What did you do to save $ today?

annmarie

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It seems like from a lot of postings lately, many of us are starting to feel the effects of the poor economy right now. While we all need to be able to commiserate with each other and comfort each other, I thought perhaps a thread dedicated to actual things we did on a given day, in order to save money, could be very helpful to all of us. I know this whole forum is about saving money and being self-sufficient, but many of our conversations are about what we want to do "someday" or ideas we've heard of but aren't sure how to implement, or ideas that actually require $ for start-up, you know, the big ideas. How about we all just share practical, actual things we've done on this particular day to save a few dollars. If we can keep it going for a while, this could turn into a nice little collection of simple ideas. Remember though, this has to be something you've actually done or will do today, no "I shoulds" or "I'm thinking abouts" or "I used tos". And don't worry about being too obvious, these don't have to Earth shattering feats of self-sufficiency! I'll go first...

Friday's are grocery shopping day, so when I head out this afternoon, rather than spending $3.45 on a decent loaf of bread, I saw that a good quality organic unbleached flour is on sale for $3.45 for a 5 pound bag. I'll buy that and make my own bread this weekend, and have enough flour for probably about 5-6 more weeks! Also, I have a list and I will stick to it!
 

enjoy the ride

Sufficient Life
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It's very early for me but this morning for the first time, I went to let the dog out and actually shut off each light as I left each room, even though I would be come back through in a few minutes. I only turned on enough light to get me from one door to the next- so no turning on each light in every room I passed through.
I will try to keep this thread in mind throughout today to remind me to check other habits for effeciency.
 

roosmom

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I just decided to make pasties today. So my money saving is going to be buying the meat and grinding it myself. I am also going to attempt pie crust yet again instead of buying it. I will make at least 25 pasties to make it worth while.
This weekend is going to be freezer weekend. We are going to eat all the odds and ends that we have a tendancy to shove in the freezer cuz it is such a waste to throw it away.
 

punkin

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I made my own sausage cheese mini quiches to freeze instead of buying them already prepared. Saved money and they are waaaay better tasting.

I'm getting started on holiday baking for gift giving. You know, things that freeze well and need only 1-2 steps before it's ready to give.

Next is mini apple raisin bundt cakes.
 

DrakeMaiden

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roosmom said:
This weekend is going to be freezer weekend. We are going to eat all the odds and ends that we have a tendancy to shove in the freezer cuz it is such a waste to throw it away.
I like that because I REALLY need to do that. SIGH.

My biggest money saving technique lately is to just not go grocery shopping as often. It helps that I limit how much cash I have on hand for a two week period. When it runs out, I'm done. There is a tendency to feel like I need this or that, but it turns out that I often can make do for longer than I imagined. :) Some times this means making substitutions in my cooking. Some times it just means going without. But that isn't so bad as I imagine it will be.

What I did last night was boil a big pot of water on our woodstove for bottling in our emergency water stash. I was inspired by one of the threads here. The woodstove was on anyway, so I figured it was a good use of energy.
 

enjoy the ride

Sufficient Life
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This thread really did get me going thinking about stuff. For years I have vacuum packed things like cereal and grains- I buy in large packages and break it down in jars.
So I was doing that with my 4 lb rolled oat packages- taking the inner plastic?paper? lining bag inside the box and pouring the contents into the jars when I suddenly thought- I have this big bag in my hand and it's too good to throw out.
So I used that bag to hold my vegetable scraps til I take it out to the compost pile. At least it gets two uses before being thrown out. And how many years have I simply thrown it out without thinking. :hu
 

DrakeMaiden

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I know this isn't in keeping with the intent of the thread, but I always try to save plastic bags for re-use too. Lately I try to keep the thin plastic produce bags (the ones that are still visibly clean anyway) for storing my own garden produce in the fridge, when I can't eat it right away. I was sure running out of them though last September. I'm trying to build up a good stash this winter for use next summer.
 

Woodland Woman

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This is something I actually did yesterday. A store by me, Shop and Save, sometimes has a take $10 off a $50 purchase. This is a savings of 20%. I try to but items on sale and stock up on them and use coupons. I am very careful to hit the $50 mark to get full advantage of the savings.

I purchased:
Canning jar lids
Toilet paper
Dried beans
Frozen Vegetables
Ice Cream
Other misc. items
 

patandchickens

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To be honest, I don't all that often think about doing things to SAVE money, I mostly think of it as exercising veto over my whims to avoid WASTING money :p

In that light, I would say that today I "saved" (quote unquote) money by not buying the particular kind of bottled juice that I like and was on sale but do we really need it, no we don't; and by cutting Harry's hair myself rather than paying someone to do it; and by finding an old dishpan the right size to fix one of myhomemade chicken feeders that is just dysfunctionally shallow and gets too mcuh feed spilled out and wasted, instead of doing like a friend is always buggin' me to and buying a "real" chicken feeder.

This week (not today specifically though) we "saved" money on dinner by making a $10 pot-roast last three days, via small portions for me and soup out of it the third day.

Of course, this weekend I am *hoping* we'll get our hay delivered, and that will be well upwards of $1000, for horses that perform no useful function around here other than I like 'em :p, so, that would be I guess "wasting" money <vbg>

Pat
 
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