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I recieved an email from the American Red Cross, thanking me for donating blood. Enjoyably the “thank you” was my choice of a $20 gift card. I picked Safeway and will use it to pick up whatever loss leader I’d be buying anyway. For those keeping track, I’ve now received a pair of Goodr brand sunglasses and and a $20 gift card for my single donation.
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I grabbed my blackberry picking supplies and drove to my secret spot. Those supplies being a cut-open milk jug, two 9″ X 13″ lidded pans, a wet rag in a ziploc bag to clean my hands and my sunscreened self.
I spent a hour and twenty minutes picking blackberries and gleaned enough to make it worth the scratches and sun exposure. Most of the berries were still unripe, so I’ll definitely try and get back next week. Maybe even the week after that. Hey, it’s free food!
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I also baked bread and made double batches of sweet chili sauce and pickled red onions for the fridge. Having flavorful toppings definitely helps to perk up otherwise dull meals.
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I then made a fresh jar of sauerkraut, as we used up the dregs from my last batch when my sister was in town. (Bangers and mash, bay-bee!) I picked up a $1.99 Trader Joe’s head of cabbage as their heavy single price produce is usally a better bargain than standard pay-by-the-pound pricing.
I picked up this fermantation kit last year and it’s my third time using it. I bought it “used” off Amazon and the only thing wrong with it was that the cardboard packaging was a bit messed up.
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My supper was a simple rice and beans bowl in the backyard, topped with queso fresco, onion, cilantro, salsas, tomato, lettuce and tortilla chip shrapnel. Cheap, healthy and delicious!
Five More Frugal Things
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1) The little cleaning brush that came with DH’s electric razor looks like it’s been through the war. Found a little toothbrush I got during my hospital stay last year and told him to try it. It worked! No need to buy a special brush.
2) DH bought 2 apple dumplings yesterday at the one Amish market we stopped at yesterday. We had those for breakfast this morning. $5 for the 2, so $2.50/person. Much cheaper than going out to a restaurant for breakfast.
3) Snapped all yesterday’s receipts (only 3) for all my cash back/gift card apps.
4) Started playing games on the KashKicks app in December. Cashed out $26 in May. Have accumulated another $46 since then. Only playing a little before bed, while I’m riding in a car, using the bathroom, etc (idle time). Waiting to cash out again when I need it. We need about $1,200 worth of work done to our car in the next 6 months. Waiting until I go back to work in about 6 weeks and have a couple of paychecks in my account to get the work done. Will cash out the game money when we go to have the work done on the car to help relieve some of the financial pressure.
5) About 1,000 miles until our next oil change is due. We take our car (only have 1) to a different garage than we take it for repairs because the other garage has a punch card deal. Get 5 oil changes, 6th one free. Considering our car takes only full synthetic oil and costs roughly $90/oil change, I am elated that we filled our punch card with the last oil change we had, so the next one is FREE! I’ve been on unemployment since school ended in June, so this will be a huge help to our wallet.
We get all of our oil changes for free due to mystery shops, plus they don’t know who you are, so you still get your card punched. I do not understand why mor people don’t do it.
I’ve thought about being a mystery shopper; however, some of those companies seem kind of “shady.” I want to be a mystery shopper for a reputable agency. Also, being in a rural area, I don’t know how many opportunities there might be.
I feel the same if there is anyone who wants to share more information…
Melissa N,
I know what you mean about some mystery shop companies seeming “shady”. I signed up with one several years ago – I don’t think it was shady, but the only shops that were ever offered to me had to do with looking at apartments during times I was unavailable (I work FT, and made clear what days/times I would be available). I am definitely going to try some other mystery shops when I retire (16.5 months, if all goes according to plan).
Oooh, I am jealous of your $20 gift card! My hospital only gave me an $8 cafeteria certificate.
I’ll have to check into donating blood. I have an unexciting blood type, though.
My worry with picking roadside berries is that they’ve been sprayed with poison and are covered with car exhaust toxins. I have a secret patch far away from a road, but I’m still not confident that they haven’t been sprayed. Instead of blackberries, I processed a batch of excess plums from a neighbor’s tree.
My spot isn’t on a road, it’s at the back of a parking lot away from where any cars ever park. And I’m a boring blood type as well.
It’s good to know that boring blood can still get me a gift card!
Should you make jam with some of your berries this year – I highly recommend adding lime, ginger, or both to the jam. I love blackberry jam, but blackberry lime ginger has my heart forever! Happy Blackberry time!
Also, happy Onion Ring season at Burgerville. I need to schedule a trip north before my favorite Burgerville season ends. LOL.
I’m an exciting blood type (O negative) but they didn’t check it before I gave and it wasn’t commented on. I still got a $25 gift card though, which was nice. Have to wait till August to do it again.
I’d happily pick roadside blackberries, as I am so annoyed and frustrated that the berry patches I grew up with hardly exist any more. I have my own bushes but they’re growiing slowly. Right now one is covered with red berries which I am sure some wildlife will eat before I get to them. Hrmph.
This might be a good year for wild grapes, though. It’s rained so much there should be a decent amount. In dry summers, the poor old grapes look like raisins when it’s picking time.
I have access to some Concord grapes, and when they’re ready, I’ll make grape jelly!
The wild type here is called fox grapes, and what is nice is you can also stuff the leaves if you like. Huh. I wonder if I could make it into wine? Literally never occurred to me till right now. Might be a fun experiment.
Also I yank the vines and make them into wreaths something.
Sometimes. So absent minded lately. Also Concord grapes are derived from this wild species.
The blackberries look delish, and is it a Fiesta bowl I spotted in your food photo? Thanks to all who give blood; no matter your type (boring or otherwise), you are saving lives. You are greatly appreciated! Reminder: you can donate once every 56 days. And for you ladies who suffer water weight right before that time of month, I found that a blood donation eases such discomfort.
1. At long last, my mission of saving a very comfy but ugly-looking executive desk chair from the landfill is complete! Katy, you’ll be proud of me: I’d rescued said chair from my across-the-street neighbor’s curbside trash. Planned to take it to a consignment furniture service when deer season started because they like chairs on casters; I was told the deer hunters like to buy them for their deer blinds. (Even if I only made $5 off it, that still would’ve been 100% profit.) Well, the consignment placed closed, so the chair has been gathering dust in my garage. Yesterday, a soon-to-be rookie teacher got on Nextdoor asking for classroom furniture. He will be teaching at a Title I school and doesn’t care what something looks like, even if some of the fake leather cushion covering is peeling off. He just now drove away with his “loot.” The chair will get a new life in his classroom, and all is well.
2. I’m decluttering, so I also gave him my teacher’s podium (made by my former neighbor out of a wooden fence post and some discarded wood shelves), a plastic drawer set, and bunches of supplies and teacher books. Threw in a “Deport Elon” magnet for good measure, as he’s a fellow Democrat. Glad they’re going to a good cause! Also glad I freed up some space around the house! (Bonus: when I looked in a storage bin, I found some missing family photos.)
3. I started playing Wordle again for free entertainment. (I didn’t hear anything more about the labor dispute, or whatever it was, so I assume it’s over by now.) Of 912 games overall, I have a 92% success rate. Can’t seem to get to 93, no matter how many I solve.
4. Resisted the temptation to buy a food chopper on Aldi’s aisle of shame. I will wait and see if the price comes down and if I still want it in a few weeks.
5. Signed the online petition to CBS telling them they’re the Cowardly Broadcast System for axing Colbert.
1. It was beautiful yesterday. The A/Cs were off and the windows were open. I put a window fan in a little before bed to bring the cooler air in.
2. Laundry was washed on the short, cold cycle this morning. Everything got hung on the line. It was dry 2 hours later.
3. Hubby helped me make 3 zucchini pies. They are a lot of chopping. We are bringing 2 with us to our oldest daughter’s house tomorrow. We are staying there for a few days. The other one is going into the freezer. My friend gave me 3 large zucchinis from her garden.
4. We bought a golf thing at the thrift store last week. It was new in the box. It has a ball that is attached to a small bungee cord that attaches to a metal steak. It helps with your swing. You need to buy a mat separately. I had on old door mat. Hubby cut it down to size. He was practicing all last night.
5. Hubby is doing car maintenance on our cars today. He will wash them both too. I am working in the yard and garden.
Zucchini pie? I need that recipe please! My zucchini are finally going to town.
I looked at recipes and they seem to be frittatas made with zucchini — in a crust or not. Am I right, @Marybeth?
Its a Bisquik recipe. Hubby adds jalapenos to his.
https://brunchandbatter.com/crustless-zucchini-pie/
My blackberry bush has so much more fruit than it ever has! i bet your secret spot might produce more than normal this year!! I think it’s a good year for berries, or so I hear from other gardening friends!! Good luck! What’s your fav thing to do with black berries? Other than just gobble them up 🙂
I’ve used the berries to make jam, plus pies, crumbles and simply eating them as is. My husbanmd brings yogurt and berries for his work lunches, so this is the time of year where he switches from Costco frozen berries to black berries.
My mom made them into jelly (straining the seeds out) or my favorite, blackberry cobbler with tons of whipped cream on top. The smell of hot, cooking blackberries brings me back to heavenly 70s summers.
Our wild blackberries aren’t ripe yet, so I’m a bit jealous! We are a ways north of you, so hopefully they begin to ripen in the next couple of weeks.
1) Our neighbor gave us his blessing to harvest all the fruit we want from his neglected orchard. In exchange I’m going to do some rehab pruning of the trees (I’m a professional gardener/landscaper). He’s older and no longer keeps up with it. I’ll gift him back some preserves from the harvest. Today is the day we are planning to harvest the plums!
2) I canned 7 pint of cherries and 7 half-pints of blueberry jam. I also dehydrated several pounds of zucchini.
3) My wife repaired the damage to the front bumper cover of our Prius. She used her heat gun plus a mallet to pop out the dent in the plastic bumper, then rebolted the plastic piece that keeps dirt from flying into the engine, as it had come loose and was dragging on the ground. She used a porcelain chip repair paint that we already had to cover the black plastic that showed through the gouges on the white plastic bumper cover. The damage is no longer obvious, and we didn’t have to spend money on a cosmetic repair for a nearly 16 year old vehicle.
4) I added a half jar of leftover homemade strawberry jam to a coffee cake I was making. The jam was opened a couple of weeks ago and then forgotten. The strawberry added flavor and resulted in a moister cake, plus this way there was no food waste!
5) Apparently there is an issue with the Pixel 6a battery, so Google is offering either a free replacement or a $150 credit on a new phone once your old pixel hits 400 charge cycles (which she hit last night). Since my wife uses her phone extensively for work, we decided to go for a new phone, which is currently on sale for 50% off, or $249, because the next model comes out in August. $100 for a new phone isn’t too bad and we were planning to update her phone next year anyway, so I consider it a win.
Hi Jenny, can you share where you’re finding the deal on the new phone? We’re on the hunt for a new phone for my son. He had a Google pixel four that had battery issues then died.
I found it in the Google store (online). Google Fi is our carrier, so I am not sure if the deal is available for those on other carriers, but it’s worth a look!
Those choppers at Aldi are pretty junky. I’ve seen a few people online who bought them and they broke on the first use.
Tammy,
Thanks for the info! Glad I didn’t buy one.
I took up the waist of a slightly too big pair of thrifted shorts by running elastic through the back waistband. Made up another batch of refillable K cups with some delicious Aldi coffee. Refilled the dish soap bottle in the kitchen with the big jug of Fab detergent from Ollie’s Outlet, which seems to clean as well as Dawn so far. That dish soap bottle precedes the pandemic.
Turned some leftovers into individual freezer meals for my lunches. Used the bag that contained nine rolls of toilet paper as a bathroom trash can liner by cutting open the short end.
Thank you for letting us know about the goodies you get with blood donations. I haven’t given in years and really need to do so. I agree with the above that the main thing is you are saving lives.
1. Using the “solar” clothes drier for the laundry. I am also purging clothing as I clean (unmendable things, bad fit, not my style, etc.) into donation or rag piles.
2. I am working on my post-menopausal weight gain and eating lightly these days. I have lost 11 lbs. My partner is also working on his weight and so we have been using my gym membership to work out regularly. It will be frugal to be healthy in the coming years.
3. I am drinking through my stash of teas (ones I brought home from trips or bought from the discount store). It’s been a nice change of pace from coffee.
4. I harvested two big zucchinis, turnips, and tomatoes from the garden. I am growing a much smaller garden this year due to having grown so much last year, we are still eating what I preserved last year.
5. Pitted and froze 5 lbs of bing cherries I bought on sale, but no one was eating. They now live with the two quarts of sour cherries I picked from my own trees. I also harvested the red currants and goose berries from my yard. I hope to make some jam later when it is not so hot. I really want to enter jam in the state fair (bucket list item), but this year has too many conflicts with the dates of the fair (like my wedding in Las Vegas). Maybe next year…
I hope everyone is having a lovely summer!
1. picked a handful of blackberries this morning, saving them to make liqueur and jelly.
2.have made and processed 5 jars of sweet lime pickles and more growing in the garden.
3.hve a loaf of sourdough bread going on its final rise.
4. finally got a bit of rain, so no watering this evening.
5.refilled my dishwashing soap container, mine is an old hair color squirt bottle LOL. I gifted the kids one also…..
JC
1. After delaying all day yesterday in the hopes that my eyelid swelling would decrease (nope), I had to finally go to Urgent Care. It appears some sort of insect bite my eyelid while I was snoozing Thursday night. Oh the joys of living in the very Deep South during the humid summer! The good thing is that with my combined work insurance and Medicare, I owed nothing at the doctors office in the box, and owed $16 for meds at the pharmacy.
Other than that I did the usual, 2. walked, 3. ate at home, and 4. I am trying to sleep bc I didn’t get much last night. 5. is a bust bc I am siting/sleeping under the window air conditioner with it running full blast$$$$$
We’ve been doing a lot of entertaining lately. Friends and family know we love consumable gifts so we’ve received:
1. Banana bread
2. Dot’s pretzels
3. Farm eggs
4. Maple vinegar
5. Wild rice
Have 5 perfect size zucchini on the vine. Making quiche, and giving the neighbor some. He is eighty this year, and said his gardening days are done.
Same neighbor gifted us enough pie cherries for a pie. Never again, pitting, ugh!
Dug up all the onions, and hanging to dry.
Making broccoli beef again with the last of the overabundance of home grown broccoli. With a tough steak, which will be sliced thinly, across the grain.
All food related!
Excavated some chicken/spinach/brown rice casserole from the chest freezer for my husband’s dinner. I made green salads with homemade vinegarette to go with it. Topped my salad with the last of yesterday’s tuna salad from lunch.
It is SO hot and humid right now and I’m not using any appliances that will make the A.C. work harder.
Laundry washed in cold. Put the drying rack outside. That load was dry in less than 3 hours.
Gassed up the car 1st thing in the morning. This is supposed allow more fuel in the tank this time of year. I don’t understand the science behind this (nor do I want to) but I will take the frugal “win”.
Enjoyed ice cream from the freezer on “National Ice-cream Day”. Celebrating silly, made up calendar holidays makes me happy.
Recycled a box we received a package in to mail a birthday present to a niece.
Heat causes things to expand, so in cooler temperatures the smaller liquid amount the vessel, as it heats becomes greater (larger) in that same vessel, theoretically.
But do you ever GET the gift card? My dh has been a regular donater for decades. He always goes when they offer an Amazon gift card. Yet he has never received a gift card – ever. A couple of times he has gotten the email to claim it, but then it is never sent. It frustrates him and he has been searching for a different company to donate to, but hasn’t found one yet. He feels like the whole thing is a scam. And yes he has called and emailed red cross and they just say he should have gotten it.
Yes, I got the gift card. It took a few days though.
Jennifer,
If your TV station or newspaper has an Action Line or something of the sort, contact them about the blood donor gift card scam. I can just about guarantee you that a very embarrassed blood center will come through with it if some reporters go out there and do a story on it. If it’s TV, call them right before a ratings sweeps month (Feb., Nov. and May), as they love putting juicy scandals on the air during Sweeps. Another idea is to contact your congressman’s office or attorney general consumer protection office and let one of their aides phone the blood center; that’ll put the fear of God in them and they’ll cough up the gift card ASAP.
The American Red Cross is not running a gift card scam. Maybe the email is going to his Junk folder or the sender was blocked somehow. Is there a different email he could use in the future?
I had to click a link and sign up to receive it and then wait a few days. When I got the email there was still a couple more hoops to jump through.
1. DSIL returned my car that they borrowed to go away for the weekend, full of gas, and with a voucher for a car wash. He’s a keeper!
2. We stayed 4 nights with my cousin in his home exchange house, in a popular surfing town on the west coast of our island. We’re not surfers but we went for lots of beach and forest walks with our dogs, stayed in a lovely home (for free), and just enjoyed being away from home for a few days. We cooked mostly, but did enjoy one lunch and one dinner out.
3. Bought cheaper gas while away from home.
4. Stopped at a very crowded touristy market part way home. They have lots of imported foods, and for some reason, their roasted red peppers are a lot cheaper than my regular grocery store. I bought three jars, and will use them to make my favourite soup, Spicy Chickpea.
5. As a thank you gift to the home owners, we gave them one of DH’s handmade wooden cutting boards. He makes them out of scrap wood from other projects, and they always have interesting patterns, as they are made of several kinds of wood. No cost incurred.
Tortilla chip shrapnel!!
1. We have family visiting. We spent the afternoon at the in-laws, then went to the park. We enjoyed walking g around the pond and playing in the playground with the younger kids.
2. Swung by Goodwill and purchased a few things.
3. Made ice tea for the guys working in the fence. Cheaper and healthier than going and grabbing fountain drinks.
4. Sold a toilet seat on ebay. It’s a see through one with seashells that my husband pulled out of a rental as part of a fixer upper job. Oh the eclipse ctic things I sell!
5. Got 3 zucchini from the garden
Wow the typos! I meant “eclectic” things
Has anyone thought of going to plasma donation centers? They usually pay a lot more money than blood donation you can do it several times a week since they only remove a component of your blood and don’t just take the whole thing. It has to be a month after a whole blood donation. There are many places and when you first join you receive an introductory rate, usually for the first month. Then you can join another for again their introductory amount, usually several hundred in the first month up to 500.00. Check with any in your area prior to going. Also carpool if you are traveling so you don’t have to spend on gas so much. Take a list of medications and conditions, physicals usually take an hour to sign up,get your record made, physical and donation time. I used to work at one so this is doable. I also have seen many people treated in the hospital by these products, more than blood, so the need is great.
How do you compare queso fresco to feta? I don’t love feta — a little too earthy for me. Is Queso milder?