What did you do to save $ today?

[FarmerDenise]

Today I scored 100 Meyer lemons and one very large cabbage, close to 20 pounds. FreeCycle.

I will borrow my friend's juicer tomorrow. Today, I canned 14 quarts of that diet cabbage soup from the 1980's. The batch I made last year is almost gone, and is one of my favorites.

Gave away a lot of lemons to family, and half of the cabbage stayed at my daughter's house:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9TW6Z18tek0/S4Nq4vVibZI/AAAAAAAAAA4/sYyNvpQfN0o/s320/Picture+514

Remember it is easy to freeze lemon juice in ice cube trays. They keep a long time in the freezer. I've had them last as long as 2 years. Well worth the work to do it. There are other recipes on here for keepng lemons. I think Keljonma posted one for canning them.

 

[Ldychef2k]

And didn't someone can lemonade? I would love to have the instructions on that. Are Meyer lemons acidic enough for water bath?

 

[FarmerDenise]

Let's see, I went to the Goodwill outlet twice this week. I needed small sheets to cover the bottom of my chickpen. Of course I found more than that.
I spent a total of $23 and got all sorts of cool stuff including some canning jars. Got a tripod for my camera, a dog bed (our dog is tough on dogbeds, she shreds them ) a cat bed, a small cotton blanket (for the couch), lots of paper products (for making your own computer cards, binders, pads, envelopes, greeting cards), a roll of velcro, a nice feminin cotton vest (pink with embroidered flowers, I usually end up with men's clothing) a large rubbermaid bin, a small plastic drawer (for my bathroom), a new baseball cap, some craft kits, a calender with crochet patterns (I love a lot of the patterns and look forward to making them), a baby gate (we use them to keep critters in designated areas, especially when we foster puppies), a pie crust protector, a bag of what might be wine making supplies, a nice soft baby blanket (my kitty, Petey loves it) and other stuff I can't think of right now.

We hauled free firewood from FIL's rental, found a metal chicken waterer in the trash at the rental and rescued it, it just needs a good scrubbing, a stack of large plastic pots (we use them to start our tomatoes and peppers). In exchange SO weed whacked the yard.

We are raising Susie's chicks (with her help, of course) which we think are mostly males. We figure we'll either sell/barter them or butcher them and the pullets will provide us with eggs.

We have been using the wood stove insert exclusively for heat. Our electric bill went down by $100 since we stopped using the electric space heater.

We have been making meals using primarily what we have in the house. We do have two refridgerators and both freezers in them are filled to capacity. We have also been making a lot of egg dishes, since we have plenty of eggs from our chickens.
Last night we had chicken that came from Trader Joes (FIL had brought it to us last fall) it was seasoned with sundried tomatoes and basil. I sauteed onions, garlic and sweet peppers, added the chicken, and my own tomato sauce and a lot more dried basil and let it simmer. We had rice with it. The rice was given to us by our neighbor (he is a great scavenger ) All the vegies were from our garden and either frozen, dried, canned, cold stored or fresh. For desert I had my canned plums. We snacked on homemade trailmix (puchased nuts and seeds, home dried fruit)
We made sure to give the neighbor the dried stalks from our millet for his goats as well as several loaves of store bread, that we had (FIL brought us a box of it, FIL gets free food from a soup kitchen he volunteered at for many years)

The chickens are foraging in the field, so their feed bill is cut in half. And they look wonderfull. Beautifull shiny feathers, nice bright combs. We get 5 - 8 eggs a day from 12 hens.

Edited for typos

 

[GardenWeasel]

After much hand wringing decided to try to do my own taxes this year. Used to do them always when we were EZ, but the last few years had a home business(now dead) and withdrawing and closing 401Ks to buy a house it was too complicated. So will try to do an itemized 1040 and save $286 over last year. Tomorrow is the day, wish me luck.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Managed to get my car registration in by the deadline. I needed to go to a smog only test station so I couldn't go to my regular mechanic. It all cost money, but I least I don't have late fees!!

 

[ToLiveToLaugh]

I figured out something that should have been obvious, but wasn't to me! I eat oats for breakfast most mornings. And normally I do craisins and almonds. But some days, brown sugar just sounds soooo good. This was one of those mornings. I went to the cupboard, but oh no! I was out of brown sugar. But then I thought- isn't brown sugar just white sugar and molasses? So I mixed some blackstrap molasses and some white sugar. It tasted great! Then I went online, and it turns out, thats all you do to make brown sugar. No more store bought for me ever again! And this way, I can use blackstrap which is healthier anyway (calcium and magnesium and potassium and stuff). I'm not sure how much it saves, but I know it saves a bit! And one more item off the shopping list!

 

[freemotion]

I stopped at the butcher's to get some leaf lard, and he had 14 lbs for me. It cost $12.50. If I bought the hydrogenated crap available in my grocery stores, it would cost $2.59 per lb and destroy the health of my family members on top of that. I feel rich!

I sent dh to another store and he got 20 lbs of chicken backs for $0.49 per lb. Half will be frozen for the dogs suppers and half will be made into broth. I need to make some cream of mushroom soup, I'm out, and I like to use it for a quick supper. I got some dried shiitake's at a discount store for $1 per package of 12-16 mushrooms, and they are so flavorful they are perfect for this.

DH also got more scrap fat for rendering for soap making, I will put that through the grinder tonight and into the dutch oven to render when the lard is done and jarred up. It actually ended up costing more than the leaf lard....it was at a busy store, and I got the leaf lard at a small shop that I am starting to develop relationships with the people there. Always a good thing.

Oh, and I also spotted a good used boning knife at the shop for $7 and snagged that. My dad will butcher the buck soon and we will cut it up ourselves because he is so small. We may just bone a lot of it and grind it, so this knife will come in handy.

 

[VT-Chicklit]

I took mom to Aldis on Monday and I got a great deal on bag sausage. They had 10 bags of raw sage, plain or spicy sausage for 50 cents a bag. Each bag weight was 16 oz. I bought all the plain and sage (we dont like spicy), which totaled 8 bags. Great deal 8 pounds of sausage for 4 bucks! I took 4 pounds and made it into patties and fried them. They are now sitting in my freezer for DH to make his "egg mcmuffin" on Sundays. The other 4 bags were frozen raw and will be used for "Sausage, biscuits and gravy" yum

 

[elijahboy]

i got a super gorgeous headboard for my daughter for a whole 40.00

 

[freemotion]

Got my lard all done and canned (need to store it at room temp) and got 20 half-pint jars! So about $1.25 per lb or so, about half the price and a zillion times the quality and healthfulness of storebought. And I am much more ready for the flood of fat next Dec when we kill piggies. Wowee wowza, the Dutch oven makes it sooooo much easier to render fat!

We actually picked up some more chicken bags today and I have my big stock pot simmering on the stove now with lots of broth. I hope to make 20 pints of cream of mushroom soup on Friday.