Bakery Outlet: Frugal Treasure or Rip Off?

Today, after reading & reading about the wonders of bakery outlets, Emerson & I finally ventured to our local Hostess Bakery Outlet.  I admit, I went in with extremely high hopes of dirt cheap baked goods, cereal, & more. Unfortunately, I didn't find the cheap confections I had assumed I would. 

Here's what I did find:

• A very clean little shop--The store was set up nicely, with cute, tiny carts, & very pristine, orderly shelves.  

• A rather limited selection--There really weren't all that many options & I only found a few loaves of whole wheat bread.

• Prices weren't what I would consider outlet--In general, all of the bakery prices seemed just as high as regular retail.  With the exception of packages of a dozen whole wheat hamburger buns (meant for restaurants), everything was higher than Aldi's prices.  For instance, plain bagels at Aldi are $1.49.  The outlet had plain bagels for $1.79.  

Our local Dollar Tree doesn't have a set day in which they get their baked goods, which makes getting consistent deals difficult, but I think for now I'll stick to trying to get our whole wheat bread for a dollar & supplement with baked goods from Aldi.  

It was worth a shot...

On My Mind--A Day Late

Rhonda over at The Frugal Home does an On My Mind series on Friday.  I fell asleep before I could post my version, so forgive my tardiness. 

On my mind this week is this blanket I knitted when I was pregnant with Emerson.  Those white pieces of yarn coming out are some Lions Brand Suede yarn that I got at Big Lots for $1.50 a skein.  I took the blanket you see above apart & reknitted it, hoping that all I needed was to pay attention & a tighter stitch.  Unfortunately I'm mostly done with blanket number two & that dang yarn is doing the same pulled out curly thing.  After trying to knit this blanket twice with the same materials it is clear to me that despite my inferior knitting skills, the problem with the yarn, not the knitter.  Clearly there was a reason why the yarn was so cheap.  Ugh.  Hopefully I can pull it apart & finish it AGAIN (without the suede yarn) by Christmas. 

Frugal Experiments

I suppose I just miss chemistry class, but I truly enjoy experimenting around the house. I'm always trying to find a greener & cheaper way of doing things I already do.  Here are a few of my latest efforts:

Recycling Pickle Juice-- I have read in both the Tightwad Gazette & other frugal websites that by taking the pickle juice of store bought pickles & adding a new cucumber you can create your own pickles.  So when I ran out of Vlasic pickles (my favorite non-store brand pickles) I figured I should try it out. 

I promptly bought 2 pickling cucumbers, sliced them up, submerged them in the juice, & left the on the counter to pickle.

 
I think I waited around a week & a half before I opened the jar, but as soon as I opened the lid I could tell something was...off.  The juice was carbonated & it smelled like pickles & beer.  Never being one to shy away from such things I pushed through the strange smell & tried a pickle.  It was rather firm, rather carbonated, & didn't really taste much like any pickle I've ever had.  I'm not sure if the pickling time was a factor or what, but for me, this was a major Frugal Fail. 

Spaghetti for a candle lighter--For most candles, once they burn down  you have to use one of those long butane lighters, which are expensive, & to my knowledge, not recyclable.  To cut down on the waste try using a piece of spaghetti. 

Simply light the end of the spaghetti & then use it to reach down to your low laying wick.  After you've extinguished the flame simply snap off the end, throw out the ash, & save the piece of spaghetti for the next time you need to light a candle.  I love using this method & haven't bought one of those long lighters in years.  I will say that my sisters don't like this method because they don't like the smell of the burnt spaghetti.  Try it once & find out for yourself.  The smell doesn't really bother me & goes away quickly, so for me, this is the way to go.


Conditioner for shaving cream--I use my razor blades forever.  They have to be dull as dirt & rusty before I'll change them out.  That being said, after a while I need a little something on my legs to lessen the feeling of my skin being pulled off as I shave.  I've heard the suggestion of using conditioner as a shave cream for many years now, but I've never been in a position where I felt it would be financially worth my while, seeing as how I have always seemed to have a stockpile of nearly free shaving cream. 

That was until I pulled out my last can of shaving cream & realized I had a whole lot of conditioner & not a lot of shaving cream, so I figured what the heck, I'd try it.  It actually works REALLY well.  Like, amazingly well.  Like, I may never ever buy shaving cream again well.  It sticks to your skin better than shaving cream, doesn't dissolve as quickly in water, you don't have to use very much (a dime size/ half a leg), & it's a great way to use up hotel conditioner that doesn't really do it for your hair. 

I'm not sure what the financial breakdown between using shaving cream & conditioner would be, especially because I haven't spent much money on either for years, but, if you happen to have a large stockpile of unused conditioner this is a great & cheap way to shave.

Even if you just try one of these things they'll save you some cash & trash.  Any of you lovely readers have any other great frugal/green tips to share? 

Frugal Fail: Repairing Bleached Clothes

At my home I never use bleach.  I just don't.  Because I don't use it, I seem to not know how to be around it; which is why when I was cleaning with bleach water at my gram's I proceeded to get it all over one of my favorite shirts.

I was heart broken & without solutions.  I've made the vow not to buy any new clothes this year, so I decided I should try one last ditch effort  to try to fix this shirt.  I grabbed a matching Sharpie & went to town.

Unfortunately it turned out like this--one big Sharpie colored blotch.  Ugh.  I may try to dye it later in the summer, but for now I think I'll just wear it around the house.  Note to self--Do not get anywhere near a bottle of bleach. 

Frugal Fail: Gardening Edition

This isn't me, but the picture was so similar to what I attempted, I couldn't resist. 

I'm a bit of a procrastinator at the game of life.  I don't mean to be, but somehow I can't get anything done until the absolute last second.  Maybe it's genetic, my mom & sisters are the same way.  I've been planning to have a garden since we moved in to our house two years ago this August.  Last year it just didn't happen, but I still had high hopes, and would day dream about a lush garden often.  

Of course come fall, when good gardeners prepare their gardens, what did I do?  Why nothing of course.  Why would I do the most logical thing & prep our garden in the fall?   So come spring I decided to try to suffocate the grass that was planted in my prime garden spot.  I raked all of our leaves from the fall (why would we rake them up when they actually fell?), piled them on our garden spot, & tarped them down in hopes that the grass would suffocate & die.  After about two month the grass was close to dead,  so we uncovered it, mulched up the leaves & planned on tilling the soil.  The only problem is that it rained...for like two weeks, and we never were able to get the soil tilled.

Needless to say the grass had a lovely renaissance during our little monsoon season, and was nowhere near dead by the time it was finally dry enough to till.  Which brings me to today.  We went ahead & tilled the garden, hoping it would sufficiently tear up the grass (it didn't), but we HAD to get the seedlings in the ground, so I charged ahead.

I had been reading about using newspaper as an organic weed block, so I decided to try it.  I wet the sheets of paper, and lovingly layed them all out to cover the entirety of the garden.  The tedious process took the better part of two hours.  Then I got to planting.  It went rather well, & I had planted the majority of the garden when all of the sudden, we had a rather large gust of wind....and you guess it...in one fell swoop ALL of the papers went EVERYWHERE.  And I of course, embarrassed as heck, I scrambled all over after them, trying to pick them up before our neighbors thought we were real hillbillies.  It was so depressing.

Suffice it to say that I firmly believe that our little seedlings will be choked out by grass, and the ones that actually do survive will probably be eaten by Penelope, the neighborhood wild rabbit, her babies, & extended relatives.  Frustration thy name is gardening. 

Frugal Fail: Homemade Yogurt

We love yogurt around here, and after finding a recipe that made yogurt in a Crockpot I was sold.  I bought organic whole milk, organic yogurt, and got the recipe here.  I followed the recipe, put the Crockpot in the fridge over night for it to thicken, and in the morning I got:

That's right. Yogurt flavored milky mess.  Sooooo disappointing.  Not one to give up on frugal experiments easily, I scoured the internet for a solution.  I found a MUCH BETTER tutorial here, and felt confident that I could make something out of this horrific mess.

Like a woman possessed I decided to add MORE organic milk, some powdered milk, and reheated the milky mess, praying that it would thicken.  I stood at the stove, measuring the temperature, making sure the milk didn't burn, whisking continuously, only to wind up with NASTY curdled grossness, which could only mean one thing...

FREAKIN' Ricotta cheese.  DANG  IT!  I KNEW from the second tutorial that I read that you could turn your unthickened yogurt into ricotta, but somehow I assumed that I was exempt from the laws of chemistry.  Wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

After wasting 8 cups of organic milk and, fortunately, only 2 tbsp of organic yogurt, & separating the curds and whey (while reciting Little Miss Muffet) I have:

This much Ricotta

and a bowl full of whey. 

And we just finished eating lasagna last week.  Ugh.  I saved the whey, because I read online that it is supposed to have tremendous health benefits, but it makes me feel rather vomitous, so I think I may pitch it.

World's most expensive ricotta, anyone?