Frugal Frolics: Money Saving Recap

It has been busy around here, I don't know about you guys!

1.  I have been working hard trying to clean up the freezers so that I can empty out my upright freezer and figure out why it is icing up so bad.  I manage to get the ice out of the bottom and then more just starts to flow in.  The freezer is supposed to have an auto defrost function on it, so I need to figure out if there is a blockage or something that is causing it.  So, step one is defrosting it completely so I need to be able to empty it into my other freezers.  

So, step one is doing projects I’ve been putting off that we’re sitting in my freezers.  I made vegetable stock a few weeks ago and had frozen it to deal with later, and had chicken carcasses I had been saving to process into stock too.  

So, it was time to pull out the pressure canner.  I made chicken stock, put it in the fridge overnight, removed the fat after it had solidified, heated it back up and got it canning (seen above after getting out of the canner).  While the canner was naturally depressurizing, I got the vegetable stock defrosted and heated up so as soon as the chicken stock was done, I could get it out of the canner and get the vegetable stock in.  It worked well, but that was a long day of canning in between everything else I’ve been working on.  I canned the chicken stock in pints for a more convenient size to work with later and the vegetable stock I canned in quarts because those are slated for brine at Thanksgiving so canning in quarts was fine.

2.  Next up is a project I’m hoping to finish this weekend and that is canning a bunch of the berries I have frozen in the freezer.  I got two big bags of blueberries processed earlier this week (the big jars behind are the vegetable stock that I was keeping on the counter until I could open up a spot in the pantry for them, in case you were wondering) and then it is on to mixed berries and strawberries.  I’ve found over the years I really like having canned berries in the pantry for ease of use, so that is what I’m working on currently.  I’m still going to keep some small bags of fruit frozen for use in muffins and things, but I’m going to can the majority of them.

I am really scaling down canning projects to make what I know we will eat.  Things are getting too expensive to do otherwise.  Some things I have to buy (which I have scaled that variety back as well) but things like chicken stock are so cheap to can myself, that I’m definitely going to do that for the foreseeable future.

3.  I fixed my son’s closet door to close properly.  He got overly enthusiastic and ran into his closet (all 180+ pounds of him) and managed to knock the cheapy hollow core door all askew in its frame so the door wasn’t stopping when closed.  I hammered it all into place as best I could (cheap doors move so much and just suck) and got it to close right.  Hopefully the fix works for a while because I don’t want to have to buy new interior doors anytime soon.

4.  I got the cast iron Dutch oven rack in the mail.  I got it put together and got the Dutch ovens on it.  

Opinions and experience since some people asked for my feedback.  The shelf works.  It is heavy duty (so it is heavy to move around).  An absolute pain in the keester to put together as it flares in and out to hold different sized pots.  I got some bruises, some scrapes and back in touch with my ability to cuss like a sailor as I was working on it.  It does not fit into small spaces as well as I hoped as it twists slightly as an artsy type of flare in design.  Once it was up and in the kitchen, it just did not work in the space.  It just took up too much space and I wasn’t really gaining anything from taking down the kitchen cart to add that in.  If you have a decently big kitchen and like the look of the shelf, I would say it is worth the money (I would suggest having help to get it together though).  For a small kitchen where space is precious, was it worth saving up 10 months for?  No, no it wasn’t, unfortunately.

Luckily, my mother-in-law had come to visit and had really liked the shelf (and her kitchen is more modern and bigger than mine so the shelf would look better there), so I offered it to her.  She even offered to pay me what I had bought it for.  So the only thing I was out was my physical labor putting it together.  I’m calling it a wash on the frugal front.  Not a win, but not a fail.  It was, however, a disappointment.

5.  I ended up getting creative and found this spot to stack my Dutch ovens on my counter.  I hated to lose the counter space, but it made Alvah happy to have more floor space opened up, so I’ll deal with it.  I put pieces of cardboard in between the Dutch ovens to stack them so that the one on top doesn't scratch up the one above it.  

6.  To try and make the rack work, I had hoped I could rearrange my hallway closet and put it in there.  It didn’t work in the end, but I eliminated the need for one of the grey shelves I had on the floor and got the school supply boxes out of my hallway and tucked into the closet instead, which freed up a bit more floor space for Speed Racer (the son unit) and eliminated more visual clutter.  So that, in the end, was a win to me.

7.  My daughter really wanted to dress up like the 10th Doctor (Dr. Who) for the Trunk-or-Treat to pass out Halloween candy to kids.  Costumes that we could find were really expensive for cosplayers (like 200.00 expensive) and I found nothing else, so my husband took Armina last weekend to the used stores to see what they could find.  They found enough clothing to make the costume work for less than 30.00.  And the trench coat is lined and can be used for day to day life later on.

8.  My husband really wanted Mongolian BBQ.  I had some chicken I could use so I decided to make some at home.  But I  was missing some of the veggies that normally went in it.  Instead of buying things special I just made do with the veggies I had fresh and in the freezer and just padded things out a bit more with spaghetti noodles.  It turned out really well and the husband was very happy with the results.

9.  I got work samples done and in for both kids and a bit early even.  I’m always relieved to get that job done as it is time consuming.

10.  I turned two pork roasts that had been sitting in the freezer for too long into different meals for later.  I partially defrosted them, removed the meat from the bones and managed to get enough meat to make German marinated pork, Korean fried pork (just pork in ginger to make into fried pork later) and some sweet and sour pork ready for dinners later.  Feel good getting cuts of pork I really don’t use too often (but were super cheap when I bought them) in the freezer and ready to rock for dinners later on.

11.  I finally uncovered the last ham hock that I KNEW was in the freezer somewhere and could never find.  It had been in the freezer a few years so I knew it needed to be used up.  I cooked it, removed what meat I could get off of it and made a ham and cheese quiche for dinner one night.  It was delicious!  

And there you go folks.  Some of the frugal stuff I’ve been doing around here.  Hope all is going well with you.

Enjoy!