November’s Frugal Accomplishments
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
+ We had a bag of potatoes that were just about to go bad, so I decided to practice a new skill and dehydrate them. The process was a little tedious, but my little kids helped peel and slice and spread on the trays. It was a family event! I ordered an attachment (affiliate link) for my Food Saver that seals mason jars so I can keep them in the pantry for a rainy day. (I found a recipe for scalloped potatoes that I printed to use them up later on.)
+ When we process our chickens, we keep the backs of the ones we cut up into breasts/thighs/wings. (We try to use everything!) I thawed one of the bags of backs and made a big batch of chicken broth. I kept some in the fridge and froze the rest for future soups and stews.
+ At the grocery store, I stocked up on vinegar and baking soda to make homemade cleaners.
+ I made puree from little pie pumpkins I bought at the store. I also roasted the seeds using this delicious tutorial. It’s so awesome to use every part of a vegetable.
+ I saved the seeds from one of the last peppers grown so I can grow them again next spring.
+ When we moved to the farmhouse four years ago, our cell phone reception was very spotty and unreliable so we got a land line. Thankfully, in the years since, the reception has greatly improved (not great, but waaay better than before) so we felt comfortable letting the land line go. That saves us $35 a month and bonus! We just received our final bill and it was actually a $13 credit. I’ll take it!
+ I amended our garden soil with ash from the fireplace, last year’s compost pile and leaves from around the property.
+ The biggest win of the month goes to my pigs. Those little guys eat all of our scraps. Between the pigs, the chickens and our compost pile, we have almost no food waste at this point. Huge!
Do you have a peeler, slicer, core tool..? you can get them off amazon they are worth having and extra kitchen gadget!! They are “designed” for apples which speeds up applesauce and apple dehydrating but they can do pears, and potatoes too.
If you can save your chicken coop mess for compost it does great things for a garden, it’s best if you can clean out the coop and let it break down over the winter as it is a too “hot” for plants when it’s fresh.
I DO have an apple peeler but never thought to use it for potatoes! Such a great idea!!
Also: so funny you mention the coop! We just did a big cleanout and I put all of the shavings on one of my in-ground beds with the thinking that it would decompose all winter and be ready to rumble for spring.
Yay for pigs and chickens 🙂