A few weeks ago my friend Tania messaged me that her husband had gone rogue while she was out of the house and covered the living room windows with bubble wrap. She attached this photo: I snickered and asked her if this was his idea of Christmas decorating. Nope, she said. He’d read on the Internet that bubble wrap is … Read more
In the past year or so, I’ve found at least half a dozen K-cup coffee makers sitting on the curb or next to Dumpsters on trash day. All of them turned out to be perfectly functional once I cleaned the hard water buildup from the works. My guess is that they were thrown out because the previous owners didn’t know how to remove … Read more
I went to Aldi today to do my grocery shopping. I tend to go there because they generally have good produce prices, and I like that they have limited selection. I’m one of those shoppers who likes limited selection because having too much to choose from just confuses me. Ideally, I would shop at the co-op or farmers market all … Read more
Two months to the day that I last wrote here. I’m still being cheap, but I haven’t been very motivated to write about it lately. In September, I had an extended viral illness that limited my ability to go couponing and that also motivated me to start writing fiction again as a way to entertain myself. As I often am … Read more
I am really into home food preservation. I have an annually rotating stock of hundreds of jars of canned applesauce, canned pears, apple chutney, tomatillo salsa, jams, jellies, apple butters, tomatoes, tomato sauce and fruit juices. When I worked on a farm and had access to surplus vegetables, I also pressure canned lots of green beans, beets and soups. Every … Read more
I have definitely slowed down at getting rid of things. Craigslist has been slow the past couple of weeks (last thing I sold was a hand-held vacuum cleaner for $15), and I haven’t posted to Ebay in a few weeks, since what I’ve got left is mostly low-value and not worth making a trip to the post office is … Read more
The other title I had in mind for this post was “Mending Socks – No Darning Required,” but who wants to read about that except for crafty/thrifty nerds? This way, I might suck in my friends who think that mending socks is only for old ladies in Dickens novels. A few years ago – maybe in 2007 – my friend … Read more
This week was quite productive on the getting-rid-of-stuff front, despite all Freecycling coming to a halt for a day and a half during our record-breaking blizzard. I successfully parted with: a pair of Earth shoes that were cute, but too narrow for me a Saris indoor bike rack that didn’t do the best job of holding my bikes a 2nd … Read more
Today was a “look in the kitchen cupboards for stuff you haven’t used in forever, then Google said item and the word ‘recipe’ so you can finally use it up” day in my household. I found a package of potato flakes, even though I never make instant mashed potatoes. The Great Google brought me to a potato flakes discussion on … Read more
