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I planned a Winco Foods shopping trip, but first hit Fred Meyer (Kroger) as their produce clearance shelf has been popping off lately. Today was no exception.
What did I buy? Two big bags of mushrooms, plus a mixed bag of four big avocados plus two tomatoes. Each for a buck-fifty! I then scoped out the non-produce clearances shelves and grabbed two 12-packs of flavored seltzers for $1.40 each.
The best part? I paid for everything using my
blood moneyRed Cross gift card!
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I used one of the avocados in a big batch of sushi and then soaked and peeled the pit to propagate. I used one of the free glass vases that I got from the Habitat ReStore a couple weeks ago. I read somewhere that it helps to peel the skin when propagating and it worked really well the one time I tried it.
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I discovered an abandoned piece of firewood in the Fred Meyer parking lot, so it now resides in my fireplace. Hardly the day to light a fire, (Portland heat wave!) but chilly days are around the corner.
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I sold my $7.99 thrifted Yakima rack for $50 through Facebook Marketplace. This was a fun flip, as it was super dirty when I bought it, and it was deeply satisfying to wipe out all the nooks and crannies.
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My mother had a classic waffle-weave dish rag in her living room and offered it to me after I asked about it. I gave it an overnight oxyclean soak, (store brand, of course!) and will add it to our stash. We don’t buy paper towels, as it’s easy enough to use thin washcloths that can be switched out every day or so. Mind you, these are not Pinterest-worthy dish rags. A couple of them are literally leftover baby washcloths from my 29-year-old daughter! They put the “rag” in “raggedy!” Weirdly kind of excited to have a minimally scrappy dish rag.
Am I . . . fancy now?*
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You ARE fancy!
I have a vintage paper towel/wax paper/foil dispenser and I keep my dish rags in the paper towel compartment. They are a motley cruë of unlikely heroes made up of old garments cut up, raggedly ancient washcloths, and crocheted and knitted dish cloths.
Very much envious of your scores at the grocery store. I live on a small island and our one grocery store is expensive like we live in Hawaii or Alaska and food needs to be flown in, not the Bronx. I shop the sales and supplement with the sporadic gifts from my garden.
I have a motley and large collection of dish rags – some I have knitted, some are gifted crocheted ones (much sturdier than my scrappy knitting), some are purchased and rather aged dish cloths.
I use them in the sink, or on the floor or scrubbing up a mess – then onto the drying pile until enough are there for a good launder. it is the only laundry I do hot, but I do hang to dry.
I knit on occasion, and the ones I make vary depending on if I am trying a new stitch, or using up bits of cotton – the joy of knitting dishrags is that mistakes don’t matter…
I also have a couple of cloth grocery bags hanging in a stairwell, these contain my actual rags – torn up towels, bar-cloths, teeshirts either whole or cut up, random I-dunno cloth that looks like it could be useful soaking things up. Those rags are the go-tos for more serious cleaning, but the dishcloths are fine for most kitchen spills.
You’re definitely very fancy now! 😉
1. Recent favourite library read: Recipe for a charmed Life (Rachel Linden)
2. Sold 2 more t-shirts on Vinted.
3. DH’s and my iphone are getting on a bit and the battery just does not last that long any more. It’s fine at home but we decided to get a power bank for outings. I was able to buy a used one on Ebay, it was quite reasonably priced as our iphones still have the lightning ports which have been replaced with USB C ports on newer iPhones (in Europe).
4. The blackberry season is slowly coming to an end but we are now harvesting the first apples. Unfortunately the crows have also discovered the apples and we are now constantly chasing them off the trees. So far they are only eating the apples on the very high branches which we can’t reach anyway.
5. Used up left over rice by making egg fried rice for lunch.
Oh, I love Rachel lindens books! Also the later heather Webber books, magical realism is my favorite. Jennifer Moorman is another favorite author.
If anyone has recommendations for magical realism I would love to hear them.
The current “real world” is just too much.
Karen Hawkins’ Dove Pond series is a wonderful magical realism series. Also, Sarah Addison Allen has some great MR books.
Thanks Alice, I’ll try the dove pond series. I enjoy
Sarah Addison Allen’s books a lot. She also writes fun short stories
On her FB page.
Thanks for the recommendations, Alice, I have added them to my library wish list!
I read “Midnight at the Blackbird Café” and “The lights of Sugar Berry cove” by Heather Webber, both books were very good!
Yesterday, Kimberly asked me to share the recipe for Princess Diana’s Overnight Oats. I had stumbled on a video by Princess Diana’s personal chef, Darren McGrady about these oats she was eating before her death – long before the overnight oats we think of today. Princess Di had been to either a Swiss or Swedish Spa (I forget which country), had them, and loved them so much that she stole the recipe, gave it to her Chef and said she wanted them every day for breakfast. Here is the recipe:
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 Tablespoon honey
8 oz plain greek yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste (optional)
1/2 honeycrisp apple grated (with the skin on)
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
Mix together oats and orange juice. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator overnight.
In the morning, stir in the honey, yogurt, lemon juice, cinnamon (if using) and grated apple. Add blueberries and walnuts, reserving some of each for garnish.
Makes2 servings.
Now, my noted:
1. I use a little less than a cup of orange juice. For me, I find it too liquidy for my taste if I use the whole cup.
2. I bought a small bowl with a lid big enough to mix everything in.at Dollar Tree as I had nothing the appropriate size. Also eliminates the need for plastic wrap.
3. I have a bunch of bottled lemon juice. Rather than buying a lemon, I use 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice.
4. I do use the cinnamon, but I have made it with some other fruits and changed the seasoning/nuts. I will list those7 below.
5. I stir all the berries and nuts in at once. I’m too lazy (and not “fru-fru”) to garnish.
The recipe says it makes 2 servings, but I get about 4 as I put it into 8 oz containers. It’s enough to fill me up and keep me satisfied.
I have used the other following combinations, other than the blueberries and walnuts and they have all been very good:
Peaches + toasted hazlenuts (or toasted almonds) + nutmeg
Sweet dark cherries + toasted almonds + 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
Pomegranate seeds + toasted cashews + cinnamon
That sounds lovely!
Melissa, those are some yummy combos. Thanks for the inspiration!
That is a very nice old fashioned dish cloth. I have some ancient blue – striped hand towels that need mending, so you nudged my memory to get that done.
I’m with you on the raggedy rag thing. I have torn up bath towels, ripped up tshirts, baby washcloths, cloth diapers, etc. Paper towels are reserved for cat barf.
I’m impressed with your clearance finds. At my Fred Meyer, they’ve been very stingy lately with the markdowns, and there’s a lot of competition. Sometimes there’s a bit of a crowd around the clearance shelves. I don’t think I’d have been able to get an unobstructed photo like you did! My kid has a dentist appointment soon, on the other side of town, so maybe I’ll walk to the nearest Fred Meyer while I wait.
My local favourite grocery store used to have a really useful clearance shelf, but something happened about 5 months ago and it has all been paperback books and stale spices, or cans of pop (soda) = and all of those barely discounted. I noticed last week that the whole shelf was emptied, and this week there were a few things on a side shelf, so who knows what they are up to.
My local greengrocer (mostly veggies) is wonderful both for their regular prices and for their discount shelves. as I drive by several times a week I have taken to swinging in to check the discount shelf, even if it requires a bit of a circle route to get back on the highway – because they will have things like 3 pounds of peppers for $2, or a huge bag of onions for $0.99. usually things are priced between $1.50 and $2.99 and often there are bags of $0.99 green onions (three or more bundles).
I need to be cautious to ensure I still have spoons to process when I get home, but I am working on that and doing much better.
There are persistent rumors that my grocery is losing money, so maybe that’s why they’re getting stingy. Unfortunately, they price some things too high so they sit forever and get tossed! I hear you on overdoing it. I don’t want to make too much work for myself.
I have added $120 to my Christmas money with various apps and reward cards in the last week or so. Less than 4 months until the big day!
Hubby made dinner last night with ingredients from home, including using up a partial jar of marinara sauce from homemade pizzas added to his spaghetti sauce.
I had leftover white gravy on plain white bread for breakfast – not as delicious as on biscuits with fried eggs, but still yummy.
Using leftover frozen turkey from my Christmas in July dinner to make turkey potpie tonight for the whole family. Only need to buy some potatoes as we have everything else in the house.
Thinking of things that I want to make for presents for Christmas. I love the holidays, and, as I get older, I want to incorporate more heartfelt and handmade items. I’m working on my new granddaughter’s stocking, but I’d like to get some more things made for other people, too.
When I was a kid, my mom often made gravy bread, and I loved it! Thanks for reminding me!
Why is it that food remembered from our childhood always seems like it was the best tasting?
Not if you were raised on headcheese and liverwurst. I will die a happy woman if I never see, let alone taste, those hideous concoctions impoverished people came up with to use every part of an animal.
Liverwurst on rye with raw onions & mustard! YUM!
Lindsey, my MIL used to ask for headcheese when I’d go grocery shopping for her. I couldn’t bear to look at it, let alone think about eating it. You have my sympathy.
Lindsey,
I just looked up “head cheese,” having never before heard the term. Ugh! Gag me with a spoon!
We had a small working farm growing up, but we never ate head cheese. We did have a neighbor who asked for the “parts” after we “cut” a male piglet. Now, that’s nasty.
I’ve adored liverwurst since I was a small child and still occasionally buy a roll to eat with crackers. Another favorite: scrapple, a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty made with organ meats. I make a gluten free version with corn and buckwheat flours.
FMFT, Food Exchange Edition:
(1) Old friends to whom I regularly send dried herbs from my garden have sent me back a boxful of previously used herb jars (they know I appreciate the return of the empties), filled with assorted fancy nuts.
(2) One of the neighbors next door to the Bestest Neighbors dropped off some food she’d overbought on before leaving on a vacation Sunday. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches, grapes, and an unopened half gallon of 2% milk. I kept the tomatoes and cukes, and gave the rest to the BNs when they returned from their lake house on Monday.
(3) When Dr BN came over for the peaches et al., he dropped off half of a Lake Erie smoked whitefish, a frozen portion of Lake Erie walleye pike, and a serving of a walleye chowder he’d made. In addition to the peaches et al., I gave him an individual portion of yogurt that JASNA BFF had left behind (I don’t like yogurt).
(4) Another neighbor dropped off a bagful of small cucumbers yesterday, with which I made another quart of refrigerator dills.
(5) And still another neighbor (Bailey dog’s mom) dropped off another bagful of cucumbers. I shared the four biggest of these with the neighbors on the other side of NDN1, and will make more refrigerator dills with the rest.
A pathetically sad moment last night when my favorite pair of casual Sumner pants that I picked up at the GW bins 12yrs ago..they literally rotted off me last night. So sad, not even worthy of the rag bin. Took the buttons off and tossed on the burn pile as they are 100% cotton. Boo!
Cut up an ancient 50+ prune tree for this winter’s fire pit.
Wish I had a Freddies near me!
You are really scoring between the clearance rack and that bitchin’ free pile!!
Here’s my 5 frugal things:
1. A friend who scraps gave me a back pack he found to give away. ( I work at a library so he is always bringing finds to pass on) It was a Disney Loungefly, so sorry little kids, I put it on Poshmark and sold it in just a few hours.
2. I rode my bike to work one day saving gas and wear and tear on my car. My husband did the oil and transmission fluid change that day, which also saved me $$$.
3. About 2 years ago a friend passed away, and recently out the blue her nephew called and said she left a note for me to take from her personal library anything I wanted for myself or for the library I work at before being auctioned. I took about 8 boxes for the library and kept a lovely collection of Gene Stratton-porter books for myself. They are fabulous. I feel so blessed.
4. Not frugal for me, but I believe what goes around comes around so my husband and I gave away 5 truckloads of firewood. We lost hundreds of trees to the emerald ashborer.
5. My financial advisor sponsores Dayton Concours D’Elegance car show and gave me 4 tickets a $100 value.
My Mom read Gene Stratton-Porter books to us when we were little. Fascinating woman, writer, naturalist, creator, photographer, and other accomplishments! If she had lived longer, (was struck by a car and killed in 1924), she undoubtedly would have kept going. A lovely keepsake from your friend.
I am a sucker for old books. Truly an amazing gift….I had not read anything by her before receiving these, and now I am on my 4th one already, and I have a road trip planned to the Limberlost. From the first book I read, I knew she was ahead of her time. “A daughter of the land” wants to get an education and believes she deserves the same as her brothers
A Girl of the Limberlost was one of my mom’s favorite, and is one of my favorite, books. Such a gift!
And now one of mine too! The Limberlost is only about an hour from where I live. My husband and I are going to go check it out this weekend.
Thanks to Gene Stratton Porter and A Girl of the Limberlost, I was able to identify the giant moth that the Bestest Neighbors found in their yard back in 1992. (The cocoon must have come in on some perennial plants they’d bought; we’ve never seen one since.) They phoned us, and DH (with his camera) and I came over on the run. I said, “That’s a Cecropia!” The BNs said, “How do you know?” I said, “Gene Stratton Porter!” DH got some really good photos, and we have several fine prints to remind us of that happy occasion.
Wow! That sounds so lovely. I don’t think there are nearly as many diverse moths or butterflies around anymore. I would have loved to have witnessed it!
Thank you for the recommendation. I just borrowed A Girl of the Limberlost.
1. Grocery shopped at Aldi this morning. My intention was to spend only $18, which would bring my monthly total to $100. I spent $22, which isn’t too bad. I got ingredients for making pizza and carrot cake, as well as a couple of bags of granola. I have given up on making granola. It just never turns out the way I like it.
2. I found a receipt in the parking lot, which I have scanned to Fetch along with my own receipt and my receipt from filling up the tank at Food4Less, where I used my Kroger card for .03 a gallon savings.
3. I heated up tomato soup from the freezer and made a couple of grilled cheese mini sandwiches on baguette slices. A handful of granola for dessert — good lunch!
4. Working on my free jigsaw puzzle — seriously wondering if pieces are missing as I cannot seem to complete the border. I will keep at it.
5. Took a bag of clean empty prescription bottles to the animal shelter and to my vet — neither could use them because they are legally required to use new. The vet’s receptionist offered to recycle them so I left them with her. I guess I won’t bother with them anymore. Such a waste.
Agreed that your number 5 is such a waste. It’s the same with the legal rules around contact lenses. We had 6 boxes of contact lenses delivered to our house, from someone’s Target subscription that they had addressed wrongly. We contacted Target who said to just throw them away. Legal restrictions class contact lenses the same as medicine and mean that you can’t offer them on Facebook Marketplace, Buy Nothing, etc, and shelters won’t take them. Could understand if they were opened but all the packs are sealed and unopened and don’t expire until 2027. They are worth hundreds of dollars but no one can have them for free, such a shame.
I had received from someone about 15 mostly unopened boxes of diabetic lancets, two lancing devices, a glucose meter, and several pouches to keep supplies in, and I met with the same problem. Facebook Marketplace and the Buy Nothing groups have policies against offering those kind of things. I understand that the meter is obtained by prescription so I couldn’t offer that, but the lancets and devices looked like over-the-counter purchases. Even after asking friends and family if anyone needed them, I ended up throwing it all away in the trash. With there was another solution to this and other medical waste.
Infuriatingly wasteful, especially because there are diabetics who can’t afford the supplies they need.
I don’t know how legitimate this is, but there are companies that buy sealed, unexpired diabetes supplies.
For needles, it depends on the type, but some needle exchange programs can use them. I realize exchanges aren’t a common resource even though they reduce bloodborne infections and overdoses and make it more likely that users will enter rehab, but worth seeking out if you have one locally.
1. Washed 2 sweatshirts from a free pile and left them on the “Take-a-coat” (or sweater) rack at the library. They were gone the next time I went. I’ll try to do this regularly.
2. Working really hard to freeze, dry or eat all the produce we have coming in. And giving some away. There is zero point in growing things (the expense is the water) if they can’t be used. So far I’m keeping up, but barely.
3. Listed a bunch on FB marketplace and had a bit of a tidy in the garage. A never ending chore.
4. Picked up free compost from the city. Will take one bag to our son next week.
5. Hose nozzle broke (our city gives them out for free as a water saving effort, but they’re not super sturdy). It did give good use for a couple years so I can’t complain. I had picked up a good quality metal hose nozzle in a free pile, so I put that on. It’s so lovely! And free!
What a great idea to have a coat rack at the library! Both friendly and discreet.
That is why we follow you – because you are so fancy!
Do you think the Rockefellers monogram their rags?
1. Setting up a miniature oven/air fryer in the kitchen. At last, I have a way to cook besides just the microwave and the hot plate! It just fits the space on the counter and I only spent $50-something bucks at Ollie’s for it. (Never found one at the usual secondhand places.) If this works, it’ll save me a few hundred bucks over ordering a 24-inch wide oven.
2. Signed up for extra hours at the store; this fall, I will be closing shifts 2 nights a week + 2 weekend shifts.
3. Investigated the various rates on retail electricity, in an effort to sign up with a truly economical plan. Details on my entry over at Frugal Girl. Bottom line: I was not successful. Yet.
4. Brown bagged my lunch.
5. Did not fire a Fed governor just because I could.
Not much frugal around here lately. We just moved into a *real house* after living in an apartment for years. Live has been $$$$, but the final spend will be the paint. Here is what I’ve got:
1. My husband is the handiest man on planet earth and he has put his skills to work fixing up our next house. He spent hours taking apart the “broken” ceiling fan in our bedroom that made a horrible screaming sound. He toon the dang thing apart, fixed one wire and now it works good as new! Saved us a ton of money in the process.
2. My dad’s vacation was canceled thanks to the Air Canada strike, but at the last minute he got a call saying they rebooked him. He had just gone grocery shopping, so he brought over alllll the food that would have spoiled while he was away!
3. Our 13 year old was trained to mow our lawn with our new lawnmower. We pay him $10, which is a huge savings from the $75 we were paying professionals. He is already getting requests from neighbors to mow theirs, so he might get a tidy side hustle together!
4. My dad’s tomato crop has been insane. An avalanche of tomatos! He brought over a huge buckets worth and I have made vegetable soup, gazpacho, pasta dishes, salads and BLTs. The best!
5. We needed a bunch of odds and ends of furniture and before I bought a bunch of IKEA junk, we went to the Restore and hit the jackpot! I got a gorgeous wooden antique hutch, a leather embossed wooden nightstand and the ikea bookshelf I was going to buy new…all for $100! We then happened upon a local garage sale and bought four wooden night tables for $10 each. What a steal!
Looking forward to a much cheaper September…
Well, what do you know? The last box of goodies we got from the food bank here in Pennsylvania has a jar of Winco Crunchy Peanut Butter in it. Made it all the way across the country. Good through 10/25. DH will make quick work of it. Although we both like it either way, he prefers crunchy and I prefer creamy.
Simple supper of hot dogs and baked corn tonight.
DHis going to make some of his “not-for-the-faint-of-heart(burn)” chili. He will make an entire 18 quart roaster of it. Usually it’s quite the financial undertaking (it’s got a LOT of stuff in it and usually runs around $70 for everything except the meat. We have lots of venison burger frozen, so, thanks to our hunting friends, so we never have that expense. Well, with the usable groceries we rescued from his BIL’s basement, this batch of chili will be under $20. That’s a win in my book! We will freeze mist of it for the winter.
That’s all I got from the Keystone State.
Went to the discount food store today. The best deals were a 2-liter bottle of ginger ale for $1 (I put this next to the saltines in our “barf center”), 2 cans of organic pumpkin for $1, a pint of blueberries for $1, 12-oz. container of raspberries for $1, 6 tomatoes for $1.50, and 40 frozen potato patties for $8. Got an additional 10% off everything since it’s Tuesday.
Love the barf center! lol Actually a great idea. My mom the R.N. always gave us 7 Up and saltines. Which of course was followed by chicken noodle soup when we could keep it down. I still crave those when I feel yucky. (What I REALLY want is a hug from my mom! But don’t most of us when we have the yucks?)
I love that you have a barf center. Great idea. I store Aloe Vera juice for bad heartburn symptoms and sometimes Gatorade for flu in a special spot in my cupboards.
Picked up a receipt on the sidewalk outside Family Dollar. When I loaded on Fetch is was worth 500 points!!!!
I always grab clearance mushrooms. I slice and dehydrate them to use in soups and stews. I decided to give some as Christmas gufts as several of my family and friends love to cook. Now I need to find sine fancy free or thrifted glass containers for them.
1. Picked up a free table for my dining area redo. The lady wasn’t home the first time I was scheduled to pick it up. She felt bad and then didn’t charge me. It’s solid wood, sturdy and has one leaf to it!
2. DH picked up the buffet for dining area redo. $40!
3. On the way to pick up my table I found two free large plant pots. I’ll clean them up, put peace lilies in them and then offer them for sale on Marketplace
4. Sold $30 of items from free piles on Marketplace.
5. A friend dropped off a brand new Swedish dish towel (I’ve always wanted to try one!) embossed with a picture of a taco truck because I dressed like a chicken taco at a recent protest. Trump Always Chickens Out in reference to his extensions on tariffs.
I just saw the notice that the next nationwide protests are on Labor Day.
The short version:
– Found 3 pennies
– Husband bought work shoes off ebay
– tomatoes from the garden
– got my son a free Taekwondo uniform instead of a $50 one
– My husband fixed our fridge
Long version:
https://practicalwalk.com/2025/08/25/frugal-five-10/
Lifecycle of a dish towel at my house: 1) I either purchase or receive them new. My girlfriend and I exchange these as little travel gifts with each other. 2) It works and lives in the kitchen until it gets holey and frayed. 3) It goes to the bathroom cleaning kit. Here it is worked literally to death until it is more holes that fabric. 4) It is given to my husband for use in bicycle maintenance, since it can’t be washed after he uses it. This takes YEARS. I have rags in the bathroom cleaning kit that are 30 years old. And the plus is that every time I use one of them in any place, I get a nice little memory of where or who it came from.
I call those “demotions.”
Dish towels! A definite sign of fugality is a house without paper towels. My collection of cloth dish towels and napkins is mostly due to my mother, mother in law, and several other older ladies. I have a small trashcan in the kitchen as a laundry basket.
Any cloth diapers and other baby gear was given away to friends years ago, so none of that in my collection. I did also give away any polyester blend napkins that got into the stash because they aren’t very absorbent. Cloth napkins (and real flatware) went into work and school lunches (and came home again). I pack them for picnics and with the snacks or lunch for car trips. They are so practial!