A letter to Amy Dacyczyn fans

I have often said how lucky I am to have such loyal, kind readers. I don’t get the kind of comments a lot of other bloggers are destined to face for baring their souls on the internet. Other frugal bloggers I know have had their parenting skills challenged, their weight mocked, their relationships criticized. I know most bloggers, at one point or another, encounter comments that reveal shameless ignorance and even hate.  I’ve seen none of this.

It’s kind of laughable that the most heat that this blog has generated has been on a few incredibly benign topics.

Two notable posts that got some people hot and bothered include the following:

1. The question of whether or not to use old, wet coffee grinds to remove cellulite. In a post titled, “What not to do with used coffee grounds,” I drew my own frugal line in the sand when I mocked the idea of scrubbing my bum with soggy coffee grinds in the shower.  Honestly, the post was meant to be humorous, and most of my readers laughed along with me, or shyly admitted that they had tried it and that it wasn’t so bad.  But a few new readers accused me of being “too pessimistic” and “too ignorant.”

2. My post titled “Jamie Oliver v/s Amy Dacyczyn: Finding a frugal balance in the search for foodie fulfillment” was met with appreciation by my regular readers, but some loyal Amy Dacyczyn fans got a little pissed off.  And I’ve really wanted to follow up on this post because, although I got some positive comments on this one, I also had a number of Amy Dacyczyn fans complain, and so I wanted to clarify. or re-emphasize, what this post was really all about.

So here goes.

First of all, it’s great seeing so many Amy Dacyczyn fans out there. I’m a fan of hers too! Amy Dacyczyn inspired me in many ways. I became inspired to make my own granola, my own pizza dough and bread, and lots of other things. Amy Dacyczyn could be credited in inspiring me to write my most recent post on community engagement, as she was an advocate for community building through sharing, borrowing, and bartering with friends and neighbours, and she was a tremendous advocate of thrift store and garage sale shopping.

My reason for writing that post on finding foodie fulfillment was not to rag on Amy Dacyczyn; in fact, the reason why I mentioned her at all was only because something she said that I disagreed with became a catalyst for a post on a point that had very little to do with her.  When I read about her leftover strategy (continually dump all dinner leftovers into one plastic bucket, keep it in the freezer, and make a soup out of it when the bucket is full), I thought about how much better we can do with leftovers.

This comment irked me, not because I think Amy Dacyczyn is a bad person or even a bad cook, but because my blog is about bursting the myths that are often associated with frugality.

The myths include:

1. People who are poor necessarily have to have poor diets

2. People who are poor must eat a lot of convenience foods

3. People who are poor might be able to eat nutritious food, but they will have to sacrifice taste and quality in doing so

I have aimed to bust open myth number one for the nearly two years I’ve been writing this blog, and I busted myth number two when I wrote “the high cost of low brow foods” - which is my favourite blog post to date.

In the Amy Dacyczyn post, I aimed to bust open myth number three.  My central thesis of this post was:

1. Eating food that tastes good and that is healthy, delicious, interesting, and adds new dimensions to the palate can significantly increase a person’s quality of life, and although it is difficult, this can be accomplished even on a very low budget.

2. Imagination is key in this process. If we are creative, if we give thought to what we have and the multitude of different options and opportunities that our resources provide us with (in this case, leftover scraps) then we can end up with a life that feels abundant and meals that appeal to our senses.

3. Eating food that is delicious is not by extension wasteful; there are ways of preserving leftovers for the benefit of taste and quality that can enhance one’s dinnertime options.

(And in this specific post, I’m simply suggesting that perhaps instead of throwing weeks’ worth of leftovers into the same pot, why not freeze them separately so that they can be then used in the best way possible, for different soups, stews, casseroles, or other dishes that best complement the ingredients and give the cook the most options.)

If you’d like examples on how to reduce waste that don’t include the leftover bucket, see “Reducing waste and Eating well for less” and “What are you wasting?”

Ultimately, creativity is key. For some people, they are happy to eat food as long as it is nutritious and cheap. In this case, the leftover bucket may work for you. But for those of you who love to cook, who love food, who want to honour food and extract maximum enjoyment from it, just know that there are options.

For the last two years, I have been aiming to emphasize that frugality does not have to be equated with deprivation. After all, the subtitle of my blog is, “loving the frugal life.”  My approach in this blog is to demonstrate my own journey towards finding a life that is meaningful, abundant, and joyful.  Great food can be a part of that joy.

Making crackers, eating through the freezer, and generally being odd

So I’ve been challenging myself to eat through my pantry and freezer.  I’m waiting to go shopping until my next garden fresh box arrives at the community centre.  My best money-saving and waste-reducing shopping strategy is to wait until my garden fresh box arrives, and then plan my meals and pick out my items at the grocery store based on what food is in the box.  I’ve also been wanting to eat through the freezer/pantry because I don’t want any food to get feezer-burnt or stale, and as a single person who buys and cooks in bulk, it’s easy to let food go to waste if you don’t consistently eat up what you’ve got.

I’ve lost count of how long it’s been since I last went grocery shopping and I can’t believe how many meal ideas I’ve been able to come up with, solely focusing on what I have.  I’ve had lots of tasty, nutritious soups, lasagna, and cabbage rolls (all made from scratch by yours truly) and I ate up some meat and vegetables that I had preserved from January’s fresh box.

I also had plenty of baking supplies.  Why go out to the store to buy crackers, bread, and pizza dough when I had all the ingredients to make these items?  I made them all myself - delicious bread, outstanding pizzas, and Alton Brown’s seedy crisps.  These crackers are super easy to make.  I made a couple of mistakes - I used hard whole wheat flour, added a touch too much salt (I think Alton’s recipe is a tad too salty) and would probably increase the amount of sesame seeds and make extra sure to roll the crackers as thin as possible.  That being said, the crackers had potential, and were fun to make, so I will try making them again.  With some blue cheese and honey, they were still salvageable.

There is so much joy in using up what you have.  It really pushes you to try new things.  Another tasty gem was my homemade pizza, topped with roasted garlic and olive oil (my go-to substitute for pizza sauce when my pantry is devoid of tomato paste), with sweet corn, green beans, tuna and sundried tomatoes. Drool-worthy.

I also made up a couple of soups.  I discovered a container of frozen black beans in the freezer (I like to soak an entire bag of beans and freeze what I don’t immediately need for easy use - it’s much more convenient than doing it batch-by-batch) and turned it into black bean soup, a la Martha Stewart (omitting the garlic-pepper sauce for garlic, onions, and spices such as cumin, coriander, pepper and cayenne) and I made my favourite carrot ginger soup, using up January’s supply of carrots.

I’m probably an odd person.  Most people seem to crave convenience and choice.  Entire companies and industries are devoted to maximizing convenience and choice for consumers. For some reason, I seem to thrive by limiting both convenience and choice when it comes to cooking.  I guess I like the challenge.  I like being pushed into DIY, where I get to try something new, learn new skills, and use my creativity to come up with a meal seemingly out of nowhere.  Maybe that makes me a little strange, but it also means that I get to enjoy freshly-baked pizzas with roasted garlic, and “seedy crisps” with honey.

Lessons from my purple-haired, teenaged self

I’ve been thinking a little bit lately about how much creativity I employed in my teenage fashions.  When I was a teenager I dressed in very unconventional ways.  First it was the grunge phase, inspired by Kurt Cobain.  Thrift stores and vintage consignment stores were my favourite places to find cardigan sweaters, velour shirts, torn jeans and anything strange or interesting.  Quickly this morphed into a punk phase, which sparked tremendous creativity on my part.  I never, ever, shopped at malls or traditional clothing stores.  Instead, I relied on thrift stores, hardware stores, pet stores, army surplus stores, flea markets, costume stores, and dollarstores.  Here’s what I would buy:

Thrift stores: My favourite was the discount thrift store warehouse, that charged $1 for every garbage bag you could fill with clothes.  These were the items that had been cast off from all other thrift stores.  Luckily, what was considered unfashionable by most people was perfect for a 15 year old punk.  I still remember the fake silk, avocado green, ruffled shirt my sister found.  We both thought it was David Bowie-like and fabulous for 5 cents.  Tacky old mens’ vests were perfect for decorating with patches and buttons.  Another great find was a canary yellow, big puffy Cindy Lauper-esque skirt and and old pair of police uniform pants.  Perhaps the best finds of all were old vintage t-shirts, with rare prints of Billy Idol or The Who.

Hardware stores: I made my old wallet chains using interesting types of chains that were intended for hanging lamps.  They were more fun than traditional wallet chains, and made good necklaces, too.

Pet stores: Leather collars for pets with studs on them made suitable wrist cuffs.

Army surplus stores: My favourite army jackets and combat boots were found here, but that’s not surprising.  What is surprising is that the army surplus also had a flea market like component, where I found Billy Idol sweat bands from the 80s.

Flea markets: These yielded all kinds of interesting finds - not just clothes, but things that could be repurposed into jewellery, like a great big bag of wooden beads I bought.  This was also the perfect place for finding cheap, original Star Trek memorabilia.

Costume stores: Stockings with skulls or bones on them made perfect pantyhose when paired with my Cindy Lauper skirt.  They also sold things like handcuffs, wrist cuffs and faux-leather gloves.  These were intended as costume accessories, but I wore them as real accessories.

Dollarstores: My sister and I bought children’s jewelry , like big chunky rings, plastic bracelets or necklaces, and wore them with playful irony.  Anything weird, tacky, interesting, vintage or ironic, I loved.

Obviously times have changed dramatically, and although my punk phase has forever influenced some of my musical tastes and socio-political values, I now dress in a much more conservative way.  But I find myself remembering the zest and creativity I put into a simple thing like fashion with wave of nostalgia and some degree of awe. I believe that living creatively is important, and I want to harness some of that energy and enthusiasm I had as a 15 year old, and apply it to my life today.  It’s easy to follow the herd, and it’s easy to resort to the most obvious solutions when it comes to meeting our needs for things like clothing.  It’s an easy choice to head out to a mall and participate in traditional retail activities.  But isn’t it more fun, more fulfilling, to think differently about our lives? To think differently when it comes to solving daily problems or challenges?

Only now do I realize that my unconventional approach set the stage for a fulfilling, frugal lifestyle.  I love to shop at thrift stores, consignment stores, antique stores, flea markets, Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores, and garage sales. I love doing swaps with friends and exchanging handmedowns. I love making my own gifts and cards.  I love repurposing items and I love using a “DIY” ethic to repair or modify something I already have and make it into something new.  Who would have guessed that as a punk teenager, sifting through boxes of unwanted clothing, that I would be setting the stage for financially frugal, environmentally-sound, sustainable living?  Granted that now I’m shopping for antique tea cups instead of Billy Idol memorabilia, but the essential message stays the same: employ creativity and abundance you will find!

How much should your food really cost?

There has been a lot of concern lately about rising food costs. And while I sympathize, I wonder if we aren’t a bit spoiled, thinking that food costs should be lower than they already are.  In North America, we’ve really become accustomed to low food costs when most other parts of the world pay a much higher price.  And when we look at the tools that have enabled our cheap food prices (factory farming, for example) we must wonder whether the tax we pay as a cost to the environment is really worth it.

In my post, “Wingin’ it on a budget” I mentioned that I paid a much higher price to get organic, humanely-raised chicken from a local farmer.   Although I probably paid about three times as much for the meat as I would in a grocery store, you have to wonder why it’s so much cheaper in the store.  What I paid is probably much closer to the true cost of raising fowl in an ethical fashion.

I do believe that it is possible to reconcile frugality with paying higher prices for food - it just takes a re-evaluation of what and how we eat.  For one thing, look at how much food we waste.  Crunchy Chicken has a link to a study published in 2004 by the University of Arizona called “US wastes half its food”.  Although the study must be outdated, I wonder if these findings have changed:

 On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened… [The] average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.  Nationwide… household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem.

If you started taking stock of your own edible food waste, you might be surprised with how much you are actually throwing out.  Getting creative in the kitchen by properly storing your food, making dishes based on what you have available, storing unused portions and promptly eating them up, and simply knowing how to use up less desirable food can all be used as ways to cut down on your food waste. 

In my post, “What are you wasting?” I mentioned some of the ways I had recently cut back on my food waste.  I have a few more tricks that I have recently learned that I will share with you in an upcoming post.  But for today, I mostly just wanted to share the idea that by giving our food more respect and by learning what we can do to take full advantage of the food we already have, we will need to buy less.  This, combined with responsible shopping (for example, relying on cheap products like dried beans and lentils for protein, and eating less meat) can reduce our grocery bill despite rising food costs, all the while contributing to sustainable environmental practices.

The Saver Queen Shopping Challenge: And the winner is…

I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the Saver Queen Shopping Challenge to support their local food bank.  Your generosity during this time of hardship for many and despite your own need for frugality was truly inspiring.

I’m sorry that it took me so long to announce the results. However I am pleased to announce that after a random draw, Catherine is the winner!

You will receive a $10 gift card for Tim Hortons to give yourself a little winter pick-me-up.  Please email me with your mailing addresses and I will ship it out to you right away.

Thank you for participating and inspiring others with your goodwill this season.

Saver Queen Shopping Challenge - update

There is still time to join Saver Queen Shopping Challenge to donate food and personal items to your local food bank! Deadline for participation is December 24, so there is still time to enter to win a prize.

I filled two big boxes with food and I will be dropping them off tomorrow at the fire station, which is a dedicated drop-off zone for the Daily Bread Food bank.

If you want to participate, simply let me know what you bought, or take a picture and send it to me, or link back with a blog post that shows what you bought!

I’ve heard this year has been particularly tough on the food banks.  So let’s be as generous as possible!  Remember you can contribute more by combining great sales with coupons!

So far Kate, Nancy, Annie, Money Minder and Erran have expressed interest in participating.  Annie has already made her donation.  For everyone else, please update me with your progress by December 24th in order to be eligible for the draw!

A week of coupons & freebies

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even updated you with some great deals and freebies I discovered last week. First, let me begin with my favourite grocery deals I scored.

This week's best deals

As Kate mentioned on a previous post, the Europe’s Best Frozen Veggies were on sale for $1.99 and with plenty of Europe’s Best coupons out there, the priced was reduced to just 99¢ each.  Luckily, this sale, which can be found at Loblaws, is recurring this week!

The Robin Hood Flour was on sale for only $3.49, but with a 75¢ off coupon (came with my free Homemakers magazine) it was only $2.74.

The Maestro Extra virgin Olive Oil was on sale for $5.89 - and this sale came just in time, as we had just run out.

The Knorr soups were on sale for $1.99 and came with a $2 coupon when you buy two, so they were only 99¢ each.  This special is still on this week at Loblaws and Valu Mart.

The Royale toilet paper was purchased from IGA at $2.99 for a pack of 16. With a $1 coupon, it came to $1.99 - or just over 12¢ a roll.  The equivalent sale is on now at No Frills this week - 40 rolls for $5.97. Use a coupon (Royale coupons are plentiful, at save.ca, for instance) and pay $4.97, or again, just over 12¢ a roll.

I will be adding the flour and toilet paper to my Food Bank stash for the Saver Queen Shopping Challenge. I am adding to my personal stash every time I get a great deal and will be delivering to the Fire hall this December.

Butternut loves exploring the cloth bags when I unpack the groceries!

In all, I used $6.55 in coupons - a little bit less than normal, however I also got extra PC points with points coupons and from bringing cloth bags.  Make sure to remind the cashier to give you your PC points with every green bin and cloth bag you use.  I used two bins and one bag. 

I also received some coupons with my PC bill.  If you spend $75, you will get a bonus of 5000 points; 10,000 points come with $150 purchase and 20,000 points with a $200 purchase.  Don’t forget to check your bills for coupons like these!

Other freebies this week:

My partner and I went to Marks Work Warehouse to use my two free $10 gift cards that came with the flyer.  (As earlier referred to here.) The minimum purchase was $10 so the products were free (minus taxes). I got a stainless steel water bottle (stainless steel is apparently the safest kind of water bottle) and another travel mug (a certain someone keeps forgetting his at work.) The best thing about getting these purchases for free is that they are money savers!  Water bottles and coffee mugs are great investments to make so that you can avoid frequenting the coffee shops.

Did anyone else use their free gift cards?

They were free! And a great investment to boot.

Finally, I also enjoyed receiving a few more freebies.  I used my free coffee card at the Second Cup (also mentioned here) and found Head & Shoulders shampoo and conditioner samples in my mail box. Good for a stocking stuffer or a travel kit.

What great deals, sales, or freebies did you enjoy in the last week? 

Saver Queen’s Shopping Challenge for the Daily Bread Food Bank

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Win a prize, have fun and help those who really need it most

by taking the Saver Queen Shopping Challenge!

My readers are some of the most talented bargain shoppers in North America!  As frugal spenders, we know how to sniff out the very best deals on food prices.  By using coupons and combining them with lucrative sales, price comparing and going to stores that offer the lowest prices, we can buy food for less than half the cost of what the average person pays - sometimes, even getting food for free!

The Saver Queen Shopping Challenge is to encourage all of my readers and their families to put these skills into action for the Daily Bread Food Bank.

If you live outside the Greater Toronto Area, any other food bank will do!

Consider why this challenge is important:

Quick facts about hunger in the GTA

* Over 79,000 people visit a food bank in the GTA monthly

 * 34% of those accessing food banks are children

* 28% of households using a food bank has at least one person working

* 47% of clients accessing a food bank have a disability or serious illness

***

Here’s how to participate in the Saver Queen Shopping Challenge

1. Register for the challenge by leaving a comment below.  If you are not from Toronto, please tell me who you are shopping for, and leave a link to their website as the URL.

2. Decide how much you will spend.  Either set a maximum price you will spend or set a “maximum value” - i.e. buy groceries with a retail value of $100 but only spend $50.  You can keep the amount confidential.

3. Go shopping for the items on the shopping list at the Daily Bread Food Bank or your Local Food Bank (see below). 

4. Take a picture of your food (either in the cart at the store or at your home) or photograph the receipt.

5. Send in your picture to Saver Queen, or post it on your blog and link back to Saver Queen.  Let us know how well you did!

6. Drop off the food at a designated location.

7. Once you complete the challenge, let me know and you will be eligible to win a prize*! Everyone who enters will be entered to win, and winners will selected randomly.  

I will update you with my progress.  Please feel free to stop by and update us with how your shopping challenge is going - let us know of all the great deals you find!

I will also regularly update you with tips!

All entries must be received before December 24!

Thanks for making a difference by taking the Saver Queen Shopping Challenge - and good luck!

*** SHOPPING LIST ***

The Daily Bread Food Bank’s most needed items:

Peanut Butter
Baby Formula & Food
Canned Fruits or Vegetables
Canned Fish  or Meat
Dried Pasta & Tomato Sauce
Rice
Lentils
Cans of Soup or Hearty Stew
Powdered, Canned or Tetra Pak Milk
Cans of Beans
Macaroni and Cheese

Please, only buy nutritious food that you would want to serve to your own family!  Ask your food bank for their shopping list, or look online!  No dollarstore wafers, please!

*I have some great ideas for a prize - nothing finalized yet so stay tuned!

Coming Soon to Saver Queen!

I have some exciting plans in the works so I thought now would be a perfect time to let you all know about what’s in store for the next several week:

1. The Saver Queen Shopping Challenge - have fun, win a prize, go shopping, and donate food to The Daily Bread Food Bank - an exciting opportunity with details to follow tomorrow.

2. Financial expert on Canadian investing, Gail Bebee, will be writing two guest posts, followed by “ask an expert” day where Gail will respond to your questions!

3. An updated Blog Roll.  I’m going to add my favourite websites and have them well-organized so you can have easy access to other relevant money saving blogs.

4. Two more giveaways this winter. When I hit 5000 visitors I will do another coupon giveaway!  I also have a possible book giveaway in the works.

5. On December 2nd, I will be writing my first article for the Beach Metro Community News. If you happen to live in the Toronto area, pick up a copy!

6. Exciting new posts are coming your way with information on:

How to shop for Christmas gifts locally and SAVE

Finding FREE entertainment

Movie nights for LESS

Questions to ask when donating to charity

Saving money when traveling

CHEAP places to travel

Simple investing strategies

Worst purchases I’ve made

How to get Christmas cards for FREE

Tax-efficient ways of giving to charity

Please let me know if there is something you are particularly interested in and would like to read about on Saver Queen!  Are there any topics you would like to see discussed here?  Thanks!