Five Frugal Things | I cropped a shirt

1. I turn a shirt into a cropped version

I had bought this tee years ago at H&M (my first time ever buying something there) and man, I am not impressed. Almost from the start, it twisted in the wash (even though I line-dried it!), and that made the curved hem go off-kilter.

You can see what I mean in this photo:

And it’s only gotten worse since then.

I pulled it out the other day before I went to the gym and I decided it was too twisted even for a workout shirt!

So then I got my scissors out, thinking I would cut it up to add to my pile of trusty t-shirt rags.

But it occurred to me that I could just cut the problematic part out, and wear it as a cropped tee with high-waisted jeans. No need to hem it since it’s knit fabric.

I figured I could always just go ahead with the rag idea if the crop didn’t work. But I’m happy to say that I do like it this way!

Bonus: there was a small hole in the bottom of the tee, and now it’s gone.

2. I’m using up lots of potatoes

My last two Hungry Harvest boxes were disproportionately heavy on the potatoes (I forgot to customize the boxes!), so I have had a bit of a potato backlog.

 

So, I’ve been par-cooking a batch of potato cubes, browning some for breakfast, and then storing the rest in the fridge to use for an easy potato dish the next morning.

This has also been a helpful vehicle for using up random little containers of sauce in my fridge.

And I have discovered that most sauces work fine on potato cubes.

Also: I like to rinse and save those little sauce containers; they’re really handy if you have a few seeds to save, or if you need a spot to stash a few screws from a project.

3. I sold a nutmeg grater

This was in a box of stuff from the abandoned house, and at first, I didn’t know what it was! But I did some googling and discovered it’s a nutmeg grater.

It was mostly in good condition; just needed some cleaning and a minor repair to the lid.

(Click here to see more small abandoned house treasures!)

I sold it on eBay, and of course, I shipped it in a reused package.

4. I helped Zoe file her taxes for free

2022 was her first year having a job, so this was her first tax go-round! I helped her through the process, and it only took something like 10-15 minutes.

Since her return is super simple, she gets to use the free version of TurboTax, which is just lovely.

I also helped Sonia with her taxes this year (maybe I mentioned that already), using TurboTax as well.

5. I took Zoe to Coinstar

She had two big containers of coins (sometimes her tips at work come in the form of coins), so we went to a Coinstar machine and exchanged her coins for an Amazon gift card.

As long as you choose a gift card, Coinstar doesn’t charge a fee. And Zoe wanted some earbuds from Amazon anyway, so it worked out just fine!

(My girls were really small the first time we used Coinstar. Whoa.)

Your turn! What frugal things have you been up to?