Daily Thrifty Tips July 22, 2004

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Susan

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Today's newsletter contains:

Today's Tips:

• Soda Bottles for the Ice Chest
• Preventing Tomato Stains in Tupperware
• Buy at Auctions
• Handwashing Wool Sweaters (Hand Washables)
• Featured Feedback: RE: Grocery Shopping? Food Budget?
• Featured Feedback: RE: Credit Card Balance Transfers
• Today's Recipe: How to Grill Steak Perfectly

New Requests:

• Cleaning Mildew Off of Featherbed or Duvet
• Sheets Have Little Balls of Lint After Drying
• Fabric Scarf Instructions
• Jelly Making Prices Seem High
• Information on Zebra Finchs
• Information about Hymenosporum Flavums (Frangipani)
• Keeping other peoples dogs out of my yard.

More Reading:

• Creative Cooking and Shopping Techniques for the Busy Mom
• 10 Minute Organizing Tricks

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Today's Tips

Soda Bottles for the Ice Chest

Living with Texas summers, we find ourselves using tons of ice and instead of getting expensive bags of ice, we fill up 2L cola bottles 3/4 full with water and freeze. We then use these in the cooler instead of ice and as they melt the kids love using the cold water for splashing each other or drinking. It has really worked great for us and actually lasts longer than the bagged ice did.

Michelle

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Preventing Tomato Stains in Tupperware

Before putting tomato sauce or other leftovers that may say stain into tupperware, line the container with foil.

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Buy at Auctions

Watch your local paper for estate auctions. Furniture, appliances and many other items can often be purchased well below the cost of the same item new.

Sandra

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Handwashing Wool Sweaters (Hand Washables)

If you don't have any woolite handy or would like a cheaper alternative, try this.

2 tablespoons dishwashing liquid (like Dawn)
3 gallons of luke warm water

Soak the sweater in water for 5 minutes. Squeeze suds through fabric and remove any soil. Never pull, stretch or twist the fabric while cleaning. Rinse all the soap out of the fabric and gently squeeze out much of the water.

Then take the damp sweather and lay it between two towels. Roll up the sweater and towels like you would a bed roll. You may need to do this a couple times. Then you will want to lay out the sweater to dry. Make sure the sweater is back to its natural shape before you set it out to dry because it will dry in whatever shape you leave it in. If you hang dry wool sweaters they will stretch so dry it flat.

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Featured Feedback: RE: Grocery Shopping? Food Budget?

Editor's Note: We have some really great information being posted in response to this request so be sure to read it all online. Use the link at the bottom of this feedback.

Like Rene from Canada, I live in Alaska. Although we are not in a remote area of Alaska, it is still expensive for groceries and we still have to drive an hour to get to a bulk food store.

I have read that if you start keeping a spending diary and sitting down with your spouse each night or once a week and agreeing on what is needed verses what is wanted and make those changes in your spending habits that will help a lot. We don't realise what we throw our money to. A latte here, an ice cream there, eating out for lunch and dinner on a regular basis, etc.

We go to the bulk food stores and this saves tramendously. It took us a long time to work up to where we could do this, but if you work it out to go twice a month and divide your grocery lists between pay days, etc. it isn't as bad. But you have to force yourself not to make those trips to the store for one item and buy fifty. And if you can keep the discipline of only going in for bread or milk in between and not the many other temptations you can save. For what it `costs to buy one gallon of milk at the grocery store I can buy two at the bulk food store.

Also, avoid a bunch of pre-prepared frozen foods and junk foods like pizza, sugar cereal, etc. Oatmeal goes much further than cereal any day and is much more healthy. Once in a while I get Corn Flakes on sale, but usually my kids have eggs or oatmeal for breakfast. I add cinnamon, vanilla and a little brown sugar to the oatmeal as it is cooking and they devour it! Winter time I pre-cook pancakes and freeze them. They can pull them out and microwave them as they want them. Summer time when kids are out of school they would rather play than eat and tend to eat less. So we usually do taost and fruit or eggs since we have our own chickens.

We also try to plan several meals together with the same ingredients and try to make enough to have leftovers for lunches the next day or dinner the next day. Our older kids have microwaves at school for their use and they love taking food to heat up. Also, a tip to save on school lunches in winter is to make soups and keep in refrigerator. Warm up in the morning while kids are getting ready for school and put in thermoses for their lunches. My 7 yr. old prefers top ramen to anything. It is inexpensive and you can microwave it in the morning and put in the thermos. Not as nutritious, but the kids eat very healthy meals in the morning and evening and they don't have it every day for lunch either so it isn't bad for something different.

My husband saves on his lunches for work by me making iced tea and putting it in one of those igloo cooler thermoses. Or he will drink water. We stopped buying sodas about a month ago and realised we were saving about $30 a month on that alone!

Making your own food saves so much. If you have to work and struggle with coming in from work and having to cook you can spend a few hours each weekend and cook ahead or prepare ahead and freeze. Or have sandwich night one night a week and have that as your cooking night for other days of the week. Have your kids help you make cookies one night a week verses buying packages of cookies.

Something else I do with like ziplock bags. If I use a ziplock bag to put something like bread or a package of crackers to keep them from going stale, I will re-use that bag for something else or sometimes save them to use for bundling toys at my yard sale each summer. My mother use to hand wash every ziplock and re-use them until it would no longer zip, but I just don't go that far, but it is an option in order to save a little here and there.

The big thing is things like chips, snack foods, etc. I buy the big barrel of animal crackers at the bulk store and we use that for an occasional snack and sometimes in place of chips at lunch. I try to have fresh veggies in place of any chips at all, but many times my kids get a sandwich for lunch with veggies or fruit and that is all they need. The chips you buy for lunches only have about 12 chips in them anyway. Not enough to fill them up or curb an appetite. Waste of money and not at all healthy.

By Tawnda

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Featured Feedback: RE: Credit Card Balance Transfers

I've been playing this game for a while, and our balances are gradually going down. There are a couple of things to watch out for. Many cards charge a balance transfer fee. Sometimes this is waived when you first open the card. The fee on most of my existing accounts is 3%, but some have a maxiumum per transaction of $50. Know your maximum and mimimum fees. Also, you cannot transfer between two accounts owned by the same lending institution. The name on the card is not necessarily the owner of the account. I recently applied for a card with 0% for one year and no balance transfer fee for transfers done within the first year. (this was an AT&T mastercard) The credit limit they gave me was good, but not large enough. Turns out it's owned by a company I had another card with that currently had a 0 balance. They offered to combine my credit lines. Now, everything we owe is on one card. So, know who owns your credit cards. Also, in the past, I have had luck with some cards that I hadn't used for a while sending me 0% offers. This is nice because you don't have to open a new card

By Colleen Post Feedback: Click Here

Today's Recipe: How to Grill Steak Perfectly
By Laura Bankston

There's nothing better than a nicely grilled juicy steak.

But how come I can't duplicate that restaurant, expensive, juicy, melt-in-your mouth, perfectly grilled steak?

Well, I found out how to grill steak perfectly - and here's how you can too.

1. The choice of meat is important!!! Just because the supermarket has labeled the steak "good for grilling" doesn't mean that it is. Lean meat does not do well. You want a piece that has marbling throughout. And these are good cuts: fillet (mignon), top loin (rib eye) - basically the same cuts that are the ones you love in the restaurant.

2. Next, proper heating of the grill is vital. If you are using charcoal, spread 2/3 of the bricks on one side and 1/3 of the bricks on the other. That way you have a hotter side for searing the meat and a cooler side for cooking the meat.

If you are using a gas grill, you will lose some of the flavor, but you will want to turn the heat down for the cooking portion.

3. Next, rub both sides of the meat with oil and cover with salt and pepper. Be generous with the salt and pepper because it will fall off during the grilling.

4. Place your meat on the hot side for searing. Cook on each side for three minutes to get the nice grilled meat crust color you love. For a hand test, I've been told that you should be able to hold you hand over the heat for 3 seconds before you can't take it!

5. Place your meat on the cooler side for cooking to your taste. The hand test for the cooler side, I've been told, is 6-7 seconds. You will want to use a timer to cook the meat - or use the slice and peak test to see if the meat is done enough for you. Just don't cut and peek too often or you'll lose all the juice!

6. When the steak is done, take if off the grill and let it set for at least 5 minutes. Some people call it "resting". It allows the juices to spread back out so that you'll have a juicy steak with a nice crust.

Follow these steps and you'll be enjoying perfectly grilled, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth steak that will impress and satisfy the most discriminating steak eater!

About The Author: Laura Bankston is author of Internationally selling Cooking with Kids Curriculum: Homeschool Cooking in a Box and the Homeschool Cookbook. She currently home schools her three children, maintains home school support websites, and manages their family-owned service business. For information on her curriculum and free home school support services, please visit: http://www.homeschoolcookbook.com/

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How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt & Live Prosperously
by Jerrold Mundis

Millions of consumers have become trapped in a spiral of debt, but there is hope. If you wants to free yourself from the shackles of debt, this book is for you--it can help you "get out of debt, stay out of debt, and live prosperously." Jerrold Mundis writes in a friendly, engaging style, urging readers to stop the cycle of spending. Mundis knows what he's talking about--he, too, was once thousands of dollars in debt and didn't know where to turn. Anecdotes from Debtors Anonymous folks, plus multiple examples from the writer's own life and ledgers, make How to Get Out of Debt an encouraging read, not a condescending one. Once you start your program, you may want to periodically reread some chapters for inspiration--and fun. -Amazon.com

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New Requests:

Cleaning Mildew Off of Featherbed or Duvet

Is it possible to remove mildew from a featherbed or duvet? - Karla

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Sheets Have Little Balls of Lint After Drying

Help. I have sheets for my daughters room (disney) and it seems that in (one area only) the sheet material has balled up and is rough to lay on. I know that if it had lint I would take tape and go over the area and that would remove it. But does anyone know the best way to remove these little balls from the sheet without damage. - ty

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Fabric Scarf Instructions

I'm looking for instructions on how to sew fabric scarves that are cut on the bias and sewn in 5 layers. Cut then washed to fray. Thanks, Mels from Canada

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Jelly Making Prices Seem High

Does anyone else think that the price of jelly-making is too high? I bought a package of surejell today for 2.29. I bought this in addition to the sugar and the canning lids. I picked the grapes for free, but many people buy their fruit for jelly-making. I read in the instructions that one package will make 8 cups of grape jelly. I read on the ingredient label that what I am buying (1.75 oz) is Dextrose (some kind of sugar), fumaric acid, and fruit pectin. 2.29 seems way too high for what I'm getting. Does anyone have an alternative for making jelly, or a cheaper source of buying the fruit pectin? Thanks--Paula in Waco.

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Information on Zebra Finchs

I am new to birds. I recently bought Zebra Finchs. Now I see there are eggs in nest. Does any one have info on these birds they can share with me. Thanks, Sharyl

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Information about Hymenosporum Flavums (Frangipani)

My neighbours want to top about 10 of my Hymenosporum Flavums. I've been told it's bad to top this Frangipani as it is likely to die within two years after topping. Is this correct? Roger Wellsted

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Keeping other peoples dogs out of my yard.

Anyone have any suggestions to keep stray Dogs out of my yard? Tracey Cleveland Ohio

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Looking for a frugal solution to an everyday problem? Submit your request here: Click Here

More Reading

Creative Cooking and Shopping Techniques for the Busy Mom
By Erin Rogers

When I was working outside the home and had one little one at home, my friends always seemed so impressed that I would cook 'real' meals several times a week. In all honesty, it wasn't that hard! I'm a person who loves to find ways to increase efficiency. I also feel very strongly about planning healthy meals for the family (even when my husband cooks!). So, I just kept adding techniques that served to simply dinner preparation so that it became nearly painless!

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10 Minute Organizing Tricks
By Maria Gracia

Whoever thought you'd be able to get organized in just 10 minutes?! Here are a few simple ideas.

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Thanks

Susan
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