2009 Spring Is In The Air Contest
Thursday, April 17, 2008
2009 Edition --- Spring is in the air, and a cheapskate's fancy turns to ___________?
Tell me your favorite springtime cheapskate tips,and you could win a free copy of my book. Maybe you have some cheap tips for spring cleaning? Or maybe you're into wild food foraging and can share some ideas about finding wild asparagus,or morel mushrooms, or wild onions, or some other springtime specialties. Or maybe, like me, you consider spring to be the official end of underwear season ... think of the savings! ;-)
Be creative - anything goes - but you only have until June 1, 2009 to send me your ideas. Either post them here or email them to me at UltCheapskate@aol.com
(Some entries from the 2008 contest are also listed below, to give you an idea of what I'm looking for.)
Happy Spring - Stay Cheap!
33 Comments:
Previous Contests
- Valentine's Day Book Give Away
- Thanksgiving Waste Not Contest
- And the Winner Is ... Are?
- WIN FREE CHEAP STUFF!
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I wanted to survive after home foreclosure April last week and car engine blew up January. Money is tight trying to get deposit for rental security deposit and first months rent. To survive family of three. One months food.
Breakfast-7 boxes 1.00 oatmeal.
Lunch- Tomatoe sandwiches-Tomatoes from neighbor.
5-7 loaves bread.
Snack-Grocery store deli free cookies. I took two daily.
Dinner smashed isle clearance-pasta 50 cents box. I bought 15 boxes. 1 dollar. spaghetti sauces or just butter.
Mayo packets.
Springtime in Texas means enjoying the cheapest as well as the most delicious dessert known to man: Dewberry Cobbler! Dewberries are the wild and prolific cousins of blackberries. You'll find them on thorny, low-growing vines next to fences, in vacant lots, and alongside roads. Dewberry gatherers are easy to spot, stooped over, bucket in hand. Thorn-poked, purple-stained fingers are a badge of honor.
Following is a simple recipe for Dewberry Cobbler. (Now this is the way to enjoy the fruits of your labor!)
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cup dewberries
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350°. Wash fresh berries and place in casserole dish with butter. Heat slowly on stove top until butter melts. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Add milk and stir until well blended. Pour into casserole dish. Butter, juice and some berries will come to top. Leave them that way. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour or until dough rises to top and browns.
A cheapskate's fancy turns to picking free wildflowers to impress the wife with my thoughtfullness .- Curt Schnare
Cheapskate idea for spring cleaning, use your used dryer sheets to clean everything, from windows, bathroom counters, sinks, showers - stovetops etc. The fibers in dryersheets loosen dirt grime, grease, anything yucky and don't leave lint behind like paper towels and cloths! Add a little bleach for disifecting or vinegar water. Also, a new dryer sheet wiped over electronics repels dust from the appliance!
Our cheapskate family of 8loves(well not all of us 'loves',but most are at least humored by the ones who do-{my husband was not at all impressed by my frugality when he opened his lunchbox in front of the 'guys' at work to find a salad of freshly picked dandelion leaves-I think the food wasn't the problem, it was that he had to admit we have an abundance of dandelions in our yard!}) the free and highly unevolved(read processed)breakfast and snack foods provided by the All Knowing. We start the day by 'going out' for breakfast-to eat straight from one of our mulberry trees. Along the way, one may spot one of us stopping to try the dandelion flowers-not to sing 'Mama had a baby and it's head popped off,' but to sing 'Mama had a baby and it's head's bit off,' as the head is chewed by the one singing with a mouthful of yellow. In season, since we know the lay of our land, we know where to go to find the 'best deal' at the right time-after the mulberries, comes the strawberries, then the rasperries, then the blackberries. Later would be the plums and pears, all the while we have all sorts of other wildflowers and plants we have learned to find appetizing-the hunt is exciting as is the savings. (our kids have learned that a penny saved in one area can lead to pennies spent elswhere that may be more appealing).
This may seem over the top, but it really is true-last year we ate grasshoppers-at first just as a daring bout of curiosity-later it evolved in a family joke of yet another way to cut down on our grocery bill.They aren't bad-kinda nutty, just watch for the legs as they have those spiny things that can stick in one's throat!
My "Spring Is In The Air Contest" entry includes my excitement of planting tomato seeds from last summer's harvest. Not only planting them, but SELLING them on eBay to make money off the "FRUITS OF MY LABOR" from the summer before. I also have black berries, raspberries, apple trees, strawberries that I have planted that will produce fresh organic fruit in the summer that I look forward to. I also have many flowering plants that I harvested seed from that I sell, making my yard beautiful and giving me a few extra $$ in the process. In fact, last month, I sold enough flower seeds, and unwanted computer parts that I paid my electric bill! How's that for being frugal, resourceful and determined to save a buck or two?!? I also make my own homemade bread, and food. Don't buy frozen, it's chocked full of chemicals, salt and sugar! Likewise, processed foods contain a truck load of preservatives, salt, sugar and fats that will make you ill. Happy Spring! I'm looking forward to and enjoying the warm weather and harvest to come! Cheers, Mel
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Spring is in the air, and this cheapskate's fancy turned to love.
On Valentine's day I made custom cards out of found objects and used my computer to personalize them with graphics. I thought about really cheaping out and mailing a couple without stamps. I thought if I put the intended recipient's address in the return address area, when the cards were returned to sender because of insufficient postage... (Suffice it to say I chickened out but it was a very cheap thought.)
However, I did make a 6-foot Easter card in the driveway with sidewalk chalk, host a Stone Soup Poor Man's Movie Party and research my way into a new transmission and EGR repair for free. Saved almost $4,000--sweet!
The bottom line isn't my bottom line. Contrary to what my friends say, my hobby is thrift, it's not my lifeblood. But I love it.
My husband takes digital pictures, puts them together into slideshow movies with music and either emails them or puts them on YouTube. Considerate, totally cheap and ever so cool.
I recently found a great way to drastically reduce my child's auto gasoline expense. I said "You can have your own car -- my huge 'old man's car' with the peeling paint trunk lid and the falling, ripped headliner and broken A/C."
Due to embarrasment, the car is nearly always sitting unused in the drive. This sure beats buying a new hybrid vehicle!
i use old dryer sheets to dust with . instead of buying swipper sheets . you can use them all aroung the house to dust every thing . you can also use them to dust in the car as well
i use old dryer sheet to dust with around the house and in the car. it works just as good as swiffer sheets.and they still have some scent to them. they are safe for you to use them on the tv and anywhere elsr you would dust .that is one way to cut cost around the house in a time like now.
Spring is in the air, and the fancy of Cheapskate into gardening turns to new plants for the yard. The cheapest way to obtain new plants is through propagation of what you already have (seeds, cuttings, layering) or swapping with friends and neighbors. The next cheapest (and fun) way is to visit the bargain area of a nursery. I like to support local businesses, and the mom and pop nursery down the street from me has a great bargain area, waaaaay in the back. A treasure trove of 50 cent plants. They're just not as pretty as the plants up front (happens after a hard rain, hail, etc.). All they need is a little TLC. I've gotten some of my most prized plants this way!
Springtime is for spring cleaning. I will be looking for thing we need, such as, clothes, toys, etc., at the yard sales.
Spring is in the air, and a cheapskate's fancy turns to edible abundance. Florida produces so many wonderful fruits. So much, that people give it away or let it rot in their yards.
I juice the last of my citrus and freeze it for lemonade & limeade. I harvest my elderly neighbors oranges & come home with quite a haul with their compliments. Same for the man. Same for disabled guy with the awesome tangerines.
It literally rained avocados in my yard so I gave hundreds away on craigslist & to food banks.
Then there were the mangos. Gianormous crop this year. If I see fruit on the ground, I have no shame. (I ask first.)
We also had blueberries, pineapple, grapefruit, tomatoes, figs, coconuts & grapes that were shared by friends.
ALL of it was free. Towards the end of the season I learned how to dry fruit in my oven. (The kit to modify the oven was $100. Hubby made mine with $5 worth of stuff we already had.) Next year we'll have dried fruit out the wazoo! All for free.
I shop at the scratch & dent store. I get gourmet goodies, my husband's obscenely expensive gluten-free cookies & ridiculously cheap household items. The food is perfectly good and 25%–80& less than retail.
Moved to a new house a coupla years ago. I managed to negotiate great deals on both ends & ended up doubling our square footage, got 3X the yard and gained 2 bathrooms for almost the same $$. We've created a designer home and tripled it's value since using sweat equity or bartered labor and materials from eBay, craigslist (where people give away great stuff) and classified ads.
The yard was a 1-acre disaster that's coming along with plants grown from seed or cuttings grown with free reclaimed water. I mulch with leaves & free mulch from the tree trimming companies.
We cut our power bills by 30% with special paint I got at wholesale and are about to get $10,000 worth of new windows through a grant program I found online.
It looks like we live larger than we really do. The giveaway is the slow-go. We're just pick away at it as funds allow.
I keep thinking of all the cheap stuff I do. It really isn't fun for me if I don't get a deal. The Internet is a huge savings tool. I find absolute steals, DIY solutions and free stuff.
Last month I found an extended warranty program and got a new transmission and EGR system for my 7-year-old van. That was close to Four thousand dollars worth of repairs for an old beater that only cost me the price of gas to the dealership and back.
I also use the Internet to reduce my cost of living. I don't buy cookbooks anymore, learned to make better products myself than what I can buy for super cheap, I don't need a pest control service, or hardly any repairmen anymore.
Sorry to be such a blog hog. I can't stop thinking of all these cheapo things we do. Hubby figured out how to get 30 HD channels with a rooftop HD antenna and a digital receiver. What we can't get that way, we either download, get from the library or the Netflix subscription we get for Christmas.
I found the equipment on eBay for under $100. We fired the cable company and save over $900 a year.
Spring is in the air and this New England girl's fancy turns to the great outdoors. First it is the spring onions that come up in the lawn. With a trusty pair of scissors circa 1942 (they were grandma's) bunches of fresh mild greens are snipped into everything from salads (discounted greens from the local store that I walked to of course), baked potatoes (always a 2 for one deal under $1 a pound)to soups (affectionately named refrigerator stew all leftovers into a pot simmer and lunch is severed). Of course some of the tasty little greens are bound together with a recycled rubber band from some other store bought produce, hung to dry, stored in a recycled plastic container for use at a later time. Once the spring onions are gone I move on to tending to the garden. Strawberries and rhubarb that keep getting bigger every year. It is a mother's day tradition to plant the vegetable garden with mom from seedlings we loving tend to that were started in February. Our hobby of gardening together has only strengthen our relationship and the best gift I could ever give my mom is my time. Once our modest garden begins to produce there are baking sessions, grilling sessions and my timed honed favorite tradition canning sessions. From a few dollars spent on seeds we have a whole lot of fun and yummy foods for a whole year!
There are nine people that live in our house. And many visitors that are encouraged to make themselves at home. When it comes to toilet paper, besides money down the drain, there could be serious issues for the septic system if it weren't for the tip that I have for you that has been working here for years.
Before replacing a used-up role of toilet paper for the holder, simply give the new replacement role a good squeeze or step on it to somewhat flatten it. After this is done, the role is then placed in it's needed position near the toilet.
This is very helpful in reducing waste. Those that like to zip out long steams of toilet paper, to make big wads for even small jobs, will find that instead of a free flowing stream, they experience the thump, thump, thump, of a controlled toilet paper role.
There are nine people that live in our house. And many visitors that are encouraged to make themselves at home. When it comes to toilet paper, besides money down the drain, there could be serious issues for the septic system if it weren't for the tip that I have for you that has been working here for years.
Before replacing a used-up role of toilet paper for the holder, simply give the new replacement role a good squeeze or step on it to somewhat flatten it. After this is done, the role is then placed in it's needed position near the toilet.
This is very helpful in reducing waste. Those that like to zip out long steams of toilet paper, to make big wads for even small jobs, will find that instead of a free flowing stream, they experience the thump, thump, thump, of a controlled toilet paper role.
Disc Golf aka frisbee, or hippie golf. It can be done most any time, but best in warmer weather. All you need is a disc they cost $12-15 new or you can find some used for around $7. Their are course all over the world. And 90% of the course are free to the public. Pay courses run about $5 a day. A really cheap way to get out of the house and be active for free.
sweaters at the salvation army. They are just $1 each now. Gently cleaned and felted in my front-loader washing machine and hung to dry, they become soft as clouds and sweet smelling as, well, newly washed lambs. Nearly-free fabric, from which I will make countless wallets, hats, scarves and other gifts to sell and give through the year.
Growing my own herbs in my windowsill!!! It floored me, after living in Latin America for a year and having my own herb garden, how expensive herbs are in the supermarket! So I decided to grow my own, for cents on the dollar.
Also, Yard sales! Can't beat the headboard and dresser I bought for $40 and spray painted to update it. Looks great. And when I'm ready for a change, spray paint a different color... and a gloss can really shine it up.
Spring Cleaning?
Two dogs and 1 skunk, (every spring).
Pour on the white vinegar, add baking soda and smells disappear. Cheap entertainment also. The kids think its fun to watch.
TO MAKE YOUR LAWN LOOK GREAT ALL THROUGH THE WARM MONTHS WITHOUT BUYING AN AIRATOR OR PAYING SOMEONE TO AIRATE IT TIME AFTER TIME; TRY THIS:
IF YOU HAVE OR CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON TRACK SHOES WITH CLEATS OR CLEATED GOLF SHOES, PUT THEM ON BEFORE YOU START PUSHING YOUR LAWN MOWER. AS YOU ARE PUSHING, YOU ARE AIRATING YOUR GRASS AT THE SAME TIME. BELIEVE ME BY DOING THIS TO YOUR LAWN EVERYTIME YOU MOW, YOU WILL SEE THE DIFFERENCE IN THREE TO FOUR CUTTINGS.
YOU WILL FIND OUT THAT BY DOING THIS, WATERING, SEEDING, FERTILIZING,OR ANYTHING TRYING TO IMPROVE YOUR LAWN WILL COME OUT A LOT BETTER.
BOB KELLIEY
SgtMaj USMC Ret
Spring is time to let out the goats to "mow" the yard.
Spring is the time to let out the goats to "mow" the yard.
Spring is in the air and so are the unwanted - uneeded clothes shoes, small appliances, toys , books, videos in your house. Throw a garage sale! To attract more customers- buy frozen lemonade with a few fresh lemons and charge
customers or customers to be lemonade in styromfoam cups .25 cents for small and .50 for large. Get the whole family in the act and you will have an enjoyeable day! I did this once a month in the summer as a kid and my friends helped . We made a few bucks! It also taught us how to be friendly enterepeneurs!
My favorite tip is to use old nail polish to touch up old items or "paint" things-such as plastic planters, sandals, buttons, earrings, visors, caps-anything that needs a touch-up or a new life-you can just smudge the polish in a random pattern and use different colors to really jazz it up! It also works better than "permanant markers" to mark items that need to go in the dishwasher.
sorry i spelled permanent wrong!!
In Spring I change from oatmeal to dry cereal for breakfast. I store the oatmeal in the freezer. This stops weevils from forming and keeps the oatmeal fresh until next winter.