Official SS Poll: What do you do to eliminate bills / cut down expenses?

[frustratedearthmother]

Please tell me they used left over chicken that hadn't been sold and gnawed on!

 

[Mini Horses]

Yep, normally the unsold pieces.

If you have a grocery who offers rotisserie chickens, I can tell you that those unsold are stripped of meat and made into chicken salad for the salad bars, sandwiches in deli, etc.

Chili at fast food? All those unused hamburgers......now, the ones on a bun get tossed because "time" to undo, etc. But many places run burgers onto a heated pan & make up burgers as ordered, especially during their busy times.

Careful reuse is allowed....and should be. Just like at home.

This morning I will go get my 2nd truckload of "cast offs" this week. the rules governing the food provided and accepted at restaurants is very strict. So, often a damaged box, containing further sealed food cannot be sent out...dented cans, etc. These things are much like the "dead meat" section for close dated discount. YES, sometimes these food items are cases of close dated items but, still very good, especially if you then can or freeze it. I often get 50# bags of onions & potatoes or cases of ear corn, avocados, etc., because the bag ripped or box damaged. I'm loving it!! The product has had to be kept at the correct temps & storage so that the distributor does NOT have spoiled food. I often pick up frozen cases of "stuff".
I'll let you know the goodies I get today.

Will probably be cooking during this dang snow storm blowing in!! Prepping for 4 to 12" of the crap....I'm in the center of the eye of the storm, so 50 miles E or W will determine amounts. Just no doubt it is going to hit.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Wow! Hope you get a good haul of goodies! Be safe out there...and yep... GREAT weather to cook in.

 

[tortoise]

I tried hand washing clothes yesterday and today. Things t-shirt size and smaller - which most of our laundry is - are easy for me to hang wash, put in the washing machine for 11 minute spin cycle, hang dry all day or all night, and then 15 minutes in the dryer to fluff and dry any remaining damp. I calculated hand washing saves about $0.20/load, up to $80/year. I'm a bit disappointed it's not more, but I enjoy the bit of exercise and *****most importantly***** getting cloth diapers CLEAN, and washed promptly rather than collecting for a load of laundry and stinking the whole time. Yuck! Hubby bought disposable diapers and I told him Baby would be potty trained before we used them up. I've never been so consistent with cloth diapers since saying that to him!

I'm starting eating down the pantry and freezers of all the ingredients that don't get used in our regular meal rotation. Oh my, there's a lot of food sitting around here. We've been eating grocery store food while home preserving. What sense does that make?!

 

[Mini Horses]

You know, I have "a lot of food sitting around" here, too. Freezers, frig, shelves. I'm working at using it and really haven't bought much of anything for last 2 months. I'm making myself use what is here. It has become a challenge now. So far a supply of TP has been my only buy in 3 weeks! I'm eating great and giving food away. Need to cook a chunk of that pig I butchered couple months ago. Believe my kids have eaten more than me. That's fine, plenty there....I mean, couple hundred pounds.

Hens have picked back up laying after all the moulting.

Only couple months until we will be into Spring.....that sounds better than couple more months of winter!!

 

[lcertuche]

We had a potluck dinner at church Sunday and I got plenty to take home. Plus a lot of people give us their leftovers because they didn't want to take it home. We got a crockpot of barbecue short ribs, seafood casserole, cookies (my grandsons favorite), two containers of deli macaroni salad. We planned on taking a turkey but it didn't thaw in time so we took blackeye peas which mostly got ate. My favorite food is free!

 

[tortoise]

DS9 attempted negotiating out of a chore yesterday by telling me that there's no point in "Frugal Friday", no point in doing the stuff once a week. Good point, Child! Let's do it every day! Not the reaction he was hoping for! He is much more careful about throwing clean clothes in the hamper after doing a bit of hand washing laundry.

 

[lcertuche]

Yeah, I make my sons, 12 and 14 do their own laundry now because I kept finding clean clothes in the laundry because instead of putting their clothes away they just threw their clothes in the floor instead. They are getting much better at putting them away now.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I've been looking at my daily electrical usage, my electric company gives me an hourly usage graph. I am trying to figure out what all of the spikes are. Thus far the largest ones are the hot water heater. So we are looking into tying our outdoor boiler in to the hot water heater, as it produces more heat than we need for keeping the house warm. It will only help when it's cold enough for the boiler to be running, but it's a start.

 

[tortoise]

I put my wifi thingie on a timer. It has a battery, no need to keep it plugged in constantly. I don't know how much power the timer thing uses, but the wifi thingie is only charging 12 hours rather than 24.

I need to find our Kill-A-Watt meter and figure out if it's worth it.