What’s a frugal trick you’ve chanced upon recently?
I accidentally semi-reinvented the “trencher”. Basically, in medieval times, food would be served on a slab of bread and that would kinda be the plate. Or, you know, bread bowls for soup and the like.
I have an air fryer, and I’ve learned I can line the basket in a large flour tortilla, and it generally keeps whatever I’m cooking/warming up from getting the pan too dirty aside from some easily knocked-out crumbs.
I hate washing things, and I hate wasting paper liners, so it lets me cut down on those, and I can just eat the tortilla.
Make my own brown sugar oatmeal. The big tubes of plain instant oats are cheap. I add a spoonful of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. Saves about 50% off the packets. Not much, but it adds up if 2 people have oatmeal every morning.
I see your great idea and raise it with the “lose it” concept…
Have an end of a bread loaf you don’t know what to do with? How about the crumbs left over in that bag of cereal or nuts? The next time you make oatmeal, just add them to the pot (cutting up the bread beforehand of course).
Losing it like this makes breakfast more interesting and make use of the (yes minucule) stuff that might otherwise be thrown away.
If you made too much rice the night before, you can throw that in with the oatmeal, too.
Oh man too much rice is a tip in itself.
I now always make to much rice. Having just a little bit left is a bit of a pain or I throw it away but if I purposely make too much rice then I have a simple lunch with some seaweed tomorrow, or a nice fried rice for dinner in the next week, I can fry it as a side with some cheese. Congee. Rice is super duper useful and having some cooked means a lot simpler a meal or 2 always.
Rice goes with almost everything. I always make “too much” and use it over the next two days. If I don’t feel like having some as a side dish, I make rice pudding and have it for desert.
Your options are many. I like putting chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, hemp hearts, and ground up flax seed in mine.
Brown sugar is usually manufactured by taking white sugar and adding molasses to it. you can save money by doing that yourself, plus it doesn’t cake up anymore.
Great idea. My wife was going through those packets like crazy, and that was fine while they were on sale, but not anymore.
We do have plain oatmeal, but I’ll float the idea of making our own brown sugar oatmeal!
I eat oatmeal daily and may actually do this one.