My favorite parts of the book were the chapters about reducing your grocery bill. I'm always looking for ways (and inspiration!!) to do this. Here are my favorite ideas:
Bulk Cooking: Cooking or preparing several meals at once and then freezing them. One specific way to do this would be to prepare the meals based on the main ingredient. For instance, if chicken is on sale, stock up on chicken and then prepare as many meals as you have time and space for. You might marinate pieces of chicken and just freeze that. Make a couple of chicken casseroles. Cook chicken and chop it up so it'll be ready for soups or stir fry. You get the idea.
Planning for leftovers: When planning your menu, instead of planning to eat actual leftovers as your left over, instead plan to use last night's leftover chicken in today's soup, salad, chili or sandwich. Plan to have Roast Beef for meal #1 and have Shepherd's Pie, roast beef sandwiches or stir-fry for meal #2.
And a "Cooking Co-op" was a fun idea too...IF you had willing participants. Let's say you have a group of 10 ladies. Everyone makes 10x their recipe and then exchanges the meals at predetermined place/time. The author suggested getting together ahead of time and everyone bring 3 recipes that they'd be willing to prepare. The group votes on which of the 3 recipes they'd like you to make. By making 10 of the same dish, rather than 10 different dishes, you save money and time. You make one meal and come home with 10 different things. I LOVED this idea! I just need to find some friends who love the idea too!
Now -- for the parts of the book that I didn't like so much. I'm pretty sure that I'll never go to the card shop with my husband and pick out a card that I'd like to buy him (but won't because I'm saving money) and read it to him. And I'd never be able to go the book store or library and find books with love poems and read them quietly to my hubby across a table. (not with a straight face anyway!)
After reading the book, I was surprised at how many things I already am doing! I have to admit, I was happy to get some confirmation that I am actually frugal in many areas! I buy candy when it's on sale to save for Halloween, Easter, Christmas stockings and Valentine's Day. I reuse Easter baskets and eggs. I use coupons and rebates. I have a budget. I don't have credit card debt. We do regular maintenance on our yard and house. And I shop at thrift store along with doing several other frugal things!
Have you read any books lately about frugal living. What were your favorite tips? And what tips would most likely never do?
3 comments:
I'm with you on this book, it would be good for newbies, but I didn't take too much away from this book either. Reading poetry to my husband?! ROTFL!!! not in this lifetime!! ;)
Have seen these 'for dummies' books before.
Good to hear you know so much already.
Mr Sft do read to each other from time to time but what's that got to do with being frugal?
Sft x
I was surprised to find out how many frugal things we were already doing (and had been doing for a long time) when we first jumped on the frugal-living bandwagon. There's still more we can do - I'm going to check out this book (from the library, of course!).
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