Frugal Families Blog

It’s deer hunting season!  Opening day is today.  So my thoughts turn to…shopping.  Unlike my husband, though, I am out to save the “bucks” - and dough, too (doe?)  Someone please stop me before I pun again.

It’s been a lot of years since I went hunting.  I’ve gone out in the woods a few times in recent years, but not to hunt.  For me, deer hunting season is more along the lines of BARGAIN hunting season, just in a different locale.  When I leave today, I’ll be taking my son’s girlfriend with me.  She does not have any desire to hunt.  Deer, that it.  But oh, my kind of hunting, that she’s willing to try.

What does my kind of hunting involve?  Well, first, checking out the area in advance for craft/art fairs.  My love of purchasing local goods is not limited to food. 

Of course, there are thrift stores.  Different thrift stores from what we have here.  Last year, I bought a pair of brand-y new sunglasses at the thrift store for $2.  I love them and wear them all the time.  In fact, I thought I lost them a few months back, and was sitting around, mourning my cheap sunglasses.  I also found a little corningware visions dish with handle for $1.49.  Which I also use ALL THE TIME.  Perfect size for heating small portions.  I could sidetrack and talk about the huge collection of Corningware Visions that my husband got me one year.  That is NOT  a romantic gift.  And I was younger, impractical, and definitely romantic.  Now, I’d love to have them back.  Yes, I donated them all, then a few years later decided to stop using plastic in the microwave.  Hey, maybe this little dish was one of my originals.  Maybe not.

Don’t you just love my little side trips?  If I ever make it through an entire entry without going off topic, no one will be more surprised than me!

And next bargain, CHEESE!  Yes, we are the dairy state.  And we have some really great, locally produced cheeses.  Yes, we have some in this part of the state.  But hey, variety is the spice of life (and there is a cheese place up there that makes a baby Swiss that is to die for!)

Malls, well, I try to avoid.  I’ll stop at a mall in another city if someone I am with wants to.  And occasionally, will find a great bargain at a department store or other store that we don’t have around here.  Good grief.  Christmas shopping.  A whole other post.  But I need to start thinking about it.  Next time!

One mall I don’t try to avoid, though is the outlet mall.  I really have found some good bargains there.  But, as with everything, you need to know your prices, because some stuff is NOT a bargain.

Well, I have psyched myself to shop - let the bargain hunting begin!

After reading Sue’s posts about her Farmer’s Market experience and after reading some wonderful articles in our paper locally I decided to start patronizing our farmers market on a weekly basis.  We have a very small farmers market but it in no ways takes from the ambience or atmosphere which is right along a river.  I bring my puppy River and we wander the stalls sometimes one of my children or my husband come along with me.  I have been for about the last six weeks consistently and here is what I have noticed.  I am starting to see some of the same people so its more than just a frugal experience its a social experience.  Also I now know the man who sells my eggs to me and I realized I did not know what a fresh egg tasted like and they are unbelievable it is worth the extra 40 or 50 cents per carton.  I tend to cherish each egg more now, it used to be if an egg broke in the fridge it was no big deal but now these are my precious fresh eggs and he uses very nice cartons and when you return your eggs if you return the carton you get 25 cents back.  The farmers market is good for the environment to I don’t ever have them bag anything up unless it is going to be messy I just use my reusable cloth grocery bag and tuck it in.  I also see people walking with rolling coolers which is great if you are buying a lot of stuff.  My son who is ten loves to come with me sometimes while I am shopping, him and the puppy run along the river and he laughs as the puppy tries to get to the pigeons.  The last time I went I discovered I love roasted chestnuts I had never had them before I really didn’t know it is something about the mood that makes me more willing to try something new.  I am writing this because I know sometimes food can cost more at a farmers market but most of the produces I buy and the items I buy are always cheaper than the grocery store with the exception of the eggs.  This is a way I can give back to my local economy but I get so much more back, I did not realize how much I would enjoy knowing who is growing my food but I really enjoy it and you might too! 

What a great time of year to enjoy pumpkins!  We grew a bunch this year, one of them weighing in at about 50 pounds… the others pretty normal jack-o-lantern sized ones.  I noticed that you could pick them up pretty inexpensively at stores too… especially after Halloween.

So many things you can do with a pumpkin!  We carved jack-o-lanterns from some.  If I’d been on the ball, I could have cut those up on November 1st and baked them to use for eating. (That almost sounds cannibalistic! )   BUT we left ours out for decoration for the next week instead.

We have several pumpkins left on the front step that are serving as decoration until I’m ready to bake them to use as well.  Today I baked one of those decorations and it produced 10 cups of pumpkin puree.  We made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins from 2 cups of that and froze 2 containers to use later for pie. (between them they’ll make at LEAST 6 pies and a couple of batches of muffins again lol)

The shell of the pumpkin that was left after scooping out the pulp, has been discarded in the garden ready to be tilled under to compost there.  The seeds were saved for roasting in the oven to snack on later.  I’ll include the recipe for those here.

What a wonderfully useful thing these pumpkins became this year!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups pumpkin seeds, rinsed

2 T. butter

2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

2 tsp. salt

Put seeds in a 2 quart saucepan and cover with water & add salt.  Bring to a boil, turn heat down & simmer for 10 minutes.  Drain.  Mix  butter, Worcestershire, and seeds in pan, coating seeds well.   Spread on a greased cookie sheet and bake in 350 degree oven until seeds begin to brown.  Stir occasionally.  This may take 30-40 minutes… just keep checking.

Enjoy!

What a wonderful time of year for frugal activities with the family!  I love shuffling my feet through the ankle deep leaves in our front yard.  This year the younger children have had hours of fun raking the leaves into a pile, making a nest, hiding under the leaves, and jumping in to the waist deep piles of crisp leaves.

There are oodles of fall activites!

Try a fall treasure hunt…  Make a list of items you might find in the fall.  Use your yard, or go to a park to hunt.  Some ideas for your list might be:  several different shaped leaves, nuts or pine cones, bugs, birds (I’d suggest just checking those off rather than trying to catch one ), add other items according to your area.

Rubbings…   We love to do this with leaves any time, but is especially fun in the fall.  Pick a leaf or two that isn’t too dry.  Place it on a table, lay a sheet of paper over top, peel the paper off of a crayon and lay it lengthwise across where the leaf is… rub the crayon over the leaf until you have a good impression.  Try several more in different colors and different leaves.  Ahhhh…. terrific refrigerator art work!

We love making pumpkin seeds when we carve pumpkins…   pick seeds out of the “guts” of your pumpkin after you scoop it out.   Rinse the seeds with water.  In a saucepan, cover seeds with water and bring to boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.  Drain water from seeds, in pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and add 2 tsp. Worcestershire, and a tsp. salt.  Stir seeds and sauce together.  Spread seeds on a greased cookie sheet and bake in a 300 degree oven about 30 minutes or until seeds become crisp.  Stir occasionally.  Cool and eat!

What are some of your favorite fall activities?!  I’ll bet there are many frugal family oriented activities in your area!

When it’s located right smack in the middle of a tourist town!  Normally, I do a lot of shopping at my local farmers markets.  And if the prices are a bit higher, sometimes, than at the grocery store, I’m fine with it, because the food is fresh and yummy, and I like supporting the local growers.

Now, last week my husband and I were “up north”.  I put that in quotes, because my Florida relatives were always amazed when I’d say we were going “up north”, because to them, Wisconsin was pretty far north already!  But we can get a few hundred miles futher north from where I live, and still be in Wisconsin…

Again, I have gone off on a tangent and need to be reeled back in!  So anyway, we were up north, and passing through one (of many) touristy towns, when I happened to see a farm market.  One of the things I usually buy up north are cranberries.  Well, they had cranberries.  For $2.69 a pound.  I haven’t checked recently, but I’m pretty sure I can beat that price back home, especially around Thanksgiving.

I was disappointed.  But as it turned out (I apologize in advance for what I am about to say; I just can’t help myself) my search for cranberries would become more fruitful!  (Sorry!)  A local grocery store had them for 99¢ per pound.  And that is a price that I cannot beat back home.  Needless to say, a huge bag of cranberries came home with me (and have already been canned as cranberry sauce).

It just occured to me that this could also be called “Buying local, part 3 - Check out the local grocery stores when taking road trips!”   You may be pleasantly surprised by the bargains you find!

     I know, I know there is no such thing as “cheap college” these days or even cheaper however I want to address the subject of the subject of text books.  Many people I know without question always by their textbook from their college book store.  It makes sense right?  It’s convenient and its right at your school…WRONG!  College book stores are looking to make a profit, it is actually cheaper to go online and order your college text books online but their are risks.  For example once I thought I ordered the text and received the study guide, you have to read the fine print and you have to trust the seller(review their seller ratings very closely), I have rarely deliberately been mislead.  Some sites that are good to use are half.com, ebay, campus books.  Recently everyone purchased a used math book from my college book store and they all paid $89.00, I paid $14.00 at half.com my book was listed as in poor condition but it was actually in very good condition.   I didn’t care too much about the condition because I was paying rock bottom anyway, I could not beat that price.  If a text book is not completely covered in writing the general shape of the book does not matter to much to me.  This is a huge savings!  Now you can not always get those kind of savings but there are a lot of deals out there that are 50% off even.  Another idea to regain some of your losses is to sell your text books on line or you can sell it to your bookstore but you most likely won’t get close to your money back but you wont’ have to deal with shipping either.   The next time you are out and about you might want to peak in to your local college bookstore to look at the prices but warning you will experience sticker shock of course sometimes it cannot be avoided the book you need is only available at the college book store that is why I try to save when I can!

This could get to be an obsession with me.  On the other hand, I’m having fun with it.

Yesterday, my husband and I took his mom to visit some relatives in the north-central part of the state.  It’s a big potato farming area, and I had hoped to purchase some locally grown potatoes.  As it turned out, I didn’t need to buy any, because my husband’s aunt gave us a 20 pound sack of potatoes as a “thank you” for bringing my mother-in-law up to visit. 

Okay, I’m not a big potato fan, but wowee, these are nothing like what I’ve seen in the store.  Because they’re not packed away in plastic bags or exposed to all the water that flies around produce sections, they aren’t wet like a lot of grocery store potatoes.  They don’t have weird spots.  They’re big, they’re firm, they’re…dirty.  Yeah, in my mind, that’s pretty neat.  I just feel like they came right from the fields to my kitchen (which they pretty much did).   They’re just super fresh.

While on the way home, we passed many, many little stands and shops.  At one, the cabbages left me speechless.  They were huge - bigger than any I’ve seen before.  They were the prettiest shade of green.  The looked nothing like what I’ve seen in the grocery store.  And, oh, yeah, they were 75¢.  Each.  You don’t find that kind of price in the grocery stores around here, even at St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m hooked.  I’m keeping a lookout whenever we go somewhere.  I can’t wait to head up north later this month - and you can bet I’ll be reporting what I find right here.

As summer winds down - oh, wait, it already did wind down, techincally it’s autumn - one of the things that I’m reflecting on are Farmers Markets.  I will miss those terribly once winter arrives!

I love farmers markets.  I love seeing all the beautiful, fresh fruits, veggies (I suppose here I should also mention fresh bakery) and craft items at our local farm market.  I love the items change with the seasons - from strawberries, rhubarb, peas and perenniels in late spring, to fresh cut flowers and the total bounty that is summer, to the pumpkins, squash, apples and autumn decorations that are out there now.

I love talking with the farmers and growers, getting to know them as the weeks go by.  You just can’t get this kind of experience from a grocery store, no matter how great that store may be.  And talk about fresh - lots of it was just picked.  Again, you can’t get that in a grocery store.

I’ve gotten great bargains there - a bushel of red, yellow, green and purple peppers for $4, last year, comes to mind.  After freezing them, I didn’t have to buy peppers for the rest of the year.  When I saw colored peppers in the store for $4.98 a pound, I just smiled and passed them by.  Made my frozen peppers taste even better, I can assure you!

This year, I haven’t spent as much time at the farmers market as I did in the past, mainly since my garden went crazy and gave us more tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers than we could eat and preserve.  We are still eating locally produced foods, but this is mainly courtesy of our garden.  Who knew there were so many ways to prepare cucumbers?  We were blessed with a huge number of ”burpless” cucumbers this year, which we ate just about every day…and you should see my shelves of home canned pickles from the other plant!  

What we couldn’t use, we gave away.  Several people told us how much they appreciated it, and how much better our cukes and tomatoes tasted than what they usually had.  Which leads me back to why I love buying locally grown produce - the freshness.  It just tastes better.  So much better!

Dd6 was invited a couple of days ago to a birthday party. Hooray!!! She is so excited and started thinking right away what she might like to give the birthday girl. My schedule has been busy this week and it is 15 minutes to the nearest store where we could choose a gift. The gift stash saves the day!!!

Throughout the year, I watch for sales and clearance for toys and other gift items that could be used for my children to give each other at holidays or for them to choose from for friends. A year ago, I bought a huge bead set for $2 online. It’s valued at $12 and looks great. Dd6 was THRILLED to choose that for her friend. Yahoo! Saved me time and gas for a trip to town AND gave her a nice gift at a low price. No guarantee we’d have found something on sale THAT good at the store!

If you don’t already have a gift stash at your house, try watching for just a few little things here & there. After Christmas sales are a great place to get a good bargain.

Good luck and have fun establishing your frugal gift stash!

     Recently I started walking two miles a day to help lower my blood pressure.  I did not run out and join a gym I didn’t even buy walking shoes.  I was given a heart rate monitor as a gift which does help me push myself harder if I need to but the reality is I have lost weight and feel better without spending any money although I might ask for new walking shoes for Christmas.  I own a couple of Walk Away The Pounds dvd’s to walk when it rains or there inclement weather but nevertheless I have lost one pants size and one shirt size not that that is extremely impressive.  I also walk at my local park around the lake it is very peaceful and quiet sometimes I think people forget to take advantage of all the free gifts our local parks have to offer(Usually our tax money is paying for it).  Our park has wonderful tennis courts, hiking trails, walking trails, fields to fly kites in, etc…  As a matter of fact just recently my husband, son and I spent the entire day running around after a kite that we purchased very inexpensively at a local discount store and we had the best fun and looking at the gorgeous fluffy clouds on such a windy day was so exhilirating.  Plus running from the kite dive bombing is pretty exciting too.

     Many people have known for years that walking and spending time outside is good for the body and good for the soul I of course had to have high blood pressure readings to put my own self on an action plan. 

     The unseen benefit beside looking better, wearing smaller clothing and have improving my health is the amazing amount of energy I have.  I am able to work full time, go to college part time and still navigate myself to baseball games and chorus performances without being tired anymore.

     The change in my life did not cost me a penny and it sure makes life look more beautiful these days plus it is as simple as a walk in the park!