Daily Frugal Challenge!

[KmmCo]

Gardencook - you made me hungry for soup so tonight I am doing chicken noodle with half the leftover chicken in the fridge!

[Gardencook]

Gardencook - you made me hungry for soup so tonight I am doing chicken noodle with half the leftover chicken in the fridge!

Our weather has been SO cold here lately, that I've been craving soup -- which is a really good thing, since it is so cheap and DH loves it.
* Made the Mexican Chicken Lime Soup I linked the other night. It was really tasty! Of course, I always mean to follow a recipe and never quite get around to it... I had some small zucchini which needed to be used, so sliced one in, added a little rice, stirred in some cilantro at the end -- and forgot the guacamole for the top, which was the whole reason for making the soup in the first place. I thought it would be a good thing to use it with, since I had so much guacamole I got really cheap on markdown with coupons.
* There is still enough soup leftover for at least another meal, probably two.
* Opened a jar of my homemade corn relish to put in the cornbread to go along with it. Also had a some cooked barley, so added a little of that to the cornbread. Made the cornbread from my homemade cornbread mix which I made a few weeks ago, so it went together in a flash.
* Plan to make a meatloaf for tomorrow night's dinner. We don't really mind vegetarian entrees, so decided to stretch the meatloaf to the limit with veggies and grains. Only used a pound of ground beef, and the loaf is probably two-thirds filler. I added zucchini, tomatoes, onions, garlic, some homemade pepper sauce, oatmeal and toasted bread crumbs -- all things I had on hand. It is all ready to pop in the oven tomorrow. Plan to top it with a glaze made from cherry balsamic red onion jam I canned last summer.
* Still had some barley left, so made another couple loaves of barley bread. It is rising in the oven right now.
* Still drinking a glass of barley water each day as a tonic. As long as I was making beef barley soup, I cooked extra and made barley water. It is supposed to be mixed with lemon juice, but I have some mandarin oranges I got on markdown, so have been squeezing one of those in each glass.
* I didn't go out today so didn't spend anything. Probably won't go out tomorrow either, since officials are asking us to stay off the road. The storm tonight is making things really slick.
* Did some additional organizing in the kitchen. Still need to wash up the storage containers I purchased at the thrift store yesterday.
* Ordered some free samples last night and received a two-week sample of pro-biotic capsules in the mail today. I really like the product, but it is EXPENSIVE, so glad to have a couple weeks worth free.
* Checked out some library books the other day and have been reading through them. One is a nutrition book for a program I don't intend to follow, but I figured it would be good motivation.

[ffagirl15]

Lazy day at work but here are a few things I'll be doing or have already done recently:
-Sonic survey to get a free 44oz drink (like I need more soda, lol)
-printed a few b-day deals (CVS ECB and free med. drink)
-going home to make a massive salad for lunch (2nd day in a row, whoot!)
-Brought my own coffee to the office (I do that every day, but remembered how much that saves me)

-figure out something to do tonight to get these week off my mind that doesn't require much money or driving very far

[motherofmolly]

~ went looking at kroger clearance today. found 3 packs of hormel bacon clearanced 50% off. been awhile for bacon, so i got them. also picked up 75% off smaller bottle of olive oil. that stuff is expensive normally, glad i got another one on clearance. also picked up 4 double packs of the Laughing cow cheese. $2.70 on mark down. i love this stuff! it was cheaper on markdown then the single packs on markdown. lol.

~ let the chickens out in the yard today. they go bugging = less feed cost. yeah.

~ movie night. we earned another free movie. got 3 movies for the price of 2.

~ pizza night. grabbed 3 more digiornos with the b2g1 coupon. they are back on sale for $5 so not bad. two for dinner tonight and one for another time. i was able to print 4 more coupons (2 different links) yesterday...so ill get some more and keep them in the freezer.

~ been tired this week. havent done much at all. which is a good thing! unplugging stuff and opening windows as much as possible. i did turn down the heat 2 degrees yesterday as it is going to be a big old 50 degrees this weekend. might turn it down another 2 tomorrow.

~ cleaned the bathroom yesterday. i reused a spray bottle and filled it up half and half with bleach and water. this is cheaper than purchasing cleaner. and the bleach keeps the bathtub from getting yellow from the well water.

~ finally noticed that i can change the settings on my dishwasher. i put it on medium for the time (i dont need 2 hours to wash the dishes in there)...i turned off the hot air dryer portion, and switched the water temp to medium. took me over a year to figure out the settings, but this should be a little cheaper.

~ off to find a recipe for homemade dishwashing soap. i am out of those free trial cascade packs from over a year or so ago. i think i can make it cheaper than buying it.

[busyasabeecrg]

For you ladies who are looking for lime ideas. Just came across this recipe. Looks like a keeper in my book, especially since I've got a lot of guacamole to use. It should work just as well as the avocado.
Mexican Lime Soup with Chicken

Thanks again....I just added this recipe to my "favorites" and will make it tomorrow!

Oh....I would absolutely love to send you some of my fruit, but I did send some to another member a couple years ago, and it cost me so much in postage, I'm afraid to even ask how much it would be now!! How about a trip to San Diego?? ... in about a week... as the Navel oranges are ripe, 90% of the limes have fallen already (so I have to juice them tomorrow and freeze them in glass jars) and grapefruit will be really ripe in a few weeks.

[Gardencook]

Thanks again....I just added this recipe to my "favorites" and will make it tomorrow!

I made it last night and it was delicious!

Oh....I would absolutely love to send you some of my fruit, but I did send some to another member a couple years ago, and it cost me so much in postage, I'm afraid to even ask how much it would be now!! How about a trip to San Diego?? ... in about a week... as the Navel oranges are ripe, 90% of the limes have fallen already (so I have to juice them tomorrow and freeze them in glass jars) and grapefruit will be really ripe in a few weeks.

I wish we could head for San Diego right now! We got eight to ten inches of snow last night and are in for a cold snap over the weekend, so we'll be back below zero again. Ugh!
I know what you mean about the postal rates. It is such a confusing mess trying to mail anything these days. We've only got one post office with a scale left and even when you follow all the directions, they always seem to find a way to tack on extra surcharges at the window here. Then they wonder why they're going under.

[ffagirl15]

Ok frugal things today:
-Lots of coffee with cheap ID coffee creamer!!
-$20 in Amazon gc from Swagbucks (I'll get one more tomorrow and be maxed out on those for the month)
-Inventorying my food today before going to the store so hopefully I can get a list of dishes I can make in the next few weeks

Another cool thing about the swagbucks is that I got 4k in SBs when I got a great deal on a CC transfer deal, which is going to help in my debt cutting goal!!

[KmmCo]

Didn't do much but work the last couple of days. I did have to stop for bread yesterday and found some markdown stuff, including a take&bake loaf of cibatta dated 1/11. I did that up for dinner and heated leftover chicken noodle soup that I had made Thursday. Got in a couple of hours unscheduled of OT yesterday thanks to the yucky weather - lots of people were late because there were tons of wrecks out on the roads slowing down the traffic flow. It took me maybe an extra 20-30 minutes to get home myself on top of the time I stopped to shop.

It is cold and yucky out and I am starting to get the sore throat stuff that is going around at work. I am gonna dig out some more OJ from the freezer and mostly stay home today. I have to be healed up in time for my ski trip in a couple of weeks!!!

[ffagirl15]

ok quick question for you ladies, I got some block cheddar cheese a while back. I think I'm going to just shred it and freeze it. Any tips on how to keep it from just clumping together? I think I've heard about just adding a little bit of flour but I couldn't remember if that was for cheese or what.....

[foodie]

Corn starch is the secret to storing block cheese that you shred for freezing. Don't use flour.

Info below--

How to Store Shredded Cheese - Home Ec 101 (Home EC 101's site/info.)

Foodie (Katie)