It is a Japanese electric contraption which steams rice perfectly, but seeing as rice is so easy to steam, I don't crowd my small New York City kitchen with one....Used to live with a partner who was raised in Okinawa, and she swore by hers!
Elle*

I just saw this article on HuffPost and have to say, this is a prime example of leaving Frugal to the extreme and when you have to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_697279.html

Very interesting story in that he did this by choice. I do think that its not unusual to be able to live and sustain without money - it seems to me that we have millions of homeless folks who do this every day. The big difference is that he makes a choice to do it and has the support systems of the organic farm and the freeskilling group and that he obviously has access to information so he can learn how to make his mushroom paper and such.

His story reminds me of a TV series from the mid 90s called Promised Land. Gerald McRaney and his family traveled from town to town, living in an Airstream, homeschooling their kids and him picking up odd jobs to make money as they needed it. I always thought that it was a novel idea, but that the reality of that situation would be far different than as portrayed.

Since moving from Florida to Los Angeles, my rent has tripled, my car insurance has doubled, and my paycheck has been hit by a furlough - I have a better understanding that frugal doesn't just mean buying two pairs of shoes instead of three to save up for that new necklace like it used to. It means comparing the price per ounce on clearance frozen veggies at the discount store and wondering how in the world someone can afford to spend $4 on a luxurious bundle of fresh asparagus or real lemons when they could buy four 1lb bags of green beans! I can't wait to chastise my future grandkids on how good they have it.

I've really learned how to be much less wasteful while simultaneously bonding with my mom over casserole recipes and freezer methods.

These are tips most of you know, but that I've only recently taken to heart:

1. Make a big pot of split pea soup and freeze individual portions in ziplock bags for lunches/dinners in the future. The soup is high in protein and low in fat if you make it vegan. ;) This is my favorite recipe: Fat Free Vegan Split Pea Soup
   
2. Many recipes call for just a tablespoon of tomato paste or a single chipotle chile in adobe, etc., leaving you with half a can of tomato paste or chiles. (Both of these have a limited fridge life and a phenomenal ability to grow a beard in under a week.) Just take a sheet of parchment or wax paper and scoop out the paste/chiles by the tablespoon and plop them on the paper not touching another scoop - freeze on the paper for a few hours and then put them in a freezer ziplock. Tada! Now when a recipe calls for a tablespoon/single chile, etc you can reach into the freezer and they are in individual serving sizes. :)
   
3. Bell peppers are typically very expensive here for much of the year (especially my favorite: red peppers!) - but one magical month a year they are abundant and affordable. I stock up on peppers and de-seed and cut them into strips, freeze them individually on parchment paper and put in a ziplock the next day like above. I also do this with celery since any recipe I need celery for calls for one or two stalks at most. Both are full of water and will lose their snap when thawed, but are perfect for using in stir fries and soups. You can also wrap the celery in foil and it will extend its life in the fridge.
   
4. Toilet paper from the 99cents Only Store is just as effective as toilet paper that costs four times as much.
   
5. Stir fries and beans and rice are healthy and economical. Serve with homemade cast iron skillet cornbread and you'll be pumped with iron.
   
6. Instead of throwing away the ends of bread that have gone stale, throw them in the freezer. When you have a few bread ends, throw them in the blender or food processor with an assortment of your favorite herbs and toast in the oven for a few minutes and make your own breadcrumbs instead of buying a chemical blend from the store. Fresh breadcrumbs taste amazing.
   
7. Make your own vegetable stock by saving all carrot tops, onion tops, celery tops, potato skins, parsnip tops, beet tops, etc in a big bag in the freezer. When you have a bag full, boil in a soup pot of water with your favorite herbs (mine are thyme and sage), strain, and use immediately, freeze in an ice cube tray, or save in 1-cup increments in ziplocks for later. You can use a few cubes to really flavor plain rice.
   
8. Speaking of rice, if you are lucky enough to live close to an Asian neighborhood or an Indian neighborhood with well-stocked niche grocery stores, buy rice in bulk from these places. It might hurt to pay $20 for a bag of rice, but you'll use that for MONTHS. It took me nearly a year to use up the jasmine rice from the 25lb bag I bought. (Also: Indian grocery stores have cheaper saffron and Asian stores cheaper tofu and mockmeats.)
   
9. When berries are abundant in summer and go on sale, buy in bulk and freeze to enjoy in pies, muffins, etc, later.
   
10. If you are blessed to live in a city with a fair amount of reliable and far-reaching public transportation available, check into getting a bus pass and seeing if that is better for getting to work. Where I work, I would have to pay $65/month to park, not to mention the gas, the risk of accidents, and the general stress of driving. The unlimited monthly bus pass costs me $33/month and also works for the subway. I use it to go everywhere, and save on having to feed parking meters or pay $10 to park in a garage elsewhere, too! (I also get to enjoy guilt-free reading time!)

xosqueak. Sucking it in.

One area I'm not that frugal in is groceries. I only buy what I need, but I want to make sure it's quality food like Kamut pasta, organic couscous, German ryes, local meat, eggs and vegetables from the Farmer's Market (preferably from Mennonites, which is the only way for me to know for sure that there isn't any added hormones, pesticides etc. and that the animals are free range), organic peanut butter, goat yogurt etc. I do buy a lot of the tuna value packs, though...which is a significant chunk of a typical lunch for me.

But I find I can spend a little more in the grocery department if I save elsewhere.

- Bringing both lunch and supper to work since I often work from 8am to 10pm. In the past I would sometimes bring lunch and a snack, then buy some chicken breast and chickpea salad for supper, but I've cut that out and bring both meals and all my snacks now. So end up saving 6-7 bucks at least 3 times per week.

- Boiling chicken/turkey bones for soup instead of buying soup.

- Making my own chili instead of buying it.

- I've come to realise that a lot of people tend to spend a fuck ton of their money per day on coffee. I've never been a coffee drinker, ever, so I seem to save quite a bit by not being a caffeine fiend lol

- Never buy my beverages out either, but bring them instead. I only really drink water and milk so really not that difficult to do, so really only end up paying for the milk...

- Buy bar soap instead of body wash. A 3 pack of Irish Spring bar soap costs 3 bucks (CAD) and lasts over 6-7 months, compared with body wash that is more expensive and runs out every two months at the most. Plus I find bar soap more effective and don't know why the world stopped using it in the first place, lol 3 bucks every 7 months versus 7 bucks every month and a half or so? Yes please. Again, money that can be spent on better food.

- If your body seems to get used to one type of soap so you like to switch it up, or if you just prefer body wash to bar soap, Hair&Body washes are great. Saves you the money from buying both shampoo and shower gel/soap/whatever separately.

- Metro pass instead of tokens for public transport saves a chunk of cash per month. Uni student pass and you save even more. Biking to work costs nothing at all, even if it takes over an hour when one works far. I do walk or bike if I'm going downtown or somewhere else generally close buy (45 mins to an hour's walking distance).

- I've never been a huge clothing shopper, but if I need some kind of new clothing then I head to somewhere like Zeller's (for anything), the Black Market (for pants), or thrift shops. Definitely significant price difference between these places and going to a mall, no matter whether its undershirts or jeans. I buy clothes like once a year so no biggy, really.

- If I buy cds or books I do so very little. Cds I haven't bought in a while (unfortunately, since I'm a music fanatic), but if I do its a second hand shops (5 bucks a cd), or underground distributers (anywhere from 2 bucks to 10 bucks), or gigs.

- Rent a room instead of an apartment.

- Don't own a tv/rent movies/buy any form of computer programme/game/whatever because in the world of the interwebz no such things are needed.

- Don't own a land line.

- Don't pay for gym membership because I work at one.

Great news!!!
 

-bring my lunch every day to work (I bring all leftovers from dinners I cook 3-4 times/week... along with a salad)
-keep snacks (low fat popcorn, etc) in my desk drawer (not tempted to go to the snack machine)
-use the chicken bones and make my own chicken/vegetable/noodle soup (yum)
-my wife reuses plastic sandwich bags (drives me nuts but it DOES save)
-grocery shop only once a week and plan our meals (lunch and dinner ) for the week before we go
-we have stopped eating out (except an occassional sushi outing) except when we go out with friends.. (and even then we tend to go over to each others homes these days)
-STOPPED traveling for a while!!
-turn lights out whenever we leave a room (I have a harder time with this than my wife does)
-shorter showers
-laundry only once a week (larger loads- saves water, energy, electricity, etc)
-Netflix!!!
-wash my own car
-shop at places like North Park Produce... (omg, LOVE that place... can buy 5 bags of fruits, veggies, meats, and fish for less than $30)
-buy our firewood by the cord
-plan my driving distances... (my clients are all over the county)
-buy gas on days that this http://www.fueltracker.com/ website says it is a "buy" day


I am sure I have more... Love this thread... and love what folks are doing!!

I did an experiment a while back to see how much cash I was spending eating at work. :|

Coffee from Starbucks and a breakfast snack at work = $7 per day
Lunch at work = $5.50 per day
Afternoon juice, Diet Coke (when I was still drinking them), or bottled water from the vending machine at work = $1 a day.

That was 13.50 PER DAY or almost $70 a WEEK!

Holy crap did I ever give myself a nice raise by bringing all of my food and drinks from home!


City - Jack takes her lunch every day for work and it *also* drives her crazy when I wash out Ziploc bags and reuse them so we compromised and I bought a couple of those plastic sandwich-shaped boxes to put her sandwiches in instead of using Ziplocs. We just wash them out and rotate and it has saved about $5 a month on buying new bags :)

AND that is $3,640 PER YEAR!!!

We have those sandwich boxes too... I tend to bring meals as opposed to sandwiches, so I use tupperware.... It is actually my beautiful bride who uses those sandwich bags... I don't know why she doesn't use the boxes! LOL...

I have to admit that I sometimes surreptitiously throw them out when she would keep them and continue to wash them out... I just have too...

We recycle all of our recyclables (city pick up) and use paperbags to collect them through the week... A couple weeks ago I actually saw my wife empty the paperbag into the blue recycling bin... she was recycling the paper bag for re-use... I have to admit it was a good idea when you take into consideration all the paperbags that places like Trader Joe's hands out on a daily basis...

Hope I don't gross anyone out... litterbox maintenance
 

I save every food bag that "zips" shut, especially tortilla and shredded cheese bags *awww come on, you don't think I was making my own tortillas when it was 103 out day after day? My window a/c was already struggling, yanno?* and reuse them when I scoop the litterboxes. Food bags are meant to keep odors inside; this means I can toss the zipped bag into my kitchen trash and not have to take anything out to big trash can immediately. No more using a clean bag for the scooping, and no more tossing the big kitchen bag before it's full!

Also, nothing holds used litter supplies like a big dog or cat food bag--they can't be recycled for anything else, they're waterproof, and they're big enough to hold everything when you clean out a litterbox. They don't seal but that's okay--I use them on trash pick-up day and they're the last thing in the kitchen trash bag before I throw the whole caboodle in the big can and wheel it to the curb.

years ago... when they first opened in my town... they kept all the ad papers at the registers... dont know if they still do it...
i try really hard to stay outta the place... unfortunately there are those times in the wee hours of the morning when you just gotta have something like a surge protector or a hammer...
so... i do stumble in sometimes still... just usually not for something that may be in a sales paper...

Have to brag about my frugal honey. He purchased discounted tri-tip steaks for $6. Using an ear of corn, one broccoli head, brown jasmine rice and hot oil, he produced three different dinners for a total of approximately $7 for six meals.

I heart my frugal honey.

Anyone else have any good deals lately?

Andrea

Hey folks,

Just came across this super frugal idea for a solar cooker that you make out of a car windshield shade:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/W...e_Solar_Cooker

Super frugal! You get a cheap solar cooker, plus you can cook things without using electricity or other conventional fuels, which helps your wallet as well as the environment.

So for me, that's a win-win-win!