Hybrid Shopping to Save Money

When I think of the word "hybrid", I usually think of something with two components that makes one working whole, like a hybrid engine. My hybrid shopping actually has three components, in-person/in-store, in-person/pick-up, and home delivery. 

I began using a hybrid approach to shopping last spring to minimize virus risk. I am now continuing to use my hybrid approach to save the maximum amount of money while saving my energy and time.

I shop in-person at a couple of stores to buy those items that are true deals -- priced lower than any other store. A couple of these stores don't offer curbside pick-up, so shopping in-person is my only option. Other stores do offer pick-up service, but I might only need a handful of items and not meet the minimum spend for free service.  So, I am left with shopping myself, the old-fashioned way, where I actually have to push my own cart!

I also shop via in-person pick-up at Walmart, because I can usually meet the $35 minimum for a free pick-up. I am only buying from Walmart those items that are best deals, made in USA, and/or are only available locally through Walmart. This is usually just a handful of items, such as bathroom tissue, bar soap, dish detergent, and a few food items.

In addition, I order a few items once every couple of months from walmart.com or target.com to be shipped to my home. I discovered that some items that I would normally buy at my local store are actually priced lower if bought online to be delivered, using free delivery on a minimum spend. With Walmart.com's $35 minimum order for free delivery, this is easy to meet once every 6 weeks or so for our supply of coffee, decaf and one or two other items. Some items are priced the same whether bought in-person or shipped, so I add those items to whichever order (my pick-up or my shipping order) based on where I need to spend more to make the minimum $35 for free shipping or pick-up.

So, how much am I saving by combining these three approaches? Last week, I put in two orders at Walmart, one for pick-up and one for delivery. I didn't need much, but I did compare prices online for each item. I spent $47 for a curbside pick-up and just over $35 for a delivered order. I saved 39 cents on a large jar of Folger's coffee, 18 cents on a smaller jar of Folger's decaf, 38 cents X 2 for a couple of bags of Wheat Montana ww flour, 40 cents X 4 for four bags of dried cherries, and 50 cents on a multi-pack of bar soap. That's a total savings of $3.43 simply by choosing shipping for some items and pick-up for others. This savings is on top of having compared prices with other grocery stores.

It didn't cost me a single extra cent to split my order this way. Often times, when we're shopping around town trying to get the best deal, we're spending extra money (gas for our car) and time to shop those different stores.

This coming week, I'll be shopping in-person in another store to pick-up other essentials for our household, focusing on those items that are best deals in that store and/or made/grown in USA-only products.

All in all, I'd estimate that by comparing my different shopping options, I'm now saving about $25 to $30 per month while buying the same basic foods, and I'm not running all over town each week to do so. 

Food Not Wasted Is Money Saved

Gingerbread made with leftover cooked ginger root,
past-dated heavy cream, and"old"rye flour

This last week has been one of using up leftovers. Some of these leftovers we ate, as is, and others we made-over into new foods and dishes. Not only does not wasting food save money on our grocery bill, but it also means that we aren't taking more of the world's food supply than we will use. Here's what I was able to "save" this past week:

• the ginger root that I used to make a syrup for homemade ginger ale -- I diced the cooked ginger root slices tiny and added to batter for a gingerbread cake. I also used rye flour that has been in my pantry for about 4-5 years.
• whipping cream several weeks past sell-by date with slightly soured smell and a bit gloppy -- used in the batter as part of the milk for husband's birthday cupcakes and batter for gingerbread
• leftover cream filling for my birthday copycat Hostess cupcakes -- added cocoa powder, vanilla extract, powdered sugar to make a creamy chocolate frosting for husband's birthday cupcakes
• 2 tablespoons pizza sauce from Friday's pizza dinner -- made a cup of Italian tomato soup for myself, adding chicken bouillon and water
• as mentioned earlier, cheese sauce (leftover from brunch), tomato slices (leftover from burger bbq), cooked bacon (leftover from brunch) -- put together with toast and made Welsh Rarebit
• leftover washed lettuce leaves from burger bbq fixings and leftover celery and carrot sticks from birthday bbq -- chopped the celery, carrot sticks, and lettuce to make a salad for dinner on last Sunday

What have been your "food saves" lately?

Some Highlights of My Week in Pictures

Using up leftovers from last weekend, one night I made Welsh Rarebit for a quick supper. We had bacon, tomato slices, and cheese sauce leftover from brunch and a bbq. All I had to do was toast some bread and assemble.

Violets are in bloom all over our yard this week. I picked a bunch of the blossoms and leaves to press to use in making a card for someone special. I hope the colors of the petals and leaves hold.

So, this is our greenhouse. I wrote about this a few years ago. It has a tubular frame with 5 shelves, and has a plastic cover that slips over the top and zips at the sides. It's portable and can be disassembled easily, but we leave it up year round and use it for winter storage for patio cushions and empty pots.

One of 5 edible hanging baskets. It contains 1 green leaf lettuce, 3 small red leaf lettuce (hard to see as the red is so dark), 1 thyme cutting that I rooted in water earlier this year, 1 nasturtium seedling, 1 tiny parsley seedling, a bunch of radish sprouts (to use as greens, so tightly-packed), and a few spinach sprouts. They all just need to grow, now!

I trimmed up the rosemary plant on both sides to make room for a couple extra lettuce seedlings. The rosemary that I trimmed has been used in meals this week.

Another free pile yielded 4 of these lime green and white chairs. Yes, they were free. I was on a walk with one daughter, so we had to carry the bunch home.

And finally, one last batch of cupcakes for spring. Yesterday was my husband's birthday (4 spring birthdays in our family), so I baked these up in honor of his birthday.

We had about 10 days of beautiful weather, so I've been working and walking outdoors as much as I could. I overhauled the pumpkin patch, hoping for a better yield this year. My husband built another bed for ever-bearing raspberries. I've been hauling soil and compost to fill it. I moved a blueberry bush into a sunnier location, hoping it will produce better. And I started some seeds directly in the garden. Rain is expected to return over the weekend. I guess it's not summer after all. Oh well, the water will be good for the garden and the bare spots in the lawn that I patched.

How was your week?

Free-Pile Find -- A Shepherd Hook for Garden Lighting

One of the wonderful outdoor decor finds from last week's free-pile is this black metal shepherd hook-style plant hanger. I could immediately see that this would make a great candle hanger for the garden.

Once home, I used some household wire to turn a canning jar into a hanging candle holder.

I wrapped one length of wire around the top of the canning jar, just below the threads, twisting a loop on opposite sides of the jar.

I used another length of wire to make the hanger, attaching an end to each of these side loops.

Finally, I twisted a loop at the top of the suspending wire to secure the candle holder onto the shepherd hook. The lit candle added ambience to the garden during our Saturday evening celebration.

Also at the free pile was this nifty plastic tray -- just the thing I was needing to add more plant capacity to my greenhouse.

My Homemade Ginger Ale

To make ginger ale at home, I used a ginger syrup and club soda. I checked several recipes online for the ginger syrup and settled on a hybrid of several versions. Here's what I made mine.

Ingredients:

1 hand ginger, peeled and sliced thin
4 strips of lemon peel (6 or 8 might be nice for more lemony flavor)
3 cups water

scant 1  1/2 cups of granulated sugar

Ginger is easiest to peel if you cut the segments apart. Then you can use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin before slicing or mincing.

I peeled the ginger, then sliced into 1/16-inch slices. I had about 1 cup of slices when done.

In a stainless saucepan, I placed the 4 strips of lemon peel, sliced and peeled ginger, and 3 cups of water. I brought it all to a boil, reduced the heat and simmered, covered, for 10 minutes.

Next, I stirred in the sugar and brought back to a boil. Once boiling, I reduced the heat and simmered gently, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

I allowed the infusion to cool with a lid on for 1 hour. After an hour, I strained the syrup through a mesh sieve and chilled it. 

After simmering, I had about 2 cups of strained syrup.

To make ginger ale, I used about 3  1/2 to 4 tablespoons of syrup for every 8 ounces of club soda. The sugary syrup causes the soda to really fizz up, so I discovered it was better to add the soda to a bottle or glass first, then add the syrup.

I wanted the ginger ale in bottles for self-serve on Saturday. However, I think this homemade version has more fizz when made fresh for each serving, pouring the club soda in a glass first, then spooning in measures of the ginger syrup.

My homemade ginger ale is very gingery and not nearly as sweet-tasting as commercial ginger ale. Because . . . frugal -- I've saved the cooked ginger pieces in the fridge in an airtight container and will chopped them fine to add to ginger cake later this week.

This was fun and delicious. I'll try it again very soon and maybe add more lemon peel and perhaps a bit of lemon juice.

Moisture Absorbers for Soil in Hanging Baskets and Window Boxes

I wanted to show you a product that I've been using the past couple of years. I've been adding this to soil in hanging baskets in order to reduce the amount of watering needed. There are several brands on the market. I use Soil Moist.

I bought this 3-oz packet a couple of years ago and still have quite a bit left. The packet instructions say to use 1 1/2 teaspoons of granules for a 10-inch diameter basket or equivalent measure for window boxes. You need to mix this into the bottom 2 or 3 inches of soil --  the root zone. This year, I've started fresh with my baskets' soil. I scooped soil into my basket, sprinkled the Soil Moist over it, then mixed it in with my hand before topping with more soil.

Using a moisture retention product doesn't eliminate watering, but it does hold enough moisture that I can water less often. The packet says that their product can cut watering up to 50%.

I wanted to show you just what 1 1/2 teaspoons of this product looks like both dry and wet.

Here is 1  1/2 teaspoons dry granules.

I began adding water and the granules quickly sucked it all up.

So I added more and more water, until I had added just over 1 cup of water to that 1  1/2 teaspoons of Soil Moist. At that point, I quit, as my bowl was getting full. But this is pretty amazing stuff, isn't it? 

A Peaceful Birthday

a cream-filled chocolate cupcake à la Hostess cupcakes

While excitement can be enticing, for me a quiet and peaceful birthday is preferable. One daughter was home all day, so she and I went for a long walk in the morning, stopping by a free pile and garage sale along the way. We snagged some gardening supplies and outdoor decorations for the great price of FREE. The other daughter came home around 1 PM and the two of them cooked a nice, late brunch for the 4 of us. The weather was gorgeous all day, so we dined on the deck. After brunch, I worked outdoors, organizing the portable greenhouse and potting some hanging baskets. My lovely daughters also made dinner for the four of us, which we ate while watching a movie using the roku. I also made the ginger ale syrup to use on Saturday night when we celebrated as a 6-some (with son and daughter-in-law). Just a very nice, laid back sort of birthday. 

A few days previous, I had mentioned a momentary longing for a Hostess cupcake, the kind with a cream filling. Well, my two daughters made a batch for us to have as my birthday dessert on Friday. They followed a scratch chocolate cupcake recipe of mine, filling with a copycat Hostess cream filling, and topping with fudge frosting. The copycat cream filling is one of many found online that contains marshmallow cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, salt, hot water, and shortening, like this one. My daughters modified the recipe slightly, making a marshmallow cream substitute with mini marshmallows and corn syrup, and then adding a bit of butter to taste at the end of mixing all of the ingredients. Very delicious and satisfied that longing.

Making Soda Pop

Did you know that there are a couple of kinds of soda pop that you can make at home? I have an aunt who was legend for her homemade root beer at family reunions. She flavored hers with sarsaparilla, sassafras, vanilla bean, and licorice root. This has been on my must-do summer fun list for years. I'm thinking this year on the 4th of July, my family will make root beer.

There's another flavor of homemade soda that I really enjoy and will be making today -- Ginger Ale. There are a few ways to carbonate flavored soda: dry ice, yeast, water kefir, and using club soda or seltzer water. Each has its merits. 

I'm going for easy, so I'll be adding club soda to a homemade ginger simple syrup. Ginger simple syrup is easy to make, simmering fresh lemon and fresh ginger root in water, sweetened with sugar, and cooked down to syrup stage. Finally, the syrup is strained before adding to the beverages, such as club soda or tea.

There's a reason I'm making ginger ale today. It's my birthday! Today, I'm choosing activities that will put a smile on my face. Making ginger ale is one of those fun projects to celebrate the day.

Have a great weekend!

Dyeing Polyester Fleece

Hard to get the lighting right on this.
It's more uniform in color than it looks in the photo.

My daughter Grace had a white bathrobe made of polyester fleece that she wanted dyed another color. I looked into dyeing synthetic fabrics and found a product made by Rit called DyeMore. Synthetic fabrics don't grab onto the traditional Rit dye very well. DyeMore is supposed to be a solution for these fabrics. 

Grace wanted her white robe dyed camel-colored. DyeMore in Sandstone looked like it would produce the correct color. I read and followed the online directions precisely, including using a high-heat dye technique instead of using my washing machine for dyeing. 

I pre-washed the robe in warm, soapy water to remove the manufacturer's finish. Using my very largest stainless steel stockpot, I brought 3 gallons of water up to 200 degrees F, as instructed, before adding the contents of the well-shaken dye bottle. I then submerged the robe. I kept the dye bath on the stove over Medium heat the entire time, noting polyester requires longer than nylon and other synthetics. I stirred as instructed. Then  a little after an hour (the recommended time by the dye manufacturer), I drained the dye bath and robe into the washer and washed it in warm soapy water and dried.

While the robe took color well, it grabbed more of the yellow and less of the tan than I had expected. It turned out more of a creamy yellow than camel. Fortunately for me, Grace loves this color as much as she says she would have loved a camel-color. There was also an issue with the threads on one of the pockets dyeing more tan than yellow. I hope that fades. I also wonder how this fleece color will launder over time. I've had many dyed items fade significantly with numerous washings. I guess we'll find out.

I was reading online that it's a gamble when dyeing synthetic fabrics. You never know how true the color will dye. While I was disappointed the color wasn't what I thought it would be, I'm relieved that this satisfied my daughter. 

Have you tried dyeing synthetic fabrics? What's been your experience with using fabric dye?

Fragranced Candle Not Burned All the Wax?

My son and daughter-in-law gave me this wonderful candle for Christmas. I used it while working out all winter and enjoyed its relaxing fragrance. Like so many jar candles, this one couldn't burn all the wax. There's about 1/4-inch of wax at the bottom of the jar. It's still delicately fragranced. And I didn't want to lose that aspect of the candle. I thought it might make a nice "sachet" for my pajama drawer.

I've got the remnant of wax in the jar set inside a drawer and am pleased that it gives just a hint of fragrance to my pjs. I'll eventually melt the wax and combine it with wax from similarly-fragranced candle remnants. But until then, it makes a nice "sachet".

Hanging Salad and Herb Baskets

We have 6 hanging baskets for plants for our house (5 are matching). In 2018, I had them all filled with flowers. Then in 2019 I thought to fill them with nasturtiums for edible blossoms. In 2020, I planted them with red leaf lettuce. Unbeknownst to me, one basket had a hitch-hiking nasturtium seed in the soil and gave me a very pretty little plant alongside that basket's lettuce. At the end of last season, I thought I'd like to grow several types of plants in each basket. That's what I'm trying this year. Here's a photo that I saw online that I'm trying to imitate.

So far for the baskets, I've started parsley, red and green leaf lettuce, and nasturtium seeds, plus I took cuttings from my existing thyme plant. I can add radish, spinach, and cilantro seeds directly to the baskets when transplanting my seedlings and cuttings. I think they'll be pretty. It looks like the best appearance comes from a very full basket. So, that's my goal. These will all hang along the eaves of the back of the house, where we get the most sun exposure. 

Pretty and edible -- that puts a smile on my face!

I was needing a new potholder . . .

If you remember, a couple of years ago I patched my oven mitts. That fix lasted a good two years. So, I'm satisfied with the work done then. However, my oven mitts have now developed actual holes (not just thin spots as before) right where my fingers need to be when I grab a hot baking pan out of the oven. In fact, I got a sharp surprise about a month ago when grabbing the pizza out of the oven. Ouch!

Anyway, I've been looking at oven mitts in stores and online for a few weeks. Most of what I find in the stores are all made in other countries. As I'm still trying to buy from my preferred countries, this left me with shopping through Etsy. As we all know, Etsy can be a bit expensive.

One afternoon, I just thought, "utilitarian items don't need to be pretty. It's okay with me if utilitarian items look utilitarian." Thinking in this way gave me the freedom to just sit down and sew a potholder, using some of my fabric scraps.

If you're practiced at making over blue jeans, you know that you wind up with lots of denim pieces like lower jean legs (jean shorts anyone?). A cut off lower leg of a pair of jeans is just the type of thing that a packrat like me will hold onto for years. Because, well, you know, you just might need that piece of denim. 

I used one denim leg (along with other scraps as an insulating layer) to make this denim potholder.  Using scraps that I had on hand meant little risk should it not turn out and no expense. The whole project took less than an hour and was ready to use that very night when making dinner.

It's nothing special to look at. But it is a utilitarian item, after all. Why am I telling you about my new potholder made from blue jean scraps? I know that sometimes I have a hard time beginning a project because of fear of failure. In sewing projects, that failure might be not turning out as well as my mind envisions. In these cases, I have to give myself permission to fail before I even begin. Using scraps that were free to me is just such "permission." Nothing at risk, but a lot to gain -- makes me think of the Nike slogan, "Just do it."

Now that I've actually made this one (and solved our potholder problem), I'm wishing I'd done this several weeks ago. Having a usable potholder would have saved my family members a burn or two. 

Sorry to Be AWOL Last Week

If you look really close, you can see my beet sprouts.
These are from seeds I saved from a beet plant last year.
I wasn't sure if they'd sprout or not and began to think not after 3 weeks.
Then one day, they surprised me!

After Easter, I crashed and crashed hard. I was exhausted to the point that I knew I couldn't do everything that I would normally. I had to drop a couple of items from my usual list in order to put in serious effort on other agenda items. So, I'm sorry that keeping up with this blog was one of the things I had to drop for the week. 

Easter is like many other significant holidays for me. Every year, I put a lot of work into pulling the entire holiday together for my family. I know many here don't "do" holidays to the extent that my family does, so I don't tend to post all that I do. Anyway, we had a wonderful Easter. I hope that you did, too! 

My Tomato Seedlings Grown from Seeds

I started a bunch of tomato plants the last week of February and have been growing them under lights indoors ever since. This is what my six-week old plants look like now. I'll be able to transplant these out to the raised bed garden, under plastic tunnels, after the 22nd of April. The Farmer's Almanac says I could transplant these out around the 12th to 18th of the month in my area, but my particular microclimate is a bit cooler than other parts of my zip code, due to lots of tall evergreen trees all throughout my neighborhood.

Anyway, just updating. The plants are looking healthy. I hope they will size-up a bit more before planting time.

So, a cost analysis -- I bought seeds this winter, spending about $3 for enough seeds for two seasons, so estimating $1.50 for the seeds for this batch of plants. I also bought potting soil in which to start the seeds and have been using electricity for the grow lights. A high estimate for a batch of 10 seedlings (some to give away and some to plant) is around $2.75 to $3.00, or 28 to 30 cents each plant. In some past years, I've bought a 4-pack of small seedlings for around $2.50, or about 60 cents per plant. And in other years, I've bought the much larger plants for about $2.50 to $3.00 each plant. 

Starting from seeds -- 30 cents each. Buying small seedlings -- 60 cents each. Buying large plants -- $3.00 each. 

The happy side bonus is that I get to watch the plants grow bigger and bigger with each passing week. You can't put a price tag on happy moments, can you?

Happy Easter!

 

Wishing you a Happy Easter!

Our Easter Menu

Mounce, Grace. Easter Watercolor. 2021.
Watercolor and gouache on paper. 7 in. x 10 in.

Yet another holiday celebrated as an outdoor event! We plan on having a cook-out (surprise, surprise), so that we can have our son and daughter-in-law with us. Our plan is an early afternoon brunch. And we'll once again use our patio fire ring. With the fire, we all stay warm as we roast our main dish. Here's the menu:

Brunch Kabobs (ham chunks, smoked beef sausage, green and red pepper chunks & mushrooms)

Egg and Cheese Strata

Baked Apples

Tomato and Watercress Salad

Grilled Canned Pineapple Slices

Banana Bread

Orange Juice, Coffee, Tea

Rhubarb Pie

All simple foods, wholesome and made from scratch. I think it will be delicious. As you can see, this is not at all a traditional Easter Dinner. Hopefully by next year, we'll be back to normal holiday celebrations. What are your plans for Easter?

 

Pom Pom Chick Critter

Just wanted to show you my cute (and itty bitty) pom pom chick friend. He looks like he's ready for Easter.