Five Frugal Things
by Katy on July 28, 2025 · 41 comments
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I started reading a library copy of Dolly Alderton’s Good Material. I’m not sure if this book is for me, but I’ll give a hundred pages or so.
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I made an appointment to donate platelets next month through the American Red Cross. They’ve been hounding me to participate in more blood letting come back since I donated back in early July, and finally offered enough incentives to break me down. Those incentives? A $30 Amazon gift card, plus a $15 gift card to the corporate retailer of my choice. I’ll use these vouchers to pick up more canning supplies, as my “buy nothing new” edict does not apply to canning lids.
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I used a “Spend $5 get a free case of Polar Seltzer” coupon from New Seasons. I bought a half-price pint of vanilla ice cream to accompany last night’s mixed-fruit crumble, as well as a small container of yogurt. (New Seasons has a different ice cream for 50%-off each week throughout the summer.) I’m totally happy to drink tap water or home brewed tea, but it’s nice to have flavored seltzers to offer guests who stop by the house. I have a duplicate coupon and will make sure to use it before it expires.
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I got another bag of figs from my step-mother’s tree. Thanks, Lindy!
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I cooked a large batch of white beans earlier in the week, as my plan was to put together a pot of baked beans. Unfortunately I cooked the beans to a level of mushiness that wouldn’t work for the recipe. I finally took the beans and used them for a batch of white bean rosemary soup. I then added four slices of chopped bacon and a bunch of arugula. Turned out amazing and I avoided wasting the overcooked beans.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
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1. My mom invited me to a taco dinner Saturday night. I invited
her and my sister for hamburgers last night. It’s hard to cook for just one and nice to share meals together. Avoiding restaurant meals one day at a time.
2. I used a free shredded cheese coupon as well as a few other smaller coupons at Meijer.
3. I attended a foraging class with my daughter at the local nature center. It was very informative and I was able to identify most of the items in my own yard. I finally know what lambs quarters are. It was fun and inexpensive.
4. I picked up a beautiful vase of flowers at a roadside stand for $10. I delivered these to a friend who just lost her husband.
5. I’m reading a library book. My laundry is drying on racks. I’m trading dogsitting services with family members.
Glad to hear about your #3, Jill. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Lambs’ quarters (along with wild amaranth, aka redroot pigweed, and purslane) are nutritionally superior to most cultivated greens and require zero effort on anyone’s part except for gathering and cleaning. I’ve been making salads and stir-frys with the first two for about a month now, and I’ll soon be performing my annual magic trick of making a gumbo with purslane as a substitute for okra.
A. Marie, I’ve seen your comments before on lambs quarters etc. and now I’m excited to try it myself.
Chickweed is my go-to green from the yard.
1. On Saturday we went to a mostly free yard sale that was advertised in the Buy Nothing group. Christmas items were advertised and I needed something for a Christmas in July ornament/decoration gift swap this week. I picked up a couple of ornaments for the event, some tissue paper and a gift bag for DD. DH picked up a White Christmas DVD and some yard edging.
2. I listened to I See You’ve Called in Dead, courtesy of a library digital loan. It was okay but I didn’t love it.
3. I am reading Claire McCardell courtesy of the library. She was a 20th century fashion designer that promoted functional clothing such as ballet flats, pockets in womens clothing, separates that mixed and matched. The opposition she encountered was par for the course in the 1920s and 30s. I haven’t finished the book yet so I don’t know about her later years. I am not interested in fashion but I find the book interesting.
4. I bagged up yard waste that was the result of weed wacking. A lot of neighbors pay for their yard work but we prefer to get the exercise it provides, save the cost of hiring it out, and to use electric tools instead of gas powered.
5. My tomato plants have produced a ton of cherry and grape tomatoes this month. I have eaten a lot and also shared some with a neighbor yesterday.
It’s sad how many of the midcentury female designers don’t get their due. Of course Christian Dior was amazing, but designers like Claire McCardell, Ceil Chapman, Pauline Trigere and even Anne Klein are never mentioned in the same breath.
Gloria Vanderbilt created the perfect dress, some say. The wraparound that would flatter every body.
You mean Diane von Furstenberg?
I loathe wrap skirts and dresses, although they are flattering. Just kind of a faff.
I’m a huge fan of hers and have What Shall I Wear? out of the library right now.
She’s a large part of the reason it’s socially acceptable for women to dress so comfortably today. It’s easy to take her work for granted.
Katy I went canoeing with my dad and saw 2 pairs of used socks, adult and child, that had been left behind and rained on. I wondered if you’d pick those up and launder them and find a home for them. I’m a long time reader and don’t recall you ever picking used socks up, lol
One of my side gigs is doing price auditing for chain stores. There’s an app that shows each product and I have to enter the reg price and/or the sales price. YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SHRINKFLATION on sooooo many items, esp candy. Its usually less than an ounce but its happening on so many things, I just shake my head.
Yesterday I went to a friend’s house to catch up, its been a few months. We could have met at a coffee house or smoothie place, but we didn’t, and I enjoyed playing with her rambunctious Dalmation puppy and drinking water out of my stainless cup.
1. A scheduler asked if we would do another grocery mystery shop. It is a prescribed list of items that we need to purchase and, quite frankly, our freezers/fridge is full. BUT, it pays $10 in cash and is delivered to us. I texted my former roommate, and she will take most of the items (we’ll keep the proteins), so a win-win.
2. We’ve been getting a lot of zucchini from the free CSA that my partner gets from work, but we also harvested 2 zucchini from our tiny urban garden. A neighbor was walking by, so we gave them to her, and she was delighted. Since folks have been posting about Serviceberry, both this and #1 feels particularly timely.
3. On Saturday, doing a mystery shop for an oil change with a friend (we needed to do 2 in one day as comparison), we wanted coffee. I remember The Frugal Girl (and others) writing about Panera Sip Club. I promptly signed up for the free trial, got my free coffee, and canceled the subscription that would cost $15+ per month in 3 months. The free subscription will continue for 1 month.
4. Since I did all of the reports for the 2 free oil changes, my friend bought me lunch, which I happily accepted.
5. Only running AC during the night. But boy, I’m ready for fall, especially after seeing my last electric bill.
Frugal fail: speaking of Serviceberry – apparently, the gifting economy DOES extend to nature. We were giving one more day for our first tomato of the season to ripen on the vine. Some critter had a lovely snack overnight…
1) Ordered DH’s and my vitamins/mineral supplements our PCP’s have instructed us to take from Puritan’s Pride – BOGO.
2) Someone yesterday mentioned a couple of rebare apps. I use the following:
Coin Out
Fetch
Frisbee
Ibotta
Pogo
Receipt Hog
Receipt Jar
Receipt Pal
and the e-coupons from my supermarket’s app
Tried Trunow (gas only), but you have to get minimum $10 to cash out. If you want the full $10, you have to use it at participating merchants. No participating merchants in my area, so I had to actually take cash, and then, you only get 50%. Not working that hard to only get 50% of my earnings.
Tried Shopkicks. Very rarely is something on there that I actually use. If I want to hang out at Walmart all day and scan barcodes, I could get something. That’s a waste of time, so it’s a nope.
Would like to learn what other money savings apps are out there that can be used most anywhere. Can anyone make suggestions?
3) We, ourselves, don’t buy many beverages in aluminum cans; however, we do have friends that save cans for us. Have to pick up a bag from a friend’s house on the way to an appointment this morning. DH crushes them. When we have 3 contractor bags filled, we take them to the scrap.yard for $$$. (3 bags is all that will fit in our car at 1 time.)
4) Discovered this a while ago, but you might want to check into your bills for “stupid errors by the business.” We used to pay my husband’s life insurance policy quarterly for $80.87. If we pay it monthly, it’s $26.75/month. $26.75 x 3 months = $80.25. Heck, I’ll pay it monthly and save $.62/month. What should be less (quarterly) actually costs more.
That’s all I got for today…
1) The weather has been so moderate here in the bay area, and we are having a very cool summer. It’s been amazing, and we’ve not needed the AC more than a handful of days. We open the doors and use the sliders with screens the majority of the day.
2) Made dinner with the halibut & salmon brought back from a friend’s fishing trip to Alaska. Incredible! we have enough for another serving each, as the packages vary in size quite a bit, and we defrosted too much last night.
3) Ate the leftover rice from Saturday’s dinner with the halibut, which was… *chef’s kiss*
4) DS18 & his friends are in Lake Tahoe, at one of the kids family house. They typically rent it, but had an available week, so the boys are taking advantage. DS18 got “lucky”, in that he was supposed to be working more this summer, but the restaurant he works at had to undergo renovations, and the renovations are taking much longer than expected. While he’s irritated with the lack of money, he’s so happy to get this extended bonus time with his friends, before everyone heads off to college. He bought groceries yesterday, and made dinner for everyone. The group is largely pretty frugal.
5) Used the following garden goodies in our meals: yellow cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, basil, green onions, chives & strawberries. The squirrels have ravaged the garden, so our production is much lower than previous years. But, we’ve managed to get a few things. They don’t like the peppers, chives or green onions, so those fare well.
As a mom to 3 teenage boys and a fellow Bay Area resident, I appreciate your #4. A frugal trip to Tahoe can be hard to come by, but we manage to make it work most summers as well, though not this summer. Kudos to him for cooking dinner for the group!
Hello there, fellow bay area teen boy mom! Where abouts are you located? We are in the south bay.
Alas, I’m in the North Bay, specifically Sonoma County. My husband and I lived in Redwood City and Sunnyvale, though before getting married. Glad to know there are fellow non-consumers around in our HCOL areas! 🙂
That soup does sound amazing!
1. I came into some money when someone left four quarters in one of the dryers in our building’s basement. Woo-hoo!
2. I labeled everything in my freezer that I had put in there thinking I would remember what it was. Nope. I tried to use masking tape for the labels, but they wouldn’t stick. So I rubber-banded the unsticky tape to the items. I have to figure out a better way.
3. Back to the pad problem — I like Always Discreet, but the moderates just aren’t cutting it anymore. At least sometimes — but you never know when that sometimes will be. I decided I must go one step up to the maximums, but it was hard to find maximums that weren’t also long. I don’t want long — they show under leggings and sweatpants. After a lot of scrolling I found some in regular length and WITH NO WINGS (another thing I hate). I got them from Amazon 16% off and they will come tomorrow. It’s so hot I cannot comfortably walk to the drug store, so this is a kind of emergency measure.
4. Pantry project — this morning I had oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. For lunch I will make a green bean casserole, and to make it truly Thanksgiving-y, I will have cranberry sauce (from the can) on the side. It will mean heating up the oven, but I can throw it together quickly and get out of the kitchen, and it will provide for two days, maybe more. Supper, as usual, will be catch as catch can.
5. I’ve established my living room as my “cool room” during this never-ending heat wave. In this room I am running my AC unit and my fan. The shades are down. I may sleep in here tonight on the sleeper sofa. The rest of the house may bake — that’s okay — I’m staying here in the living room.
Beth W (from another Beth!): we use the blue painters tape to label freezer stuff. It seems to stick fine. We also use an Excel spread sheet for our freezer inventory.
Does the tape stick to plastic bags when it is cold? Or does it have to be wrapped once around to stick to itself, if you follow?
For either masking or painter’s tape.
I often use painter’s tape for both fridge and freezer items. As long as you apply the tape before the item (container or plastic bag) is cold, it works great, and there’s no need to wrap around to stick it to itself.
We write (on freezer bags like Ziplock or Food Saver) with black permanent marker before freezing. Most everything in our freezer is in a bah if some sort.
Thanks! I will try the painters tape! I think the real problem, though, is that I tried to label foil-wrapped things that were already frozen, after the fact. The tape might have stuck if the material was dry and room-temperature.
FFT, Beef and Other Things Edition:
(1) I have just finished taking delivery on the quarter-steer I still buy annually from friends who raise it (they’re in their 70s and have cut back to one steer per year). It’s already 86 degrees here, so we had to work quickly to get the frozen beef out of their truck and into my basement freezer. But the deed is done–and the cost, even when all auxiliary charges are figured in, is still an astonishing $2.57/lb. Blessings on these folks, as ever.
(2) This year’s steer was a big boy, so there’s about a third again as much beef as there was last year. But this just means all the more for sharing with the Bestest Neighbors, Dr. BN’s daughter and granddaughter, and other friends. (At my cost, of course. This ain’t no scalping operation.)
(3) We finally did get a glorious thunderstorm in the wee small hours of Sunday, and a brief but hard shower Sunday afternoon, so I’m off watering duty for at least a couple of days. It’s a great pleasure to be able to do a few things in the garden besides just subsistence watering. And all my rain buckets are full.
(4) On Saturday, I took a drive out to a small, upscale village about 20 miles east of here, for multiple errands. First, I cruised its Farmers’ Market (where I found an unusual herb plant I’ve been looking for, plus some lovely multicolored Araucana eggs for less than the usual going rate at this market). I then hit the absolutely ace village library book sale, where I came away with 9 b00ks and 4 CDs for $17.50.
(5) And I wound up Saturday with a visit to the friends who live south of the village, on the country property where DH’s ashes are buried. After I delivered 80th birthday prezzies to the female half of the couple (mostly birdseed and human consumables), we all walked up to pay DH a visit. I noticed that the 18″ high chunk of log on which DH’s marker stone rests had some loose bark, and I said jokingly, “Here, honey, let me make you a little more comfortable.” I tugged at the bark–and the entire circle of it came off in my hand, leaving a lovely bare stripped log. I turned to the friends and said, “Well, I guess he wanted that off!” So DH is still checking in now and again–to my and his friends’ joy and amusement.
A. Marie,
I still talk to my dearly departed cremated DH 10 years later. You reminded me of something humorous I had forgotten.
I had a small jar of ashes from the wood stove on my kitchen counter one day when a friend dropped by. She asked if they were some of DH’s ashes. I replied straighfaced “yes, I kept them out so that if they get fluffy I know he’s upset about something I’m doing”. She believed me, and, I’m so bad, I never told her any different.
Yesterday I altered some thrifted blouses to fit better and mended a holey pair of sweatpants for my son. Organized the over-fridge freezer as part of meal planning. Made a trip to Dollar Tree for essentials like crackers, shelf-stable milk, flour, mayo, freezie pops (we’re in a heat wave again), toothpaste and cat treats. Made another gallon of iced tea with tea bags from Ollie’s Outlet.
1. Frugal fail: when they attach the metal panels to my roof, their drills sound like jackhammers and vibrate the walls. One of my antique china cups in the dining room fell to the floor and broke.
2. Because of that, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning taking down pictures and anything breakable; I also emptied out Mom’s and Grandma’s china cabinets and put the crystal goblets, china cups/dishes, and delicate breakables in liquor store boxes. Ran out of those so I was using everything from padded lunch sacks to luggage to safely store them. The crystal was handed down from both my grandmothers. Unlike expensive Waterford crystal, these are irreplaceable as they are more than 100 years old. (One grandma was married in 1919, and the other was married (not sure how many years) prior to World War One, but the eldest children were born before that war. Ladies got their nice crystal, fine china, real silverware, and fancy linen usually before the wedding so they could “set up housekeeping” and “entertain.” Couldn’t have Sunday dinner without the good stuff!) In all these many years, only one wine glass has been chipped, and I don’t want anything else damaged.
3. Also put all the breakable lamps on the floor in cardboard boxes where they wouldn’t get chipped or broken. My front room, which I had so carefully arranged, now looks like someone’s attic. Will fix it back when the roofers are done.
4. The roofers didn’t work this weekend, so I gathered up all their aluminum soft drink cans from the trash and bagged them (the cans, not the roofers) with my can recycling. Will cash it in when the contractor’s bag is full.
5. Also sorted the garbage they left so anything recyclable went into the city curbside recycling can, and the rest into the regular garbage can. That might not be frugal for me personally, but it’s frugal for the community, as it keeps the landfill from filling up too soon. And allows the city to get $ from materials recycled.
1. Instead of going out for ice cream, we opted to have Popsicles on our patio. Saved money, time, gas and calories.
2. Renewed my annual cell plan with Tracfone. $200 for unlimited texts, unlimited calls and 48 GB of data.
3. Cut up a throw pillow cover and used it to reupholster a dining room chair seat that had a non-removable stain. Before it was a pillow cover it was a bedroom curtain, so the return on investment is quite high. Put the scraps in my textile recycling bin (our county will start this program next year).
4. Used another pillow cover to create a drawstring bag that goes around the wool duster that we use to clean the cobwebs from our vaulted wood ceilings. The wool duster would catch on knots and imperfections in the wood and the resulting tufts of wool were unsightlier than the cobwebs!
5. Asked my Buy Nothing group for specific donations to an organization I’m involved with. They came through with a lot of new personal care and clothing items. I picked up everything on the same day to reduce the number of trips.
Lucky you to have a textile recycling option! (coming soon).
We have used Tracfone for several years for our rarely used cell phones. I’ve had odd issues with my phone itself, but not necessarily with Tracfone.
Heidi Louise, yes! Goodwill also takes textiles for recycling but I’m not as confident in their nascent program.
1) Our office project went well. We removed the carpet and found lovely hardwood underneath. There is one patch of damaged hardwood near the closet, which is probably why the sellers chose to cover the whole thing with carpet. The one damaged patch doesn’t bother us though and we aren’t in a rush to get it repaired. We setup my old childhood desk in there and I’ll be picking up a second desk and chair I found on Craigslist for $20. Now my husband and both kids will have desks in the office (I have a mini desk in our bedroom, but as I only work from home 1 day/week now, I don’t need more than that). The office previously had a couch that was never used, so now the space will be functional for more of us and since both kids will now have homework next year, I wanted them to have a designated space to do it.
2) We got a last minute invite to join friends at the zoo yesterday. Not frugal to pay for entrance and parking but you are allowed to bring in your own food so I packed us lunches. This works better with my kids anyways because they usually get so excited they don’t want to eat, but then when they do realize they are hungry it’s at the point where they want to eat right now! So finding a food vendor and then waiting in line is a pain, much easier to just find the closest bench and whip out the lunchboxes. As another bonus, the food I pack is also better for us than the food sold at the zoo.
3) I started two new library books. One on audio, This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, really enjoying it so far. The other is a fun mystery, How to Solve Your Own Murder, I tend to read a lot of heavier books so I try to throw in some fun ones at times to break things up.
4) I made a new recipe, Senate bean soup, but a plant based version so no animal products in it at all and tons of veggies, I even added more than the recipe called for. It is so delicious! It made 8 servings so I froze 6 servings in individual portions, I will really enjoying bringing these for lunch!
5) There’s an expensive dairy brand here that comes in glass bottles. When you return the empty bottle, you get $3 back from the store. I don’t buy it normally but they make really good eggnog at Christmas so I’d bought a bottle last December. The empty bottle has been sitting in my cabinet, waiting to be returned since then. I finally got around to returning it last weekend so got my $3 back.
I like Senate bean soup! Those senators get some good food.
William Kent Krueger is a great author. One of his books was our One Community One Book choice. Was able then to hear him speak and got my book signed.
1. Took my 2018 Subaru into the dealer for it’s 6 month check up. Didn’t take them up on the offer to replace my wiper blades for $54! DH ordered some online for much less and he will replace them.
2. Sold some interesting cotton pants on Marketplace for $30. Bought them NWT at the thrift for about $7. They were crocheted I think, possibly to wear over a bathing suit, but they appeared good quality so I knew I could flip them.
3. The time has come to clean out my bathroom drawers. I have to admit when I emptied them, I was pretty shocked at the amount of expired medication, and ancient makeup was in them. And I don’t really wear much make up! Not really a frugal thing, but I now know exactly what I have, so won’t buy anything unnecessarily.
4. Took some soup from my freezer to my 90 year old Dad who is having much trouble with his teeth (yes still has his own!) and is waiting to have some extracted. He can’t really chew so enjoyed the soup. I had the last of it for my lunch, because if I leave it to him to have later, he forgets about it, it goes bad and has to be chucked. (Or worse, he eats it, and gets sick).
I’m afraid that’s it for now.
SO I received an invitation from my Mama for this, but I honestly had no idea what it was for. I clicked on it & it brought me to a question of why I want to join. I went, uuhhhh. I don’t even know what this is. So clicking around to find the site, I’m impressed. It’s “Be in the world not of it.” I like that & I do live this way, so thank you for being what you are as a site ~
Hm.
1. Enjoyed an afternoon at the beach. All those other folks have to pay to stay here! (Of course I pay and pay and pay in hilariously high prices. Gas is inching up to $6 a gallon.)
2. Not so frugal: I left a beach chair none of us like on the beach path. Go annoy someone else, chair! (There’s nothing wrong with it, it is just sooooo low.)
3. Not so frugal: had to stop and get sake because Daughter wants to make chicken teriyaki and she is deep into This Is the Right and Meet Way to Cook This. I think it’s dumb, but at least it won’t piss off General Tojo if we use sake. (General Tojo was executed for war crimes after WWII. Why mentioning him makes me laugh I do not know.)
4. Have to buy some kind of baby window shield for one window in our living room. The adopted hound gets utterly frantic when he sees a local rabbit in our driveway and frantically paws at the glass. He’s gonna knock the glass out soon.
5. I guess that’s it. Said rabbit ate all my blackberries too.
Whoa, your save on the overcooked beans was truly MASTERFUL! I know it would’ve been so easy to toss that whole batch instead. Once again, I salute you!
Dori, I agree! I’ve also used overcooked beans in a delicious dip/spread.
At ease. 😉
FWIW If you overcook the beans again and aren’t feeling soup, pureed white beans make a great dip! You make it sort of like hummus, but add a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and the herbs/spices of your choice. Delicious!
1) Dropped off a lamp at the free bench and picked up some artwork in square frames that will be perfect for some of my smaller pieces.
2) Picked up two ceiling fans from the free group with minor problems. If fixable, they should work well in the house we’re selling. If not, I’ll dispose of them properly.
3) Made the “viral” cottage cheese ice cream with some frozen strawberries and a little gelatin as a stabilizer, using the immersion blender right in the cottage cheese tub. It was delicious, rich and smooth, and I’ll make it again. We have a schmancy (used, from eBay) ice cream maker, which helps. Cottage cheese goes on deep sale periodically, and while I love it, there’s a limit to how much I want to eat at a time. A freezer full of tasty high-protein ice cream, on the other hand…
4) Strained some separated half-and-half that froze and curdled. The curds are like a rich ricotta, and the liquid will go into the next thing I bake (when the heat passes, natch). While cleaning out the fridge, noticed that some jams that had been there a while (yes, I have a problem/like lots of choices) looked odd, but not moldy, and smelled fine. I didn’t know jam could crystallize, but it’s harmless and reversible. I’ll make a concerted effort to use them up in desserts (including the aforementioned ice cream), pancake syrup, and cocktails.
5) I no longer do much bulk cooking for this empty nest, but small favors for future me are nice: extra red onion from a recipe slivered thin and quick pickled, a pound of ground sale lamb mixed with feta and herbs, half served as burgers and the other frozen as meatballs for some less energetic day when I’ve got some leftover boiled potatoes on hand, some pork belly and drippings set aside from tonight’s bibimbap to flavor future baked beans and caramelize the next bag of markdown onions, an overlarge package of loss leader bacon cut in half and folded with a reused cereal bag for the freezer. Another small favor I’ve been doing myself my entire life: not sexually assaulting anyone and paying to shut them up.