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 is 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: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/06/reusing-plastic-bags-tips_n_1859303.html?slideshow=true#gallery/248738/0

Happy Savings!

Finding Deals Everyday: Today I Made at Least $29/hr Tax Free!

Once a week, I go into town to do some shopping. This time of year I go on a day that there are garage sales. I stop at a number of garage sales, making sure I have cash in my pocket to spend in case I see something that I could use. 

Today I hit a number of garage sales. I got a number of items we can use. In addition, I stopped and got a haircut. I used a pre-paid card that I got last winter. Every winter, our area Great Clips has a deal that you can buy as many pre-paid haircuts as you want for $9.99 each so I buy enough for the year.

Aside from the garage sale deals and a hair cut deal, I also looked for deals at Wal-Mart when I went. No matter what store I shop at, I scan the clearance and mark down areas to see what I might find. Today I hit the jack pot on meat!! I have never seen prices this low, so I assessed how much space I had in my freezer (in my head) and bought everything I thought would fit in there. 

I bought two turkeys that were $25.77 each for $6.33 each. .48 cents a pound! These are ready to cook turkeys. They were marked down because the handles on the bags were broken. Use by or freeze date on these was all the way out to 1/18/18! 

Duck was marked down from $2.84 a pound to .50 a pound!! I bought four ducks. Use by date on these is more recent, but I am not worried as it is only a use or freeze by date. 9/24/16. 

  

Boneless Turkey Roast was $12.23 and was on sale for $2.98! I bought three of these. I knew I had to quit as space was limited.  The use by date on these was all the way out to 06/14/17. 

So all this meat would have cost me $157.87 and only cost $33.88!! 

Add to that, I checked the clearance aisle. I am not listing everything but I got 2 of these bottles of  25.4 fluid ounce shampoo for $2.00 each plus they have coupons for free styling products that I will get next time I am at the store. 

If I count only the meat I got today and nothing else....no garage sale savings or clearance savings, that is a savings of $123.99. Let's just guesstimate and say I saved $50.00 more on other items (a low estimate). That is $173.99 in one day and I spent about 6 hours out. That's $29.00 an hour tax free! I save like this on a regular basis by simply keeping my eyes out for deals.

Happy Savings!

Reminder! Time to Buy Strawberries and Freeze!

In my area of the country, it's strawberry season! This means buying strawberries on sale in bulk, hulling them and freezing them! I just paid $1.29 a pound, soaked them in a vinegar/water mix (takes out some of the pesticides), hulled them and froze them (after they are hulled I just put them right in baggies and freeze!). I just did 5 pounds and will do more later when they go on sale again. Strawberries frozen were about $9.00 for four pounds last I checked so this saves some more pennies to add up to dollars to save or purchase items on sale!

Happy Savings!

Pennies Pennies Everywhere! Don't Throw Out Those Old Bananas!

There are many ways to save a little money here and there and it all adds up! I bought a lot of extra bananas a while back because they were on sale (of course!). I usually use brown bananas in smoothies but I had too many this time, so I decided to make banana bread! 

You can use leftover bananas for banana bread, smoothies, banana muffins or even banana cookies! Bananas also freeze so if you can't get to them right away you can keep them in your freezer until you are ready to use them (although they are a bit mushy and watery when thawed-they still work well for baking.)

Here is a banana bread recipe to try: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

We usually eat one loaf right away and then I freeze the other one for later on. Yum!

Happy Savings!

Freezing Broth

I am freezing the liquid from the roast in ice cube trays. This can be used for a natural flavoring instead of bullion cubes (which are terrible for you) for soups and whatnot later on.

I just grabbed this quick off the internet in a quick google search about bullion cubes and MSG. I rarely use bullion cubes. (I don't necessarily recommend this particular website for health information but in a quick search it says what I have read many times about bullion cubes). http://garlicandlemonsllc.com/health-and-wellness/the-evils-of-bouillon-cubes/

Freezing Strawberries

I have a strawberry patch, if you can call it that. It doesn't produce hardly anything and I have not treated it well. I get so much going on. Too many irons in the fire and so some things get neglected. The strawberry patch is one of them. I may just till it under next year.

So, since I am a strawberry patch keeping failure, I look for strawberries when they are on sale and I freeze them. Yes, I am too cheap to get the wonderful strawberry patch ones, the ones that taste superb. But, at $15.00-$18.00 for a gallon, I just can't see fit to cough that up. That is on the bucket list for someday. :) Every year strawberries go on sale, usually for .99 for 1 lb. At that time, I buy a lot and freeze them. But, alas, this year they never were at .99 that I saw. Everything just keeps going up. So, while I was waiting for the .99 sale, I passed on the $1.19 sale. Finally, here we are in Aug and I bought these for $1.29 lb before I lose out altogether.

While I was at Aldi, I did some price checking. Right now while supplies last, you can buy 1 lb of frozen strawberries for $2.19, marked down from $2.29. I have a feeling this means they will go up come winter. So 6 lbs of frozen strawberries right now would cost $13.14. I paid $7.74 for 6 lbs. of the fresh ones. If we do this type of comparison, I saved $5.40. But what if I waited until winter? Fresh strawberries cost quite a bit in the winter, let's just say $2.49 lb for a rough estimate. That's $14.94 for 6 lbs. for a difference of $7.20 for the ones I bought today. So, I saved between $5.40 and $7.20 for what took me a half an hour of labor today. Let's multiply that and we get between $10.80 and $14.40/hour, tax free. Not too bad. Give yourself a raise with your labor today. :)