Get Your Money’s Worth Out Of Those Thanksgiving Leftovers – Frugal Challenge

Now that Thanksgiving is over and our leftovers are disappearing… oh, they aren’t?

I see we have a problem.  I’ve been talking to many folks just like you who always make a lot of food for Thanksgiving and just get tired of eating it after about the third day.  Another plate of turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole just isn’t going to make it past the family again.

My challenge every year is how do I disguise the leftovers?  I know I could probably cut down on the amount of food I make each Thanksgiving, but what’s the fun of that?  Besides, I’d rather cook once and have meals for a week than cook every day.  It’s more economical in the long run, although it takes a bit of imagination to re-create your Thanksgiving dishes into something brand new.

Here are just a couple ways that I have successfully served meals made from leftovers without too much trouble.

Turkey Soup – This, of course, is the simplest way to stretch your turkey dinner without a lot of fuss.  I always use my turkey frame, or carcass, to boil up a nice rich batch of turkey stock.  I’ve included a recipe to do this if you’d like to click here and see how I turn my turkey bones into soup.  Once the stock is ready you can add anything you like normally in your soup, like vegetables, pasta, and rice.  If you have leftover veggies from your crudite platter, throw those in, as well.

Creamy Turkey Soup – When the green bean casserole, stuffing, and mashed potatoes get to be too much, throw them all into your food processor with some of the turkey stock you made and blend it up.  The result is a very thick and rich base for a cream soup.  Mix and match your vegetables just like you would if they were raw, keeping similar vegetables together – like broccoli and cauliflower, carrots and sweet potatoes, etc.  When the cooked veggies are all blended nice and smooth, pour into a soup pot.    You can add milk or cream if you like, and even some cheese, even throw in a bit of diced turkey for a hearty chowder.  It tastes like Thanksgiving In A Pot.  If you have leftover pumpkin puree and sweet potato casserole you may want to experiment with a creamy soup that’s a little sweet.

Layered Casserole – Instead of putting plates together over and over again of the same three, four, or five ingredients, try layering them in a casserole dish.  Be careful not to overcook when you heat the casserole since everything was cooked once and you don’t want your vegetables to get mushy.  If you have a lot of leftover stuffing and gravy, try a dish with layers of stuffing, turkey, gravy, and fresh, frozen, or leftover broccoli, cauliflower, or green beans topped with a little more gravy.  This seems to be a favorite in our house.

Quiche – Add a little cheese to any leftovers and you’ll hear no complaints!  This is a great way to use up a couple leftovers; stuffing and turkey.  The way it works is the stuffing becomes a mock-crust when mixed with a beaten egg.  You press the mixture into a pie pan and voila!  A crust for your quiche.  If you’d like to check out the Thanksgiving Quiche recipe in full, just click here.

Those are a few very simple ideas.  Of course, you can get more complicated, but I like to keep it as simple as possible.  If you’d like to see even more Holiday recipe ideas click right here.  I know the holidays will be busy for you, so please take the time to plan your meals and your leftovers so you have more time to relax with your family.

Continue reading Get Your Money’s Worth Out Of Those Thanksgiving Leftovers – Frugal Challenge …

From Hillbilly Housewife Blog.

Free Christmas banquet in Toledo

Continue reading Free Christmas banquet in Toledo …

From Monroe on a Budget.

Putting the “Important but Not Urgent” Tasks Above the “Urgent but Not Important” Tasks

One of the biggest personal and professional frustrations that I have (and that a lot of others seem to share) is that there’s never enough time to get to the important things we want to do.

We want to do things like…
+ visit an old relative
+ create a master information document
+ work on a big project
+ make out a will
+ get involved in a community organization
+ get our masters degree in the evenings and weekends

Instead, we fill our time…
+ catching that can’t-miss show on television
+ surfing the web for some obscure piece of trivia
+ answering the phone and chatting with whoever answers
+ dealing with email
+ doing dishes
+ stopping at the grocery store for the third time this week

The first group of tasks are things that I would call “important but not urgent.” These are things that don’t have to be addressed immediately, but still have serious importance and value in our lives.

The second group of tasks are things that I would call “urgent but not important.” These are things that try to grab our attention and focus now but have no real impact on our long-term lives.

It’s easy to let our lives be run by the things that are “urgent but not important.” Most large bureaucracies function in this way. I know that my previous job certainly did at times. We often manage our lives this way – we’ll look around, ask ourselves what needs to be addressed right now, and then focus on dealing with that task just because it’s due today, even if it’s trivial compared to a much more important thing.

We’ll answer the phone several times in an hour even though it means constantly stepping away from a big project.
We’ll watch the big game tonight and call our elderly mother in a few days.
We’ll surf the web for trivia but let our dreams of a masters degree sit idle.

I do this myself, more often than I would like. Since I have two articles “due” on a given day for The Simple Dollar, it’s often easiest to focus wholly on the task that needs to be done today (those two articles) instead of stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of writing really long-lasting useful information. It’s easier to look around the house, see a big mess, and tackle it, even though my kids are quietly clamoring for more attention.

I find that four little things help me keep the “important but not urgent” in the forefront and let the “urgent but not important” things slide.

I’m unafraid to turn off my phone and email. Closing off channels through which the “urgent but not important” tasks can interrupt the “important but not urgent” tasks goes a long way towards maintaining my focus in the right areas. If it’s not important, it can wait. If it truly is important, I’ll know about it as soon as I’m available since I’ll check my messages.

I block off time for long-term projects. I spend part of every day focused on projects with a long-term payoff. For example, for much of July, August, September, and October, I focused heavily on the manuscript of my book. This didn’t help me at all in my day-to-day work, but it did build something with much greater long-term value. (Yes, I’m working on a long-term project now related to The Simple Dollar – no, I’m not ready to announce it.)

I sometimes will utterly drop the unimportant but urgent things if they’re getting in the way. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with little requests. If I focused on nothing but those requests, I’d never get anything done. So, sometimes, I just have to drop those requests. I’ll put off responding to an email – or not even respond at all if there’s not an obvious answer needed. I’ll skip watching the “big game” and catch the highlights later. I’ll actively choose to put my communications devices away.

I’m acutely aware of what’s truly important to me – and what isn’t. One final trick is understanding what’s actually important to me – and how relatively important various things are. Quite often, it’s easy to substitute urgency for importance – but that often leaves you putting out fires and not really accomplishing anything. Sometimes, it’s best to ignore the fires and focus on the important things.

As I often say to my wife, “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather have dirty floors and well-adjusted children than a spotless house and sullen kids.”

Continue reading Putting the “Important but Not Urgent” Tasks Above the “Urgent but Not Important” Tasks …

From The Simple Dollar.

Stain Pretreater

Stain Pretreater

½ cup vinegar ½ cup Wisk
½ cup ammonia ½ cup water

Mix all ingredients and store in a spray bottle. Spray on anything with grease or food spots. Wash as usual.

Continue reading Stain Pretreater …

From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.

Two potluck desserts next week? I’m not panicking

I have to bring desserts for two Christmas parties next week – one that I knew about six weeks ago, and one that I found out about 10 minutes ago.

But I’m not panicking. I know those events pop up during the holiday season. You do too. Stock up when prices are cheap for ingredients to set aside in your pantry for appropriate contributions, and you won’t panic when the invites arrive.

The first party is a group of friends who adore my chocolate fudge cake, but because the food shortening chemistry has changed in recent years I can no longer get that icing recipe to work consistently. I offered a Candy Cane cake instead, and that is getting some “ooh, that sounds interesting” responses.

No problem. I have a box of white cake mix and all the appropriate ingredients in my pantry. I even have the peppermint dust already prepped. What’s peppermint dust? It’s crushed-up candy canes!

The other party is an office party. So I just put out the word on another network to my co-workers: tell me if you want Candy Cane cake or pumpkin bread.

I already have a pumpkin bread mix that I set aside for the random potluck request. I’ll need another box of white cake mix if my co-workers want Candy Cane cake instead, but that’s easy to deal with.

What is Candy Cake Cake?

Ooooh … take a look!

Continue reading Two potluck desserts next week? I’m not panicking …

From Monroe on a Budget.

Christmas dinner for Flat Rock seniors

This post is for my readers in Flat Rock, Mich., and is in today’s edition of The Monroe Evening News:

Tuesday Dec. 1 is the deadline to sign up for a free Christmas buffet for senior citizens 55 and older from 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday Dec. 10 at the community center, 1 Maguire Dr., Flat Rock.

The event is for residents of Flat Rock, Mich., only and sponsored by the City of Flat Rock. Entertainment will be provided by the Silver Springs Society.

Shuttle service will be available, but reservations are required. Those who plan to attend should call the center at (734) 379-1450.

Continue reading Christmas dinner for Flat Rock seniors …

From Monroe on a Budget.

No-Slip Dishtowels: Clever Tip

Today’s feature is from Martha Stewart with this clever idea for making No-Slip Dish Towels:
blockquote>Hanging a dish towel from an oven door makes sense — the towel is always at the ready, and the oven’s warmth quickly dispels dampness.
Here’s a way to improve on the idea, keeping the towel from slipping off.
The idea is to [...]

• Also See These Tips:
• 10 Clever Dish Towel Crafts
• Bath Towel Apron Pattern: Vintage
• Quick & Easy Summer Library Tote

Continue reading No-Slip Dishtowels: Clever Tip …

From TipNut.com.

Santa visits, parades and other free fun in Monroe County

This post is for my readers who live in or near Monroe County, Mich.

If you are looking for frugal family holiday fun to replace the more expensive Christmas entertainment such as visits to the zoo’s Christmas light display, a personal visit from Santa, tickets to a holiday musical or ballet, you are in luck.

A lot of the community Christmas events in the Monroe County, Mich., area are free or on a donation basis. And this is the week when many of those events take place. I’m one of the reporters who gets those notices scheduled for The Monroe Evening News, so I know what’s been announced.

I have all the local holiday events posted and tagged at the MonroeTalks calendar. The notices include when Santa is making appearances, when the parades are kicking off, where you can admire a collection of Christmas trees, and when and where the holiday music concerts are taking place.

Be sure to check that list frequently during the next two weeks – I’m pretty sure we don’t have all the holiday event notices on file yet. I have appealed many times during the past few years to event committees to get notices to the newspaper way in advance so to get the best impact for the publicity. But some events still get announced on a very short time frame. A bunch of those notices arrived to my desk just in the past couple of days.

Continue reading Santa visits, parades and other free fun in Monroe County …

From Monroe on a Budget.

Cyber Monday Deals

One of my favorite things to do is to shop Amazon.com on Cyber Monday. They have some of the best deals available on items for decorating your house. They also offer free shipping if you order $25 or more.

Here are a couple of things that I picked up this morning! Both are Christmas presents–one for me and one for a friend!

The first purchase I made was my Christmas present. Now usually we are VERY frugal about buying things, but this has been on my want list for years. My sweet husband saved all year long. We waited and waited and waited and FINALLY it was put on sale! Look!

Not only is this item on sale for $242.99, BUT there is a $30 rebate so I am getting a Kitchenaid Mixer for $212! I am so excited! This is my biggest purchase this year, and I am so grateful that my husband wanted to bless me with this item. He is so sweet!

I snagged Country Living Magazine for a friend who loves this magazine but cannot afford it every year! They have a special right now for only $10!

So what are buying today? Did you find any great deals on Black Friday? Send me the photos and I will post them on the blog to showcase those great bargains!

Continue reading Cyber Monday Deals …

From Econobusters.

Reader Mailbag #91

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

I’m 30 years old and my wife and I are in the market for a new car. Combined, we earn roughly $150K a year and have about the same in savings. Both of our current cars are paid off, worth about $15K each, and we would be selling one of them. We are also completely debt free other than a mortgage on a rental property. A friend of mine recently starting talking about the Time Value of Money and says that it is better in the long run to take out a loan for the ~$30K car instead of paying cash for it up front. What is best in my situation? Pay cash or take out a loan?
- Jon

Let’s back up a minute to clarify what Jon is talking about. The “time value of money” idea is an argument that money today is worth an equal amount to a higher sum of money tomorrow. So, for example, let’s say you have an account that earns a 5% return. $1,000 in that account today is exactly the same as $1,050 in that account tomorrow.

The friend is basically arguing that your $30,000 in savings will earn more over the next few years than the interest on your car loan. Now, if you can get a 0% interest loan or an extremely low interest loan, that’s probably true. We did this on our own car loan for our Prius and chose to keep the money in the bank because, after four years, we would have more money by just sitting on our savings than we would by paying the entire bill up front.

The problems with this are twofold. One, savings accounts aren’t earning much interest right now, nor are freshly-bought CDs. We were able to do well because we had a lot of our money in longer-term CDs that did carry a higher interest rate. Two, even if it’s close, there’s a psychological risk in keeping the cash because you become tempted to spend it. When you’re in debt without the money in hand to pay it off, that’s a risk (one that a lot of people underestimate).

Unless you can get full 0% financing, I would pay cash for the car. If you can get full 0% financing, it makes sense to me to hold onto the money and just make payments out of that savings account, because you’ll likely earn $100 in interest (or so) for your efforts.

Have you ever felt like just walking away from everything in your life and starting over? The cover story in the December issue of Wired is really making me think about doing it.
- Sarah

I can fully understand the temptation for doing this. Once a person’s life hits a certain threshold of trouble (particularly when it seems that the positives outweigh the negatives), it’s often very tempting to walk away from it.

What I’ve found, though, is that often the negative things are temporary, while the positive things last much longer. Bad jobs, bad relationships, bad debts, and so on can be eliminated with time and effort. Loved ones, on the other hand, are often there for the very long haul.

Instead of running away, try to tackle some of the negative things in your life head-on. You might be surprised at what you can solve.

I am trying to decide which is the better option in terms of what to do with $200 extra dollars a month that I have. Currently, I am putting that extra money towards my mortgage to work on getting it paid off. However, I don’t currently have any type of retirement plan. Would I be better off starting an IRA and putting the extra money towards that? As a note, I am 24 years old.
- jtenman

I would definitely put that extra $200 a month towards retirement. As young as you are, a dollar put away for retirement today will have an enormous value later on.

I would probably encourage you to open a Roth IRA. A Roth IRA lets you put in post-tax money (the money in your paycheck), but if you wait until you’re 59 1/2 to touch the interest, you can withdraw the interest tax-free. Not only that, you can take your contributions back out at any time without penalty.

Thus, if you do make the decision to do something differently in the future, you can access your contributions without penalty, but you don’t lose the interest you’ve accumulated in any way.

I would like to know how you are able to sit in on a class at the university? Do you just go to the class you’d like visit or do you make arrangements with the professor?
- Maranda

For the large lectures (100+ people), I’ve just gone in, sat down, and listened to the lecture. No one has ever said a word to me.

For smaller ones, I have asked the professor whether he/she minded if I sat in on their class. None of them minded in the least, though a few asked that I give up my seat to actual students if there was an overflow.

I think most college professors believe that students are mostly paying the fees to earn the credits and the feedback on their work, but that their lectures are essentially free to everyone. This may not be universally true, but it has been true in my own experience.

Have you ever tried to make your own lotion and chapstick? I find I go through a ton of the stuff during the winter, and good lotion is kind of expensive.
- Chelsea

I’ve never had any success making either one of these items with any level of quality.

There are just simply some things that are difficult to make in a home environment. Truly moisturizing hand lotion is one of them (I believe). I think lip moisturizer would be possible to make, but compared to the cost of just buying a tube of it, I don’t believe it’s worth it.

If I actually use something a lot and it provides a lot of value to my life (as hand lotion seems to add to yours), I don’t mind paying for the good stuff.

I know you keep notes on lots of different areas of your life, but I’m interested in a particular area: Work-related ideas. I take so many notes at work (in meetings, requests from my boss, things to follow up on, etc.) and sometimes, I have ideas for things to pursue that I can’t necessarily work on right now, but want to keep in mind for the future.

Do you keep notes on “big ideas” for your blog, and if so, how do you keep those ideas from getting lost in the day-to-day shuffle? Do you have any suggestions on how to budget “big idea cultivation” into work time?
- Jenny

I keep a “work notebook” in Microsoft OneNote 2007. In that, I have a lot of different things and, yes, one of them is a “big ideas” list. Mostly, these are the large-scale projects that I want to accomplish with The Simple Dollar.

Each day, I set aside two hours to work on such projects. Sometimes, if I’m well ahead on my writing, I’ll set aside full days to work on such projects.

The big challenge for me is separating the “urgent but not important” and putting them aside, something I’m going to write about in detail soon.

One of the problems I’m facing these days in trying to restart my own career is reading overload. This is made worse because my reading speed has decreased over the years, due to a couple of medical issues.

What’s your approximate reading speed? How long (in hours) would it take you to finish reading a three hundred page novel? A New York Times editorial?

And if you ever feel overwhelmed by the reading load, how do you triage for selecting which things to read?
- Kate

I read at different speeds depending on my purpose. I can read extremely quickly, but it doesn’t provide a whole lot of enjoyment for me. Such speedreading feels like work, not pleasure. So, when I need to absorb something quickly, I can. I can blow through a 300 page book in a couple hours.

When I read for enjoyment, I tend to read much more slowly. It can take me several hours to get through a 300 page book if I’m reading it for personal enrichment.

I never feel overwhelmed by reading. I enjoy reading quite a bit and I take time for it. Sometimes, my allowance for reading time makes me feel overloaded in other areas, though.

Trent does have some trolls as well as some others who verge on trollish behavior. But I’m pretty sure he can tell the difference between a troll and someone who disagrees with him.
- Shevy

Actually, I often can’t tell the difference between a well-meaning person with a somewhat aggressive tone and a clever troll.

The big problem is that many trolls do what is called “concern trolling.” They go onto comment fields or messageboards, try to find some area where they can possibly stir up disagreement, then make an effort to write something that seems like a legitimate concern but is there to do nothing more than to stir people up because they enjoy conflict and disharmony. It happens a lot. Several regular commenters on The Simple Dollar are concern trolls – they only post “concerns” about what I’m writing, then they sit back and try to encourage a feeding frenzy.

The problem with concern trolls is that sometimes their concerns are legitimate – but quite often they’re not. It’s often impossible for me to tell which is which, and I’ve guessed wrong in the past. It’s one of many reasons where I don’t like participating in comments, because I’ll see a concern troll at work and I know it’s a “no win” battle to get involved. Of course, clever concern trolls often demand that I get involved in the discussion and use my non-involvement as “proof” that I’m not paying attention – but why would I want to be involved?

I usually filter out the blatant trolling – the people who issue very personal and specific threats towards me and my children (yes, I get these kinds of things regularly), the foul language, obvious hate speech, name-calling, and so on. It gets much more difficult to filter it out in the grey areas – “concern trolling” and the like.

Hopefully, now you see one of the very un-fun parts of doing The Simple Dollar.

Do you and your wife have any differences of opionion on finances/frugality/etc. where you’ve had to compromise? I know my husband and I both have different things we wish the other was more and less frugal about.
- Chelsea

Yes, we often disagree on some areas. My wife tends to be a big “saver” of things, because she sees that items often have a potential second use and it’s wasteful to throw them out. On the other hand, I’d prefer to be a minimalist and get rid of lots of stuff. We often clash over this and the end result has been days where I do nothing but get rid of things while my wife is at work (with her knowing fully that I’m going to spend the day doing it, of course).

Most of the time, though, we’re in agreement on frugal choices. We both like to eat at home. We both are willing to try generics, but abandon them if they don’t do the job well enough. We both like making homemade solutions – like laundry detergent.

If there’s something we disagree on – for example, if one of us thinks the generic is “good enough” while the other is frustrated – we usually talk it out and reach some sort of compromise. Often, with such situations above, we’ll either buy a higher quality brand or leave one of us responsible for “incidents” with the generics (like a ripped bag).

I have about $5k in self employed income for 2009. Through income earned from my regular job I have already maxed out my Roth IRA and will max out my 401k by the end of the year. Am I eligible to contribute a portion of my self-employed income to a SEP IRA?
- Jo

Yes. The only requirements are that you’re at least 21 years old, that you’ve been involved in that type of self-employment for three years or more, and that you’ve earned more than $500. I’d contact Vanguard (they’re who I use) and get one set up.

I’m wondering, though, why you would want to contribute more toward retirement if you’ve already maxed out a Roth IRA and a 401(k). I guess this would be okay if you’re trying to make up for a lot of lost time, but if you’re in a solid place with your retirement savings, you might want to take that money and use it elsewhere in your life – paying off debts and so on.

One way I would strongly consider investing that $5,000 is in energy efficiency improvements for your home. Installing better windows, improving your insulation, installing a programmable thermostat, and maybe even putting solar panels on your roof are all well within the $5,000 you have. That investment reduces your energy bills, improves the resale value of your home, and might even make you eligible for tax breaks.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Continue reading Reader Mailbag #91 …

From The Simple Dollar.

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