Here are some of my recent budget savers besides the do-it-yourself job fixing the toilet…
One jar of peaches can make two fantastic food items in the kitchen. First, after eating the peaches out of the jar I poured the light syrup that I had made for them into popsicle molds for a peach-sicle. They are deliciously peachy with little pieces of fruit and we all love them. Second, I made my Mom’s peach oatmeal muffins that she sent me the recipe for. I generally use powdered milk in my cooking if it requires milk in any quantity. It’s not only economical but it’s the only way we use our powdered milk supply. As I was reaching for the measuring cup to add water I suddenly had the thought to use my home canned light peach syrup in place of plain water making it “peach milk”. The measurement of light syrup was exactly the amount that I needed and the muffins were delicious! NO WASTE!
Generally we have a dessert on Sunday Nights. I used home canned raspberry preserves and cream cheese blocks I’d purchased by the tens when they went on sale for a dollar to make this divine raspberry cream cheese brownie. They were “out of this world” good. Home made granola using oats bought in bulk and coconut bought on a fantastic sale is a wonderful thing to serve at breakfast or in lunch boxes over a scoop of yogurt.
On the left, I used all of the cores and peels cut away from the canned apple slices I preserved to include in pressing into our applesauce so there was no waste again. On the right, not because we don’t have any meat because we do but rather for fun, I made Chicken Fried Steak with no meat! If you have any guesses on what they’re made of I should just tell you that these are actually made from oats. Between the spice and the gravy they taste remarkably like chicken and were quite good as well as filling. They did receive mixed reviews from my children, however! It was a great experiment.
Shopping is not a huge money or time consumer for me but it is still fun to have something new or different every so often. One the left, one evening as I was getting ready to leave on a date with my husband I found this little home sewn purse from my Mom on the hook, just the right size for what I needed to carry that night. Then I grabbed a pin of paper flowers with pearl centers that had secured a birthday package from my Aunt and stuck it on the purse to fancy it up just a little. They matched perfectly and paired with a necklace of the same colors they added a fun element to my otherwise plain outfit. On the right I did spend a little time one Saturday shopping in a desperate attempt to come up with cotton linens for my kitchen. For months I’ve had my eyes open for these whenever I’ve been out in the stores and come up with nothing at a good price as more and more of my towels and washcloths have made their way to the rag pile after years of service. And I’ve discovered a trend rendering it difficult to come up with any type of natural fiber for the kitchen so I was getting concerned. I made a trip out to a discount home goods store figuring maybe they would have some good old fashioned cotton for my kitchen. After searching and searching over shelves of “other” types of kitchen linens I came upon piles and piles of 100% cotton terry towels, flour sack type towels and washcloths; all marked .79 cents. Though they are not my favorite colors they are attractive and they are most importantly 100% cotton which is the only acceptable thing to me. Figuring I would never find cotton again for .79 and that I may never find cotton for the kitchen until current trends have run their course I would take as many of them as I could find. Bringing them up to the counter they scanned for $2, $3 and $4 each but apparently were mismarked by the store employees. I brought the difference between the scan and the tag to their attention and because they were ALL marked at .79 they got the manager and that is what they had to sell them to me for. I’ll never find cotton ever again for .79!!!
Those are my economical ideas for the month.
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