Frugal Friday: Eight Tips for Saving $100 This Year
Inspired by this post of mine, Hope emailed in the following article. Enjoy!
Eight Tips for Saving $100 This Year
Guest Post by Hope Ware
1. Combine trips.
With the price of gas being $3.00 a gallon, this is a big savings. I save the Sunday fliers that have items that I am interested in looking at later in the week. Then, I make a master list of all of my "stops" and what items I will purchase at each place. I pull all coupons ahead of time and clip them to the list. My husband is great at looking at my list of stores and planning the "master driving route" that will make the most sense and save the most miles.
2. Eat more beans.
Beans are an incredible source of fiber and protein. We purchase organic ones in 25-pound bags from a Whole Foods Co-op. It makes the price very reasonable.
Think outside the box. Beans can be used in a huge variety of ways--not just in soup. Many, many beans can be cooked without any added meat and will still give you that "meaty" texture and full feeling of meat. I make lentil burgers that we top just like hamburgers--at a fraction of the price.
Remember that most beans need to be soaked overnight in twice as much water as beans. Add 1-2 Tblsp. of vinegar to aid in digestibility. Cook a huge batch of beans and freeze them in 2-4 cup zippered bags in the freezer. Then, when you need them for a recipe, the hard work of soaking and cooking is already done!
3. Institute a weekly baking day.
Each week, I use one day as a day to bulk bake. I bake 3 loaves of bread, 2 tins of muffins, 2 tins of cornbread, and any other bread that I might need during the week.
One reason I like to make a weekly menu plan is that I can consult it ahead of time and see what bread products I'll need that week. I always bake a little more than I think I will need. Muffins freeze great and can be thawed in small amounts for lunches for the children or for your husband to take to work.
Think ahead while have the oven heated up on baking day. Throw in a few potatoes to bake at the same time. I always bake twice as many potatoes as we eat in one meal. The first half of the potatoes are served with some sort of meat dish. The extra ones are eaten as a "baked potato bar" the next night with various toppings on the table. The whole family loves this tradition.
4. Eat less meat!
We try to eat vegetarian 2-3 nights a week. I make one night a "main meat" night. I have three (soon-to-be four) sons and one hungry husband. I would face a major mutiny if I didn’t serve "meat on a platter" once a week. So, I pick one day in which they can be carnivorous. After that, meat is considered to be a "garnish" to go along with lots of grains and veggies.
Think about trying more stir fry, homemade soups, and frittatas (that's a bit of meat with some veggies and beaten eggs thrown on top and cooked over low heat until the eggs are "set"). There are so many wonderful recipes that stretch your meat budget and are still so delicious that your carnivores will ask for more!
5. Use a weekly menu planning sheet.
I like to use this menu planner because it has slots to allow me to simultaneously plan the menu and delegate who sets and clears the table and who does the dishes. With older children who take on these responsibilities, it is great to have it posted on the fridge. It saves a lot of time trying to figure out whose "turn" it is to do a certain chore.
Each week, I choose two of my cookbooks and peruse them while planning the menu. I try to rotate cookbooks so I can get fresh inspiration each week.
6. Know what you have!
This goes from food to all those hand-me-down clothes you have stored in the attic. You need to have a really good idea of what items you have on the pantry shelf. I match items that I have on hand with recipes when I do my weekly menu planning.
Have a fairly well stocked cupboard so that you don't have to run to the store for just a few items that are missing in your weekly recipes. Put those hand-me-downs into Rubbermaid bins marked with the gender, season, and size on the outside of the bin. It makes it so easy to head to your storage area before the beginning of garage sale season and make quick list of what is missing from your child’s wardrobe. This way you will avoid buying what you don't need.
7. Hang your laundry on a clothesline to dry.
My husband put a line up for me last year and I love it! We live on a very small city lot so space was a problem. We found a retractable five-line clothesline that hangs on the side of our house. My husband installed it so that the lines will pull out right over the driveway. This way if something falls while the children are helping me hang up the laundry or take it off the line, the item may need to be rewashed, but it isn't muddy from falling on the ground. I pull out the line, dry the clothes, and then, when I'm finished with drying the laundry, it retracts back into the holder until the next time. Wonderful!! We saved a ton of money on the monthly utility bills during the Spring, Summer, and Fall by using this clothesline.
8. Look for free fun!
Save that park district book when it comes in your local paper or you find a copy of it at local businesses. Local park districts are goldmines for free or low cost fun!
Our local Nature Center offers several free (or donation-only) classes per semester. Local parks have several free (or nearly-free) events every summer. The local civic band plays twice a week at a local park for free. The zoo even offers one free week during the summer.
When you are at the local library always pick up a copy of the children's activity listings for the month. We have attended many free library events--and even counted some as "school" because some are so educational!
-Hope has been married to Larry for nearly 20 years. They are both lifelong residents of Central Illinois and enjoy spending time together as a family. They are homeschooling three boys - ages 11, 9, and 3. Baby number 4 is due at the end of March. Hope enjoys cooking from scratch, budgeting, singing, and writing.
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Join in Frugal Friday! Have a tip, resource, idea, or thought related to frugality? Post about it on your blog and then come back here and share the link with us below. Remember to keep it family-friendly. Thanks for participating.
Labels: Frugal Friday
posted by Crystal Paine at 7:28 PM
20 Comments:
Great ideas Crystal! Just wanted to tell you that I LOVE Frugal Friday blogs. Such great ideas!
Hi! This is my first time participating in Frugal Fridays! I'm so excited! My frugal ideas are about small pet care.
Excellent post, Hope! I love the baking day idea . . . and I'm in the process of (hopefully) buying a nice used freezer, so I intend to put this idea into practice! I've actually heard that drying your clothes on the line provide health benefits versus drying in the dryer! (Too bad for me because my landlord won't permit a clothes line) Thank you for an inspiring and practical post.
I love those mocha specialty coffees, they used to be my weakness whenever I was on the road. Now I always make myself a BIG travel mug before I leave the house. Half steamed milk, half strong coffee, one BIG spoon of cadbury hot chocolate powder and a little spritz of whipped cream from a can. JUST as good as cafe bought stuff for pennies a mug.
dearest Crystal, you and your guests are just way too organized! But I love it, We need to do a whole series on feeding sons, it is a challenge! love you!
blessings, Penny Raine
http://www.pennyraine.com/blog
I love all these ideas. Some of them I already do, but I'm looking forward to trying more.
Thanks for the wonderful post Hope! Those are some great ideas... I need to be more diligent about the ONE baking day thing... things run so much more smoothly for the week when I do!
Crystal,
Thank you once again for the great place your blog is. I love Frugal Fridays, and the great tips and encouragement brought here each week.
Thank you!
Erin
This is my first time participating in Frual Friday. My post is actually a what NOT to do LOL! I guess we can all learn from our (and others) mistakes :-)
Crystal, I don't see the linking tool. Is something goofy with my browser, or is it missing?
My post for this week is at http://joyoffrugalliving.blogspot.com/2008/02/frugal-friday-frugal-flowers.html.
It's about enjoying flowers in your home without spending too much money.
Jennifer
Great ideas. I look forward to implementing some of them.
This is my first time posting a Frugal Friday post. Thank you so much for this blog, Crystal! :)
Sure do love checking out yours and other's ideas here at frugal fridays. These carnivals are so fun and a great way to find other great bloggers!
Those are great tips, I'm so glad she shared!
Love your blog, Crystal! This is my first time participating in Frugal Fridays, and I added a link to my idea about writing complimentary letters to companies.
Talk about FRUGAL! I just got my Basic H cleaner that Crystal has posted on a few times, and my goodness will this stuff last a LONG time!! Two drops...just two drops makes a sixteen ounce bottle of window cleaner! A quarter teaspoon (that is right...1/4 teaspoon) makes a sixteen ounce bottle of all purpose cleaner! This stuff is great! Bonus...no harmful chemicals. My kids (4 and 22 months) were cleaning with me this morning, and I didn't have to worry one bit about it. Thank you Crystal for the heads up on Basic H!! I think I am going to give it a whirl in my steam vac too!!
On a side note: I love Frugal Friday posts. Such wonderful ideas!! Prairie Chick...my girlfriends and I started making our own "gourmet" coffee drinks a year or two ago. We loved our coffee, but didn't love the price tag. Isn't it fun to do!? This summer...try making your own iced mocha or Frappe...so yummy!! And CHEAP!
I think I remember you saying you grind your own wheat (as do I). How do you keep your bread fresh for a whole week? After 3 or 4 days mine usually starts to smell a little funny. : ) Also how do you store your bread? Do you keep it in zip lock bags or what? Thanks.
such wonderful ideas, most of them we have done all 29 years of our marriage. We also have the blessing of a huge garden, chickens for our eggs and most of the last 16 years we have had goats for milk and cheese. I don't even OWN a clothes dryer.
Great ideas, Hope! Thankfully, we are already doing most of those things, but you mentioned one thing that caught my attention.
In my desire to keep our meat costs low, but still include meat from high quality sources, I use it mostly as an addition to meals (in soups, stews, stir fry, casseroles, etc.).
However, I really loved your idea about having one carnivorous, "meat on a platter" night a week. I think it would really bless my husband if rather than squeezing little bits of meat into most of our meals, if I did maybe an extra vegetarian meal each week in order to allow for me to serve him a meal featuring meat once a week.
Thanks for the wonderful idea!
Crystal,
I love these posts! They have challenged me to think outside the box, and really get busy finding new ways to stretch my husband's dollar.
I remember in an earlier post that your husband stated you were quite amazing with the dishes you create using beans. Could share some of your recipes with us?
Thanks!
Keriann
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