Five Frugal Things
by Katy on March 10, 2025 · 78 comments
-
I made a pot of French onion soup, which was extra frugal as I made the bread from scratch, used white cheddar instead of gruyere and threw the above pat of leftover restaurant butter in with the onions. (Worry not, as I added much more butter than this lil’ guy!) I didn’t have any wine, but I added a glug of sweet rice vinegar and it was absolutely divine!
-
I spent an hour or so taking everything off my narrow back porch, sweeping it off, reorganizing everything and then putting it all back together. This project was about the functionality of the space, not the aesthetics — although it certainly looked better afterwards. Not everything needs to look cute. You can make over a space using nothing more than cleanliness and organization.
P.S. The shelf was a curb find, as was the vintage green wastebasket. The bag holder was being thrown away by my husband’s employer and the yellow “Portland Recycles” bin came with our garbage service in the 1990s.
-
I’ve been taking my daughter out every day to practice her driving, which has been a long time coming. She turned 18 at the beginning of her senior year of high school, so they wouldn’t let her take driver’s education as the program was funded for students “under 18 only.” She then went to college in a walkable town and somehow here we are. Anyway, it’s been a lot of fun and although I’d be willing to pay for driving lessons, this is working out really well so far. I’ve watched a couple of “How to teach someone to drive” YouTube videos, which have been helpful.
I’ll accept any and all advice on how you’ve successfully taught someone to drive.
-
• My daughter overwatered and killed a house plant that I’d given her, so I brought the flowerpot back home. I’m already propagating a number of plants on the kitchen windowsill, so I’ll be able to fill it back up again with fresh plants. Unconditional love = infinite plant replacements.
• I started listing to Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven through the library’s free Libby app.
• I socialized with a friend yesterday by taking a walk through the neighborhood and socialized with our back yard neighbors by giving them a tour of the house. Strengthening relationships is always a good plan.
• I picked my stepfather up from the airport, which saved him the cost of a taxi.
-
I hadn’t planned on buying a brand new car, so I don’t have to panic buy one before the tariffs kick in.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
Click HERE to follow The Non-Consumer Advocate on Instagram.
Click HERE to join The Non-Consumer Advocate Facebook group.
Like this post? Then please share it with your friends!
Like this:
Like Loading...
{ 78 comments… read them below or add one }
My daughter is 27 and can’t drive. I keep meaniing to take her to renew her permit and keep forgetting. She lives in Manhattan so she takes the subway everywhere but it’s important to know how to drive.
I didn’t learn until I was 25, myself. I diidn’t want to earn the money to buy a car in high school (only way I could have gotten one), I went away to college which was walkable, and then when I was 21 my younger brother was hit by a car and killed and I was really scared and upset about learning. Finally, when I was 25 I tthought it was about time I learned, so my husband taught me. On our car with standard transmission. The first time I started it up, I stalled, and my husband said, “Great! You broke it!” and I started to cry. He was taken aback because he was joking. After that he printed a bunch of “Good Driver Awards” to hand to me ever time I mastered something like parking. “Award for Parking Good,” etc yes the bad grammar is part of the joke.
I then taught my son how to drive age 17, with an automatic. First thing he said first time behnd the wheel was, “OK, so how do I pop a wheelie?”
None of us have ever taken driver’s ed, and I decided I just didn’t feel like reading the manual for the required test, but I passed anyway.
I’m sorry about your brother. That must have been hard. One of my children had a good friend killed in a car accident in high school. That slowed down nearly all of her grade getting their license (small town).
Also so sorry about your brother. That’s very hard.
Thanks, it was hard for a long time. Now it seems almost unreal, it was so long ago. I used to send my mom flowers on his birthday every year, which she loved, but now she’s gone too.
At his memorial service, his classmates were bussed in and I remember a lot of teenage girls screeching and crying. Meanwhile I didn’t cry at all at the ceremony.
But yeah, scared to drive. I pushed myself years later because the only way to get over a phobia is to just do it, I think.
1. Received several things from Buy Nothing – three pizzas, two audiobooks and one bulletin board – and was able to group all of the pickups while I was running other errands. I also listed some things that we no longer need/want.
2. Husband went to lunch with a friend and she paid for his meal.
3. Sister and I went to the 25% off matinee. Spent some of our savings on a light meal afterward.
4. Took our dog to the vet for shots and a checkup. Since she was already sedated, we cut her nails at home using a clipper that we received via Buy Nothing.
5. Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned. After exhausting all other options, I used Amazon for the one-of-a-kind shower ring for our quirky bathroom. Saved $11 in shipping by signing up for free 30-day Prime membership which I’ll cancel before the month is up.
MB in MN,
I will absolve you of your Amazon sin, if you will absolve me of mine. Son needed a book for school, and needed it “soon” (basically, as soon as possible). I tried local bookstores (indies and chains), and no one had it in stock – they could get it delivered to the store in 7-10 days…sorry, no. All other online bookstores could deliver in 7-10 days. Nope. Amazon Prime was my fallback….ordered it, and it was here the next day.
We can only try our best.
Liz B, by the power vested in me, you are hereby absolved.
@MB in MN, and @Liz B. you are both absolved. I think we are all doing the very best we can, and sometimes the best includes making choices that we don’t like yet are what are available to us. In both your cases, I bet you buy far fewer things from Amazon than you have in the past, and THAT is our main goal. Reduce!
That soup looks amazing. I’ve never made french onion soup. I may have to give it a go sometime.
1. I mopped all of my floors with the new to me O Cedar spin mop I bought at an estate sale. I had been wanting one, but didn’t want to spend the money on it in case I didn’t like it. I prefer to scrub my floors by hand, but with my arthritic knees it is getting next to impossible. It worked very well. I can clean the baseboards at the same time and I think I will use it to wipe down walls.
2. I gave my dog a bath in my shower using the handheld shower head I had installed a few years ago. It’s worth every penny.
3. My daughter helped me move all my heavy furniture out in my bedroom, so I could vacuum behind and scrub the walls and baseboards. I used the plastic moving men I purchased at a yard sale years ago. It would be impossible without them. This furniture is solid wood. My husband and I bought it with our wedding money over 30 years ago.
4. My daughter and I finished up all the accumulated leftovers in the refrigerator. Luckily we both love leftovers. I’ll be starting from scratch this week with some new meals. My daughter is wanting quiche. I will teach her how to make a pie crust from scratch.
5. My mother invited my daughters and I for dinner tonight. She’s making her famous sloppy joes and rice pudding. My contribution will be some tater tots. I have a huge bag from Costco taking up space in my freezer. It will be a nostalgic meal.
Clarissa Dickson Wright of the Two Fat Ladies once made a variation on French onion soup, which was onion soup with Stilton and beer. Absolutely mind-blowing.
I love, love, love heavy wooden furniture! I feel sorry for folks trying to buy furniture today — it’s mostly particle board and IMHO, won’t hold up over many years. After my parents’ passing, I got rid of my 1980s furniture and kept theirs. I just had my front room flooring redone and it has taken several guys to move Mom’s 1948 mahogany dining room suite. It may not currently be “in,” but I love the deep mahogany finish that has a shine to it. I have nightmares about people taking this kind of furniture and painting it to look “shabby chic.” (as has been the fad over the past several years). To me, that’s “poor white trash decor” — like taking something out of a king’s palace and ruining it so it looks like it came from a hillbilly’s shack. Hopefully the trend will reverse. I love the book “Frugal Luxuries” by Tracey McBride bc she tells how to find gorgeous items like fine china and beautiful antiques for very little $ and how to incorporate such luxuries into a bare-bones budget/enjoyable lifestyle. (Thrift stores and estate sales, if not BN groups….and yes, that is helping the boycott! Billionaire oligarchs do not sell this stuff via their discount store chains or online businesses!)
Lisa–I have seen some rather nice Art Deco furniture shabby chic’d with paint. And yeah, I groaned. The thing about paint is that it can be removed, so at least non-currently fashionable furniture is kept out of the landfill, you know?
My other thing is people make too much of a big deal about “solid wood” furnture, as if some crappy 1980s pine is superior to 1920 veneered pieces. Nope nope and nope. Remember, the finest furniture ever made is veneered (the stuff the ancien regime ebenistes made). The ebenistes would have thought it was wasteful and nuts to make an entire piece out of rare wood (like ebony), when you could veneer it onto a wooden carcass.
Lisa, you’re so lucky to have your mother’s mahogany dining room set! My mother had a Blonde Danish Modern dining room set…table, chairs, buffet and a coffee table, too. My parents married in 1947 but I’m not sure if she got it right away. Over the years, she sold everything except the buffet. That went when she broke her house up. Wish I had the whole set now, not only because it was well made and beautiful but to remind me of her and my growing-up years.
Fru-gal Lisa,
My mom was quite frustrated that no one wanted her dining room table and chairs when she downsized. It was solid wood, but a dark brown, kind of “heavy” looking, and vaguely colonial in style. My parents bought it in the late 70s, I think. It wasn’t my style, or any of my three sisters styles, plus we all have dining tables. I think it was sold at an auction with a bunch of other stuff she didn’t want.
My mom and dad had danish modern – her dining room table and chairs were so lovely. My little brother asked for the table (mom kept the chairs) when Mom downsized. So it travelled 5 hours and a ferry away. When my little brother decided to sell everything and move to Mexico, the table was collected by yours truly during an EPIC adventure with my mom and sister (sister was visiting from clear across the country). We managed to barely fit the table over the top of my dad’s old oak office desk – and brought it back to my house, however my son (who had MY teak table) traded me back for my mom’s. So now it is in pride of place at my son’s house, where they also have bits and pieces of danish modern from my parents and from Marketplace.
I love the travelling table stories!
And I don’t care what kind of kitchen table I have as it is usually covered with a tablecloth and projects – currently all of my containers of seeds. My son and his partner do a much better job with the show home look
I’ve taught eight of my kids to drive – some had driver’s ed at school and some didn’t. We always started in a school parking lot at night or on a weekend – to get a feel for how the car moves and drives, how to go in a straight line, etc. Then we’d usually move onto a small road which loops around – good for practicing turns. Then the highway – and the highway is easier as there is no opposing traffic coming right at you. (I live in a rural area, so the highway is never too crowded.) Then we’d practice going on the highway at one exit and exiting at the next, and then do that a few times. Back to the parking lot to practice backing up if they had trouble with it. (We have a long , narrow driveway, so this is a necessary skill.) Each kid had their quirks ( my one daughter took forever to get left turns because she’s always stop in the middle, one has a lead foot (thank goodness for cruise control), and one has to eat before driving a long way because he’d get weak and tired all of a sudden. Finding one familiar path to work on (the most recent one – we’d go to his sister’s to pick up or drop off her dog – about an hour each way with a variety of traffic) helped build skills and confidence.
I also had a firm rule – if I yelled stop they had to stop right away no arguments. Rarely had to invoke it though.
My state has that adults learning to drive (without a drivers ed class) have to take a safety course (on line or in person). It was a minor expense but worth it to get the license. Check to see if your state has any extra requirements for an adult driver.
Good luck to your beginning driver!
I’m a leadfoot, sorry to say. I cannot stand to be behind someone slow. And also sorry to say, if my kids are in the car they egg me on. “Did you see that guy just passed you? You’re not gonna take that shit from him, are you?” Siiiigh.
Rose,
I’m a member of the Leadfoot Club. Nice to see you here. 🙂
Very glad to know about the rice vinegar substitute!
1. Our whole family came to another town today for errands and appointments. So I packed lunch: leftover pizza, Arnold Palmers (with sale lemons), clearance chips, muffins, veggies and grapes and coffee for me.
2. Taking a donation to Goodwill and will get a coupon for 20% off one item.
3. Downloaded a free audio book for my son for book club.
4. Bought seeds and soil for a garden.
5. My husband is teaching our kids to drive. I’m very grateful he’s doing it, not me as he’s a great teacher
Hi Katy! I’ve been reading for quite awhile now, but I’ve never commented. I just wanted to share (since you mentioned the Goodwill coupon) that our store is always running low on newspapers to wrap glassware so, if you bring in a bag of newspapers, they’ll also give a coupon for 20% off.
I taught all four of my kids to drive, pretty much entirely on my own for the required hours (60 apiece). But on top of that, kids here are required to go to a two-week daily driver’s ed program and do some hours of supervised driving with an instructor from the program. You have to do that and have the proof of completion and passing in order to be allowed to take the driving test at the DMV.
Does Oregon not require driver’s ed? If so, I’m jealous! It’s largely a waste of time, and the parents have to drive the kids back and forth to the class daily which is kind of annoying.
NY doesn’t require Drivers Ed. Our kids took it at their school. They did it after school 3 days a week for a semester. It was I think $120. They would take the late bus home. Hubby was in charge of teaching them and road tests. My anxiety couldn’t handle it. They did drive me around to practice.
Public schools in my area have Driver’s Ed classes during the school day.
Oregon doesn’t require driver’s ed, although my youngest took it. As I wrote, my daughter’s high school wouldn’t allow her to take the class as she turned 18 at the beginning of her senior year. I took it up the ladder and heard “no” at each rung.
We did get a small insurance discount for the class, as well as a “good grades” discount. Maybe you can get that since you’re such a dedicated nursing student! 😉
The approach of the family friend who taught our son to drive on the highway (he took driver’s ed, but they somehow missed this critical piece): drive from our small town to the closest city (30 km away), exiting and entering the highway at EVERY single exit. My son bought him lunch in the city and they returned doing the same thing. It took the whole afternoon, but my son felt super confident by the end of it!
I do like this approach– seems very effective.
Of course, when all exits are replaced by the obnoxiousness of round-abouts as is happening across the US Midwest, it will be harder. I cheer for myself whenever I make it through one correctly. I can respect their utility, but that doesn’t mean I like driving through them.
Midwesterns for reasons I cannot fathom think they need to speed up when going through a round-about. And ours are too narrow – there is one in a rural area (don’t ask me why) that gets not only semis but farm equipment.
My son took driver’s ed in high school. Not a free course, it was a couple hundred bucks, but passing it made our insurance not go up too much when he got his license. Because he’s a bit developmentally delayed, we had him wait until he was 18 to be in the car by himself. His dad was very good about riding with him.
Many, many years ago, I taught my mom how to drive my straight shift car just in case she ever had to. As I did not want her to wreck the transmission, we practiced by drawing a gearshift chart on a piece of paper, using an umbrella as a gearshift and I sat facing her with my feet standing in for the brake and clutch. It took about two weeks of practice in the living room, but she did very well once she was behind the wheel.
Brilliant idea about the straight shift simulator! Who would’ve guessed an umbrella and another person’s feet would work?
We worked out the foot thing so I could tell if she was getting the brake/clutch coordination right, just by her feet pressing on mine. She never stalled out the car after learning the trick to it.
I’d love to still have a stick shift car, but my left knee is worn out and cannot deal with holding down a clutch. So few people drive stick any more that it’s a great way to prevent having the car stolen. 😀
I love manual (stick) shift and 2 of my current 3 vehicles are stick. And I agree, great way to reduce theft.
We “made” our daughter learn to drive and get her license. It was one of the only things we ever had to make her do as she was a good kid. She is thankful that we pushed it.
1. DD brought her laptop over and used one of my copies of Turbo Tax to prepare their income taxes. I prepared and submitted our state return on the state website so she was able to use the one copy of a state return included with Turbo Tax. Because I bought the software through Costco the state electronic filing fee was reduced by $10. It was only $15 out of pocket for her.
2. I made a batch of Katy’s Lentil Soup for the first time. I had all the ingredients and also added carrots and some kale from the freezer. I am enjoying it as it has a different flavor than other lentil soups that I make.
3. A Freecycle acquaintance told me about a group called trash nothing (no capital letters in the name). She used it to give items away before a big move. I signed up but I am not sure I will find it useful. I am still trying to stay away from the Buy Nothing group since it is tied to Face Book/Meta.
4. DH wanted to try adding a mattress topper to our bed since he’d like something softer to sleep on. I checked and our Luxi mattress can be adjusted to be softer or firmer. I made my side firmer a few years ago and I just helped him make his side softer. There is padding inside that can be flipped to accomplish that. If that does not make soft enough we will consider buying a Twin/XL Twin for his side of the bed. I told him we are not ordering from Amazon.
5. I had a hold on the book HOW TO RESIST amazon AND WHY at the library and I was able to pick it up on Friday. It was interesting timing.
Buy Nothing is now also as an app. https://buynothingproject.org/join
An app? Who knew? Thanks!!!
Thank you. I was not aware that Buy Nothing exists outside of Face Book.
1. While I was moving our recyclables into the big outside bin, I saw that our upstairs neighbors had thrown 6 soda cans in it, so I grabbed them to bring back for redemption, making $.30
2. I saved the extra sauce from our short rib dinner on Saturday night. I’ll freeze it and take it to serve over polenta one night for dinner.
3. Getting together with BFF. I found a mystery shop lunch, so it cost us nothing. She then took me to Costco to buy some salad greens with her membership.
4. Turned off the heat today! Not sure how long it will last, but it is nice for the moment.
5. FINALLY convinced partner that our phone bill was totally unreasonable! ($170 for only 2 phones – grrr. Verizon). I suggested Mint Mobile, but he at least called and got the price down to $107 as they also have a discount for teachers. Anyone in MA have Mint Mobile and willing to share your experience? Wondering how it is, as it would still be a bit cheaper….
I’m not in MA. DD and I share a Verizon account. She mentioned that other day that the bill went up $22. Verizon offers monthly plans through Visible. It is low thrills and you bring your own phone. Clark Howard has a recent review. I may switch some day.
I switched to Visible from Verizon. It works well. $25/month for unlimited text, talk, and data. So much cheaper than Verizon! I bought my phone from Visible when I switched (old phone was too old to switch services) but you don’t have to.
Another happy Visible user here.
Thanks for letting us know. It is the Verizon network which is appealing coverage wise.
SAME. Every month when I pay $20 I am amazed all over again.
Not in MA–Long Island–but I’ve had zero problems with Cricket.
I switched to Consumer Cell and current bill is $31 a month (incl taxes/fees)for Unlimited talk and text, one line (since it’s just me) and I 5g data (I use mostly my home WiFi). They’re just about everywhere in US and you can port your current # and bring your own phone (they’ll provide free SIM card). I switched from Verizon and love customer service, as well as not having dropped calls all the time!
1. Made chick pea curry with expired coconut milk, expired chick peas and expired quinoa to go with it. I’ve been helping my parents and I cleared out their expired food. All of it is within a safe expiry window, so my dad kept some that he would eat, and I took what they wouldn’t eat.
2. Sold 2 items on Ebay. Walked to the PO. One item is out of porch for a hopeful FB marketplace sale today.
3. Solar dryer is doing a great job these days!
4. Saw there’s a free 3 month subscription for Peacock Plus through Target circle (yes I still have my account, though I do not shop at Target anymore). So we cancelled Peacock (my husband was paying $3.99 a month for it to watch English soccer). We will resubscribe when the free offer is up-date is in my planner to cancel.
5. My mother gave me 2 pyrex pie pans she no longer uses. They both had decades of burnt-on stuff around the edges. I scrubbed both til they looked like new. I will keep one and my daughter wants one. It turns out one of them was my grandmothers. Like your porch, Katy, I love making something old shine again.
My DD is turning 16 in 10 months. Technically of age to start driving. This is a scary thought; not sure I’m liking this…
* Got 3 snacks bowls and 3 good knifes at the thrift store, for 6.75$. Not bad
* Still hosting my ”women game nights” every 3 weeks. Hours of fun that costs almost nothing (a couple of bags of chips, from the discount rack)
* Still using my public library like a mad woman! Reading is my main hobby, and it cost me nothing.
* Have been taking an extra shift every week since Christmas. It adds up.
*
I love the idea of a women’s game night!!!
My husband and I taught both of our children how to drive because driving lessons were so expensive. Practice, practice, practice. In CT the student takes a driving test with an instructor from the DMV, so it helps to know what the route is used by the particular DMV you will be testing from. Also talk to other recent students on what was tested. Example, my daughter was not tested on parallel parking but was tested on backing into a parking space (gangster style). She did well because we were aware this skill would be tested and practiced it.
I just checked and parallel parking is not on the driver’s test here in Oregon, but I’ll still be teaching it.
Anna, please tell me if CT still advises you to “go get your photo license” after you pass the test. My ex and I lived in CT when I was tested, which was notoriously easier than NY, which required parallel parking. “Go get your photo license” was a family catchphrase for years.
1. Husband and I have both been sick so we have stayed home and spent nothing.
2. I had some oral surgery which was mostly covered by insurance. That was unexpected and great news.
3. Sold some upholstery fabric that I didn’t need. Some of it was free to me.
4. Used $8 store credit to buy some canvases at the art/crafts donation store.
5.
FFT, Tax Paperwork Handed In and Other Matters Edition:
(1) As I may or may not have mentioned earlier, I got my own tax paperwork to my own accountant last week.
(2) I got my next-door neighbor’s tax paperwork to her accountant this morning. I’ve been watching her mail like a hawk for the past 2+ months to make sure we got most if not all of her 1099s, but the deed is finally done.
(3) And the first thing that NDN’s CF and I are going to do when we get our DPOAs for NDN will be to consolidate some of her numerous small PITA accounts (annuities and small oil well accounts) into her IRA. I thank my stars that all I’m leaving for my own DPOA/executor to deal with are two bank accounts, an IRA, and a TOD BENES account. Simplify, simplify! (And, by the way, how’s that for a dazzling string of acronyms?)
(4) I’m rigidly refraining from doing any of the preliminary yard cleanup I want to do today, even though it’s sunny and in the low 50s. The last thing I want to do right now is to undo the healing of my broken rib.
(5) Finally, I’m going with a current and a former neighbor this afternoon to pay a call on another former neighbor, who’s just been moved to assisted living in her continuum-of-care community. In other words, we three young-old folks (me with my broken rib, Bailey dog’s mom in remission from cancer, and the former neighbor just coming off her second hip replacement) will be calling on our favorite doughty 92-year-old Englishwoman, who joined with two teenage schoolmates to send a wedding gift to the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1947. Huzzah!!!
I’m sorry to read that your rib is still an issue, but you’re very smart to be disciplined to avoid the kind of activity that would worsen your condition. I LOVE your description of your friends, thank you always for your wonderful and thoughtful comments!
I love your last sentence! So sweet and funny. I wish good vibes and healing to all three of you visitors and a smooth transition to your 92 year old English friend going into assisted living. What a treasured memory of sending a wedding gift to the newly married Royal couple. If she is a reader, she might enjoy the book The Gown by Jennifer Robson. It’s based on real life events surrounding the seamstresses who were tasked with making the wedding gown for Queen Elizabeth. Such a terrific story and well written.
@A. Marie – could you teach my in-laws your organizational and simplification ways? Only half kidding! But they could seriously use some help in getting their *hit together.
Hope you continue to lay low and heal.
Dear Katy:
I have not posted before — I wanted to let you know that I appreciate your blog very much. It is so good of you to post so often. Thank you for this small community of kind people.
Thank you so much for sharing this, I really appreciate your kind words!
My 5 frugal things…
#1 – I sold a car, for cash, this past weekend. Deposited the money in my bank account and immediately put all of it to my wedding savings. We officially have our wedding completely funded by cash, and it will be paid for with cash.
#2 – Since the car was sold, I could switch up my car insurance I turn 30 in a few weeks, so with full-coverage on my current vehicle, I will pay less than $60 for car insurance, and it’s about $15 less for what I paid for two cars. I have a long commute to work, so I value having the full-coverage insurance with a company that has a local, staffed office for me to go to if I need help.
#3 – I reorganized my calendar for the month to include some free events near to me. I don’t have to spend money to have fun!
#4 – I found a gift card in an old purse for my fiancée to use when he takes me out to dinner for my aforementioned birthday. We are daring to eat at the fancy restaurant for less than what’s on the gift card. I like a challenge!
#5 – I really wanted to buy myself some nature journaling reference books, as I loved the copies I borrowed from the library but want to have on-hand for the classes I teach. I shopped around online to find a good price to buy the books without using Amazon… and I found all 3 books secondhand for less than $20, with shipping, without using Amazon OR Walmart!
Autumn, congratulations on your wedding-related and other savings. And I wish you and your intended all the best, on what is the 47th anniversary of DH’s and my first and only date. (He started moving me into his apartment “one tea tin at a time” three days later, and we got married 18 months later.) As Anna sings in The King and I, “Hello, young lovers, wherever you are…”
A. Marie,
Awww, that is a very sweet love story. I think you and your DH had a romance enviable of — what else? — a Jane Austen novel. Sending you and all the young (or old) lovers lots of hugs today. And I hope you are feeling better with the rib injury.
Autumn, please splurge for your birthday! I’m going to be mumbleᵗʷⁱᶜᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵃᵍᵉ soon, and while I really don’t want to splurge, I feel like someone should.
That said, for my own 30th, I went to see the Ramones. MIL watched our baby son. (Sorry for all the reminiscences today, folks.)
Rose,and A. Marie,
I’m loving all the reminiscences! Honestly, I have no idea what I did on my 30th birthday. Probably something terribly boring. And Rose, I’m (coughcough) 63….my 60th was during Covid….still waiting to take that trip to Italy to celebrate. Birthdays should be celebrated, especially milestone birthdays! But you do you.
My husband cut down a huge red oak tree. The inside was rotten. Looked like excellent compost. I scraped it out and put on my flower bed. I probably got 3 big commercial bags out of it. The down side is the critters I displaced. Lizards and huge beetles and their larvae.
I saved two of my sons plants this week from their ultimate dry doom and he thanked me- acts of unconditional love for sure. 🙂 We are just starting the learn to drive adventures so I’m curious to see the tips from others!
1) My teen loves chicken salad from a particular restaurant chain and it’s pricey. I found a copy cat recipe and made it for 1/4th the price. He was thrilled.
2) Read another Matt Haig book from the Libby app for free.
3) Ordered my pets meds from a company in EU for half the price of our local discount place (literally- half!)
4) Cashed out $20.34 from Ibotta
5) Used a gift card I saved from Christmas to purchase two items I really needed which helped reduced my spending this month by $50.
1. Looked through my cache of greeting cards, which I’ve bought from garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores, etc., and found a nice birthday card + matching envelope for a friend. I probably paid about 10 cents or 25 cents for it at the thrift store. Or it came in a big plastic bag at an estate sale, in which dozens of cards were priced at one dollar. Frugal greetings during our No-Spend month!!
2. Called the congressman’s local office and asked about my Social Security check (actually, direct deposit). The aide assures me I will get my full amount this month, and on time, government shutdown or no government shutdown, DOGE or no DOGE. Sure hope he’s right!! We shall see. (IMO, too bad the U.S. doesn’t have the “vote of no-confidence” thing like England and Canada…)
3. Gave up Blue Bell Ice Cream for Lent. A half-gallon is upwards of about $6 now.
4. Negotiated with the lawn crew who picked up enough live oak leaves from my front lawn to completely fill a big trailer. They wanted $30 more than they’d originally quoted me. Not happy about that! So, playing my “helpless little old lady” card, I asked them if they’d also please do me a “favor.” I got them to move a large dining room buffet, a sofa and a china cabinet into my front room. I can start reassembling my room right away (putting in the drawers, putting the glassware in the cabinet, setting up lamps, moving in the lightweight side tables and chairs, etc.), and I didn’t have to hire (and wait for) a moving crew (which would have been much, much more than $30). So most of the heavy lifting is now done! This is a win-win situation, for sure; they got the amount they wanted and I got the furniture back in the newly-floored room. (Some guys at church had volunteered to do this for free. But they are all on spring break vacations and it’d be at least another week. I’m tired of stumbling over furniture! Not to mention, it’s not safe — I could stumble and fall. I still need two other big pieces moved, but since those aren’t in the way, it can wait.)
5. Free entertainment tonight: CBS is scheduling Ringo Starr at the Grand Ol’ Opry place and it is being broadcast over the air (Monday, March 10). While I’m not a big fan of country, I lllooooovvvve Ringo! And John, Paul, and George! And have since Feb. 1964 when the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan’s show! (Keeping my fingers crossed Paul makes a surprise appearance. Maybe they can sing Rocky Raccoon together…)
My dad taught me how to parallel park (as that was what I failed on my driver’s test). He took me to the next town over and found an empty street. And without any cars parked, he had me pretend to parallel park about 20 times as “practice” before I drove to another street and practiced again “for real” with actual parked cars (again – about 20 times). Some 30 years later, I’m really really good at parallel parking.
1. I had a chili cook off at my house. Six people brought chili, one person brought cornbread, two people brought wine and seven people made desserts. I made a vegetarian chili because I forgot to take the hamburg out to defrost but another person made hamburg chili but forgot to buy beans so things evened out…lol. We also bought beer, wine and soda. We had gathering of fifteen people and had a blast! It didn’t cost anyone too much money or too much time prepping numerous dishes.
2. My neighbor gave me four wine glasses when she saw I don’t own many.
3. I hung out three loads of laundry today. The snow on the ground melted away and the days are finally long enough to dry the clothes.
4. Borrowed three more books from the library. The money my library saves me is substantial.
5. I didn’t cause the stock market to take a deep dive.
You must have more laundry line than me!
Frugal despite my bumblings:
1. Cancelled our trip to AZ because we both got sick. So we saved on food and hotel, and the air tix are a credit for later. I was going to bring a portrait of our mutual great grandmother to my cousin in AZ but I have to mail it instead.
2. My stupid printer is misbehaving so I went to my local library and printed what I needed. I learned that from you guys.
3. I need a birthday card for my niece so I went to the Animal Rescue three rift store and bought several cards for $.50 each. Now I have them on hand.
4. I bought a 10 pound bag of carrots before we got sick and now those carrots are in grave danger, so I am going to process them all tonight for the freezer, for carrot cake, muffins, and for roasted veggies this week.
5. I didn’t threaten the Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid of 3/4 of the country because I think it’s a worthless expenditure.
Used cards are such a bargain, plus it keeps them from the landfill!
I garbage picked a foot stepper. Still losing weight.
Made lasagnas with some of the pizza sauce I got for free. I added basil, garlic and onion powder with some water to the sauce and cooked it for 10 minutes. It came out great. We had leftovers for dinner.
We went to the library. I got books for me and the lady I help. Hubby got 4 CDs. Love my library.
Hubby and I cut the dog’s nails and trimmed her fur by her feet. She shouldn’t need it for a long time now that the weather is getting nice. We usually only have to do it in the winter when we rarely go for walks.
I have been coloring and listening to music instead of watching the news at night. It is helping with my mental health.
I started my seeds for my garden inside. I did tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, basil, parsley, lettuce and spinach. This is also good for my mental health.
Teaching my kids to drive would not have been good for my mental health or theirs. Hubby taught them and they all did a driving course after school.
Teaching your kids to drive is the ultimate sacrifice as you’re literally willing to die for them!
I just wrote a whole blog post about gardening being my “dirt Prozac.”
I’m in the same situation with driving. Covid happened when they should have been taking driver’s ed, and now they’re about to graduate from the walkable university. I’ll have to look for the you tube videos.
1. Sat on the floor with wonder dog and carefully trimmed the hair between her toe pads. She slips going downstairs if I don’t stay on this chore, which she HATES, but allows if I tell her how good she is and feed her kibble. Also, I sit with her head under my knee, that probably helps keep her down (she is a lab/border collie cross, so not small)
I need to get her nails trimmed, that takes more kibble and head holding. I will wait a few days before attempting.
2. Made roasted cauliflower enchiladas after you folk got me excited about the possibilities. Of course, I riffed on the entire recipe, didn’t make proper enchilada sauce but opened an aging can of garlic tomato sauce and dumped in a pint of homemade tomatillo salsa. Used some discounted corn cobs (boiled then the kernels cut off), some sad yellow yam that I had roasted with the cauliflower, some montery jack with jalapenos (a bit spicy!!) and cheddar cheese, and mixed a home-canned jar of pintos with a purchased can of white beans (I am out of home canned pintos, how did THAT happen). Used 9”square pyrex cake pans and fit three enchiladas (they were stuffed) in two of them, and then put two into a glass loaf pan. One pan got cooked for supper, the other two are in #2 son’s freezer for later. YUM, thanks everyone!
3. My back is sore and I don’t know why; I walked anyway, yesterday – it didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt more. Today I did my weight workout with my trainer and she was AWESOME at finding ways to do a thorough workout and avoid straining my back. Am taking care and pain meds and slathering myself with voltaren. Hoping it will get better soon.
4. I taught all three of my kids to drive, and it really was quite painless. My youngest, the daughter, ended up getting a couple of months in an automatic, then we sold that van and she finished learning in a delightful standard (stick) Toyota Echo. SUCH a fun car to drive, she figured out the clutch very quickly, and we drove a LOT as she needed a ride to school every day so she did all the driving to and fro, and it was months before I had her on the highway, lots of twisty country roads with potholes so she was alert. My boys both had driven riding lawnmowers prior to learning stick, and yet my daughter is the best stick driver. I taught #2 son stick about a year ago – took him to a gently sloped country road after he had a couple of hours under his belt, and had him start, get into second, then stop. 20 times up the hill. The next day he took off with the car and did the same thing. Learning to get moving when on a hill is, to say the least, exciting with a manual transmission
I remember my dad being sent out to teach me stick. I had been driving for about a year, but had no idea how to drive standard, and my lovely dad could not teach for trying. I stalled out in the middle of an intersection trying to turn left, and was stuck there for three light changes. Dad didn’t say a word (and I could have done with some advice!!). That was 47 years ago, I am still traumatized (LOL)
5. Your back porch looks great, Katy! Mine needs some attention, the wild wind storms we had this winter took a bamboo blind that I had hanging at one side and battered it to pieces – there are strips of bamboo all over the porch floor. As well as random sad dead potted plants that I was intending to bring in but life got in the way. I’ll get it tidied before I go on my trip in April, another Katy inspiration!
BONUS – I got to vote for the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada – even though I don’t currently want to be a member of that party, I was able to join and vote.
Now I can quit and go back to my much smaller party. Every one of the 4 people running would make a grand prime minister, although I think we got the one who will stand up best to you-know-who.
For those who wonder, it will be a few days before Mark Carney is the Prime Minister – the king has to approve (well, the king’s representative in Canada)!
Hoops will be jumped, and the smooth transition has already been in the works for months. He won’t have a seat in the Canadian Parliament as he has never run nor been elected, so we are expecting to see an election called – likely sooner than the set election date of October. If Carney doesn’t call an election, it is assumed that once Parliament resumes (which is sometime soonish?) the other parties will attempt to topple the government to force an election (the “Vote of Confidence”, that if they fail they lose the confidence of the house and so parliament is dissolved).
May we live in interesting times…
The election once called will run for approximately 5 weeks. Who knows who will win. Prior to the current flamewars coming from the US, it looked like the Conservative Party was a shoe-in. (gah). now, the entire playing field has changed.
Your soup looks fantastic, Katy!
1) Son’s and my desktop computers were bought used 10 years ago and were 5 years old then. My husband has ungraded portions of them periodically, but both are at the end of being useful. They’ve had a good, long life and parts will be scavenged from them to keep other computers going. My laptop (which was bought used several years ago) hard drive recently quit working in a way that can’t be repaired but hopefully my husband will be able to recover important files from it (he has awesome fix-it skills). We don’t take buying a new computer lightly. The last time I bought a brand new computer it was around 1990 and it was Windows 3.1. Parts of that computer are still in my barely functioning desktop. We made the choice this time to buy new laptops (1 for me and our college-aged son bought his own which should be a good choice to get him through college if he chooses to go), but wanted to vote with our dollars, especially in light of current events. We compared the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies of several companies (most of which were awful) and chose Costco (clear winner of those we compared). The computer prices were good and while not everything was financially a bargain, I spotted 2 grocery items we use a lot of that are 25% lower than the lowest price I can regularly get them for even watching sales (shredded sharp cheddar and a gluten-free bread I like by Canyon Bakehouse).
2) Hubby bought a large gift card to a pet store we use at a 14% discount from a friend (the friend had returned items and they’d refunded it to a gift card). I spotted a sale, 10% off orders of $75 or more, at the same store with free pickup in store and we bought 2 large bags of the dog food we feed our dogs. The combo of these 2 saved us over 22% off on the exact item we would have bought at full price.
3) This morning I went to a store with rummage bins that appears to mostly be store returns, out of season, or in the case of food frequently close to date or slightly past date. Today most items were $3. I got a pair of bottles of yummy hot taco sauce ($16 value and not close to date), 1 shirt each for my son and myself (buy 1 get 1 free), and 4 bark stopper devices at $3 each (price on Amazon, which I am avoiding using, is $30 each, I’d had getting at least 2 in mind due to a neighbor’s nuisance barking dog whose yard wraps around 2 sides of ours, 1 to point at one side and 1 at the other and 2 to take in and recharge the batteries, when a dog barks the device briefly makes a noise dogs dislike thereby training them not to bark unnecessarily). Total price typically around $156, but I paid under $20 including tax.
4) After the rummage bin store, I walked to the pet store to pick up our order of dog food–they share the same lot, so no extra fuel to drive there. While they’re not a long drive from home, every bit helps.
5) My husband and exercised at the local free gym, and they even let us bring our dogs! It’s the park. We walked our dogs together. But we really love the many public parks in our area.
Haven’t personally tried but a friend told me this method and I liked it. Anytime they went anywhere they would drive to the destination with the radio off and narrating everything they did. I’m going to signal here, that person has the right of way so I will wait, I’m looking for a good place to merge, etc. Then the student driver would drive the return trip, also with the radio off and Mom only jumping in when needed. They did a few rounds in an empty parking lot first for the basics.
Hi Katy, one thing I tried to do when teaching my son how to drive, was pointed out things that most people wouldn’t. Like, stopping if it’s been raining and there are leaves on the ground could cause you to skid. (he told me months later that that actually helped him avoid an accident) and things like as you go into a curve, take your foot off the gas at first and then slowly accelerate halfway through because the momentum will slow you down. Other than that, I reminded him to watch his side and rearview mirror because he told me that regular driving school tells them they don’t need to watch their side mirrors unless they’re planning on switching lanes.:big eyes: He’s 25, no accidents – other than a deer hitting him(knock on wood).
I also think that teaching your child to drive it’s fun but super stressful. Especially if they drive the same way you do. I found myself texting friends going. “do I scare you when I drive“ yes, he has as much of a leadfoot as I do. 🙂
This is a good tip, thanks!