Share a frugal tip, hint or thought

K

Kjs

Guest
I hit a wrong button and lost my post..:(

Anyway, buy in bulk. Make many meals at once, freeze everything.
Freeze in both family and individual portions. (when i work husband has a meal already their. otherwise he tends to go out)

I shop at the bread thrift store. I feeze buns individually so easy child and difficult child can pop a hotdog in the microwave and nuke the bun too.

I do a lot of what everyone has mentioned. Except...I HATE being cold. I just cannot take it. I keep my house warm.
Clean the oven early in the morning to warm up the house. Bake a lot of deserts in the morning to warm the house. Freeze everything. I get home from work mid-day, take a meal out and husband cooks it when he gets home.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I shop per ounce or unit, NOT necessarily in bulk. Whatever is the cheapest per unit of what we will use. If we won't use it, it does not matter how cheap it is.

Laundry has been my BIGGEST savings this last year. We use the dryer, and the washer. But the products have been a huge savings.

I buy Rosa Venus soap for body (IGA, bar soap area 27cents). I grate 1 bar in the food processor. Then I measure in 2 cups borax and 2 cups WASHING soda. I process this together with the steel knife so that the soap is cut up as fine as possible and things mix well. Washing soda was just $2.79 and it has 6 cups in the box. Borax is about the same price.

By grating the soap, then using the steel knife of the processor to blend everything, you have tiny particles that dissolve even in our winter cold well water. I use 2 measure Tablespoons in a large load.

I had some lightweight woven fabric I tore into roughly 4" squares. I mix the cheapest liquid fabric softener 1 part to 4 parts water. This is in a small container. Scrunch up a piece of fabric and dip it into the softener, squeeze off what you can, and toss it in. DO NOT wipe fingers wet with softener mix on clothes. It will leave grease marks. slightly dripping fabric squares are not a problem.

Dry as usual, when folding put the fabric square back in the container of dry fabric pieces. Reuse until you lose them or they fall into the litter box and the cat pees on them.

For color safe bleach similar to clorox 2 take one 32 ounce bottle. Pour in 8 ounces of hydrogen peroxide (half of that bottle that always gets dumped when one of hte kids tries to use it). Fill with water. Use 1/4 to 1/2 cup per load. I reqularly squirt this diluted mixture on clothes as the water is filling up. I have not had problems with bleached spots unless the peroxide is added last and it is not shaken well.

I use a paste of dishwasher soap mixed into tough stains wtih an old toothbrush. Then just toss in and wash. If you let it sit, then you sometimes have a bleached area.

For those of us with painful hand problems, use a cheap electric toothbrush (I usually pick one with a pretty used up head, bought for about $1 new with a coupon and a sale) to scrub the paste into stains.

Grease stains? dish soap. I do buy DAWN. The regular stuff. I use such a small amount on dishes, whatever, that with a coupon it ends up being far cheaper than the store brands.

IF you end up with a peroxide based contact lens solution (aosept and ultraclear are 2) that you cannot use, they are excellent at removing stains. I did this to use up aosept when I quit wearing lenses years ago. I actually managed to pry off the little red tip and fill it up with a 1/2 and 1/2 peroxide and water solution. This is NEVER EVEr FOR CONTACT LENSES OR EYE USE!!) It is a great bleach for blood and protein stains, and is a very handy application method. I found needle nosed pliers worked and the bottles lasted a long time. It is absolutely vital to RELABEL.

Kids using up peroxide right, left and center for skinned knees?

Put the peroxide into a labelled spray bottle. Then just spray it on the cuts and scrapes.

For more frugal tips, tricks and ideas and recipes than you can process in a day, get a copy of Amy Daczyian (sp?) book titled The Tightwad Gazette. It was a newsletter that was compiled into a book. Then into a 2nd volume. Then a 3rd. All 3 volumes are titled The Complete Tightwad Gazette.

For other recipes and ideas, there is a book titled Cheaper and Better. REally great recipes.

I also use Eliason, et al 's book Make A Mix Cookery. Yum. Make Taco seasoning, bread mix, biscuit mix, cake mix, all sorts of stuff many people pay a lot for.
 
my husband bought these huge potatoes and they are gonna go to the bad my son love french fries is there anyway i can freeze these, maybe cut up and freeze or cook and freeze any ideas?
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I'll try that, with old contact lens solution. I wear contacts but only in summer when I'm going to the beach every day. But I'm sensitive to preservatives, so I can only use sterile saline near my eyes.

Because of that allergy, there are very few cosmetics I can use. I'm OK with powder eyeshadow, kohl eyeliner and lipsticks, but if I'm having a difficult day I do not wear any eye make-up. Most of the time I wear nothing, except mainly lip gloss. I never wear foundation and do not use expensive moisturisers. Instead, I use vegetable oils. Some are perfumed. I have my own box of essential oils; old 'perfume oils' or 'aroma oils' I use a drop inside the cardboard tube of the toilet paper roll to perfume it, instead of buying room deodorisers and perfumed rolls.

When I'm cooking, I use olive oil which I buy in bulk tins. If a drop is running down the side of the bottle (which I refill from the tin - pour with the tin spout at the top, it lets the air into the tin as you pour and prevents the 'bloop bloop' accidents) then I wipe the drop of oil into my hands, face or arms. Or legs, if they're looking particularly reptilian... and all those anti-ageing creams make absolutely no difference. I can't use them anyway, because of my allergy, but even when I could - NADA. I use enough olive oil (or coconut oil, or almond oil, or sorbolene) to stop my skin from feeling drum-tight and to moisturise after I've been sunbaking, and people keep telling me I do not look as old as I am. I know people much younger than I am, who have much drier, older-looking skin.

And it is NOT the vegetable oil, it is my genes. Somewhere in there is a Mediterranean mix which not only gets me mistaken for a slightly ageing Greek goddess, but also keeps my skin looking supple despite the abuse I give it.
So another money-saver - stop buying expensive creams for your skin. Moisturise with the ordinary stuff like oil and sorbolene and you will look just as good and save a lot more money.

We DO buy flour, rice etc in bulk but we store it well. I have a large tub, it used to contain pool chlorine from a warehouse. We cleaned the tub thoroughly and use it to store our bulk flour sacks and rice sacks. It seals hermetically, no vermin can get in. I fill smaller containers every so often.

Potatoes - I keep them in the fridge. Our weather is too warm, we don't have air-conditioning (we open windows instead, or close curtains to keep out the heat) so keeping them in the fridge keeps them firmer and also stops them getting attacked by various beasties.
We store rainwater. We have a solar hot water system. We do need to turn on the electric booster most days in winter, but we have free hot water from spring to autumn.
We're now using those energy saver light bulbs, the old incandescent ones will soon disappear from the shop shelves.

And leftovers - when I buy a chook to cook, the neck is often tucked inside. I pull it out (most people forget and it is then thrown away with the carcass, after everyone has eaten their fill) and I put the neck in a small bag in the freezer. When I buy another, then another neck gets frozen. When I have six or so, I cook them into chicken stock. I've even picked the meat off the neck bones and used it to make chicken supreme, or put it into chicken soup or risotto. One extra free meal (apart from the rice, or the four, I've used, and a bit of electricity). And the kids love it, too. I've even done tihs on holidays - we had a leftover barbecued chicken carcass after the kids had picked all the meat off it (they thought) which I cooked up to make another full meal, with some rice, some carrot peel, celery tops, onion skin and some salt from the shaker. Of course I strained it all, then made risotto with it, it tasted fabulous.

Leftover mashed potato - add egg and flour, you have difficult child 3's favourite food - gnocchi! It's wonderful comfort food in winter, I've made that while on holiday, also. It takes a little practice, but it's well worth it.

This is fun!

Marg
 
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