Five Frugal Things
by Katy on May 19, 2025 · 32 comments
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My husband had a potluck after his baseball game, so I made a huge pot of baked beans using black eyed peas for him to take. The recipe used up two partial bottles of ketchup, the last of some barbecue sauce and half an onion that’s been in the fridge for at least a week. I cooked it overnight in my ancient crock pot and wrapped it in a towel to keep it warm while everyone played baseball. I wasn’t able to attend, but only a small amount returned back home, which is a good sign that it was a success.
I estimate that the ingredients of the huge pot cost around $6, which was mostly the bacon. The black eyed peas were free from my friend Lise!
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I transplanted my avocado plant into a larger pot as it’s been growing rapidly. I started this plant from a grocery store avocado pit and it’s been fun (and surprising) to watch it thrive in my Portland, Oregon home. It’ll never be able to be planted outdoors, but it’ll still interesting to see how far I can take it. Needless to say, the “new” pot is a thrifted one I’ve had for years.
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My daughter is under the weather and currently spending a few days at home so we can properly take care of her. I’d heard that my nephew recently splurged on a Disney+ subscription, so I asked if he’d share his login information with us. (We share all our streaming logins with him.) He did so with the caveat that we had to watch the Star Wars show “Andor.” We’ve since binged through the first twelve episodes and are now making our way through season two.
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I have a date to grocery shop with a friend today, which’ll be nice as we can catch up while knocking something dull from our to-do lists. I love running errands with friends and family! Certainly cheaper than meeting up in a restaurant, as I have to buy groceries either way.
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I now have half a Bonne Maman jar of bacon fat that we can slowly use for sautéing onions, scrambled eggs or whatever. I always have a stash of these garbage picked jars, thanks to a specific neighbor and her excellent taste in jam.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Forgot to mention it the other day…saw a young couple (late 20’s maybe?) dining out the “frugal” way. They split their entire meal between them..
1 appetizer, 1 salad, 1 sandwich, 1 dessert for the 2 of them. Both drank water. Kudos to this young couple!
If you are one who makes dipped treats – chocolate covered pretzels, peanut butter eggs, chocolate covered nuts, etc during the holidays (or anytime really) save the bag in your cereal box! Once you’ve eaten the cereal, that waxed bag makes an excellent surface to put your dipped creations on. You could also use that bag to wrap the sandwich(es) you made for lunch or take to an outing.
Yes! I never buy waxed paper. I save all the cereal bags and use that instead. I cut them in squares to put between my hamburger patties, salmon parties and French toast when I make big batches to freeze.
Melissa and Julia, those are great ideas. I use our cereal bags for dog poop, so I’ll save some of them for the other purposes you mentioned as I don’t buy wax paper.
1. While visiting my mother for her 79th birthday I found a lovely independent fabric store with good prices. I’m going back for a second look because I overheard another customer saying prices were going up thanks to Trump tariffs. I will only buy what I need, but it will be cheaper now than if I put it off.
2. I have binge read magazines my aunt has. It has been so lovely.
3. Eaten lots of fresh fruit, much of it pricier than I would ever buy, at the various houses I’ve visited. It gave me great delight.
4. Picked up a little virus so only drinking Pedialyte. Saves on food, though not in a way I would have chosen.
5. Brought home 3 bags of books my dad was donating. I’ll see if any of them are sellable. At the very least it’s crap out of their house and I donate things quickly so I’m not worried about crap staying in my house.
I think China is our biggest source of fabric, but also India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea…. So, yeah. Tariffs.
Your baked beans sound delish!! Are you still eating thru your bean supply from your friend Lise’s pandemic beans? 🙂 Fun times.
Hope your daughter is feeling better ASAP!
1) I skipped registering for a local class and decided to take my own class at home from a Dr on the subject (using YouTube) for free. Saved me $30 and I took all my notes on scrap paper and then tucked them into my recycled junk journal.
2) I had jury duty this morning and didn’t want to take the chance on losing my stainless steel water bottle through security. (We learn from you!) I washed and stored a plastic cup/lid left over from a local outing in my pantry for such events. I took that and a snack from home with my book to keep me busy during the down time. Thankfully they dismissed us all after 2 hours. Yay! Plastic cup made it back home and will be stored for similar outings.
FAIL- I did lose a pair of tweezers to the court house security. I completely forgot they were in my purse and didn’t have time to make it down stairs and back to the parking lot before the start time. Thankfully I have an extra pair.
3) I used rain checks and coupons on sale items this morning. I was able to score some significant deals on things we needed/use regularly. I was grateful I had remembered to ask for the rain checks on my last trip.
4) It’s getting HOT here and I have pulled out my few 100% cotton summer dresses to wear around the house so I can keep cool without dropping the thermostat too much.
5) We just learned that our trash service is going to almost double in cost starting in January. A neighbor and I are going to share service when the new rate kicks in. We both produce as little trash as possible so we shouldn’t have any issues.
My son says Andor is the best TV show in the Star Wars universe and ranks up there with the best movies. IDK, I got soooooooo sick of Star Wars a bunch of years back.
I love having a lot of bacon fat around, but because I’m fancy, I leave it in a vintage stainless steel container helpfully labeled “Grease.”
Andor is shockingly good.
I keep a jar of chicken schmaltz and goose fat in the fridge and it’s amazing for stirfries and making savory cornbread!
My grandmother, and every other grandmother I knew on our block of Eastern European immigrants, kept a coffee can for grease. The yuck factor was that it was always on top of the stove, never in the fridge, and they would just pour on the next layer of grease. No one ever died of it in our neighborhood, but I keep our glass jar of bacon fat in the fridge. (And she would throw any fat in that can. I don’t remember the name of the coffee but it was a red can.)
It wasn’t just the immigrants who kept cans of bacon grease on the stove; Southern cooks did it, too. And if you wanted to be a bit fancier, they used to have metal cans labeled “grease” (with matching lids, no less) that you could use instead of the coffee cans. IIRC (I was a little bitty kid at the time and my memory is vague), I think maybe the grease cans came in a set along with salt and pepper shakers, or something, all designed for the stove and food prep area, not the dining table.
Yes, Lisa, and mine has a little strainer thing to keep the big bits out of your grease. And yeah, they came in sets but I just have a couple grease jars from various sets, given to me as gifts.
Hills Brothers coffee?
I believe if a fat is solid at room temperature it doesn’t need to be refrigerated, but not sure.
Growing up, ours was kept in a mayonnaise jar — under the kitchen sink with all the cleaning products….HAHAHA….none of us got sick or died.
Some travel this week –
1. Picked up at airport by a friend in the rental car we’d already paid for, saving the Uber cost.
2. Breakfasts at the vacation rental, avoiding takeout coffee prices and mediocre breakfast sandwiches.
3. Hike/adventure snacks packed in advance.
4. I did not buy a shirt with moose on it, even though I really wanted to.
5. DH picked me up at the airport, avoiding the train or cab ride back home (he is a saint for navigating JFK willingly).
I got a 12 dollar tip on 1/2 dozen cookies.
Wait, WHAT?
FFT, On the Mend Edition:
First, Katy, I hope your daughter’s starting to feel better by now. And as an expatriate Southerner, I keep a jar of bacon grease in the fridge at all times (though it’s usually a Ball jar that’s started to go cloudy, since I don’t have a neighbor with a taste for Bonne Maman).
(1) As I mentioned in a previous comment, I thought I cracked another rib while reaching awkwardly for a weed in a garden bed Thursday afternoon. But I’m feeling so much better by now that I’m starting to hope I just pulled a muscle. I will continue to exercise caution for another few days, but I think I’m on the mend. (I will, however, get that bone density test I was talking about.)
(2) I was feeling up to running some errands this morning, so I started by taking $12.75 in NY State deposit bottles/cans to the container return facility just down the hill–which is located in an old bowling alley and is run by a hard-working extended Burmese family. (They’ll take containers Wegmans doesn’t accept, primarily Aldi/Trader Joe’s house brands.)
(3) Next stop was Second Time Around (the Monday morning pop-up thrift shop in another “recycled” bowling alley), where I found a like-new OXO salad spinner with an additional regular lid (very useful for taking salads to other folks’ houses) for $3.50. And I again availed myself of a couple of freebies on the way out: two more LED light bulbs and a half loaf of day-old Wegmans olive oil Tuscan bread.
(4) I then hit my Salvation Army superstore, where I found a collarless dress shirt for Dr. Bestest Neighbor (he’s partial to these) and a splendid green 1-qt glass storage jar (made in Italy in 1965 for the Crownford China Co., according to the bottom of the jar). White tag items were 99 cents today, and both of these had white tags. People are trying to flog this or similar jars on eBay for $20 or so, but I’m planning to keep it.
(5) And I’ve just made a small soup stock with the carcass of the chicken I roasted yesterday. I stuffed the chicken with rosemary, so the soup will probably be some variation on white bean and rosemary. I’ll share this with the Bestest Neighbors and NDN.
I do hope it was not another cracked rib and your bones turn out to be in good shape.
You are pretty spry to be doing all that thrifting with an aching body!
A. Marie, thanks for the reminder to get a bone density test. May your bones be very dense!
1. I recently came into money, as I found $0.05 in the grocery store parking lot.
2. My partner and I went out to lunch – unfortunately, my partner does NOT have the frugal gene, and is pretty resistant in developing it, but I just got one entree and drank water. After lunch, however, I took the 4-minute walk over to the Capital One Cafe, where they are giving a FREE “hand-crafted” beverage on every Monday through September. I luxurated in my free cortado, which normally would have cost $4.49. (See their website to download the coupon to your phone’s wallet).
3. At the grocery store, I was able to find 2 12-ounce bags of coffee for $1.99 each
4. I’m hanging out my sheets instead of using the dryer.
5. Bought the plain frozen pizza, as it was $1 less than the pepperoni. I bought $1.35 worth of pepperoni at the deli counter, and it is enough for 4 of the frozen pizzas – I’ll wrap up the pepperoni and tape it to the frozen pizza. Usually, I make my own homemade pizza from scratch, but having these save us from take out, for $12.00 for both of us, instead of $25….
Free:
My roses are really amazing this year- and so are my neighbors’ roses as well. I was awoken this past Saturday by gentlemen who were smelling my roses and herbs in the side front yard and loudly exclaiming how lovely they were, that they were the best on the block. Well, gosh.
Low Cost:
Doing my weekly mani/pedi at home while listening to an audiobook : Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins.
Delicious coffee at home!
Walking my 10k steps- now with a power walk cadence! Free and effective cardio! (just need good supportive sneakers)
Strength and mobile training at home using Youtube videos and Les Mills App (a yearly subscription splurge.)
Money Saving:
I just found out that my home internet provider ALSO provides cell phone service- at a lower cost than my cell service (T Mobile). I could literally save $1200/year, an amount that is better served in my Roth.
That is an AMAZING savings on your cell phone!
I took a health survey from my insurance provider and received a $20 Walmart card in return.
Spent several hours cleaning and organizing half our garage: one side is DH’s woodworking shop, which he is in charge of, and the other is storage of cleaning/maintenance/gardening stuff, which gets disorganized. But now pretty much everything is in recycled tubs and bins, with labels made from Dollar Tree index cards, so we can find things and stop buying stuff we already have.
Finished reading a library book that was recommended here. Got my hair cut at the senior discount rate. Sloshed water around in an empty-looking dish detergent jug and got some nice light blue all purpose cleaner.
Due to a small leak I had to take everything out from under my kitchen sink. Where did it all that stuff come from? Then I had to paint the inside of the cabinet due to water damage. I had an old, small can of Kilz in the basement. After much stirring with a chopstick it was usable (and there is enough to do a few more jobs!). I decided to splurge on fancy under the sink organizing stuff but nearly had a heart attack at the price. I’m happy to say that after all was said and done I only spent $3 at a yard sale for a two shelf organizer and then used other things from around the house. It’s looks so much better, I can find things, and I only spent $3!
Hooray for a frugal under-sink!
Tension curtain rods can be stretched close to the top across the cabinet, for hanging spray bottles by the handles, cloths, etc.
Hooray for a $3 organizing system!
Hurray for a little frugal DIY!
1. Using up some of the cocoa that I received from Buy Nothing to make iced cocoa. Delish.
2. Keeping a pair of extra garden gloves in the car in case I come across any free divided plants placed in front of people’s homes. I have a rubber mat in the back of my car which makes it easy to place plants there.
3. Friend gave me a stainless-steel straw that I’m using to drink cold cocoa, tea and coffee drinks. Figured this helps reduce teeth stains.
4. Was asked to bring a dessert with sweet potato in it to book club. All the recipes for pies, cakes and bars had too many specialty or expensive ingredients, so I made sweet potato cookies instead. Huge hit!
5. Donated blood and helped myself to snacks afterward as I had errands to run (more like walk after losing a pint of blood).
Thank you for donating blood. Recently I have been getting blood transfusions and each time as I lie there for an hour, I send good thoughts to the wonderful people who donate.
Lindsey, you’re welcome! That would be so cool if my follow-up email from the Red Cross said that my donation went to a woman in Alaska.
I love those little jelly/jam jars and just wish I had someone who bought it! I was getting small Atlas jars from a friend who bought the Classico pesto in them, but he hasn’t given me one in months!
Yesterday I made my son and I beef and brown gravy from beef from a Boy Scout barbeque that has been vacuum sealed in my freezer for probably 2 years. It was delicious, and I used that leftover meat and gravy in a soup I put in my crockpot today with carrots and celery left over and frozen from the baby shower, home canned green beans, a tiny bit of tomato soup I found frozen in the freezer, some frozen mashed potatoes, a can of corn, and a bag of pre-diced potatoes. All I had paid for was the diced potatoes and corn, so less than $2.50 probably for a huge crock pot of soup that will feed 5 of us tonight plus some leftovers.
Some friends had given me books recently. I sorted through and took what I wanted, then listed a vintage set of kids books on Ebay where they sold rather quickly. I’m pretty sure I messed up with the shipping, but anything I make is free money, and maybe I’ll learn how to do this ebay selling through trial and error. I offered up some other books that were given to me on my Facebook and sold 2. Not much money, and I honestly feel a little icky selling books that were given to me, but we could use the money. I still have four boxes to donate to LFL, so I didn’t sell hardly any that were given to me.
I will send thrifted thank you cards to my friends who gave the books to me. I love sending (and receiving) cards. My friends always seem so pleased to receive happy mail.
Still reading books I own or borrow from the library, working on my book journal, and cross stitching my granddaughter’s stocking for entertainment. Some of the children’s books that were given to me were beyond reading condition, so I kept those to craft with. I saved every scrap of ribbon I come across (including harassing my daughter to save all the ribbon on her packages at the shower!) and use those for crafting and gift wrapping.
1. Used Google Play credit to rent a movie for free.
2. Washed my bedside rug and the cat’s blanket together and hung them up to air dry.
3. Delayed my autoship of laundry detergent by two weeks as I still have enough.
4. Made a breakfast hash with diced potatoes, diced bell pepper, diced ham leftover from Easter, and an egg, and used a spoon to get the dregs out of a ketchup bottle to put on it.
5. Meal planned and prepped over the weekend to make better use of what I have during the work week and avoid buying more convenience foods.