saving money

Easy(ish) food preservation.

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Recently a neighbor offered me a Lowe’s-sized bucket of apples and a gallon of pie cherries. The former became eight pints of applesauce and the latter a 10-inch pie. At some point that day I got a Facebook message from an old friend; while e-chatting, I learned she, too, was elbow-deep in food preservation that day: tomatoes, corn and green beans.

The coincidence made me grin, especially since her early life goal was to become a big-city journalist and live the single-gal life. (She did become a journalist, but spent most of her career in a small town.)

I asked her if she’d ever pictured herself using a pressure canner, or was that something our moms did. Her response: “We are lucky we grew up the way we did, so we can survive. I rarely shop but when I do it’s only for what I can’t grow myself.”

Those are thoughts I’ve voiced myself. Growing up fairly broke got me through single parenthood and a protracted midlife divorce. Now I’m no longer jobless or broke, but the soaring cost of food (and other stuff) is making me really nervous.

Not everyone is able to (or wants to) freeze, can or dehydrate. But hear me out.

For starters, think about broadening your definition of “preserving” food. In my opinion, bulk buying, stocking up during sales, and combining sales with rewards programs are all ways to “preserve” food. As in, you’re making sure you have the groceries you need at the best prices you can find.

You’re preserving your budget along with the food. The money you don’t spend on grub is money that can go toward other essentials. It’s unlikely that many of us will starve in this country, but a whole lot of people will be mightily inconvenienced, in a couple of ways: 

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Relishing summer’s bounty.

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A reader named Ringo apparently misses the garden updates, and asked whether we were still growing fruits and vegetables. Yes, and I’ve been taking pictures like mad – but still haven’t organized a major “looking at this year’s garden” post. As a stopgap, I’m going to write about relish.

Why relish? After all, we’ve frozen peas and raspberries, made rhubarb leather, and canned rhubarb compote and raspberry jam. We’ve eaten some very good tomatoes, lettuces, greens and strawberries. But the relish might be the best thing to come out of this summer, because we may have invented a new recipe.

Relish was never a huge thrill to me. It was just something to put on hot dogs and hamburgers. But last year our Chelsea Prize cucumbers, an English variety from Renee’s Garden Seeds, produced so heavily that I decided to look for a bonehead-simple relish recipe. (As a Renee’s Garden Seeds affiliate, I receive a small finder’s fee for sales made through my link.)

Found one, too. And then DF improved on it.

He improves on so many things in my life, as I’ve written before. When I described the relish recipe DF said, “You know what might be a good addition? Some jalapeño.”

We have pickled jalapeños in our fridge – a can we’d found in the dented-can bin, because that’s how we roll. So I diced up a bit of pickled pepper and added it to the mix.

The result was delicious: sweet yet pungent, mellow but with a peppery zing! that turns even the cheapest hot dogs into a decent meal.

Sometimes we nibble it by the forkful, like a salad. Which I guess it technically is, being made of cukes, onions, garlic, sugar, and mustard and celery seeds.

Our enjoyment of this humble condiment reminded me of a passage from Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine”: 

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Meet a reader: FrugalStrong from Texas.

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Like the first person featured in the “Meet a reader” series, FrugalStrong has also been the subject of a post on this site. I had the chance to meet her and her family when they traveled to Alaska. The result was an article called “Why aren’t more people frugal?” The title for that piece came from a question her husband posed during our frugal meet-up at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant (a location chosen for its big indoor playground).

When the 2017 Financial Blogger Conference took place in Dallas, she invited DF and me to stay for a couple of days, pre-conference. Their home is on a lake, and DF got a kick out of being able to swim in late October. Unfortunately, I came down with some kind of bug while I was there, which was mortifying, but she and her husband couldn’t have been nicer about it. 

Our recent phone chat was the two of us taking turns preaching to the choir. FrugalStrong and I have the same mindset: Save where you can so you can spend where you want.

Here, lightly edited for brevity and clarity, is that conversation.

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Extreme frugality: Deal eyes.

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The first Tuesday of every month is a standing date for DF and me: “Senior Day,” when folks over the age of 55 get 10 percent off all Kroger brands. In keeping with our extreme frugality ethos, we cruised the entire store to look for special deals.

And boy, did we find one. The price was so startling that we did double and then triple takes: 1½-pound boxes of Kroger breakfast sausage links for 49 cents.

What made the deal extra-surprising is that the 1½-pound boxes of Kroger breakfast sausages right next to them cost $4.99 each. Examining the extreme-frugality version, we saw the reason for the startling differences in price: The cheaper sausage needed to be used or frozen that very day.

Fortunately, we now have two freezers: My niece replaced her 5-cubic-foot model with a much bigger deep-freeze, and gave us the old one. DF and one of his sons had picked it up just two days before.

So we bought a lot of sausage, including five boxes for my niece and her kids. This being Senior Day and the sausage being a Kroger product, we even got an additional discount. (Sort of. More on this below.)

The moral of the story: If you want to practice extreme frugality, you need to develop what I call “deal eyes.”

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Life hack: Baking soda as oven cleaner.

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While baking pie* recently I smelled something burning. My initial thought was that bits of crust had fallen onto the cookie sheet under the pie tins. Nope. The smell was from the floor of the oven, where a now-carbonized remnant of a previous meal** continued to smolder. Time for some oven cleaner.

DF offered to take care of it. I agreed, and suggested a very simple way to do this. No need for a commercial cleanser or the oven-cleaning cycle as long as we had baking soda on hand.

He was unfamiliar with this particular life hack, so I explained it to him:

  • Cover the burned-on stuff completely with baking soda.
  • Sprinkle water atop the soda until it’s fairly damp (but not soupy).
  • Let it sit for a bunch of hours (for me, that’s usually overnight).
  • Wipe it up.
  • Rinse thoroughly.

Easy on, easy off*** – could it really be that simple? 

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Anatomy of a frugal freezer.

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Recently I did an article called “Anatomy of a frugal meal,” in which I detailed the various hacks that went into producing a last-minute meal that was both cheap and delicious. The reaction was so positive that I decided follow-up pieces might be in order.

The first idea came when I opened the freezer and realized how many things were engineered into that relatively small space. To be clear: This is the freezer atop our fridge, not the chest freezer. (But that one’s pretty full as well.)

As you’ll soon see, the fridge freezer has both good deals and odd stuff. Yet each item represents the best use of our food dollars, whether that’s growing it, buying it on sale or getting maximum use out of every bit of nutrition.

About that last: In a piece called “Extreme frugality: Use all the bits,” I pointed out that the price of eating hasn’t been this high for 10 years.

“Extreme frugality may become a necessity, if it isn’t already. So why not work to get as much out of every food item you buy? (As) the per-plate price of food continues to climb, remember that preventing food waste helps make your groceries more cost-effective.”

Our freezer is crammed with cost-effective (and sometimes free) items that keep costs down and mealtimes delightful. Have a peek inside.

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How to get free stuff.

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Once upon a time, it was easy to get free stuff. In the early days of Internet marketing, companies vied with one another to give away everything from candy bars to condoms.

Of course, this free stuff came at a cost: The manufacturers would spam you, and your info would likely be sold so that other people could spam you, too.

But for a little while our mailboxes turned into piñatas, spilling out stuff like protein bars, breakfast cereal, T-shirts, pet food, feminine hygiene products, fabric softener, cosmetics, snack foods, energy drinks and all sorts of over-the-counter medications. Those were the days.

Marketing has changed, and most of the folks who used to run freebie sites either sold their URLs or dropped outta the blogging business. But when asked to find out what’s still there, I found enough to write about for Money Talks News. “6 of the best websites for finding free stuff” notes that times have definitely changed:

“(Some) so-called ‘freebie’ sites are more about items that are free if you:

  • Use coupons and rebates.
  • Pay upfront and then get a loyalty program credit or an online rebate.
  • Jump through multiple hoops, such as creating an account, installing an app and linking your social media account.
  • Enter a drawing for a chance at getting the free item.
  • Take surveys and then use the points you earn to get “free” stuff.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with taking surveys; it’s one way of earning extra cash. Nothing wrong with rebates, either. But sometimes you just want to click it and claim it.”

I did come up with more than half a dozen legitimate ways to score gratis goods. (A couple of extras are tucked in as also-rans.) The article also includes pro tips and caveats. Have a look, and score some free stuff of your own.

A few other pieces I’ve done for Money Talks News lately:

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How I got $50 worth of free food.

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Like many of you, I’m very nervous about fast-rising food prices. That’s why I was thrilled to get $50 worth of free food recently.

It was pretty simple: I cashed in some rewards program points for a $25 Kroger gift card and a $25 Safeway gift card. And I can’t truly explain just how happy that made me.

It felt a bit silly, to be honest. After all, the cupboard was by no means bare and I had money in my checking account. No one would have gone hungry had I not cashed in; as the king and queen of the stealth stock-up, DF and I are good for the basics. (So many basics.)

Fresh fruit and certain vegetables, though, and eggs, and milk for my oatmeal and to use for making yogurt? Those kinds of things need to be bought regularly. Hence the gift cards.

Flashing this scrip at the cash register felt great. Instead of spending money on the fresh stuff, I’d be sending those food dollars to the account where I keep my saved savings.

But I’m not writing about this to brag. I’m writing it to suggest that those of you with smartphones download some shopping apps and start earning. And if you’ve got a credit card that isn’t a rewards card, consider shopping for a new one.

Rewards points matter. My $50 head start at the grocery store says so.

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Meet a reader: Cheryl from Florida.

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Recently I announced my intention to borrow a strategy from The Frugal Girl, who posts a regular feature called “Meet a Reader.” This seemed like a natural fit for my site, since (a) I like talking with readers and (b) you guys are always talking to one another in the comments.

(Love it when that happens, by the way. And long may it continue!)

So I asked who might be interested in participating* in this feature, and was delighted that a dozen people either volunteered, or suggested a reader they hoped I’d interview. In addition, I made my own list (there was some overlap).

Random number generator decided that Cheryl would be first. Some of you may remember her from a previous piece I wrote, “Cheryl paid off her mortgage.” I was fortunate to meet her in person when visiting my dad, and figured a phone conversation would be as stimulating as the one the three of us had in person at a Dunkin Donuts in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

It was.

Here, edited a bit for brevity and clarity, is how it all shook down.

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Monday miscellany: Cheapest ways to be dead.

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Recently a friend of my daughter’s suffered the unexpected loss of a family member who lived in another state. Her friend’s mother is unemployed, and the friend herself doesn’t earn much money. Abby offered “to do what I do best: comparison shop to find them the best deal.” The best she could find had a … Read more