UFF Weekend Frugal Fun

Hello--I hope you had a good weekend!

Here is some of my weekend frugal fun….

UFF Dad had quite a bit of work to do this weekend (one of the perils of being self-employed and working from home), but we managed a few solid hours of reading/knitting time together. We finished another Agatha Christie novel (our fourth?), which was very suspenseful, with double and triple twists at the end. I managed not to read ahead this time. I finished this little sweater vest and hat for a friend's friend's new baby:

gorgeous forest colors

malabrigo superwash merino wool--a dream

Also, UFF Dog and I made it to the forest for a run two runs (15 miles total):

trailhead-into the forest

on the trail-in the forest

I baked a vanilla chocolate-chip cake with chocolate frosting:

UFF Boy ate half in one evening

And visited good friends for a glass of wine and some adorable puppy time:

Puppy M--a force of nature...

The puppy even fell asleep on me:

…until she crashes. 

It's very difficult to worry too much about the state of the world when you have a soft little puppy asleep on your lap.


What did you do this weekend? Please share three things!

Weekly Do the Numbers

Friday to Friday spending….

from vegetarian.lovetoknow.com

Big Winco Grocery Shopping: $137.00

Three pounds of bulk tofu ends from the "Tofu Factory Outlet Store": $3.75+10-cent bag
 (yes! this really exists, and it's a five minute walk from my workplace)

Small grocery shop (2 gallons of milk plus organic carrots, lettuce, apples) and Bota Box of Cabernet Sauvignon for next week's Book Group (yes, so classy): $9.00

(how was it only $9? We used a $10 gift card I received at work plus a $13.00 credit that UFF Dad had collected from returning about a year's worth of recyclable cans and bottles)

Total weekly spending: $146.85 

That's all, folks!

Save Money by Talking to a Pharmacist

from who.int

Hello, UFF Mom here. I won't write long tonight because my arm is sore. Poor me.

Why is it sore, you ask? I'll tell you. It's because I had a typhoid vaccine after work today. The injectable sort.

First I used the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Yellow Book online to look up which vaccines were recommended for my travel destination. I did NOT call the fancy local "Travel Clinic" which would have charged me at least a hundred dollars for a consultation to say the same thing.

Next I called my local Fred Meyer Pharmacy, which carries travel vaccinations, and chatted with a friendly pharmacist to find out if they had it in stock, how much it would cost, if I needed an appointment, etc.

She kindly mentioned that there is both an oral and injectable form of the typhoid vaccine. She usually recommends the oral form because it lasts longer, "unless insurance is an issue". Wait, what?

Turns out the oral form is flagged as a travel vaccine, which insurance companies do not cover. The injectable form somehow escapes this marking, since most routine vaccinations are injectable. She ran a quick test and found that the shot was 100% covered by my health insurance, neatly saving $109.00.

I showed up at the pharmacy at 5:30, met the same friendly pharmacist from the phone, got right back in, and she suffered my questions about her injection technique (darting or non? Quick or slow?) and had it done before I knew she'd started.

Best shot I've had in years. I didn't even feel it, and neither did my budget.

UFF Experiments

OKAY. Let's talk cloth.

A friend was visiting recently and she carried soft cloth handkerchiefs with her, saying that paper tissue was too abrasive on her nose over time. Today I noticed UFF Grammy digging a decorative cloth hankie out of her pocket as well.

I cloth diapered my children (both of them). I don't use (and never miss) paper towels--only dishtowels or rags. We use cloth napkins here in the UFF household, when we use napkins at all. I even used locally-made cloth menstrual pads back when that was still an issue.

So why am I not using cloth toilet paper? Why does that feel somehow like an invisible line between hip uber-frugal weirdness and icky uber-frugal weirdness?

I have tried it, I confess. Back when we still had a diaper pail hanging out in the garage, and I came across the term "family cloth" somewhere on the internet (a hippie-raised friend said gently, "I like the idea, but…couldn't you call it by some other name?"). My idea at that time was to only use it for pee (urine is sterile), and with the realization that it would be mostly me, lone female in a house of males, to use it. I kept the diaper bucket, and a basket of nice soft cloths, next to the toilet. One person, one use (obviously), and into the bucket.

My children were absolutely flabbergasted that I would ever consider doing such a humiliating thing. And they were never ever going to invite someone over for a play date with that in the bathroom. Plus, the bathroom smelled like pee. So I stopped.

But why? Why are we using processed trees to wipe our nether regions? (although I'm not sure it is truly more environmentally conscious to reuse cloth, with the washing and drying). Why is toilet paper the exception? And does anyone else hate how toilet paper often comes wrapped in many layers of non-recyclable cellophane?

I'm seriously considering giving this a go again. Cloth toilet paper. Why not??

What does $137.00 Worth of UFF Groceries Look Like?

...I'm so glad you asked.

I have fairly often had the experience of being disappointed at the grocery checkout when comparing my spending total to the amount of food that I'm actually bringing home. Of course, quantity relative to cost depends a lot on your specific purchases--some big items will quickly drive the bill up.

I was happily surprised to have had the opposite reaction after grocery shopping Friday. With the amount of items, the total seemed suspiciously reasonable to me.

This shopping trip was at Winco, an employee-owned discount grocery store. They save money by not having baggers and not accepting credit cards. It feels a little like Costco--large, cavernous, and warehouse-like--but food items are not all sold in large quantities. They have begun carrying some organic items and a few local brands that I like to support. When saving money with groceries, it's important to know where the best prices on your staples can be found. Winco is the place for many, but not all, of our commonly bought food items.

Here's what $137 worth of groceries looked like for the UFFs.

Baking supplies:

Darn it--forgot to include the bulk chocolate chips

Fresh (mostly dairy) items:

Cheddar is essential around here

Fruits & Veggies:

Bananas and salad are organic, the rest not

Canned/packaged items:

Black olives for homemade pizza

The "carb" food group (heavy on whole wheat):

The Annie's is comfort food for our emergency supplies

Bulk items:

Rice, red lentils, split peas, peanuts, walnuts, raisins

Miscellaneous food and beverage items:

Vegetarian burgers, seltzer and tea bags

And finally, the non-food items:

Vitamins and floss--exciting stuff

It looks even more impressive when everything is on the table:

I'm very curious. Dues this look like a lot of food for the price to you, or not? 
How does this compare to food prices where you live?

Frugal Weekend Fun Part II

Oh, it is hard to go back to work after a three-day weekend. I want more time. 

Here are some other frugal activities from the UFF household:

• Baking. Saturday evening I made chocolate chip cookies: UFF Dad and I had a few each and they had disappeared by morning. Sunday I made whole-wheat chocolate-chip walnut muffins--woke up Monday to find them gone. 

UFF Dad made some pizza dough rolls. Anyone else trying to keep a teenage boy fed?

• Running. I went both Sunday and Monday. I live two miles from a trailhead to our urban greenbelt, and it is spectacular to be able to head to the forest on foot. I took UFF Dog up there Sunday, which led to him becoming a mud ball and requiring a bath on return. Monday we stayed on a flat bark trail to avoid having to repeat the bath process. 13 miles total. 

gear--hydration pack and gels for long runs

• Reading. I read several chapters of JL Collin's book The Simple Path to Wealth. I feel so far from needing the instructions in the second half of the book, when he talks about what to do once you are financially independent, that it's a little discouraging. I'm still in the early stages, trying to live as simply as possible and invest as much as possible. I'll need to come back to this book in a few years when I'm closer to the goal of saving and investing yearly living expenses x 25, and it doesn't seem so distant. It's full of good advice.

• Cleaning. Actually, after an argument a mild disagreement about who does more around the house, UFF Dad felt compelled to showcase his impressive housekeeping skills. I am very grateful for a clean downstairs and kitchen floor. It was covered with UFF Dog's mud prints prior. 

Dog prints before washing floor

• Eating together. We had several nice salads this weekend:

• Reading and knitting. We finished the Agatha Christie murder mystery And Then There Were None. It was highly suspenseful. Another chapter! More! I made lots of sock progress as UFF Dad read out loud. 

It was a good, full, three days, and the only money spent was at the grocery store (Winco).

Weekend spending total: $137.00

Did you have a long weekend?

UFF Weekend Fun Part I

Hurray--a long weekend means extra fun. Here was my Saturday frugal fun….

Removed Xmas decorations from the exterior of the house, and about time too. UFF Boy chopped up the poor, dried tree that had been sadly languishing on the patio, and put it in the yard waste recycling for me (actually he chopped, and I gathered).

Also took down the swag beside the front door. Welcome Spring! We're ready for you now!

Tackled the clothing storage problem for the UFF Parents. We had been using a crowded corner of UFF Dad's home office closet for our non-hanging clothing. This was the previous closet situation:

The difficulty in putting things away was a strong deterrent for me to perform a task that I already dislike, which led to a lot of this:

I moved the clothing cubbies and small dresser out to the second floor open space. It's much more open, easier to see things when getting dressed in the morning (to avoid embarrassing moments like the one I had Friday, when I realized at work that my shirt was on inside-out), and a shorter distance to travel before being put away. Every step counts. See at how much better it looks:

UFF Dad and I now each have one drawer of this dresser for socks and undergarments. He felt that since our feet are about the same size, we should combine our sock drawer, but I think he's just trying to wear more of my hand knitted socks ;).

Didn't get pictures of it, but I took one bag of items to the artists' materials recycling center (and didn't buy any yarn), one bag of electronics items to the computer/electronics recycling center, one bag of clothes that didn't fit back to my generous neighbor, and several large pieces of furniture that had been stored in the garage ( a hideous armchair and stool, an old filing cabinet) to a thrift store for donation. It will be a lot easier to get my bike in and out of the garage now.

And finally, to the delight of UFF Boy, I went to the discount grocery store. I forgot my list and probably picked up a few extra items, but did very well for the amount of food purchased.

Pleasantly satisfied, I then stayed up much too late knitting and watching Grantchester Season 2 and reading the novel for my book group, Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber.

What did you do on Saturday?