Stretching a Haircut Between Salon Visits

I'm doing a lot of re-runs here but many of these are so fitting right now. I have stretched my haircuts for years and it is really easy to do. With the salons all closed, you may feel the need for a trim until they open up again. You can easily stretch a haircut without too much courage. There are two pairs of scissors in the upper photo. One is regular hair-cutting scissors and the one next to it is thinning scissors. If you look close, you can see that the thinning scissors have a straight edge on one side and a toothy looking edge on the other. These little scissors are rather amazing, because you can take some hair and think you are going to cut it all off but in reality all these scissors do is thin the hair out. They are pretty neat. I bought these at Wal-Mart. I think they were around $7.00.

So, if you comb the hair with a little mist of water around the frame of your face, hold the hair down so you can see the straight line. Cut with the first pair around the frame of your face about 1/2 an inch or so. Then, take the thinning scissors (if your hair happens to be thick) and thin it out a bit. Take care to thin towards the ends of the strands of hair rather than towards the scalp. This will keep the main shape of the haircut for the most part but it will feel lighter and look better until you get into see the hairdresser or barber and give you a couple of weeks reprieve. If you get a haircut once every 6 weeks, that's 8.6 haircuts a year. If your haircut is around, say, $15.00 (which I do not pay BTW, tips on that later, but I think $15.00 is about average) you will pay about $130.00 a year on haircuts (for one person). If you stretched every haircut an extra 2 weeks that would change to 6.5 haircuts a year for $97.50 for a savings of $32.50 a year. If you did this 6.5 times a year, you would be getting paid $5.00 per time you stretched a haircut. It takes about 15 minutes to stretch a haircut (at the most 1/2 hour). That equates to $20.00 an hour for your time, or at the least, $10.00 an hour, plus the gas and time you saved by not getting your haircut. Multiply $32.50 by everyone in your family that gets a haircut and that's how much you can save per year.

Revision: Apparently I was too cheap. Here are some US averages for haircuts:  http://www.usnews.com/.../28/what-america-pays-for-a-haircut

Happy Savings!

Pennies Pennies Everywhere: Reuse Freezer and Storage Bags

A good way to save some money is to re-use your plastic freezer and storage baggies. I usually manage to re-use mine a few times before throwing them away. I suds them up well using some dish soap and hot water and wash them out well. I then turn them upside down to dry on whatever I have available. Usually that is on top of cups or a faucet handle or a bottle of some kind. There is often a little moisture left in them so I dry them out before putting them away. Depending on how many baggies you use per year, you can save a fair amount of money. If you normally use 100 bags per year, for example, and you buy 20 and re-use them over and over, and you normally pay 99 cents per 20 (which is what I get them for on sale), you can save about $4.00. That might not seem like a lot of money but remember when you save pennies on a little of everything all year long, and do it year after year, it can amount to a lot.

If saving a few dollars isn't a good enough incentive for you, you may want to consider washing baggies out for environmental reasons. According to Ecowatch, "Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the earth four times. We currently recover only five percent of the plastics we produce. The average American throws away approximately 185 pounds of plastic per year.Apr 7, 2014"  There is so much plastic thrown away, it really is quite tragic. A great thing about frugality is that it usually has further reaching effects than just your personal purse-strings. This is one reason why frugality is such a great concept.

Here is an article from Mother Jones on washing out sandwich baggies: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/washing-out-sandwich-baggies-waste-time

I re-use plastic baggies over and over and have not had a problem. I just make sure they are clean. However, there comes a point when I do throw them away. It is not recommended to re-use discolored baggies or baggies that had meat or oil in them for food use. Use common sense when re-using baggies.

Here is an article about re-using plastic baggies in ways other than putting food into them if you still want to use them after you feel they are no longer food safe. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/reusing-plastic-bags-tips_n_1859303.html?slideshow=true#gallery/248738/0

Happy Savings!

Pennies Pennies Everywhere: A Use for Bread Crusts

So, I admit that some of these are resurrected older posts. But they are just so timely right now! Since writing this post, I have gone gluten free. And since then, I hate throwing out bread crusts even more because a loaf of gluten free bread runs about $5.00! Even so, in this time of wanting to save money and for some, simply not wanting to go to a store, here is an idea for older bread crusts:

Don't you just hate throwing out bread crusts? There are many uses for them and here is one:

Tonight, I made sloppy joes, but instead of buying buns for the sloppy joes, I toasted bread crusts! After the bread crusts were toasted, we loaded them up with pickles, sloppy joe sauce, cheese and onions. They can be eaten either by picking them up or cutting them with a fork.

Other uses for bread crusts are using them with chicken gravy, mini-pizzas or some people like making bread pudding or stuffing with them. To make with chicken gravy, just toast the bread and make a chicken gravy with meat to pour on them. To make mini-pizzas, simply top with tomato sauce and cheese and any other topping you may like and broil. To make stuffing, you will need to cut up the pieces. Here is a recipe for stuffing https://www.spendwithpennies.com/easy-stuffing-recipe/

A few pennies here and a few pennies there all add up to dollars, not to mention not having to go to the store. 

Happy Savings!

How to Stretch a Chicken: 5-6 Meals Out of One Chicken for 3-4 People

Here are 5-6 meals out of one chicken for 3-4 people. 

Day 1: Meal 1: Roast Chicken. Yum Yum! This is so easy to make with a couple of baked potatoes and side veg. I usually make extra potatoes for leftovers.

 Day 2: Meal 2 Leftover Roast Chicken and Potatoes. Heat and eat.

Day 2 or 3: Meal 3 Chicken sandwiches for lunch or dinner! Add whatever you want, lettuce, mayo, cheese etc. Another option is using tortillas and making enchiladas.

Day 3 or 4: Meals 4 and 5 Chicken noodle soup with all the meat left on the carcass.

Everything that didn't go into the soup went into the pot. I will boil this on low for about 4 hours and make bone broth. I will strain out all the bones and skin etc. I usually just drink the bone broth, it is so good for you! (Can be used for a meal 6 or be used for the soup stock as well.)

None of this chicken goes to waste! There should be enough soup left for tomorrow night as well. The bone broth can be frozen into cubes for later soup if desired.

Last but not least, scraps for the cats.

Pennies Pennies Everywhere! Save Money on Milk

In these times, many people are looking to stretch their dollars or soon will be. There is a very easy way to stretch your milk dollars. When you buy a gallon, after you pour the first couple of glasses out of it, simply fill it back up with water and shake. If you buy whole milk, it would be like the first two glasses are whole milk and the next two, closer to 2%. 

A number of years back, I stopped using cow's milk. Before I did, I added water to every gallon to stretch it. I saved a lot of money that way. You can hardly tell the difference if you get the ratio right and it tastes just fine! 

In recent years, for health reasons, I switched to almond milk. I also added water to that and saved money there as well.

If you don't like or want almond milk and want to make your own homemade "milk", you can make oat milk.

You just put some water and a small handful of quick oats in the blender with the other ingredients, blend and voila! It works perfectly and amazingly it is MUCH cheaper than almond milk!

If you want to make oatmeal milk that is strained, you can follow this recipe or the many other variations of recipes online:

http://www.godairyfree.org/recipes/oat-milk-recipe-vegan

There are so many ways to save money. There are pennies, pennies everywhere!

Happy Savings!