The bird is on the wing.

Isn’t that absurd?

I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Trouble is, spring hasn’t sprung – not reliably, anyway. As I noted in “Snow and soup,” we’ve been having back-and-forth weather. One day it’s so sunny and mild that it’s 95 degrees in our closed-up greenhouse. Then it drops into the 30s at night and only grudgingly inches back into the 40s the next day.

Today my niece sent a photo of a strawberry blossom in the bed next to her foundation. Woo hoo! And when will our less-protected beds follow suit?

While snow meant soup, sorta-spring has meant cake. I may have a new favorite. And it’s frugal cake.

 

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9 budget-friendly housewarming gifts.

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So your brother or your BFF will be moving into a new place this year, and plans to stage a barbecue or house party to kick off the novelty of homeownership.

Of course you’d love to mark the occasion with more than a side dish or a six-pack of craft beer, but:

Money’s been tight lately, or

You have a financial goal you’re trying to reach, or

The homeowner-to-be doesn’t expect anything (and maybe even said, “This is a house party, not a gift grab”).

Want to give something unique and useful without torpedoing your budget or putting anyone on the spot? Read on.

The idea for this post came from a reader named Ashley, who commented on “Ode to the junk drawer.” A friend of hers had no junk drawer, so she created a “junk drawer starter kit”: a batch of stuff like key rings, scissors, paper clips, pencils and the like. Then she added a recipe card: “Put in a dark drawer and feed occasionally with loose change and bits of hardware. Very soon you’ll have a full-grown junk drawer.”

Her recipient loved it. And so did I, especially since it suggested a post topic. Here are nine ideas that will cost you a little time or a little money, but not too much of either one.

 

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Giveaway: $100 HP gift cards up for grabs.

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The crew at Savings.com has a new giveaway, one I can definitely get behind: $500 worth of HP gift cards, in conjunction with HP’s Warehouse Sale. Although I use a MacBook Air computer, I’ve never owned any other printer than an HP.

The first one was given to me in 2005 or so, by a friend whose mom had died. Upon hearing I was back in college in midlife, she gave me her mother’s HP printer. I had no idea how old the machine was, and kept praying, “Please just get me through college.” And it did, letting me print out all my papers and presentations.

After completing my degree in December 2009, I figured the printer didn’t owe me a thing; after all, I’d used it pretty hard for four years and, again, I had no idea how old it was. But it wasn’t until July 2015 that the printer finally turned up its toes and died.

 

 

Its replacement, an HP OfficeJet Pro 8610, was a big step up: I now owned a printer-scanner-copier. The scanning function has come in really handy, since some freelance writing clients require me to scan and e-mail documents. The copying is useful, too. But where this puppy really shines is the printing. Thus far it has seen me through two books and DF through three.

 

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#1goodmoneything, and its #badcousins.

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Lately I’ve been noticing the #1goodmoneything hashtag on Twitter and Facebook. People use it to describe both major and minor money choices and actions.

Stuff like using increasing a 401(k) contribution, reaching a side hustle goal, winning tickets to a show, using travel rewards credit cards for a big trip, taking charge of bills vs. ignoring them, and not being upside-down on an auto loan any longer.

My daughter, whose blog many of you read, contributed one as well:

$10.95 sale on sports bras + $10 rewards card = $1.03 Victoria’s Secret sports bra.

That surprised me, since I had no idea that VS sold sweaty grunty stuff like sports bras. I thought they were all about frilly scanties. Live and learn.

Lately I’ve encountered a few #1goodmoneythings of my own. The most recent example was Saturday’s J.C. Penney anniversary sale. Coupons were handed to us at the door, good for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more. Because a video-game-themed T-shirt (destined for a nephew’s birthday gift bag) was on sale, I paid just $2.99.

My niece, a single mom who sniffs out deals the way a Brittany Spaniel scents quail, got six items for just over $20. Among other things this included tops she can wear to work, a handsome Henley shirt for her older son and a long-sleeved, screamin’ aqua bike jersey for the younger. (One of his plans this summer is to “ride my bike as much as I can.”)

Wish I could say it’s been all good-money-things, all the time, lately. Some But me being me, I’ve also met a few of the hashtag’s cousins.

 

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Ode to the junk drawer.

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During my recent errand of mercy to Phoenix, my daughter streamed some episodes of the dark and frequently hilarious television show “Speechless.” The program focuses on the DiMeos, a working-class family that moved to a dump of a home in a good school district. The goal was for oldest son JJ, who has cerebral palsy, to get the education and services to which he’s entitled.

Money is short and the family is overwhelmed by just the activities of daily living so, yeah, the house remains a dump. In fact, it gets even dumpier because of their casual attitude about home upkeep. (Hint: A blue tarp over part of the roof is not a fashion statement.)

In one episode, JJ’s personal care attendant sings a song* about the DiMeo lifestyle, to the tune of “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl).” Among other things, he notes that while most homes have one junk drawer, the DiMeos have multiples. In fact, pretty much all the drawers – like their house – is full of miscellany.

Which got me to thinking about the junk drawer in my Seattle apartment. It held stuff like safety pins, key rings (ever notice how those things accumulate?), USB cords (ditto), bits of ribbon, a clutch of shoelaces (which I saved when I tossed worn-out shoes), rubber bands and a tube of powdered graphite to squirt into balky locks (I managed the apartment house).

Tape lived there, too: Electrical tape, duct tape and a spare roll of cellophane tape. (Do people still call it that? I do.)

The junk drawer was also crammed with hardware and hand tools. A couple of former cream-cheese containers held nails, screws, bolts, brackets, washers and other bits of metal I couldn’t really identify. That’s also where I kept my six-in-one screwdriver, my hammer and the allen wrench I used on garbage disposal units – my own and those of other tenants. As apartment house manager I regularly got calls or knocks about a disposal that quit** mid-chew. Usually it just needed a few turns of the wrench.

My favorite thing about the junk drawer: It saves money.

 

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12 ways to save money on groceries.

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If you want to balance your budget, start by looking for ways to save money on groceries. You probably can’t negotiate your rent/mortgage or car payment downward, but you can find wiggle room in your food bill. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly one-third (32.7 percent) of our food dollars go toward meals prepared somewhere else.

Saving money on groceries means different things to different households. Not everyone lives near a warehouse store, or can afford to belong to one. Nor can everyone grow a garden or visit you-pick farms.

Fortunately, plenty of other ways exist to keep food prices as low as possible. This article’s focus is on getting food at low prices.

Use some (or all!) of the following hacks to eat well without breaking the budget.

Look for “manager’s specials”

Not store-wide sales, mind you. No, these are items that are close-dated or otherwise no longer welcome at the store. You’ll generally save 50 percent and sometimes more.

Meat and dairy items need to be used or frozen quickly, of course. I grab half-price milk whenever I see it, for making yogurt, but milk can also be frozen. Ask the dairy and meat departments at what time(s) of day these marked-down products are put out.

With regard to shelf-stable specials, sometimes it’s because they’re holiday items (canned pumpkin, chocolate bunnies) that have to move along. It might also be a new product that didn’t do as well as the manager hoped, which is how we scored a dozen boxes of mango-flavored gelatin for practically nothing. (We prepared some of it with apple juice instead of cold water and called it “mangle” Jello.)

Sometimes the manager’s special rack includes scratch-and-dent stuff, such as canned goods that have been dropped by shoppers or boxed/packaged items with torn or crushed corners. We’ve gotten some extremely good prices this way; last year we found several giant cans of pickled jalapenos for less than a dollar apiece.

Note: According to the USDA you shouldn’t buy any can that has visible holes or punctures; is swollen, leaking or rusted; is crushed/dented badly enough to prevent normal stacking or opening with a manual can opener; or has a dent so deep you can lay your finger into it.

 

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Life hack: 9 uses for a rice sock.

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Recently DF committed to giving his older granddaughter a ride to school every morning. She’s in a charter school, i.e., no buses.

The booster seat required by state law is chilly, and she let him know. The next morning he warmed up our biggest rice sock (we have several) and put it on the booster, to create a kind of poor man’s heated car seat. Thus her narrow little butt stayed toasty-warm all the way to school.

Now that’s service. DF also brings along a banana and an old Altoids tin filled with bacon. This kind of thing could give Uber and Lyft a run for their money.

For the uninitiated, a rice sock is a classic life hack. Simple, too: a cloth bag (sometimes an actual sock) filled with uncooked rice. Heat it in the microwave and you have a steady, lasting source of heat.

You can also heat it atop a wood stove: During a prolonged power outage some years back, DF put a rice sock in a clay pot atop the fireplace insert. Until the heat came back on, the rice sock was as good as a hot-water bottle. Better, maybe: If it had leaked it wouldn’t have soaked the bed.

As the headline of this post indicates, that’s not the only use for a rice sock.

 

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How many credit cards should you have?

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This is not a fun topic to tackle, since so many people hate credit and the credit scoring system. But in a recent post on The Simple Dollar, “You need at least two credit cards: Here’s why,” I take on the issue of how many credit cards you should have, and also our love/hate relationship with plastic.

You need at least two forms of payment in case of fraud, robbery or card loss. And no, debit card use is not a good substitute; it puts your personal cash at risk and does not help you build a credit score.

Who cares, you ask? Isn’t cash king? Ideally, maybe: We would all buy only what we could afford and pay cash on the barrelhead instead of running up debts.

But to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, life is never pure and rarely simple. Less-than-ideal things happen all the time.

The post explains what might happen when you lose a card or it gets hacked and you have no other form of payment, and also what could happen to those who use debit only.

It also points out the benefits of rewards credit cards, one of my enduring frugal hacks. Every time I cash in points for a birthday gift (which I recently did), a home improvement project or some kind of entertainment, it reminds me how much I like being rewarded for buying something I was going to buy anyway.

 

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No-spend February, Week 3: Taming the reflex.

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It has been a quiet week in Lake Spend-be-gone*. In honor of no-spend February, this has been a week without  questionable stock-ups of Tater Tots, trips to the movies or other unnecessary expenditures.

One big-ticket item, though: a plane ticket to Phoenix* for next month, which set me back close to $600, including trip insurance. Of course, I expected to pay a lot: Right now is the high season for people wanting to get out of Anchorage.

But this trip is an essential expense: My daughter is having cataract surgery, so I’ll be driving Miss Abby. Also painting her bathroom, doing a few household chores, making some casseroles and scooping the litter box. And, yeah, taking daily walks on gloriously ice-free sidewalks.

I watched “The Walking Dead” at my niece’s home for free, rather than go to a local bar and have to spring for a soft drink and a tip. The writers group to which I belong had its monthly meeting, and I brought a spice cake made from ingredients we already had. (More on that later.)

While I’d planned to get some vanilla ice cream on the way to the meeting, to go with the cake, I forgot all about it. Turns out it wasn’t necessary (very moist cake!), and besides, the forgetting jibed with something from last week’s comments section.

A reader named mdoe37 said she’d picked up a planner to help organize her household. Soon afterward she had what she calls a “hello!” moment: Don’t I already have a couple of binders at home, and couldn’t I go online for some organizational sheets to print out?

Somehow her first impulse on seeing a planner was to buy it: Look, a thing that will help organize all those other things! Upon reflection, though, she decided to return it and save a little over $5.

“It’s all about taming the reflex,” she notes.

If people take away nothing else from the no-spend month, I hope they get this part.

 

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Honey-mustard pretzels: An easy, frugal snack.

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Lately we’ve been playing around with recipes for honey mustard pretzels, thanks to having scored one-pound bags of Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels for 50 cents apiece at the bakery outlet.

We’ve experimented with proportions and also the type of pretzel: minis, nuggets and “snaps” (the square ones that look like tic-tac-toe grids — see illustration at left). Yesterday DF came up with what I think is the simplest and most flavorful honey mustard pretzels recipe in the whole wide world.

In the interest of scientific discovery, perhaps you should try it yourselves.

Here’s how:

Melt two tablespoons of butter. (We use a Pyrex cup in the microwave.)

Add three tablespoons of honey and three tablespoons of prepared mustard.

Stir in one teaspoon powdered mustard, a shake of garlic powder and a splash of Worcestershire sauce.

Pour one pound of pretzels into a large bowl and drizzle the sauce over them, stirring constantly until evenly distributed. (A rubber or silicon spatula works well.)

Coat two or three cookie sheets with cooking spray and spread the pretzels as evenly as possible. Bake at 250 degrees for at least one hour, stirring every 15 minutes. If they still feel super-sticky, bake them a little longer. (We have left them in for 75 minutes.)

Break up the pretzels with a pancake turner or your brave, brave hands. (Pro tip: It’s more fun to lick your fingers than a hot metal utensil.)

 

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