The screaming blender

As a very frugal household, we're always looking for ways to cut back on spending money unnecessarily and more important, not wasting anything unnecessarily. That includes everything from food, to clothing, to appliances and transportation. Sometimes the solution is very simple, sometimes it takes a bit more of research and work, or we might have to pay someone to do it - but even with that extra cost, it's still worth it, as we're preventing things going into the landfill. 

A fellow blogger talked about how her immersion blender finally got replaced after 27 (!) years. That's a long time! What's funny was that she talked about how her blender each time she used it was making a noise as if it's screaming. How is that funny? Well, a few years ago our blender needed a repair. Although it worked again, the downside is that now I can't take the two parts apart (which makes washing up more of a hassle), but it's still functioning, so for the time being I'm not replacing it by a new blender. But here's the thing- since the repair, our blender also screams! And I always thought that our blender was a funny one and the only one that actually could scream 😂 Apparently, blenders are starting to scream as they're aging. 

I do love our immersion blender and use it a lot: for soups and sauces, but also for making mock tahini, even mayonnaise. In fact, I blended some sauce today. I guess there will come a day when our blender is beyond repair. Until that day comes, I don't really mind having a screaming blender and I'll keep using it this way.  🙂

Recent frugal happenings

Let's do one of these posts again 🙂

It's been quite a productive month, frugality-wise. It's not even always intentional, but I'm just taking advantage of the summer, with the hot temperature and produce in abundance. 

Free things: 

We got a bag of prickly pears twice- once from my father in law and the other was from my brother in law. My family loves prickly pears (and so do I, but unfortunately I'm allergic to them... )

We also got a few melons, very tasty ones. It's been hard to find very nice (soft and sweet) melons lately so I definitely enjoyed those melons. 

A relative from Europe brought us some goodies such as Gouda cheese and chocolate bars. It's been so long since I had Dutch cheese! After such a long time, it seems like it even tastes better than it did ever before. 

Reusing/repurposing: 

Our cat found a cardboard box that wasn't used in which she's sleeping everyday now. It's become her favourite spot in the house! I put a small blanket in the box to make it a bit copier for her. 

After organizing my wardrobe and putting quite a lot clothes in a 'donate bag', I cut some clothes that were worn out into rags, to use instead of disposable paper towels. This saves us a lot of money as well as it being way more environmentally friendly. 

I saved up some food package materials, such as pasta and rice bags, to use to freeze foods later, as well as small yogurt containers. The yogurt containers here are very small, containing just 100 grams of yogurt, but I like using them for my homemade garlic paste, among other things.

Saving energy: 

Due to the hot weather, we're taking only cold showers. "Cold" is relative, as the pipes are outside and so the water still heats up enough to have a comfortable shower. 

Used only cold water for the washing machine as well. And obviously cold tap water for the dishes.  

There have been some cooler nights, so didn't use the fan during those nights. The air conditioning is never switched on during the night. 

Cooking, preventing food waste:  

As always, I cooked a lot of homemade meals, of which some were double batches so the only thing I had to do was to reheat the food. 

We also had mostly homemade bread. And homemade treats. 

I made citronnade a few times with lemons from our tree. 

I cooked up watermelon rinds, used up a lot of leftovers, used some leftover cookie dough to use it up and make something new out of that, saved some not very good tasting buttermilk so I can make biscuits with them (hopefully tomorrow). Saved goat and chicken bones in the freezer (they're still not enough for bone broth, but I'm being patient!)

I also dehydrated a lot parsley and mint. Hopefully it will last about a year. I'll probably dehydrate some more mint, as we use that for tea during the winter when there is no fresh mint available. 

Bargains: 

Found peaches for a very good price and now I miraculously ended up with a big pot of peach jam 😂

Chickpeas were also for a very good price- much cheaper than a few weeks ago. At the refill store they don't really do sales on purpose, but sometimes it's just that the price suddenly drops- or increases. So we now have 4 kg of dried chickpeas, which hopefully will last us a long time. 

I thrifted a very nice skirt in my size. 

The prickly pears are still a bit green 

Dehydrated parsley 

Our cat in her cardboard box ❤️

Thrifting is fun!

As mentioned, I recently thrifted some clothes. Thrifting clothes is something we're big on. We try to only buy clothes when needed but if we do need them, we nearly always thrift. Most people here buy their clothes at the 2nd hand store or at the market where there are 2nd hand selling vendors. So it's quite the norm to thrift clothes. Brand new clothes aren't of good quality and for shops like H&M or Zara, you'd have to drive well over three hours- not to mention it's out of budget for many people. Buying and wearing pre loved clothes being socially accepted really does make it more fun in my opinion. Everyone is doing it, so it's not a big deal- I say that because in the past, we were judged because of buying second hand clothes, even though they were still in perfect shape. I don't mind people having opinions, but I just wish people wouldn't be so judgmental at times. 

Anyway, back to the topic. My daughter needed some shirts and pajamas. So she got some of those, and we ended up buying two shirts for me too. Didn't really need them, oh well... My rule for buying clothes that I don't strictly need is that at least it's something I will definitely wear. One shirt I already wore and the other is still in my closet. The funny thing is that the yet--unworn-shirt had the tag still on. I'm not really an expert when it comes to fashion and brands, so I looked up the brand. Apparently, it's quite an expensive one and one brand new shirt of them costs $90 on sale. Brand new and without being on sale, it's probably close to $150. So I'd say it's not bad to find such an item for the equivalent of just $1. Thrift store finds like these definitely make thrifting even more fun to me. 

Just to clarify: I'm not specifically on the lookout for expensive brand clothes when shopping at thrift stores/markets. I just look what fits my size and style. Looking for expensive brands only would be a bit difficult anyway, as I don't really know/remember brand names. I do know a few, but my knowledge is certainly limited. And I'm not really looking to expand that knowledge either as it doesn't really seem interesting to me. But, I must admit that I find it really cool to pay that tiny of an amount for something that expensive! Lol. I think other frugal people can relate to this. If not, I must be just a weird lady 😅

Recent frugal activities

I've been quite busy lately, which is obvious when you look at the blog. There's just so much to do that blogging is put on the back burner! I think August is one of the busiest times of the year in terms of cooking/ food preparation. And we don't even have a garden (we do grow a few things here and there, but just don't consider it as a "real" garden- as in, a garden which is sufficient to sustain us with most of our homegrown vegetables for the rest of the year). But, even if you buy your produce at the store or at the market, there's a lot of things to be busy with, I guess. 

Here's some things I did lately: 

Since we were almost drowning in tomatoes (no exaggerating- since they're so cheap right now, we bought a lot and also got a lot from neighbours), I made tomato sauce which I canned. And also made slata mechouia (a Tunisian dip/sauce similar to salsa), which I also canned. 

Made broth with chicken scraps, and since there was still some more broth in the freezer, I thawed that broth and let that evaporated until about half of the original quantity was left over, I then poured this into smaller containers (3/4 cup in each container), and froze it for later use. 

Froze aquafaba (chickpea cooking brine) for later use 

Had a lot of leftovers from the freezer, both because I needed that freezer space but also because I didn't want those foods to get too old and getting wasted 

Tried to use up as much nearly-spoiled produce as possible- especially sad looking hot peppers. They were a bit wrinkly, but perfectly edible. 

Did a lot from scratch cooking including baking bread. Not sure if that counts because that's just a usual practice for me. 

Thrifted some clothes for me and my oldest daughter. 

My husband mended some of our clothes. 

Repaired a few things in and around the house. 

Didn't run the AC for many days as the weather is changing a bit. It's still warm, but bearable. On some days we didn't even need a fan. 

And tthe most cost saving thing: we postponed our holiday plans, due to a few unforeseen circumstances. Possibly we'll skip going on vacation altogether this year. Despite it not being because of wanting to be frugal, it sure is a frugal thing not to go on vacation (fortunately, we never book anything beforehand so that wasn't an issue). 

Probably did a few more things that I can't recall because frugality is just daily life for me. But these are the things I could immediately think of. All in all, considering I'm so busy lately I'm pleased with these accomplishments.