Frugal Intuition

Okay normally I would be offering up some tip or advice to you, but today what I am really interested in discussing is the issue of splitting the check.  Several times over the past couple of years, I have read things referring to situations where people split the bill at a restaurant evenly–no matter who got what.  Now, maybe it’s because I never eat out in groups larger than six, or that I’ve been a poor college/grad/post-grad/newlywed for the last decade of my life and that all my friends are in the same boat and none of us have the money for that kind of thing–but I have never in my life been asked or expected to pay for more than I ate.  As someone who always orders water to drink in restaurants, almost never gets an appetizer or dessert, this is something that is important to me.  I strive to save money when I eat out.  The idea that anyone would expect me to pay for more than my actual portion of the bill seems both ludicrous and rude.  If someone else at the table got a bunch of appetizers or dessert that I didn’t eat, why should I have to pay for any of it?  Seriously, I really don’t understand this concept.  I know that with parties of 8 or more, the restaurant will usually go ahead and add in the gratuity–fine.  But almost every place I have ever eaten will still split the check.  Maybe that’s another remnant of the fact that I live in relatively small town South.  Maybe they don’t do that in cities (though, I have to say that’s unprofessional and discourteous if they won’t take the trouble to split the check–they are providing a service, after all).

Certainly the etiquette surrounding such behavior would suggest that you never suggest splitting the check evenly if you will be paying for less than you owe–clearly that’s rude.  And it seems to me that it can all be avoided by asking for separate checks before you ever order.  But still, apparently this is a practice that some people do actually engage in, or I wouldn’t have seen so many mentions of it lately.

So how about it, y’all?  Anybody got an explanation for me as to why anybody does this?

If you’re like us and have pets, more than likely their hair is on everything and you rarely leave the house without taking a part of your furry loved ones with you.  My husband is considerably more embarrassed about this than I am (I figure anyone who will judge me for that outside the context of something important like a job interview isn’t a pet person and I wouldn’t like them anyway), so this means that we’ve tried lots of ways of getting rid of pet hair from our clothes and furniture.  We’ve tried the lint rollers that are basically inside out masking tape, where you peel off one layer to reveal a clean one.  But these aren’t reusable and can get expensive if you’ve got truly furry friends.  We’ve tried a washable lint roller, which works moderately well, but inevitably it gets used and put back without washing and then when it’s needed again, we need to wash it and don’t have time for it to dry and…well it’s just not the perfect solution either.  The furniture, of course, we can vacuum, but that doesn’t work as well for clothing.  What we have discovered is hands down the best way to remove pet hair is to use rubber gloves, like the kind you would use for cleaning.   These are uber cheap, reusable, and most folks have them in their house anyway.  Simply put them on both hands and rub the clothing in one direction.  I find this works best when one person is wearing said clothes and the other person is de-hairing them.  I don’t know exactly how it works, but the friction or the static or something manages to drag the hair down into clumps that can be picked off.  This actually got the hair off of our fleeces, which are notorious for holding dog hair.  And they’re cheap!  Less than $2 for something you can use over and over again.  It’s a great example of using this for that.

I have long been in a debate with two of my friends about what grade of ground beef to buy.  One of them is very very health conscious and only buys the leanest of the lean ground beef–and she pays an arm and a leg for it.  My other friend is far more concerned about budget, so she buys the cheapest ground beef available, usually about 70-73% lean.  My first friend justifies the higher price on the lean ground beef by saying that she’s getting more usable meat once it’s cooked.  My second friend doesn’t think there’s an appreciable difference in the amount of cooked beef when she uses the fattier grades.  I’ve always been somewhat on the fence on this issue because I’m interested in both health and frugality.  I’ve been meaning for over a year to go  buy a pound of each of the grades of ground beef, jot down their prices, cook them, drain them, and see what was what in terms of how much it cost per ounce to finally set this debate to rest.   Well I never got around to doing it.  But, someone else has been kind enough to conduct the experiment for us!  The Hillbilly Housewife has painstakingly broken everything down for us.  I encourage you to go read the whole article for yourself, but the take home message is here in the numbers:

Unless you are making hamburgers or meatloaf (which you obviously aren’t going to rinse and drain), any other recipe calling for ground beef (such as spaghetti sauce or taco filling) is going to have you fry up the meat, drain and rinse it.  Nobody (at least I hope nobody) actually eats all that grease remaining when they brown beef for a recipe.   In which case the fattiest ground beef, once it’s cooked, rinsed, and drained, is actually the leanest.  And according to her calculations, it costs about half the price of the leanest ground beef with only a difference of about 2 oz.  So the take home message here?  Buy the cheapest ground beef available unless you’re making a recipe that doesn’t allow for draining and rinsing.

Tis the season of office Christmas parties.  There are presently sausage balls and pigs in a blanket calling my name from down the hall. Did someone say homemade cinnamon rolls?

Since someone is inevitably going to beat you to putting rotel on the list of who’s bringing what, you need some other alternatives.   If you don’t want to show up with store bought goodies (and given that I live in the South, that’s a major social faux pas), you want to cook something yourself.  My default Christmas party dish that’s always a crowd pleaser and doesn’t break the bank is taco soup.  It totally saved my butt this morning, as when I came to work, I was convinced the office party is tomorrow.  I was able to race home (I live 2 miles up the road) and throw it together in the crock pot in 20 minutes.  This is a soup that’s made with staples (at least in our house).    It’s a lot of flavor without a lot of time and effort.  It can totally be made the night before or at the last minute.  Buy the store brand sour cream, cheddar cheese, and tortilla chips, and you haven’t exceeded your budget on garnishments either.

In my kitchen that is.  I am officially in holiday baking mode after picking up the last of my baking supplies at the grocery last night.  This is probably the only time of year I ever buy brown sugar, baker’s chocolate, or chocolate chips.  I’ve already been baking my holiday batches of sourdough bread , but now it’s time for cookies.  I found these great little Chinese food style boxes with holiday themes (Santa and snowmen) for $1 apiece to use for my work gifts.  $1 is a bit more than I prefer to pay for packaging but these require no wrapping or bows or tape, so it’s an all in one deal.  They’ll probably only hold 6-8 cookies, which is just fine for saying “hey I’m thinking of you this holiday season” without going overboard.  So the winners of this year’s holiday recipes are (drumroll please….)

Peanut Butter Rudolph Reindeer from Ladies Home Journal.  Seriously, how cute are they?  And how simple?  Kids or non-culinary inclined husbands could totally help with this project.  Better make at least a double batch, as helping hands are going to taste while packing.

The other recipe we’re going to use to wow friends and family are these Simply Sensational Truffles from Kraft.  Easy peasy and totally decadent.  I’m making these for the family get together.  I found mini muffin cups at Target recently for $1.50 (for 100), and I’m going to top them with chopped pecans.

What are your favorite holiday gift recipes?

Do you have someone in your life who loves to cook?  Here’s the ideal (and inexpensive) perfect gift.  See, there’s nothing that we foodies love more than trying new flavors.  My current latest obsession is sweet smoked paprika.  To my husband’s chagrin, I’ve been trying it on everything :D  But here’s the scoop…whether you check out the spice aisles of somewhere fancy like Whole Foods or Fresh Market or only have access to your local Kroger or Walmart, groceries are becoming more and more sophisticated in their selection of spices.  So if you get the chance, scope out your favorite cook’s spice rack and see what they don’t have.  Then pick up a jar or packet of something new.  Chances are you’ll find something wonderful for less than $5.  Then let your fingers do the walking and scope out an assortment of recipes online that incorporate that new spice.  There are plenty of online recipe card template s that you can use.  Put all the recipes you collect in the same template for a consistent presentation and wrap it up.  Voila.  If you’re lucky, the receiver will invite you over to dinner!

I made a realization this weekend.  Of all the ornaments I’ve made over the years for friends–I’ve kept almost none for myself.  SO, for this post, I’m going to round up the instructions for various ornaments I’ve made.  Today I’ll focus on the myriad of Christmas cuties you can make with clothespins.  Why?  Because wooden clothespins are cheap, readily available at The Dollar Tree or your other favorite dollar store, and can be made into all sorts of cute stuff.

First up, Clothespin Snowmen.  This one was probably my favorite of all the ornaments I’ve made (as evidenced by the fact that I still actually HAVE some of these).  Instructions can be found here.  These call for spools and wood circles, but when I went to Hobby Lobby to find them, I actually found some sort of wooden beats that by themselves looked like hats, so I got those instead.

Next, the classic Clothespin Reindeer.  You gotta love the googly eyes!

Instructions can be found here.

  These clothespin Santas are sure to please and are easy to make with readily available materials.  Instructions can be found here .

These clothespin soldiers are always cheerful additions to the tree.  And for those of you with family members in the military overseas, you could easily change the paint job to fatigues to make something more personally meaningful.  Instructions can be found here.  I have used this same concept to make little martial artists for my aikido class (yeah, I was the only girl).

If you’re feeling more adventurous and crafty, you could try these clothespin dolls made by Martha Stewart.  I’ve not yet tried these, but they look really cute.  Instructions can be found here.

And finally, for the little angel in your life, a clothespin angel.  Instructions can be found here. 

You can be as simple or as complicated as you like.   Whatever your budget there are clothespin ornaments to fit it and they are always popular gifts.

The post about handmade ornaments is forthcoming after this weekend when I pull all our decorations down and can take pictures of the ones I’ve made in the past.  In it’s stead I offer another inexpensive Christmas gift for those on your list.

Remember back in the day before CDs when mix tapes were a serious sign of love?  If you’re too young to remember that, don’t tell me.  And please, no cracks about the 80s.  Anyway, in our current age of ditigal music, when all computers pretty much come standard with a CD or DVD burner, mix CDs are a fantastic gift.  Two of my alltime favorite CDs were gifts from a close friend of mine–one is a Christmas mix she made me back in college and the other she made for my wedding.  CD-Rs can be bought relatively cheaply at Walmart, and you can easily rip music from your own CDs with Windows Media Player or other free players such as Winamp or GOM .

Then it’s a simple matter of choosing your theme (or artist) and going to town.  The mixes that are the most fun really suit the personality of the recipient, so give it some thought.  Make a list of that person’s favorite songs or songs that make you think of them.  You can fit nearly 80 minutes of audio on a single CD-R, so you’ve got plenty of room to express yourself.

Then play around and make yourself an insert for the case.  There are templates online for the proper size.

Wrap and add a bow or pop it in a gift bag and voila!  You’ve got a personalized and very inexpensive gift that’s going to bring your friend or family member pleasure for years to come.

So my grand holiday plan of having a family drawing so that everyone was buying one gift and that was it–we were all going to focus on the food?

Totally went kablooey.

The family was all “oh what a good idea” and then everybody backed out.

So we are back to the drawing board about how to afford Christmas.  As I’ve said before, I’m a huge fan of gifts from the kitchen, and I think that’s going to be our saving grace.   So in honor of that concept, I’ve gathered up some websites providing suggestios for exactly that:

Gifts From Your Kitchen

Food Gift Recipes and Jar Mixes for the Holidays

For the not cooking inclined 10 No-Cook Food Gift Ideas

A Homemade Christmas

Gifts From Your Kitchen: Personal and Delicious Ideas

Healthy Holiday Gifts From the Kitchen

Teri’s Kitchen: Recipes for Gifts From The Kitchen

There are lots of other make it yourself ideas for holiday gifts, and I’ll address some of those as the holidays get closer.

If you’ve got any other great links for homemade gifts, do share!

We’ve got family in town for a full week.  I will save my plots on how to get guests to leave before they overstay their welcome for another post.  Today I want to focus on how you feed a pack of people for a week without breaking your grocery budget.

The key is, of course, to find a way to stretch your most expensive grocery commodity: meat.  Below I’ve got a bit of a recipe round up for 7 days of dinner for guests–all you’ll need is a whole chicken, 1 pound of smoked sausage, and 3 pounds of ground beef:

Chicken Loaf : a poultry variation on your mom’s classic meatloaf, this simple casserole stretches chicken with rice, breadcrumbs, eggs and a can of the eve-present cream of mushroom soup.

Shepherd’s Pie : another casserole classic, you can stretch your ground beef with the addition lof lots of veggies (healthier that way too).

Stuffed Bell Peppers : another ground beef stretcher calling for rice and mushrooms

Black Beans and Rice : 1 package of keilbasa or smoked turkey sausage takes center stage here with rice, rotel, black beans, and a few other pantry staples.

Taco Soup : our current guests requested this one–it’s a family favorite.

Spicy Corn Chowder :  this one uses no meat at all, but is very very filling

Chicken Pot Pie : another crowd pleaser