1. The PDF recipe picture question

Lots (and I do mean lots!) of you weighed in on this, and unfortunately, the opinions are split more evenly than I’d hoped.

I would say, though, that those of you on the “yea” side are more firm about your preference than those on the “nay” side. And there is the fact that you can take a picture out, but you can’t add one in.

If I were brilliant at coding, I could probably figure out a handy-dandy way to offer multiple print options.  But the fact of the matter is that code is basically Greek to me (only worse, because I do actually know a little bit of Greek).

So, when I offer printable PDFs, I have to make a document in Word, convert it to a PDF, save it, and then upload it here.  I could make two PDFs and upload them, but recipe posts are already pretty time-consuming, and adding another task is not that appealing to me.

(though maybe if I’m posting a recipe and I’ve got some extra time on my hands, I’ll upload two PDFs)

All that is to say that I’m thinking I’ll keep the picture in, but I’ll definitely make it on the small side.

I’ll also try to be very mindful of making sure the PDF is one page.  I always try to format it that way, but perhaps when I’m converting it to PDF, strange things are happening.  I do want it to be one page!

For those of you that are firmly anti-picture, I have two suggestions to hopefully make this work better for you.

• set your printer to black and white/draft mode.  The small picture won’t take a lot of ink this way.

• copy and paste the text of the recipe into a Word document.  That way you’ll have the recipe without the picture.

Oh, and for anyone that was confused, please know I am NOT considering leaving pictures out of recipe posts altogether.  That would be…sad.

The picture issue we’ve been discussing is just the one on the printable PDF version of the recipe.  The regular posts, they will still be picture-ific.

Mmm-hmm.

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2. Compostable Toothbrushes

I got a few of these WorldCentric toothbrushes in the mail the other day to review.

The toothbrushes come in a reusable plastic case that is actually compostable, and the toothbrush is compostable as well, except for the bristle section (no one has yet figure out how to make decent compostable bristles).

Now, the toothbrush won’t compost in a normal home compost bin or pile…it needs the heat of a commercial compost operation in order to break down.

So, people who have access to commercial composting facilities can simply break off the top of the toothbrush (there’s a notch to make this easy) and send the toothbrush off with the rest of the compost.  For the rest of us, WorldCentric will actually send us a prepaid envelope so that we can send our toothbrushes and cases off to be composted.

These toothbrushes aren’t as fancy as the regular sort, but they do get the job done.  At first, I thought the bristles were too tough (I have sensitive gums), but after a week or so of use, they’ve softened up nicely, and they’re not bothering my gums at all.

Both the brush and the travel case are really sturdy, and it’s kind of hard to believe they’re made from plants.

I think these toothbrushes make the most sense if you have local commercial composting services because I’m a little unsure of how wise it is to mail toothbrushes.  Shipping requires oil, after all, so if I was going to send mine off, I’d probably wait until I had a small collection to send.

I think the concept behind this type of product is pretty great, though.  I like to stick with reusable products whenever possible, but since no one has ever invented a toothbrush that lasts forever, there’s definitely a place for compostable toothbrushes.

And hopefully, down the road, composting facilities will be all over the place and these types of products will be practical for everyone.

You can check to see what stores near you carry WorldCentric products and you can also order their products online.

(I got three toothbrushes for review purposes, but I was not otherwise compensated. All opinions are my own, thankyouverymuch.)

3. A Frugal Girl birthday cake

We celebrated my birthday and my brother’s with my extended family a few weeks ago, but I never showed you the cake my mom made for me.  Check out my logo, in frosting!

My mom’s pretty good at this cake-decorating thing.

Unlike me.

Ahem.

She does occasionally have a cake disaster, though.  She was making one for my brother as well that day, and it stuck to the pan.  We didn’t waste it, though. 

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Today’s 365 post: Because you don’t get to pick what comes in a side of beef

Joshua’s 365 post: Goblins and Elves (of the paper variety)

I DO mean simple.

Also, free.

Schweet.

If your library is remotely decent, chances are good that they have a non-fiction section just for kids. If you’ve never perused those shelves in your library, then goodness, you need to!

(well, assuming you have children in your life.)

Our library isn’t huge, but we do have a fairly decent children’s non-fiction section, and as a homeschooling mom, I consider it to be quite the gold mine.

I browse through it when I’m looking for something in particular (I’ve been keeping an eye out for whatever president we’re studying), but I also love to poke around just looking for interesting books.

I think sometimes we get the idea that the only way to properly learn about history is to do it in a neat, orderly, chronological way.

And while I do see the value in that (we’re studying the presidents from George Washington forward, of course.), I also think that there’s value in picking up bits of historical knowledge here and there in a rather helter-skelter, enjoyable fashion.

So, I look for biographies, but not just any biographies.  I’m looking for ones with fun artwork and a colorful story…not the sort of book you’d dutifully check out while writing a paper on George Washington, but the kind you’d pick up and read just because you want to.

Less textbook, more fabulous, I say.

When I bring these home, my children are delighted. They read them just for fun, as though I’d carted in a Pippi Longstocking or Amelia Bedelia book.

But as they read these books, they’re learning about Rosa Parks, Henry Ford, Audrey Hepburn, John Audubon, Eleanor Roosevelt, and countless other famous people.

Since the books are engaging, my kids read them without me telling them to.

And since the books are engaging, my kids actually remember what they read, even without a workbook or test.  It’s effortless, enjoyable learning.

As you probably know, I’m a huge fan of the non-fiction books Mike Venezia writes for children, but there are other great authors out there too.

Really, just trust your sense as you flip through the books…if it seems appealing and interesting to you, it’ll probably seem appealing and interesting to your kids.

And if your kids aren’t old enough to read through these types of books by themselves, then read aloud to them.  I’ve always done lots of that during my children’s preschool and kindergarten years, because even if they could just barely read their Bob Books, they could certainly understand books on a much higher level.

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Do you have any favorite non-fiction picture books to recommend?

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Today’s 365 post: It’s just a little thing right now.

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

I work nights, and bring something to eat most every night. My co-worker does not make much money and most times does not bring anything. Normally if I were alone, I would eat a leftover, boiled egg or just anything frugal. I feel like I have to buy certain foods for us to eat and share due to not wanting to eat in front of her, and due to the fact that she likes certain things. She laughs if I bring something frugal like a can of chicken and dumplings. This is costing me much more money and I feel it is a cycle I can’t get out of. She says that I should not feel as if I need to bring her food but yet she really expects it. If I bring something she doesn’t like she frowns and looks unhappy. I could save a lot more money if i didn’t have to do this.

-S.

This is easy for me to say since I’m not there, but I think that you need to have a forthright conversation with this co-worker. Let her know that you’re not going to be bringing food for her anymore, and then follow through on that.

Or if you feel like that’s too harsh, I would at LEAST stop catering to her wishes. Bring whatever you’d bring if she wasn’t there and if she doesn’t want to eat it, she certainly doesn’t have to.

It sounds to me like you may be a people-pleaser (Hi! I’m one of those too!), and your desire to please her is making you do something that’s kind of making you miserable. Remind yourself that you can’t make everyone happy and that you will drive yourself crazy if you try.

And something that helps me too is to remember that the world will not come to an end if I do something that makes someone else unhappy.  I know that sounds obvious, but my goodness, all too often I function as if I must maintain the happiness of All People In The World.

What do you think about all the Facebook deals lately, where you have to “Like” a company to get a coupon or deal. Sometimes it seems like these are good deals, but I do not have a Facebook account. I had one, but now it requires me to give a cell phone number to “verify” my account, and I do not have a cell phone. My only other option to verify my account is to send a photocopy of my driver’s license, and I refuse to do that. Why are these companies limiting their deals to only Facebook users? I don’t like Facebook anyway, and like it even less now that they want me to send something I’m not willing to send.

I realize you are not a deal site (and I thank you very much for that), but would like to know how you feel about this.

-Susan

Hmm. Could you use a friend’s cell phone to verify your account? I’m assuming you just need to receive a text or something like that.

As to why companies are limiting these deals to Facebook, I think it’s because they’re focused more on marketing than on being fair.  Once you like a company on Facebook, they’ve got yet another way to market their products to you, so every “like” is really valuable to them.

They’re not distributing coupons/free stuff out of the goodness of their hearts…they’re trying to successfully market their product.

If you can’t get a Facebook account opened or you don’t want to, my advice is to just not sweat the Facebook deals. We all survived before companies were giving away free stuff on Facebook, right? The freebies are what I would consider to be nice but not necessary. And like I always say, there are lots of ways to save money without doing the couponing/deal thing.

How do you live on less when you have been living that way all along? One can only go down so far without turning off the electricity, for instance.

-BA8

(this question was emailed in after I published Whoopee, we can spend again!)

Yep, you’re totally right. There is a limit to how effective frugality can be because we do all need things like food and shelter.

This is why I don’t think we ought to choose between saving and earning.  Living frugally will help you make the most out of the income you have, but it’s not going to do a ton to help you save up a nice nest egg if your income is really sparse.

If you’re in a situation where you’ve pinched every penny you can pinch and you still are having trouble making ends meet, I’d highly recommend figuring out a way to earn some more money.

I don’t know your situation, but if you’ve got a job, perhaps you could ask for a raise*, or look for a similar job with another company that would pay you more.

(*I should have added this when I wrote the post, but the career advice isn’t my own…I’ve just read a multitude of times that asking for a raise is a wise choice sometimes and that women in particular don’t think of doing that.)

Maybe a part-time second job would be a good idea…and that part-time job could be a self-employed kind of job (child-care, housecleaning, paid organizing, tutoring, etc.), depending on what your skills and gifts are.  Think about what you’re really good at, and figure out if there’s a way you could get paid to do that on the side.

If you have extra possessions, you could sell them in order to build up a bit of an emergency cushion.

Have you signed up for Swagbucks? Using Swagbucks doesn’t require any special skills, and you could use your points for things like Amazon gift cards.  That could give your budget a bit more wiggle room.  It’s not going to be as profitable as a part-time job, but hey, every little bit helps!

If you need more ideas, MoneySavingMom has a 27 Ways to Make Money list up, and at the bottom there are a few links where you can find freelance work.

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Readers, do you have any advice to share on these three topics?

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Today’s 365 post: Requiring Concentration

disclosure

So, you know how in the last few years, I’ve been including printable PDF versions of my recipes?  Well, some time ago, I also started adding in a small photo because a) I like photos, b) I think things look prettier with pictures, and c) I have a small picture obsession-thing going on.

Did I mention I like pictures??

Anyway.

I’m telling you this because a reader said she’d prefer it if I didn’t include a picture in the printable version of my recipes because she doesn’t like to waste ink on it.

A simple solution is to print the recipe black and white draft mode, but if there are a lot of you who hate having a picture embedded in the recipe, I certainly don’t mind leaving it out! It’s an extra step of work for me and I won’t cry if I don’t have to do it.

So, let me know…does the picture in the PDF bug you?  Do you lurve the picture?

Or do you (gasp!) not care at all?

Let thine opinion be known.

(psst!  If you need an example to look at, the Energy Ball recipe has a picture in the PDF, whereas the Aussie Chicken recipe has a picture-less PDF.)

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Today’s 365 post: Elbows vs. Hands

Joshua’s 365 post: Let me go!

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.

This photo will make you feel like you’re reading vintage Frugal Girl, in a very not-charming sort of way.

From the top:

Cheese
Pineapple
Chicken
Tortellini
Spinach
Potatoes

Plus, I lost an avocado earlier in the week.

Dear heavens.

The good news is that my fridge is now thoroughly cleaned out and organized, and I have Pyrex containers at my disposal again.

I was getting a little low.

I haven’t done a fridge overhaul in several weeks, and I didn’t realize how much my disorganized, dirty fridge was bothering me until I got it nicely cleaned up.

Yay for fresh starts, I say.
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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.

Those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.

If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.

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Today’s 365 post: LBJ’s been to the spray-tan salon

Joshua’s 365 post: Nautical

-listening to the hum of my non-squeaky dryer.  Oh yes.

-thinking that having a month’s worth of meals planned out is pretty nice and that I might have to try it again next month.

-wondering if there are other small changes like that which could save me time.

-feeling like I need to do a top-to-bottom decluttering of my house.

-remembering that I always feel like this when the end of the school year rolls around.

-happy that we’re so close to being done with formal school for the year.

-looking forward to having a bit more free time in the summer.

-planning to do some non-bookwork-y fun educational stuff through the summer.

-wondering if I should indeed order Zoe’s Saxon Math 2 book now.

-remembering the tears that fell when she finished Math 1 last week and I discovered I didn’t have a grade 2 book yet. Dear me.

-thinking that Zoe just might want to keep doing math through the summer.

-feeling immensely grateful that she’s not doing algebra, because I’d be loathe to say yes to doing that through the summer.  I need a break, thankyouverymuch.

-sad that all of my frozen local peaches are gone now.

-planning to freeze even more this year.  Yes.  More peaches!

-glad to have a batch of granola in the kitchen for breakfast.

-trying to think of a reason to drive past the stand that’s selling local strawberries.  More of those, please.

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How about you?  If you want, you can share a couple of “Right Now”s in the comments…3-5 makes for a good comment length. 

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Today’s 365 post: Something I’m not good at: making lattice crusts

Joshua’s 365 post: 1 Beetle, 2 Beetles, 3 Beetles (not the bug kind!)

Meet my dryer.

We’ve had it for about 12 years, I think. It’s not fancy, and it’s got its share of battle scars, but normally it works just fine.

A few years ago, it started making dreadful sounds, and it turned out that we needed to replace some parts…we ordered a dryer repair kit from Dave’s Repair and got it all fixed up.

Well, in the last month or so, the dryer started making some high-pitched squeaking/shrieking noises.  It was the sort of pitch and volume that could give you a headache in very short order.

Now, I have to tell you that when appliances start having issues, I immediately think that the problem is terminal and I feel terrified about the prospect of taking apart the big, scary, white box.

I’m always all, “Oh, great. The issue is probably hugely complicated and we won’t be able to figure it out and we’ll have to buy a brand new one.  AAAAHHHH!”.

But!

Mr. FG and I have fixed our washing machine (twice, even) and our dryer once, so I’m getting a wee bit better about the panicking.

(emphasis on the “wee”)

So, instead of hopping online and browsing new dryers, I sent an email to the ever-helpful Dave from Dave’s Repair, assuming I’d need to buy some new parts.

But no! He suggested that the problem was just a lack of lubrication on the rollers.

(You have to love a parts seller who doesn’t always suggest that you buy a new part.)

Mr. FG’s free time had been taken up with a lot of other projects, so I decided to give this a go on my own.

Using memory from the last dryer repair and a very helpful YouTube video, I took the dryer apart (I unplugged it first, of course.)

The inside of an appliance is never quite as complicated as I imagine it to be.

See those red and black rollers?  I rotated them with my hand and sure enough, there was a quiet version of that familiar squeal (they weren’t moving very freely either.)

So I rummaged around and found some 3-in-1 oil, which Dave recommended.

I put a teensy bit on each roller shaft and rotated the wheels until they were moving smoothly.

While I had the dryer open, I also cleaned off all the visible lint from the interior of the dryer since lint build-up there isn’t safe.

Then I put it all back together and anxiously turned it on.

What did I hear?

Just a gentle hum.

No squeaking.

No squealing.

Oh yes!!!

To say I was pleased would be an understatement…I’m always so thrilled when I manage to conquer a project that is really intimidating to me.

Was this project worth it?

Well, it took me about an hour from start to finish and cost me nothing in terms of parts.

In fact, I found a quarter and a penny inside the dryer, so, you know, there’s $0.26 I didn’t know I had before.

I’m just estimating here, but I’d venture to guess that if I’d hired someone to do this job, it would have cost $50-$100.

If that’s true, I think this was definitely worth an hour of my time.

Not only did I save myself the repair cost, I also gained knowledge about my dryer and confidence in my ability to fix this type of thing.  And that will probably help me to avoid repair costs in the future.

Plus, there’s the whole feeling-like-superwoman-because-I-fixed-an-appliance bit, which makes me lean towards thinking that  DIY was the right choice. 

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Today’s 365 post: Coming in September

Joshua’s 365 post: Farmer Boy

The Scarcity Principle is a marketing principle that describes the urge to purchase, gather, or obtain something that a person feels that they may not be able to get in the future.

What does that have to do with cranberries?

Well, the scarcity principle has apparently been working with me, because I have way more cranberries than I need to carry me through until next cranberry season….I own not one, not two, not three, but SIX bags of cranberries.

Oh, and a partial bag too.

Now, that might not seem terribly excessive, but clearly I’m buying more than I need in a year.

How do I know that?

Well, some of these bags aren’t from last cranberry season…they’re from the season before that and the season before that.

That’s because in November and December, I’m all, “What if I NEED to bake some cranberry bread in April and I don’t have some cranberries and then the world will come to an ennnnnd!!”

And I throw a few more bags of berries into my cart, not realizing that the urge to bake cranberry bread doesn’t really hit me in April.

Or any months of the year other than November and December, really.

To me, this bag reads, "Buy 7, freeze 6!"

Fortunately, cranberries keep pretty darn well in my chest freezer, so these are all in good, edible shape.  I just need to, you know, use them before they become inedible.

So, I’m a woman on a mission.  I WILL use up these cranberries before next cranberry season.

Cranberry bread, cranberry muffins, cranberry bars, and cranberry sauce, here I come!

And when bags of cranberries once again grace the grocery store shelves this fall, I will exercise a bit more self-control.

At least, I think I will.

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Ok, people.  Tell me I’m not the only one who does this!

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Today’s 365 post: And that’s why her highchair was outside.

Joshua’s 365 post: Starbuck (I think I linked to this one before, but I hadn’t published it.  Whoops.)

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

I am wondering . . . how do you handle it when your kids are invited to a birthday party and the giving of a gift is expected? I purchased a couple of generic gifts at after-Christmas sales but my stash is used up. We CAN afford to give gifts and I don’t mind doing so for close friends, but sometimes the invitations are to all the kids on, say, the baseball team . . . any thoughts?

-Kris

I haven’t had a lot of personal experience with this, probably because we homeschool and because my kids haven’t played any organized sports.  We do go to birthday parties, but they’re generally for people that we know really well.

But here are my thoughts:

I’d say that unless the invitation said something like, “No gifts necessary…just please come and enjoy the party!”, a gift ought to be given.

(The exception would be if you’re in a situation where you truly can’t afford it.)

That said, if it’s the sort of party where 40 children are invited and you don’t really know the child that well, you shouldn’t at all feel like you need to spend a ton of money on the gift.  Depending on the age of the kid, a $10-$15 gift should be sufficient.

If the parent or child is upset that the 30 attendees didn’t give larger gifts, I’d be inclined to think that’s their problem, not yours, so don’t stress out over it.   Buy something small-ish and don’t sweat it.

I have a question about drugstore deals.  They sound like great deals until you look closely at them — i.e., the “better than free” razor that costs $5, but you get a $5 ‘Register Reward”, meaning that you DID in fact pay $5, but will get $5 off your next purchase.  This is NOT a FREE razor — it’s a chance to save on a future purchase.  It seems to me to be a lot of work for a little return, and most bloggers make it seem like you are getting free merchandise when you are not.  What is your take on this practice?

-Susan

I’ve played the drugstore game intermittently in the past (read: when I had fewer children!), but a few years ago, I decided it wasn’t worth my time.  It was too hard to haul everyone to the store, and more often than not, I found the shelves cleared of all the really great deals, and that was super frustrating.  I think we should pick frugal activities that don’t drive us nuts, and playing the drugstore game was driving me nuts.

Anyway.  It is true that the Register Reward/Extra Bucks type of deals require an upfront purchase.  However, if you shop the drugstore deals every week, you can use last week’s register rewards to purchase this week’s deals.  And assuming that each week’s deals trigger the printing of more register rewards, you can keep purchasing deals while paying very little out of pocket, except for the initial payment that first week.

Playing the drugstore game can get you a lot of merchandise for very little money, but like you said, it’s a fairly large time investment, especially if you’ve got a number of children and don’t have drugstores conveniently located near you.

Some people just love couponing and deal shopping, though, so for them, playing the drugstore game doesn’t feel that much like work.

I’d say that if drugstore deal shopping seems like a lot of work and you don’t really enjoy it, then find other ways to save money.  There are lots of options out there, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to play the drugstore game just because a lot of other people are doing it.

(P.S.I wrote a post about saving money on groceries without using coupons and it might be helpful to those of you who hate couponing/deal shopping).

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Today’s 365 post: You’ve seen these before…

Pretty sure that’s how my to-do list needs to start.

These need to either be cooked or planted because soon, those shoots are going to be so tall, I won’t be able to shut my drawer properly.

Did you know there are other instances where you can plant food that might otherwise go to waste?

You can stick garlic cloves in the ground, and they’ll grow into a new head.

If cilantro or another herb has roots, it can be planted.

Green onions almost always come with the roots attached, and I’ve successfully planted them.

And of course, sweet potato and regular potato chunks can both be buried to grow more potatoes.

I’m sure some of you experienced gardeners can name a few more types of produce that are gardening-friendly…have at it in the comments!
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Today’s 365 post: A vole has been here.

Joshua’s 365 post: Starbuck (no, not the coffee)