Q&A | Homeschool books, chicken broth, and high-priced drugstores
Today we have one question from the mailbag and two questions from the comments on recent posts. I know not everyone reads the comments, so I thought it might be worth answering the questions here too!
Hi Frugal Girl,
Do you have a recommendation on the best way to sell used (and some new) homeschool books?
I live on the West coast and have a ton of books to sell.
Thanks for your help,
Ann
The two main sites I use are Amazon and eBay.
Amazon is definitely a simpler place to list a book. You just type in some information and Amazon automates the rest. You don't need to add photos or type a description...it's all right there.
However, Amazon's fee structure seems higher to me, and Amazon isn't that useful when you have a grouping of books to sell.
(For instance, you might have the Saxon textbook, answer key, and test booklet that you want to sell together.)
So, in my experience, eBay is a better place to sell used homeschool books, as long as you don't mind the work on putting a listing together.
Can you make bone broth from cooked bones? I thought they had to be raw.
-Natalie
(question from the comments on a recent menu post)
Yes, yes, you can most definitely make broth from cooked bones. In fact, when making beef broth, it's usually recommended to roast the bones before you make the broth.
Raw chicken bones do work great for broth, but you certainly don't need to use raw bones exclusively. I've made broth with bones from roasted chicken, grilled chicken, or even homemade fried chicken like I had last week.
When I spatchcock a chicken, I do like to save the raw backbone to saute as I start my chicken stock, but I frequently make stock without that piece and all is well.
This idea of buying fresh chicken to make stock is something I think our ancestors would have probably chuckled at. People have a long history of making stock from leftover bones or from parts of an animal that would otherwise not be eaten, and I don't really think it's necessary for most of us to buy chicken specifically to make stock with.
So.
Save your cooked bones and use 'em!
Is it worth it to shop at places like CVS? The prices seem awfully high compared to Walmart.
-(from the comments on another recent post)
That depends. I really don't recommend heading to drugstores to buy things on the regular, as drugstore prices do tend to be on the high side.
However, if you keep an eye on sales and coupons and in-app discounts, and you use things like CVS's Extra Care Bucks, then you can sometimes get lower prices than you would at Walmart or Aldi.
Of course, working deals like that takes time, so you have to decide how that lands on the time/money continuum for you.
When my kids were small and we had less money, I almost always had more time than money (even though time wasn't exactly plentiful either!). So at that point in my life, I was much more inclined to work the coupon/deal game.
Currently, I only do it here or there when the deals are too good to pass up.
So, my answer about shopping at drugstores is: it depends. You can get good deals, but you just have to decide if you want to invest the time into it.
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Readers, if you have input on these questions, share in the comments!
And if you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, email me.
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P.S. Sonia has one little set of otters listed in her shop at the moment. Maybe someone would like them for a Christmas gift. 🙂 Update: these are sold.
I’ve found that I spend less if I use the drugstore because there isn’t as much to choose from. I just need deodorant, so I’m not also going to pick up a few groceries at Target and check out the dollar aisle and maybe get a book. It helps to go to the drugstore when I know the specifics I need.
That is a very fair point!
While I love Walmart and Target, I live 30 minutes away from both. So when I’m “in town” doing my grocery shopping at Aldi (every 2 week trip) I will go to Walmart IF I have a decent list of things i still need there and I’m not too tired. Otherwise I have started doing their online ordering with 2 day shipping. $35 minimum usually and no refrig/frozen items. That gets me the generic brands, Walmart prices and I don’t have to hassle with the store! But for occasional things that come up unexpectedly, I don’t make a 30 minute trip I just go to my local CVS and usually pay a little more.
You may pay a little more, but you save in gas and time, so how much of a cost is it really?
I can sometimes get a good deal at CVS with coupons and those bucks they give you, but I have twice checked and found that I still got a better deal using my manufacturer's coupon alone at Walmart on some expensive things, so I normally just go there. Catching the drugstore deals often depends on if I have time and if it's worth the gas to price shop, although in my small town, they are all within a 10 minute drive.
I'm like you, Kristen, I never purchase fresh meat just to make stock or broth. I use the bones and trimmings, always. I have a recipe to make chicken stock, and it starts with putting a whole chicken in the pressure cooker -- it seems like such a waste! On poultry I use the tail, neck, wing tips if I trim them, any skin, and cooked or raw bones. On beef or pork, I use the trimmings and the bones. I throw them in a bag in the freezer and when I'm ready, I fill my crock pot with water, add some spices, a touch of apple cider vinegar, the frozen bag of bits and bones, a little garlic and maybe onion trimmings, and let it cook for 24 to 36 hours. This may be sacrilege, but I mix the bones - beef, pork, chicken, turkey, it all goes in. The resulting stocks haven't messed up a dish I've cooked yet.
I completely agree! Cook's Illustrated has a few recipes that call for cooking chicken to make stock, and then discarding the chicken, as it obviously is cooking into oblivion by then and is no good for eating. I can never bring myself to use a recipe like that! I want to eat the chicken meat I buy. 😉
I have often cooked stock/broth from raw/scratch.. I start it with a whole chicken or large pieces.. when they are fully cooked/poached I pull them out and debone the meat... then I toss all the pieces and parts back in to keep on cooking.. I have the meat that I need for cooking with and the stock later! Obviously more time consuming and cannot be completed on a day I am at work!
I do use fresh chicken to make chicken-in-the-pot soup, and use the meat for that soup, but I then save the bits and bones from that batch to make stock. Stock is usually simmered for a much longer time to eke out as much flavor and nutrition as possible. We even save bones from the rare meals we have ordered in or leftovers brought home from restaurant meals as well.
As for drugstores, we don't have a Walmart or similar store nearby so we have to shop CVS or Walgreens(in NYC they are called Duane Reade.) I try to shop sales and use coupons as much as possible. If it's a good substitute I will buy the store brand but I have found for some items that the quality is really bad and the savings not worth it. Also, I bought a mini cosmetics spatula to get every last bit of product out of small jars and bottles. It's amazing how much extra product can be dug out. I have a tinted moisturizer that I can get two weeks worth of product out of if I cut it open and use the spatula.
Yep, that's what I do when I make chicken noodle soup as well!
We actually made stock at home using a mix of raw and cooked bones yesterday. I joked with my wife about how Ina Garten puts whole chickens into a stock pot and uses them for making homemade stock. What a waste of good meat! I guess when you're wealthy, that's the kind of stuff you do.
My wife used to play the coupon game before our daughter was born but she works full time and so do I. Honestly, it's sometimes worth just paying a little more. We've ended up doing better just switching to buying in bulk from BJs or eliminating a lot of the disposable items and replacing them with reusable items (though my wife did accumulate enough shampoo to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool back in the day with the coupon game.)
Ha, on the shampoo! My Dad once remarked that Mom had enough toilet paper stockpiled to insulate the bathroom. She would run in to the grocery store every time she was near when it was a loss leader and pick up another pack. I have followed her example in shopping loss-leaders.
Regarding making broth, I have read that a splash of vinegar in with the water will pull more nutrients out of the bones as they cook down.
I am sorry I don't recall which blog I read the note on about free shipping, but it might bear repeating. Amazon is offering free shipping for anyone with no minimum order, not just Prime members, for an indefinite time now, perhaps countering moves made by WalMart and Target online. I rarely shop online, yet that is enough to get me to at least compare prices there with what I can find in stores in my town.
Ha! Listening to grandparents and their friends talking about how they ran out of toilet paper when the Soviets over-ran their area of Lithuania, and had to use leaves or whatever else they could scavenge, I grew up with an obsession about having enough toilet paper around. We usually have a dozen cases stock-piled.
I never realized Ina wasn't using the meat later.
Do you ever sell homeschool curriculum on Facebook? There are lots of buy/sell groups for specific curriculum (like Saxon). I've had great luck both buying and selling in these groups!
That's a good point! I haven't done any selling on Facebook but I keep hearing that I should try it.
This is good to know. I have a preschooler who needs to learn to read this winter ... her proclivity, not my decision. I've been thinking I need a Saxon phonics course because I'm no educator by nature.
Kristen, could you please include a link to your directions about making stock (roasting it first).
Also, what is the difference between broth and stock? And do you think those broths and stocks in the 32 oz acceptic boxes are good and if so, how long could they really be okay? Thank you for your expertise on this.
So, the technical difference seems to be that broth is made with meat, while stock is generally not made with meat (just bones).
The broths in the boxes provide good flavor, but I'm not certain that they provide all of the health benefits of homemade broth/stock. I've read that they have a higher concentration of water than homemade broth does.
Here's how I make my chicken broth: https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/how-to-make-chicken-broth-that-is-actually-tasty/
There's a lot of disagreement about the difference - if any - between stock and broth. For all practical purposes, home cooks can ignore the difference. (I always say "stock".)
For both poultry and red-meat stocks, you get better flavor if you roast or brown the bones (with some of the veggies) than if you use raw bones; don't forget to deglaze the pan and add that to the pot as well. That said, I use the bones however I get them. If I'm deboning a chicken, then I use raw bones. If I'm using bones leftover from dinner, I use cooked bones. There's no problem in mixing raw and cooked bones.
For good poultry stock, all you need are scraps: bones, skin, fat, and innards (except the liver) will impart enough flavor. For good meat stock, you need meat as well as bones. If you use only bones, you'll have weak stock (unless you use something ridiculous like 5 lbs bones per cup of stock). The difference is that poultry skin and fat taste like poultry, whereas meat skin and fat taste like skin and fat but not like the meat. Exception: anything smoked will make good stock. Even so, smoked chicken skin makes a stronger stock than smoked pork skin.
I have sometimes used chicken meat to make stock. I simmer the meat till it's cooked, then remove it for some other use (soup, Tex-Mex, croquettes). Then I continue simmering the scraps, bones, and skin for stock. The only time I won't use the meat is if it's freezer-burnt.
PS: For best flavor, simmer rather than boil.
PPS: Stock is done when the bones separate (ie, the collagen has dissolved fully into the liquid).
PPPS: For poultry stock, 1 lb of scraps makes 1 pint of standard stock and 1 c. of strong stock. Trust me, strong stock is better. For meat stock, you 2 lbs. of scraps for 1 pint standard stock.
PPPPS: I strongly recommend not salting your stock. Instead, salt your final product (soup, sauce, etc).
Wow, those otters are adorable -- how clever of Sonia!
Sometimes, it really is easier (and possibly) cheaper to just buy the item on sale somewhere else. That said, looking at the pile of stuff Kristen got for $10.00, I'm reminded of why it can be a great alternative to use CVS. It helps to know your prices and to use the ECB's amassed. They also send extra ECBs to my email in increments of 2 and 3 dollars to apply as I wish. Sometimes I just let them go if there's nothing I need, since spending to use them up is not frugal 😉 But sometimes they come in very handy.
On Hallowe'en I used ECBs, 40% off coupons, and BOGOs to get 2 giant bags of snack size Twizzlers that I needed for my class to hand out to buddies and to pile into a b'day gift for someone who loves twizzlers (and for munching, so much munching). Plus a pack of maple flavored candy corn (not a fan) for a school craft. I paid $2 and change for all this -- don't think I could have beaten that elsewhere.
No knowledge of Walgreen's -- imagine it's similar? I guess the trick is to be careful and know your prices.
Okay, promise this is my final comment on CVS!!
I have had success buying and selling used school books and materials on homeschoolclassifieds.com. There's no fee to list items unless you're selling a lot of books, and as a buyer it's fairly easy contact sellers with questions and such. Most sellers list the price with shipping included (ppd). There isn't the same buyer protection as with ebay, but I've never run in to problems.
I find the “drugstore game”is not as beneficial as it used to be. I no longer have a source for the Sunday coupon inserts, so that may be part of it, but I just don’t the deals and moneymakers are as plentiful. Others may disagree.
I actually find Amazon to have some great deals on toiletry items.
Yes, I agree! In fact, I just found Sonia's expensive eye drops on Amazon for the same price I'd pay by using coupons/sales at CVS.
Oh My Goodness! The otters are so cute. Your girl is a genius! Kudos.
For selling used homeschooling books, the following have worked for me:
-Craigslist (for groupings of books--all one curriculum/grade)
-Facebook: omeschool groups (look for ones in your area), Facebook buy/sell groups (local to your area), and Facebook groups specifically for the curriculum you are wanting to sell (for instance, there are ABeka buy/sell groups where you can list your ABeka books but not Bob Jones books for sale; you will usually have to mail whatever you sell through these groups)
-Local consignment sales
-Local consignment bookstores (look for a homeschooling bookstore in your area, I have lived in two states/areas that have consignment/supply stores for homeschoolers)
I have been having better luck selling things on Facebook market pages than eBay. I can cross post to several local/near-by towns and the convenience is too easy. The downside is there are people who never reply back or are no shows which is super annoying.
I recommend looking into Exodus Books' buyback program. It's an independent bookstore located in Oregon that specializes in educational and Christian materials. https://www.exodusbooks.com/used-books.aspx
Thank you! Good to know.