Waste not, want not
Posted: April 20, 2011 Filed under: Frugal Food Leave a comment »
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You know how it is – something is is listed as an ingredient in a recipe you never get around to cooking, or you got it as an unusual Christmas gift. But however it happens, you end up with items in your pantry that never get used, and which sit there until the next pantry clean up.
If the items have been lurking in the dark depths of your pantry shelves for years, it is probably best just to throw them out. But if they are not that old, look up your recipe books and find a way to use them. The initial cost alone may be a good reason not to waste them!
Here are a few items likely to be lurking unused in your pantry, and how you can use them easily in your everyday cooking.
Rosewater: Often bought with the intention of making home made Turkish Delight, but when you find out how complicated it is, it’s just easier to buy a box of good quality ready made. But there are other ways you can use rosewater. Try adding a few drops next time you are beating whipped cream, or a cake. The rosewater will add a subtle flavour that will taste sensational. Add a few drops to icing mixture, raspberry jelly, or even jam – sprinkle a few drops in plain green or black tea and allow to infuse for elegant rose tea. There’s no reason why something as useful as rosewater should languish. It can be an acquired taste for some, but once acquired, it is never relinquished.
Buckwheat, soy or spelt flour: You were on a health kick, but it turned out to taste like corkboard. If the flour has been there too long, throw it out, but if you still have a good usable supply, don’t waste it. While these flours can be heavy in regular recipes, replacing a quarter of the regular flour used with some of the speciality flours you buy and never use is a good way to save the money you spent from being wasted. As an additive to regular recipes, these flours add a pleasant nutty taste without being overwhelming.
Herbal teas: You can just drink them, but if you decided you really hate the taste they can be brewed up and used in other ways. Most herbal teas make excellent hair rinses, especially chamomile, which helps bring out the highlights in blonde hair. Mint tea is excellent for soaking the feet after a busy day, and is also very soothing for rinsing the face. Soothing tea mixtures like chamomile, lemon verbena and mint can be used to fill sleep pillows (don’t break open the tea bags, just use them as they are) or for adding to your bath.
Herb Flavoured Vinegars: They won’t go off (vinegar is already off) but don’t be afraid to use them. Just substitute the herbal vinegar for the regular vinegar you use to make salad dressings or pickles. If you’ve already cracked open the bottle and you hate it, put it to good household use. Add it to hot water for floor and wall washing to keep the house smelling herby fresh.
These are just a few ideas to use up those odd items at the back of your pantry. But don’t forget leftovers in your fridge – yoghurt remains and mango and cucumber can be used for face masks and skin treatments, and odds and ends of cheese and cold cuts can be baked into muffins and quiches. The old saying is true – waste not, want not, because you can always put something to good use.
The Eight Dollar Caulie
Posted: April 9, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments »
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We are going to have to seriously rethink frugality. All the old good advice is crumbling under the weight of modern life – like buy second hand, eat frresh foods…especially the latter.
I was thinking of thinking of cauliflower cheese for dinner. A good frugal meal if ever there was one, especially if you make the cheese sauce yourself. After all, a kilo of good plain cooking cheese can be had for around $7, and that makes a lot of cheese sauce.
I was all gung ho until I got to the fruit and vegie aisle, and discovered some rather small cauliflowers (for my lot I would need at least two) priced at $7.99 per caulie. What??
Visions of a good cheap healthy meal flew out the window. A couple of bags of frozen caulie would be cheaper. So much for eating fresh and staying healthy and saving the planet blah blah.
According to the Monthly Inflation Gauge, its all due to floods and natural disasters, it’s only temporary, and is balanced out by falling rents and other household supplies. What do they mean by that? No one I know has noticed any fall in rents, and if by supplies they mean electricity and water, everyone knows that’s going up. Lies, damned lies and statistics.
Well, at least one piece of traditional advice still holds good. I have half a dozen caulies in my garden, at a cost of $3 for the punnet of seedlings. If I’m spared another flood, that should be a good return on my investment.
Frugal Fatigue is not a crime
Posted: April 2, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 Comments »I was very surprised to read the comments that followed Marilyn Zelinsky-Syartos’s recent post on Shelterpop. Although Marilyn explains the misunderstanding on her own blog, I still feel she has a good point here, and that the commenters over reacted to her charmingly honest article.
The general tone of the comments is that there is no such thing as ‘frugal fatigue‘ and anyone who claims to be feeling it is really suffering from ‘envy fatigue’ and is a traitor to the cause. What poppycock! I am 64, and all my life I have been following the frugal path. I was raised by frugal parents – my 12th birthday gift from my father was a bike he made himself out of spare parts (yes, I loved it) – and my mother made my clothes and refurbished hand me downs on her old Singer pedal sewing machine.
I raised my own kids frugally, and was proud to see how healthy they all turned out on home cooked meals. I’m the first to say frugal is good – it means your kids don’t grow up on junk food and junk entertainment. It means they understand that they can’t have everything they want, and grow up unspoilt, decent human beings.
I can pinch a penny til it howls in pain – but to say I have never, in 64 years, had frugal fatigue would be lying. Of course I get sick of penny pinching. Of course I would love to shop somewhere that doesn’t smell of unwashed second hand clothes. Of course I would love to have something that someone else hasn’t worn out.
Which is why I learned decades ago not to sweat the frugal stuff. I refused to feel guilty and a traitor to my own frugality if I bought myself or my kids something new. I couldn’t do it often, but I’m a hedonist – I couldn’t deny my greedy self the pleasure of seeing my girls prance around in brand new bubble skirts. I couldn’t figure out how to make them, they were too new then to have been given away to thrift shops, and they gave the girls such pleasure. I realised then that being frugal is not about being joyless. It is about saving money in one place so you could have a bit of fun with it somewhere else.
Things have changed so much over the years, and so have my ideas of frugality. Frugal and cheap still makes sense to me, but cheap and second hand doesn’t cut it anymore when charity shops have restyled themselves as ‘vintage’ and put their prices up so much that they are no longer the first port of call.
I have rediscovered the joy of wearing something no one else has worn before by attending sales and buying fabulously marked down clothes cheaper, or the same price, as the second hand shops. The proliferation of dollar shops means I can buy a new shelf unit and put it together myself. It lasts longer than a second hand one that is already falling apart, and I have the pleasure of knowing I paid cash, and saved money, just like before.
Once upon a time, buying second hand made a lot of sense. Items were well made to start with, designed to be sturdy and to last, and were indeed a bargain. But things have changed. Most goods are cheaply made and designed to give up the ghost as soon as the warranty runs out. Second hand furniture made from cheap MDF and ply is in pretty bad shape when it turns up in a second hand shop. Clothes get pulled out of shape and stained because they are cheaply mass produced in the first place, and worth nothing when they get passed on. But still the second hand shop puts a five dollar sticker on them.
That is frugal fatigue in a nutshell for me. It’s become so fashionable to be frugal that people with more money than sense think it’s just divine to find ‘vintage’ stuff at a price they consider ridiculously cheap. People think it’s chic to hammer good old pieces of furniture with chisels and chains to make them look ‘more distressed’. Frugal is a way of life for me, not a fashion statement.
It’s more frugal these days to buy new, at sales and warehouse outlets. using the frugal mantra of paying cash and avoiding debt. I worked in a thrift shop for a couple of years and was staggered at the number of customers who offered me a credit card to pay for their ‘frugal’ purchases. As we didn’t have credit facilities, they were equally shocked at being expected to pay cash.
How to avoid ‘frugal fatigue’?
First of all, give yourself permission to buy something new, as long as you can afford it and it’s not on a credit card. Enjoy it. You only live once.
Learn to cook really well, and serve your family or yourself tempting, healthy meals. That includes the occasional dessert. Penny pinching shouldn’t mean sucking all the joy out of life and feeling virtuous about it.
Be stern with yourself and accept that some things may just not be worth buying cheap or second hand. Fridges, for example. These days you want a warranty. Save for, or lay by, what you need to be new and working. Shop around, find a good price.
Make frugality fun for yourself and your kids. You may not be able to afford to buy them iPods, but you can give them memories they will cherish forever for practically nothing. Take lunch out into the backyard for a picnic, start up your own band with home made instruments, go to free events like Carols by Candlelight, and turn every birthday into a celebration of that child’s existence in your life. For yourself, get to know the public library, take your lunch to the nearest park, tend a garden of your own, even if its only a few pots on the balcony.
