What’s a frugal trick you’ve chanced upon recently?
I accidentally semi-reinvented the “trencher”. Basically, in medieval times, food would be served on a slab of bread and that would kinda be the plate. Or, you know, bread bowls for soup and the like.
I have an air fryer, and I’ve learned I can line the basket in a large flour tortilla, and it generally keeps whatever I’m cooking/warming up from getting the pan too dirty aside from some easily knocked-out crumbs.
I hate washing things, and I hate wasting paper liners, so it lets me cut down on those, and I can just eat the tortilla.
Talking about clothes…
I like to dress up a bit. More formal than others. So the opposite of fabric softener (I use 25% acidity white vinegar for that): potato starch for crisp shirts.
If you are courageous enough: yes, you can wash suit jackets. Cold, very little detergent, wool cycle, slow spinning. But jackets hardly need that anyway. A good brush gets you a long way. And a spray bottle of Vodka, to freshen up the lining every once in a while (no, you won’t smell like a drunkard).
And of course: second hand clothes. Especially the more formal stuff because (way too) few people walk around in suit and tie and only buy them to wear once for some formal occasion and resell them afterwards for ridiculously cheap.
Pretty basic
Buy in bulk and freeze what you don’t need immediately.
I bought one of those giant Costco ground beef packs. I think it was like 10 lbs or something for $30.
I packed it into patties and seasoned it immediately. I stacked them with parchment paper and threw them into the freezer. They turned out great.
I’ll follow this up with a recommendation to buy your bread and freeze it. We never go through a loaf or a pack of buns before it starts to go bad. Just grab a few right out of the freezer and pop it in the toaster. Comes out great. Will eventually get freezer burn and have soft spots, but we can usually work through a pack before then.
Eating out isn’t exactly frugal but if you are going to get fast food and they have an app I’d recommend using it cause you can get some pretty good deals. I often get half off a meal which makes those rare times I decide to eat out that much cheaper.
Citric acid as fabric softener.
Edit: Do NOT use with bleach!
How do you buy it, lemon juice? How do you use it, pour over the clothes?
I have a bag from Amazon. Comes in a powder. Also good for cleaning your dishwasher.
As far as use, I’ve just been dissolving it in water and pouring that into the fabric softener dispenser.
Without sodium citrate, it might not be as good as the real thing (which I have not tried yet). But so far it has helped tremendously in getting rid of buildup.
The water in my area has not been great as of late, and my t-shirts were starting to feel like they had been freshly starched.
Some people use vinegar instead. But it’s not good for the rubber seals in the machine, and the resulting odor is unbearable (even when dry).