Thrifty Thursday (Thrift Store Finds)

This Thrifty Thursday is brought to you by a very happy me!

As anyone who has been reading this blog may know, I broke one of my medium sized mixing bowls about a month ago (and I cried some tears over it...normally stuff is just that to me...stuff...but that bowl hurt when it broke).  I'd been searching the used stores for a replacement to no avail.  Until this week when I FINALLY had a chance to hit The Red Barn (a thrift store in Palmer, AK).  There I struck pay dirt!  I not only found a vintage medium sized Pyrex mixing bowl (which I found awesomely cool), but I also found a clear Pyrex small mixing bowl (perfect for steaming puddings and stuff in).  Total spent that day was 10.00 on the nose (not cheap, but I was happy anyway).

I then had to check out the newly renovated Wally World Thrift Store in Wasilla and was thrilled to find a 2/3 cup Tupperware measuring cup (which I'd never seen one of those before) and a vintage small tupperware container with a lid (sure, the colors didn't match, but I didn't care...I love those containers for left overs and other things :).

Total spent at Wally World was .70 between the two items.  Loved it!

So, total spent for the week was 10.70.  Amount saved?  A lot.  I love vintage Pyrex, Corelle and Corningware, so if I had purchased a bowl like that online and had it shipped here...man that would have cost a lot more than the 7.00 I paid for it.  And the color goes with some of my vintage Corelle baking dishes, so it was just an awesome find for me.

And a new glass bowl that size...man I don't know how much it would have cost.

So, it was definitely a good week on the thrift store front.

Money Saving Tip: Have You Checked Your Phone Lately?

One of the things I promised to share this month was how I saved 20.00 and met my monthly financial goal while doing it.  So, here's how I did it and hey, maybe it will help you save money too!

I've had the same phone package forever with my local phone company.  And every month I would just pay the bill when it came in and not think anything of it.  But, there was a problem with that method of doing things.

For one, my family lives a long distance away from me on the East Coast.  To stay in touch I would call them once every couple of weeks to see how everyone was doing.  Except my step-mom, I'd call her every day and she'd call me back as soon as she answered the phone because she was more than willing to take advantage of this wonderful thing she had which was "unlimited long distance".  Since long distance isn't exactly cheap, every month no matter how careful I was with phone usage (I mean even calling Anchorage costs money, or my son's speech therapist, or a bunch of other places) my long distance charges would always be 30.00 or more per month.  I just assumed it was an inevitable part of living in the state I do, cursed it, and moved on.

Until this last December.  See, I was checking our internet usage online (as our DSL package also sucked when it came to usage) and I noticed an ad to buy 500 gigs of internet usage for 50.00.  I was thrilled as our internet inevitably went over every month as well, which would cost us 5.00 per gig of overuse.  We were only allowed 25 gigs, and while that seemed like a huge amount when the gal at our local telephone company assured me that is what we would need when I upgraded our DSL two years ago, it always seemed to get eaten up and we'd go over.  Every single month.

So, I clicked on the link to check out what I had to do to buy the 500 gigs on our account and looked in shock when I read, "Unlimited long distance for 19.99 a month".  That was less than I was paying in long distance charges and I'd never seen THAT tidbit in my local telephone newsletter that came with my bill (grumble).  I called the phone company the next day to sign up for the unlimited long distance for 19.99 a month and found with my current phone package that they could upgrade it no problem and long distance would only cost me 6.97 a month!!!

Honestly, I was both thrilled and furious when I found out that had unlimited long distance for over a year and hadn't really bothered to inform their customers about it.

A couple of weeks later I was in for another surprise.  I was talking to my sister-in-law about her DSL and how I was unhappy and thinking about upgrading now that I had unlimited long distance and would be able to figure out what long distance charges would cost me every month.  She had just upgraded her internet a couple of months before and I found out that her internet was only 10.00 more per month than mine and she was getting 70 GIGS per month usage!  I went online and sure enough there it was staring me in the face.

Lesson learned.  Next time I need help upgrading my internet, I sure as heck am not calling my local telephone customer service agent for help.  I'll do my researching via the internet.

I also found out that they had a special going on where if you upgraded your internet package you would get a 50.00 credit, thus would pay for the 500 gigs I had bought back in December and would also cut my bill down to nothing for the month of February (I decided to wait till the beginning of Feb. to implement the new internet package, since I had over 470 gigs left of the 500 gigs I'd purchased in December left).

And that's exactly what I did.

I now have unlimited long distance and a BUNCH more bandwidth and all for at least 10.00 LESS per month than what I was paying before with crappy internet and "charge per" long distance.  And since they applied my 50.00 credit to my account this month my phone bill is miniscule, thus saving me the 20.00 (and more) I had cited to save this month.

So, next time you're looking to save money, try checking out your phone package and your internet.  You might be able to save more money than you thought!

Menu Plan Monday: This Week's Menu (2/16/15)

This week's menu is about as boring as it gets *laugh*, although don't worry I do plan on sharing recipes from the last couple of weeks (like the chicken fried "steak" recipe should go up tomorrow or so).  Overall, though, I'm just trying to shop from my freezer and pantry for things that I've gotten on sale the last little bit.

Monday:  Lamb chops, kale (frozen from my garden over the summer), rice

Tuesday:  Pancakes, bacon, eggs

Wednesday:  BBQ chicken (BBQ sauce home made from pantry), mashed potatoes, KFC copycat coleslaw, biscuits

Thursday:  Tacos

Friday:  Broiled Pork Steaks (seasoned with All Alaskan Seasoning Blend), baked potatoes, salad

Saturday:  Brined Turkey Breast, Braised Carrots, corn bread

Sunday:  Italian Sausage Sandwiches with caramelized onions and peppers (onions and peppers from freezer), frozen vegetable medley with Montreal Steak Seasoning (still one of my favorite seasoning blends).


Desserts (outside of the normal):  Apple crumble pie, chocolate cake (for my daughter's birthday this week).

Breakfast (outside of the norm):  Victory Pudding (I really like this stuff)

The "Hack" Test: Banana Hacks

"30 Amazing Kitchen Hacks!"
"Amazing Life Hacks You Can't Do Without!"
"You'll Feel Stupid If You Don't Do These Hacks Right Now!"

We've all seen the articles popping up in our newsfeed or over our e-mails.  Way too often.  You read through them go, "Huh, I wonder if that works" and proceed to forget that you ever read the article or you keep meaning to try it and see if it works at some point but never get around to it.

Well, I decided one of the things I could do around here is to try some of these "hacks" and put them to the test to see if they actually work or are not worth the effort to do.  I mean if some of these things work, they'll definitely have the potential to save you money in the long run, so I wanted to put some of these to the test for me as much as for anyone else.

So, today, I'm putting to test a hack I saw online a few weeks ago and also one that I read about a while ago.  So, you get two hacks for the price of one!

The first hack is...

1.  If you wrap the ends of bananas tightly in plastic wrap they won't ripen as quickly.

And

2.  If you separate out bananas from the bunch they won't ripen as quickly.

So, I got some bananas at the store and figured I'd put those theories to the test (when bananas get over ripe I just make banana bread or something out of them, so no harm no foul).  The bananas, very ripe, are seen above.

The results?

I used part of my bunch of bananas as the "control" group to compare how other bananas did.  I put them in the same temp zones but in different locations so that ethylene gas wasn't going to interrupt their want to ripen too quickly.

The banana I separated out from the bunch and let sit solitary didn't seem to do much for it.  It seemed to ripen and over ripen right along with the regular bananas I had done nothing to.  So, if there is time gained from separating the bananas from the bunch, I didn't see it.  The banana seen above was actually near rotting by the time I took this picture.

Now, wrapping the ends in plastic wrap?  That actually did work.

Not as well as they promoted online.  I did not get an additional week out of my bananas.  More like two or three days, but the difference in the ripening rate was noticeable to me.  So, I would say that trick does work.  When I took this picture, while the solitary banana was near rotting, the bunch of bananas (while starting to look brown) were actually still firm and lasted three more days before I had to make them into banana bread.

But, there's a downside too.  Every time you go and get a banana off the bunch you have to re-wrap the ends in plastic wrap, so it can be a bit cumbersome.  But, if you are looking to get a couple more days out of your bananas, well it is probably worth the effort.

So, there you are folks.  As hack tests go:  Wrapping your banana ends in plastic wrap, win.  Removing bananas from bunch, fail.  Do with those results what you will.

Frugal Friday (Money Saving Weekly Recap): Week ending 2/13/15

So, one of the cool things I thought I'd introduce to the blog is some frugal accountability each week.  So, each week I'm going to post in what ways we saved money, large or small (most times small) around here and if you have something cool to share, feel free to!

This week, we were all recovering from being sick with a cold, so I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped.  But, here's a few things I did to save money this week.

1.  I made meals at home instead of going out to eat.

2.  I fixed a shirt my daughter had gotten from somewhere for free.  It was obvious from the get go that the shirt had some type of shell or some undershirt to it as it is WAY too low cut for a little kid.  My daughter, being young, keeps forgetting to wear an undershirt, which leads me to have to tell her to get an undershirt on or change her shirt way too much.  So, I decided it was time to fix it and make it more suitable for an 8 year old to wear.

Here's the before and after pics...

See, way too low cut for a little girl (especially my slight stature daughter).

And here's the after.  First I had her put it on, marked with a dry erase marker (on the inside of the collar so it wouldn't show) where I wanted the collar to actually hit.  I then hand sewed up the outside edge of the collar with white thread I had and so that it didn't look odd with a sewed up collar like that I used three buttons from one of my button jars to make a fake button up collar.

I thought it turned out pretty cute myself.

3. 

I darned a bunch of my husband's socks. I still have a lot to work through, but I got a good start (tutorial on that coming soon).

4.  Instead of going out to a fancy restaurant or something for Valentine's Day, my husband and I used some of our tax rebate and went to Costco to pick up some essentials.  It seemed a better use of our money.

5.  We watched some movies online for free instead of worrying about buying another movie we wanted to see.  We downloaded a few and burned them to disk as well that aren't available anywhere else.

6.  Used some veggies that were past their prime and made soup instead of letting them get thrown away.

And there you are folks.  My frugal adventures for the week.  How did you do?  Anyone save money this week in little ways?

Basic White Bread (makes two loaves) With Variations

Okay, this is a recipe I HAD to share.  My mom, when my kids were diagnosed with allergies years ago, wrote out some recipes and sent them to me from recipes collected from my family going back as far as my great grandma.

This is one of those recipes.

This recipe calls for all purpose flour.  No bread flour here.  It makes two loaves of bread at one time, came printed out with some variant ways to make the bread AND it makes a loaf that seriously comes out better than the recipes I always followed that called for bread flour.  My husband LOVES this bread and he's picky when it comes to bread :).

When we were required to go gluten free for quite a while, I was always trying to recreate this recipe with gluten free flour and it just didn't work very well.  Not quite sure why (usually I've had pretty good luck when a recipe calls for AP flour to redo it with gluten free flours), but it just turns out better with the all purpose flour (luckily we've been cleared to reintroduce gluten into my daughter's diet and she's doing well with it and my issues with gluten depends on how much stress I'm under.  Since starting a new system of meditation, my stomach has been doing wonders for me.  It's nice being able to tolerate gluten again).

Want to get off cheap on buying AP flour?  Go to your bulk stores.  Seriously it is SO much cheaper there.  I buy it by the 25 to 50 lb bag and store it in 5 gallon buckets in my pantry and just refill flour as needed from that.

This is seriously one recipe you are going to want to keep in your arsenal.

Basic 2 Loaf White Bread (With Variations)

• 1 cup milk
• 3 TBS sugar
• 2 tbs shortening or butter (or a mix)
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 packages (2 1/4 tsp each or 4 1/2 tsp total) active dry yeast
• 6 to 6 1/2 cups unsifted all purpose flour.

Procedure:

1.  Heat milk in a saucepan with shortening, salt and sugar until bubbles form at the edge of the pan, the shortening is melted and the sugar is well dissolved.  Transfer to a large bowl (I use the bowl of my standing mixer) to cool to warm (105 degrees F or lower).

2.  I tend to use instant yeast (SAF instant yeast is well worth the investment, just store it in your freezer and you're golden) for this recipe, so if you are doing that just get your water as cold as you can from the tap and add it to your milk mixture in the standing mixer to cool it down faster.  If not, wait until the mixture in the stand mixer cools to warm and then add warm temp water to your active dry yeast, add 1 TBS sugar and set aside to proof or bloom for about 5 to 10 minutes (the mixture should get really foamy).

3.  When the yeast has proofed, add 6 cups of flour to the milk mixture and add the yeast mixture.  Use the paddle attachment on your mixer until everything is well incorporated (add as much of your last 1/2 cup of flour as it takes to get a manageable dough) and then switch to the dough hook.  Knead mixture until smooth (it only takes a couple of minutes on mine, but could take up to five, depending on your machine).  You can also do this by hand by add the yeast and flour mixture to the milk and then mixing it up with your hands to form a loose dough and then kneading it on a well floured surface for 5 minutes.

4.  Place dough in a greased bowl to rise and cover with a dish towel.  Put in a warm location and let it rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

5.  Grease two 8 inch loaf pans (I love cast iron bread pans for this).  Divide dough in half (okay, I actually use the zero out function on my kitchen scale, weigh a bowl and then actually weigh my dough to get exactly 1/2 of the dough in each pan, but I'm sure you can eyeball this).  Shape into two logs, fit into greased pans.  Set aside in a warm location until the dough has risen at least 1" above the sides of the pan, about 45 minutes.

6.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees the last 15 minutes of rise time.  Bake breads 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown and loaves sound hollow when tapped on the top.

Cool at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Variations:

Cheese Bread:  Mix 1 cup grated cheddar cheese into the first 2 cups of flour you add to the milk mixture.  Sprinkle top of loaves with grated cheese, if desired, once risen and bake as directed.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread: (my favorite.  I take 1/2 of the recipe and make a loaf of white bread and take the other 1/2 and make a loaf of this.  If you do this, halve the cinnamon and sugar amounts to get 1 loaf worth.  Also worth noting is that the cinnamon swirl bread takes an additional 10 to 15 minutes to rise because you flatten the dough so much, so just be aware you might have to do a bit of time shuffling to figure out when to pull out what loaf).

Roll out each half of dough to 12 by 8 inch rectangle.  Combine 1/4 cup (2 TBS if making 1 loaf) sugar and 2 tsp ground cinnamon (1 tsp if making one loaf) in a small bowl.  Sprinkle half (or all if making one loaf) over each rectangle.  Roll up dough to make two 8 inch logs.  Rise and bake as directed above.

Thrifty Thursday (Thrift Store Finds)

Man, I've got back blogging to get done.  You guys might get kinda hammered the next little bit.  It's been kind of hectic around here as it's like every time I thought of blogging something happened.

1.  My husband finally got the cold that everyone else in the household is pretty much over.  As a result the poor man has been feeling pretty cruddy.

2.  Then, since he was sick my husband was spending a lot of time steaming in the shower in our bathroom and the drain clogged.  Bad.  So, my husband went and used his contractor knowledge to try and get the clog out.  Long story short it involved a snake, then cutting a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the wall from the tub, cleaning out a few sewer pipes, etc.  And it still wasn't fixed.

What finally fixed it?  ME!  Bwahahaha!  Sorry, I'm proud of myself on this one.  I just looked at the standing water in the tub, looked at the plunger next to the toilet and went, "What the Heck!"  Waited until my husband's back was turned and just plunged the heck out of the drain.  And it worked!  Now, I know logically that my husband probably worked the clog enough that the plunger was able to dislodge it and such, but I'm still taking credit for this one ;).

3.  My sister-in-law gave birth to my brand spanky new nephew over the weekend and I've been preoccupied looking at pictures.  Yes, babies are distracting, even in picture form *laugh*.

And suddenly, here we are with another Thrifty Thursday!  I have some other cool things planned for the blog that I'm hoping to launch in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, I'm super thrilled with this week's thrift store finds!

This week I was really thankful that our tax refund came in as when I went to my favorite thrift store, looking once again for a bowl to replace my beloved medium sized mixing bowl that broke, I realized that for the first time in a while they had fabric out!  And boy did I score big!

The biggest find was a bolt of material with 16 yards of flannel shirting fabric on it for 15.00!  I couldn't believe it as if I had bought a bolt with that much fabric on it new?  Yeah, don't even want to THINK how much that would have cost.  My plans for it are to make some shirts for my husband and son closer to Christmas and maybe a few pairs of lightweight sleep pants for my son come fall.

I also found some leather-like fabric that I plan on making into soles for home made slippers for the kids come Christmastime as well.

I found a flowery type of pattern full sized top sheet that was brand new looking so I grabbed that for 1.50 to use for maybe a cute summer skirt for my daughter or some other application.  And I picked up a cute construction themed top sheet to do something (maybe a shirt or something else) for my son.

I also found some different types of fabric in different patterns that I plan on using for things like handkerchiefs.  And I found, one of my biggest finds, a high loft queen sized thing of batting for 2.00!  Always nice to have extra batting for projects :).

So, total spent at the used store was 22.00.  Total saved?  Man, I can't even begin to imagine.  The bolt of fabric alone would be probably well over 50.00 on sale.  So, woohoo!

Did you score any good deals this week?  What did you get?