I’ve been pondering the question above for some time now that I have a little space and mindshare to consider my resources vs. my time which I still consider valuable.
I believe there is no one pat answer for the frugal community, we all need to do a little due diligence to insure we are making the right financial decisions, big or small.
My food dehydrator is a prime example as a true bargain. It languished in my kitchen, stored neatly away, until I decided that sun dried tomatoes were outrageously expensive. A jar can cost upwards of $9 which is unacceptable to a frugal sort like me.
A bunch of Roma tomatoes, however, cost me $1.33 because they are at their prime this time of year and cheap. Cut, salted and placed in my handy dehydrator for about 15 hours, and I have the perfect ‘sun dried’ tomatoes. All for the cost of the tomatoes and running the dehydrator which was pennies. I like to store mine in oil, but you can as easily freeze them in a freezer bag for future use. A bargain no matter how you slice it.
Same goes for herb salt which costs anywhere between $3 and $15 a jar. Very pricy. I simply raided my herb garden and made my own, recipe below. It cost me less than $.40 for a generous amount and the effort was minimal given that I once again drafted my trusty dehydrator into service.
The time and effort required for both of these high-end products was absolutely minimal. Same for the chicken flavored gummies I just made for my pup. She turned her nose up at sweet potato chewies (sweet potatoes simply sliced thin and dried on the dehydrator) so I thought chicken gummies might be more appealing. They cost essentially pennies because I have an excess of chicken broth and plenty of powdered gelatin.
A good way to figure out if something is a bargain is to keep your grocery receipts from shopping trip to shopping trip. I tend to keep a couple or three in my purse so when I go shopping, I can easily reference if something is a bargain. This way I don’t have to memorize the cost of hundreds of items although I tend to know a lot of them by heart, just not all. This simple practice takes the pressure off when I’m buying something I don’t buy all that often like baking supplies. I recently had to replenish a bunch of baking supplies because my family had come for a visit which gave me a wonderous opportunity to bake for all of them. I depleted a bunch of baking supplies so when I went to restock the baking shelf in my pantry, I was armed with old receipts so I could make sure I wasn’t overspending. Turns out, my local Walmart had the best prices for most of what I needed to buy. That may or may not be the case next time I shop, but for what I needed this time? Walmart, with their mega-grocery section, was the best bargain. My advice is to do your homework and keep records.
Frugal Herb Salt
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh herbs
1 cup kosher salt
Method: remove the herb leaves from stems and wash and dry the leaves well. Mix the salt and herbs well and place on a dehydrator for about 2 hours on low or until the herbs are dry. Blend the salt and dried herbs into a fine powder using a blender or food processor. Store in a glass jar in a dark cabinet.
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the house behind 