Five Tiny Frugal Things
by Katy on November 14, 2024 · 13 comments
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My neighbor got her furnace replaced and returned the space heater that we’d lent to her. She also gave us two homemade “Crumbl” style cookies that were a meal in themselves. I rarely bake cookies, so this was a special treat. A smart blogger would’ve photographed the cookies. I did not.
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I took my mother out to run errands yesterday and convinced her that she had time to pop into the library for a replacement library card. She recently purchased her first ever Kindle and is looking forward to getting back into the habit of reading. The librarian took the time to explain the many digital benefits of her card, such as using Libby.com and I anticipate many ebooks are in her future!
She also treated me to lunch. Thanks, mom!
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I took my long detail shopping list to Winco Foods to make sure I’d hit the $125 barrier to qualify for a “free turkey” with purchase. It turn out that the promotion doesn’t actually begin until November 18th. Oops . . .
I still got six bags of groceries for $103, which included a case of canned cat food and multiple sale items.
She also treated me to lunch. Thanks, mom!
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My husband and I stopped into the Franz Bakery outlet and picked up two sleeves of bagel, two loaves of marble rye and two enormous commercially packaged loaves of caraway rye bread for ten dollars.
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I didn’t buy a vulgar gold plated apartment in the sky.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
In my opinion, the best toast is rye toast. I recently made a loaf of pickled sourdough rye to accompany a dish of kapusniak, Polish sauerkraut soup. Yum.
Wow, nice haul from the bakery outlet!
1. Made two loaves of Ina Garten’s honey white bread. I’ve found this to be a great one for both toasted and plain bread when we need a break from whole wheat bread. And it’s so easy to slice with our serrated knife, which isn’t always the case when I bake my own bread.
2. Looked at my stash of plain stationery paper (mostly received from Buy Nothing) and realized I had enough to last beyond my lifetime, so I recycled all my various scrap pieces of paper, busted out my paper-cutter, and cut the nice stationery sheets into notepaper. Our desktop slot organizer looks much neater, and the matching aspect of the paper (size AND color!) soothes my OCD-leaning soul.
3. Found some particularly good buys at the discount food store: 5 lbs. of potatoes for $1.99; orange and yellow bell peppers .99 each; and butter lettuce $1.00/head.
4. Saw an empty plastic bag smushed in the parking lot and brought it home to use as a dog poop bag.
5. Used the chopped-up chocolate bars left over from Halloween in homemade banana bread.
1. Went to a conference this morning and took advantage of the free coffee and breakfast. It was pretty good too!
2. Spent last night prepping for a little shindig this Friday and learned how to make 1-hour dinner rolls and pickled onions. I’m so satisfied learning how to make these things from scratch, I love a kitchen project! I also spent an entire episode of reality TV peeling and cutting two butternut squashes, which I hated but could not justify paying for the pre-cut ones.
3. Absolutely BURNING through Libby books this week.
4. Heat is still off. It’s chilly but I’m loving it!
5. I did not book an impulse trip to another country, although I desperately wanted to….that counts, right??
Crumbl is my guilty pleasure, but I also figured out how to make their pink almond sugar cookies at home. It’s about 50c a cookie to make at home (even as big as they serve them), versus the $5 they charge. Which kind did your neighbor make, Katy?
Hi Andrea, would love it if you can share the recipe! Thanks!
1. DH found a quarter and a dime while out walking.
2. Washing and reusing aluminum foil. Same with food storage bags.
3. Our adult kids have agreed with our plan to not exchange gifts this Christmas and going forward. We all are lucky enough to have everything we need or want. We will still give $$$ to each of our four grandchildren and three of them are still in school. The fourth one has graduated college but can only find part time work in her field so they can use it.
4. DH reported to me that hiking the Appalachian Trail has shown him how little he needs to get by.
5. We’re in the process of shopping for new car/house insurance to see if we can save some money.
Cookies from someone else are perfect because then you can’t eat the whole batch (says she who would eat the whole batch if she made them herself.)
Cookies are my weakness!
1. Turned on the heat this morning for the first time since early April. The weather in Greater Boston has been quite mild this Fall but the house was 62 when I got up this morning. I might be able to turn it down this weekend when it gets back to the 60s.
2. I keep checking my Southwest flights for January and the return trip dropped by $35 per person. I “changed” it to the exact same flight and now each of us has $35 in travel credit in our RR accounts.
3. I purchased our Thanksgiving turkey breast when the price dropped to $1.29/pound. No one likes dark meat but me so I don’t bother with a whole turkey.
4. Purchased a pair of Croc “slippers” on-line – I expected the standard, supportive Croc sole but these slippers have a thin fabric sole and that is it. I was very disappointed and sent them back, with free return shipping. One star review.
5. My goal was not to buy any new Christmas decor but I caved then I saw the felted wool holly wreaths at Trader Joe’s – $16.99. I purchased one for over the sink and I think its charming.
1. Sold a dryer on Marketplace and another Armoire. This one is pine. That makes a total of $1600 so far of items from the River house Reno that we can’t use.
2. I finally received a diamond ring back from Real Real that didn’t sell. Also returned was a pair of earring. I took them to the Gold/ Silver melt shop and received $400 dollars than if I had sold them. I am NOT impressed by RealReal.
3. One of my last EGO purchases in 2021 was a consignment Gucci large backpack purse. The back strap is coming undone which is ridiculous for the few times I have used it. I was just going to throw it on Poshmark for a lowball price. Nobody bit. Then I researched repair possibilities and sent it off to Rago Brothers in New Jersey. $90 to fix. Once I get it back I will put it back on Poshmark with a higher price tag.
4. I found Larabars on sale for 1.95 for 6. There is healthy nutrition in these babies. Now my breakfast will be a little discount cheese, Milk tea and a Larabar. Total: under .50 for breakfast.
5. Frugal Fail: I left my yogurt in the instapot accidentally over night. drat! I had to toss.
In my first reading of your entry, I read that you found labradors on sale, $1.95 for six.
Cookies — yum! And that is some very fine looking bread you snagged.
1. Wore an awesome secondhand outfit today from head to toe — socks and under things were conventionally purchased but done so on sale or clearance.
2. Used Katy’s idea of turning a canvas dropcloth into a privacy screen in a problematic corner of our backyard. (Our neighbor has an aggressive dog that charges our fence in that spot.) Only $27 at Harbor Freight for the materials and a couple of hours of fiddling with things to get it to work.
3. Our local grocery store does a $20 coupon if you spend $60 a week for the six weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, I have not spent enough to qualify, due to a concentrated effort to spend less.
Sometimes three is all you got!
Oh no, bad timing indeed! Will go go back to Winco and spend 125$ to get the free turkey?
I just discovered that if someone posts a new comment while I’m typing from my phone, it will reload the page and erase all I wrote so I’m typing this third try in another app!
1. I recently joined a local coop selling mainly food. You pay an admission fee, and then get the food at cost + a fee for the shop rent. Each member is expected to work 2 hours per month in a defined role (cashier, orders, cleaning etc). I joined the IT team and had my first training this morning. I’m super excited and it’s a great way to meet people with shared values.
2. My BF refurbished an old laptop for me to use for the Coop IT work
3. I’m cooking meals from the pantry and very full freezers
4. I declined buying 1/4 large calf from my farmer neighbor. He sells amazing meat but my freezers won’t have it
5. I just turned the heater on too, as we’re getting to freezing temperatures outside – the wood stove can’t keep up anymore
All that bread looks really good. What a great deal.
1. I used a $5 off coupon at the pet store for a birthday toy for my dog.
2. I used a coupon for a free sandwich at Arby’s.
3. I found a very handy handyman who doesn’t charge a lot to fix things around the house.
4. I made a huge pot of minestrone soup. We had it for lunch today. We’ll see how long it takes to eat it all.
5. I returned a can of spray paint I was planning to use to paint some handrail hardware. I decided to keep them in their original color. I soaked them in warm water and scraped the bits of paint off them with a used up gift card.