What did you do to save $ today?

[me&thegals]

Thanks for the tip on canning lids, Sylvie! My husband went to Wal-Mart recently and said the canning aisle was crammed with people!

I saved today by freezing about 40 quarts of sweet corn we had grown. My sister did about 20 quarts, mom and dad about 40 quarts, brother about 40 quarts. We grow this from about $60-80 in seed, then sell WAY more than that at market and to coworkers, then all get to eat corn free all year

Picked blackberries in the woods again. They're free. I have 36 cups of juice in the freezer for making jelly and syrup. Loads are going into my CSA baskets and tomorrow 28 pints are being sold to a local co-op CSA.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Wow, me&thegals, you did good!

We harvested our first millet, as well some apples from our 2 year old dwarf apple tree.
I made freezer bread today, extracted whey from homemade yogurt, started semi sourdough with whole grains for my bread, made apple cider using free apples from a friend's tree, using my blender and strainer (hopefully for ACV), made 2 quarts of fermented pickles and using some of the freezer bread dough to make pizza tonight, along with homemade tomato sauce and homegrown vegies.
Received basket of food from FIL (that he got free from soup kitchen he volunteers at). We gave him a bag of zucchini from the garden.

 

[Islay]

I'm writing in advance of the actual -saving in case I don't get back on the computer, but today I'm going to save by:
1) Picking all the ripe fruit (plums, apples, greengages, pears) in my mother's orchard
2) Going foraging for more blackberries (I've already picked and made jam/jelly/syrup from 8lb, and there's tons and tons left in the hedgerow still)
3) Making jam from my mother's fruit while I'm still here as her cooker is a lot more efficient than mine, so will use less energy. And she's paying for the energy
4) Going around the charity shops in the towns local to my mother in search of knitting yarn, new clothes for my boyfriend and the baby for winter, a crock pot (you never know!) and some more jars, rather than buying new ones of all of these.

Wish me luck!

 

[big brown horse]

I'm wishing you luck Islay! I found my stainless steal crock pot at goodwill.

 

[VT-Chicklit]

I purchased 10 boxes of canning lids for $1 each at Dollar General today.

Yesterday, while DH and I were going to the bank, we came across a box of FREE things on the curb. I made him stop so that I could check out what was FREE. This drives him crazy! In the box were various brown bottles (like what Mrs Butterworths comes in) 2 one gallon pickle jars with lids and a brand new kit of FIT Vegatable Wash. The kit contains a bowl with lid, collander, 1/2 gallon FIT Veggie wash, and a spray bottle of FIT Veggie Wash Spray. It all was there and unopened. I decided to take the veggie wash and the 2 one gallon jars. I did the Happy Dance as I put my finds into the back of the truck! DH was imperssed with my items as well.

 

[me&thegals]

That's awesome, VT chicklit!

I checked my local dollar store Tues, but no luck. I have one more to check yet.

 

[FarmerDenise]

VT-Chicklit, isn't it great the after you have to make them stop, the stuff you get is really worth stopping for.

 

[Javamama]

I stuck to my grocery list, even though the whole blasted grocery smeled like heavenly cinnamon rolls that the bakery was putting out. Put me in craving overdrive. I did stop and stare at the doughnuts for awhile

 

[FarmerDenise]

I stuck to my grocery list, even though the whole blasted grocery smeled like heavenly cinnamon rolls that the bakery was putting out. Put me in craving overdrive. I did stop and stare at the doughnuts for awhile

Staring and smelling is ok, it's still free I do that a lot.

I saved money, by researching cell phone plans today. My contract with verizon ends this weekend and I'll be free to choose. Whoopie. I found one that has no annual contract (supposedly) and is about $20 less per month than what I'm paying now. It'll be less minutes, but it will still be more than I use!! I'll probably buy their $20 phone instead of getting the free one. It'll be able to take pictures, which my daughter tell me is a really nice feature. And I can get a %5 discount if I join back up with AARP (that'll add up to about $1.15 per month, almost paying for the AARP membership)

I picked , tomatoes, carrots and zucchini. I am preparing green beans for dehydrating, got tomatoes in the dehydrator and fed the chickens the rest of the stew that nobody liked. At least they ate it all. It had a lot of corn and grated carrots in it.
I saved most of the meat from the stew for the dog, the chickens got most of the vegetable part (because it was mostly corn). So I also have enough food for the dog for a day or so.
Now I better get back to snapping those green beans.

 

[Javamama]

I discovered a couple of overripe peppers and instead of tossing them out like I used to do, I put them in the oven to roast while the rest of supper was cooking. Then I skinned them and packed into the freezer for later use.