make use of what you already have.

If you wait a while, many seasonal products become cheaper. For example, it's a good idea to buy next years christmascards or christmas themed wrapping paper in january. Same with next years calendars, you often get a discount if you buy a few weeks later.

If you like to read magazines, you can often find them very cheap at your local library. Or, what I do, is browse through our buildings "old paper boxes" and find magazines for free. Sure they're secondhand, but if they're clean, it's no problem.

i've made a few of these by now & this one that i tried tonight, is probably both the cheapest & the yummiest alternative.

4 carrots
4 potatoes
1 onion
1½ tbsp butter
½ tsp thyme (or rather, 2 krm, but i don't know what that's in english :p)
1 'piece' of garlic (not a whole garlic, a 'klyfta')
12 dl of chicken - or veggie - bouillon
salt & pepper

chop the veggies in small pieces. fry them along with butter, thyme & garlic. add bouillon & heat up, then let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. run through the mixer, then add salt + pepper. serve & enjoy :)

i had some homebaked bread to go along & that made my dinner even more nice. :)

Here's a tip I saw a while ago on T.V.

This one is if you have any old jars of almost used up mustard or similar condiments. Something you can do is make it into a dressing (for salads or anything else you'd use a salad type dressing on like coleslaw).

For example if you have a jar of mustard with only a little left put in some herbs, (I reccomend things like dill, oregano, basil, thyme, salt and pepper). Add some pickle juice from the pickle jar (if you don't have pickles, use table vinegar but not much). Then add some olive oil. Screw the lid back on tightly and shake until everything is mixed. Pour over your salad.

I'm sure if you made this dressing thicker and with less olive oil it would be a nice thing to put on a sandwich that has a lot of vegetables on it as well.

This might be an old one, but if you have bread that's actually too old and dry to eat normally, instead of throwing it away, you can toast them and they'll taste just fine. Or, what i also like, is a recipe that i don't know the english name of, we call it "wentelteefjes"

Make a mixture of one egg, some milk, some sugar and cinnamon. Soak the slice of bread in it, and bake it in a pan until it's brown. Sprinkle some sugar on it, and it's lovely, tastes a lot like pancakes!

i've just learned that hot water + baking powder/soda really does work wonders, for those stained tea mugs.

i've read you should use 3 tsp - but i probably used only 1½ tsp for four mugs.

x-posted in frugal_advice & communitea.

i hope you will find this community to be useful.


my first, frugal advice for you will be to check out these links:

frugal living

get rich slowly

thrifty mommy


p.s. yes, that's me in the community's userpic (not my own, hehe) - picking apples in my aunt's garden. i took home about 10 kilos - while travelling, mind you - put them in the freezer (chopped with some sugar), in packages large enough to make four servings of 'äppelkräm' which i've had for breakfast.

i don't know how to translate 'äppelkräm' from swedish to english, but you put 7 dl of chopped apples into 4 dl of water + ½ dl of sugar and boil them for about five minutes - a while longer if they come straight from the freezer, of course. then you mash them into small pieces & add 1½ tbsp of potato flour - and you know what to do with potato flour, stir in some cold water & then add *slowly* to the apples, while stirring & the apples should be off the heat. then you put the apples back on the heat - but *only* until you can see the first bubble. (if you keep it on longer, the potato flour might lose it's effect & you don't want that.) then you serve with milk & enjoy :)

this costs basically nothing, if you can get the apples for free - as in, getting them from someone who won't use all they have anyway. they will last about a year in the freezer (or so i've heard, i've used up mine long before that :D). if not, i wouldn't exactly say they're expensive at the store, either. ;)


oh and i'll be posting a link to a conversion chart, to the userinfo, right after posting this.


then i'll be off having home-baked rye bread, with 'leverpastej' (don't ask me to translate that) & really cheap pickles i found yesterday at the supermarket. let's hope they taste good =) EDIT: they taste wonderful & cost me less than half the price of my 'regular' brand. yay for generic food :D