Today I am . . .
- Sitting in my quiet house and appreciating the sunny skies that are streaming through the windows. It’s been rain, rain, rain all week, so this Oregonian is taking a moment to soak in some sun.
- Writing a very long to-do list. Nothing too strenuous, just a ton of tiny tasks.
- Participating in an in-person consumer opinion poll this afternoon, for which I’ll be compensated with a crisp new hundred dollar bill.
- Depositing that cash into my sons’ college fund account at the credit union.
- Crossing my fingers that our dental insurance will reverse their decision to refuse to pay the $530 panoramic X-ray that went with my son’s wisdom tooth extraction. I mailed off a kick-ass letter of appeal this morning, and am willing to fight the good fight on this one.
- Putting together a list of proposed article ideas for the Clark Howard website. My piece about Putting The Brakes on Excessive Gift Giving went live on Wednesday, so I need to brainstorm some new ideas.
- Needing to figure out a half-dozen Goodwill specific holiday ideas for an upcoming local TV appearance. Umm . . . crap!
- Returning library books to avoid a fine.
- Cooking black beans in the crock pot for tonight’s chili dinner.
Now your turn. What are you doing today?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Katy! Please tell me how you cook your black beans. Whenever I try to cook dried beans they never get soft.
I simply dump the beans in the crock pot, add lots of water and put the heat setting on “high.” They’re done when the beans have a string scent and are easily smushed. Don’t open the lid often or early or the beans will take a long time to cook. It generally takes around 4-5 hours. Are your beans really old? That could make them take longer. Also, don’t add salt.
Thank you! Do you soak them first?
Personally, I soak them all night (or all day), then rince them off, cover them with a lot of water and cook on medium-low for about 1h. They come out great every time. And if you want to freeze some, keep them in the cooking water to do so.
Thanks Isabelle!
Today I am:
Not sorry that I stopped for an iced americano on the way to work as I went in an hour early to make sure all went well with our software update the night before and had been up since 4am for some unknown reason. OF COURSE everything that could possibly go wrong short of the whole server catching on fire went wrong and I spent two and a half hours running around like a crazy person trying to get everything up and running. Crappy free office coffee would NOT have done the trick today!
Taking a nap in my car at lunch instead of going out thrift store shopping with my coworker.
Writing a letter to my representative.
Going to eat frozen casserole (homemade) for dinner, put on a funny movie and drink some tea when I get home. Will likely fall asleep on the couch per usual. 🙂
What a day!! Glad I’m not the only one. Loved the last sentence, replace tea with wine and you have my evening LOL
Today I am
-Leading my last full discussion session of the semester.
-Confirming our plans for next week. We’re not doing anything special, but since we welcomed our third child three weeks ago, each week takes
coordination and planning to get everyone where they are supposed to be.
-Reading a book for class on Tuesday.
-Packing the family to head out to our weekend house.
-Loving and cuddling on our three week old.
-Feeling thankful for our healthy children, the opportunity to go back to grad school, a business that is going gangbusters, and my fantastic mom who stayed with us this week to help us keep all these balls in the air.
Congratulations! 🙂
Awe, a new baby makes the holidays extra special! Congrats!
My Goodwill(actually it’s a Goodwill sorta equivalent) has tons of Christmas decor on the cheap. I also got a brand new $5 Barbie electronic game there for a gift that was still in the box and sells on amazon for $40. I have also found multiple nice footed pajamas for kids for Christmas and they have some amazing winter coats for very reasonable prices. Also, last year I got mugs to put teacher gifts in from there(never a mug shortage there). Not sure what you have planned to write about but all of these things are floating around in my head since I read your post.
Katy, if I were you I would go back and look at all your old posts around Christmas time for Goodwill specific ideas. I have been looking at your old posts from the past few years lately and all of your ideas are great advice for today. Love the remake of the stool beside your son’s bed you gifted him and the awesome American girl doll furniture for your niece. Your ideas really are timeless.
Today, I went to the library to check out videos and books for our upcoming snowy Iowa weekend. Plan to have a movie date with my 9 year old tonight/tomorrow night.
Posted his outgrown snow boots on the local swap page. Hoping for a hit.
I dropped off my RENTED textbooks at UPS to return. (Free returns, thanks Amazon!) Recycled a box Amazon sent as well!
Got my holiday groceries as well as stocked up on other loss leaders today. Had to battle the people out trying to stock up before the storm.
Taking my paperwork in to work with me so the boss can sign off on my next 2 nursing classes that the hospital pays for.
Heading to work for a quick 4.5 shift that I get time and a half for since I’m weekend package and it’s Friday after 3 pm.
Got gas at Sam’s Club this AM since 1. It’s down the road from us and 2. It’s about 6 cents cheaper than anywhere else. (No Costco here).
Watching it snow and patiently waiting for the 10″ the weather people are talking about.
Happy Weekend!
1. Enjoying the sun streaming into my office and listening to Pandora “Thanksgiving” channels/genres as background music as I am the only one in today, doing Swagbucks on the Kindle and believe it or not actually working. 😉
2. Drove home for a home made lunch of the same lunch all week – bean burrito with cheese, lettuce, sour cream and home grown tomato – love em! I just put the last green tomatoes in my kitchen window to ripen, I’m sad, such good flavor!
Also remembered to at least unscrew my outdoor hose at lunch time as its supposed to freeze tonight. Not enough time to unroll and let it drain but at least won’t mess up the outdoor spout if it freezes.
Said no to the vending machines and packed grapes and butter braided pretzels for a snack when I went home for lunch.
3. Checking on a house for an old cat sitting client after work who has moved but not sold their house – cha-ching! Just have to do a walk through, bring in the mail and trash cans. Then doing two dog walks tonight after work – cha-ching! They are paying me to exercise. 😉
5. Dinner is going to be a $5 pizza and crazy bread from Little Caesars and watching tv when we get home after 8pm from the walks.
6. Need to start stockpiling tonight what I am going to sell at the 2nd hand store as I have an appointment Nov. 3oth. Definately including some books I won from the library summer reading program which don’t interest me but are new so should bring in some money.
7. Printed off some free cleaning check off sheets for daily/weekly/monthly and fall today. I feel so inspired but have a hard time finding the time with working one full and two part-time jobs. I will be so happy if the snow holds off and I could get the eaves troughs cleaned out this weekend. Problem is still a big tree with tons of green leaves overhanging my driveway, oh vey! The city stops picking up our leaves when my tree finally loses them all.
8. Looking forward to three dog walks a day this weekend, mammogram tomorrow am, going to a Christmas Bazaar on Saturday and our Holiday parade on Sunday (as well as church).
Have a good weekend everyone.
Katy….my dentist told me years ago to appeal a medical claim I felt wasn’t right. He said there are a certain percentage of claims denied yearly…and that quota must be met….and if those are appealed….then they have met the quota. He was right…I appealed and it was overturned. I had more time than money and the cost of a stamp and a handwritten letter really paid off! Sure hope you are successful….that is lots of money!
Today I am:
1. Back from Book Club at the library. We read a selected book a month. Then we get to together to discuss We all bring finger food….so mostly free meal and lots of good company besides fun reading.
2. Making a huge salad spinner full of goodies…..to be a big freeze tonight…so enjoying the last of these yummy garden goodies. We cut lots and put in the frig, hoping it holds well. Hard telling how old some is you buy at the grocery.
3. Crocheting dishcloths and sponges with crocheted top covering for Christmas gifts.
4. Heating up a pot of beans we had earlier in the week. We cook big…just the two of us….and plan to have the food staggered over a few days so we aren’t repeating back to back. We don’t have leftovers…we have planned overs:)
5. Washing my like new sweater that I found at the thrift store today. I wore another that I got this fall at the same store to Book Club and got a sweet compliment about how nice it looked.
6. Planning my Thanksgiving menu as I am hosting. So nice to have family together. I am putting it all together of either on sale or homegrown items. Plus a couple of people bring a couple of dishes which really helps. Great to have family together.
Today I:
1) Am pleased with a homemade fix that recolored a small bleached spot on the sleeve of my burgundy and dark gray striped shirt. Red lipstick and black Sharpie, carefully applied, and the resulting stains filled in the bad spot nicely so I’ll get lots more wear from a very nice shirt.
2) Using the same whoops-filling technique on a tiny spot on the cuff of a burgundy blouse with very tasteful Christmas embroidery bought for $1 at the Humane Society thrift store. The blouse, with my goes-everywhere black suit, will be my outfit for my husband’s company Christmas party.
3) Feeding our elderly cat frequent, tiny meals from saucers bought cheap at the Salvation Army. Nobody seems to want the saucers when they buy cups, so they’re ultra-cheap and just the right size for a couple of tablespoons of canned cat food.
4) Reading Jeff Yeager’s book on frugal retirement in e-book form, which was $1.99 on a daily special.
5) Inventorying the pantry and thinking up a new soup, using what we have on hand, to make this weekend. I’m thinking lentil-barley-mushroom would be really good.
I’ve made that type of soup myself and I start with a package of onion soup mix for a base.
Ooh, that sounds delicious! I wound up making it tonight — husband was hungry — and used a couple of cups of V-8 juice with two crumbled beef bouillon cubes added as the base. I also threw in a couple of handfuls of chopped red pepper, onions and celery, all from the freezer, and sauteed those with the mushrooms. It came out really good.
I like to buy the ultra-cheap saucers too. I use one as a spoon rest on the kitchen counter and one to hold scouring pad and sponge. I also use them under potted plants. They have all kinds of uses and some very pretty ones can be found for 10 cents-25 cents.
Speaking of thrift shopping, when you think it will never show up, think again.
Yesterday while taking a break I walked to two separate thrift shops. I have a running list in my head for launched and to be launched children and needed household items. First shop ,found a kitchen item that made oldest child squeal. Note to self, should have saved for Christmas stocking.
Second shop, found a 12 piece place setting ( soup, luncheon plate , dinner plate, cup and saucer and teapot and cream and sugar) . Stone wear, made in England, no scratch marks (aka never been used). Only one cup and saucer missing.Met all the requirements that the receiver had asked for when they asked I look for this item. ( white, microwave and dishwasher safe). In addition I was given an additional 30 % off at the cash register. Once in my cart, checked it on EBay and realized I could sell a couple of dinner plates and pay for the entire set with profit. Told recipient that if they did not want it ( they were so pleased!!) they could make money re-selling .
1. I am at work trying to clear the decks of as much as possible since next week is a really short week. I’m an insurance agent and since we are only open Monday and Tuesday next week, I am making sure that everyone, that is settling on their properties the week after Thanksgiving, has all their documents.
2. Before work I worked again on my son’s rugby shirt to try to get the pen out of it. He’s away at college and when he pulled it out of the dryer it somehow had ink all over the back. It must have been from someone who used the dryer before him. It is a really cool vintage rugby shirt from his university that I found at a thrift store when we took him to school in August. He loved it and was so upset to find the ink. He was afraid of making it worse and so he saved it for me to deal with now a month later! It’s much better than it was and I am not giving up. I have it sitting with rubbing alcohol and will wash for the 4th time when I get home.
3. Also before work I posted a pair of LL Bean toddler snow overalls on local FB yard sale group. They are like new, I bought them at a church sale and will add the $ to the college fund when they sell. I have a few more items I want to list this weekend.
4. Excited that tomorrow I am picking up 6 pieces of vintage Fiesta serving pieces that I am buying from the same FB Yard Sale group for $30. I’ll sell a few pieces for profit and keep the ones I need for my collection.
5. Tomorrow morning I am going to a large church sale and will be looking for
things that I can resell and for gift items. It’s held once a year and I always make a point to go.
I have had good luck removing ink stains with hair spray. Don’t know if this will help you or not….but hoping so!
me too
spray hairspray on and watch the ink fade away
Earlier commenters have made the point that your cumulative stock of Goodwill (or other thrift) gift ideas is pretty awesome. Nevertheless, here are a couple of my personal favorites:
(1) Pick up cheap but attractive baskets (all the thrifts here are overflowing with baskets), and make up gift baskets with whatever the recipients want/need (fancy food items or toiletries purchased on sale, etc., etc.). I use baskets as packaging for bottles of my homegrown dried herbs. Needless to say, this idea works for Easter and birthdays as well.
(2) Not exactly an idea for this Christmas, but you might want to encourage folks to get into the habit of planning ahead: Between Dec. 26 and about ML King Day, a lot of folks donate stuff to the thrifts that they got for the winter solstice holidays but didn’t want. Excellent bargains can be snapped up during this time.
Good luck with your dentist bill, Katy. I have hit some really hard times with my insurance coverage and what they will pay for the past year or two, but I can generally always talk them down a tiny bit. I found out that my clinic does offer 10% pay-in-full discount, regardless of due date, so I have used that recently when faced with some ridiculous charges they refuse to reverse.
And now…Today, I am.
-Eating leftovers, as it’s frugal and because I just…
-Stocked up on a lot of wine, and it wasn’t cheap, but was within our budget for food for the month.
-Working a couple hours today as I’m heading into a but of a lull with hours to work, after 2 months of being incredibly busy.
– Checking the Safeway app and Ibotta for rebates and coupons to plan my shopping at Safeway for our adopted families Thanksgiving baskets.
-Trying to get the dogs energy out. We recently adopted a second dog who is finding her voice and it’s going to be a lot of work. Happy our older dog is has good manners and helps train her–she looks up to him.
-Counting down the hours to yoga, yet enjoying the sun here in the PNW, finally my yard had dried out enough to do some yardwork, and will do more this weekend.
Aren’t mentor dogs awesome?!? Our dogs have jobs, and I try to get a younger one matched up with the older one for training.
It’s more than we could have asked for! I’m really impressed our older dog has taken having a second dog so well, but I think he’s proud he has a job to do 🙂
Our old watchdog actually seemed relieved when we finally found the right dog and brought him home for her to train in.
Today I am:
1. Getting the last few ingredients for my Christmas cakes, so I can put the fruit on to soak.
2. Recovering from my work Christmas party. I don’t drink but still got home very late and inhaled a lot of secondhand smoke. No judgement (at all) but I really don’t know how people inhale that stuff all the time.
3. Starting my Christmas list. I’m way behind this year.
4. Working tonight, I have a deadline to meet.
5. Pruning the plants on our patio. Poor things look shocking.
I really hope your appeal letter works. Keep us posted!
I’m crossing my fingers hard on this one!
* Feeling very anxious about all the terrorists non-sense actions lately
* Receiving my mother for supper
* Learning to play a new board game with hubby (ticket to ride)
* Working 5 hours
* Playing snakes and ladder with my daughter
Have a great frugal day!
I agree w A Marie- buy holiday themed GW baskets, way cuter than wasteful gift wrap. If your GW has holiday themed sweaters, they can be cut down & hemmed to fit around a coffee mug, just add a loop of ribbon and a button to go through handle space. They rest of the sweater can be fashioned into mittens or a dog coat.
Enjoying reading library books – and getting ready for our twice a year library book sale – big $$ for the library and little $ for buyers!!
Cooking for leftovers for weekend lunches – black bean soup and beef/vegige soup-yum!
Found out about a sale of a party planning business that sells overstocks of linens, serving pieces, etc – will be looking for tablecloths for church programming as well as pieces for my daughter’s upcoming wedding. Anything for the wedding will be re-sold afterward.
Got Thanksgiving organized between my 2 sisters and I – I’ve already purchased everything I need. My daughter and I are doing a baking day on Friday and I will pick up a few extras in anticipation.
Good luck on your appeal, Katy!
Today I am:
1. Working from home, in my pajamas, finishing up a report that needs to go out today. No commuting – free and cozy!
2. Cleaning my bathtub/shower with Borax, which is seriously the only thing I have found to be effective in my fiberglass shower/tub unit. Luckily Borax is cheap and multipurpose!
3. Heading out to see Patti Smith speak in downtown Portland soon. I am frugal over almost all material objects, but very willing to spend money supporting art and culture. Experiences over things: the ticket cost me $27 and I have a feeling that I will always remember tonight.
4. Eating leftovers for lunch and dinner. I had bulk oatmeal for breakfast, with an organic banana from the Grocery Outlet.
5. Planning Thanksgiving dinner. There is not much I need to buy, mainly produce. We don’t eat meat and we already have other staples on hand for the meal, like wild rice and dried lentils for the entree of stuffed acorn squash.
Today I am also disturbed by Paris and Mali although I try to put it in perspective.
Hope somehow we make room in our collective “inn” for some refugees fleeing oppression.
On a lighter note, traveled out to meet a friend’s new rescue dog – it was love at first meeting! We then decided to visit a fancy new grocery store – purchased very few actual groceries, but I did treat her to a celebratory lunch from their deli and both of us wished we had dined at home – it was a blah experience. Took the leftovers home and repurposed them for supper which improved them somewhat.
My son has discovered his suburban library and has announced that he will get a library card which I am delighted about.
Arranged with my cousin for Thanksgiving at her house – she has asked only that we bring rolls. Will look around for a nice hostess gift in return for her generosity.
Went to a rummage sale to find gifts & items to resell
Stopped at doctor’s office to pick up a supplement
Nearby was a grocery store where I needed to get some meat for the chili my oldest kiddo’s is making this weekend. Stocked up on marked down meat, including what I needed for the chili.
Stopped at a consignment store to drop the price on a table that’s been there a while.
Caught up on surveys
Added deals to my Safeway club card
Made dinner
Need to show my oldest kiddo how to soak beans overnight for the chili
Following in your footsteps, I picked up a very cute child’s room area rug at St. Vincent de Paul’s today $7.99 but red tag 50% off making it $4, posting it to CL for $25.
Since I was driving over over 120 miles round-trip to pick up my granddaughter for the weekend, I added many to-do stops along the way.
Made my blood work apt, for in the early a.m.
Dropped off a load at Goodwill
Returned pop cans at fred meyer
Tryed to meet up with someone to sell an item to, but another no show!
And stopped at the senior center bread store for free bread.
All this was before 11 a.m., then off to pick my granddaughter!!!!
Today (Saturday) I have:
1. Grocery shopped early and stocked up on chicken/ground beef at the grocery store (6 meals worth of chicken and 5 meals worth of ground beef).
2. Packaged and froze chicken/ground beef immediately so it didn’t go bad in the fridge. Also, used some of the ground beef to make 2 meat loafs: one is in the fridge waiting to be baked for dinner, and the other is in the freezer for an easy future meal.
3. Spot cleaned my carpets
Today I am still going to:
1. Clean my carpets
2. Clean the rest of the house
3. Start working on my baby registry (though I’m excited about the baby, I’m dragging my feet on the registry for some reason).
4. Relax!!!!
Today I:
Have a long list if things to get done but so far I have:
Sent two thank you notes, a Get Well card, and a Thanksgiving card to my MIL.
Attended a yoga class.
Took my husband to the airport early, he is visiting his mom today (it’s nice to be ten miles from the airport).
I made a smoothie with frozen bananas, pineapple, pawpaws, pumpkin, cinnamon, almond extract, and some juice no one else will drink. It was delicious. I am trying to use up stuff in the freezer and decided a smoothie would not be so cold if I drank it in an insulated container (better late than never on wisdom).
I ate chicken and rice soup, made with the remains of a rotisserie chicken that provided several meals this week. There is one more serving, for another day.
Dinner will be leftover lasagna. The rest will be frozen in meal sized portions for future lunches/dinners.
Spent too much time reading the comments on this blog.
I still plan to vacuum, wash a couple loads of laundry, and bake bread and cookies.
Walking to Staples to get a recycled notebook. They only had 30% recycled notebooks, which annoyed me, but I decided not to take it out on the employees.
Splurging on a bag of mixed fruit with chile, salt and lime–something you see street vendors selling here in L.A. I’m trying to be healthy, too, and my other choice was cheap ramen at home–made the healthy but more expensive choice today.
Experimenting with the techniques in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I enjoy the idea of working on goals that are not urgent, but just as important to lead a rich, meaningful life.
Not up to speed yet on everything, but I did mend a couple of bras today–kind of preventive maintenance–noticed the stitching was coming loose around the bottom of the band, so zig-zagged all the edges of two of them. Will check others as they appear in the laundry, because I bought the whole batch about the same time. Which was 1 year and 7 months ago, I figured.
Also made a good supper tonight–meatloaf, mashed potatoes, butternut squash with maple syrup. Lemon cake pudding is still in the oven–we’ll have that in a while.
Stayed by the phone—DGD was on the way home from NYC for the weekend and had some brakes smoking. Luckily, her grandma buys her AAA every year, and she was close to Albany, so they towed her to her boyfriend’s parents house–where she had planned to spend the night anyhow. She got the car fixed–and I stood by with the credit card handy–and she is now on her way back home, just a bit later than planned.
Still not making it through the day without a nap, but otherwise feeling very nearly back to normal after two weeks since I got out of the hospital. Not used to taking so long to recover!!
Katy- you’ve inspired me to break down my to-do lists into smaller chunks. I’m living separate boxes for wash a load of lsundry AND dry laundry! I’m feeling twice as accomplished!
– I’ve just been doing my usual things; nothing too exciting to report this week.
– doing an assignment that is due in 2 weeks. Best to get it out of the way.
– enjoying a bit of quiet whilst man babysits the kids.
-having dinner at my parents tonight so no cooking or dishes.
-planning out my week to take advantage of grocery savings and juggling work, study and kids. As well as upcoming Christmas parties, birthday parties, exams and Christmas!
I made a basic meat mix with ground beef and sausage that was on sale. Now I have 4 meals worth of meatballs in the freezer.
With some more of that sale meat I made a meatloaf which is providing some great sandwiches for lunches.
I have almost everything we need for Thanksgiving dinner. I just need some rolls (hubby loves those darn heat-and-serve store rolls) and some cranberry sauce (which he left off the menu I made the shopping list from).
Son and I winterized the exterior of the house. A few small details will get finished up today. It would have been better if it had not been 17 degrees while we did this, but at least it is mostly done.
In the evenings I have (finally) been repairing big heavy winter horse blankets. Heavy stuff and miserable to stitch through, but they are terribly expensive and sending them out for repair is almost as expensive as buying new ones! Now I have to start re-waterproofing them.
I love the articles!
Goodwill is great for holiday finds and gift giving – scarves, sweaters, books, DVDs, jewelry, Fan gear for sports teams, etc.
I usually find several used gifts for my grandkids at Goodwill. I found a signed, framed college picture of one our University Heisman trophy winners and gifted it to my neighbor a few years back. I’ve bought Team fan t-shirts for my grandson.
Our Goodwill has a plethora of gift ideas for the holidays and so cheap!
Sometimes you can get the dental x-rays covered under your medical insurance if the dental insurance won’t cover it (or at least have it applied to your deductible).
Re: Clark Howard ideas – I saw your photo cutting the sponges in half, the day after I was cutting a new box of dryer sheets in half. I would love a good article with some other ideas of what can be halved without any difference in quality/effectiveness.
You only have to look to 2008 to find one!
https://thenonconsumeradvocate.com/the-rule-of-halves/