Q&A | subscriptions, my top 30 meals, and more
I've got another round of questions from readers to answer today! If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A, you can leave a comment here on this post or you can email me.
Are you planning on keeping your subscription services? Have they run their course or do you still look forward to getting them? I’ve finally canceled a couple, after having them for a few years. I just felt like that was enough.
-JD
I don't have tons of subscriptions, so I'll address each one individually.
Stitch Fix: I currently have a pile of credit with them because apparently some people Googled and found the post where I had a $50 referral link to share.
So, I figure I should at least keep getting fixes to use up my credit!
Mighty Fix: This one I have mainly kept getting because I occasionally blog about their services, and I figure I should keep myself up to date on what their offerings are.
Otherwise, I'd probably have cancelled by now, since you only need so many reusable items for one household.
Hungry Harvest: I plan to keep this one going, largely because it really makes me eat more produce.
I'm wondering if you still were/are teaching piano. Seems like a long time since you mentioned that.
Your kids (Lisey, oh my!!!!) are looking so grownup.
-Jan
Nope! I quit teaching piano once Zoe started school. Homeschooling four kids at once was just a little too much to handle while teaching piano as well.
So, I've only been teaching my own kids for a while now.
I can always go back to piano teaching later if I want to, but I'm very happy with the decision to pause it for this stage of my life.
Are you planning to post on this blog for another decade or two? Or do you enjoy your new blog more?
-April
(this and the next three questions are all from April, but I'm splitting them up to make this less confusing to read!)
I don't know for sure. Blogging is kind of new in the grand scheme of things, but also kind of old in our fast-paced times. So, I really just have a wait-and-see-what-happens attitude about my blog.
As long as it continues to be viable, I continue to enjoy it, and it continues to serve people, I'll keep typing away.
I do enjoy writing at my other blog, Kristen Prompted, but I don't consider that to be a replacement for this blog.
- Kristen Prompted exists mainly for my own personal enjoyment, though one day maybe it will grow enough to earn some money (right now, it earns exactly $0).
- The Frugal Girl does bring me enjoyment, but it also exists to serve other people and to earn money.
Have you looked into making your blog into a book?
I have not, largely because so many of my posts are not evergreen kind of content that would work well in a book. Posts like Five Frugal Things would be weird in a book!
I definitely am a person who prefers small writing projects over big ones!
I've probably typed the equivalent of multiple books here over the years, but since it's all been done in bite-sized chunks, it hasn't felt overwhelming.
Trying organize the meatier posts of my blog into a book, though? That definitely feels overwhelming.
Why haven’t you started your own mastermind group for bloggers?
This has just never occurred to me! I do belong to a mastermind, but it's managed by other people.
All I have to do is show up and participate. 🙂
If you had to eat the same 30 meals for the rest of your dinners, what would they be?
Boy, that would be a long list to make. I have a hard enough time coming up with a two week meal plan these days.
Maybe I'll list some of the common themes you'd find in my favorite 30 meals:
- Tex-Mex!
- lots of sauce. Everything could do with more sauce, I say.
- spicy foods
- crunchy, colorful veggies (I usually like mine raw or gently cooked)
- plenty of sandwiches (including things like gyros. Put food in any kind of bread, add a sauce and veggies, and I am happy.)
- homemade pizza, because there's nothing like hot from the oven crust
- bowls with meats, grains, veggies, and sauce
- breakfast for dinner, including whipped cream and fruit (like waffles with whipped cream and berries)
- polenta/grits (topped with things like veggies, cheese, a fried egg, or sautéed seafood. And a sauce. SAUCE ALL THE THINGS.)
- soup with fresh bread
What would be common things in your favorite 30 meals?
P.S. If you submitted a question and it didn't get answered in this post, worry not! I have more queued up for the next Q&A post. I just couldn't fit them all into one post without it getting way too long.
I gave up on Mighty Fix after less than a year. It was too much pressure to chose something every month, and i did not want to be surprised. I still have two things I've never used, and some things, like the Lunchskins, had a disappointingly short lifespan. I think MF has its place if you don't already have a fully stocked kitchen, but I do and a huge percentage of what I have was thrifted or otherwise very frugally sourced. Often, I could find the same thing elsewhere for less. Example: Schmidt's Natural deodorant was much cheaper at Costco. Also, I do not buy a lot of HABA items, so not enough value in that category either.
Thanks for the update, Kristen. I'm glad to get my very mixed MF feelings off my chest.
In my very biased opinion there is very little wrong with a meal--at least the ones I make--that more sauce won't fix!
Yes. So many foods are good with more sauce! Stir-fries, sandwiches (they need melty cheese! Or a mayo spread!), pastas...
Yes, including salads! I like a generous amount of dressing on my salad. Usually ranch. Salad without enough dressing is just bleh. I think panera had good salads otherwise but I always have to ask for extra dressing because they seem so dry as is.
I wanted to tell you I made your buttermilk pancakes. They were really good, better than the recipe I was using. I like pancakes, Honey likes waffles so that is where I started using up some buttermilk. To combat food waste I did make changes but I'm fine with the results.
I've been trying to use what I have. I had 1/2 gal of buttermilk for couple weeks. Made beans and cornbread for dinner the other day. I then made waffles for the freezer, using pastry flour so I could save my reg flour. Still had 1 1/2 cups buttermilk left.
I had bought Bob's red mill egg replacement for baking when it was hard to find eggs. I used this and pastry flour. They turned out good so I made more but only had 1/2 cup buttermilk left, so added whole milk to make a cup. I froze these to have another day for a quick meal, tried something new, didn't waste anything, and saved my eggs for another time.
Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Chili & Chicken Chili with lots of toppings
Sauces on everything (Thai Sweet Chili lately)
Chicken garden salads with french fries
Spanikopita has been my stay at home go to
Loved this!
Oh! One of the questions was mine!
So, I agree about Mighty Fix. I used it for 2 or 3 years, but it was just time to stop. I also trimmed a few magazines out of my life and Thrive Market. All are good, but I just didn't feel like I needed them anymore.
What would 30 days of meals look like at my house, hmm. If it was just me eating, the list would look one way, and with my husband eating with me, it would look another way. I'll go with the list that has him eating with me, since, you know, he does.
Tacos would definitely be on the menu.
Stew
Soups -- homemade as a rule
Steak -- our weekly or bi-weekly treat
Chopped salads
Vegetables - especially from the garden; a meal just needs veggies to us, to be a meal
Eggs--- I'm thrilled that eating eggs doesn't bother me. But he will not eat breakfast for dinner, so we usually get them as deviled, or snack on hard boiled, and eat fried or scrambled for breakfast
Burgers
Bacon in many things.
Fruits - I like more fruits than he does, but he'll eat fruit with a meal without a problem
Chicken - he isn't a fan, but he'll eat fried chicken and a few other chicken dishes, especially homemade pot pie.
Pork chops or pulled pork or ribs. Some forms of pork besides bacon would be on our menu
My husband and I did a thought experiment on our walk this past week to say our top 5 foods, and then what we'd do without if we had to. I have to say, both parts of that were hard! I thought making my top 30 meals would be much easier, but, like you, I made a lot of themes and broad categories... I'm still counting it.
-Pasta (spaghetti, pesto, mac and cheese)
-Sushi
-Pizza
-Mexican/Tex-Mex (tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, carnitas, burrito bowls)
-Indian food, like tikka masala and curries
-Thai food (especially Thai tea, curries, pad thai, etc.)
-Americanized Chinese food (guilty pleasure)
-Cheese in many forms, especially brie and goat cheese.
-Chicken dishes, like chicken pot pie, chicken sandwiches, cream of mushroom chicken
-Potatoes (diced, hashbrowns, baked, french fries ALL of the forms)
-Soups
-Grilling meats, especially brats/Italian sausages and hamburgers
-Breakfast foods (omelets, quiches, pancakes, waffles, casseroles)
-Fresh fruit and veggies (kind of imperative in lots of these recipes, but always also as a side)
HA! My husband and I had a conversation about what five times we each would never eat again if the other one died. Mine was oatmeal, ketchup, beans, white bread and cookies. His was all vegetables that were not potatoes, that's it.
I love you in that dress!
I've become obsessed with a recipe for corn salsa and I do love tex mex too. Lots of salads in summer which include fruit sometimes like blueberries or strawberries. Strawberries actually go really well with steak or prawns.
I love meat too so roast chicken, slow roasted lamb shoulder, pork belly. I've recently tried chicken sausage with roast veg and that was nice.
I'm in the UK so I can't get some ingredients as easily as you can, like buttermilk, although I do love buttermilk pancakes!
It's my birthday on Saturday so we're having some kind of meat with dauphinoise potatoes, because things don't have calories on your birthday, right?
I tried the Korean Beef wraps from your recipe and they are delicious! So quick and easy too. On my top 30 list now!
We just made those last week too. They were good!
I hope you continue to blog and this does not become old. I like your blog because you write 1-2 times a week with new stuff or what you did to save money. I used to read other “frugal” blogs and they are repetitious and sad because of all the stuff going on. At this time in my life, I am looking for happiness no matter how hard it is to look for. We all need to be grateful for the things we have rather than complaining about what we don’t have. Thank you Kristen.
You are my favorite blogger, please don't stop!!
I could live off:
- pizza
-sushi
- pasta, especially lasagna or Alfredo sauce
- hamburgers
- some sort of shellfish casseroles
- peanut-butter-anything!
- Doritos!!!!
- bagels and cream cheese from Kettleman's
- sheperd's pie
... it's all about comfort food!
...and cheese!!! HOW could I forget cheese?! Shame on me!
Always yes to more sauce! 😉
As for meals, I think my favorites depend on the season. I really like The Lazy Genius podcast for her tips on seasonal dinner queues. At the beginning of the season, you list 20-30 meals you want to have on rotation for the next three-ish months. That way, when you meal plan, you’ve got a list to pull from. I don’t know about you, but I usually don’t want to boil a big pot of soup and bake bread on hot, humid July afternoons. But in December, yes please!! But, like you, I’m always down for grain bowls and breakfast for dinner!
Thirty meals? I'm pretty sure I make a total of about 10 meals regularly. Tacos with various meat fillings, chili, bunless cheeseburgers, pizza, various kinds of fried meat chunks, stir-fry, curry . . . That's only seven, and I honestly can't think of any more that I make with any regularity. I mean, there's some variety in the sort of meat I cook (sometimes, and sometimes it's elk five out of seven days) and in the starch I serve with it, but really different meals just don't happen much here.
I suspect that the more a person cooks, the less variety that person is likely to have, because it just takes too much mental effort to sustain novel cooking day in and day out. Given our eating out situation--in that we, um, don't--I probably rely more on rote cooking than most people. And that's just fine.
I read somewhere when I was newly married that most families have 10 or fewer meals in their regular rotation. My husband loves variety and wanted more than that, so I worked toward that end. I peaked when I menu planned for a whole month at at a time and did not include any duplicate meals, and allowed for eating out 1x per month. I'm not that good anymore. Typically we probably have about 15-20 meals in rotation, and those change a bit from year to year. Right now my list of loves includes the following:
-fajitas/tacos/texmex
-salads with nuts and seeds
-grilled meats (steak, chicken, pork chops) and veggies
-homemade soups
-skillet dinners (potatoes and sausage, rice and beans, etc.)
We eat mostly vegetarian so our go to foods are:
-vegetable thai curry
-indian food (usually a flat bread, a vegetable, a dal and rice)
-salads (kids like caesar, I like any salad without a dairy based dressing)
-pizza
-pasta (mac n cheese, buttered noodles, veggie pasta, baked pasta)
- burritos/burrito bowls, tacos, quesadillas
-omelettes/scrambled eggs
-Breakfast foods waffles, oatmeal,pancakes, hashbrowns, french toast, bagels
-salmon and rice
-veggies for sides - usually raw or roasted
- sandwiches (veggie, pbj, grilled cheese)
-Fruit for sides
-Ramen bowls (we load them up with veggies to bump up the nutrition and sometimes I make a spicy broth)
-Baked potatoes
-Tofu stir fry with rice or tofu scrambles
Hi! I've been reading (and loving) your blog for several years. I agree with you that sauces make food fantastic... however, I didn't grow up learning how to use and make sauces and so it's extremely intimidating to me. Could you talk more about what kinds you like and what you put them on? Any kind of inspiration and encouragement regarding sauce making and using would be super awesome!! Thank you so much!
I hope you don't mind my asking this, but do you pay for your kids college tuition? How about their car purchase? If you don't, do you mind sharing how you go about it? TIA
Hi Kristen! I'm a loyal reader, but an infrequent commenter. I am thankful for your blog because I've gotten so many good frugal ideas and recipes from it that have now become a regular part of my routine, so thank you for continuing to bring joy to us readers! I have a question about working from home now that many of us are doing so for the first time. Could you maybe tell us what a typical working from home day looks like? Maybe what kind of schedule (or not!) you typically follow? I think it would be interesting to see how other people schedule out their days, especially for those of us who are new to it. I am a teacher and never imagined myself working from home, so this is all very new and uncharted territory for me!
Also, if we had to eat the same 30 meals on rotation (which may be what we do anyway!), breakfast for dinner would for sure be on our list as well. That is my one night off from cooking--my husband makes us "cheesy eggs" (just scrambled eggs with cheese) with some breakfast-y sides once a week, and we never seem to get tired of it!
I would love to read a post on teens and car insurance. We have 2 sons, now 19 and 21, and our car insurance bill has tripled. It’s outrageous! I’m wonder what tips or advice you have for shopping for car insurance. Thanks!
Thought I would comment because I've recently been searching for car insurance with teens. State Farm has a couple programs that bring the cost down if you participate and if you have Pemco in your area, they are cheaper as well.
I do enjoy your blog, and also enjoy reading all the comments, so I hope you continue. I recently made your squash yeast rolls for the first time (got butternut and acorn squash in my produce box) and we love them! Plus they were so easy to make. I put them in the freezer and just bring out what we need for each meal. It has been years since I made yeast bread, but now that I've been successful with those rolls, I am planning to try some of your other bread recipes.
Well, that is just delightful to hear! I'm so glad my recipe got you back into yeast baking.
I love the Q&A posts! I have a few:
-How has your attitude to frugality changed with time, as your children are older (and yes, the rest of us are too!)
-Has this changed attitude led to changes in spending, are there new things to be frugal about, or are you frugal with fewer things?
-How about when your husband or older children disagree about which things to be frugal about, and have different spending habits?
-Do you get discouraged with frugality, the feeling of never "getting ahead", comparing yourself to others who seem to have an easier time without the sacrifices you make (and not just seem to, but really have an easier time)?
-Are there unexpected things you find that are frugal, that you would not have thought to be?
Thank you! I do hope you find joy in blogging for many more years. I'm on social media, but it tends to be busy, and I like the quieter, more thoughtful atmosphere of a blog.
I'm not sure I could come up with 30, but I know eggs and any kind of curry are certainly on the list.
Maybe you'll answer this in your next Q&A: Do you have any frugal habits that you may not tell most people about or are a little embarrassing (i.e. reusing floss, diluting soap, limiting electricity usage etc.)? I love to hear little things people do that become habits to be more frugal. I know I have a few that others may find extreme.
I blog, but have never heard of a mastermind group. What does it entail?
Generally, it's a group of people who meet regularly to help, inform, and encourage each other as well as keep each other accountable to their goals.
Ours meets every other week for an hour, so it's a pretty small time commitment.