Five Frugal Holiday Things

Here are my top 5 frugal activities from this past holiday week.

1. I rendered ham fat to use in cooking later

I rendered the fat from our Christmas ham, saving the bits (cracklins') to top bowls of soup and the fat itself for use in cooking. (Here's how I render ham fat and make cracklins'. ) 

I was able to save about a half-pound of ham fat and about 1 cup of cracklins' which I'll use like bacon bits. I estimate the value of my savings to be in the neighborhood of $1.

2. I made flavorful stock from ham bones

After trimming as much fat and meat off the bones that I could, I roasted the bones in a 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes, then made ham stock in my crockpot overnight. Roasting the ham bone first really adds to the flavor of the stock -- process.  

After the long simmering, I was able to remove an additional 1½ cups of shredded ham meat from the bones (for adding to soup), and the batch yielded 3 quarts of stock. I estimate the value of the meat and stock to be around $4.

3. I washed used aluminum foil

I washed the aluminum foil that was used for baking the ham and for wrapping the almond-filled Christmas Day bread. I've washed and reused this foil several times. Yes, it has a few tears in it, but those tears can be temporarily "mended" by folding and crimping the foil around the tear. 

I washed 6 sheets of foil of varying lengths, perhaps about ⅓ of a small box of foil, with a value of 33¢.

4. I made 5 pints of eggnog for the six of us

I made 2 batches of homemade eggnog, one batch on Christmas Eve (which was completely consumed on Christmas Day) and the other batch yesterday. 

I saved about $2 by making my own eggnog at home this year. Eggnog is easy to make at home, and my family agrees that the commercial stuff now tastes chemically to us.

5. Free-pile!!!!

I stopped at a free-pile in front of a neighbor's home while on a walk this week and picked up a glass cheese dome/plate and a set of 4 LED snowflake window ornaments. 

"Tis the season to clean out your closets and make room for the new stuff! These are used items, so my estimate is based off of thrift store pricing -- about $4 for cheese dome/plate and window ornaments.

$11.33 for these 5 holiday money-savers. I also saved ribbons/bows/gift bags from Christmas gifts to reuse next year, saved some of the holiday wrapping paper to use in crafting, made several jars of cocoa mix for my family, reused a lightweight cardboard New Year's banner (the kind designed to be used once, then thrown away), found 4 party poppers leftover from last year's package to use on New Year's Eve (hoping they still work for tonight), and watched a bunch of free movies on tubi.

Have you used tubi before? In what ways were you frugal this holiday season?