Frugal Friday and food waste update

On Fridays, two bloggers I admire for their frugal skill and panache, The Frugal Girl and The Non-Consumer Advocate, list cheapskate things they’ve done that week. (The Frugal Girl often posts pictures of food she’s wasted that week, brave soul. It’s inspiring.)

Years ago, I did the same thing here each week. I’ve decided to resurrect this theme, especially now that I’ve been working on not wasting food myself.

Here’s how I did last week:

Better, but not great.

Only one thing was wasted: two small salmon fillets. These were from a large pack I bought, made lemon-pepper salmon one night for dinner, but didn’t cook the whole pack. I should have, because they sat in their plastic wrap and when I opened them, they were very smelly and slimy.

Sigh. Obviously, I need to develop the habit of examining the contents of my fridge every single day. I honestly forgot about these. :-/ I don’t even have a cat to feed them to!

It could have been far worse. I did lots of “taking one for the team” and eating odd bits, such as: the last bit of jelly in the Bonne Maman jar (I mixed in plain yogurt and berries, and the tiny bit of jelly was just enough sweetness.)

There were 3 zucchini that were just about to go bad, so I sliced them up and, not knowing when I would use them, threw them in the freezer. The next day I typed a few ingredients into Google, out popped “Zucchini Ground Beef Skillet”. I cooked it for dinner and it was excellent, seriously a new favorite.

I also saved a cup of leftover vegetable soup and added it to the aforementioned skillet dinner. Nobody noticed.

Several half-eaten apples (thank you, 3 and 5 year old daughters) were rescued and put into my oatmeal.

It’s a start.

As for other frugal activities:

• I cancelled my Birchbox subscription. I had actually planned on recommending the service here because I did love it for the first few months. Without it, I may not have discovered a couple of products that are now total favorites (namely, Cotz Face Natural Skin Tone SPF 40, which actually doesn’t turn my face chalky white like most mineral sunscreens, and substitutes for foundation. LOVE this stuff.), and argan oil for my hair. The $10 was even a value, since I got one full-size product each month plus a few samples. And I HATE shopping in stores for beauty products, so that was part of the appeal too.I cancelled because they kept sending me the most ridiculous, clown-worthy lipcolors that nobody in a million years would wear. Anyhoo.
• I’ve been doing a ton of decluttering lately and have sold a lot of things on eBay and Amazon.
• I utilized my public library for several books I wanted to read.
• I bought my 5 year old’s winter wardrobe on eBay in one lot and got an amazing deal, all high-quality and new looking clothing, for $2 apiece.
• I was patient and, after waiting years for Gwyneth Paltrow’s first cookbook to make it to PaperbackSwap, nabbed a free copy! Her second cookbook is not nearly as good, in my opinion. Everything’s too low-fat and vegan. I made a recipe from the cookbook and we loved it (it was the brown rice stir fry with kale). And I don’t care what anyone says, I love me some Gwyneth.

Do some frugal stuff last week and blog about it? Add your link below.