Frugal June Bugs - Frugal Chatter continued

[Natalka]

Toying with the idea of setting up a table at our weekly farmer's market. I'd sell homemade honey whole wheat bread, zucchini bread, maybe banana bread and maybe some homemade pretzels. But I'm really chicken sh*t. I'm a little paranoid about what people/coworkers would think. It'd be a lot of baking for a week leading up to it. And I'd probably only make a couple hundred dollars. But I REALLY enjoy making those things. So it'd be fun to make it all. and we could use the money towards our new couch fund. But I'm torn...

I say try it, if you don't have to book a particular number of weeks, if they let you book a week at a time. Then you can do one or two weeks, and judge the amounts, and what sells.

DO NOT think about what others think! Have confidence in your goods!

It definitely will be a lot of work, but if you can swing it, go for it!

My biggest advice - don't underprice your items!

[Insane]

I would say if you wanna try it, go for it. You never know, I know people who make quite and bit and sell out doing farmer markets. Wish we had a farmers market that was good around here but our local one is not run properly.

Apparently everyone is selling out at ours. It's only been going a few weeks now. It has run in years. But it's been a huge success.

oh Insane, you may want to check with your local city hall about rules on selling homemade goodies to the public. I heard/read somewhere that you could easily be 'checked' by your local health board for any reason they deem fit and have your own kitchen inspected. im not sure if its true or not.

They covered that in ther Q&A (along with vendor's licences, ect....) It's fine as I'd be selling as part of a farmer's market and not as a business.

[Insane]

I say try it, if you don't have to book a particular number of weeks, if they let you book a week at a time. Then you can do one or two weeks, and judge the amounts, and what sells.

DO NOT think about what others think! Have confidence in your goods!

It definitely will be a lot of work, but if you can swing it, go for it!

My biggest advice - don't underprice your items!

You can apparently do it weekly or the entire season. I'd most definately only do a week or 2. It's too much to maintain while working full time. I'd need like 50 loaves of bread and like 30-40 zucchini bread. It'd consume my week. That's not something I want to do all summer long.

[coupon girl]

well went to a bridal shower today -very hot in the sun -but she got nice gifts -gift cards ,money,personal shower baskets (lotions etc) she loved my gift -I won a prize a glade candle in a basket with breast cancer fluffy socks (gonna give these to my girlfriend she is a survivor)and my friend from work gave me a gift for my granddaughter that is due in oct-that was nice too(for the favour we got a bar of ivory soap-with ribbon around it saying thank you for coming to the bridal shower -please enjoy this in your shower-different

[jasperandchar]

that's so cute - (for the favour we got a bar of ivory soap-with ribbon around it saying thank you for coming to the bridal shower -please enjoy this in your shower

well went to a bridal shower today -very hot in the sun -but she got nice gifts -gift cards ,money,personal shower baskets (lotions etc) she loved my gift -I won a prize a glade candle in a basket with breast cancer fluffy socks (gonna give these to my girlfriend she is a survivor)and my friend from work gave me a gift for my granddaughter that is due in oct-that was nice too(for the favour we got a bar of ivory soap-with ribbon around it saying thank you for coming to the bridal shower -please enjoy this in your shower-different

[Crochetlady]

[QUOTE=jasperandchar;5506047]I had to giggle about your concerns with your mom borrowing your aircondition with menopause etc.

Last night when I couldn`t sleep I watched All in the Family on the internet. One episode was about Edith going through menopause. OMG it was hilarious.

[saundyl]

Hi all, we ran way for our long weekend here (aboriginal day) to a lovely campsite although i really really have grown to despise bull flies. nasty critters bite through clothing.

I felt like i went a little "overboard" with my groceries and camping stuff for the weekend (184 dollars on groceries later,bf did gas, beverages and propane) Meat is so expesnive here. But nicely we have left over steak, burgers, smokies and hotdogs i wont be buying much for groceries for the week . We did use all 48 bottles of water and the 4 liters of milk up..as well as 2 litres of juice. I cleaned the groceries out of the camper when we got home this afternoon as bg's exwife is using the camper for july long and I didnt want to deal with complaints about out stuff still being there on thursday. For getting it done as well as all our laundry out and 3 loads started plus watering the garden i got myself a treat of a slushie and a fudgsicle.

[SassyAshley]

Monday Morning back at work, funny I feel I was just here lol, one downside to working Saturday is you feel like you get no weekend but after our grocery shopping this weekend I need the money to cover our groceries. I think we went a little over board with the ground beef, we packaged it up last night to be frozen and we have over 15 lbs of ground beef to go in our freezer plus 4 lbs of ground pork.

I think we are fully stocked on meat as well when I was cleaning out the freezer, I also found a 3rd box of boneless chicken breast neither me nor my mom knew we had, we knew we had 2 but are not sure where the 3rd box came from. Plus, I knew we had one pork tenderloin but ended up finding 2 more which is hilarious to me at least as mom was looking for one a couple weeks ago and said we were completely out. The only thing we may need to pick up if I can find it on clearance as it doesn't really seem to go on sale are fast fry steaks for steak sandwiches or stir fries, but I will not go looking for this until we get our new freezer.

Question: I want to look into freezing more fruits and vegetables myself instead of buying the frozen ones to get us through the winter. So far I have done a number of fruits but am a little scared when it comes to vegetables. Do you freeze any fruits or vegetables and if so what ones do you freeze and how do you prep them prior to freezing?

[dreamcatcher1962]

Question: I want to look into freezing more fruits and vegetables myself instead of buying the frozen ones to get us through the winter. So far I have done a number of fruits but am a little scared when it comes to vegetables. Do you freeze any fruits or vegetables and if so what ones do you freeze and how do you prep them prior to freezing?

I have frozen Apples, Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries & Mushrooms all without any problems.
For the Apples & Strawberries I will wash/dry & cut them up, lay them on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then bag them and back into the freezer.

The mushrooms, I don't wash as they will retain the water. Just slice them and again spread them out on a cookie sheet, freeze them and then bag them. (this is so they don't stick together in a big lump)

The berries are frozen on a cookie sheet and then baged as well.

I did try freezing corn on the cob and that was a complete waste of time & money. I blanched them first and let them drain and then froze them but when I took them out of the freezer to reheat they were really mushy, not even fit to eat.

I also tried broccoli but found that went mushy as well. Maybe I blanched it too long, but I didn't think so at the time.

Best of luck.

[blueeyetea]

Couldn't believe this story when I first read it... how insensitive! I would have loved to receive a creative gift like that.

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/38...ut-of-control/

Thanks for this.

I saw a similar discussion about a month ago on another forum where a bride was asking if it was appropriate to put a note with her invitation saying she preferred receiving cash as a wedding gift.

I was amazed how many responses that questions generated. The reactions fell into two camps: 1 - No, absolutely not appropriate and actually quite crass to even be suggesting it. The point of having a wedding was to celebrate the union of two people and not a shakedown for gifts. 2 - Yes, absolutely because, hey, who is the wedding for and it's a guest's job to please the bride and groom in complying with their wishes.

[jasperandchar]

At times I still think it's cheaper to buy the already frozen fruits/veggies but that's just me.

I have froze berries, didn't put on cookie sheets to freeze, they went right in the little ziploc bags in 1 cup portions. I have frozen green & yellow beans as well as whole tomatoes, blanched and then froze in baggies (I used milk bags) they really lasted a long time.

Trial and error is part of the process I believe, try freezing a few extra veggies/fruits before hand and take them out a few days later and see if you are pleased with the flavours and textures. Best of luck

Great finds in the freezer.

Question: I want to look into freezing more fruits and vegetables myself instead of buying the frozen ones to get us through the winter. So far I have done a number of fruits but am a little scared when it comes to vegetables. Do you freeze any fruits or vegetables and if so what ones do you freeze and how do you prep them prior to freezing? [/QUOTE]

[SassyAshley]

Great info thank you, I never would have thought of freezing mushrooms and we go through a lot of them.

I have frozen Apples, Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries & Mushrooms all without any problems.
For the Apples & Strawberries I will wash/dry & cut them up, lay them on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then bag them and back into the freezer.

The mushrooms, I don't wash as they will retain the water. Just slice them and again spread them out on a cookie sheet, freeze them and then bag them. (this is so they don't stick together in a big lump)

The berries are frozen on a cookie sheet and then baged as well.

I did try freezing corn on the cob and that was a complete waste of time & money. I blanched them first and let them drain and then froze them but when I took them out of the freezer to reheat they were really mushy, not even fit to eat.

I also tried broccoli but found that went mushy as well. Maybe I blanched it too long, but I didn't think so at the time.

Best of luck.

We had a similar discussion with the person who got married and was saying the gift had to match the plate value.

I think the big things people do not see (and maybe I am off) a lot of people still go back to 50s and that era where you went from your parents house to being married and literally had nothing. Now you do not have this. In this person's case they had both lived on their own and were living together before the wedding so that had a lot of basics which was partially the reasoning for wanting cash "because we have already have most of those things" in response to what you normally find on registry. It was true they had most of the small kitchen appliances (there were a few specialty ones they did not have which they did put on their registry). Yes in previous times a wedding was about helping the couple get a start to life but in a lot of cases now people are getting married older and have these things as they have lived on their own or together prior to the wedding.

Thanks for this.

I saw a similar discussion about a month ago on another forum where a bride was asking if it was appropriate to put a note with her invitation saying she preferred receiving cash as a wedding gift.

I was amazed how many responses that questions generated. The reactions fell into two camps: 1 - No, absolutely not appropriate and actually quite crass to even be suggesting it. The point of having a wedding was to celebrate the union of two people and not a shakedown for gifts. 2 - Yes, absolutely because, hey, who is the wedding for and it's a guest's job to please the bride and groom in complying with their wishes.

[blueeyetea]

Toying with the idea of setting up a table at our weekly farmer's market. I'd sell homemade honey whole wheat bread, zucchini bread, maybe banana bread and maybe some homemade pretzels. But I'm really chicken sh*t. I'm a little paranoid about what people/coworkers would think.

Why are you concerned about what others think? Why is it even any of their business?

If it's something you enjoy and want to try out, all the power to you.

[blueeyetea]

I second what JasperandChar says. I find it's cheaper to buy frozen fruit and vegetables at the grocery store than to do my own. I like to freeze products that are either hard to find or very expensive out of season. For example, fresh basil is available for a short period of time, so I buy lots, make pesto and freeze that. Asparagus is very expensive even in season, so I'll freeze some when it's in season.

Also think of the effort involved versus the return. Look also at what's available year round and how reasonable prices are. Over here, plain white muchrooms are always cheap. I buy the ones in the blue containers and the prices go from 2 for $4 in summar to 2 for $5 in the middle of winter. Carrots range from $1/bag in summer to $3/bag in winter.

Question: I want to look into freezing more fruits and vegetables myself instead of buying the frozen ones to get us through the winter. So far I have done a number of fruits but am a little scared when it comes to vegetables. Do you freeze any fruits or vegetables and if so what ones do you freeze and how do you prep them prior to freezing?

[jasperandchar]

Help with a coupon question - In Ontario where stacking is not allowed. But everyone feel free to respond, however, keep in mind that stacking is not allowed.

I haven't done this put it seems alot of people in ONT. do - I'm not saying they are right and I'm saying they are wrong.

Scenario below.

Use a B1G1 free coupon and then use a $1.00 coupon on the 1 product you are paying for, to me this is stacking but several people say it's okay and have been allowed to do this at various stores like WM and such box stores.

What are your thoughts? Not meant to offend anyone if their store allows them to do this in ONT.

Thanks