Small thrifts
Considering the high price of everything, and the lack of cash coming in, at least for me, what small thrifts are you doing to make things easier or more pleasant for you?
Buy industrial sized pudding mix. We have a restuarant supply store near us. One of the things they have is restuarant-sized pudding mix. The package says "mix with 1 gallon of milk." Humm... One gallon of milk is eight times the amount called for in the home-sized package. I've found that in general, I can separate this large package into 8 packages of 7 tablespoons each and still get a pudding that is thicker than the home-sized version. For me this works out to about 50 cents per 2-cup pudding. (OK, OK. We don't necessarily NEED the pudding, but it's a nice, cheap dessert when you have your own dairy animals.)
Men's white cotton hankies as filters/strainers. I started using these hankies when I was making jelly. A jelly bag is not a trivial item, and the hankie seemed to work just as well for me. Now that I'm milking, I use it as a milk filter as well. Clean daily with with soap and hot water. Bleach occasionally. It works for me.
Wood stove cooking. Before we got the wood cook stove, I would make a few things on the wood heat stove. Heat water for tea, heat left-over coffee, let the bread rise , make beans! Beans take a long time to cook, and the heat of the wood heat stove is enough to keep them going.
This year I was too cheap to buy a calendar. You know what? I think I'm smart enough to make my own calendar. I had a couple boxes of line-feed paper (all connected together with serations to pull pages apart and pull edges with hole off.) One of the boxes of line-feed paper was 11"X 17". I made a spread sheet that was just 5 rows of empty boxes, headings for these rows called monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc., and enough space at the top to write in thh month and year. After I had all my calendar pages ready, I glued them to 11" X 17" pages to make room at the top for whatever 'art' I want to put there. Since we have no children at home, I will be adding this art myself, but this would be lots of fun for a family with kids. Each month let them fill the top with 'art'.
What small thrifts do you do?
Buy industrial sized pudding mix. We have a restuarant supply store near us. One of the things they have is restuarant-sized pudding mix. The package says "mix with 1 gallon of milk." Humm... One gallon of milk is eight times the amount called for in the home-sized package. I've found that in general, I can separate this large package into 8 packages of 7 tablespoons each and still get a pudding that is thicker than the home-sized version. For me this works out to about 50 cents per 2-cup pudding. (OK, OK. We don't necessarily NEED the pudding, but it's a nice, cheap dessert when you have your own dairy animals.)
Men's white cotton hankies as filters/strainers. I started using these hankies when I was making jelly. A jelly bag is not a trivial item, and the hankie seemed to work just as well for me. Now that I'm milking, I use it as a milk filter as well. Clean daily with with soap and hot water. Bleach occasionally. It works for me.
Wood stove cooking. Before we got the wood cook stove, I would make a few things on the wood heat stove. Heat water for tea, heat left-over coffee, let the bread rise , make beans! Beans take a long time to cook, and the heat of the wood heat stove is enough to keep them going.
This year I was too cheap to buy a calendar. You know what? I think I'm smart enough to make my own calendar. I had a couple boxes of line-feed paper (all connected together with serations to pull pages apart and pull edges with hole off.) One of the boxes of line-feed paper was 11"X 17". I made a spread sheet that was just 5 rows of empty boxes, headings for these rows called monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc., and enough space at the top to write in thh month and year. After I had all my calendar pages ready, I glued them to 11" X 17" pages to make room at the top for whatever 'art' I want to put there. Since we have no children at home, I will be adding this art myself, but this would be lots of fun for a family with kids. Each month let them fill the top with 'art'.
What small thrifts do you do?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gina on -
I consider dessert a necessity =).
-Making our own popsicles out of leftover jam. I can't take credit for this idea, I read it on someone's blog. I take the last bits of jam, mix them with a little water, and freeze in a popsicle container for perfect, homemade treats.
-I make my own spice blends (e.g. curry powder, chili powder, garam masala) from whole spices that I buy in bulk. Instructions are here: http://www.mendolo.com/2009/01/08/spicy/
-Cutting up and drying out our Christmas tree for firewood.
I love the idea of cooking as much as possible on a woodstove. If we ever move somewhere cold we will definitely be getting one.
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Permalink Reply by Sealander on -
I collect empty coffee cans from the office and use them for food storage....decent food cannisters can be quite expensive, and the cans are a good size for storing rice and flour in.
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Permalink Reply by Lori on -
Funny you should talk about hankies - all our hankies are made out of white sheets that have got thin and worn out in the middle. We also make scarves out of these. Scarves are a necessity in the heat and with UV measurements at 16 or in the very extreme range, they stop your neck getting burnt in the back and the front. I find it relaxing to sew these while I sit in front of the TV at night and I use to make the kids hem hankies if they wanted to watch TV. It gets even more embarrassing when I go about asking my friends if they have any worn out sheets!
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