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Thread: Frugal February Chatter

  1. #76
    Canadian Guru jasperandchar's Avatar
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    Best of luck with your going back to work on Monday and also with switching from breastfeeding to formula. Check with your doctors office they normally have a whack of formulas to hand out to see which one your baby will like and it's free.

    Things will turn around it may take sometime but on a good side now you can take part in "Frugal February" and share your $ savings tips & tricks and perhaps learns some stuff from the rest of us. When life gives you lemons you make lemonade + since it's frugal feb you can also you lemons as a natural cleaner with the leftover lemons

    Best of luck!


    Quote Originally Posted by bdkmosher View Post
    Okay, so unfortunately I had not PLANNED to do frugal February - and then my husband got laid off indefinitely, effective February 1st. SO, the first few days of February have had more expenditures than usual for us to make sure we have enough baby items and food to get by until his EI comes through in a few weeks. I am returning to work effective this coming Monday to try to make up the difference, so we have to switch me three month old from near exclusive breastfeeding to near exclusive bottle feeding, on short notice. This means stocking up on bottlefeeding supplies and formula.

    We have already spent about $200 on groceries/stockpile, PLUS some non necessities since Feb 1st (including a birthday party gift, for example). Yuck. Part of it is my own fault, because this is our third lay-off in less than three years, and I was already on maternity leave - so my reaction to the sudden and unexpected layoff was mad panic and obsessive need to hoard food and supplies. Today, however, I am going to attempt homemade pizza pockets to minimize my lunch expenditures on my return to work next week. Wish me luck!

    On the bright side, I discovered Sally's Cereals at Walmart, a nice affordable alternative to brand name cereals and SOOOO yummy (yummy enough that I called the company to tell them how much I loved it!) which cuts down costs for my work breakfasts, and I also forced myself to buy a 4L plastic jug of milk instead of two 2L cartons, as it is 30+ cents cheaper than the cheapest price on two x 2L cartons I can find, and we go through a LOT of milk. I have myself convinced it is gross in a plastic jug and has a funny taste, but I have committed myself to using the jug milk instead of carton milk at LEAST for cereal, if not for drinking.

    I almost killed my freezer stockpile - I got stress out, and when I stress, I clean like a madwoman. Well, part of my cleaning involved moving the freezer - which got unplugged, and I didn't notice. Thank goodness my husband noticed the next day, and only the top items were starting to defrost, but still cold, so we went ahead and refroze them... seemed fine, and my Dad thought so too.

    I also started a spreadsheet so I can track three columns 'Grocery/stockpile', 'necessities and bills' and 'unnecessary/other' ... to see what we spend in February, and my husband is helping me take an inventory of all of our food in freezers, fridge and cupboards so we can put it in a spread sheet, add and subtract as appropriate, and plan meals and grocery purchases more appropriately and conservatively.

    I am just terrified about the whole damn thing, as another lay off was the last thing we needed or expected, and we still aren't out of the hole from the last two layoffs and my maternity leave waiting period. I love living in a small town most of the time - but not when the job market tanks. My husband is an experienced tradesman ion a couple of trades, but the jobs just aren't there. I am in business development, so my job is perhaps a little more stable - I am lucky I can go back to work early and that there wasn't someone on contract in my position or anything to fill the void while I was away!

    So yeah, frugal February means a whole lot more now than it did a week ago!
    2019 is the year that we continue to save before we buy!!!

  2. #77
    Canadian Guru aussie's Avatar
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    I am so in!!! We need to save as much we can for our first baby due in september! My sister and I were going halves in Mum's plane ticket to come over and visit, but she cant afford to chip in... so its left up to me now.....( I do have some saved already, but I want more saved up)
    We have been trying to eat from our stockpile instead of adding to it, which is difficult when you work in a grocery store! lol
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  3. #78
    Canadian Guru macw1960's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by aussie View Post
    I am so in!!! We need to save as much we can for our first baby due in september! My sister and I were going halves in Mum's plane ticket to come over and visit, but she cant afford to chip in... so its left up to me now.....( I do have some saved already, but I want more saved up)
    We have been trying to eat from our stockpile instead of adding to it, which is difficult when you work in a grocery store! lol
    Congrats on your new addition due in September.
    Good luck on saving money for your mom coming to visit.
    OMG, a grocery store!!! I used to work in one and I spent more money on groceries when I worked there. I had to learn to leave my cards at home and only carry emergency money (in case my car broke down).





    No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever forgotten...Aesop

  4. #79
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    -well havent spent much did go to talize and got a few clothing items -3 tops for me 9.00 cant beat that -a shirt for hubby 2 novels
    -got a coupon in the door spend 50.00 at freshco get a free bag of milk -so i will go there for my fruit and veggies and a few sale items
    -went to vist my mom she got moved to another hospital -this one has free parking -2 hours only -so i went out and moved my car to another spot and stayed another hour

  5. #80
    Canadian Guru macw1960's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=jasperandchar;5257804]

    When life gives you lemons you make lemonade + since it's frugal feb you can also you lemons as a natural cleaner with the leftover lemons


    Speaking of lemons the next time you go to eat a orange scrape some of the peel off for zest and freeze it. You always have it on hand then if needed for a recipe.





    No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever forgotten...Aesop

  6. #81
    Mastermind cath007's Avatar
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    I am thinking about it and will try to cut more...
    The goal is to live day by day not to much thinking hahaha !!!!
    I love to save money!!! Frugal life hahaah !!!

  7. #82
    Canadian Genius Crochetlady's Avatar
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    Well so much for trying not to spend money. Our furnace guy was going to clean it in Jan but he called this morning. Couldn`t say no because it needed to be done.

  8. #83
    Canadian Guru jasperandchar's Avatar
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    Dh is doing our banking and cash out tomorrow for our budget for the upcoming week, knock on wood, so far so good.
    2019 is the year that we continue to save before we buy!!!

  9. #84
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    .
    Last edited by lecale; Wed, Jan 21st, 2015 at 08:09 AM.

  10. #85
    Nova Scotia Newbie bdkmosher's Avatar
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    Okay, so the homemade hot pockets were a HUGE success. My lunches for my first week back to work are all made and in the freezer (ciome cooked, some uncooked - we have an oven at work). The homemade hot pocket experiment was a HUGE success (after 4.5 HOURS in the frigging kitchen!). Made three batches of yeastless dough (thanks to a friend's recipe share from here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,2341...233201,00.html ), which made about 20 BIG hot pockets.
    Did four types:
    (1) leftover pulled pork from yesterday's dinner, hickory bbq sauce and mozza/cheddar.
    (2) hamburger, Aylmer Accents Chili tomatoes, chedda/mozza.
    (3) hamburger, Aylmer Accents Italian tomatoes, cheddar/mozza.
    (4) combined the leftovers of those last two kinds of filling, added leftover mushrooms, some Brothers pepperoni and a can of Aylmer Accents celery, green pepper & onion, topped with cheddar/mozza.
    ... ALL soooooo good!

    I froze four pork ones before cooking, for my lunches next week, and then froze another three of the pepperoni ones post-cooking, to see how both types fare in the freezer. TIP: Brush the dough with an egg wash, makes it nice and crisp and shiny on top. We baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 425 on a greased pan (just in case), as we had already pre-cooked the filling items in a pot, so just needed to cook the dough and melt the cheese. Each batch of the dough recipe made 6-8 pockets. I rolled them into balls, then rolled them out flat and round with a rolling pin on the bottom of an 8 or 9inch cake pan, so they were all fairly consistent in size.

    As for the formula/nursing issue, it is mostly going okay, have already started to transition her. We already had some Parent's Choice Lower Iron on hand, as it is very affordable and what we used with our older son. She gets along well with it. She seems fine with a bottle during the day, but can't go to sleep at night without nursing.

    I have gotten pretty damn good at making lemonade when life gives me lemons. I am a pro at it now.

    A little more spending today... a couple of blocks of mozzarella while it is on sale, since my coupons expire this month and we were out of mozza, and pepperoni.

    Also renewed car registration... but that was kind of a necessary evil.

  11. #86
    Nova Scotia Newbie bdkmosher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lecale View Post
    On the breakfast and meal replacement side I will make pumpkin pie spiced muffins. A can of plain pumpkin will make two 9 muffin batches so even though the darned stuff was $3.49 a can I am still going to be able to answer my pumpkin pie cravings cheaply (about $2.61 for 9 muffins).
    OOOOOOOH, I have a recipe I would like to share with you that I once upon a time came up with when I was trying to eat a bit healthier. I TOTALLY get the pumpkin pie cravings, lol. I had to go pull it from my old blog, because apparently that is where I leave my food experiments for safe keeping!

    -----------------------------
    So…. I was starving for something a little sweet, but didn’t have standard ingredients – so I went looking online for some inspiration, and then blended together a couple of recipes. What I ended up with was pumpkin spiced cookies that bake into perfect mounds, like the top of a muffin. MMMMmmmmm, so freakin’ good! Nice and moist in the middle, not too sweet, very spice muffin-like.

    Blend wet ingredients:
    1 & 1/4 c. pumpkin (make sure it’s plain pumpkin in a can, not pre-made pumpkin pile filling in a can)
    1/4 c. margerine
    1/4 c. unsweetened apple sauce (rather than a whole 1/2 c. margerine)
    1/2 c. brown sugar, 1/4 c. white sugar and 1/4 c.creamed honey (I used Kittilsen’s wild flower honey - Nova Scotia produced)
    Few splashes vanilla
    1 egg white and 1 full egg


    Add dry ingredients and blend in with rubber spatula or spoon:
    2 tsp. baking powder
    1/4 tsp. baking soda
    1/4 tsp. sea salt
    1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
    3/4 c. white flour (I actually used the easy blend Robin Hood stuff in the cannister, because it was all I had)
    *If it seems TOO wet, add a bit more flour of either kind, whatever your preference – should be able to mash around with a spatula – it’s not the kind of cookie dough you could roll in a ball – if it is, you added WAY to much flour
    3 tsp. pumpkin spice
    cinnamon – to taste – I just found the pumpkin spice didn’t have enough cinnamon

    Optional: Raisins or apple bits – I did a few with raisin, but the majority without. I think apples would be great in them though.


    Chill in the fridge for an hour (or if you’re impatient like me, throw it in the freezer for 15-20 min.).

    I put them on a baking sheet sprayed with Pam-type cooking spray, and baked for 10-14 minutes at 320 degrees. They turn nice and firm and rough, like a muffin (best part of the muffin!), and the bottom should be nicely deep brown. If you break one open, it will look like the inside of a nice, dense muffin. Makes about 2 dozen big cookies.

    These are so freaking good.



  12. #87
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    .
    Last edited by lecale; Tue, Jan 20th, 2015 at 10:17 AM.

  13. #88
    Sith Lady and Cool Kid Darth Penguin's Avatar
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    aggh! that sucks big time bdkmosher...
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  14. #89
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    looking for a cheap and effective silver jewlery cleaner which can be used with soft/organic stones like amber, pearls or opals. some of my jewelery is really tarnished and I'd like it to be sparkly again..
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  15. #90
    Mastermind cath007's Avatar
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    I decided what would be frugal february for me and all the year ago..I kept saying myself but I put me in training lol...Cut my veggies and fruits soon as they are purchased or prepared to be frozeen and cleaned...I analized my frigde and those are my big loss everytime...So why purchase (and it is expensive or in sale) ..I want to eat them not trow them away.Same thing with yogurts. No prepared meals at the grocery;I look for the frozen healthy one...more cheaper and when I go out for a take out...I check the price and benefit the deals.
    The goal is to live day by day not to much thinking hahaha !!!!
    I love to save money!!! Frugal life hahaah !!!

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