Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday!  This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please keep it to one tip per person per week. Data dumps are tedious for me to moderate and also for readers to use. If you have lots of tips, great -- post one per week. This is an ongoing project. If you want to comment on someone else's tip, that's welcome, but again, don't use that as an excuse to post a second, unrelated tip of your own.

Rule #4:  please keep your contributions reasonably short -- say, 500 words or less. If you have something longer to say, please post it elsewhere -- a free Dreamwidth account is one option -- and simply put a link here. Teal deer comments won't be put through.

Rule #5:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #6: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Stock Up on Cheap Meals

[(Anonymous)]

I hate to grocery shop, especially if the weather is at all unpleasant, which can lead to eating out (expensive! and not as healthy!) when there are not enough ingredients for meals left in the house.

The best way I've found to overcome this is to stock up on cheap, shelf-stable meal ingredients. So come up with seven different main dishes that can be made with canned goods, dried foods, and other cheap, long-lasting ingredients. Then buy enough for twelve meals (because there are twelve cans in a flat, making it easier to transport and organize). A sample meal would be bean chili - 1 can kidney beans, 1 can pinto beans, 1 can black beans, l can diced tomatoes (preferably petite), 1 chili seasoning packet, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. So buy 1 flat each of the canned ingredients, 12 chili seasoning packets (French's Chili-O Original is my preferred choice), and 1 jar of garlic powder.

Another meal could be a black bean soup. Figure out how many cans of black beans you need for a meal for your family. Get that many flats of black beans, plus a flat of diced tomatoes, a flat of whole kernel corn and/or whatever vegetables you like, plus 1 jar of each kind of spices you want to season it.

Another possible meal is spaghetti - buy 12 boxes of dried spaghetti noodles and 12 cans or jars of spaghetti sauce. If you like spices beyond what's already in the sauce, then don't forget to buy those too.

You can make salmon and rice patties (cooked rice, canned salmon, and salt, plus an egg replacer such as ground flax seed). Instead of salmon, you can use any kind of canned fish or meat you like. You can add any spices you enjoy.

You can plan another meal around dried beans and biscuits (12 bags dried beans, 1 25-pound bag of self-rising flour, 12 cartons shelf-stable coconut milk, and 1 bottle concentrated lemon juice). If you briskly stir 2 tablespoons lemon juice into 2 cups coconut milk and let it set for 5 minutes, it can replace buttermilk in biscuits. The texture will end up better than buttermilk biscuits, but the flavor will not be the same.

I've done this in a limited way with bean chili and black bean soup, and found it extremely helpful, but haven't done it yet for a full week of meals. Mostly because even with cheap meals, that's a big upfront price tag. I'm planning to try to do this over multiple pay checks in November and early December. It looks like this may be a bad winter, and no one wants to lug groceries around in freezing temperatures and snow and ice.

We'll see if I succeed. My kids are already getting winter sicknesses, which makes it harder to schedule big grocery shopping trips. Maybe I should also stock up on hot cocoa mix for the winter. The kids like it, and it's soothing for sore throats.

-Garden Housewife

Re: Stock Up on Cheap Meals

[(Anonymous)]

I used to make my own hot chocolate, using milk, Hershey's cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon and nutmeg. I don't know if it is cheaper than store-bought mix, but I liked it better. For one serving:

1) Fill your cocoa cup or mug with milk. This will be the quantity of cocoa you make.
2) Pour the milk out into a saucepan.
3) Add the sugar (or other sweetener) and stir to mix/dissolve.
4) Drop a teaspoon of the cocoa powder on top of the milk, then dust the cocoa powder with the cinnamon and nutmeg.
5) Turn on the stove burner. DO NOT STIR YET.
6) As the milk warms up, the cocoa powder wets and sinks into it. Once the cocoa powder has wetted and is sinking in, THEN is the time to gently stir. This way it mixes well into the milk without forming lumps.

Enjoy!

- Cicada Grove

Re: Stock Up on Cheap Meals

[(Anonymous)]

I use a different method but the same basic idea.

I put the powder and other ingredients in the mug and just heat the milk in the pan – preferably in a double boiler.

Beeee-cause… if one is making more than one cup, each mug can have a different proportion of sugar to suit the taste of the person who is going to drink it. I like less sugar and a pinch of salt; others like more sugar and cinnamon or five-spice, whatever.

To prevent the dread lumpiness, I do the cocoa powder first. Add a small amount of room temp water to the powder and stir, stir, stir, until the powder becomes a smooth, thick liquid with a sauce-like consistency. Vanilla gets added next, or maybe with the sugar. To each mug add sugar and spices ad lib and stir some more. (Fussy people get to stir their own mugs while I tend to the milk pan.)

It takes a while for the cold milk to heat to the point of lightly steaming, almost making a skin but not quite. When the milk is hot pour some into each mug and stir again.

The sugar dissolves in the hot milk, the cocoa ‘sauce’ and spices distribute themselves nicely, and voila! individually tailored hot chocolate a la carte.

It is possible to pre-mix the dry spices, sugar, and cocoa powder, then spoon the mix into a square of wax paper. Fold up the paper, seal it with masking tape and write the name of the intended recipient teherupon.

To fold the wax paper with the mix inside, arrange your square of paper like a diamond shape. Carefully lift the lower point up to the top point and fold them together a little bit.

Now bring the lower right hand point up and towards the left edge to about half way between the doubled top point and the baseline. Do the same with the left bottom point: fold up towards the right edge.. You might have to shake the mix in towards the middle to keep it from escaping.

You should have made a pentagon shape with these three folds. Fold down the doubled top point to the middle, and seal with a piece of tape.

Re: Stock Up on Cheap Meals

[methylethyl]

For those not doing dairy: this also works with coconut milk and is delicious!