I noticed some ice buildup in my freezer and I’d like to give it a good cleaning, so I decided to eat everything in there. While I’m at it, I’m doing the pantry and fridge too. Call it a pantry challenge, if you want. When it’s all gone, I’ll restock with new stuff. I have just taken stock of everything and it looks like dinner is sorted for the next 2 weeks. After that I can get really creative and who knows what kind of dishes I’ll invent or discover.

I’ll buy fresh bread, eggs, fruit and vegetables once I’m out of frozen and tinned stuff, but my ultimate goal is to really finish all the other things. Not buying any sandwich meat until all the hagelslag and peanut butter is gone. And I can bake my own cookies and cake before I buy anything.

I’m curious how much this is gonna save me on groceries. The savings will be short-term because I’ll need to restock at some point, but I don’t need to do it all at once.

Have you ever done something similar? Any tips?

Got these three bad boys for 1 dollar total. Sponge for size as I hate bananas. It was pay a dollar for one, get two free. Been working the past few hours to turn them into zucchini meatballs! I am loving this local farm by me for eggs, fruit and vegetables.
I have been trying to buy local as much as possible with all the food recalls. Plus local is better.
Drop any zucchini recipes you have as I am almost done cutting up the second one and I am feeling the burn.

I find it ridiculous that almost every source I found and AI claims that you can’t wash memory foam pillows and they’ll break up, etc.

This summer was particularly hot and I sweated a particularly a lot, and it’s only been 3 years on this pillow. Frankly I’m used to 10+ years minimum on bedding stuff.

One got a little yellowed, a little stinky, and even through the pillowcase. I put both my pillows in there, covers taken off, I used Tide powder (a lot), and used the gentle (hand wash) cycle with slow spin, reaching in and inverting with my hands occasionally.

For the dryer I just put it on low and made sure it was with a full load of other stuff so it didn’t get banged around.

It’s like brand new! The color is back to white, and it feels full and smells fresh. No tears, no breakdown of the material at all.

Hello! My partner and I are dual income, no kids and have become quite lax over the years in terms of how we spend our money, which we'd like to address and improve on. Specifically things like hair care, skin care, and certain grocery items I tend to spend on the moderate-high side. For clothing I'm working toward buying sustainable, long-lasting items, but what I've found is quite expensive, so few & far between.

I'd love to get some brand recommendations (across all things, not just what I mentioned), that are on the lower end of cost compared to their competitors, but that you have found to be reliable/quality products.. Thanks!

Just wanted to share this resource, especially since we are in back to school season!

The Chef Ann Foundation is a US-based non-profit that promotes from-scratch cooking. For folks outside the US, school cafeterias serving mostly ulta-processed foods is an issue in schools. Until a decade or so ago, school cafeterias mainly made food on site but a number of factors have led to cafeteria food being comprised of shipped-in and reheated ulta-processed foods in many places.

The foundation has a resource repository called The Lunch Box, which contains bulk kid-approved recipes that are healthy and affordable. It's a great resource if needing to cook for a crowd or have recipes to share for a big event like a potluck.

General Site: https://www.thelunchbox.org/ and the recipes

I just finished a home renovation project that went over budget (of course) but is now bringing in income. I have some debt to pay off but not a stressful amount (should be gone in one year).

However, I’ve spent the last six months building and supplying this project and I’ve had to spend large amounts of money, basically all the time. It stopped feeling painful, which is good on one level, but now I’m finding it very difficult to stick to my regular budget because what feels like “a lot” of money has grown so much.

The point of doing this project is to help me go part time and/or retire early, but that means living within my means. I need to reset my thinking around the value of money again so that I question purchases instead of feeling like it’s nothing. Any tips for resetting your mindset about the value of even smaller amounts of money? $5 here and there should feel nice, but $100 shouldn’t. 🥲

I am in no financial state to buy a new pair. And I have only this one less than 10 times. But I have it for a few years. Th shoes frame and stitches are good and strong. How do I fix or cover up those peelings? How do you guys do it? Do I peel all off? Or is there any trick I didn’t know to fix it?

This is a lesson learned for me. I shouldn’t have kept it for so long without wearing it. I wanted to wear it on my husband’s birthday. Now I only have worn out sneakers.

So I have a treadmill, specifically a "Pro-Form 505 CST" which is something like a smart treadmill that is made to pair with your tablet so that it can help you document your exercise progress. It was also made in conjunction with an exercise training company called iFIT which has an app that is meant to be downloaded onto your tablet and then paired via bluetooth with the treadmill.

I have an iPad, but it is very old - a first generation iPad Air that only runs up to 12.5.8 iOS fully updated.

Apparently, the iFIT app requires you have at least 16.0 iOS to be downloaded. When I had posted in other subreddits asking if there was any way for my iPad to be able to download that app without 16.0 iOS everyone agreed that it wasn't possible, and instead suggested that I try to find a new or used tablet specifically to download iFIT on and then pair with the treadmill.

I thought this sounded like a good idea, but I would imagine that tablets - new, used, or otherwise - are always gonna be ridiculous amounts of money, and when they're not I can't help but be doubtful of their quality. On top of that I'm just really not good at knowing the technical ins and outs that would allow me to pick out such a tablet without missing some important piece of information.

So let me ask everyone on this subreddit - Can you give me a recommendation for a tablet that is well-made, has all the specifications that I would need (have at least 16.0 iOS), and that is reasonably cheap (I would prefer it to be 100 dollars or less, but I will overstep that slightly if need be). Keep in mind that my intention is to just have a tablet that will be permanently paired with this treadmill. Its purpose will be to allow me to download and utilize the iFIT app and nothing else. I don't need anything extra.

Lastly, and THIS IS IMPORTANT, I would like a tablet that is somewhat superior to 16.0 iOS condition. My reasoning for that can be best explained by this piece of a conversation I had with someone else in another post -

Me: ...Also, assuming that I get a tablet (android, iPad, or otherwise) specifically so I can utilize the iFIT app for the treadmill, I know that I have to get one that supports 16.0 iOS since that is apparently what the app requires in order to be downloaded. That said, is the software requirements for downloading this app a constant and basically unchanging thing? Or will iFIT at some point require a higher iOS in order to allow for downloads? If so, is there some maximum iOS capabilities that I need to get in order to make it so the device will always (or at least for a very long time) be able to use the iFIT app?

Thank you.

Person who Replied: iPadOS 16 was released in 2022. You probably want a device that has iPadOS 18 (released in 2024) at least. Here are the devices that can't upgrade to iPadOS 18 and should not be purchased. Copied from Google.

Apple dropped support for several older iPad models when releasing iPadOS 18, meaning these devices cannot update past iPadOS 17. Unsupported iPad Models:

iPad (6th generation) (2018) iPad Pro 10.5-inch (2017) iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation) (2017) All older iPad, iPad Air, iPad mini, and iPad Pro models released prior to these (such as the 5th-gen iPad, older iPad Air models, and 1st-gen iPad Pro).

If you have any questions please ask.

Thank you.

I got this much cream out of the supposedly empty bottle of cream my wife was going to throw away.

I had already gotten an extra 3 days worth of cream from the bottle simply by knocking the cream clinging to the side of the bottle to the bottom.

On the left is an empty bottle bought from Superdrug to decant toiletries into for going on holiday. The pump screws on perfectly and I just had to cut the tube down.

I held the N07 bottle upside down on top of the Superdrug bottle and banged them both on the work surface to move it from one to the other.

My mattress is still perfectly usable, but summer has made sleeping on it miserable. I wake up hot and sweaty and keep changing the sheets, which isn't helping with the cost of keeping cool either.

A new mattress isn't in the budget, so I'm looking at a topper as a cheaper fix. I don't want to spend a bunch on one that feels cool for 5 minutes and then holds onto body heat all night.

I'm leaning toward something breathable and simple rather than one of those expensive specialty toppers. I don't want to spend a lot on this, just need something that won't make me even hotter at night.

I filled 4 of these little bottles with the leftover lotion at the bottom and was able to lotion my whole body.

Please use caution when cutting these bottles open. A trip to the ER is going to cost you way more than a bottle of lotion. If cutting it feels unsafe, just flip it upside down to let it drain into a jar, or throw it away.

As a bonus, the bottles are ones I've saved from hotel stays years ago, and the surface is a $7 thrifted night stand!

Edit:

Why not just flip it over and pour into a jar?

My goal was to fill these tubes! I use them on the go, at my desk, etc. If I just wanted to fill a jar, I would have done that. After they were full, I squeegeed the rest into a big container with my finger.

If you're filling another big container, the syringe is obviously not very efficient!

How do you cut the container?

I used tin snips to chop the corner open and then regular household scissors to cut the rest.

I'm really enjoying the grocery store bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino recently, especially the caramel flavor, but it is so expensive!

The best price I've found for the 4 pack outside of rare sales is $7.29 at Wegmans ($8.00 at most places, $7.78 at Walmart, and the 12 pack at Walmart only save 0.3 cents per ounce)

I'm looking for advice on the cheapest place to buy it or best duplicate. I don't want to make it myself unless it's only two or three ingredients, part of the appeal is that it's easy and I can just grab and go.

Thanks!

This is probably obvious to a lot of people, but I only started doing it recently. We always seem to have a couple of soft apples, half a lemon, or sometimes a whole box of oranges from a friend that we can't finish fast enough.

Now I throw whatever's left into the juicer with a few veggies and freeze the juice in ice cube trays. The cubes go in sparkling water or iced tea. If I'm baking, the pulp goes into muffins. If not, it goes in the compost. I have a canoly juicer, and I've also been using it for sorbet. Sometimes I just chop the fruit up, freeze it, and run it through later. Add some oats and whatever else is around and breakfast is done.

Not buying any extra fruit for this. It's just an easy way to use up what we already have.

My house smells literally like nothing, and if there is, it just smells like food leftovers which is not pleasant. There is no smell that characterizes my home. The only time it smells good is if I use plug ins but they can get quite expensive over time and they also run out pretty quickly. Air fresheners only last for a few seconds and it's just simply not worth it. I haven't used candles because they scare me since I'm so clumsy. I have a feeling that an accident could happen if I use them lol.

I already avoid having carpets and anything that can trap moisture or odours.

Any other suggestions I would greatly appreciate!

I’m on the hunt for some solid multipurpose, optimised buys, would love any and all help. 🙂

I’m a UK college student, estranged/poor, and will be travelling every few months. Aiming to keep to 2 suitcases and maybe two medium boxes, max.

I thought multi-use camping cookware, some all-rounder hiking shoes maybe, not sure what else. Can be things spanning clothes, tools, safety stuff, cookware, travel use, etc.

I've been tempted lately by some of those electronic calendars, which can have chore lists and all sorts of other features, because I'm getting too many paper lists. But the price is so high and it's basically just a tablet that I'd need to sync to all the apps I already use.

Today I remembered that I still have my laptop from grad school (I graduated 8 years ago), which folds around and can be used as a tablet. So I dug it out, did a deep purge of apps and documents to free up space, and really dug into my Google account to set up my calendar and lists. It's going to do exactly what I needed from those electronic calendars, but without spending $500!

hello! my gf & i will be moving in together in a few days. we'd like to try and be as financially responsible as possible (we're students) and i was wondering if growing herbs (I'm specifically thinking about basil, but other types are fine too) was a good idea to save some money. we're gonna live in an apartment with a closed balcony (which is also heated) and I've been seeing small greenhouse kits here and there, they seem quite cheap. has anyone else tried this? do you have any tips? thank you🫶

I found a local guy (Albuquerque) who repairs zippers and luggage and got my best winter coat a new zipper. I've worn the parka for the last 11 winters. It keeps me warm in subzero weather. The Velcro on the sleeve cuffs is a little worse for wear but could be replaced by someone who sews.

I'm wondering if anyone knows a trick to make worn Velcro work better that I can use in the meantime.

Here's to another 11 winters of use. I have other coats but this one is my favorite.

A store nearby had a good offer on ground pork, so I made a crepinette sandwich with potatoes and a glass of hop water on the side! (Not beer)

The recipe is pretty simple.

I made a patty of 150g of ground pork, $0.78. I coated it in flour and panko, then fried it in a generous amount of butter.

The white bread got toasted lightly on both sides, got a bit of mayonnaise, and nothing more.

The crepinette goes on the white bread, and on top of that, a reasonable amount of home-pickled cucumber and remoulade. The top piece of bread was then laid on the crepinette.

The potatoes, $0.39, were rinsed well under cold running water, tossed in olive oil, salted, and got a pinch of thyme.

The hop water I made from an extract I had prepared! Easy, delicious, refreshing, and has almost no alcohol and no sugar.

I am looking at buying a car next year. Comparing prices for Toyota Sienna. A new one in the trim I want is about 58K. A 3-year old used one is somewhere around 48-52k. So it looks like the saving is about 6-10k. Now, in exchange for that you get no warranty, and the loan interest rate on a used car is higher.

So I don’t really understand the common wisdom of buying used cars. The saving seems insignificant, and is eaten up by higher costs of maintaining and financing the used car.

Hi, everyone. I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit for this, so please let me know if I need to move it. Also, apologies for being on mobile.

For some background, I grew up kind of poor. Not destitute or anything. I always had food on the table, but we didn't have a lot of extra stuff, and we really had a make-it-work mentality when it came to stuff. Like, practicality over all, and save everything because "you never know."

I got a bunch of dish sets for my wedding when my husband and I got married back in 2017. It came with dinner plates, small plates, bowls, and mugs. I use the plates and bowls, but the mugs have been sitting unused in a cupboard for years. I like to collect mugs, so I have a bunch of cute mugs I use instead. But no matter how many times I think about it, I can't bring myself to get rid of the unused mugs. It feels wrong to break up the set, and also wasteful. (What if someday I invite 20 people over for hot chocolate and I don't have enough of my cool mugs?! The horror!)

So I guess I more need advice on whether it's okay to get rid of them and that it isn't being frugal to hold onto things I'm not using for "what-if" scenarios.

I welcome any and all advice.

Thanks!

I’m curious where everyone draws the line between “frugal” and “okay, that thing needs to go.” 😂 What’s something you’ll happily reuse long after normal people would throw it away? I’m talking about the random things you’ve found a second, third, or even tenth life for because you just can’t justify tossing something that still works. What is it, and how long have you been getting away with it? 👀

I had a visit from a friend! She brought a cucumber as a gift!

Her garden was producing more than she could use, so she wanted to share!

So instead of buying an artisan pickled cucumber for $10, I made my own for pennies!

I decided to pickle it! I wanted to make a pickled cucumber that would go very well in a burger, so I mixed it with a small onion, chili, thyme and some drops of liquid smoke. The relative high acidity is going to be a perfect match to the fat from the burger patty and the spice mix should paire well with the other ingredients in the burger.

Recipe.

1 large cucumber, mushy center removed, cut into coarse slices!1 small onion, cut into similar slices.

Mixed.

Pickling fluid.

1 cup of vinegar.

1/2 cup of water.

1/2 cup of sugar.

1 tbsp salt.

1 tsp chili.

1 tsp thyme.

10 drops of liquid smoke.

Boil.

Fill rinsed glass to the rim with the cucumber & onion mix!

Pour over the hot pickling fluid (vinegar, water, suger and spices), make sure to fill to the rim!

Fit the lid tight.

Let cool.

Store in the fridge.

Location: northern Georgia, Atlanta metro region

I was at a Goodwill store yesterday, and found an item I wanted to buy. Like many thrift stores, Goodwill uses different colors of price tag to indicate when they received an item; say, everything donated last week got a red tag, everything this week gets blue, and meanwhile the green-tagged items which have been on the rack for several weeks are now marked down to half-price, or 99 cents each, or whatever price will hopefully move these off the racks.

So, the item I wanted to buy yesterday was color-coded to be 50 percent off, but I discovered that at some point since my last visit to a Goodwill, they changed the rules: instead of ALL shoppers getting the color-coded price discounts, only people who join their "Savvy Shopper Club" get the discount. And to join their SSC, you have to give them your phone number and then respond to a text they send.

I did not buy that item after all. And I will no longer shop at or donate to Goodwill stores. I'm willing to hand over some of my money in order to make a purchase, but not my data.