​After the splendid weather we had during the second week of February, last week was kind of a downer for me. February is definitely the most "blah" month of my calendar year. With not a whole lot to do, I kind of lose focus and get lazy. I did a lot of cleaning this week, plus some reorganizing and de-cluttering. That's what you call being busy, but not actually accomplishing anything. I also did quite a bit of reading, which was nice.

1. Shopping: I didn't do any shoppping this week, except I bought some lard for a recipe (and now that I think of it, I probably have some lard in the freezer). We ate a lot of freezer food. 

One little shopping tidbit I've discovered recently is utilizing expiration dates and not buying stuff like milk and yogurt every week. Until recently, I was haphazardly buying milk wherever we were shopping that week. However, by purchasing certain items at certain places, I can shave spending little by little. Consider the scenario below.

One Month of Milk Shopping:

Week 1) 1 gallon Aldi brand @ $1.60
Week 2) 1 gallon Kroger brand @ $2.00
Week 3) 1 gallon Walmart brand @ $1.70
Week 4) 1 gallon Kroger brand @ $2.00
Total milk spending: $7.30

Week 1) 2 gallons Aldi brand = $3.20
Week 3) 2 gallons Walmart brand = $3.40
Total milk spending: $6.60 (savings of $0.70)


Week 1) 2 gallons Aldi brand = $3.20
Week 3) 2 gallons Aldi brand = $3.20
Total milk spending: $6.40 (savings of $0.90)

I can do the same thing with sour cream, yogurt, and other perishable dairy items we buy. Purchase enough to last until the item expires; not buy a new container every week. I love shopping Kroger for reduced fresh produce, reduced bacon, and other "Manager's Special" items, and I think Kroger has great sales. However, if I need to buy something on a shopping list, at retail price, it is better to do so at Walmart or Aldi. That is why staggering my shopping trips- one week here, one week there- is probably a good idea. 

Also, I have discovered that if milk is close to expiring (a day or two before), I can extend the life of it by making yogurt or cheese. I'm not 100% sure why this is, but it might have to do with re-heating the milk. At any rate, the cheese or yogurt will last at least another week that way. So the  milk that I bought on February 15 will probably last a good three weeks, in one form or another.

2. Returned aluminum cans: after the massive can hauls of last week, we had to empty the recyclables box. After all was said and done, we made $12.30 off of the cans. I left the plastic and glass bottles at home, so this was JUST the aluminum cans.

3. Started vegetable and herb seeds. Last year I tried buying a fancy seed starting tray, and it didn't work much better than my homemade versions. So this year I saved some plastic cookie containers (the ones that snap closed) and I will be using those as miniature greenhouses to germinate seeds. Some of my wormwood seeds are already beginning to sprout!

4. Pruned fruit trees. I also saved some of the cuttings, hopefully to start new plants in gallon jugs. Then I used some more cuttings to make a spring centerpiece for our kitchen table.

5. Watched free Amazon Prime movies. I know, watching movies is more wasteful than frugal. But at least they were free! We also played a new-to-us game this week that we got for Christmas. It's called "Score Four", and is actually a vintage 3D version of Connect 4. The game is easy and quick to play. It would also be a great travel game, I think.

6. Hubs made me a new set of cabinets!! This project has been going on since November, but with the accident, funeral, and our being gone a lot in January and February, it was only completely finished this week. I just had to paint the doors, and then Hubs put the hardware on and I helped him attach the doors to the front of the cabinet.

Because I do so much canning, and because of my various cooking tools, the pantry was overflowing into the storage room and even under the bed. With the new cabinet, I was able to move ALL of the canned food and kitchen implements (dehydrater, both canners, etc.) into the kitchen where they actually belong, and now we have more space in the storage room.

​As I have probably mentioned before, I am a recovering hoarder. I try not to accumulate too much stuff, and sell or give away what I don't need. But unfortunately, you need a lot of storage space if you do canning or stocking up on sales in order to cut down on grocery costs. The storage space is what saves us a lot of money. 

So yay for that project being done! While not exactly "cheap" (the wood and hardware cost about $100.00), the cabinets were custom built to our own specifications and to fit our apartment, matching the existing cabinets that were there. They are very sturdy and will last for years- definitely not Ikea cupboards. Custom cabinets done by a professional would not even be an option for this apartment; we will be moving out in a few years, and don't want to invest too much money into it. Hubs built the set of cabinets in his free time, so labor costs were minimal. He keeps saying he is in construction and not woodworking, but I think he did a fine job. If you want to be frugal, marry someone with a lot of skills!

I have had a lot of fun slowly making our little house into a home. Home decorating and interior design are NOT my strong suit (um... that's why you never see pictures of my house), but I think anyone can learn, and I am trying to, little by little. It's fun.  

Til next time,
-Bethany

​In January, I went to a Goodwill Outlet/Clearance Center for the first time. For those who don't know, Goodwill is a thrift store. A clearance center is where they send all of the stuff that didn't sell at the regular thrift stores. At the center, the stuff is piled up in big bins, and people can dig through the bins, paying for their merchandise by the pound. I went to a clearance center in Florida with my mom, sister, and younger brothers.

I knew this was going to be different as soon as we walked in the door. A voice over the loudspeaker boomed, "YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO SHOP. BEGIN NOW." A very short time later, the voice said again "YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO SHOP," and then at last, it said, "SHOPPERS, TIME IS UP. PLEASE TAKE YOUR MERCHANDISE AND BACK AWAY FROM THE BIN."

My mom and sister went to dig through bins, but I felt paralyzed. The loudspeaker told me to step away from the bins. Yet there were people on our left still digging through bins. Which bins were okay to dig through? I leaned over to my brother and whispered, "I have no idea what I should be doing right now."
     
"Me neither," he said.

Finally my sister saw us still standing at the entrance and waved us over to the back end of the building. Then she explained the rules.

"See those people in that big line over there? They are waiting to dig through the new bins that have just been brought out. All of these other bins-" she pointed to mountains of clothing, books and household goods- "are available to dig through at all times. The price list for each type of stuff is over there on the wall," she pointed back to where we were, "and there is a scale by the bathroom where you can weigh your stuff before you buy it."

​"Okay." I said, feeling a little less lost.

I dug through clothes, not really looking for anything in particular. After I had found some books, I looked for a cart that we could all share. Alas, all of the carts had been taken. Lastly I found a few housewares that I thought I could use. My eight-year-old brother had tagged along with me, and was holding some of my stuff. We dug through more of the bins... carefully. A lot of them were dirty, with broken things in the bottom. I noticed that some of the other shoppers were wearing latex gloves and surgical masks. Somehow my brother managed to stick his hand in a box of broken candies, and smear red slime all over himself. I took the stuff he was holding and found a laptop back to put it in, so he could go wash his hands.


The Greedy Book Lady

When I had finished shopping, my mom pointed out a couple using their phones to scan barcodes on different books. I've done a bit of book selling on Amazon before, so it piqued my interest. The mom and dad looked to be in their 40s or early 50s, well dressed, and had a son (probably age 13 or 14) working with them, bringing them more books to scan. I was quite impressed. I thought they might be a nice homeschool family, since it was a weekday and the boy was not in school. I walked over to the mom and asked her, in a friendly way, what app she was using to scan the books.

"I use several," she said, not looking me in the eye, continuing to scan. 

"Which one is your favorite?" I asked.

"I don't usually give out that information," she said, again avoiding eye contact. I didn't know what to say after that. I was shocked. She thought I was out to steal her precious business secrets!

"We're from Michigan," I offered, "and I guess I just wondered... I just thought..." The lady was completely ignoring me at this point and had turned her back on me. I stopped stammering and turned around. My face burned red with embarrassment. 

​Eventually, the rest of my family was done shopping and we were stuck waiting in a long line. A line of new bins- full of books- had been pulled out. All of a sudden, my mom elbowed me. "Look over there," she said.

Staff had just pulled out a row of new bins, full of books. The Book Lady was in line, of course. An older lady in line behind her had asked to look in her bin, which Book Lady was conveniently blocking with an empty shopping cart. Book Lady motioned for the other shopper to go look in the old book bins, which she (Book Lady) had conveniently already picked through. I felt the older woman's pain. Having been reprimanded, she stood there helplessly and watched as Book Lady went through every book in the bin (rather slowly, I might add) to decide which ones she should put in her cart. When her cart was finally full, she still did not let the older woman look in "her" bin. Instead, Book Lady's son came and took away the full cart, replacing it with an empty one. I wondered where on earth he found an empty cart, as neither me nor the older woman had had any such luck.

I couldn't believe it. Not only was Book Lady hoarding the new books, but she was also hoarding the carts, taking her jolly old time while others in line waited patiently. Woe to the little old lady if the book she was looking for happened to be worth anything on Amazon. She would not find it here; she would have to go on Amazon and buy it for at least $4.00 from Book Lady.


Prices: Low or High?

As I've mentioned before, Goodwill Clearance Centers price things by weight. I ended up buying one large binder, two book stands, a lavender sachet, and three books. Here is what I ended up paying for each item:

Binder: $1.18
Bookstands: $0.12 each
Lavender sachet: $0.06
Books: $0.42 and $0.56

Obviously, the lavender sachet and book stands were a great deal- at or below garage sale prices. I thought the binder was priced a little too high, and the books were just average. I can get $0.50 books all day long at regular thrift stores, and I can find them for $0.30 each at VOA 50% off sales. 

Concluding Thoughts

After we were all piled back in the van, my sister said, "Whew! That was probably the worst Goodwill Outlet yet. I'm glad it was your first experience, Bethany, because all of the other ones will probably be better."

"I hope so!" I said.

Given the mediocre pricing on many items, frantic/desperate shoppers, "professional" thrifters like Book Lady, and dirty merchandise, I didn't get a great impression of Goodwill Clearance Centers in general. The atmosphere was high-pressure to me. From the intimidating loudspeaker messages, to the cart-hogging and bin hoarding, I felt like this place, for some reason, drew an unsavory crowd out of the woodwork. Not everyone there was greedy or desperate, but at a regular Goodwill, people are not breathing down your neck to snatch up a deal. The store does not have to make rules about how long you can stand at a bin, or how many shoes or purses you are allowed to buy (yes, those were actual rules at the Goodwill Outlet). There are enough carts for everyone. People know how to be respectful and kind. 

So, that is my review of a Florida Goodwill Clearance Center/Outlet. Have you ever been to one? What was your experience like?

1. Used my indoor clothing line, ate leftovers, made yogurt did all of the normal "frugal" stuff.

2. Collected cans and bottles to recycle. It was unseasonably warm this week (in the 60s), so I cajoled Hubs into going for several long walks with me and picking up cans. We brought home several grocery bags full of cans this week, plus got in some free exercise.

3. Also because of the warm weather, the chickens have been laying a lot of eggs. This week I made boiled eggs in the Instant Pot for the first time, and then we had egg salad and quiche as well. The IP eggs turned out fantastic- easy to peel and fast to cook. Another point for the Instant Pot!

4. Shopping: I didn't do any couponing this week. We went to Walmart and got some stuff on my list, including a 10lb. bag of white rice and pepper. Hubs found a cheaper brand of yogurt starter ($0.40 instead of $0.80). On Valentine's Day we were in the city, so I got to stop at Gordon Food Service and Aldi. At Gordon's I bought a block of mozzarella cheese, and at Aldi I bought two gallons of milk. I also checked prices at both places for a few different items.

5. Valentine's Day: I made some heart-shaped paper chains from a pink brochure and some yarn in my stash. One of my red amaryllis plants bloomed over V-day, which was kind of nice as well. We went out for lunch at Olive Garden (not frugal), but then for dinner our church was having a couple's night, so we ate there during the evening. I love food!

6. Garden planning: I started to plan out my garden for this year. After taking an inventory of my seed collection, I discovered that I have 45 different types of seeds in my collection. Wow! I did buy some onion and sweet corn seeds at Menards this week (they were having an 11% off sale!), but I already have most of the other seeds. Just FYI, I did not collect and save all of those seeds. Because we don't need a whole row of everything in our garden, I just use a small percentage of the seeds from a new packet and save the rest for another year (or two, or three). Oftentimes, seeds are viable for more than one year.

7. Traded in our mattress. The mattress we bought several years ago was starting to sag in the middle, so we decided to upgrade. If you keep the receipt and papers when you buy a new mattress, you may be able to get a replacement for free instead of sleeping on it for 10 years and then paying full price for a replacement. Hubs had to cut the tags off of our old mattress and bring them in to the store, and then we chose which mattress we wanted (it was about a $100.00 upgrade from the last one) and all we paid was the $100.00 difference. The old mattress was still in decent condition, so we gave it to a  friend.

I think that is about it for last week! What frugal stuff was on your agenda?

Audible: Not What I Expected

Last month I signed up for a free Audible trial. I realized how much time it was taking me to read books, and I decided that the $15.00 per month would be worth it, if it bought me more time.

After we got back from our trip to Florida, it was time to select my first paid audio book. I wanted to get the best value for my money, so I made a wish list of titles that were over 20 hours in length. Essentially, I would be paying $0.75 per hour or less to read a book to me. I thought that was worth it.

Then, out of those books, I wrote down all of the books with a regular (actually, discounted for Audible members) price of more than $30.00. Out of these 14 books, I picked out the "top three"- that is, the three books with the most hours AND top dollar value. The best value was David McCullough's Truman, with a price of $66.11 and playback time of 54 hours. Wow! A monetary savings of $51.11, and an hourly reading rate of just $0.28.


Running Into Problems

You would think that choice would be a no-brainer, but I realized later that I didn't actually want to spend 50 hours listening to a story about President Truman. There were FREE podcasts and audiobooks that I would much rather listen to. So, I went back to my list. Still, most of the books were history books. I wondered if I could find books in any other genres to listen to.

Instead of spending another three hours browsing Audible, I went to Amazon and typed in some of my favorite keywords. Then I scrolled down the list of books, looking for those with an Audible edition. I found two, and then went to Audible to read the reviews.

One of the books, as it turns out, had a lot of good reviews, but I didn't think it was what I wanted for $15.00. The other book had a lot of good reviews as well, but many listeners said it would be better to buy the paperback, as it was in more of a workbook format. So I passed on those two books.

I spent probably another hour looking for audio books that I liked. The problem I kept running into was that the price on Audible was less than $15.00. If I was paying $15.00 per month for a subscription, it didn't make sense to buy a $14.00 book. But then again, if I DIDN'T have the subscription, my price for most of those books would go up to $20.00 or more.

So, I went back to the history books on my list. When I started looking up the Audible reviews, there was one last issue. Commenters said, "The book sounds like Siri is reading it" or "This was their worst day in the studio- ever". Finally I found a book that cost more than $15.00, sounded interesting, and had good Audible reviews. I used my credit to buy it. It only had a monetary value of $17.95, and under 20 hours of playback time, so it would not have made my first list. But, oh well.


Not Sure if I Will Continue

My first real Audible subscription purchase didn't live up to my expectations. I wanted to buy books that I were already on my reading list, but most of the paperback books on my shelf are not available in audio format. They are either too old, too niche, or too short to warrant spending my $15.00 credit on.

Instead of spending five hours on the couch reading, I spent over five hours on the computer, trying to find a suitable book to buy. This thing was supposed to SAVE time, not waste it!! For next month's purchase, I have created a few guidelines.

1) It must be something I would enjoy reading.
2) Preferably a book on my shelf right now, that I will not have time to sit down and read.
3) The book must cost more than $15.00 on Audible.

Instead of making a wish list from the high-value books, then, I am going to buy a book already on my bookshelf. I will probably end up paying around $1.00 per hour for someone to read to me, but if I can do a $5.00 per hour activity while listening to an Audible book, I'll still be "earning" $4.00 per hour.

In the long term, I think it would be more frugal to pay for paperback books and listen to FREE audio.


The Good News For Non-Members

The good news for all of you non-members of Audible is that you can find a LOT of cheap or free audio to listen to without paying $15.00 per month. Amazon Prime members have access to Audible's "channels", which often include free audio books as well as podcast-type material. Then there are also free podcasts on Stitcher and iTunes to listen to.

Lastly- and this is a hack I learned before our road trip- you can "buy" a free ebook version of older classic books on Amazon, and get the Audible version for a few dollars. I downloaded David Copperfield (Kindle version) on Amazon for free, and then bought the 36 hour Audible version for $0.95. If I had bought ONLY the Audible version, it would have cost my $15.00 credit, $2.00 with an Audible membership, or $40.00 without an Audible membership. My total cost per hour for David Copperfield, then, was under $0.03 per hour. 

If you are in the market for good, classic fiction (pre-1910's), it's easy to find, and very cheap. Non-fiction audio books are a little harder to be frugal about, but you can still find pre-1910's non-fiction on Audible for cheap, a tiny bit of modern non-fiction on Audible Channels (for Amazon Prime members), and a lot of modern non-fiction audio though free podcasts.

Obviously, if money is tight, then borrowing non-fiction through your local library is going to be the best option. Second, find a cheap used paperback version on Amazon. If the used version is still not cheap, you can still buy it, read the book, and resell it on Amazon if the value hasn't gone down too much. Usually I only buy Kindle books if they 1) are free, 2) aren't available at the library, or 3) if they cost less than $5.00. It's important to remember that Kindle books have no resale value, so you MUST get your money's worth out of reading the book. Lastly, I check if the audio book would be cheaper with the purchase of an ebook. For modern non-fiction, though, usually it is just cheaper to buy the audio book if that is what you want.

Are you an Audible member? How to you chose which books to buy and how do you get the best value?

For the past couple weeks, we were gone on an extensive road trip from MI to FL, then to TX and back again, with a five-day cruise to the Bahamas and pit stop in New Orleans squished somewhere in the middle. Even though the trip was fun, I was very glad to be home on Saturday! After living in the RV for so long, our "little" apartment looked enormous. As we walked in for the first time, Hubs said, "There is a lot of space in here."

There's just nothing that compares to a comfy bed, a sink that works, toilet that flushes, and water that actually tastes good. Oh yeah, and being reunited with my animals and projects. I love being a homemaker.

1. Kroger shopping: I spent a total of $5.20 at the grocery store for this upcoming week. Seedless red grapes were on sale for $0.99 per pound. I also bought a reduced box of lettuce mix for $1.49, thinking I had a coupon for it (but I bought the wrong brand... oops). Bread was also on sale, and with two different rebates my final price was just $0.53 for the loaf. I picked up a free sample orange, and also a Kroger Free Friday can of soup. Lastly, I found a bag of three yellow bell peppers on the reduced rack for just $0.99.

After I got home, I decided to price out my bargain produce by serving instead of weight. I'm working on a booklet about fruit & vegetable shopping and thought it would be a good research project. In order for my tentative produce budget to work out, I need to spend an average of $0.18 or less per serving of produce. How close did my deals come to hitting the goal?

Salad: $0.75 per serving.
Bell peppers: $0.33 per serving. 
Grapes: $0.20 per serving.

So, the salad* was a terrible deal. Even if my coupon would have worked, the salad still would have cost $0.45 per serving- twice what I was aiming for. The bell peppers were a little closer, and I think they could fit in the budget if balanced with cheaper produce like beans (yes, those actually count as "produce") or cabbage. The grapes were a win, especially for fruit. I was only $0.02 per serving over budget. Yay for loss leaders.

I am planning a trip to Aldi to see how their regular produce prices compare to Kroger and Walmart. 

2. Improved winter RV functionality. Hubs decided not to fill the water tanks for our trip, lest it freeze and the pipes burst. To almost eliminate washing dishes, we bought all disposable utensils, bowls and cups. We also bought more water at Walmart for drinking. As we were standing in front of the vast array of bottles and jugs, Hubs noticed that at this particular store, the bottled water was actually cheaper than the gallon jugs. We priced out each bottle at $0.12, which was totally worth it for a short-term trip. We bought a big pack for $3.00-$4.00 and put it in the camper. We will just leave the leftover bottles out there for future trips.

3. Made a pine needle basket. I have always wanted to do this, but couldn't justify spending so much time on a project like that. When we were visiting family, I noticed that the pine needles in their yard were SUPER long and would be perfect for a basket. With no internet and no "to do" list, I spent several hours making a tiny basket with thread and some pine needles. I thought it turned out so cute.

4. Went to a Goodwill clearance center and a bent 'n' dent in Florida. At the bent 'n' dent, I stocked up on $0.50 packs of tortillas and canned black beans. At the clearance center, I found a large binder, two nice book stands I can use for farmers markets, some books, and a lavender sachet. I am not sure how I feel about the Goodwill clearance centers. Items are priced by weight instead of individually, and the competitiveness of some shoppers at this particular store was a little disturbing. I plan on doing an entire post about this later.

That's all, folks! I look forward to sharing more accomplishments next week.

*For those of you who are wondering, I totally do NOT buy salad mix on a regular basis. In fact, I'm not sure I've bought any lettuce since we were married. I serve a lot of lettuce/salad during the spring and summer months when it is growing in the garden. Otherwise, we might get a few leaves of something from the garden (kale, autumn volunteer lettuce or foraged greens) to serve on sandwiches or tacos, but that is it. I had no idea that store bought greens were so expensive.