We all have our areas of great talent. Some of us are very clever with crafts. Others can sniff out a good deal at the stores. Still others seem to be able to repair or mend just about anything. And some can take a can of paint and transform a beat-up piece of furniture into a true heirloom.
Are you a fab garage saler/thrift shopper? Can you turn old sheets into comfy pjs? Do you know where to put your investments? Are you on top of every bill and receipt?
Many of us are clever cooks, creating memorable meals. Some of us are coupon queens, stacking coupons on sales with rebates, and walking away with free products regularly. And some of us do beautiful needlework, making lovely gifts, making over clothing, and adorning our homes.
So what is your frugal specialty?
You could probably guess that mine is keeping our grocery bill low. It's what I do best in the frugal realm. But it's not the only way to watch our pennies. There are so many more ways, just as valuable, but don't always get the recognition that they deserve.
Although groceries are my area of specialty, I have found it incredibly helpful to read and learn from everyone else. Sometimes I just never would have thought to try something, on my own. But upon hearing a new trick or idea from someone else, it sounds completely do-able. Or maybe I've wanted to try something, but really needed the confirmation from someone else's experience.
So, now I'm asking you, what do you do best to contribute to your careful use of resources? Can you offer up one solid tip that has boosted your abilities in your specialty, even higher? Crafty people speak up! Handy repair people, tell us about your biggest success! Shoppers who sniff out the best deals, tell us about your best score! Clever cooks, what have you cooked/baked that you once thought "had" to be bought? I am positive that I've missed many areas, so fill me in.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
This week (the indoor edition) . . .
much is going on in our household. After a couple of beautiful spring days, the weather turned cold and rainy for much of last week. When the rain quit and sun came out on Sunday afternoon, I took a walk through the neighborhood and discovered many new "ponds". It had been a wet week, all right!
With so much rain, my attentions were turned indoors.
Last week was my birthday. Here's the cake my daughters frosted and decorated for me. The cake was a yellow scratch cake. The layers were glazed with the syrup from a jar of runny marmalade, and the frosting was citrus flavored. I have one last slice, tucked in the freezer, for some deserving soul, on some special occasion.
This week is my husband's birthday. With two birthdays so close together, we're really not in the mood for more cake. So, for Doug's birthday, I often make his favorite pie, lemon meringue.
Just so you know, if you're out of corn starch, you can still make a lemon meringue pie. I went to make this and discovered I only had half the required corn starch. I searched online and found a recipe that called for flour instead of cornstarch. I wanted the firmer texture that cornstarch gives, so I used the half amount of cornstarch that I had in the pantry (used 3 1/2 tablespoons for a 9-inch pie), *plus* half the online recipe's amount of flour (used 4 tablespoons for a 9-inch). It came out beautifully. The texture was creamy and smooth, and very lemony (I increased the lemon juice a bit).
I baked and cooked quite a lot this past week, from hamburger buns (for Doug's birthday dinner)
to pumpkin muffins (using up the cooked pumpkin in the freezer).
From dueling pots on the stove, one of pasta/pizza sauce, the other of Mexican bean soup,
to a fabulous garden lasagna. Sorry I have no pictures of the lasagna, as it got gobbled up pretty quickly. I was using up odd bits from the fridge and freezer, some tofu (mashed and flavored with garlic, lemon juice, and salt), mixed with a packet of pizzeria garlic dipping sauce, topped with several small packets of Parmesan cheese. I blended some chopped kale and carrots into the tofu "cheese" filling. Oh, was this ever delicious!
I also began cooking the frozen fruit juice from last summer's harvest, into jelly. This week I made the red currant jelly. Later I'll make the crabapple jelly. I use a particular method for cooking my jelly, both the juice extraction and the actual turning the juice into jelly. I find that when I take care to be precise, I have greater success. This tried and true method is right here.
And here's the rhubarb-cream cheese gelatin that I made Sunday afternoon, for Monday's dinner. It seems to firm up more, if I make it the day before serving. Here's the recipe.
I made a pasta salad, adding sliced olives, chopped canned tomatoes, and the florets from kale about to go to seed. They taste like broccoli, so much so, that my kale-loathing husband declared with glee, last week, "there's broccoli in the quiche!". I then informed him that it was kale florets. Much gagging and sputtering followed, with the knowledge that it was kale (kidding, he's a good sport!). Anyway, just before the kale goes to seed, I pluck off the florets and use as I would broccoli. This is the kale that I planted last fall.
Outside of the kitchen,
my daughters finally made their university choice for next year. It was between the large state university and a small private university. Either one would be a good choice. We looked at a variety of criteria, from having the right programs and courses available, to ratio of faculty to student, and finally how affordable both options were.
Something to be noted, in many areas, as state governments have had their budgets slashed, they've raised tuition, and have reduced the number of merit-based scholarships. A public university education is not as affordable as it once was.
Meanwhile, with private universities, sure their tuition may be high, but they often have more merit-based scholarship money to offer to deserving students. If your student has done well all through high school, don't rule out private universities, based on cost alone, as many students are being offered generous scholarships at these institutions.
For our daughters, they each received merit-based scholarships that will cover half of the tuition, at the small private university. This brought the overall cost down considerably, and made the private school competitive (cost-wise) with the public school. My daughters emailed their admissions counselor, on several occasions, requesting information on various financial concerns, such as scholarship renewal requirements for the scholarships they received. The admissions counselor has been a wealth of information for my daughters, and has guided them, step by step, through the entire process. Universities prefer to interact solely with the students, from the very beginning of the application process through graduation. They are adults, now, after all.
The small school was definitely a better fit for my daughters. And so, that was their choice. We filled out the paperwork for Seattle Pacific University this past week and sent it in. Woohoo! One more thing done, sealed and delivered!
I'll go into more detail on how we've prepared to finance this next step in our lives, in a future post. But I'll just say now, it looks like it will all work out, we'll avoid student loans, and our daughters will receive excellent educations (that is, if they put in the work! The school can't do it all.)
I've also been doing a bit of spring cleaning and reorganizing. The family room was in need of some attention. I straightened, rearranged and cleared the room of winter clutter. I repotted a sickly looking plant into fresh soil, hoping that will help. (I am terrible with indoor plants.) And I brought a faux ivy down from a shelf in the kitchen to the brick ledge above the fireplace. I took out some of my collection of seashells for the mantle, to put next to the photos of my kids at the beach.
How about you? What's been keeping you busy this past week?
With so much rain, my attentions were turned indoors.
Last week was my birthday. Here's the cake my daughters frosted and decorated for me. The cake was a yellow scratch cake. The layers were glazed with the syrup from a jar of runny marmalade, and the frosting was citrus flavored. I have one last slice, tucked in the freezer, for some deserving soul, on some special occasion.
This week is my husband's birthday. With two birthdays so close together, we're really not in the mood for more cake. So, for Doug's birthday, I often make his favorite pie, lemon meringue.
Just so you know, if you're out of corn starch, you can still make a lemon meringue pie. I went to make this and discovered I only had half the required corn starch. I searched online and found a recipe that called for flour instead of cornstarch. I wanted the firmer texture that cornstarch gives, so I used the half amount of cornstarch that I had in the pantry (used 3 1/2 tablespoons for a 9-inch pie), *plus* half the online recipe's amount of flour (used 4 tablespoons for a 9-inch). It came out beautifully. The texture was creamy and smooth, and very lemony (I increased the lemon juice a bit).
I baked and cooked quite a lot this past week, from hamburger buns (for Doug's birthday dinner)
to pumpkin muffins (using up the cooked pumpkin in the freezer).
From dueling pots on the stove, one of pasta/pizza sauce, the other of Mexican bean soup,
to a fabulous garden lasagna. Sorry I have no pictures of the lasagna, as it got gobbled up pretty quickly. I was using up odd bits from the fridge and freezer, some tofu (mashed and flavored with garlic, lemon juice, and salt), mixed with a packet of pizzeria garlic dipping sauce, topped with several small packets of Parmesan cheese. I blended some chopped kale and carrots into the tofu "cheese" filling. Oh, was this ever delicious!
I also began cooking the frozen fruit juice from last summer's harvest, into jelly. This week I made the red currant jelly. Later I'll make the crabapple jelly. I use a particular method for cooking my jelly, both the juice extraction and the actual turning the juice into jelly. I find that when I take care to be precise, I have greater success. This tried and true method is right here.
And here's the rhubarb-cream cheese gelatin that I made Sunday afternoon, for Monday's dinner. It seems to firm up more, if I make it the day before serving. Here's the recipe.
I made a pasta salad, adding sliced olives, chopped canned tomatoes, and the florets from kale about to go to seed. They taste like broccoli, so much so, that my kale-loathing husband declared with glee, last week, "there's broccoli in the quiche!". I then informed him that it was kale florets. Much gagging and sputtering followed, with the knowledge that it was kale (kidding, he's a good sport!). Anyway, just before the kale goes to seed, I pluck off the florets and use as I would broccoli. This is the kale that I planted last fall.
Outside of the kitchen,
my daughters finally made their university choice for next year. It was between the large state university and a small private university. Either one would be a good choice. We looked at a variety of criteria, from having the right programs and courses available, to ratio of faculty to student, and finally how affordable both options were.
Something to be noted, in many areas, as state governments have had their budgets slashed, they've raised tuition, and have reduced the number of merit-based scholarships. A public university education is not as affordable as it once was.
Meanwhile, with private universities, sure their tuition may be high, but they often have more merit-based scholarship money to offer to deserving students. If your student has done well all through high school, don't rule out private universities, based on cost alone, as many students are being offered generous scholarships at these institutions.
For our daughters, they each received merit-based scholarships that will cover half of the tuition, at the small private university. This brought the overall cost down considerably, and made the private school competitive (cost-wise) with the public school. My daughters emailed their admissions counselor, on several occasions, requesting information on various financial concerns, such as scholarship renewal requirements for the scholarships they received. The admissions counselor has been a wealth of information for my daughters, and has guided them, step by step, through the entire process. Universities prefer to interact solely with the students, from the very beginning of the application process through graduation. They are adults, now, after all.
The small school was definitely a better fit for my daughters. And so, that was their choice. We filled out the paperwork for Seattle Pacific University this past week and sent it in. Woohoo! One more thing done, sealed and delivered!
I'll go into more detail on how we've prepared to finance this next step in our lives, in a future post. But I'll just say now, it looks like it will all work out, we'll avoid student loans, and our daughters will receive excellent educations (that is, if they put in the work! The school can't do it all.)
I've also been doing a bit of spring cleaning and reorganizing. The family room was in need of some attention. I straightened, rearranged and cleared the room of winter clutter. I repotted a sickly looking plant into fresh soil, hoping that will help. (I am terrible with indoor plants.) And I brought a faux ivy down from a shelf in the kitchen to the brick ledge above the fireplace. I took out some of my collection of seashells for the mantle, to put next to the photos of my kids at the beach.
How about you? What's been keeping you busy this past week?
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