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I watched a Oregon Public Broadcasting video titled How to Forage for Food on the Oregon Coast, which was perfect timing as I came home from the beach a couple weeks ago determined to get over my ever present fear of “what if I do it wrong?” There were thousands upon thousands (upon thousands!) of mussels at the beach and Oregonians are permitted to harvest “up to 72 per day” if they buy an annual $10 permit.
Unlike California, we have “Mussel Beaches” not “Muscle Beaches!”
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I started listening to Molly Gloss’ Falling From Horses through the library’s free Libby app. I’m only two hours in, but I’m fully hooked. Thanks, Molly!
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I scored an unopened bag of Bob’s Red Mill granola from someone in my Buy Nothing group. Normally $6.99!
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I did a Costco run and only bought the specific items on my list, (see above list, bonus points for being able to read my handwriting!) although I did accept four food samples. I didn’t stop for a hotdog on the way out, which is a dollar-fifty win in my direction. This salmon on a cracker was my favorite.
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I didn’t lose a $67 million fighter jet off my aircraft carrier.
Five More Tiny Frugal Things
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I love mussels! I think it would be fabulous to be able to harvest them! Bonus for the beautiful coastal view!
1. I continue to make all my food for all my meals. Oatmeal or cooked frozen butter peas for breakfast, and a pbj sandwich for lunch. Sliced cheese for a snack.
2. I made a spinach and beet salad with leftover blue cheese that needed to be used and pecans with an oil and vinegar dressing. I also made a spinach casserole with mushrooms and cooked butter peas. I had leftover bread and used that as a topping.
3. I walked in my neighborhood.
4. My wool blankets were destroyed in the fire so I did order new ones. I chose the cheapest ones I could find which were $19 a piece. I am still replacing things.
5. I kept the air and the heat off. Easy to keep off because the new unit has not been installed and is sitting in my living room floor…..lol.
Easy to not use things that aren’t available to use. Have you looked on eBay for wool blankets?
No I didn’t even think of that bc I have never used eBay. I did look in thrift stores nearby. I will have to go check eBay out right now!
Also military surplus stores.
Cindy in the South,
What are butter peas? Just curious. I’ve never heard of them before.
Sounds like that foraging permit would be a great idea and well worth it!
* Got 4x discounted Easter chocolate egg boxes in Aldi. They were 50 cent each and contained 12 small and one medium chocolate eggs. They were supposed to be Easter egg hunt kits.
* I requested a DVD through the library which arrived 2 days later, however, when I wanted to play it it turned out that our DVD player is broken – the tray does not open. We used it maybe once a year over the last few years (and it is probably 15 years old) so there is no point in replacing it. I was going to return the DVD at first but then a friend offered me a loan of her DVD player when she heard of the issue. So I shall enjoy my free movie after all!
* The latest Too Good To Go box from Aldi was excellent! For the 4 Euro charge we got: a 1.5 kg free range chicken – that alone is worth 8 Euro! (we had it for dinner the next day), 8 pack of meatballs (froze that for future use), a clean ingredients spaghetti bolognaise microwave dinner (son had it as a snack … teenagers just snack differently!), a box of 6 queen cakes (very sweet but the teens ate it up half a queen cake at a time), a two pack of potato cakes (teens had that as a snack as well), a 4 pack of hot cross buns (went to a friend as no takers in this house), a falafal salad (eaten by yours truly) and a pasta and chicken salad (scoffed by a teen).
* Recent favourite library read: Sea of tranquility (Emily St. John’s Mandel) – thank you to the TNCA commentariat (Reader Lisa and LB) who suggested the book some time ago!
* Received a few cosmos plant starts from a friend. Gave herb plant starts to a different friend as she was looking for some.
Whoa, that’s an amazing amount of money for 4 Euros! Our Too Good to Go deals are mostly day-old pastries. I loved “Sea of Tranquility!”
Wahoo!! So happy to hear you liked Sea of Tranquility!!
Glad you liked it! I think I had just started reading it when I mentioned it here, I ended up really liking it too!
1. I went to a floral arranging class at the library. The instructor, a professional florist, was wonderful and knowledgeable. I learned a lot about not only arranging but caring for cut flowers.
2. While there, I picked up Brooke Shield’s new memoir and two recent issues of The New Yorker.
3. After the class, I signed my friend and her husband up for an author talk she is interested in. She is legally blind and her husband is not especially proficient on the computer so she asked me to do this while there. Now the three of us will have a fun and free evening out together.
4. Tomorrow night I am attending a free Spring concert at the library with four sisters being the performers.
5. My little things are all library related. I guess I like to get my tax payer’s money’s worth! Love my library.
I love how savvy you are with utilizing all that’s available at your library!
As a kid, I used to forage. Mussels, digging for clams, blackberries, blueberries, beach plums, cranberries, crabapples, rose hips, and so on. I’d get up, pick some blackberries for my cereal and chow down. I refused to eat mussels or clams.
Doing yard work myself (a little), trying to figure out what to do with Son’s classic car, sewing all the cushions the beagle pup chewed the corners of, etc. Planted marigolds called Strawberry Blonde, because I couldn’t resist the name.
Rose,
When I was a teenager, some of the local guys would go clamming to earn money. I thought that sounded like a GREAT idea, and the monry was really good, until a neighbor friend told me all the creepy, slithery critters you might encounter in the water while clamming. Uhhhh, no thanks. I wasn’t/am not a girly girl, but slithery, squishy things in water where I’m standing is a definite nope.
I love plant names, especially some of the tomato
varieties….Mortgage Lifter, Better Boy, Cherokee Purple. Another favorite I saw last year was a red onion called Red Zeppelin.
@Rose – need more detail on the aforementioned classic car. I am confident you can provide facts/details unlike presidementia don.
School year is winding down. Paycheck going to plummet. My Amish students are done on Friday which does not affect my morning run (they fall between 2 other schools), but does affect the length of my afternoon run and it will cut my pay by about 5 hours/week. I get paid by the hour. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE…the transportation director for the school district called me about picking up another student who is just starting. Yes, school ends on June 6. There’s a couple bugs that need to be worked out; however, if I am assigned that student, it will make up for losing my Amish students in the afternoon. Hopefully that happens. When school ends, I will be filing for unemployment for the summer. Will need to make those dollars and cents stretch as far as possible.
Cooked a small roast with potatoes, carrots and onions in the crock pot yesterday. Enough leftovers for dinner tonight and lunch on Thursday for both my husband and I. Love cooking enough for 3 meals at once. Saves time, energy, and money.
Last fall, I locked in a 3-year pricing contract with an energy (electric) supplier other than PP&L (Pennsylvania Power and Light). With prices going up, my electric rate is locked in for at least 2 1/2 more years. Will save in the long run.
Found an off-brand of coffee at Aldi’s that is a few cents cheaper than we can get anywhere else in our area. It tastes good, so that’s our new coffee. (My husband drinks it like water, so we need to get cheap coffee.)
Still seeking a used electric dryer that works. Ours makes a noise, possibly bearing going bad. Cheaper to get a used one than have ours fixed.
Can I ask what your electric provider is? I live in PA and have PP&L.
Always on the look out for a good deal on electric rates. GREAT job on
locking it in for 3 years, the longest I have ever gotten was 1 year and that was quite a few years ago.
Thanks!!
Julie,
You would ask me that…Ihad to go look it up. My old memory bank in my head needs an overhaul.
Inspire. I could get a 3-year fixed price for something like $.11??/kWh. A little higher than PPL Price to Compare; however, with our “tarriff-happy” leadership, I figure before the 3-year agreement is up, electricity costs will be well over that.
Julie, I should have asked you what county you are in? I’m in Montour, the smallest county in PA.
Melissa,
This is a great time to look for appliances and household stuff, as lots of people move this time of year. Maybe someone doesn’t want to pay to haul a dryer halfway across the country. If you live near a military base, those families often sell their used appliances instead of moving them, and different ones are constantly being transferred.
Also check around the apartment complexes and rental neighborhoods near a univ. campus, esp. when college lets out, also at the end of the month….if the apts. have w/d hookups, someone may dump their appliance near the trash bin or at the curb. They may also donate it to a thrift store or charity or have a moving sale. I got a great buy on a laundry pair at a churchwide garage sale.
I live in the middle of nowhere along I-80, about halfway between Penn State and New Jersey.
My husband has had good luck trouble shooting our dryer issues with YouTube videos. Might be worth the effort.
And estate sales are great options for washers and dryers – we’ve seen everything from Speed Queen (which I wanted but my W/D are still working… to fairly new, at least to me, to 1970s era and still chugging. Pricing typically seems fair as they want everything gone in a day or two.
I sure wish I’d have utilized estate sales when I was setting up house decades ago.
FMTFT, Down Memory Lane Edition:
(1) Here’s a frugal fail from 47 years ago. When I was 12.5, my mother took me and two other siblings on a trip to NY. After doing the usual touristy things in the Big Apple (although I’ll cherish the memory of seeing Maureen Stapleton and George C. Scott in Plaza Suite to my dying day), we went out to Long Island to meet my maternal grandfather, his second wife, and a lot of Mom’s half-siblings and their families. (My maternal grandparents divorced when Mom was a toddler,
and she never knew him very well. However, the whole family welcomed us with open arms.) Anyway, one of my new uncles got out his powerboat and took a lot of us out for a picnic on a nearby island, where all our new relatives started enthusiastically harvesting mussels. As a Tennessee kid whose only known seafoods were canned tuna, canned salmon, and frozen fish sticks, I took one look and said, “Um, I think I’ll have a hamburger.” Of all the wasted opportunities I’ve had in my life, this one is high on the list. So go for those mussels, Katy!
(2) It’s been steadily raining here for the past 3 days. So I’m staying home today and, between bouts of mopping up the puddles that are seeping into the basement, will be streaming the first episode of Miss Austen on pbs.org. (Early reports from friends and family who watched it Sunday night is that they’re confused about who’s related to whom how, so if anybody needs anything explained, let me know.)
(3) As DH used to say, “Can’t dance and it’s too wet to plow.” But I will be soaking nasturtium seeds in preparation for setting them out in their usual planters tomorrow.
(4) I’m also taking the opportunity to give my cherished chenille bedspread its quarterly laundering. (I picked this spread up at a garage sale for $3 about 10 years ago, and I’ve lost track of how much its twin is now selling for at LL Bean, but it’s a lot more than $3.)
(5) And I didn’t insult the PM of Canada by threatening yet again to buy his country. (Dear Canadians: I didn’t vote for this orange buffoon.)
Too Wet to Plow was the name of a local bluegrass band we used to enjoy nearly 40 years ago. I always thought that was so clever.
That must have been an overwhelming day to begin with, maybe not the day to try new foods.
I am envious of your $3 chenille bedspread, excellent score!
Your #3…ha ha! That is a great saying on your DH’s part…bless his memory… and one I’ll have to remember especially since I have a crummy knee and because of it I can’t dance! I think the rain clouds passing over you are finding their way across the state line into Massachusetts.
Frugal fail from 31 years ago: DF (Dear Fiancee who became DH 31 yearsago this fall) asked me to make Strawberry Freezer Jam for us for after we got married. He said he would pick the berries and asked how many I wanted. Never having made it before, I said “Get 24 quarts…that won’t make much.” (My mother, who canned and froze all her life NEVER SAID A WORD.)
Thanks, Mom…
65 containers of Strawberry Freezer Jam later…it lasted us 5 YEARS, and we even gave some away.
@Melissa N – I presume it never crossed your mind to freeze whole berries as well as gorge during the season? You freeze in pint jars/boxes?
Hey Katy, You might try The Frugal Gal’s recipe for “No-Stir Granola”. I make a batch every week. So easy! Once you make it, you will never buy it again. 🙂
I’ve made my own granola in the past, but my husband really likes this specific brand from Costco. I rarely eat granola, so he’s the only person who eats it. He’s welcome to make his own though.
I’m allergic to oats and feel badly even when I handle them. My husband makes his own granola. Also bakes his own bread (I’m GF).
The photo of the mussels is so cool. What a great resource and also fun activity. It’s a twofer.
1. I harvested a few wild onions yesterday. The ones in my refrigerator were slimey and I wanted them on my loaded baked potato.
2. I picked up some plants at my favorite nursery. I used a five dollar coupon they emailed me.
3. I combined several errands which included gas and prescriptions at Costco and a toilet brush at the dollar store.
4. I used another pant hanger as a giant chip clip on my dogs kibble bag.
5. I also didn’t insult Canadians by offering to buy their country. I don’t have plans to renovate and re-open Alcatraz. I didn’t tweet an AI image of myself as the pope. I’m not a billionaire cutting critical programs for the less fortunate while I purchase multiple homes, cars, yachts and jets.
Your #5 is a doozy, good things only an ego driven megalomaniac would do those things!
I’m impressed with your wild onions.
@Katy – @Jill A forgot about presidementia don being a major hypocrite. Tis not waste spending, fraud, and/or corruption when he and his minions spend TAXPAYER money.
1. I shopped on eBay for some jeans and other pants to replace my old ones. I found exactly what I wanted, new with tags, for slightly cheaper than buying from a store where they were on sale.
2. I used a birthday gift card to buy a few books I wanted from a used bookstore that was having a buy 2, get 1 free sale.
3. I watched the first episode of Miss Austen on pbs.org for free.
4. I found a place to watch the series Corner Gas for free, on therokuchannel.com. I have heard great things about it and had previously only found the movie online.
5. I tried making chia pudding to use up some coconut milk and chia seeds I had. It was less than successful – it didn’t thicken up as much as I expected and didn’t have much flavor – but I’ve found a few tips online and will try to rescue it.
I love eBay for specific clothing, especially since it supports small business people!
Know your prices and brands is all I can say when it comes to buying clothing on eBay. I found that eBay was twice the cost as ordering elsewhere- regardless of from where I purchased, not a good fit. I’ll likely donate versus returning. My time is worth far more than what I paid. I can afford $20 out of pocket when it helps out someone else.
1. I made chicken noodle soup for dinner. The broth and the chicken were in the freezer from a rotisserie chicken I bought a few weeks ago.
2. A friend wanted to eat at a newish brew pub. I suggested meeting for ice cream instead. Not free but much cheaper.
3. I pulled weeds after it rained. We don’t use chemicals on our yard since we know how toxic they can be.
4. A neighbor gave me a pound of butter (Best Used by the end of April) and a bag of pecans (they had been open, and refrigerated, since November and are best used by February 2026). Her squeamishness is my gain. I do share with her cookies and the occasional food bargain.
5. Frugal fail: On Saturday I planted six tomato plants. By yesterday the tops had all been part of a critter’s meal. I will have to figure out how to cover them.
From long and bitter experience, I sympathize with you on your #5, K D. My usual precautions will be in place again this year, since I now know I have two woodchucks, and I saw one skanky deer that evaded our city’s pilot bait/trap/euthanize program slinking down the street yesterday. (I plant two tomatoes in pots behind my NDN’s 8-foot chain-link fence, and a third in a pot up on my deck.)
Ugh . . . critters! Hooray for a less expensive friend date!
Suffice it to say we have to be smarter than the critters. I do have great habitat for them (drought years exempted). They consume copious amounts of bugs, vermin, non-beneficial plants (except for garlic mustard – that should be doused with Round-Up at every opportunity).
I have success covering pots with deer netting left over from our pumpkin gardening days.
I’ve been container gardening on my deck (3 stairs up) since the woodchucks decimated my garden in the yard several years ago. Well, last year the little sons of guns figured out how to climb stairs and not only ate the tomatoes but my marigolds, too. Marigolds?! I would’ve thought they were the worst tasting plant around. So beware of deck gardening.
Lots of marigolds are pretty tasty. I sometimes put their flowers in a salad if I want to get fancy.
I had no idea they are tasty! I’ve planted them on my deck for years to repel bugs so just assumed they had a repulsive taste too. Who knew? Not me.
Chickens eat the flowers, too, with gusto, and their yolks are more orange after they do.
Oh, I have a frugal fail: Found the freezer door slightly open after nearly 24 hours and lost a lot of food, as in at least a couple hundred dollars worth. (This is a small upright freezer.) I suspect the culprit was the brush head on the vacuum cleaner, which was parked next to the freezer, and is just the right size to get wedged under the edge of the door.
On the plus side, the freezer is defrosted and very clean now! I did pick up a few yellow-sticker items at the local grocery store to get us through the month and am thankful that the dozen cartons of homemade kibble topper for the dogs were safe in the fridge freezer. It takes hours to make that stuff and I would have cried if it was ruined.
Ouch, Ruby, that freezer door fail hurts all the way from here! But it’s good that the dogs’ kibble topper was safe, and that you were able to make lemonade from your lemon by defrosting and cleaning the freezer.
Ugh, that must have been an entirely sad discovery. Here’s to a freshly filled freezer and “yellow stickers.” Huzzah!
Shhh! Don’t tell Snuggles there is such a thing as homemade kibble topper! He’s starting to get a bit persnickety about what I feed him. Somehow he knows that the box of Aldi dog biscuits cost less than what I bought at another store, and he’s turning his nose up at the former.
Sometimes they figure that out! My pups were not happy with the Aldi biscuits at first, but they are a much better size for Demon Puppy, who is only 15 pounds. She loves the kibble topper because she has a somewhat short muzzle and a tongue so long that she accidentally flicks kibble right back out of her mouth if it’s not moistened with kibble topper.
Ruby, I winced out loud when I read about your freezer.
Amazon (and probably other vendors!) Sell alarms for fridge/freezer/windows/doors. Well worth the investment to prevent food waste! Cost maybe $10??
I am nearly 100% sure the vacuum brush kept it from fully closing, as the door shuts so tightly it takes both hands for me to open it. For right now, I will just relocate the vacuum cleaner so it can’t slip into that spot spot again.
Sorry that happened with your freezer. Food waste on a large scale like that is frustrating to say the least. Glad you found some good deals though, to get you through.
Some tiny frugal things:
1. I made dinner last night for my family – all five of us. Chicken alfredo. It was relatively inexpensive, and every bite was eaten! I love that the kids will still come home for dinner even though they are all grown.
2. My husband packed our thrifted diaper bag for our granddaughter who is due next month. We want to have supplies for when we get to watch her! Free diaper wipes from CVS, diapers that my daughter was given for free, hand-me-down outfits.
3. I am working on her Christmas stocking. It is our family’s tradition that I made the stocking, and it is counted cross stitch, so this usually takes months. As I age (52 now!), it gets harder to see those little squares, especially at the beginning, so it’s slow going.
4. My husband brought home a bunch of Boyd’s Bears that someone threw out, and a friend of his included them in an auction he was holding. We made $80. We might have made more if we listed them ourselves on ebay or something, but this was so much easier!
5. My niece came up to help with the baby shower a few weeks ago, and we had been saving some items for her for her second hand furniture store. She sells furniture and “smalls.” She sent us pictures of how she displayed the items, and we hope she sells them and makes a little bit. Win-win: out of our house and maybe some money for her.
That’s still a nice easy eighty bucks!
I think it’s safe to say you are very excited about the upcoming birth of your granddaughter! Births of grandkids are such a happy time in life!
I have one big win…we paid off our mortgage 5 years early.
Hoorah!
That’s great Marybeth! Congratulations!
That is awesome! Congratulations!
WOOOT WOOOT! That is a win to celebrate! Must feel just awesome! congratulations
@Marybeth from NY – which likely makes you debt free except for what you spend monthly (credit card/utilities/property tax/P&C insurance). Tis a great feeling, especially with presidementia don in office.
Here’s an idea: Seasonings
I don’t keep a lot of seasonings in my pantry. A) I use so little of them, they go stale before I finish the jar; B) They’re EXPENSIVE! Especially those “fru-fru” ones, like saffron.
Here are 3 recipes to make your own spice blend with things most of us have in the pantry:
Taco Seasoning:
1 TBSP chili powder
3 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp salt
Fajita Seasoning:
1 TBSP chili powder
2 TBSP paprika
3 tsp oregano
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp cayenne
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Cajun Seasoning:
2 TBSP paprika
2 TBSP onion powder
2 TBSP garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 TBSP oregano
1 TBSP cayenne
1 TBSP thyme
1 TBSP salt
Only the word after froz which I interpreted to be frozen has stumped me.
I forage morel mushrooms (a friend forages others), ramps, black raspberries. There is stinging nettle and I’m sure plenty of other things that can be foraged (I am not brave enough to forage may apples as timing is everything).
I’m not at the point of squirrels, raccoons, wild turkey, and/or deer. Technically this is hunting not gathering. Raccoons are on the bottom of the list. But are in good supply if times get really tough.
1. The Church’s Spring Fling aftermath on Sunday resulted in my little car filled with 4 big bags of leftover clothing for the homeless shelter – the church ladies have been a little frightened when they have tried to drop things off, but I have it down to a fine art (picking the right time to go is key to avoiding the vast majority of the drug adicts, who are sadly clustering (and using) around the entrances to the shelter close to ‘opening’ time. I go mid day and they happily buzz me in. )
I come away, every single time, blessing my lucky stars.
2. I have been harvesting arugula, dill, cilantro, beet tops and cauliflower sprouts from my garden, and enjoying massive salads made up of spring greens with a dressing comprised of the juice from an artichoke heart jar and a splash of the juice from a capers jar. Of course I added some capers and artichoke to the salad for extra delight. I have contemplated Katy’s panko trick for crunch, but that has got me thinking my panko might just be a bit stale dated so I am going to have to check labels first.
3. Spent a day helping out Daughter Out-law and grandbaby – DOL had an MRI booked in the town an hour north, so I drove and babysat.
Turns out the MRI was just two lots down from the house of my chosen #2 daughter (I wish I had known earlier!!). I texted her once we arrived, and she gave me her house code, so I took grandbaby there rather than hanging in the waiting room. Good thing, as Grandbaby cried almost the entire time – he wasn’t having a good day AT ALL. Yet holding a clutching sad baby isn’t as distressing for Granny Ecoteri as it was when I was new mom Ecoteri!
4. As I shared with Katy on Instagram, I, too, managed to visit Costco (during #3) and come out with only things on my list (other than a surprise stock-up on my favourite coffee that was on discount this week).
I don’t get to Costco very often, so sometimes wonder at the membership value, but what I do buy there is so much less expensive it does work out.
5. Costco purchase included two BBQ chickens. They are both stripped and the meat is ready to go, in visible glass containers in the fridge. The skin, bones and liquid that was in the bags has joined two sad onions, a splash of vinegar, and more water in my Instant Pot for a long broth making adventure.
6. Frugal fail – the bald eagles keep catching my chickens, so I am keeping them penned up in their coop until I can string deterrent lines across their large run. This run is full of fruit trees, but the eagles seem to be more agile than they ever have been in the past, so string and danglies it is.
The one frugal win in this sad scenario is that I got a huge bag of bailing type twine at the Spring Fling, which saved me buying new twine at the dollar store. I am going to use some blue shop rags that I recently rescued from the road in front of my place, for the dangly bits. The roll had clearly fallen out of a worker’s truck, and was laid out on the road at the end of my driveway; I gathered them up and hung them on the line, but they sadly aren’t going to work as rags. Perfect to cut into strips to tie to my eagle-deterrent strings, though!
7. Wonder James is coming on Saturday for yard work, but only for half a day, so Wonder Ecoteri got on the ol’ riding mower and again rode the hills and dales of Sweet Maggie’s Farm (what I call my 2 acres).
It is a tad exciting (read: SCARY) to mow a number of the slopes, however I am getting braver/more experienced.
I did have to locate the tire pump and fill the front tire – manually. An electric tire filler upper is on my wish list now, although I greatly appreciated my improved muscle strength and endurance (pant pant). When WJ comes he will be able to weed whack and do some other chores rather than use 2 of his precious hours mowing. I, on the other hand, will be shaking grass out of my hair and ALL my wrinkles for days to come.