Frugal Friday 02/23/24

Hi everyone

I've totally enjoyed the sunshine we've experienced the past few days (with more to come). It's the perfect mood booster. 

I'm guessing many readers assume that all I do is shop 😂 (since that's what I mainly post about), so I figured I'd show everyone the little ways I do save or live a frugal lifestyle. 

• I decided to research my camera's problem online. At first I found sites that talked about the camera's sensor not working & the motherboard needing to be replaced. I thought 'I'm not doing that" If I attempt to open the camera, I might end up breaking it (I've had that experience with a favorite watch of mine. lesson learned). Then I found a youtube video of an easy fix. Looks like this problem happens with different brands. All I had to do was knock my camera on the side with the palm of my hand & voila, it's back to working again. Hooray! No replacement needed. 
  
  
• I turn off the dryer 5 minutes before the cycle ends. That last few minutes is just for cooling, so I figured it's just a waste of energy and money. The load can cool down on it's own if you just let it sit for a while afterwards. If I'm doing more than one load, I remove the dry laundry immediately and the dryer's still semi-warm once the new load starts. I don't know if that makes any difference though. 
  
  
• I stopped buying pasta sauce. The last time I made meat sauce, I discovered that I was out of pasta sauce. Then I remembered that we never used pasta sauce when I lived in SA. We just use tomato paste & water and then add garlic and our own fresh herbs. So that's what I've been doing. Tomato paste costs far less than the sauce, so there's more $$ saved. 
  
  
• I found a tin of shoe polish clearanced to $1.41 at Kroger. This is perfect for my favorite boots. It's just a plain pair of black leather ankle boots that make my feet happy, it's so comfy. Then I pulled out an old loose sock (I don't understand how we end up with missing socks half the time) and used that to shine my boots. I used to hate polishing my shoes when I was a kid. Both public & private school students wear uniforms and we had special school shoes. So every Sunday night we had to polish that shoes to a high shine. We even had a special shoe shine case - brush, polish, old socks. You'd spread some newspaper on the floor then get to work. I'm now thankful for those lessons, because my boots last longer by polishing it. 
  
  Just for fun, I decided to do a search on these boots. Imagine my surprise when I saw used ones selling for 50% more than what I paid for mine (new). These boots are discontinued, so I'm very happy that I bought 2 pairs a few years ago. I just need to find brown shoe polish for my other pair - although that pair isn't scuffed yet. 
  
  
• Received a $52 Rakuten Big Fat Check and it went straight into savings. Yay for free money!I'm still bummed that Rakuten will be sitting with over $100 of my money for the next 3 months. 
  
  
• I had some peppers that were getting up in age, so I washed, diced & froze it for omelets. 
  
  
• I use the bread heels when making frikkadel. We never had breadcrumbs in stores when I lived in SA. You just soak the bread in water. The squeeze out and drain water and add the wet bread to whatever dish it's needed. I'm going back to my roots on saving, because we lived such simple lives.
  

I know there's a few more things, but I can't think of it right now.

Have a wonderful weekend peeps!