Five Frugal Things
by Katy on August 11, 2025 · 11 comments
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Portland hit the high nineties today, so I kept it simple and mostly hung out at home. Our bedroom gets beastly hot, so we’ll run the bedroom air conditioner tonight, but otherwise I’m surviving with strategically placed fans. I’m also running the furnace’s “summer fan” day and night, which brings cool air up from the basement.
My 111-year-old house doesn’t have air conditioning, which is pretty standard for Portland, Oregon, as these kinds of temps used to be a rarity.
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My husband and I took a nice long walk through the neighborhood last night, which was extra enjoyable due to the full moon. His work schedule normally gets him home around 10:45 P.M., but he’s taken a couple weeks off for his annual vacation. It’s fun to have a buddy to hang out with during the evening hours.
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I started reading a library copy of Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing and Longing, by Elissa Altman. A friend raved about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. I love that libraries allow us to try out a book without the burden of spending money.
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My husband and I are really happy with our curb picked dining room chandelier, so we’re going to donate the old ones to the Habitat ReStore. We already removed the matching living room one a couple years back, as I’d received a ceiling fan from from someone in our Buy Nothing group.
I don’t like to hold onto things “just in case,” as I prefer to keep an uncluttered home. Sending the old light fixtures to the ReStore means they can be put back into circulation, while supporting a terrific nonprofit.
Here’s the old one:
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My husband mailed out two leftover Pride parade T-shirts to people who weren’t able to attend. (He organizes his company’s Pride festivities!) I showed him the trick to turning an Amazon bubble mailer inside out for a blank surface. These already reused mailers came from my sister, who’d utilized them to cushion her homemade marmalade. So this was their third use!
He also used Pirateship.com for discounted postage.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I LOVE the new light fixture! The old one is nice, too, and someone will be happy to find it.
1. Today is my birthday. Yesterday my son took me out to see Naked Gun 2 and treated me to popcorn and a soda as well. That was my lunch! This coming weekend I’ll go out with the whole family. Schedules weren’t right to do it yesterday.
2. Yesterday’s walk to the beach was fruitful. I found an unopened can of beer. I don’t drink beer, but I do use it in cooking. I also rescued a swim shirt that had a slight stain and was lying on the trash can. I’m letting it soak up some liquid soap before I launder it today. I also found a discarded fast food bag, with a bunch of clean napkins and several sealed sauces. And a nice washcloth, which will clean up fine.
3. I finished Pachinko yesterday and I highly recommend it. I will take it to my friend’s house tomorrow, along with two other books. She lives in a LFL desert, and she is not inclined to use the library.
4. My trip to my friend’s house will be a three-day trip. She is looking into retirement homes and wants an extra set of eyes and ears for the grand tours and pitches. I hope to make it a frugal trip but will go with the flow.
5. Even though it got a bit close yesterday, I managed without turning on the air all day. I got my electric bill, and it was not the shock to the system I thought it might be.
Happy Birthday!!!!!
Enjoy your special day, and remember to be kind to yourself
I hadn’t heard the term “close,” meaning humid since I was a child in Pennsylvania. Thanks for the memory!
Yesterday we hauled home a wicker and metal chair that looks just like the one you sold the back of on eBay. It was at the curb of house with a For Sale sign. It was in pieces with a note that said everything was there except the nails needed to put it together. We carried it home and DH found the proper screws to assemble it. It is a nice sturdy chair and we don’t need it so onto Freecycle it will go.
1. DH desperately needed new white dress shirts for work. It is tax free week in our state so I ordered a couple of his favorites which were on sale. I also used a rebate site for a 3.03% rebate and the credit card that will give 3% cash back for online purchases.
2. A neighbor borrowed a stud finder. There is no need for everyone to own everything.
3. DH went to Costco to order a new pair of glasses. He has complicated lenses so it seems it is better to order them in person than online. They are so much cheaper than at the opticians office or Lens Crafters.
4. Safeway has a gift card offer of earning a $10 off a future order when you spend $50 on certain gift cards. We were next to a Safeway so we bought gift cards for a big box hardware store. We then bought sale items with the $10 off coupons.
5. I finished listening to The Last Lifeboat. I am reading A Physical Education and The Bastard (author John Jakes). All borrowed in various formats from the library.
That moon was so beautiful wasn’t it?
1. I made a salad (the Jennifer Aniston Salad) which used up a cucumber that was getting close to being composted. I always forget about this salad and I shouldn’t. I could eat it every day. It uses parsley and mint which I grow.
2. I picked up a few vegetables at someone’s free vegetable stand. I did donate $1. I used these and a free zucchini from my mom’s neighbor and some red pepper slices I had frozen to make a stir fry with tofu. I have at least another meal or two leftover. I froze half the vegetables for a future stir fry.
3. I sold 5 things on Ebay over the weekend. I used free packaging for most of it. I will send it off today with a free pick-up from my post office.
4. I dug up a volunteer butterfly bush that was growing between pathway stones. My mom has a spot for it. Hopefully it survives. It’s not very happy right now.
5. I’m reading Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. It’s a free library book on my Kindle. I like that my taxes help pay for my little local library. Money well spent.
I just realized I was planning to add some purslane to my stir fry and I forgot. Darn.
Jill, in addition to joining you and the NCAs in admiring the full moon, I’ve been watching some planetary canoodling in the predawn eastern sky: Venus and Jupiter are getting it on (see https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/whats-up-august-2025-skywatching-tips-from-nasa/).
And, BTW, let’s take advantage of those skywatching tips from NASA while we can. They too may fall victim to budget cuts.
I love walks very late or very early, when the town is quiet. Speaking of which:
1. I walked in my neighborhood for exercise at 6 a.m. this weekend.
2. I cooked all my meals and took my lunch and breakfast to work.
3. I ran the window unit air conditioner from about 1 p.m. to about 6 p.m. over the weekend. I did have the thermos set at 79, then 78, but I, unfortunately, lowered it to 77. I turned it off at 6 p.m. turned on the portable cheap floor fan I bought a long time ago at Dollar General with a $5 off $25 coupon, and opened the windows all night but had the curtains pulled closed. I have a screen. I also slept on top of the covers.
4. I gently washed my court jacket in the bathtub and hung it outside to dry.
5. I took a Sunday afternoon nap. Always my fav!
I feel like I just do the same thing week in and week out with no new frugality tips. I suppose it is the passive frugality that Amy talked about in The Tightwad Gazette. I have never been much of an “active” frugality person. I am more of a ” I am not going to a concert if I have to pay for it, and I will skip eating out if I have food at home kind of person. ” It kind of helps that I live in the middle of nowhere and there are zero restaurants in the town I live in although the gas station does sell cooked food…….lol
1. Painted a picture frame using paint that I got from my county’s ReUse Room for redoing door trim.
2. Put a yellowish-stained pillowcase out in the sun for a few hours and – voila! – no more stain. I’ll never stop being amazed by this.
3. Went to a retirement party at my former workplace and was so occupied with socializing that I didn’t eat anything. The fabulous food service staff gave me a to-go box.
4. Friend gave me three bags of dog treats that her dog could no longer eat.
5. Sister treated me to dinner by picking up veggie hoagies on the way to my house.
1. Made a quiche from free eggs from sister, cream & pie crust from freezer, milk and bacon from mystery shop, and squash from free CSA.
2. We leave on vacation tomorrow and we received a number of onions from the CSA. I don’t think they will make it until we get back, so I chopped them up and put in the freezer.
3. I was running an errand yesterday and something told me to stop in at Ocean State. It is their annual “educators” sale, with [almost] everything I buy, I get a gift certificate back worth 40% spent. I stocked up on olive oil, walnuts, capers, and bird seed.
4. Ocean State is located right next to Panera, so I popped in for a free Arnold Palmer while my free sip trial membership is still active.
5. The Dawn and Oxy mostly cleaned the pillowcases that I mentioned last week. I did one more cycle of this, followed by a day out in the sun, and I do believe that they have been rescued.
1) Friends from the City are visiting – they bought a retirement place near me and are fixing it up. I’ve fed us from the fridge without extra inputs, fried rice and a pasta cheese thing.
2) We played a very small festival this weekend. Our music is a donation to a township on an island that has chosen this method of aux funding. Six of us drove in one car, we ate from coolers onsite, stopped at a beach to cool off (80F here feels like 90+ to those of us in the north!) and got home exhausted and still friends.
3) Bonus – we got to make music with friends we don’t usually play with!
4) I’ve inherited a 3-legged cat with long hair and a squished nose that requires a drinking fountain. She is a caution, and gradually discovering she’s a feline after all. But we’ve avoided that at-least-$50 grooming cost by brushing her twice a day. Now I need a use for the cat felt, besides leaving it out for birds.
5) Reading and visiting and playing music for enjoyment. And reading these posts – you are all marvelous!
I am curious to know who uses handkerchiefs. I’m in a forest / paper industry area that is rich in water. I use tissues because I produce mucus WAY better than most people. I can’t stomach the idea of washing handkerchiefs, and the alternatives are a spittoon or standing at a sink for a long time every morning. Ideas??
And thanks again. Happy belated anniversary, Katy. A good partnership is worth its weight in any precious substance you care to name!