Archive for what's in my hand?
Self-Discipline
One of the problems with trying to get out of debt or maintain a budget is that things just keep right on breaking, often before you’ve even paid them off. Tires go flat, plumbing needs repairing, the alternator in the car needs replacing, the computer goes blank, the belt on the washing machine breaks- and [...]
Knowledge
Knowledge is another key frugality that perhaps doesn’t spring first to mind when somebody asks you how you live within your means.
You can increase your frugal power by learning how- how to do things, make things, sell things, and how to get by without. How to be charitable when you don’t have much money. [...]
Frugal Ice-Packs and Learning to Plan Ahead
I assume we all know the emergency tip about using a frozen bag of peas or corn on a nasty bruise. But what about when it’s not exactly an emergency? This past week our daughter Pip had her wisdom teeth out- three cut out and one extraction, and she needed to apply ice [...]
Flexibility In Your Hand
A while back in a post on my regular blog about drastic budgeting in the kitchen, I shared some links on cooking on a budget from an extension office, and then I shared some ideas on how to use that basic plan and make it even more frugal. The recipes and menus included [...]
Advice from a young bride
The Equuschick (our second girl) got married to her best friend, a man she’s known since before they were in their teens) last November. Their first child is due sometime this month. Shasta took a massive pay cut to move here instead of taking the Equuschick away (we love Shasta), and they’ve had to learn [...]
Various and Sundry
Wonderfully frugal way to get clean, soft, lovely skin- I LOVE this method.
Green cleaning ideas- these are the things we use to clean at our house- and by green, I also mean the green that’s in your wallet. One tip I don’t think is on there- to clean sinks I use a bit of baking [...]
A Frugal Birthday and Family Craft
The above picture was taken from a birthday several years back- The humpty-dumpty tin, the costume jewelry, and the dress all came from a thrift shop. Humpty Dumpty was this child’s favorite nursery rhyme. I shop at thrift shops and yard sales several times a year looking for birthday and Christmas items and I stash [...]
Seashells and more
These pictures were taken about 23 years ago. We lived on a tropical island in a foreign country.
What I had:
Cheap wicker shelving (it was cheap- a couple of dollars at a yard sale, I believe). Candles in sconces, flowers I pressed and framed in a thrift shop frame, sea urchins I picked up at [...]
How A Stick-It Note Helped Me With a Frugal Hack
Monday I was on my way home from a dentist appointment and I passed an unattended yard sale. That is, there clearly had been a yard sale, and there were still some pieces of furniture and a large table set up on sawhorses with plenty of stuff on top and beneath. But there [...]
In My Hands… Picture Frames
I have several framed pictures with glass from thrift shops- it’s one of my many weaknesses. I cannot resist framed pictures with the glass in them if it’s a really rock bottom price (I’m talking a buck or two at most for frames with glass- more if I actually like the picture). They’ve been piling [...]
Cleaning out the Fridge
Last night my oldest daughter and I cleaned out the refrigerator together (one of the last times before she marries, sniff, sniff), and then made supper based on what we found.
This is an old recipe we use when we want something like Quesedillas, but we haven’t enough tortillas left to go around. It’s a flexible, [...]
Mulberries, summer heat, and our extra houseguests
What’s in my hand this week?
Mulberries, and now black raspberries which can be treated the same way.
Two extra little boys, ages five and two. They visit many weekends, but this visit has had them here for nearly two weeks, and the five year old (we call him Blynken) asked me tonight if he could [...]
Sour Milk
It is one of the ironies of modern life that kind of tickles me when I think about it, but when we come across a recipe calling for sour milk, we have to actually make our milk sour by adding vinegar, while most sour milk recipes were developed by our foremothers to use up the [...]
Buttons, Buttons, Who Has the Buttons
Button solutions:
Whenever we get rid of any clothing that is too far gone to be given away and still have me feel good about giving it away, we snip the buttons off and save them for use elsewhere. A good button box can also be used to help give small children practice in matching [...]
Bread Crumbs
A friend wrote to ask if she could make bread crumbs even though she didn’t have a food processor. Yes!!
I put dry bread in the blender. I have also put very dry bread (dried out in the oven if I need to) in a plastic bag and rolled it into crumbs with a [...]
