So for a long time I have been reading blogs about frugal cooking and how to stretch a buck when it comes to dinner. I have often wondered how much these frugal dinners REALLY cost and how much of a savings you get from applying their principles. So being the ever "quirky" person that I am I sat down with my grocery receipts tonight and worked out exactly how much tonight's dinner cost.....
Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Romaine Salad:
$5.76 Whole Chicken
$1.02 Potatoes
$0.37 Butter
$0 Romaine (WIC)
$0 Condensed milk (WIC)
Total: $7.15
Not bad for a family of 4 :)
Now as you know one of the basic principles of frugal cooking is to stack recipes so that you use the leftovers from one meal in a totally different meal the next night. Using the leftovers from tonight's dinner I will be making a casserole for tomorrow nights dinner....
Chicken and Rice Casserole with potato cakes:
$0.84 Frozen Veggies
$1.39 Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
$0.50 Rice
$0.94 Cheddar Cheese
$0 Chicken (leftovers)
$0 Potatoes (leftovers)
Total: $3.67
Again REALLY not bad for a family of 4 especially since this meal will also serve as lunch for the next day.
Plus I have the bones and skin from the chicken cooking in the crockpot right now to make chicken stock....so I am also getting 4+ cups of chicken stock for "free".
Thanks to the Happy Housewife for both these recipes and teaching me how to cook a whole chicken in my crockpot. It was yummy and I will defiantly be doing it again!
Showing posts with label frugal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frugal. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Having twins on a budget...
Sounds like an oxymoron right? How can a person buy 2 of everything and not spend a complete fortune? Even more difficult in our situation since we got rid of everything under 9mths when we moved this last time. But it is possible and we are managing to do it so far.
First off I am playing a game with myself to see how much "stuff" I can get used. So far I have not bought anything new for the twins and am very proud of myself. Thanks to craigslist.com I have gotten 2 like new swings for $50 each (retail $200 each!) and three trash bags full of 0-3mth clothes :)
For a grand total of: $220 for everything so far.
Could I have done better well sure but concidering what I could have spent I think that is a pretty decent number considering we now have almost everything we need for the twins for the first 3mths.
We are missing some big ticket items:
*2 infant car seats ($120 for both). We could do without these and just use the convertible car seats we already have but I am going for convenience over thrift on this one. These will be bought new since you should never buy a used car seat unless you know the seller since you can not be sure it wasn't in an accident.
*Double Stroller ($98). Again we could use the double umbrella stroller we already have but I am going for one that the car seats will snap into for convenience. Also will probably be bought used unless I get lucky and stubble over one in the next few months.
*Cloth diapers. ($????) Not sure of the price on these since I am still doing some price comparisons on AIO's and pre-folds...another post to follow on this topic.
* 2 Bouncy seats ($30 for both) I have seen several of these listed on craigslist for $15 each. When I have the time to deal with arranging meetings and pick-ups I will be getting these used.
And that is it folks not to bad of a list! We will of course need to get clothes from 3-9 mths but I am not to worried about that at this time. I will continue to look on craigslist and see what comes available. It is so cool that you can get a whole trash bag FULL of like new clothes for $15! A frugal Mommy's dream come true!
First off I am playing a game with myself to see how much "stuff" I can get used. So far I have not bought anything new for the twins and am very proud of myself. Thanks to craigslist.com I have gotten 2 like new swings for $50 each (retail $200 each!) and three trash bags full of 0-3mth clothes :)
For a grand total of: $220 for everything so far.
Could I have done better well sure but concidering what I could have spent I think that is a pretty decent number considering we now have almost everything we need for the twins for the first 3mths.
We are missing some big ticket items:
*2 infant car seats ($120 for both). We could do without these and just use the convertible car seats we already have but I am going for convenience over thrift on this one. These will be bought new since you should never buy a used car seat unless you know the seller since you can not be sure it wasn't in an accident.
*Double Stroller ($98). Again we could use the double umbrella stroller we already have but I am going for one that the car seats will snap into for convenience. Also will probably be bought used unless I get lucky and stubble over one in the next few months.
*Cloth diapers. ($????) Not sure of the price on these since I am still doing some price comparisons on AIO's and pre-folds...another post to follow on this topic.
* 2 Bouncy seats ($30 for both) I have seen several of these listed on craigslist for $15 each. When I have the time to deal with arranging meetings and pick-ups I will be getting these used.
And that is it folks not to bad of a list! We will of course need to get clothes from 3-9 mths but I am not to worried about that at this time. I will continue to look on craigslist and see what comes available. It is so cool that you can get a whole trash bag FULL of like new clothes for $15! A frugal Mommy's dream come true!
Friday, March 6, 2009
False Economy anyone?
Here I was thinking I had hit the jackpot the last time I was at the store, turns out the old adage is true if it sounds to good to be true it is. I needed to get some shampoo and conditioner and instead of buying my usual products at $4 per bottle I decided to look around and see what better deals there were. I found a brand name product for $0.89 per bottle and thought SOLD! Yeah can we say false economy anyone? This stuff leaves my hair feeling worse than if I hadn't washed it at all and looking like a grease trap. I just want to throw the crap away and go get my usual bottle of shampoo and conditioner. So instead of saving myself $3.11 I ended up wasting $0.89 Lesson learned even if it is a brand name product at a cheap price watch out and defiantly try it out before you decide to stock up.....can you imagine if I had bought 4-5 bottles of the stuff then to find out that it didn't work for crap?!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Maternity Shopping
There was a time not to long ago that when if I was told I needed an entire new wardrobe I would have been ecstatically headed out to the stores with my credit card firmly in my hand. Those days though are so far gone it never occurred to me to do so this time. One would think that since this is my third child I would already have quite the maternity wardrobe already formed, but sadly that is not the case. We recently PCSed from England to Hawaii and we were so worried about our household goods not making weight (especially since they were coming over on a plane and not a ship as usual) that we got rid of anything that we didn't absolutely need. That included all my maternity stuff as well as all the baby stuff Sara had outgrown so that would be from 0-12 mths. To many of you this may sound very extreme but when faced with the possibility of THOUSANDS of dollars in fees we were determined not to go over our weight!
Anyways all this rambling does have a point! Now that I am knocked up again I am faced with the fact that I have NO maternity stuff! So what is a newly frugal mama to do? Hit up eBay of course! I managed to get an entire wardrobe of maternity clothes including several pairs of jeans, shorts, capri's, belly band, dresses, and about 15 shirts for the grand total of $190 and that includes shipping! Now if you add all that up at retail costs of about $20 per item it would have cost me $400 without shipping costs! Not bad if I do say so myself :D
Anyways all this rambling does have a point! Now that I am knocked up again I am faced with the fact that I have NO maternity stuff! So what is a newly frugal mama to do? Hit up eBay of course! I managed to get an entire wardrobe of maternity clothes including several pairs of jeans, shorts, capri's, belly band, dresses, and about 15 shirts for the grand total of $190 and that includes shipping! Now if you add all that up at retail costs of about $20 per item it would have cost me $400 without shipping costs! Not bad if I do say so myself :D
The Good Ideas and the What was I thinking moments
So I have been doing this frugal thing for a few months and I have had some really great finds and some that were a total waste of my time. I thought I would share my experiences so maybe I can save someone from a total waste of time and money.
Great Ideas:
*Homemade Laundry Soap. Cleans just as well as the pre-packaged stuff but for only a few bucks
* Homemade Dishwasher powder. Again works just as well and you can use some of the same stuff that you bought for the laundry soap.
* Homemade All-purpose spray. A little vinegar and water and bam there you go, cuts grease and dirt and is really cheap to make.
*Homemade floor cleaner. I used to buy the Clorox mop refills and that was getting really expensive, instead I use warm water and vinegar in the refill bottle and it works wonders with no vinegar smell.
* Dishrags instead of the Clorox pads on the mop. I just use the big dish towels on my mop, works wonders and since it is just vinegar in the mop no need to worry about washing the cloth with the other clothes.
*No more paper towels. Honestly I though this was going to be harder but I don't even notice there gone now.
*Cutting out all the pre-packaged meals. I thought this one would be harder as well but after the initial shock it was pretty easy to do, especially since there is always leftovers from dinner for lunch.
* Cutting the meat in our meals in half and going veggie a few nights a week. Bry is the only one to complain about this one, but since he isn't here for 75% of the dinners who cares! ;D
* Growing my own veggies. This one is taking FOREVER to come to fruition but when it does it will be wonderful. I plan on canning some of the stuff so that will really help out down the line.
What was I thinking?
* Homemade napkins for the dinning room table. Yeah this one was wonderful in theory but took forever to cut down the cloth and then it wasn't cotton but some other material so it wasn't absorbent at all. BIG waste of time!
*Making my own body care stuff. Again great in theory but all of the ingredients in the book I bought on the topic were really expensive and a royal pain to put together. Just buy the cheap stuff and call it a day.
*Homemade bread for the entire week, even bought a bread maker for this. Um, yeah I don't really have the time for this one....actually I don't think anyone does! I do make all of our specialty breads from scratch (French, pizza dough, etc) but when it comes to sandwiches we buy the cheapest loaf at the store and say good enough!
*Making my own cat litter. It wasn't hard and was almost free since I have tons of free newspapers delivered every week but it was SO time consuming I would have had to make 3-4 batches a week and then let them dry for a week or more before using. OK I love my cat but come on! We are back on the store bought stuff and couldn't be happier.
*Making my own diapers. I love my cloth diapers but making them is a pain in the rear and they were never as absorbent as the pre-made ones, plus after I bought all the stuff and paid for shipping it wasn't any cheaper! No thanks I will just buy mine!
OK so there is my list for now. I will be sure to add some more as we go along, if you have any to add feel free!
Great Ideas:
*Homemade Laundry Soap. Cleans just as well as the pre-packaged stuff but for only a few bucks
* Homemade Dishwasher powder. Again works just as well and you can use some of the same stuff that you bought for the laundry soap.
* Homemade All-purpose spray. A little vinegar and water and bam there you go, cuts grease and dirt and is really cheap to make.
*Homemade floor cleaner. I used to buy the Clorox mop refills and that was getting really expensive, instead I use warm water and vinegar in the refill bottle and it works wonders with no vinegar smell.
* Dishrags instead of the Clorox pads on the mop. I just use the big dish towels on my mop, works wonders and since it is just vinegar in the mop no need to worry about washing the cloth with the other clothes.
*No more paper towels. Honestly I though this was going to be harder but I don't even notice there gone now.
*Cutting out all the pre-packaged meals. I thought this one would be harder as well but after the initial shock it was pretty easy to do, especially since there is always leftovers from dinner for lunch.
* Cutting the meat in our meals in half and going veggie a few nights a week. Bry is the only one to complain about this one, but since he isn't here for 75% of the dinners who cares! ;D
* Growing my own veggies. This one is taking FOREVER to come to fruition but when it does it will be wonderful. I plan on canning some of the stuff so that will really help out down the line.
What was I thinking?
* Homemade napkins for the dinning room table. Yeah this one was wonderful in theory but took forever to cut down the cloth and then it wasn't cotton but some other material so it wasn't absorbent at all. BIG waste of time!
*Making my own body care stuff. Again great in theory but all of the ingredients in the book I bought on the topic were really expensive and a royal pain to put together. Just buy the cheap stuff and call it a day.
*Homemade bread for the entire week, even bought a bread maker for this. Um, yeah I don't really have the time for this one....actually I don't think anyone does! I do make all of our specialty breads from scratch (French, pizza dough, etc) but when it comes to sandwiches we buy the cheapest loaf at the store and say good enough!
*Making my own cat litter. It wasn't hard and was almost free since I have tons of free newspapers delivered every week but it was SO time consuming I would have had to make 3-4 batches a week and then let them dry for a week or more before using. OK I love my cat but come on! We are back on the store bought stuff and couldn't be happier.
*Making my own diapers. I love my cloth diapers but making them is a pain in the rear and they were never as absorbent as the pre-made ones, plus after I bought all the stuff and paid for shipping it wasn't any cheaper! No thanks I will just buy mine!
OK so there is my list for now. I will be sure to add some more as we go along, if you have any to add feel free!
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