Five Frugal Things -- Safe Lettuce & a $75 Vase
1) I sold my $4.99 hefty blown glass vase for $75! (I thrifted it in December, which I wrote about in this blog post.) I had it priced for $100, but sent out a $75 offer and feel zero-point-zero regret for taking a lower price. $4.99 --> $75 is an excellent return on investment!
The package weighs almost six-and-a-half pounds, so I'll drive it to the post office instead of asking my mail carrier to carry it down my porch stairs. It's very important that this guy doesn't start to hate me!
I'm still making do without a printer, but "Mona" mentioned in yesterday's blog comments that I can just use the eBay QR code from the app at the post office, and they'll print out the label.
Thank you, Mona!
2) I made a half-recipe of pickled red onions using this recipe off the internet. Both jars are from a single small onion and the entire process took maybe ten minutes, including cleanup. These tangy bright onions are amazing and elevate so many savory dishes.
We enjoyed them in tonight's Mexi-bowls, even though they'd only been marinating in the brine for a couple of hours. ¡Delicioso!
3) The neighbors with whom we share garbage pickup service are out of the country for a couple of weeks, which means my husband and I are already planning the extra crap things we get to cram into next week's bin. (Keep in mind that Portland's garbage pickup is every other week!) This is what qualifies as "exciting" when you're middle aged.
My husband has been clearing out the garage, which inevitably means we're creating more garbage than usual.
For those who might judge this is a high-effort-low-payoff scheme -- each household saves $252/year by combining our trash pickup. We started doing this right before their daughter was born and she just turned 17, so that's thousands of dollars in savings!
4) I finished reading Beasts of a Little Land and think my next read needs to be on the lighter side. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, but my brain need a mental rest after immersing myself into a decades long historical novel featuring multiple main characters. Amazingly rich wartime details and this is the kind of story that'll stick in my mind.
I'm thinking The Wedding People, by Allison Espach.
I also picked up a Lucky Day copy of Jenny Lawson's How to be Happy When Nothing is Okay. I've read her other memoirs and she can do no wrong. No wrong!
5) My neighbor gave us two heads of organic lettuce from her CSA (community supported agriculture) box that she couldn't use before leaving the country. I'm going to blindly assume that this locally farmed lettuce isn't part of the cyclospora outbreak we're seeing from standardly farmed produce, and hopefully won't have to write my next blog post from the bathroom!
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
