Frugal First Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome to Frugal First Friday! This is a monthly 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 on the first Friday of each month, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course. 

There has been talk about releasing these posts in print format.  In case that turns out to be worth pursuing, please note: if you comment on this or any future Frugal First Friday post, you are giving permission for that comment to be included in print or other editions. This means, for those of you into the legalese, that by posting something in the comment thread you are granting me non-exclusive reprint rights to your comment, and permitting me to transfer those to a publisher or other venue. Your contribution will have your name or internet handle attached, your choice. 

I also have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed. One change from the earlier frame is that if you produce goods or services yourself, and would like to let readers know about them, you may post one (1) (yes, just one) comment per month letting people know, with a link to your website or other contact info. The other rules ought to be familiar by now. 

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

Rule #4: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm. 

With that said, have at it!  

Comments

Adding food for health

[michele7]

Sometimes, folks on a frugal pathway think a lot about “taking away”. They stop buying things. They take away alcohol from their diet. They take away sweets or carbs. Lately, I’ve listened to registered dietitians talk about “adding” to your diet in order to meet your diet or health goals. For example, Kylie Sakaida, MS, RD makes eating white rice healthier by adding legumes and grains. Her recipe is this: 1 cup of short or medium grain white rice, 1/2 cup brown lentils, 1/2 cup quinoa, Rinse. Add 3 cups of water. Cook. I use my rice cooker. The addition of the lentils and quinoa ups the fiber and protein content. This is really delicious. 100 grams of this rice mix gives you 125 kcal, 25g carbs, 2g fiber and 4g protein. For 100 grams of short grain white rice it has 130 kcal, 29g carbs, no fiber and 2g protein.

Another video I saw was a young woman talking about how people say sandwiches are unhealthy. She took her two slices of bread with meat and started adding condiments, cheese and vegetables. A slice of tomato, lettuce leaves, handful of sprouts, a smear of mustard, a slice of cheese all add up to increased nutrition and satisfaction.

Of course, this is not medical or nutritional advice since I am not qualified…yada, yada.

Re: Adding food for health

[(Anonymous)]

michele7, I like this way of thinking. I do this with my breakfast cereal. I use a base of either oats or muesli, then toss on what I happen to have available and feel like teating, usually more raisins and cranberries or other dried fruit, maybe some pecans or walnuts or both, a teaspoon of pollen (***excellent nutrition***), maybe elderberry syrup (***great for immune system boost***), mabe some yoghurt or keffir, honey, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, bananas, berries, other cut up fruit. Milk of course. Pinch of good sea salt, and a pat of butter.

By the way this is ridiculpusly easy to make. I don't bother with taking out a pot and cooking anything. I simply heat a cup or two of the milk and pour it on and wait 5 minutes. The cereal can also be prepared using cold milk, left to "cook" overnight on the fridge.

I think sandwiches can be super healthly, yes, it all depends on what's in them. Removing one slice of bread to eat an open faced sandwich Scandinavian-style also works for me, when I have handy a knife and fork.

Adding Good Things to Displace Stupid Things

[(Anonymous)]

This is a very broadly applicable concept. Often, paring your life down, in any area, whether it's food or transport or housing or just how much stuff you buy or ditching expensive hobbies/habits, or whatever... everything you take away leaves a void, and a lot of us have to work to get over feeling deprived after giving up stuff we can't afford.

It can be really helpful to think ahead to what you can add. It's not a 1 to 1 "I will replace this thing, with that other thing" (doesn't really work), but more complex. Replacing an expensive addictive habit, with a cheaper addictive habit might be a temporary fix, but doesn't get at the root problem. A lot of the costly stuff we prune out of our lives when we are trying to save money isn't really adding much to our lives anyway.

Some life changes can be easier if you approach it from the angle of *displacing* things that are too expensive or aren't giving a good ROI. Then it's not so much that we are taking away something, but rather, we are adding other things, and since life is full, the stupid things can be crowded out. They're not important anymore. Maybe you didn't give up a gym membership, but it was extraneous after you started walking or biking most places. Perhaps adding journaling, meditation, baking, gardening, and hiking to your life leaves you no time (or desire) for electronic entertainment services you previously indulged in. Sometimes, adding something first can help immensely to "minus" lower-quality, or even self-destructive things from our lives.

You see it so clearly with something like a prayer rule, committing say fifteen minutes to prayer morning and evening. Starting out it's like: I don't have time for that. Where can I possibly fit it in? But if you just DO it, make the commitment, this weird thing happens: other stuff falls out of the schedule, and turns out to have not been very important, or even memorable. We are hard pressed to remember what we were doing that made us not have the time.

This is different from overcommitting. It's deliberately adding good things, and letting lesser things fall off the edge of the table.

Re: Adding food for health

[quoadsacra]

In the spirit of adding:
Quinoa has been a tricky food to integrate into my diet. I know it's good for me, and a valuable source of protein. And it's also a fairly innocuous taste. But the texture of it has never been particularly satisfying - especially when rice is available. I will try mixing as you suggest. Recently I have taken to boiling half a cup of quinoa and adding it to my bread making with pretty reasonable results. This fortified bread goes well with soup and savoury toppings.

two-thirds

[degringolade]

I suppose frugality comes in all different forms. I am working on the idea that the 'Murcan ideal of "three square meals" is something that should be looked at. I think that in terms of money and health, perhaps two meals a day might well be the idea to run with to see if it works.

In a sense, the idea of "calories needed" coupled with a reduction in number of meals eaten might be a tool for frugality. I am attempting to skip breakfast completely and not have anything to eat until noon. Then another meal at around five in the afternoon. I keep my calories steady at 3,000 (I am one big hoss 6-8 and 300+) so you might want to look into what your calories intake should be.

When I do this, I notice that my grocery bill goes way down. A lot of folks will probably hate this advice, but I have noticed that in terms of resources, it works for me.

Re: two-thirds

[fringewood]

I totally agree with two meals a day, the difference being we eat a good breakfast around 7 or 8am, since most of our work is done early in the day. Then we eat again between 2 and 3, take an hour siesta at 3:30 or so and maybe a snack later, but no big meal in the evening. We sleep better at night without a full stomach. We've found breakfast is the most important for us because our work is manual and we need the fuel;^)

Re: two-thirds

[atmosphericriver]

If it works for you, that is what matters. But, if it is the same number of calories, then it should not matter if you eat it over 3 meals vs 2, you are buying the same amount of food, so the cost shouldnt be any difference. Unless you bought very expensive breakfast foods or over prepare amounts of foods so have waste that isnt eaten ? Being smaller, I aim for 2000 calories, and eat 3 meals, not usually any snacking. Store bought snack foods will cost alot. Waiting until noon to eat would be hard on many of us for health reasons. I absolutely agree on not eating after an early or early-ish dinner.

For most people, they will concentrate better, have more energy and have a lower weight gain if they eat breakfast, this is what all the studies show, as well as other benefits. This is in general. I remember as a child, my parents skipped breakfast themselves, just due to time crunch in the mornings realy, so for a while they never thought we needed it before school. We did. The school ended up contacting them ( they thought we were low energy and had trouble concentrating - my folks once enlightened made sure to have stuff on hand for us), and yes, children are growing, but even when we are not growing as adults, the studies show that over all adults have better concentration and energy if we eat breakfast. As for the children, the differences show more obviously, which is why we have all these well meaning school "breakfast" programs. It is junky foods, so it would seem to most of us ( bagel/cream cheese or yogurt or cold cereal ( reduced sugar) with milk, fruit for all), but they have the data to show that it overall improves learning.

Re: two-thirds

[hippieviking]

I often will only eat from 5-9ishpm starting my eating for the day with dinner. Sometimes I only eat one time a day at dinner. I'd rather eat three squares a day with a couple of snacks and dessert but I don't need it. I often still make food for breakfast and lunch as I have a whole herd of young kids who will literally (figuratively) die if they go more than about four hours without eating and it doesn't bother me to have to prepare food without eating.

I will be a bit contrary to the "need the energy crowd". I'm a fit adult male and I weigh about 180lbs. I can get up in the morning and do work, including moderate labor for hours and/or include a moderate to heavy workout without eating. The only time I've hit the wall in terms of running out of energy is doing heavy labor that goes on for half a day plus or when doing extreme endurance workouts.

I don't do this in order to save money, I do it to watch my figure. I have plenty of Irish ancestry and as my (rather portly) grandmother would remark, "all the skinny ones of us died in the famine." If I ate like I want to and feel like I'd weigh 600lbs. That having been said, I do notice that it cuts our food bill when I'm eating like that.

HV

Re: two-thirds

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Degringolade,
The, "three square meals a day," is not of American origin. It comes from the Royal Navy of Great Britain. The meals were served on square wooden platters with a wooden rim around the edge. The idea of having 3 meals a day sounded pretty luxurious to a lot of people back in the day and prevented a lot of desertions.

I also do not eat breakfast and find it very easy to skip breakfast and just have lunch and supper. I suspect this is good for my health and especially my blood-sugar levels. I thought it would be very hard to give up breakfast but it was easy. Sometimes I have eggs and bacon for lunch just because I miss it.
Maxine

Re: two-thirds

[(Anonymous)]

My partner and I eat a decent sized breakfast (no processed, cold breakfast cereals), a light lunch, and a decent sized supper. This is mostly due to my partner's work schedule. Unfortunately, we often end up eating our supper late in the evening. When we are able to eat supper earlier in the evening, we do experience the benefits that come from not eating for hours before bed -- as atmosphericriver has described in her posts.

Caldathras

Re: two-thirds

[emily07]

IIRC Pearl S. Buck once wrote a book about two brothers, one going on to found a News-Imperium, the other going to better the lot of people through e.g. cheap eataries where one paid what one could afford. Then a depression rolled around and it was difficult to keep up the eataries. When the second brother asked one of his managers (of Chinese origin) about this, the manager „complaint“ that Amercians (at that time and in that story) expected to eat every day, while Chinese people (at that time and in that story) maybe expected to eat once a week. Certainly not healthy but I tought it an interesting thought-game.

Find out what your library offers

[teresa_from_hershey]

I was just at my library (The Hershey Public Library).

The library was and is running a weekend pop-up book sale to raise funds.
Prices range from $1 to $3 for virtually new books (all age ranges) and puzzles. Most are Christmas themed. I was a cashier for a few hours.

My point is that your library probably offers far more services than you know about besides checking out books.

1. Book sales, along with puzzles, CDs, DVDs, sheet music, and what gets donated. Expect to pay $3 for a hardback, even if said hardback was $50 new.

2. Puzzle and game rentals including video game systems and the games for them. Board games, too, especially the fancier, expensive kind that win awards.

3. DVDs for virtually everything so you need never hook your TV up to the outside world. Instead, you chose the classic Gene Kelly film you want, enjoy it, and return it. They've also got simply mountains of nonfiction DVDs from exercise and cooking to travelogues, documentaries, and so forth.

4. Magazines and newspapers. You can borrow magazines! We routinely recommend to new writers that they visit the library and check out the entire stack of "Writer's Digest" and read it to learn the vocabulary of Book World, query letters, publishers, and so forth. No need to pay for an expensive subscription.

5. Online classes such as Udemy, offered by Gale Online education. If you sign up for a class on your own, they're expensive. Your library gives you access for free. The range of classes is stupendous. Find ones that YOU want, sign up, and take them at your leisure. As always, you get out of an online class what you put into it.

6. In person classes from improv to making glass ornaments.

7. Providing meeting space to local groups.

8. Programs, from classical Indian Dance to ones like I do: "13 Poirots and 7 Miss Marples."


The range is astonishing. Sign up for your library's newsletter and other outreach programs so you know what's available. Not every librarian, especially the part-time volunteers will know so don't skip this step.

Re: Find out what your library offers

[(Anonymous)]

My library offers $7 of free printing weekly!

If Frugal Friday becomes a book, I'd like to be identified AS:

[teresa_from_hershey]

If Frugal Friday becomes a book, I'd like to be identified as Teresa Peschel of Peschel Press.
You can include our website https://peschelpress.com/

My name is already out there and it's good advertising for OUR books.

Re: If Frugal Friday becomes a book, I'd like to be identified AS:

[ecosophia]

You'll probably have to remind me of this when I post an announcement that the book's going to happen.

Saving on medicines

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Everyone,
I was feeling a bit depressed and this is odd for me. My Naturopath took me off vitamin D as I was having a complication. So, I got a touch of seasonal-affective disorder and I hated it!

Instead of getting a prescription for an anti-depressant, I started to take a Saint John's Wort and Hawthorn flower, leaf and berry tincture. I take a teaspoon twice a day and, after a week or so, I am feeling my old happy, optimistic self.

This costs me nothing more than the price of two teaspoons of alcoholic spirits a day. I grow the Saint John's Wort and I harvested the Hawthorn goodies from a friend's hedgerow. That has got to be vastly cheaper than prescription medicine. It also works and I am not sure that anti-depressants do.

I have a problem with adrenal insufficiency and I make myself a tincture of licorice root and that helps very much. I also make antihistamine cream, a healing astringent cream, my own face cream, a spicy-astringent aftershave that we found cures cold sores like nothing on earth and a number of other medicinal goodies. I found most of my recipes and all the technical training I needed in Rosemary Gladstar's book "Medicinal Herbs, A Beginner's Guide. I bought the book ages ago for $15 US.

I gave some of my Bag Balm, this is what farmers call the ointment they put on dairy animals udders, to a friend. She put it on a rash the doctor had been trying all sorts of antibiotic creams on for weeks. The rash was totally gone in two days. She passed the remains of the cream on to another lady in the same position and her rash also disappeared in two days. The main herbs I use in the bag balm are comfrey and yarrow. The best bit was that my friend said, "Max is a Wizard!" I have always wanted to be a wizard.

The Bag Balm also cures hemorrhoids, as in totally gone and the anus returned to it's previous healthy state. I doubt that pharmaceuticals can do that. After all, a patient cured is a customer lost.
Maxine

Re: Saving on medicines

[courtinthenorth]

Hello Maxine! I would love to learn your bag balm recipe if you are able to share it?
Thanks in advance,
Courtney Coleman

An Up-To-Date Chromium-Based Web Browser Compatible With Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8.X

[(Anonymous)]

Date: 2025-11-22 04:48 pm (UTC)

From: fringewood

This is probably an odd post for frugal Friday, but if it keeps me from "upgrading" to win 10 or 11 it will save me a lot of frustration and it has!

Recently, I was unable to access my banking site as well as a music site where I sell an old-time album for a band I used to manage. The reason? My browser was "not supported" anymore on those sites because it needs ẃin 10 or 11 to be updated. I use win8.1 and am quite comfortable with it. Anyway, I searched for a free modern browser that was compatible with my older operating system, and found Supermium mentioned on a reddit post. Voila, it works and works well. Info from my old browser was exported and imported in very little time and I got on both sites with no problem. Put in an adblocker extension and I am good to go. I can use whatever search engine I want as well.

No more nags from sites that want me to upgrade, etc to be able to interact. Supermium is a drop-in replacement for Google Chrome with privacy and usability enhancements, optimized for legacy and modern Windows systems alike. No, I don't get money for recommending Supermium. Hope someone else will find it useful. https://win32subsystem.live/supermium/
--------

This is from last month's Frugal First Friday. Rather than comment there, I thought I would add my two cents in the current thread.

For those running older computers who are not invested in the Windows ecosystem, why not consider moving to Linux? Doing so will get you a FREE operating system with current security updates and your choice of web browsers, all of which are current and up-to-date to modern standards. I prefer Vivaldi or LibreWolf myself, but there are many more choices.

For Windows users, I recommend the Linux Mint distribution. It is well curated, stable and has a user interface that is intuitively familiar to Windows users.

If you are gaming oriented, Linux Mint will do (I use it myself) but they say that the Bazzite distribution with KDE Plasma desktop is growing in popularity with new users and has everything a former Windows user might need for gaming and everyday use. If you prefer a more MacOS-like environment, Bazzite is also available with the GNOME desktop.

Both the Linux Mint and Bazzite communities are super-friendly and very helpful with newcomers. Both distributions make an excellent starting point for those that would like an up-to-date, secure operating system without all the data-tracking you find in Windows 10 and 11 (can't speak to MacOS, as I don't use Apple products).

Best of all, for the frugally minded, Linux is free!

Caldathras

Re: An Up-To-Date Chromium-Based Web Browser Compatible With Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8.X

[(Anonymous)]

Recently had to replace my desktop tower. Emphatically did not want to "upgrade" to Win11. So finally made the leap to linux. Got new machine, before doing anything else, wiped it and installed Linux Mint (whatever the "lean" low-memory usage version is). There have been a few learning-curve type things, but nothing major, and I am really surprised by how little fuss and bother it's been. Usually when I get a new machine, I dread the hours of tracking down and deleting the bloatware. There was NONE of that this time. Easiest, least infuriating new-computer setup I've ever done.

Can't say it saved me a cent. But it saved me hours of inventive swearing!

Holiday decor

[michele7]

In our neck of the woods, the big box stores that sell Christmas trees mark them way down a week or so before the big day. I no longer get a real tree since my cats decided it was their personal jungle gym, but in the past I've snagged a 6 foot tree for $15. This year prices start around $160. I'm in central Florida.
Or you can think outside the box. I now have wreathes decorating our abode. I took my vintage ornaments I inherited and added them to fake evergreen wreathes and grapevine wreathes. I made a "child friendly" wreath with non breakables and bells and a hand carved bear in the center. This wreath hangs at eye level for my toddler grandchildren to be able to touch.

Re: Holiday decor

[(Anonymous)]

My mother's solution was an artificial tree. We've always lived with cats, so she got my father to install eye-hooks in the ceiling and ran support wires attached to the tree to those hooks. This kept the cats from knocking over the tree.

If course, we learned very quickly never to use tinsel on our trees. Not at all safe for cats.

A friend of mine had a pet Norway rat. He had the same problem with live trees.

Caldathras

christmas chicken

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of people are eating christmas dinner alone or in 3 or less people. A christmas chicken is much easier to cope with than a christmas turkey, is a more appropriate size for singles and small families, and it still looks very festive on the dining table and feels special. Not to mention much cheaper than buying a turkey.

This is what I and some of my family typically do for Christmas.

Re: christmas chicken

[(Anonymous)]

For my partner and I, we just buy a turkey breast rather than the whole bird. Sometimes, I roast it in the BBQ. Other times, I slice it up, brown the slices in a frying pan, make gravy in the same pan using turkey or chicken stock/broth and serve it as open-faced hot turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes and veggies. I make lots of gravy. My partner loves it this way.

Caldathras

Christmas tree

[(Anonymous)]

I have a tiny (just under 10 inch tall) fake christmas tree. Takes very litte space to store, super-easy to set up, cost me 50 cents (CAN) well over ten years ago. Deck with necklaces and hair clips, and park on top of your largest present.

I know this is a bit too minimal for most people, but I like it.

This year I will be adding a 5 inch tall nativity scene from the dollar store $2.75. Repaired, improved with epoxy putty, and given a total repaint by me working on it every day over the course of what looks to be more than a week. Trying to turn a piece of christmas tat into legitimate christian religious art. It won't be great art because I'm not a great artist, but I can make it sincere and meaningful. Also a lot better looking than it was before.

If you are an amateur artist who is a christian, I can recommend this project as inexpensive, fun, and meaningful, with a result that should hopefully last many years while taking up very little space.

Re: Christmas tree

[(Anonymous)]

We have kids, and they wouldn't tolerate such a small tree! But... we did go the artificial tree route for allergy as well as practical flooring-preservation reasons (can't afford accidents with water on rental house carpets!). Found a pretty OK-looking one at a thrift shop for $20. So far it's been four years and still going strong, so that amortizes to 5 dollars/yr so far ;) Since we got it secondhand, we regard it as a species of recycling.

I have noticed in my thrift shopping adventures that you can get artificial trees for next to nothing at estate sales.

Honestly look forward to the day when the kiddos are grown and we don't have to do the tree thing anymore: plan at that point to graduate to hanging favorite ornaments on a few garlands around the house, so I don't have to give up the floor space. Till then...

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

[kimberlysteele]

Believe it or not, I still had well over a dozen garden tomatoes as of yesterday. I took the bushes down in mid-November and it took this long for all the green tomatoes to ripen to red on the windowsill. Yesterday I finally had a little time, so I made them into pasta sauce.

Recipe

Approximately 15 medium sized tomatoes
olive oil
½ a medium sized onion, chopped finely
½ cup olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 6 ounce can of tomato paste
Salt and pepper

Cut the green tops out of the tomatoes. They do not need to be completely cored, just get rid of the top of the green stem and a little of the white part. Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop in the tomatoes. Take the heat down to low and simmer them for 5 minutes. Pour the tomatoes into a strainer and rinse them in cool water. You can also plunge them into an ice bath after they are strained but I do not find this to be necessary.

I squeeze each cooled tomato a bit to get some of the seeds and extra water out, but you don't need to do this.Peel off the skins. I compost mine. Set the peeled, strained tomatoes aside.

In the Instant pot or pressure cooker, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil. If you don't have an instant pot or pressure cooker, saute onion and garlic in the bottom of a large stewpot or dutch oven. Add the whole, strained tomatoes to the onion and garlic. Pressure cook on the soup setting for 10 minutes or allow the tomatoes to cook with the onion and garlic on low for a 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Once the tomato mixture is thoroughly cooked, mix in the brown sugar, vinegar, tomato paste, and then pepper and salt to taste. The tomatoes will easily smash with no blender necessary if they are cooked enough.

Re: Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

[(Anonymous)]

Myself, I would drop the sugar and change the vinegar to red wine vinegar. I would also add basil or thyme (or both!). Basil, in particular, enhances the flavor of tomatoes.

If you prefer a lighter tomato flavor, you could even drop the tomato paste.

Caldathras

Free Snow Melting Salt from Off the Street

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know about you all, but in my city, they dump a lot of extra salt out on the street when it is about to snow. So much extra salt that it lingers for days and weeks. I got to thinking about this last winter and thought I should go sweep some up and keep it for myself. I finally followed through on that thought this year. There were two areas right on my residential street that I swept up and put into a bucket for my own concrete steps and front sidewalk to use when it snows. I could have gotten a lot more, but I figured it was fine to stop at 3/4ths of 6 gallon bucket. If I need more before winter is over, I am sure I will have the opportunity to sweep up some more off the street around the time of the next snow. As it is, there are still several areas within the range of 3 or 4 blocks where I could easily get another few buckets full.

The only issue I see with this salt and using it around your house, is you may want to keep it away from any organic gardening beds. I am sure there are petrochemical traces in it, with all the oil and other drips that come from cars. How much is an unknown, but I am willing to use this free salt on my front steps. It's just going to go to waste otherwise.

Justin Patrick Moore

Re: Free Snow Melting Salt from Off the Street

[(Anonymous)]

Just as a heads up, salt can cause serious damage to concrete, including deterioration and cracking. It is also a health issue for your four-footed friends. My suggested alternative would be to use sand. If you're quick, you can gather up the excess sand from the roads in the spring before road maintenance gets to it.

Caldathras

Gardening

[(Anonymous)]

I've started gardening again this year. The second challenge with food gardening, after growing the stuff, is to actually eat what you grow! It's good to have some generic recipes for whatever random greens you have grown. Some ideas for using greens:

Stir fry - cabbage, pak choi, green beans, other Asian veggies
Salads - tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini / courgette
Quiche - spinach, spring onions
Omelettes - spinach, spring onions, cabbage

It takes a bit of effort to change your eating habits to match what you've grown. Herbs go in anything if you chop them finely enough.

Re: Gardening

[atmosphericriver]

This is why I had to come up with ways to eat butternut squash, and this year I have many butternut squash again. It is a challenge, but not a bad one.

It is good to preserve some of the bounty for later, tomatoes can be canned. Slices of zuchini and sliced spring onions can be dried.

Soups are great for taking a variety of vegetables you might have on hand

False economies -- things that feel like they should be frugal but aren't.

[(Anonymous)]

If our host will allow--

I'm interested in things that feel like they should be frugal, but actually aren't if you do the math. For example, sewing your own clothes. It feels like it should save you a lot of money but at least in North America you end up paying more for fabric alone than you would for the finished garment-- and still needing to buy notions, thread and price your labour. (around here it's rather a lot more).

Which isn't to say you shouldn't do it; it's a great hobby and you may find those skills very much come in handy one day. Just... don't expect to save money. Note that if you're doing repairs and alterations instead of sewing new that's obviously a different story.

What else has the air of frugality, but has been hollowed out by consumerism to become an expensive hobby?

Re: False economies -- things that feel like they should be frugal but aren't.

[kayr]

With all due respect, I think I will push back on the your idea that sewing your own clothes is not frugal. This will be something of a rant, so be prepared.

Perhaps you haven't noticed the down right cheapness and shoddiness of "new" clothing. Sure you can buy it for less, but if it survives two washes, it is usually buttons that come off or a seam opens up, I would be surprised. It is hard now to even find good used clothing in thrift stores now days. It isn't frugal to replace a new clothing item three or four times in the time it would take for a home made item to wear out. I am still wearing clothing items I made 20+ years ago and they are still going strong.

Granted most peoples access to "affordable" fabric was Joanns, thankfully now gone, you can still find reasonably good fabric at Hobby Lobby. I have also found many pieces of good quality fabric, silk, linen and wool, at thrift stores. Also notions collected in plastic bags for resale. There are also many online sites where good fabric can be had. It will not be cheap, but the cheapness we are so use to in fabric or clothing is because these things have been manufactured that way. Cheapness is what is being sold. In the end you have to buy more because cheap clothing or fabric, just won't last.

Don't forget the waste produced by the glut of cheap clothing that isn't worth repairing. If the thrift store can't sell it, it ends up flooding third world markets or your local landfill. If you spent a lot of money for a good piece of fabric, carefully constructed a useful garment, and you respect your work, you will probably be willing to mend it as needed until you can't anymore. If you are of an age, this is what your parents and grand parents did with their clothing as it wasn't cheap and they didn't have a lot of it.

Sewing your own clothing allows you to reduce the amount of clothing you have to purchase, store and maintain and will insure you get a quality garment that will last if you care to learn how to do it. You will never convince me that you can "do the math" and be more frugal by not sewing your own clothing. I believe that is a very false frugality.

Ok, rant off. Thanks for your tolerance.

Free Book Giveaway

[atmosphericriver]

I have 3 boos to give away to someone I can mail to in the USA. Yesterday I was out the thrift store and bought 2 to give away here. First they had a copy of Comfort in Any Climate, https://earthshipstore.com/products/comfort-in-any-climate I have this book and it is an unusual find, it first has an overview of passive solar heat and cooling principles, with an overview of Earthship buildings and how they full fill this. Lots of photos, not a long book, but a decent overview, I keep a copy on my shelf. The same principals and home layouts can be done in a different way, they wont have as much mass, but would be better than standard. This one was next to it, so I grabbed it too, Sunset Homeowners guide to Solar Heating, https://archive.org/details/sunsethomeowners00anto/page/n3/mode/2up this book is easy to find used, I also have a copy of this on my shelf. 1979, overview of mostly space heating theory, examples, good overview, photos - I recognize a few from other places, like Davis Village Home designs.

I would give away and send those 2 books as a set.

It turns out I still have one extra unused copy of Building a Better World in your Backyard, by Paul Wheaton, the slimy River link was amazingly long, so I deleted it, but there are alot of reviews there. https://buildingabetterworldbook.com/ All the footnotes link to the permies.com website But, of course the general take is correct, solutions that make the biggest difference are not what the corporations are pushing to for us to buy and these other solutions make more of a difference.

This can go separate as it is a different subject ( and a different layout size)

Why you should store water, at least a few gallons

[teresa_from_hershey]

So PA American Water has been replacing water mains in Reese Avenue for weeks.
This morning, with zero warning, our water was shut off.

Fortunately, I store gallon jugs of water in our basement for just such emergencies!

We can't flush toilets. If I had had advance warning, I would have filled the bathtub, put the rubber disk over the closed drain, added a bucket, and we could have flushed the main toilet as necessary for solids.

But because I've got those gallon jugs from the supermarket, we have water to drink, cook with, wash hands, brush teeth, and so forth.

No laundry. Dishwashing may be challenging.

But I have a choice.

The supermarket sells water very cheaply in 1-gallon jugs. Store them UNOPENED where it's cool, dry, and in the dark. You can safely ignore the "Use by" labels. It's clean even if it does go flat.

Always keep a few gallons of water on hand.
You never know when you'll need it right now.

Re: Why you should store water, at least a few gallons

[(Anonymous)]

When people are camping and hiking something to remember the rule of 3s. One of the rules 3 days without water and you are history. Blueberry

Thin pretzels gone slightly stale

[(Anonymous)]

Any suggestions for how to use them to make another dish?

Re: Thin pretzels gone slightly stale

[(Anonymous)]

Add them to a meat loaf or stuffing. Blueberry