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 further 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 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 #4: 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

Give a Free Seminar or Talk

[dr_coyote]

This is the flip side of one I posted on 1/26/24, “Attend Nearby Free Seminars & Talks.” Do you have some useful knowledge that may be of interest to others? Then consider putting together a talk on the subject. It doesn’t have to be a fancy powerpoint(TM) snooze-fest. In fact the more hands-on the better, and a few hand-written cue cards may be enough.

Where to present? Look at your local library’s web site and see if they have a calendar of events. Odds are that they’re looking for speakers about almost anything. After that, are you in any local hobby clubs? Often there’s room on the agenda for short presentations to cap their monthly meetings. Historical societies are always looking for speakers, especially those with local knowledge. Just keep your eyes open for any relevant group that puts out an open to the public calendar of events, because they’re almost certainly looking for speakers.

For one example, this past spring in the run-up to hurricane season, I gave an hour long talk about radio options for broadcast reception and two-way communications for non-ham radio operators. The local FM radio station mentioned it on their library public service advertisements, and the meeting room was packed. The questions from the audience were very good, and I learned a few new things as well. I think I’m on the hook to repeat the talk next year, am looking forward to it, and will fold in this year’s questions for next time.

interesting series of youtube videos on stretching meal budgets

[(Anonymous)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piewny_5dZU

The presenter has a lot more videos on frugal cooking generally, and I'm really enjoying her stuff. I decided to try a $100 can food budget for month, but also allowing all the food I have in the house as well, plus all the garden stuff, and excluding food destined for the mini food bank/blessings box. So it's partly just eating down the pantry and cooking from the garden, and not actually as hard as it sounds, or as what she's doing. I currently have two whole chickens in the freezer, for starters.

Re: interesting series of youtube videos on stretching meal budgets

[(Anonymous)]

I ran the numbers a few years ago. You can't cook a chicken for less than those rotisserie chickens at Costco or the local grocery store. But do run the numbers again and let us know.

Granted, the reason those cooked chickens are so "cheap" is they're intentionally losing money on them, to get you in the door. Nothing's free. You pay for everything.

Re: interesting series of youtube videos on stretching meal budgets

[(Anonymous)]

Good to know about the chickens! I'll bet a lot of stores do that, underpirce a specific product to get people to come in.

Speaking of grocery store tricks, the one I know is to avoid the center aisles with processed stuff (junk food, crap cereal, sauces, and salad dressings especially).

My guess: where one will save money is most especially on heavily processed and marketed food such as chips, dips, cereals (other than plain oatmeal), salad dressings, and prepared foods such as hummus, noodle dishes, and the like. Also, Cheese can be quite expensive, but homemade fresh cheese, not so much. (Of course it's not fair to compare cheese-to-cheese, it depends on the type and the aging. I will always pay money for Gruyère or a good blue cheese, or roquefort, and there's no way I can male that at home.)

Finally, one can certainly save a quite a bit by avoiding bottled drinks.

Re: interesting series of youtube videos on stretching meal budgets

[(Anonymous)]

maybe, but who knows what kind of chickens they are using, and tricks of the trade they are employing in additives and such to plump it up and flavor.

Re: interesting series of youtube videos on stretching meal budgets

[(Anonymous)]

An interesting experiment! I hope you report on your experience.

The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[(Anonymous)]

Most of us have cars and would like them to last longer.
We'd also like to avoid car accidents.

There is an easy, cheap way to do both.
When you buy gas, take full advantage of that little clip that allows you to fill the gas tank while stepping away from the vehicle. While the tank fills, wash your windshields front and back, your windows, side mirrors, and run that squeegee over your headlights. Taillights too.

What does this do? If you wash your windshields every single time you buy gas, you reduce buildup on your windshield (and other windows) and reduce glare. If you can see better, especially when driving into the sun, you reduce the chance of accidents.

If you wash your headlights, it takes longer for them to turn yellow and opaque. Clean headlights (they sell kits at the auto parts store to clean them back to brilliance) mean not only can you see better at night; other people can see you better.

If you've got a passenger, while they're cleaning all the windows, check your oil, windshield wiper fluid, other fluids, and tire pressure. I learned this trick from my dad decades ago. All my kids know how to wash windshields. They do it as a matter of course when riding with someone else and my goodness but they have seen windshields so filthy it's a miracle the driver could still see through them.

Boring, routine maintenance where you look over your car every time you buy gas can help you notice a small problem before it becomes a big one.

After that? You won't go wrong by following the maintenance schedule in the manual. More often may be better, especially for oil changes, but don't do less.

Re: The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[slclaire]

Yes on all counts. Our car has something like 310,000 miles on it and counting. The repairs it's needed and will continue to need cost a lot less than replacing it with other cars would. I'll only add to drive safely - obey the traffic laws!

Re: The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[(Anonymous)]

I have been doing this while my car fills up, and yes, it often is that I didnt realize the windows were so dirty until I get back in after doing so. I do drive on a short stretch of gravel road daily at the moment, to tend my animals, so dusty.

Now, the rest of my truck will not be washed until the rains come again in November and get to that for me

Atmospheric River

Re: The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[(Anonymous)]

Good thoughts. I was also long ago taught that when a new car is driven off the dealer's lot, a huge drop in the resale price occurs, so that the ratio of useful car life over price (best value to the buyer) peaks around 2-3 years after new. This also allows one to research repair records for cars, which I highly recommend. I have a 2006 Toyota Prius; it did cost more to buy, but it has been fantastically reliable and very cheap to operate over 200,000 miles. I think many people buy much more car than they actually need, for imagined edge use cases that may only happen every two years or so. Borrow your buddy's truck for those cases and save the $.

A tip on the headlight lens cleaning: baking soda and/or toothpaste will polish them quite well, and are much cheaper than the products sold in the automotive aisle.

Re: The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[(Anonymous)]

I learned that routine from my grandad, a very conscientious car-owner!

I don't always do the whole routine, but at a bare minimum, while the gas is pumping, I walk a complete circle around the car, look at the tires to make sure none are getting low, and peek under the car to see that nothing's hung up on the underside, and dragging. I'll also take a sniff and quickly feel the center of each hub cap-- they'll usually be at least warm after driving a while, but if one is noticeably hotter than the rest, that's a problem that needs dealing with asap! (overheated brakes have a distinctly awful smell-- if you smell it, and you don't see anybody at the next pump with smoke coming out of a wheel well, you want to track down where that's coming from)

Re: The most basic of car maintenance and it's quick!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you. That was a very good reminder. I will start doing those things. Good for safety too.
Maxine

Saint John's wort

[(Anonymous)]

I just saved a heap of money and probably the life of our sheep. He got fly strike in the humid and warm weather we are having. This means flies laid eggs on his wet wool and the maggots hatched out. I caught it very quickly and my husband helped me to shear the sheep's back end and wash him. His skin was abraded and I feared more flies laying eggs on it.

We washed him in hydrogen peroxide and I covered his skin with a salve I made of yarrow and other herbs. The next day, his temperature was back to normal but the exposed patches of skin still looked spongy and smelled bad. I washed him again and covered the skin with Saint John's wort tincture that I had made up earlier. The next day, his skin had dried out and was almost fully healed.

Having the vet out would have cost 500 to 800 Canadian dollars. It would have also taken precious time.
Maxine

Re: Saint John's wort

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! I am impressed. Vet bills are no joke.

A few questions.

Was it hydrogen peroxide straight from the bottle? Or diluted?

Could you share your salve recipe?

If you faced the same situation again, would you use the salve or go straight to the St John's Wort tincture?

making wine, casual, almost free

[(Anonymous)]

I have made wine twice before, but it has been a few years. I have been very busy/overwhelmed. but last week I went out on the deck and startled the flock of quail and realized they were in the "naturalized" grapes. ( meaning that a muscat grape accidentally came in a plant order years ago and got tossed out and grows up some trees there) I went out and picked the rest of them I could reach, and stuck them in the fridge. Took the time yesterday to start the wine, looked up the basic instructions I have in one of my gardening books.

I took the grapes off the stems and into a mesh bag and crushed them in a large 5 gallon bucket. I then realized I would have saved a few hours of my time by using the food mill, which I have a grape insert. SO, ended up with about 1 1/2 gallons of muscat grape juice. I got out a hydrometer and tested out the juice, it was low on sugar, which is typical for me when racing birds to get fruit. My book had a formula to use to estimate how much sugar to add, and so I added 1 1/2 cups sugar, stirred alot, retested and was still low, added a little more, Got it to about 1.09something maybe 1.092, estimate it is realy another .002 due to 80 degrees in the house. Close enough, 1.1 is the top reading I will do, and 1.094 is enough to be close to store bought wine. Crushed and added 2 campden tablets ( sulfur, to kill off natural yeasts and stuff). after scrubbing out the mesh bag, covered top of bucket with it.

Today realized I do not have an airlock hole ready lid, so I just set the lid over the bucket loosely. Just now,, being 24 hours, I stirred to invigorate, let it settle and sprinkled an envelope of EC 118 yeast over it ( dated 2022, but has been refrigerated) and I will see tomorrow if it foams up. We are having a heat wave time, so I know the EC 118 will take the heat if it works.

I would rather have had more fruit to go thru the trouble, but I may end up with about 7 bottles of wine out of this. Both my other 2 wines were drinkable. I did a Muscat grape wine, then a year later a plum wine with plums from my neighbors prolific tree. Both were drunk as chilled wines. I still have 2 bottles of the plum, that realy need to be drunk. SO, While I dont know how this one will be, I have highhopes it will work as the other 2 did.

AN interesting data point for around here, there is a feed and homestead store 10 minutes from here, and they used to sell a TON, a full variety of home brew, cheese making and canning supplies. I Vaguely recalled it looked different, so I called, and they do not stock bucket lids with airlocks, nor a variety of yeasts. They have only red star champagne yeast. They confirmed that they had to change what they stock. SO, pre COVID, they carried the various supplies, during COVID< the demand went thru the roof, and they had to carry more. Now, demand has fallen to way, way less than pre COVID levels. So last year, summer 2023, they reorganized, had a big sale, and no longer focus on these various homestead items. They still have beekeeping, and feed and plant/tree nursery, and alot more gift ideas and stuff like that.

I own a couple items that are useful for wine making, like the hydrometer and Campden tablets, but that doesnt cost much. If you are scrupulous with processing, you can make wine without sterilizing with campden tablets. Or adding yeast. I didnt want to risk it.

An excerpt from newsletter from local winery by me, about a certain Lost weekend wine he put out, 2020 vintage " The grapes for this wine sat unattended through the whole fire in the fermentation vats covered in plastic. Eventually the fire was somewhat over (easy to type in one sentence, but indescribable). I peeled back the plastic to find that the grapes had fermented on their own, with zero input from man. The plastic covering had trapped the naturally occurring CO2 gas and had kept the wine from going bad. What I came to find was that the wine was actually in good condition. By the sheer muscularity of Zinfandel and Carignan from 135-year-old vines, the wine was also a survivor! After locating a generator, I was able to press the wine into tanks where it sat alone for several more weeks before going to barrels. The property was in shambles, there was aftermath of fire everywhere. "

Atmospheric River

Re: making wine, casual, almost free

[claire_58]

Thanks for this. I haven't tried making wine; neither of us very interested in drinking alcohol. I do use vodka as a preservative, making liqueurs is so easy especially for a small harvest and they make good Christmas presents. Lately I have been thinking about small batch fruit wines also know as "jug wine" which is a small investment for a beginner and has the advantage of not needing much in the way of industrial inputs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE88L5VjSPY

Re: making wine, casual, almost free

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a recipe book if anyone's interested in making wine from things other than grapes:

https://swguildpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Jack-Keller-Complete-Requested-Recipes-Collection.pdf

Re: making wine, casual, almost free

[(Anonymous)]

started the pear wine yesterday with some pears someone else had off her tree. I did 25% more than recipe per the you tube link I gave above to see if I can get a gallon of finished product, about 5 bottles worth. I would have added the banana peel, but of course I dont have any. I did not have wine making tannin, so ripped open a tea bag of red rose black tea and stirred that in, I had peptic enzyme and another older envelope of the EC 1118 wine making yeast in the fridge. SO, other than the sugar, another start of free wine. I put in 3 3/4 cups of sugar.

Both wines have growing fermenting yeast action going on, it is still very hot, 85'F indoors where the wine is starting.

I may end up with a total of 12 bottles, but maybe not. But if so, that means once it is all aged, one bottle a month, depending ont he needs of your household, this can mean having people over once a month. Or keeping the one bottle a month in the fridge to use some each week for Sabbath

Atmospheric River

Atmospheric River

Z-fold shop towels

[mistyfriday]

Years ago, I switched from paper towel rolls to bulk Z-fold paper towels in a wall dispenser because they are both more hygienic and affordable. Last year, in an attempt to further reduce costs, I switched from paper to bulk shop towels that I fold into the interlocking Z pattern and load into the dispenser.

Since I already had the dispenser and a mostly unused pack of shop cloths it didn't cost me anything more than the time to see if folding the towels into an interlocking pattern would work with the dispenser.

I can report back that it is a far superior alternative to paper towels.

A word of caution, new shop towels should be treated before use. If they are any color other than white it is advisable to soak them in an undiluted white vinegar and salt bath (1 cup vinegar to 1 tbsp salt ratio) overnight to set the dye, then wash and dry them several times to increase their absorbancy and remove any lingering dye. Avoid washing them with anything else before you're sure the dye is completely set.

Re: Z-fold shop towels

[(Anonymous)]

One step further; when our family bath & handtowels are no longer usable even as beach towels (we live a short drive from the sea; sand, rocks & pebbles are hard on fabric) I chop them into what we call "mop cloths" to use for cleaning. If I have some time, I may go round the edge with my overlocker, they'll last longer that way & not shed threads. If not, we'll still get a good few uses & washes before they go to the great ragbag in the sky. I do the same with old curtain linings and other fabrics that are likely to be absorbent, and keep them in bags made from the curtain fronts or similar, which hang in our utility room, ready for cleaning or drying the dog or whatever they're needed for.

Thrifty1

chicken bone broth concentrate, crockpot

[(Anonymous)]

One of my daughters and I call chicken broth you buy at the store "homeopathic", teasing that they pass one chicken thru a large vat of water ( not disparaging actual homeopathic medicines, which we use). Teasing aside, there are no standards, no idea of how much of a chicken carcass has actually influenced the resulting flavored liquid.

And, it is "frugal" in an immediate cash outlay to buy the cheap chicken flavored bricks of broth in the store, but that is not frugal for long term effects on your health.

If you have made broth from a chicken you roasted, then it is free, but often people want more broth around the house than that provides, or at least she does.

We do alot of shopping thru Azure Standard, online ordering truck drop offs monthly. They sell high quality, small producer meats, including chicken. These producers end up with various leftover bits from when they package up chicken breast, thighs, quarters, etc...cuts. So, Azure sells boxes of chicken feet, and also boxes of chicken backs. $82 for a 40 pound box of frozen chicken backs, organic, air chilled, high quality. My daughters friend, who cans bought a box and thawed it and sold or gave her 3 of them to try out.

She put all 3 in a large sized crockpot with various vegetable scraps ( she and I keep a ziplock bag int eh freezer, to which we add scraps good for stock, like onions ends, parsley stems, carrot tops and trimming, etc...) and let it simmer for something like 12 hours.

This resulted in the most amazing, silky, obviously full of gelatin and such product. She should have done one back per batch for regular stock, but since she does not have a pressure canner, she needs to preserve this in the freezer, so now she has a bone broth concentrate !

This she is now freezing in ice cube trays and such, and will be able to pull out a few cubes of the concentrate to use for cooking, thinning with water to proper consistency at that time.

So, for overall health, this is very frugal. And if you compared it to real bone broth at the store, well looking it up, a brick ( 32 ounces, a quart) of shelf stable Pacific Foods organic bone broth is $7.38/each. Pressure canning or freezing your own is cheaper than this, and again, although that Pacific Foods bone broth is better quality than the cheap chicken stocks, it is still better quality to control the inputs at home.

Atmospheric River

Re: chicken bone broth concentrate, crockpot

[(Anonymous)]

This is a great suggestion, Atomospheric River, about using the cheaper the chicken backs and feet.

I consider homemade chicken broth part of my home first aid kit. Flu, cold, any GI upset, there's some chicken broth in the freezer, ready to go in individual portions, just heat and add a squeeze of lemon. As I have said over on the covid forum, staying hydrated can keep a person out of the hospital, who might otherwise have had to go for an IV. Now there's a frugal move.

CHICKEN SOUP FLOGGER

Hair cuts

[(Anonymous)]

I save a lo of money by cutting my husband's hair which is easy and my own which is a little more difficult. I have long hair and when it gets too long and looks ragged I cut it myself. To make a good job of cutting long hair, there are two simple tricks. To achieve a curved look when the hair is all brushed back, part the hair in the middle and brush it out on either side. Secure the ends with a hair elastic. Make sure both sides are even and then cut above the elastics. To achieve a straight look when the hair is brushed back, brush the hair back and secure it with a hair elastic. Drag the elastic down until it is at the length you want your hair. Saw off the hair that is in the elastic and you have a nice straight cut that makes braiding easy.

I learned this years ago from a library book on cutting your own hair.
Maxine

two bee attracting plants

[(Anonymous)]

There was comment last spring about a dearth of insects. Where I live, insect populations have rebounded, mosquitoes with a vengeance. I have to wear long sleeves, long pants and a hat with net over my head when I go outside.

Bumblebees are swarming over two kinds of flowering plants in my yard. Chinese chives are attractive at every stage of growth, edible and VERY invasive. Every now and then I have dig up clumps and throw on the compost. They are pretty when in flower, with round white balls of many flowerettes, and attract bees of different shapes and sizes. Even more bees are flocking to white flowered hyssop, which is not quite so pretty overall as the Ch. chives, but also not invasive, and easy to grow from seed. The hyssop also has a compound flower, spikes with tiny flowerettes all along the spikes, and covered by bees. Hyssop is a mint and the leaves have a nice fragrance to them.

Mary Bennet

[ecosophia]

On the off chance anyone here doesn't also follow the Covid open post, I posted something this morning about homemade fire cider -- a fine old-fashioned health tonic. Might be of interest to some.

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/296175.html?thread=51015407#cmt51015407