It's that time again, where I write up the list of frugal things I've done recently for everyone to see. This provides me with accountability, sometimes inspires me to do more frugal things (so I can write about it here after), and reminds me when I feel like I'm a frugal fraud that I am not, and hopefully will inspire you to see what frugal things you can do in your day to day life.
Food
- I had a recipe that called for an expensive quick cooking cut of meat in a soup, so I took a much cheaper tougher cut of meat and pressure cooked it to soften it to use in the soup (and it came out amazingly soft).
- I used old wrinkly apples as well as ones that had parts that needed bad parts cut out of them to add to a rice pudding.
- I used some of those same apples to make a microwave apple pie filling.
- I used greens that sprouted from my onions in place of scallions in a recipe.
Free Things
- A neighbor of mine had a giant thing of frozen mixed vegetables that she didn't want and gave it to me for free. I've been using it as often as I can in recipes.
- A friend got some fish delivered by the fishmonger that were not what she ordered, so he refunded her and told her to keep them. She didn't like them and offered them to whoever wanted them, and I made some delicious blackened fish with them.
- Another friend got some eggplant and sweet potatoes in a delivery that she didn't want and passed them on to me.
Shopping
- Frozen green beans are an easy tasty vegetable that I can buy relatively cheaply, but when I saw them even cheaper than usual, I stocked up on them.
- Tilapia is also cheap here, but it was $1.25 cheaper per pound than usual so I stocked up.
- I bought beef roast when there was a significant sale.
- I bought chicken thighs and drumsticks at half their usual price!
Made From Scratch
- I wanted to have steak and they had boneless beef ribs on sale, and I asked the butcher about them, and he showed me which part I could cut out to make steaks, and then slow cook the rest. So I basically got steak for the price of boneless ribs, about 2/3 or less of the price of steak.
- I made gluten free (nearly vegan) homemade soft pretzels. As soon as I perfect this recipe, I'll be sharing this with you.
- I made my own sports drink.
- My kids like coffee slushies, so I make them at home when they get up early enough in the morning that we have time before school.
- I made homemade bread.
- I made paneer cheese.
- I made gluten free croutons.
- I made my flax based vegan mayo.
- I made a vegan Caesar salad dressing.
- I stretched ground beef a lot to make it into Sloppy Joes. First I mixed it with a lot grated zucchini and sauted it with onions. Then I added chopped tomatoes and peppers in addition to the sauce ingredients. Probably less than half was meat but it didn't feel that way.
Revamped Leftovers
- I had some vegetable soup that the family got bored of, so I revamped it by adding some chicken drippings, a bunch of other vegetables, and tomato paste, to make an entirely differently tasting soup.
- I used leftover coleslaw to make cabbage patties. (Not sure how successful they were but, hey, I tried.)
- I used chicken drippings to flavor mashed potatoes.
DIY
- A pergola that my ex made a bunch of years ago and had been holding up my passionfruit vine broke, knocking the passionfruit vine partially onto the ground. I rebuilt the pergola into a stronger trellis to hold up the passionfruit vine and reattached it.
- I gave my daughter a pixie haircut (again).
- I went shopping at Ikea to get needed furniture, but and made a very strict shopping list, and stuck to it exactly. We then built the furniture ourselves instead of hiring people to do it (and it was hell to build, but we did it anyhow).
Other
- We can redeem certain types of recycling bottles for cash and it's a pain, but I gathered all the bottles sitting in my yard and brought them to the store and made a nice $15 in cash.
What frugal things have you gotten up to lately? What are you most proud of?