Five Frugal Things -- Oregon Historical Society & Free Postcards
1) My sister's family and I were invited to the Oregon Historical Society for a private docent tour by a friend, whose daughter volunteers at the museum. It's already free for Multnomah County residents, so it was a certain frugal lady's dream come true.
You know I enjoyed this pair of circa 1800 socks, complete with a clever flax repair. It's not like earlier Oregonians were able to pop over to the local yarn shop for darning wool. It looks like it did the job quite nicely!
2) We perused the gift shop, but then walked over to the entrance area where we found a display of free postcards and bookmarks. We each helped ourselves to a few which was fun.
This display is actually just half of what they had on offer.
I chose four postcards, my favorite of which is obviously the lil' dapper gent!
3. My husband chose to sleep instead of accompanying us to the museum, but made good use of his time and fixed an issue with our front door that's been a problem for at least ten years! The problem being that the heavy door no longer matched up with the deadbolt opening, which meant we weren't able to fully lock the door. Sure it locked, but didn't have the extra security of a proper deadbolt.
When asked what prompted this act of DIY energy, my husband simply replied that "it needed to be done." Perhaps he was on a roll from his basement plumbing success.
4. I drove my sister and her kids to our mother and stepfather's house, where we were treated to an another private docent tour. This time was the "Musée de Zimm," which is a small museum in their basement based on the odds and ends left behind by the previous owners. My stepdad gives tours as if it's a real museum and somehow his NYC grandchildren had never had the privilege. To say it's a blast is an understatement.
I'd share pictures, but there was a "no flash photography" rule.
5. I'm listening to an enjoyable Mary Kay Andrews Libby audiobook, which helps to balance out the horrific daily news cycle prompted by our felonious low IQ megalomaniac pedophile president.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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Love the free postcards!
We have a map on our wall where we hang up postcards we collect.
1. Wore the same dress for Easter as last year
2. Stitched up a hole in a sweater
3. I'm decorating my couch with pillows and blankets to put off re-upholstering or purchasing another
4. Purchased some plants off fb
5. Using a bucket someone gave us as a planter
Longer post and pictures here: https://practicalwalk.com/2026/04/08/frugal-five-going-boho/
1. I got to the scratch and dent vegetable store to pick up some steeply discounted butternut squash, and onions. Picked up more loss leaders and got out with pounds of produce for just over $20. We've been enjoying roasted squash in salads and burrito bowls, so I wanted to take advantage of the sale – spring is coming and the winter vegs won't be such a good deal in a month or so, nor will we be so excited about eating them!
2. I got mom to the last of the internal imaging appointments that had been set up. It was at a mall that is 'new' to me (probably 20 years old, LOL) that I find very confusing, built at the confluence of several highways and not really parking friendly.
I did manage to manifest a parking spot directly across from the doors (someone pulling out just as we arrived) and Mom was in and out in 10 minutes. That was enough for her so I just drove her home rather than going for lunch which had been my initial plan. The drive home included an unplanned tour of all of the Mall's parking lots, and we ended up on a different road going back, however Mom frequently surprises me with how she can find pleasure in small things, and she simply kept exclaiming about the 'wonderful things' she was seeing – and the trees are beginning to bloom so the back roads home were full of beauty.
3. Because I was going down to see my mom, I booked an appointment with her bank for on the way. Due to traffic, I both had to get out the door much earlier than I am usually able to be moving (groan), and got to be stuck in stop-go morning rush hour - making the drive at least 40 min longer (on top of the usual hour and a half). Sigh.
The excellent news is that I have finally broken through in the online banking access (!!!) , and have managed to access Mom's travel points via her credit card. (Also !!!)
Now that we have access, and knowing that Mom isn't going to be travelling on the points, my niece is going to investigate if we will continue to have access to them once Mom isn't around (do they disappear? Can they be transferred?). We'll also see if they can and/or should be converted into gift cards. The research continues.
Mom is fully supportive of us doing this research and keeping her informed – and using the points for something like bringing my sister out from the other side of the country.
4. I stopped to pick up a prescription and bumped into a friend I hadn't seen in a while. I was saddened to hear that she has cancer – it is always a shock when I slip out of touch with people and their lives take a turn for the worse. Turns out she was staggering back to her car to drive home to get her forgotten wallet so she could buy her expensive meds. I convinced her that the better plan was for ME to buy her meds (she sent me an e-transfer) so she could avoid all that driving.
Having room on my credit card to buy meds for a friend is one of the priceless gifts of being fiscally frugal. I would have gifted her the cost, but she said she gets fully reimbursed because it is some kind of trial.
In the end we spent a good half hour standing in the sun in the parking lot, having one of those hard conversations about where she and her family are at about her terminal illness, as well as lots of random talk about my kids (she was their daycare person) and some community issues. She was one of the friends who picked up the slack for me when I went into recovery treatment for my drinking problem, and I have been grateful for her friendship for the last 25 years. My heart is sore.
5. I picked up a couple of steeply discounted salad packets, which I used as the base for an enormous salad enhanced with tonnes of my garden arugula, two discount head lettuces that were in sad shape, generous spoonfuls of my instant potted garbanzo beans, and a skiff of pecans. The kits had dressing and two different kinds of crumbles. I ate a huge amount, #2 son got some for supper and lunch, and the Roommate also feasted. Feeling the love for a big crunchy (discount) salad!
I am now going to go out to the garden to do some nature decompressing - and watering.
Ecoteri, nature decompressing is an excellent idea and is more doable than my scheme to move to a cabin far from civilization with no Internet.
So sorry to hear about your friend. It was really kind of you to save her the car trip.
Thank you for reminding me of Mary Kay Andrews. An appropriate feel-good author for these times. She has a new book which my library has on order and I'm only #5 on the list.
1. Worked at the community garden this morning and brought home half a slice of homemade sourdough bread from snack time. Dh will enjoy this for breakfast. By itself it's not much of a savings, but 50 equally tiny things that I do eventually do add up to helping financially.
2. Gave away a carpet (stained, given to me by a friend who needed to get rid of it), and some celery seedlings on Buy Nothing.
3. Washed a load of laundry in cold water (always), measuring the liquid detergent with a free teaspoon (detergent is often not measured and too much is used), and hung it on the line to dry.
4. Making a quilt out of saved baby blankets from my own children (now between 26 and 31). It's a fun project. I may buy a some new fabric to finish it with, but I'm enjoying being creative with these blankets that hold so many memories, and which I already own!
5. Rode my bike to library.
Bonus: towards the end of the school year my husband's skill as a math tutor is in higher demand, so he has a student this afternoon. Yay!
My husband has long joked that he needs to invent an 6 inch strike plate, so the deadbolt will always work no matter which way the house settles. I think he's onto something!
Whoops - my frugals:
My #1 is marrying a man who is handy. We have 2 teen/young adult drivers, and thanks to my husband's ability to fix just about anything, he is able to keep the 20+ year old vehicles they drive (both with over 250k miles) going strong. With the current price of used cars this saves us a ton, along with the savings on car insurance since we only need liability.
2. Dinner each night has been leftover Easter ham with a different side dish, and I am hammed out.
3. Husband and I took advantage of a few free days and some beautiful weather and spent the past 3 days doing some exterior painting on our house. This equaled 2 no spend days and no gas used since we haven't left the house.
4. Listed several things on Marketplace, only sold one but hopefully things will pick up this weekend.
5. My college kid has a birthday this week, and to celebrate he requested lasagna dinner at home and play board games. I pick up lasagna ingredients whenever they're on sale, so the only thing I'm missing is cottage cheese (used in place of ricotta).
There's been a lot of adulting going on at Chez B. Exhibits 1-5:
1. Went to a county meeting where we had our property tax valuation reviewed. Our property taxes have gone up 40% in 2.5 years, and we wanted to make sure there hasn't been some kind of mistake. With everything we learned, our valuation should probably be even higher, but we didn't tell them that.
2. Contacted our trash hauler after receiving notification about the increase in our quarterly billing. Our initial two-year contract expired, plus there are now higher costs for the hauler across the board. I asked if there was anything they could do to help reduce our bill and they made some concessions. The cost is still going up, but not as much, so it pays to ask. We already have the smallest bin and have so little trash that we don't even put it out every week. I've thought about asking a neighbor to share their bin and split the cost, but there's dog poop to consider. It's bagged but still reeks.
3. Learned from our HVAC company that there's a 50% electric rate reduction for our heat pump for October-May from our electric company. Signed up pronto.
4. Questioned the $170 annual increase for umbrella insurance. Learned that our second vehicle (husband's truck) has never been part of that policy, and only because we recently sold his old truck and bought another one did that trigger things on the insurance agent's end. Irked about the increase as well as the past error, even if it did save us money, as we were exposed to significant financial risk all those years and didn't realize it.
5. Started to gather info to compare policies for auto, home and umbrella insurance with other insurers. We've been with the same insurance company for more than 40 years and have done what we can to stem the tide of rising costs. Sadly, there's no loyalty discount. We contacted other insurers a few years ago and stayed the course, but we need to review things again.
The postcards are fabulous and they're suitable for all sorts of occasions!
1. My husband is trying to cut back on salt usage and we got Schwartz garlic pepper to use instead for flavor which does the trick. However, it is quite expensive (3 Euro per jar) and looking at the ingredients I realized that I could just mix up the same herbs from store brand spices for less than half the cost which is exactly what I did.
2. I'm continuing to use: my tablet which is really slow but only gets used to read library e-books and is completely fine for that, my laptop which has no audio and needs to be used with headphones, my headphones without cushions as the material was flaking off and I constantly had black bits in my hair and ears!
3. My former colleague gave me a bag of t-shirts for my teens which have however become quite picky with their clothes. I ended up with some of the t-shirts as there were no takers. One of them randomly says Portland Health Club 1998 on the front and every time I wear it I think of Katy 🙂 None of the t-shirts are my size (they are size S, I am size XL-XXL) but they are perfect for wearing under jumpers and fleeces in winter as I don't like wearing bulky clothes as the base layer.
4. My son gave me a haircut! I have long hair and just needed half an inch trimmed off to keep it healthy. I just combed it out so it was cascading down the back and asked him to cut off half an inch in a straight line. I have curly hair so any tiny imperfections do not show. We were both quite happy with the result!
5. I am able to use some greens from the garden in salads and pesto now - sorrel, wild garlic, chives, parsley, swiss chard, young dandelion leaves.
I stayed home yesterday (saving has), but was out and about today. I went back to Aldi, because I didn't get my full list on my first trip. I spent another $30. I got a few things that weren't on my list, including dried apricot and mango. They weren't cheap, though I'm assuming they were cheaper at Aldi than other places. My rationale is that, as someone who needs fiber with every meal, it's a good idea to have fiber that can be taken on the go.
I went to Home Depot for light bulbs as well. In the parking lots between HD and Aldi I found a number of receipts which I have scanned.
My last stop was at the library, to pick up two books on hold.
I have run into an eBay problem. I sold some shoes but I listed them as the wrong size. There was no indication of the size on either of the shoes, so I measured the dimensions and compared them to a chart. Apparently, the chart was wrong. The buyer emailed me, and I responded, but I can't find a process for reimbursing her and getting the shoes back. Unless we do it privately. Any ideas, eBay experts?