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

Dried Carrot Greens

[prayergardens]

Carrot Greens are edible. A quick search will give many recipes for using the fresh greens in salads or making a pesto. I happen not to like that taste or texture so kept composting them since I didn't have a plan.

This fall, I tried drying them just like any other garden herb, hanging in small bunches in the driest spot in my kitchen - success! When dry, I processed them like oregano, I strip the leaves and rub them between my hands to get a fine grind and then pick out the stemmy bits. I'm keeping a little jar of them near the stove and topping off savory dishes with a generous pinch. The taste is "green" but not too carrot-y or bitter. Free extra vitamins and minerals and my cooking looks very fancy now!

Re: Dried Carrot Greens

[teresa_from_hershey]

Carrot tops work great in soup. They're a flavoring just like celery tops.
You can grow your own carrot tops in a jar lid on your kitchen window.
Put a fresh carrot end, cut side down in a spoonful of water in the sun.
Change the water regularly, and the carrot top will grow new greens.

Re: Dried Carrot Greens

[weilong]

Folks in Japan sometimes add carrot greens to tempura batter - usually when frying the mix of julienned onions and carrots, etc., known as /kakiage/. It adds a nice color and flavor.

Otherwise, I like to save them for scrap stock (soup stock made from odds and ends of vegetable trimmings).

Re: Dried Carrot Greens

[(Anonymous)]

I used dried carrot greens in place of parsley. They do a better job of it than actual parsley, which I always finds loses all flavour when dehydrated. YMMV, but I find the taste 'close enough' to substitute 1:1.

Learn basic sewing techniques

[teresa_from_hershey]

You don't have to teach yourself to sew wedding dresses or tailor suits.
But you should learn the basics of mending to keep your clothing in good repair.

Older mending books (there are many) assume you know how to thread a needle and use a thimble. Modern books -- which are lavishly illustrated -- assume you don't know anything.

Start at the level you are already at.

Learn these basics:

Sew buttons back on (start filling your button jar now).
Repair a seam that came open.
Rehem a garment (not using a stapler or tape).
Replace snaps, either sew-on (easy) or attached permanently. You can buy a snap replacer at any fabric store, with extra snaps. These make terrific baby shower gifts because every baby onesie loses its snaps long before it's worn out.
Sew a patch on a hole.

You'll need a basic sewing kit with needles, a thimble THAT FITS (this will save your thumbs and fingers), scissors, a seam-ripper, and five small spools of thread: black, white, light gray, medium gray, and dark gray. Don't worry about matching thread to cloth more than this.

This is all hand work. You do not need a sewing machine.

As you get better, do more repair work.

With basic sewing repair skills, you can keep garments in wearable condition AND you can fearlessly buy used clothing that only has a split seam or a missing button.

If you want to go further, learn to darn knitted garments. You can also take several thrift shop garments and pick them apart, then hand-sew the pieces together into a new garment (this is called altered couture).

Re: Learn basic sewing techniques

[methylethyl]

FWIW I did sew my wedding dress-- it was very simple-- and it turned out fine, even though the most complicated things I'd sewn previously were lined drawstring bags (but I sewed a *lot* of those), and the occasional messenger bag. I did have a more experienced needlewoman to consult about setting sleeves, but did the work myself. These days you could probably swing it using internet video tutorials.

The biggest thing is... if you're going to throw out that ripped thing anyway, why not use it to learn a new mending skill, and maybe extend its life for a while? The most important thing I learned when beginning to mend things-- patching jeans knees and stuff-- was to tell the difference between something that could be mended, and something that was a waste of effort. Sometimes the fabric is just worn out-- not just in the spot where it ripped, but all over-- and you can't save it. It'll just rip somewhere else tomorrow. But if the fabric's still tight and you snag it on a nail or something, fix it!

Re: Learn basic sewing techniques

[(Anonymous)]

I learned to darn socks using darning cotton before I left home many decades ago (still miss my grandmother's "darning egg"), but what I learned recently from a knitting friend is that you can use a thin wool yarn to darn a hole or thin spot, and washing will shrink/full/felt that patch and make it sturdier.

Re: Learn basic sewing techniques

[daveotn]

And, as every old granny knows, sorting the button jar is a Very Important Task that can keep a preschooler distracted for quite some time!

Re: Learn basic sewing techniques

[baconrolypoly]

To that good list of hand sewing needments I'd add this needle threading aid: https://craftingoutlet.co.uk/cdn/shop/products/hand-threaded.png?v=1620329959 - they're pretty much essential if you've got long sight.

Over the years I haven't done a great deal of sewing to make things, apart from curtains, but have done a lot mending ripped seams and sewing on of buttons. There is a certain satisfaction to be had from achieving a neatly sewn on button or a seam that isn't shaped like a dog's back leg.

Last year I taught a man of 61 how to sew on a button. This came up when he complained he was running out of shirts because of the buttons falling off. He'd lived with his mother until she died and somehow she never taught him to do this for himself. I took along a selection of buttons, scraps of cloth, needles and thread and, first off, asked him if he knew how to thread a needle but he didn't, so we started with 'How to thread a needle'. It felt strange teaching someone of that age such basic tasks, but goodness is it needed!

Re: Learn basic sewing techniques

[(Anonymous)]

What do folks have for vintage sewing book recommendations?

Boston Bob

Garlic

[kimberlysteele]

Sadly I personally cannot eat more than a smidgen of fresh garlic -- tastes great but then I pay dearly for most of a week -- however I have some excellent garlic tips.

Shaking the cloves vigorously in a closed container, like one of those round Christmas cookie tins, loosens the paper from the clove, especially if the top and bottom ends of the bulb were chopped off in advance.

Additionally, sprinkling some water on the cutting board, about a tablespoon for every 4-6 cloves of garlic, prevents the garlic from sticking to itself and the knife as you chop it.

Re: Garlic

[baconrolypoly]

That tip about wetting the cutting board sounds good, I'll be trying that. It's so incredibly sticky! Years ago I was on a camping holiday in France and, whilst writing postcards back to England, did a little garlic juice test, where I soaked the glue off a stamp and replaced it with garlic juice. It worked!

For peeling garlic I like the method of cutting off the end of the clove, placing a large knife over it and then giving the blade a sharp slap, which partially crushes the garlic as well as almost peeling it.

Grocery Shop Only Once Every Two Weeks & With a List

[dr_coyote]

I fell into this good habit during the *ahem* events of 2020. I’d been in the habit of hitting the grocery store once a week, plus maybe one more fill-in trip. Not knowing what was going on circa March 2020, to minimize exposure I dropped this to once every two weeks. I also started keeping a to-buy list on the kitchen counter, to remind myself of things that I really needed to pick up.

It’s a funny thing, but all the fresh food was all getting eaten over those two weeks, and the slightly less popular stuff got eaten too (though usually in the last few days before the next shopping trip). Suddenly things weren’t getting shuffled to the back of the refrigerator and going bad and being wasted. But here’s the frugal byproduct: my total expenditures on food dropped by about 1/3rd.

Maybe this is something everybody else already knew. Maybe I’d just gotten sloppy over the years, making those weekly fill-in trips. Whatever the reason, I’m done with those, it’s lists and shopping once every two (sometimes three) weeks from now on. It saves lots of money and it saves lots of time.

Re: Grocery Shop Only Once Every Two Weeks & With a List

[weilong]

Re: eating the less popular stuff in the last few days before shopping

In our house, we keep to a monthly grocery budget. We're not pinching our pennies all that hard, but wen the money in the grocery wallet is gone, it's gone until next month. Toward the end of the month, we end up making meals from frozen or shelf-stable ingredients - rice, flour, beans, frozen or canned meat and veggies. I actually like those meals that come around at the end of the month.

Battery Bank Replacement for power with the grid out

[(Anonymous)]

While not everyone is comfortable with high power electrical connections, alot of what needs to happen to have battery backup power is to actually move out the old, move in the new batteries, build a stand or battery box, buy all needed connectors, look up and have ready all needed documentation and specs. You realy dont want to pay an electrician for that, and he wont want to do it in any case. My new batteries are 86 pounds each and the old ones were much heavier than that.

So, I saved money first by building a battery stand from scrap lumber, having my weed eater guy I hire move the old ones out with a hand truck, and then my son placed the new ones on the stand.

But, this time I also elected to change out the electrical connections myself, and I always am the one to research the new setting and reprogram my inverter. I was sightly intimidated because of the tight spot one of the wires needed to fit into. But, I do know enough to check that things are realy "off" to work safely. So, I knew I could disconnect the old wires and fuses. So, I started there once the old batteries were out of the way. Then, after a few false starts, and finding the right angle, I did get in the hard wire. If I hadnt, I would have called an electrian and schedualed him to come out after I had the new ones set up and everything ready so as to have a minimum house call charge, so it would have only been that minimum charge. So, frugal even if I had had to have a short call out.

photos here over at green wizards https://greenwizards.com/node/1863

Atmospheric River

Cookie Tins

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Everyone,
Now is the time to go out to thrift and free stores and pick up a selection of Christmas cookie tins. The thrift stores are full of them now. I had a big stash of them but gave them all away at Christmas filled with home-made cookies and home-made chocolates.

People really love these gifts which are inexpensive for me and I would rather die than do Christmas shopping. Some of the tines are really lovely and I hate to let them go as people rarely think to return them for refills. There are always more cookie tins.
Maxine

Lavashak/fruit leather

[baconrolypoly]

This is a fruit preserving method I came across some years ago and the basic method is here: http://www.mypersiankitchen.com/lavashak-persian-fruit-roll/

If you have no other way to keep the fruit it's a good, long-lasting storage method. You can eat lavashak as a chewy snack, rolled up and made into a gift or you can add strips to Middle Eastern stews and other dishes that need a bit of a pick up. As long as the fruit will cook down to a purée it can be used. My favourite lavashak is plum but apple works very well too.

If you try making it, when it's ready hold some up to the light, marvel at the beauty, and remember Lone Watie's words from 'Outlaw Josey Wales', 'All I have is a piece of hard rock candy. But it's not for eatin'. It's just for lookin' through'. https://clip.cafe/the-outlaw-josey-wales-1976/you-have-any-food-here/

Re: Lavashak/fruit leather

[(Anonymous)]

Do you personally make plum fruit leather like that ? It is easy to do and a great preserving method, to make fruit leather. But, I do need to warn that plum fruit leather is very tart. Years ago when I did it, my kids found it a bit too tart. It is the plum skins that add that tartness. Mixing plums with other sweeter fruit, like strawberries or blackberries will work, or Iguess you could add a small bit of sugar

Atmospheric River

Vintage cookbooks

[michele7]

I have a big home library of cookbooks, but my favorite are the vintage ones, specifically from the 1950s. Check out your local used book store. I nabbed a 1951 copy of the Fanny Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book for $4.95. These older cookbooks generally have simpler recipes that don't use processed food items and have ingredients that are easy to find. If you are new to cooking or are looking to go back to making more comfort foods, vintage cook books may be what you need.

Re: Vintage cookbooks

[methylethyl]

My children have been learning to bake from the 1931 "Joy of Cooking". The baking powder measures are sometimes weird but otherwise, recipes are fairly simple, no space is wasted on lavish food-porn illustrations, and there's no "use a can of cream of mushroom soup and a packet of ranch dressing mix" nonsense in there. They did have a truly weird fetish for gelatin dishes, though. We mostly ignore that section.

Mustard

[methylethyl]

The last few bottles of brown mustard I've purchased (store brand of course) have been deeply unsatisfactory. I love mustard. I found an unused bag of whole brown mustard seeds in the back of my spice cabinet and remembered: oh yeah, I've made mustard before. So I did-- and let it sit around in the fridge for a week to settle, and got it out today, and it was the best mustard I have ever tasted and how did I ever go back to buying mustard at the grocery store? That must have been some temporary amnesia or something. I don't know if it saves any money overall, but I'd say the cost is comparable to store-bought, uses less plastic, is fresher, and tastes so much better you'll never want to eat store mustard again. If you like mustard, anyway.

Here's the recipe if anybody wants it:

1/2 cup mustard seeds (yellow or brown-- personal preference)
1/3 cup vinegar plus 1T
1t salt
white wine

Partially or fully grind** the mustard seeds (depending on how grainy you like your mustard), mix the mustard seeds, vinegar, and salt, put it in a jar, pour in enough white wine to cover the surface maybe half an inch deep, put a lid on it, and forget it in the fridge for a while (it ripens over a week or two). When you get it back out again, stir in the liquid on top.

**Grinding-- options depends on your equipment. You can use a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle. A small electric blender would do the job-- I use a stick blender for mine. With a blender add the vinegar first, then blend it, otherwise the seeds go everywhere.

***You can usually buy whole mustard seeds for cheap at an indian or middle eastern grocery. If you haven't got one of those around, ordering online also works. But it's definitely not cost-effective if you get those little quarter-ounce jars in the baking aisle of a chain grocery. Those prices are highway robbery.

Re: Mustard

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the recipe.
maxine

Reuse/recycling shops

[marginnotes]

In the last few years recycling shops seem to be thriving around here.

The nearest one takes what you drop off and resells it cheap. You give things you don't use anymore that are still in good condition. You buy other people's stuff they no longer use. The prices are far lower than new, but a lot of the stuff is in very good condition.

The shop claims to resell 70% of what people give them and to have as much of the rest recycled as possible.

Apparently 80% of people working there have real trouble finding work elsewhere, so there's a deal that lets them avoid the costs of a regular small business and get public help with the wages. (This is in France, where the costs of running a small business that's been operating for more than a couple of years can be high.) They also do workshops on repairing bikes and consumer electronics, and on basic sewing.

The shop is busier than most. Looks like many people missed the memo about buying everything new online.

POW Cookbook

[ecosophia]

It may be possible to get more frugal than this, but here's the cookbook issued to prisoners of war along with Red Cross food packages during the Second World War. The recipes are meant for young men with no cooking skills and only the most primitive cooking equipment:

https://archive.org/details/POWCookingGuide

Seems to me that folks who don't have a lot of cooking experience or equipment might find them very useful.

Re: POW Cookbook

[dr_coyote]

>>The recipes are meant for young men with no cooking skills and only the most primitive cooking equipment:

In other words, perfect for graduate students! I wish I'd had a copy of this 40 years ago.

Now, in a world of kids growing up knowing only how to microwave hot pockets(tm) and similar, this kind of info delivered in this kind of brief format is needed more than ever.

Sterno & Chaffing Dishes

[(Anonymous)]

At my wife's school they moved the annual pancake breakfast to Jan. instead of the usual May. I thought this was better because I'd rather eat pancakes when its freezing outside than when it is warm. This year it was freezing. Anyway, I usually help out as a disher and general assistant during these events. Also, different from previous years was my wife decided to make the pancakes ahead of time and serve them in her catering gear as a buffet instead of turning as all into short order breakfast cooks. This meant we had to haul the stuff up from the basement.

But with the major cold temperatures hitting the states this week it got me thinking again of using the chaffing dishes to cook with in a time of emergency. I will stock up on sterno next time we are at the restaurant supply store. I will also need to practice sometime cooking in a chaffing dish, rather than just heating some up.

I first thought of this because the lovely lesbian couple in the Weird of Hali Kingsport liked to cook this way in their room. JMG had mentioned to me when I commented on this some time in the past year or so, that there are cookbooks on Archive.org with chaffing dish recipes.

I may not be using the right search terms, because it seemed like he linked to more old books, but I did find this for starters, from 1954. It seemed like there were books from the 1920s on this topic. In any case, people might want to look out for some of this catering kind of kit secondhand. It could come in handy.

https://archive.org/details/WickAndLick1954/mode/2up

Re: Sterno & Chaffing Dishes

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear this! Like so much in my tentacle novels, the chafing dish cookery in Kingsport was a reference to an earlier bit of weird fiction -- in this case, Dion Fortune's The Sea Priestess, in which one of the main characters used a chafing dish to cook meals for the protagonist. (She was the "Miss Morgan" Claire mentioned in my novel.) But chafing dishes work extremely well; the one we've got will bring water to a rolling boil in 11 minutes, and can cook just about anything that doesn't require high heat.

You may not be using the right search terms, but my archive fu is pretty good! ;-) Here are 57 chafing dish cookbooks free for the downloading:

Chafing Dish Recipes

Homemade Natto Report

[brotherkornhoer]

I made my first batch of homemade natto last week following the recipe found here:

https://www.okonomikitchen.com/how-to-make-natto/

I got the starter beans and dried soy beans from the local Japanese/Korean grocery (I live in the west in a city with a substantial Asian population), used my Instant Pot for the sterilization step, and used the stovetop "keep warm" burner for the 24-hour warm fermentation step. I broke it down into half-cup portions and froze the natto after the 24-hour cold fermenation step. Total success! The result is an inexpensive traditional Japanese breakfast dish, savory with mustard and soy. It also contains nattokinase, an anti-clotting factor. As excessive clotting appears to be a looming health risk for much of the population, there's naturally interest in foods that contain such substances. A discussion can be found here:

https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/nattokinase-uses-and-risks

Re: Homemade Natto Report

[(Anonymous)]

Congratulations! I've honed my homemade Natto technique so that I barely need to think about it any more. A key is fermenting the cooked beans in a glass pan that sits on on 10x20 inch seed starter mat-- the temperature is perfect, and I use the mat to start vegetable seeds later in the spring.

(Seed mats are incredibly versatile. We even use one to heat the bed/crate of our barn cat in winter. With the mat sitting half an inch under his crate and blanket, his bed is toasty even during nights in the 20's)*

*Perhaps not the most frugal practice, but the wife likes to spoil him.

A use for toilet paper rolls

[(Anonymous)]

I save TP inner rolls all year to use for small pots for starting seeds or transplanting of winter sown seedlings. For me, the cardboard rolls work far better than either peat pots or black plastic cells. The peat wicks water away from the seedlings. The TP cardboard gets wet also, but it seems to then moisten the soil next to it. The black plastic absorbs heat, promoting rapid root growth and neither breaths nor allows passage of water, with the familiar result of root bound tiny plants. Use of TP rolls has given me much healthier than nursery stock small plants which can be transplanted into the garden.

Re: A use for toilet paper rolls

[methylethyl]

Do you set them up in a tray, or fold over the bottoms to keep the soil in?

Aminopyralid Remediation for Gardens

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, there was a discussion of aminopyralid contamination in gardens. Aminopyralid is a broad leaf herbicide which is used on hay fields. We had quite the outbreak of brown death in gardens in Western Washington after aminopyralid was introduced in the hay growing regions of Eastern Washington, some years back.

After the field is sprayed, the hay grows and is cut and fed to dairy cows. The cow poop sits in a compost pile for a year. After the compost is spread, it proves lethal to tomatoes, beans and other broadleaf weeds.

We had just started our community garden, with a 60 foot circle enclosed by deer fencing and a nice layer of finished dairy compost. After everything died, our enterprising garden coordinator set up a science experiment. She divided the circle into seven sectors. One was kept untreated as a control. Five sectors were treated with different products that advertised remediation. The seventh sector got a load of used mushroom growing substrate. The commercial mushroom industry uses steam sterilized hay in plastic bags to produce garden oyster mushrooms.

I went by the garden three months later. The control sector was easily identifiable. It still looked blasted. The five gee whiz treatments had modest to slight effect. The sector with the mushroom compost was growing broadleaf weeds. By the end of summer, the mushroom mycelium had taken over the entire circle. The next spring, we turned it over and planted out.

Garden oyster mushrooms break down aminopyralid, and just the regular culinary strain is very effective. The spawn is available, so if aminopyralid is accidently introduced through something a rabbit or goat ate, it can be ameliorated in one season.

The enterprising garden coordinator was Alison Kutz, bug broker. She owns Sound Horticulture, and if you want mail order beneficial insects, it is the go to company.

There was quite a business kerfuffle. Due to the widespread compost contamination, the popularity of aminopyralid with the hay growers dropped precipitously after that. The dairies sell the cow poop to the composters, who can't sell the compost if it is contaminated.

Re: Aminopyralid Remediation for Gardens

[(Anonymous)]

This tip alone might just have saved a lot of lives. Well done.

Insulation for Every Opening

[(Anonymous)]

With the Arctic Blast freezing everything around me, I finally decided to try adding more insulation to my windows.

Currently, I have blackout curtains. As I live in an apartment, I put up those jumbo "wall safe" removable hooks and hang the curtains across on a shower bar. This is usually enough so long as the curtains go all the way to the floor. Otherwise, the cold air runs down your curtains and becomes a draft.

Now I've added an extra layer of rolled reflective insulation between the curtains and the window. Duct tape sticks the insulation sheets together to fit. 21 day masking tape sticks insulation over the window so you can remove it later without hurting the paint. Just make sure to check on it periodically to ensure there's no moisture buildup on the window side, which can lead to mold.

I considered 4'x 8' foam insulation panels from the hardware store with attached vapor barriers as a cheaper and more easily removed solution, but they do not fit in my car.

For the DIYers out there, you can achieve some extra insulation while preserving lighting with reused bubble wrap stuck to your windows. Spray the bubble side with a bit of water and stick it onto the window or use tape. For more insulation, old sheets wrapped around plywood with a plastic tarp on the window side for a vapor barrier are an easily removable solution like the foam core insulation.

For doors with windows in them, I found there are off the shelf kits with an adhesive-edged quilt that fits over a door and is split down the middle for access with magnets on the seam to keep the sides closed. They're expensive, but if you have extra sheets and fasteners, replicating one might make a good sewing adventure.

Lastly, if you need something cheap and fast, a towel at the door foot can stop a draft, sheets can be taped over anything, and if you're not using a door, duct tape is good emergency weather stripping!

Re: Insulation for Every Opening

[(Anonymous)]

re: '4'x 8' foam insulation panels from the hardware store'

If you get them from the big box stores, they will cut them to size for you (or at least around here)