Thriftism

Book on tapes may be a thing of the past, however, audio books still prove quite popular. I know I have close to 100 on my iPod for those long drives or to help drown out the noise at work. Do I pay the premium price for these audio books? Of course not! There are actually hundreds of books available for FREE online. Granted, these are classics or if not a classic a fairly old book. My favorite site to find books of every genre and language is librivox.org. This is a legitimate site and does not infringe on copyrights. All the books are in the public domain. I have used this to "read" a lot of the classics that I have never found time to actually sit down and read like Moby Dick, Great Expectations, or Les Miserables to name a few. Keep an open mind to the older novels, they are really quite good. This is a great way to be well read without the time of reading or the expense of buying the books. Another option if you can't stand the thought of listening to a b...

Using up the last of the squash from this fall? Don't let anything go to waste. There are countless recipes requiring squash, whether it be butternut or spaghetti, but what do you do with all that goop you pull out? Well, I guess I throw away the actual "goop", but I make sure to pull the seeds out first. Baked squash seeds have become one of my favorite snacks. Not only do they use something that would normally get thrown out making them essentially free, they also are quite healthy.  Squash seeds are high in protein (up to 12g/cup) and have more fiber than other protein options. They also have loads of other beneficial vitamins without killing your calorie goals for the day. The last reason I love them is that they are rather easy to make and travel well. I have used seeds from just about every type of squash and the only thing I change is the baking time (less for smaller seeds). Now that you know they are great, how do we make them? I cut my squash in hal...

Part 2 - The Process In this post we will detail our approach to the soap crafting process. The recipe we used is simple and easy to follow, listed below in no particular order are the ingredients. 2 oz - Lye 16 oz - Olive Oil 6 oz - Water Begin by gathering some necessary tools, you will need; Scale - Preferably accurate to the 0.01 oz but we made do with a shipping scale only accurate to 0.1 oz Thermometer - Working range of 100F to 150F, 2 thermometers are ideal  Bowl - Used to mix the lye/water solution, be careful as the lye can etch glass products PPE - Personal Protective Equipment, lye is caustic and can cause skin irritation and blindness if contacted on your eyes, rubber gloves and safety goggles people Kettle/Pot - Used to heat the olive oil and mixing vessel Wand Blender - Used to accelerate the saponification process by emulsifying the oil, lye, and water Soap Mold - We used a silicon 2 oz bar mold, if usin...

Our First Experiment with Homemade Soap Part 1 In the constant battle of budgeting, one is always looking for places to save money as well as potentially turn that savings into an income stream. We have selected the lowly household item, soap, as our next area to improve on. This was done for a number reasons; Soap is simple and used everyday. People have been making it for thousands of years, most recipes go like this - Lipids (Fat or Oil), Hydroxide Salts (Lye, Sodium Hydroxide, is most commonly used for its availability), Water, Extras (Anything else you want to add, fragrance, color, abrasives) Store markups on soap products are quite high when compared to the value of materials used to make it. A lucrative market currently exists on sites like Ebay and Etsy for speciality homemade soaps. Homemade soap is better for your skin. We selected a basic soap recipe for our first batch as a sample trial before getting too creative. This recipe includes; extra virgin olive oil, lye...

Canned Beans Vs. Bagged (Dry) Beans Canned beans are convenient. They are already cooked and waiting to be used. However, they also are quite a bit more expensive and having soaring levels of sodium. You can cut down on the sodium by rinsing the canned beans, but why go through this effort when you can buy cheaper beans that have no added sodium. Dry beans are between $1-$2/pound at a typical grocery store, and can be as low as $0.55 when buying in bulk at a store like Sam's Club. While the grocery store cost might seem more expensive than the $0.70/can you can spend for ready to eat beans, but the quantities are hugely different. 1 can of beans gives you less than two cups of beans. One pound of dried beans gives you about 6 cups cooked. That means by buying dried beans you could be saving a minimum of $0.50/bag compared to buying cans. Depending on the type of bean, lentil, etc. you are buying this amount can increase quite a bit. It may not seem like much...

Today we turn a handful of fake flowers and a heart shaped Styrofoam blank into a welcoming heart shaped flower wreath. Assembly only takes about half an hour and the total cost is under 10 bucks.(3.97 for the wreath & 4 sets of flowers @ 0.97 each) Follow along below for an how to! Start by acquiring a Styrofoam wreath blank, we selected a heart shape for the season but a circular wreath will work too. These can be purchased at any craft store or the craft section of most big box stores. The second part you will need are some fake flowers preferably with plastic coated metal stems. The metal stems will allow the flowers to be pushed into the Styrofoam wreath with relative ease. For our wreath we selected three different colors of roses but any flower type will work a great Spring Season wreath. Begin the assembly process by cutting the flower buds off of the stems leaving about an inch of stem behind to stick the wreath with. I would s...