Five Frugal Things -- Recycling & Black Bean Burgers
1. I gathered our clear plastic recycling and walked it to a New Seasons grocery store. We're able to recycle (wishcycle?) most categories of plastic through our curbside pickup, but the "clamshell" style of plastic requires an extra step.
My plan had been to grab some individual items from their salad bar, as it was advertised as 50%-off today. (I wanted to see if they had an high value things like marinated artichoke hearts, bacon bits or roasted red peppers.) Unfortunately I learned that my store doesn't actually have a salad bar. Oh well, I helped myself to a cheese sample and cheap self home.
2. I nipped into the Goodwill Outlet "bins" store to scout inventory for the $100 Goodwill Gift Card Challenge and picked up a couple items for myself. This includes the above vintage brass plant mister. I love how someone put in the time to solder the side -- a beautiful effort in a wasteful world.
I also picked up this plastic storage bin, as this specific design is what we use throughout our house. They notch together and can be used in a variety of ways. They also stack perfectly. They used to sell them at Dollar Tree and are surprisingly sturdy. Whoever designed them deserves their very own, not to be shared Nobel Prize!
I splurged on a heavy bag of Restoration Hardware curtain hardware because the quality stood out. I've listed them on eBay, but am tempted to hold onto them as they match the style of my curb picked chandelier. I'd still need to get a matching rod, but that shouldn't be too hard.
The total cost for everything was $12.05.
3. I put in an order for a free-with-points double mushroom pizza on the Domino's app while still in the Goodwill parking lot, and then swung by for it on my way home. I earn these points by ordering gluten-free pizzas for my daughter. Ironically these points can't be used for a gluten-free pizza, as those crusts are baked offsite and only come in the "small" size! The free pizzas are always the medium size.
By the way, this hardly seems like a "double" number of mushrooms! Oh well, it was free!
I wanted to make sure to have leftover pizza, so I only ate a bit and quickly assembled a black bean burger using mix I already had prepped in the refrigerator. This was super tasty and cost maybe 50¢, as the buns were 5¢ apiece from the Franz bakery Outlet.
5. I'll use the leftover pizza to create "pizza croutons," which are just diced leftover pizza, which you reheat in the oven and serve over salad. I'm very excited about tonight's dinner!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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Love the plant mister!
1. My kid and I both needed to visit the dentist which is the next town over. I scheduled our appointments back to back and we stopped by a county park on the way home for a free walk.
2. My neighbor offered me a head of broccoli and a bag of carrots as she accidentally over bought for a recipe. I walked down and picked them up happily!
3. Cleaning the house and sorting not so loved items out. We are listing them for the upcoming consignment sale and on ebay.
4. Reading two books from the public library- Wintering by Katherine May and The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.
5. Keeping my 2026 financials in a notebook that I had on my "use-it-up" list. I needed a pocket in the notebook and glued a sturdy piece of cardstock I had inside the cover. One less thing purchased for the year.
The brass mister is identical to the one I inherited from my Great Granny.
I finally broke down and went grocery shopping at Winco. $71 later I am all stocked up. I would not, couldn't force myself to buy bread at $7.99/loaf gf. A loaf of oatmeal honey is raising on the counter now.
I sold the lawnmower that I listed a few days ago. Gone!
I sold a pair of men's LL Bean duck boots. Gone!
Went out on a community volunteer fire call this morning. Fire started with a portable heater plugged into a lightweight extension cord. If you can't plug the heater into a wall receptacle, then please don't. Home occupants both had burns to their hands and legs. Stay safe everyone!
Lindsey, sending you a (((( h u g )))).
1. We had a snow/cold day so dd and I headed to Goodwill. I grabbed the 2 bags of stuff I had to donate - menopause has not been good to my body. I need shirts in a larger size and found 3 that I loved
2. We have a storm coming - as much of the country does. We are gathering up our flashlights and figuring out our water. I don't have enough for a huge power outage but we will fill all the containers we have to help ensure that we can flush the toilets. I have several cases of bottled water set aside specifically for drinking during an outage.
3. Dh brought up more wood and chopped a bunch. Also cleaned out the chimney himself
4. I had meatballs thawed but we just didn't feel like pasta. I dug through my fridge freezer and found 2 old but edible hotdog buns and we had meatball subs for dinner
5. I listed an essential oil I had gotten for free on Ebay for $30 and it sold within 24 hours.
My poor granddaughter is pulling at her ear, AGAIN, which is probably indicating another ear infection. My daughter needed to pick up allergy medicine and pains meds for the baby, per her physician, so she used my phone number at CVS and bought all CVS brand items, so she got 20% off each item, saving herself $7.00. She gave me the receipts, and I got 75 cents back on Ibotta and 25 points on Fetch.
I had been craving some hot coffee, but didn’t have any creamer. When we went to visit my daughter and granddaughter, she sent me home with some delicious Butterbeer creamer - in a baby bottle as that was all she had to use! 🙂
I am still on my decluttering kick. I’m up to 409 items. Today’s contribution was 6 lids that we do not use, one glass Christmas serving tray, and one cake pan. Is it worth it to donate lids or is that just asking the thrift store to throw my junk away?
I used up two half empty jars of apple butter and two packets of instant oatmeal that we won’t eat to make pumpkin apple butter bread. It was okay, not great. But we will eat it.
DH comes home from Rehab on Saturday. He wasn't supposed to be discharged until Sunday; however, "Old Man Winter" is fue to have "morning sickness" on Sunday and spew 3"-6" of white, fluffy yuck. (S-N-O-W is a "4-letter word" you know. Someone needs to wash Old Man Winter's mouth out with soap for "swearing.") "French Toasters" unite! That's what our friend calls those who dash to the store to get milk, eggs, and bread before a storm...and don't forget the toilet paper!
Drove by the "Kindness Cupboard" (a.k.a "Little Free Pantry") in front of the Catholic church the other day. The food bank must handed out a LOT of black beans this month becaise the cupboard was FULL of black beans. DH uses them in chili and I make black bean soup on occasion. Have both in the freezer, so we don't need any black beans at the moment.
You all must cook a lot of foreign dishes as most of the meals you talk about I've never even heard if. (Maybe I live under a rock?)
DH and I talked today about how we can minimize food waste at home. One or 2 days of leftovers are fine, but... i'm going to start cutting recipes in half. Looking for variety, not a weeks worth of re-runs.
I will be glad when DH is home and we can actually cut down our expenses to the bare minimum. I've been meeting myself coming and going for the last few weeks with with work, visiting DH and taking care of everything else. I just want to have some down time. I just need some down time