Who’s ready for a look at some recent frugal decisions/outcomes in our household?
1 | Leftovers!
We are a leftovers family. I’m so glad we have relatively little food waste, and nothing brings me greater joy than opening the fridge and discovering I don’t have to cook because there aren’t just ingredients in there… there is actual food.
One of my biggest wins lately was taking the last of our Christmas dinner leftovers—butternut squash, mashed potatoes, crisp corn, turkey, and gravy—and transforming them into a delicious soup. I added a sprinkle of this and that in terms of spices, some water, and a handful of frozen peas. Bam. Delicious—and it literally came together in less than five minutes.
2 | Buying reduced produce.
On New Year’s Eve, all sorts of veggies were marked down since the stores were going to be closed on New Year’s Day. I bought two bell peppers for $1.49, a whole bag of (delicious) grape tomatoes—also $1.49—and three zucchini (not pictured) for, you guessed it, $1.49. I went home, chopped them up, and roasted them. Delish.
I also bought reduced asparagus, which was amazing; all we had to do was turn on the oven and pop it in. It already had olive oil and seasoning on it.
3 | Buying Christmas items post-Christmas.
Things like cards and ornaments are deeply discounted after Christmas. I used up most of my gift card holders, so I grabbed a package of those, a few ornaments (one I can’t show because it’s going to be our family ornament next year!), and I feel like you can never have too many backup sets of twinkle lights, so I bought two sets at 50% off.
4 | I don’t drink alcohol.
This saves… a lot of money year-round, but especially over the holidays.
5 | Baked French Toast.
Not only did I use up all the crusts languishing in our freezer, but also: two leftover dinner rolls from Christmas dinner, three frozen homemade pancakes, a handful of mini naan, and half of a waffle.
6 | Chicken stock.
I made a batch of chicken stock with a chicken carcass. Simple, satisfying, and a classic frugal choice!
7 | Dish soap stretching.
When I got to the bottom of my dish soap bottle, I added a healthy dollop of water, swished it around, and was able to do at least two more loads of hand-washed dishes.
8 | Razor mishap.
I usually buy my razors at the Dollar Store. They’re disposable, but I use them for months. I decided to “upgrade” and bought a fancy five-bladed set from the drugstore. They had some sort of giant moisturizing pad that—when wet—went so slimy and gross it was impossible to shave your legs.
I took the time to scrape all of that gunk off (and now they’re basically the same as my much cheaper Dollar Store variety). Frugal fail: I should return these and complain about the product, but I truly have no desire to do that. I will not be buying them again!
9 | Saving sad lettuce.
We had half a head of iceberg lettuce that was starting to go brown in the fridge. I tasked Indy with cutting it up, and we managed to get a small container full of perfectly good lettuce once the browning bits were removed.
10 | Roasted tomatoes.
I wasn’t able to get through all the tomatoes purchased on clearance (see above) before they started to go a bit wizened, so I tossed them in the oven with some EVOO and salt and roasted them for 20 minutes. Delicious.
BONUS!
Until I looked at my camera roll, I forgot I picked up a delicious smoked cheddar on a deep discount—and there was still plenty of time before the expiry date.
Another frugal hack:
At one of the stores where I shop (Sobeys for any Canadians reading), they often apply a flat discount (e.g., $5 off), but it can apply to varying sizes of the same item. I always look for the best bang for my buck. For example, there were multiple trays of asparagus with different base prices (based on weight), but they were all reduced by $4—so I chose the cheapest one, which ended up being the best deal overall.
Your turn!
- Tell me all about your recent frugal wins (or fails)!
- Are you a leftovers family, or do leftovers tend to linger in your fridge?
- Have you ever “upgraded” something only to realize the cheaper version worked better? Womp, womp…
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Soup-from-leftovers! No waste, healthy, yummy food! Same with the baked French toast using everything that was hanging around – so efficient!
I like that you don’t drink alcohol. This year, I really want to cut down on my alcohol consumption. We don’t drink a lot, but then I’m thinking – why drink at all? It’s not healthy and it costs a lot of money!
Here in Switzerland, we have a budget line in our grocery shop that has the best walnuts, much better than the exclusive luxury brands. Once I bought the cheaper version, I’ve never looked back!
I love when the store brand is better than the expensive name products. I find that to be the case for a lot of things, actually!!
You are so good at the frugal game! We love leftovers, and I often make more of a dish so there will be leftovers. I also love making lots of chicken stock so I can quickly make a leftovers soup. But, I absolutely must have those expensive 5-bladed razors – anything else leaves me with lots of cuts. Ouch! For the most part, I like the less expensive store brands.
It’s ironic the cheap razors work better for me. I’m flummoxed how I can so rarely cut myself shaving. Like maybe once a year? It happened to me all the time when I was younger, though. Maybe I just don’t do a very good job, haha.
I have never been good about leftovers- I’d rather make exactly what I need. However, I’ve been planning better so I’m managing to have 2 meals from one batch of cooking.
I had a fail: target had $5 off if you spend $30 on food. I plotted carefully, got things I needed, and went to check out. It turned out one thing was on sale ( rah- saved about $3 extra) and one thing didn’t count to the coupon ( as it was clearance). That left me at 29.50, so I didn’t get to use the coupon. And I noticed this after paying. Pride goes before a fall!
The Target experience you’re describing happened to me recently (just not at Target), and it left me fuming for hours. I bought things I needed but not that day and had only added them to my cart for the deal. I can feel my blood pressure rising just remembering it now.
Oh, my husband loves leftovers. When he moved out of his childhood home (he was the sixth of seven kids, and the youngest son) my MIL said she didn’t know what to do with all the leftovers–he’d always taken care of them!
I love your grocery savings. I’ve never seen discounted veggies like that in our grocery store here in the US! Sometimes there’s a cart full of browning bananas or imperfect produce, but not reliably.
Thank you for reminding me to dilute the dregs of my dish soap. I recently got hooked on the “Ez Squeeze” dispensers on Dawn dish soap bottles, where you don’t have to tip the bottle over, just pick it up and squeeze. A reader at the Frugal Girl clued me in that the special tops work on store brand dish soap bottles, so I just saved the dispenser caps and put them on the cheaper soap bottles. Made me so happy.
I’ve never tried the EZ Squeeze but am officially very curious…
We are definitely a leftovers family. Because of the structure or our days, we eat a lot of leftovers on weekends nights since we get home around 5 and ideally the adults want to eat by 6, and the kids need to eat basically immediately. And some dishes taste better as leftovers, like soups and stews. I just pulled together our spending list for 2025 and we spend so little on groceries compared to the average family. But meals go pretty far and our kids do not eat much as ages 5 and 7. Phil buys his lunch every day but it’s < $10 and once/week his company brings in lunch and then he will eat the leftovers for days as they always order more than they need. But really most of the frugal hacks are from him but he has a different relationship with money than I do (but to be clear I am also quite frugal).
All that said, I had gotten into the habit of buying a kind of expensive salad on the days I was in the office but this weekend I did a bunch of meal prep and made Greek chicken + quinoa and I brought that to work yesterday instead of spending $15 on a salad. The salad is amazing and for me it’s worth the splurge and the business is ran by a woman my age so I love supporting her. But I don’t need to buy 2-3/week!
I am loving leftovers and LOVING MY INSTANTPOT which I’ve used to make bone broth and prep a soup of leftovers 🙂
Roasting tomatoes is such a good hack. I did that in the summer when I had SO MANY tomatoes. We couldn’t possibly eat them all and I hate canning tomatoes, so I roast them and pop them in the freezer. Then I am glad I did because I can pull out a bag whenever I want for soup or sauces.
Ohhhh. I had never thought of putting them in the freezer. That’s brilliant, Nicole. I ate them all this time, but will remember this hack for the next batch of tomatoes that need using.
We have a basement freezer, so I put leftovers there and then use them as I need them. We go through so much produce quickly that nothing ever goes bad. I can’t think of the last time I threw anything away. I tend to ignore expiration dates on food . . . this will make you laugh but I had a cream of tartar in my spice rack that had an expiration date of 2020 and my daughter wanted to make snickerdoodles (basically the only thing we ever use the cream of tartar for). I couldn’t find any at two different grocers, so I told her to just use the old one and the cookies turned out perfectly fine!
Years ago I had to make a recipe that called for cream of tartar and I didn’t have any. I texted a neighbour and she said she had some but had no idea how old it was; something like 4 years past the expiration date??? It still worked!
Isn’t it the best to save bits you may have thrown out, and then find a use for them to create another meal? It makes me insanely happy! I just threw leftover ricotta into a meat sauce and nobody noticed, or I cook and blend veggies and throw them into sauces. Plus it proves my husband wrong who always wants to just toss the last few bites of something because “nobody will eat it”. You are so right about alcohol, a glass of water is free(ish) but a cocktail is expensive. I still love to have drinks on the weekend though. Choose your battles with frugality, I suppose!
There’s an author who talks about choosing your “rich life” and how that varies from person to person. For one person it might be ordering appetizers at a restaurant. For you it might be cocktails. It’s the things that otherwise frugal people splurge on and feel no guilt!
One of my favorite things is shopping after-Christmas sales! Everything is deeply discounted, and it’s fresh in my mind what we need for next year. I already got some wrapping paper and ribbons, and I’m heading out today to try and find a new wreath for our front door.
Leftovers! I love them, but others in my family will let them languish. Sometimes I have to really nag to make sure leftovers are eaten.
I do drink alcohol, but just a little. Like wine or beer on a special occasion. It’s definitely a money saver to avoid it. And- yes I always dilute my dish soap, sometimes so much that it’s almost all water and then my husband complains, lol.
Yes! I love seeing all the mark downs this time of year. And it feels so good to know I have the supplies needed for the next Christmas. (I mean Christmas is ALWAYS going to come again in 364 days, so I know I WILL USE THE THINGS).
Team leftovers here. Cooking is a favor to my future self who will NOT have to cook. Also! I bought $.89 hamburger buns on super clearance because they were almost out of date, and I was so excited because we were having hamburgers in mere HOURS so they were perfectly fine. Unforch, I was grocery shopping IN THE STORE instead of online and spent AT LEAST $50 on dumb stuff I picked up on a whim, so the trip was a net frugal fail.
Net frugal fail… haha. Honestly, I’m sure you’ll use all the things you bought, so it works out AND you cannot beat that price for hamburger buns. They’re practically giving them away.
Lunches are usually leftovers for us. Keeps us from so much waste and makes my mornings easier. For lunch I usually just chop a salad and then put leftovers out and we “heat it and eat it”
I love setting out a smorgasbord of leftover (and I’ll often add certain leftovers TO a salad to make it go further; a few meatballs, some chili, roasted veggies, etc).
The chicken broth looks delicious and I have to share an utter frugal FAIL of mine. I made a delicious soup last night and some chicken broth and I put them on the porch to cool instead of using electricity in the fridge to cook them down since it was below freezing out. Guess what. For the first time ever a raccoon got on the porch and got into them. Definitely a total frugal fail. 😭😭😭 Not to mention that I had planned to not cook again for a couple days. Sigh.
OH NO!!!!! That is devastating. That rascal of a raccoon!
Last year I made a soup and was so excited, like you, to have food for days. I went downstairs to work, feeling very smug about the food until I heard the smoke detector. I was SURE I had turned off the element… I had not, and instead of turning it off, I turned it to the highest setting. There was a THICK layer of burned stuff on the pot, the whole house reeked for days, it took ages to deal with the pot, I tried to rescue the soup (by moving the top bits to a crockpot and adding more seasoning but it really was inedible). And then, to add insult to injury, I still had to cook. ARGH. All that to say: I feel your pain 🙁
I have really been leaning into leftovers these past few years, but I think I am more enthused about it than my husband is. Drives me nuts to make a meal specifically with the intention of having leftovers and then they sit in the fridge and go bad. Sigh. Every year I promise myself I will buy X Y and Z when they go on sale after Christmas… and then Christmas comes and goes and I end up being too exhausted by Christmas and Stuff to want to buy anything. Oh well.
It can be a bit much to go shopping for Christmas things when there are still Christmas things in every nook and cranny of the house. I totally get it! I find I only need certain things each year and it rotates. Like I do NOT need any wrapping paper (so I didn’t buy any and didn’t even let myself look at the cute paper options), but I DID need cards, so I made sure to buy those. Going with a short list helps me deal with that issue a bit but I 100% understand the fatigue. That and not wanting to leave my house, either!!!
I love leftovers. I specifically cook to have them on hand for lunch. I generally go into the office twice a week, and while lunch is cheap (3 euros or so) I love saving it and bringing my own most of the time. Mind you, last week was a total fail on this front because we spent most of the Christmas week elsewhere, zero cooking happened so… No leftovers.
My husband likes leftovers, but he doesn’t always manage to cook so there are leftovers,so that’s a bit of a struggle sometimes. I would have to explicitly tell him I got more so I will have an easy lunch.
Frugal win: buying multi buys (1 +1 free) on Alpro milk. But they didn’t have the almond I like so I ended up buying coconut,which is more expensive. Oh well, hopefully things will be back in stock by the end of the week (when snow has disappeared sniffs)
I LOVE having something to heat up for lunch. It takes all the guess work out of that part of the day.
Team Leftovers here! After that, my second favorite meal is “I don’t feel like going to the grocery store, what can I make out of what we have on hand?”
I’ve found myself less inclined to kick back with a beer or a wine in the evenings since I retired, and I can confirm that my grocery bills seem to be lower.
I am so happy to use up “bits and bobs” from the fridge!
We don’t use our dishwasher–wash all our dishes by hand–so the efficiency of this bottle cannot be overstated.
We are also Team Leftovers here!! Lunches are almost exclusively leftovers, although the kids often have PB&J or ham and cheese sandwiches. I never actually cook lunch. I was very excited to find a recipe for ham, broccoli & rice casserole to use up leftover Christmas ham + leftover white rice from our traditional Dec 26th Chinese food feast + leftover Ritz crackers from our New Year’s Eve party! And I have half a bottle of champagne waiting patiently in the fridge for tomorrow’s planned champagne shrimp linguine which uses 3 cups of champagne in the cream sauce.
Your produce finds are impressive. I use mostly grocery pickup services so I’m definitely missing out on that opportunity for savings!
That is one thing I like about going into stores; but I probably also pick up things that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t go in… so you might come out ahead 😉
Love these frugal wins! We are a leftovers family all the way! My husbands family does a delicious meal with all the roast meat and veg leftovers from Christmas- they call it bubble and squeak. They add cooked rice, butter and curry powder to the chopped up leftovers and fry it all together. Im not a big curry powder fan BUT this is SO delicious. And only made once a year.
I’ve heard of bubble and squeak! The name alone is perfection.
I never quite mastered the art of cooking for one. Even though I live alone now, I still cook a family sized meal once a week and then eat it until it’s gone. Leftovers are a way of life. 🙂
It is hard to cook in small batches sometime; it’s wonderful you like leftovers and you save lots of time and money that way!
I love all your frugal kitchen hacks. We meal plan every week and practically have ZERO food waste. There’s only the occasional item that goes bad. But yesterday, I was able to exchange some ground turkey that had gone bad before the SELL DATE(!) and I took it back to the store and it was replaced without a problem. I also like to buy discounted food items and plan my meals around it! It’s such a frugal and also environmentally friendly hack!
Not kitchen related: but I had been contemplating buying heavier weights for my at home workouts and dumbbells (esp the heavier ones) are so stupidly expensive… but when I went to Target yesterday that head dumbbells on sale (30% off!) and I was able to use a $10 reward to snatch two 15 lbs dumbbells for half the regular price!
There is a unique joy that comes from finding something that is needed on sale at the exact right time!