Frugal Thrills

Today's adventure?

Beer (or Coke, or wine, or broth) Butt Chicken.

Using our oven and this nifty thing (impulse buys happen to the best of us!) we're cheering up our el cheapo chicken with herbs and wine.

It's the little things. :)

What little things have cheered up your frugal home lately?

Cheap Outing: Baskin Robbins 31 Cent Scoop Night!

Photo credit

(...and just to add irony by posting about ice cream right after blasting KFC's alarming new "sandwich.")

Do you have a Baskin Robbins in your area? If so, you may be in for a treat! On Wednesday, April 28th from 5-10 PM is 31 cent scoop night. (That's tomorrow!) Sounds like a great night out to me! :)

Thanks for the info Nicole!

Letter Exchange

Thanks InLaterDays!

I love handwritten letters, and it pains me that it seems to be dying out! I grew up in a military family and had friends scattered from pillar to post. I wrote several of them nearly all of my years at home, and I'm still in touch with a few!

If you miss the art of letter writing, head on over to Apron Thrift Girl's blog. She's coordinating a letter writing exchange! She has a really cute twist on it- check it out! Let's help make it a success.

It's the Little Things: The Frugal Romantic

The digital switch has not been all that awesome for us. We don't have an antenna in our attic, so the switch limited our channel access. Usually this is not a problem, as we limit our TV. Less access, less temptation!

Generally, this works for us. However, tonight there was a PBS special that a really want to watch. PBS is one of the channels that we no longer get with our little antenna. I was so bummed out. I'm a Louisa May Alcott NUT, and thought that the documentary looked very interesting.

While I was in the other room trying to see if I could get it online, (nope!) my husband was doing this:

With this setup, we can get PBS! I'd rather have this act of service than diamonds around my neck. Thanks, husband. :)

The 30 Day Giving Challange: Reflections on Being Good

Do you ever get tired of being good?

I know I sure do. That's not to say I'm a paragon of virtue all, or even most, of the time. I'm as selfish and cranky as the rest of us.

But I was not a terribly rebellious teenager, and my husband and I do our best to live honest lives. It does get tiresome, especially when it seems like those around us do whatever they want with little or no consequence for their action. Why be honest on our taxes? Why be financially responsible? Why sacrifice our time for others, why give to charity? Why not throw in the towel and live a hedonistic adventure? Why be good so much of the time?

This is why I gasped a little when I read the driving verse for the thirty day giving challenge:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galations 6:9

God knew that we'd get weary in doing good. He knew. It's normal that we're tired of it at times. It's normal to want to drive off into the world of selfish pleasures, nary a thought to goodness here! He knew, and he left this for us to remind us that our goodness is not in vain. He did not say "Go be good so everyone can run over you and enjoy things you'll never see, while you sit quietly and give to others with no reward." That's not what He said. Do not give up, and we will see the fruit of our goodness.

That is so, so encouraging to me.

I've kept track of my blessings, but it's never occurred to me to keep track of what I give. That seemed a bit...wrong...to me. Why should I think of what I've given? Why should I be reminded that I've done things? But why not? There's a difference between reminding myself and keeping a checklist. I'm not saying, "Okay, I've done this, and I will not do one more thing until I see a reward! I'm waiting..." I'm just reminding myself that there is fruit to my labor. Writing things down helps us see clearly. I tell my students that all the time, yet I've never practiced that myself in terms of what I've given.

Perhaps keeping track of the blessings we get for a short time will remind us that giving is not just an exercise in futility. We get what we give- I believe that absolutely. I've seen in my life before.

We all need a reminder here and there.

How's your 30 Day Challenge going?

30 Day Giving Challange

Do you?
(click box above for more info.)

Multitude: 27-35 Blessings, Blessings

Photo Credit: Lel4nd

I'm still counting 1000 blessings. If you'd like to join, go here!

26. A timely short term teaching offer- ask and you shall receive!

27. Along with my mental energy, a surge of creativity has arrived.

28. Family gatherings with lots of laughs.

29. Several timely coupon/online deals.

30. The utter simplicity of prayer.

31. Cool nights and a warm, welcoming bed.

32. The discovery of a thrifty neighbor- it's nice to meet a real flesh and blood frugalite.

33. Hot coffee with milk.

34. Our favorite tree turning colors. Welcome Fall!

35. The smells of fall- people are starting to use their fireplaces. I love that scent!

Multitude Monday: Blessings #22-26

Photo Credit: Lepiaf.Geo

I'm still counting 1000 blessings...head over to Holy Experience if you'd like to join in the fun!

Here's some of what crossed my mind this week:

22. The stockpile of tissues, painstakingly built over the past five months with coupons, just in time for allergies and colds to hit our house hard.

23. The return of my energy. It's amazing how much better it feels to just feel *awake* during the day. May I never take this for granted again.

24. The crisp fall days that are making being outside a joy!

25. The big bowl of inexpensive, juicy pears.

26. Timely thrifty finds on books I've been wanting to read for awhile, but have not found in the library.

More here.

Continuing the Counting (#17-21)

Thanks to lepif.geo!

Still counting 1000 blessings- go here if you'd like to join the gratitude community!

17. The smell of a variation of this chicken dish cooking for supper tonight.

18. The library copy of Mad Men for a cozy date night at home.

19. The antics of our hilarious guinea pigs.

20. A timely tablecloth find on mega discount, just in time for dinner guests.

21. The return of my writing inspiration- I'm currently in the works on a variety of FHP articles. My brain is waking up after a summer of sluggishness.

Count Your Many Blessings, Name them One By One (#11-16)

Photo by OiMax

I'm joining Holy Experience in counting 1000 blessings. She does hers on Monday. Mine may not be on Monday, but they will be here! :) Go here for more info on joining the Gratitude Community.

11. Fresh seafood in simple sauces. Burst of amazing flavor!

12. Others who share my passion for thriftiness...and the camaraderie we find on the buy by the pound floor of the thrift store! (more on this next week!)

13. Time to just sit on the subway; time to people watch and imagine all those lives. Where they're going, where they've been.

14. How little we really need- we're doing just fine with minimal clothing and nothing but a coffee maker as a cooking instrument. (more on this next week as well!)

15. The secret language my husband and I share...somehow the words "Camera! La la la! Camera! la la la Camera- OH NO WE FORGOT THE CAMERA!" is only funny to us. This is why we've found each other. This is why I married him.

16. Old friends, reunited.

Under the Weeds

I seem to have the blogger flu that is going around. Meredith at Like Merchant Ships has has *sob* all but quit blogging (and will be missed- check out her Food for Thought, which is still going!), Anne at Married to the Empire is slowing down, and Lynne at Being Frugal recently admitted some struggles. I relate to all of them on some level.

I've slowed down quite a bit for a variety of reasons, the main one being my insanely busy summer. I've missed blogging, but on my list of priorities, I've had to put it towards the bottom for awhile. Like Lynne, I am an introvert, and I've had way too much going on and way too little time to recharge. When I am drained, I am DRAINED. Yesterday was my first "off" day in nearly a month, and I slept through most of it. I did not mean to, but my body simply refused to let me get up. Sometimes your body makes you do what is best for yourself. I've been feeling so open, so raw for the past few months, and taking that one day to sleep was so healing.

I sometimes feel bad when I'm not getting it all done. I have to remind myself that I'm human, I am a single person, and I don't have to do everything. It's not my job to do everything- just everything I can without losing myself in the process. I decided to let a few things in my life go for the busy season.

One of them was my garden. I had already planted, so I kept it up on a (very, very) minimum level, but not nearly as much as I should have. It's being choked out by weeds, and we've recently discovered that the "roots" we've been cutting through the past few years is actually Bermuda grass. I've not had the energy to deal with it, so it's been slowly taking over this year's plants.

I was encouraged today. When I finally got out to the garden to attempt to deal with the mess...peeking out through the weeds and mess, there were some ripe tomatoes. There are watermelons hiding in the high grass, and I'm sure that if I dug a little, I'd find some onions. Fruit appeared, even when all I could handle was watering the garden. I did what I could do, and while I surely would have a better harvest had I been out weeding, my small amount of work is not in vain.

We can't be perfect. Sometimes, we can only keep our head above water. That does not mean we will not be fruitful- we just have to look harder in weeds for the fruit.

Simple Meals

I had frozen chicken legs, potatoes, carrots, and an abundance of fresh organic thyme. What a great time to pull out my clay pot cooker!

Clay pot cookers have been around forever, and are very expensive if you by them new. Amazon has them listed at about $40, but I got mine at a yard sale for $2. It is worth the wait to find one used- I see them frequently. They are an excellent kitchen tool to make simple one pot meals. It steams the food and the result is very tender and flavorful.


You have to soak your pot about 15 minutes before you use it. I cubed potatoes and lined the bottom of my pot with them and the carrots. I sprinkled fresh thyme, pepper, and salt over that, and added some fresh minced garlic. On top I placed the chicken legs, which were coated in a small amount of olive oil, thyme, minced onion, and a little salt and pepper.

It went into the oven at 450 degrees for an hour and half.

Simple foods, simple herbs, simple meal, simply delicious!

Hot Meals on Cold Days

It's a good thing my mother and sister-in-law came in last night instead of today. We woke up this morning to this:


What a perfect day for cuddling under blankets, watching movies and reading, and enjoying hot tea and hot meals.

This morning we ate Crystal's excellent baked oatmeal. Chili is in the crockpot for tonight, to be complemented by hot rolls.

I hope everybody's holiday insanity is calming down a bit, and that nobody is traveling in this yucky weather today.

Simple Pleasures: Crockpot Winter Meals

It's a cold and icy night tonight- the perfect night for a hot meal in the crockpot.

This morning I pulled one of my super bargain roasts out, rubbed it with spices (cumin, garlic powder, salt, and a few other things this time, but you can use whatever strikes your fancy), and wrapped it in foil. It's been in my crockpot all day, making the house smell heavenly! We'll enjoy it with .39 cent a pound sweet potatoes cooked in my clay pot cooker and sautaed zucchini with a sprinkle of fresh parmesan and walnuts. It makes a dreary day more cheerful to know a delicious hot meal is waiting at the end of it!

What's your favorite winter crockpot meal?

Just a quick site of interest

Ruthie pointed this site out in the comments of a previous post. I finally got around to looking at it today, and found it very interesting! I would love to make Christmas a Buy Nothing Christmas, and to an extent, my husband and I already do this with each other. Do any of you do something like this with your family? How did you convert the reluctant? How do you approach the topic at all? I would love to hear your stories! Leave a comment or e-mail me at Frugal.Homemaker.Plus (at) gmail.com


Joyful Holidays continue tonight with my favorite holiday scents!

Simple Pleasures

I've been becoming recommitted to simplicity the past few weeks. My husband and I love the Voluntary Simplicity movement, and often try to think of ways to make our lives more simple.

This week, I'm enjoying:

• coming home to a already cooked meal, thanks to my trusty crock pot. It makes the house smell wonderful and gives me extra time to relax, rather than rushing to cook dinner the second I walk in the door.
• A cup of hot tea and a good book from the library on a cool fall day
• The smell of clean sheets
  
• Walking with my husband and my dog, looking at the trees and their beautiful changing leaves

What are your favorite simple pleasures?

What will you not budge on?

The Erratic Homemaker has an article on what name brand products she will not budge on, as she feels the generic is not as good as the name brand. I have a few of those myself. What are your weaknesses?

Mine are:

1. Coke. I almost never buy soda, but when I do, it must be real (and not diet!) Coke.

2.Clinique Dramatically Different facial moisturizer. Of course, this can be had far cheaper on E-bay than at the counter. Or if you have a sister who works at a department store who gets more free samples of such things than she can use. :)

3. Scott TP. I think other brands are softer, but with Scott I don't have to change the roll every single day. Every time I've gone to another brand, I always go back to Scott.

4. Dove antiperspirant. I will use other brands if I can't get this on sale, but I don't like to. I really do think the moisturizer in it helps. This is one thing that I generally stick to brands as well- Secret will keep me from sweating, but with Suave, I may as well rub a rock under my arms.

5. Fabreze Air Freshener and Fabreze Spray. makes the room smell wonderful, and it lasts! I also love the Yes, yes, I know. To be frugal I should be gently simmering apples and cinnamon on the stove to scent my home, but I really love Fabreze! I have bottles of it all over my house- in our bathrooms, in my car, in our animal room (we have three guinea pigs and a house rabbit), hidden in a basket in our living room- fabreze air freshnerFabreze spray- I spray down my curtains, my sofa, my car seats, my bedspread every week or so. I've tried generic brands. I've tried making my own. Nothing has satisfied me as much as Fabreze. I look for dollar off coupons
and stock up when one of the stores in Wichita does double dollar coupons.

Sunday Afternoon

I love Sunday afternoons, especially when the weather is nice. It's been so deary and blah in Wichita the past few weeks, and I know that it has been affecting everybody's mood in the household. Today it is sunny and 58 degrees, and everyone in the house is cheerful. Ahhh. My husband is working on his Master's thesis in the office. The roommate is tinkering with things in the garage, and I'm puttering around the house, admiring how differently things look in the sunlight.

Here's my dollar garage sale bowl, filled with sale priced Cameo apples.

Here's dinner in one of my crockpots- bargain chicken legs, being made into Spicy Hot Chicken Legs. I do the baking in the oven part at the end. It's worth it to crisp it up a bit. Yum!

Here's a little treat I got myself today at Aldi's. The Valentine's Day roses were half off. Since the regular Aldi's price is 2.99 for half a dozen, I would say that half off is an exceptional deal. I love fresh flowers!

I hope everybody is having a peaceful Sunday.

Frugal Fridays: Use What You Have

I have been watching others talking about curtains at Crystal's blog the past few days, and ideas on how to make them. Yesterday I thought that I would finally get around to making some for our living room windows. I was excited by this, but did not want to spend more than ten or fifteen dollars.

After puttering around Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart, I could not find any fabric that I liked for less than 3 dollars a yard. I was a bit bummed out. I was not going to have nice curtains like all the other ladies were making and showing on their blogs right now! I went home and resloved to be patient and to wait to see what I could find later on at yard sales and thrift stores and Freecycle. I frequently see fabric for next to nothing at all three of those sources, so I figured I could wait.

While I was fixing lunch, I had an epiphany. Um, I already had curtains. I've had them for years, and they had spent a lot of time getting dusty in a drawer, for someday. I usually don't keep things around, as I hate clutter, but these were one thing I had kept. I pulled them out, washed them, and hung them with curtain rods that the previous owner of the house had left in the utility room. Ta-Da, and it cost me nothing to do, except the gas I spent looking at fabric. When you want something, poke around your home- you may already have it!

My nice reading corner, now with curtains!

Book Review: The Simple Living Guide

My husband and I both love books. We could easily go broke if we bought all the books that we wanted, and could fill up our new house if we kept all the books that came our way. Because of the broke/being trapped in a house of book clutter issues, we satiate our book addiction at the library for the most part. It has to be either 1. A very special or useful book or 2. Hard to find in the library for us to buy it.

The Simple Living Guide met our criteria. I picked it up at a library a few years ago, and earlier this year, decided that I wanted to buy it. Chelee (a reader and fellow blogger) saw me mention that on my FAQ's, and offered to send me a copy that she was done with. Thank you so much, Chelee!

The book is organized by topic: Time, Money, Work, Virtues, Housing, Clutter, etc. Many things about the book are things you probably already know if you're even halfway aware of the voluntary simplicity movement, but there are also lots of things I had never really considered. It was this book that made me really think about housing and how in America we tend to have our own single family home. It made me think of other arrangements. They have examples of people who get by on less by having roommates or living in unconventional housing. It was this book that got me interested in building my own cob house.

The Simple Living Guide is not about frugality per se, but frugality and simplicity often go hand in hand. If you are living a simple, uncluttered life, you are not likely spending much money. It's an excellent reminder to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life, because those often are the best things.