<p>Ive also skewed my cooking to the French side of things. The best French cooking techniques come from regions that thrive on cheap and inexpensive cuts of meat. Plenty of lean tough meat and inexpensive red wine in the crock pot make for several great meals. Also making my own garlic duck sausage for Cassoulet. A big pot of Cassoulet, better than any you will get here in the states, costs me about 25$ and will feed 10-15 friends come this Halloween.
BYOB (of course!)</p>
<p>that reminds me to take the crock pot out of the basement.</p>
<p>You make your own sausage? I am so impressed.</p>
<p>I make coq au vin- and other French type stews but I have never tried to make cassoulet.</p>
<p>I’ll bring the wine
:)</p>
<p>I make coq au vin as well, but with a hen --cant find the coq in the market. But I call it chicken stew—H used to complain that I never got the coq au vin as “red” as they do in France. I dont have the heart to tell him that they add pigs blood for that special color and flavor.
And sausage is easy-peasy—I have an adaptor for my 20 or so year old Kitchenaide mixer.
Ive read about so many people growing their own food—that is what I envy and admire. My small yard is covered by a protected centuries old oak, that I am not allowed to trim or remove. NOTHING grows under that old tree----but it does protect our house from the sun and cut back on the AC bills!
AND Im with you! Vive le crockpot!!!</p>
<p>When DH was offered the opportunity to work from home, it saved us a ton of money. He used to drive to the train station (7 miles round trip), pay $2/day to park there, and $6/each way to take the train into the city, then walk from the train station to his office. His working from home saves us well over $100/week, and saved him nearly 3 hours per day in travel time. Plus, we don’t need to buy a car for the teen driver in the house, since DH does not need his car on a regular basis. D can drive dad’s car to school, practice, etc.</p>
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<p>All right–this gets my award for going out of the way to be frugal!!</p>
<p>We haven’t made any changes yet as DH has a secure job but since our retirement savings had been decimated by the stock market “crash”, he won’t be retiring at 65; perhaps he will work half time then.</p>
<p>“All right–this gets my award for going out of the way to be frugal!!”</p>
<p>ellmenope------I live cheaply. But living poorly is out of the question! ;)</p>
<p>Love this thread! I sold some books on half.com Seriously, having both of my kids away at college has reduced my food bill to a level I never thought possible.</p>
<p>I take a friend who buys similar items with me to a big “club store”. Then we buy the big bag rice, big bag potatoes, big bag onions, dble cereals, “two-pack milks,” etc (you get the idea). We split the costs and split the items when we load our cars. (we bring some extra “storage bags,” baggies, tupperware, scissors, or whatever we’ll need to separate the “goodies”.)</p>
<p>This way, we get the “cost advantage” of buying in “bulk”, but we don’t end up buying more than we need or more than we can store in our homes. </p>
<p>There are several ways to more conveniently split the costs.</p>
<p>Person #1 will have only the “split items” in her own cart. Person #2 puts her "exclusive items on the top of her own cart, while Person #1 puts her “exclusive items” on the bottom of person #2’s cart. The costs of Person #1’s cart are split. Then each person pays for her own “exclusive stuff”. </p>
<p>Or… if the split items can be easily “split up” by cost (for instance… one person buys the one $10 item, while the other person buys two $5 items) then the need for the above method is unnecessary.</p>
<p>I have found this to be a big cost saver. This way, instead of spending HUNDREDS when I go to such stores, I spend about 70% of what I would have spent (The amount is more than 50% because I usually buy some items that are only for our family or items that aren’t easily split.)</p>
<p>New diet:</p>
<p>Breakfast: cat food (with juice and coffee)
Lunch: cat food
Dinner: cat food (with domestic wine)</p>
<p>-here’s the big one ladies—letting my hair go gray–so now I only pay for haircuts rather
than haircut and color. Saving money was a bonus. I really decided to do this because
I didn’t like the idea of putting those chemicals in my hair every 6-8wks. </p>
<p>IT’S CALLED GRAY LIBERATION. I WENT GRAY LAST YEAR. OH YES ONCE YOU GO GRAY YOU’LL NEVER GO BACK!</p>
<p>Theresa (btw, love your name), I am slowly changing over to gray. Right now I am doing 1/4 highlights, 1/4 lowlights and 1/2 the real me! I have stretched out the coloring sessions to about 12 weeks now. My husband is totally white headed, so really I ought to match, right?</p>
<p>For folks in the DC area, Chevy Chase Bank also has a free coin counter.</p>
<p>I don’t know why so many women (and men) color their hair.</p>
<p>It has to be a pain to do, may expose you to hazardous chemicals and denies you the look of wisdom.</p>
<p>I started coloring my hair at 36 because people kept coming up and commenting how cute my grandbaby swimcat was - as swimcat is my baby not my grandbaby I was not too happy with that! I keep thimking about letting it go gray. I know the chemicals irritate my scalp a lot and it is usually just beginning to calm down by the time the next coloring session comes round. Just not quite ready yet. My Mum has the nice really white gray hair and I think mine is similar from what I can see those last few days. I do worry that the white hair will make my red face (I have Rosacea) stand out even more.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom, I have rosacea too. Have you found anything cheap that works on that? </p>
<p>And momfirst, I absolutely agree that empty nest= cheaper food bills. </p>
<p>The one thing that is preventing me from really saving is medical bills. Even with insurance, I keep getting tripped up. </p>
<p>Just in the last month, I had to pay $162 for D’s contacts, and $81 for younger D to go to the doctor at college. Turns out she had a cold. Expensive cold!</p>
<p>
Great. I hadn’t thought about that…I have Rosacea too.</p>
<p>My FIL used to color his hair with that “just for men” stuff. I hated it when he visited as I would have to throw out the pillow cases and towels when he left. The dye would rub off on everything.</p>
<p>Vderon, I use Aveeno Ultra-Calming facial cleaner that the dermatologist recommended. It seems to help some. I also use prescription Finacea (sp?) cream and when it flares I use the antibiotic Oracea.</p>
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<p>I have been trying the Eucerin anti redness line lately and am finding the overall redness seems less. I have also used Cetaphil products which my Derm recommends and is good. Helped a lot when I first went to her as my skin was just raw at that point. Liking the Eucerin right now. For medication I use Finacea. I tried the Oracea and liked it but just could not afford it - even with a prescription plan it was $100 a month co-pay - so my Derm switched me to a generic Doxycillin (sp?).</p>
<p>Yep, that Oracea is expensive!! Luckily, I only use about 4-6 capsules/month. I also was on Doxy(whatever) before, but started breaking out in an allergic rash with it—was lovely on top of the rosacea.</p>
<p>I may try the Eucerin line when this Aveeno runs out, since you have found success with it.</p>
<p>Just curious, do you two have Irish ancestry? It seems the people I know who have rosacea all are Scotch-Irish.</p>