Hi there, Mrs. 1500 today, looking for your favorite frugal kitchen tip. But first, let’s look back at last week, when I asked you when you replace something.
My luggage is in sad shape. It looks ugly. But the only purpose it serves is to keep my clothes together while I travel, which it does quite well. I asked you when do you replace something large like this.
FI Pilgrim had a great answer. Duct Tape. Even Steven Money agreed. Reader MattW added “That’s why that silver miracle was invented. To further bolster the argument: old, crappy, falling apart luggage never ‘goes missing’.” Too true. Recently at Denver International Airport, a guy was arrested for stealing luggage, and he only took high-end luggage. My bags will never be confused with high-end bags…
Elizabeth Lund pointed out that bags will just get banged up anyway. Good point.
Mr. Frugalwoods pointed out that if you travel often, it makes sense to invest in a good bag. This is true, but I don’t travel enough to make the investment at this time.
I think Wade from Destination Financial Wisdom put it best. “It doesn’t always work, but I like the rule “if it no longer functions as it is supposed to, replace it”. At table with a few scratches on it is still a table. A table with a broken leg is no longer a table. A suitcase with some scuffs and dings is ok. A suitcase with a broken zipper or broken handle or wheels is no longer a suitcase.” Great advice Wade. Thanks!
Now on to today’s question, what is your favorite frugal kitchen tip?
Growing up, my parents were embarrassingly cheap. My mother wore, in my teen-aged opinion, the ugliest clothes on the planet. They drove the absolute oldest cars in America, I was sure of it. They didn’t care what anyone thought of them, and went through life, saving money and spending frugally. My sister and I, of course, were mortified and tried to get them to change their ways repeatedly. No dice.
Mon and Dad were equally frugal in the kitchen. They washed and reused ziploc bags and tin foil. Any little bit of leftovers went into the refrigerator for clean-out-the-fridge night held later in the week. We ALWAYS had a garden.
Now that I am no longer a teen (and in fact could be a mother to people who are also no longer teens) I appreciate their frugality much more. Their teaching me to save money and not waste will allow Mr. 1500 (who is also super-frugal) and I to retire much earlier than most people our age.
I love to cook, and have learned many things both from my parents and on my own, on how to save money here and there in the kitchen. Here are a few of my favorite kitchen frugality tips:
Buy a knife sharpener. For years, I didn’t have one because I couldn’t get the correct angle on those sword-shaped sharpeners that come with the knife set. So I would use them until they no longer cut, then would buy more. (I know, the horrors of waste…) Enter Billy Mays, and his wonderful Samurai Shark knife sharpener. This baby sharpens knives super fast, and is small enough to fit in your knife drawer. Saving time is also important, and a sharp knife cuts faster and cleaner than a dull one.
Use cloth dishtowels rather than paper towels. I was at Ikea of all places, and found some really pretty dishtowel sets. 4 for $4.99. I bought 4 sets, and use them all the time. Just about the only thing I don’t wipe up with them is meat juice. Of course, I discovered these right after I bought a 12 pack of paper towels at Costco. I can’t get rid of those…
Speaking of cloth, use cloth napkins instead of paper. Honestly, this isn’t going to save you a whole bunch of money. Napkins just aren’t that expensive. But the environment thanks you. I pick these up at garage sales and thrift stores for next to nothing.
Add a potato. Recently, I bought a 10-pound bag of potatoes, because it was actually less expensive than the 5-pound bag. But then I was stuck with 10 pounds of potatoes. I only needed about 4 from this gargantuan bag, so I had to come up with creative ways to finish off that bag before it went bad. My solution was to add a potato to almost everything. It works great with taco meat, although the girls didn’t really like it too much.
Freeze it. You can freeze almost anything. I keep a bag in the freezer of carrot peels, celery ends, bits of onion, etc. When the bag gets full, I put the contents on the stove in a pan, cover with water and simmer for a few hours. Broth for almost nothing.
Compost it. This one isn’t really a frugal kitchen tip. But it will save space in the garbage can and help your garden look better next year. Or your flower beds. I had Mr. 1500 buy me a rotating compost bin right after we moved into this house. Any fruit or vegetable parts that we don’t eat go directly into the bin. There is a bit of an art to getting the right mix of “brown compost” like newspapers, leaves and grass clippings, and “green compost” like fruit and veggies, but it isn’t that difficult. I fill up my bin with leaves in the fall and it all works out in the end.
Grow your own. Organic vegetables and fruits are expensive. Herbs can add up quickly, too. But seeds are really cheap, and sunlight is free. Add water and a bit of dirt and you have your very own organic garden.
I would love to hear your favorite kitchen-related tips.
We switched to kitchen rags instead of paper towels for basic cleaning/clean-up. When I do the chopping for dinner, I hate running to the trash can every few seconds with pits/seeds/peelings, so I just lay down a rag (cut from an old sheet that had a gigantic hole in it!) and put all the trimmings on that until I’m done, and then the trash gets thrown out and the rag gets put on the washing machine to be reused.
We also tupperware up all our leftovers to take for lunches so we don’t have to eat out for lunch, which saves $$$. But we’re not always the best about using up everything before it goes bad.
I wish I was better at using everything up, too. There always seems to be a tupperware container in the back of the refrigerator that I KNOW has been there way too long. Open it up and the odor just about knocks you out.
We only use individual size tupperware, even when we have a lot of leftovers (except for watermelon). It makes it easy for me to heat one up for lunch (I work from home), and its the only way my husband will ever pack leftovers.
My little kitchen tip is to cut sponges in half. It’s not a huge savings or anything, but it helps us from running out of sponges so quickly.
Oh, and you can microwave them (get them wet first) to disinfect them, and extend their life a bit.
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I cut my sponges as well. The smaller size doesn’t take away from getting the job done, but doubles or triples your use. Great tip! And it is a huge savings, because you are buying sponges half as often, or getting twice the use out of them.
Rather than composting the veggie peels, etc, I throw them in a freezer bag until they’ve accumulated enough to make veggie broth. It’s no laden in sodium like the store-bought ones, and it is a good use of those scraps. Plus it’s a nice way to add flavour to a recipe rather than just using water.
Along the same lines, I want to start a herb garden, but I know I won’t be able to use them as fast as they grow. I’ve seen tips to make a herb-infused oil and then freeze them in Tbsp sized amounts in ice-cube trays. Then, again, you can add a bit of flavour without wasting the fresh herbs that don’t get used the first time around.
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I, too have seen those tips for making oil-infusions or freezing them in ice cube trays. And I don’t get to use all of the herbs before they go bad. Sigh.
I do the same with with trimmings — yum!
For the herbs: I dry the extras. Just tie some string around the ends and hang them up somewhere dark and reasonably dry. (Yes, I’ve successfully done this during humid summers). I don’t have a garden, but I can get bunches of herbs for cheap at the farmers market.
Do you have a mandolin? Make chips out of those leftover potatoes. I just did this yesterday with sweet potatoes.
I don’t have one, yet… Thanks for the tip!
I like to try to find uses for things I would otherwise throw away. I can peaches and use the skin scraps to make vinegar that I love in salad dressing. I add my strawberry hulls or cucumber peels and ends to a pitcher of water to keep in the fridge. Always make chicken broth with the leftover bones from roasting a whole chicken. (Do both the roasting and the broth in the crock pot to keep the house cool in the summer.)
Thank you for these great suggestions. I never thought to put cucumber peels into a jug of water. Then, after they are used up completely, I can just compost. Perfect!
We love fresh, healthy produce. But there is a dark side. Literally. As in, we used to buy lots of great produce and not eat all of it, it turned dark, limp, and sad… and then was throw out amidst much grumping.
For us, becoming more frugal in the kitchen has been centered around wasting less food. I shudder to think how much produce we used to throw out!
Beyond the obvious planning meals ahead of time (which helps a lot!) the big winner in our campaign against produce waste is what I like to call “glue food”. That is, a base ingredient that _anything_ in the fridge will stick to. [Rice, Quinoa, Pasta] + anything perishable chopped up with some garlic, shallots and hot sauce = good times.
Once we get 5-6 days after a grocery trip, it’s time for a glue foods dinner! Whatever didn’t get used in the course of normal meals we intentionally eat.
For fruits, the morning oatmeal is the great user-upper. Fruit that is already a bit soft goes great in oatmeal! Even better than fruit in it’s prime.
Does this cause some random meals? Yes. But we also are able to use up anything that is looking wilt-y.
Mrs. FWoods threw out an apple the other day (quel horreur!) and we both remarked “huh, that’s the first time in a while we’ve thrown out any produce.”
I was also going to say get good knives and keep them sharp… but you already beat me to that! 🙂
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Are you Mr. 1500 in disguise? This is EXACTLY the same problem we had a few years ago. And are kind of getting back in to now. I have a couple of local stores that have amazing looking produce. But when I get it home, it doesn’t get eaten. Neighbors have us watching their cats right now, and gave use a giant bag of fresh veggies from a farming co-op. Great, but what do I do with all that kale?
I like this roasted greens & beets recipe. Paleo or not, it’s still pretty good and I even like it pretty well reheated. http://everydaypaleo.com/too-easy-chicken-adobo-and-roasted-greens-with-beets-and-garlic/#more-4607
Not sure if this counts as a kitchen tip, but meal planning was the big game-changer for me. Before I was focused on being frugal, my husband and I would just meander through the grocery store throwing things in our cart that seemed like a good deal, or that we knew we often used in meals, or that just sounded good at the time. We spent a lot, food often went to waste, and there was the dreaded standing in front of the open fridge trying to figure out what to make for dinner each night.
Meal planning is a pain (in my opinion), but when I started doing it I was able to cut our grocery spending by a large percentage, even when I didn’t feel like bothering with coupons. We use everything we buy, and it’s nice not having to come up with a dinner idea when I’m frazzled at the end of the day.
If you can buy in bulk, it can save a lot of money – we buy the 25lb bags of flour at Costco – $7.99/bag (~$0.32/lb) *but* you have to either use it all or be able to store it properly so that it doesn’t go bad (or attract bugs in the case of flour…)
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Here is my favorite use for those extra potatoes. Make “black bean burgers”.
1 or 2 potatoes cooked in the microwave, 1 can of black beans, assorted minced onion, garlic, lime juice, spices.
Remove the potato peel, mix the potatoes and drained black beans in a bowl. Add in some garlic, salt, minced onion, pretty much anything you like. Mash it all up, stir it up until mixed.
Form patties and pan fry on either side with a little olive oil until they are browned/hot on each side. Throw on a bun with lettuce and ranch dressing (or other toppings).
A bit messy, but pretty tasty if you are black bean “burger fan”. I use up our extra potatoes this way.
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We haven’t bought paper towels or napkins in what seems like forever. It just seems like a huge waste of money to use something and just throw it away. We have napkins and they clean up messes better anyways!
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I’m not much for a frugal kitchen, I prefer to choose health and wellness as far as food is concerned.
I think the best thing we have done is to work on limiting waste with food especially vegetables. I will gather everything together to cook before it goes to waste, otherwise it feels like our grocery money is going into the garbage. Another example is buying organic milk, while it is more expensive it is healthier for us and lasts longer than the large gallon milk available that we tend to throw away.
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I think we still have a ways to go to get our kitchen to be really frugal, but one of the big things that helps me is keeping it organized. If I can see what we have on hand, we’re way less likely to impulse buy or overbuy.
Oh, and it’s random, but my friend taught me that you can re-grow green onions on the counter. You chop off the green part and use it, then stick the bottoms roots down in a glass of water. The greens parts will regrow in ~a week or so. They don’t grow back quite as thick, but you easily get 50% more green onion out of every bunch if you do it. =)
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We eat a lot of bean and lentil soups in the winter. Nice and warm on a cold winters day, tasty and cheap!
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We had a terrible habit of having to throw out a lot of food because we’d forget we had it. So now I keep a paper list of what is in our downstairs chest freezer on our fridge, so I know what I don’t have to buy during my next grocery store run. And I also have a small magnetic white board attached to the fridge – this is where I write what we have for leftovers. When we eat them, we erase it off the list. Sounds really simple but it took me years to think of this! Plus with the leftover list, it’s easier to figure out what I want to take into work for lunch, I don’t go digging around with the fridge door open.
Not sure if this helps others, but here are some strategies I use to use up stuff in the fridge:
– just about any vegetable can go in a stir fry or salad. If you don’t have any lettuce or greens, chop of veggies and marinate in salad dressing overnight.
– older apples can be used to make apple sauce or apple chips
– many fruits work well in a crumble
– you know those last few frozen veggies in the bag? Throw them in soup.
– when I buy too much fruit at the market, I combine different flavours and make freezer jam. (Waaaaaay less work than cooked jam)
We had “leftover nights” when I was a kid (we’d prepare a fresh salad or vegetable sticks to make sure all food groups were covered).
My kitchen tip is pretty simple. Turn your refrigerator and freezer to the warmest setting. Your food and drinks will still be plenty cold and you won’t have to scarfice any foods. The best part is the savings happen over and over every month without you having to do any work!
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We save a lot of money in the kitchen! In order pay off our student loans asap, we spend less than $300/month for our family of 5. A lot of my tips are more lifestyle-based. Here are a few (hard to pick a favorite):
-We grow lots of our own food and preserve it by canning, freezing, or dehydrating it.
-We make most things from scratch, which not only saves money, but it’s much healthier (bread, yogurt, jam, brownie mix, pancake mix, pizza, etc).
-We stretch ground beef by adding pureed veggies like onions, carrots, celery, etc.
-We buy in bulk and cook in bulk.
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The bulk cookers will disagree, but my biggest frugal tip is to run out of stuff once in a while. Out of rice? I’ll use that couscous. No fresh produce? I’ll magically find a frozen bag or peas. When I’m out of olive oil, vegetable oil is usually just fine. No flour? I guess, we won’t be having cookies this week.
I’m not advocating an empty kitchen, but I am constantly surprised by how much food I have, when I have no food. And some of my best recipes have been attempts to make a meal out of very little.