Fifteen Frugal Things I do

 

1.   I buy in bulk when I can and store things like dried beans in my pantry.  I put a bay leaf in the container to keep out the pantry moths.

 

2.   I freeze bags of beans, flour, cornmeal, cereal, etc. in the freezer before storing to kill any pantry moths that may be already in the packaging. I don’t mean to gross you out, but that is how you bring them into the house.

 

3.   If I find pantry moths in dried beans, I don’t throw them out. I freeze for a day, then put aside for planting in the garden. Yes, dried beans are just seeds that will grow plants.

 

4.   I try not to use paper towels very much. Clothes that are too worn for donation are cut in to rags and stored in those cloth containers that are sold for keeping plastic bags ( I made my own).  The buttons, snaps, elastic and zippers are removed and stored for future use.  I store the buttons in an blue antique canning jar and use it as a decoration.  No buying $5 buttons because you want to keep a shirt.

 

5.   We eat what is in season or what is growing in our garden.  For this reason, I am always adding perennial vegetables and fruits so that there is always something to eat here. By the time we retire, I want this to be our Garden of Eden.

 

6.   If potatoes aren’t currently growing in our garden and are very high cost in the stores (as they are now) we eat a lot of pasta and rice.  I google recipes that use the ingredients I have.

 

7.   I save all bacon grease and use this for seasoning cast iron.  With cooking oil so high, this has saved much money.  I’m even using it instead of oil or margarine to flavor dishes.  I believe the benefits of natural products like butter or grease are better than those for man-made products like margarine or partially hydrogenated oils. (but that’s a whole ‘nother essay!) No, I’m not overweight, don’t have diabetes or high cholesterol.

 

8.   Speaking of cast iron—I’m a big fan. All of mine has been found at yard sales and thrift stores. Usually it looks rusted, and I have cleaned them up and seasoned them and they work great. Once seasoned, you don’t have to use oil to keep things from sticking. I use my pans to make stir fry several times a week. I don’t allow any “nonstick” pans in my home after reading about EPA’s studies. Did you know that pet birds often die when these pans are used in the same room? That’s enough evidence for me that they are not worth their “non-stickiness”.

 

9.   Another reason I use cast iron is to add iron into our diets. It’s one of the best ways to do it. It’s free and a better way to get iron.

 

10.    Because we eat a very healthy diet that includes freshly picked fruits and vegetables, we don’t buy vitamins. Nutritionists will tell you that nature has made the vitamins in our food in the most appropriate way for us to absorb the nutrients. No pill is better than eating fruits and vegetables.

 

11.   Unless the skin is thick and unsightly, I don’t peel potatoes. Mostly we grow our own and these have thin skins so it’s not a problem. Why do I do this?  Because many of the nutrients of potatoes are found in the skins (see # 10 above.)

 

12.    When bananas get a little brown (or a lot brown!) I pop them in the freezer (whole) and defrost later to add to muffins and other dishes. Why throw away nutrients?

 

13.    We must haul our own garbage, so it makes you think twice (or three times) about your carbon footprint, as they say.  All paper products are recycled at home. Even the glossy colored paper is reused—that goes in the bottom of my refrigerator vegetable drawers topped with a paper towel. This makes it easy to clean up messy things that have leaked.

 

14.   I only buy plain yogurt and we flavor it as we use it with fruit, jam, or cinnamon and sugar. In this way, we eat a lot less preservatives and sugar. Store bought flavored yogurt is WAY too sweet.  Also, we are able to use the yogurt in place of sour cream—way healthier. Yogurt is important to the health of your gut.  You don’t need to buy the more expensive “probiotic” brands. Any yogurt with active culture will do. If antibiotics make your tummy feel badly, have some yogurt to restore the good bacteria that the antibiotics destroyed (while killing the bad bacteria.)

 

15.   Last but not least, we put our hot water heaters on a timer so that we are not heating it through the night. This has saved us a lot of money over the years. Hot water is approximately 40% of your electric bill, so it’s a significant savings! The water stays hot for an hour or so after it’s turned off. Ours turns off at 10p.m. and turns on at 6a.m.. We turn it totally off when we are away for more than a day.

Bring Election Excitement to Your Classroom

It’s not too late to get your students involved in the election!  You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it either.

  

University of Virginia‘s Center for Politics Youth Leadership Initiative has a large number of teacher’s resources, lesson plans and background information for schools to use when teaching about the election.  Enrollment is free and entitles you to a CD which tells you how to run a mock election at your school.

 

If you choose to do a mock election for your school, you can set up a computerized election  through YLI that will be held online between October 20-30, 2008.

 

The League of Women Voters has a great nonpartisan election guide. You can get it here.  The election guide has a section that tells all about the salary, duties, election requirements and term of the President.  But what makes this elections REALLY great is a non partisan short (read: kid-friendly) overview of the three major candidates (betcha forgot Nader!) and their take on the following five issues: global climate change, cost of health care, economic disparity and education.

  

Come to think of it NONPARTISAN is a great word to put on your spelling and vocabulary words this week! For that matter, if you want to learn other election terms and even play a bingo game with students look at this from Education World.

I really LOVE the things that Cybrary man has done with his website. I found his link at teachernet and I think he is one inspiring teacher.  Among other things I found at his site was a link to many pictures and ideas for election bulletin boards, doors and displays.  Here’s a link to his election collection, but I recommend staying to see all the other things he has gathered at his website besides the election.

Beating Lice , Dandruff and More with Homemade Remedies

The combination of lice becoming more resistant to medications (which are usually insecticides, by the way) and the fact that many parents don’t pick out the nits, (the eggs) means that getting rid of lice in a classroom can be difficult.

An old timey remedy is to rinse hair with a 50:50 vinegar to water rinse.  This unsticks the glue the nits that stick them to the hair.  The beauty of this is greater than meets the eye. 

First, the vinegar rinse is a preventative to getting lice (remember, teachers are not immune.) Next, this rinse is great for removing a buildup of hair products from your hair—it’s a natural conditioner too.

Next, a rinse used in the shower will also combat athlete’s foot and nail fungus.  That’s because vinegar is a natural fungal agent. 

Last, this vinegar solution will cure most causes of dandruff.  One reason for this is that most forms of dandruff are believed to be caused by a type of fungus.  Whatever  the reason, it really works and is much cheaper and a natural alternative to dandruff products. Especially if you make your own vinegar!

You keep a 50:50 vinegar to water mixture in a large, recycled shampoo bottle in the shower. 

 

Free Teacher Resources and Lesson Plans from Agriculture in the Classroom

Agriculture in the Classroom is a program started by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help students understand where their food comes from.  This is an issue near and dear to my heart. Few Americans truly understand how important and fragile our food system is.  We take it for granted.

 

But it’s not only about that—it’s MUCH more. It’s about integrating math, science, language Arts and social studies in a beautiful way.

 

You can find tons and tons of good quality k-12 lesson plans here.

 

Plus, your state agricultural extension service office has even more resources that can be purchased or rented. 

 

I was lucky to attend an all-day training session last summer that was really terrific. Many hands-on activities in all disciplines were offered.  Your state may also run these trainings for teachers.

 

I think these teacher resources are high-quality!  Let me give you one as an example that I’d like to use. 

 

It’s called “More Than One Grain of Rice: Integrating Mathematics, Geography, and (Agri)Culture” and can be used in grades 4-6.You can get the lesson plan here.

 

Among other things, students identify the major producers of grain and calculate the “Doubling of One Grain of Rice.”  What a great way to teach exponential numbers and geography! Add a little fried rice and you’ve got yourself a really cool lesson!

 

 

 

Growing Celery and Onions FOR FREE

As I was chopping celery this morning for a classroom experiment, I thought I should share this tip: Save the bottom (root) part of the celery that you cut off. Bury an inch down in a pot of soil and in a few weeks you will have celery cutting to use in your cooking!

I freeze the celery tops in a zip lock bag  (more about how I recycle those later–yes, I AM that frugal) and use them to make broth.  When I have bones from meat that has been cooked, I add my stash of celery, some onions and whatever frozen veggies that wouldn’t be used for a side dish and simmer it with a glub of apple cider vinegar.

 

What’s that for, you say?

 

The vinegar helps to leach some of the calcium from the bones and you are left with delicious AND very nutritious broth. The BEST thing you can eat/drink when you are sick.  But I digress….

 

While I was at it, I did the same for an onion so I could post this tip too—cut off the bottom ¼” of the root end of an onion and bury about an inch down in your garden and you will have lovely, if not onions, greens to use in cooking.  I never throw out an onion bottom anymore. And I always have green onions coming up amongst my vegetables AND flowers.

 

I mean, have you SEEN how expensive green onions are in the winter? After that nasty e-coli breakout in imported green onions last winter, I am very happy to grow my own thank you very much!

 

For Free, no less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Packing a Lunch…or….Pennies Add Up to Dollars

 

There are several ways I save money by taking my lunch that don’t end up costing me too much time.  The last thing I need is one more thing to add to my to-do list!

 

On Sunday, I brew a large pot of coffee. Since I’m the only one who drinks it, I have my first cup and then store the rest in a quart-sized canning jar in my fridge. There the coffee stays fresh and I microwave a cup every morning for breakfast while I get ready for work.  This saves time and money (the cost of electricity.)

 

Also on Sunday, I put several potatoes and eggs in a large pot and bring to a boil and turn off the heat.  When cooled, I have cooked eggs and potatoes to use in many ways. The hardboiled eggs are quick to grab and eat on those early morning bus-duty days or days when school clubs are meeting.  The potatoes can be used for fried potatoes for breakfast, or for topping with chili for a super easy dinner. If there are potatoes and eggs left by Friday, I make potato salad for dinner.  I should note that my eggs are freshly laid on Saturday by our hens.

 

While I could always fall back on school lunches that cost $3.20, I try to have some fallback things at my desk in case I forget to take my lunch. My pennypinching budget plan is to always spend a dollar or less per lunch or breakfast meal. 

 

Frugal fallbacks for me are a jar of peanut butter and a box of crackers, and cans of soup that I buy when they are $.50/can. 

 

One of the healthiest, cheapest and unusual lunches I have eaten often during the fall are sweet potatoes.  I learned this from a dieting teacher friend who would microwave a sweet potato every day for lunch. 

 

When another teacher offered a boxes of sweet potatoes for us, I kept ten in a box in my room closet—dark and cool.  I ate about two a week with salt and butter.  I never had to remember to pack a lunch and they lasted through the winter!! By spring the couple that were left began to sprout –so I planted them and…..

 

Now I have LOTS of sweet potatoes to harvest for my lunches this fall. 

 

Academic Quiz Bowl Frugal Alternatives

Let’s face it, teachers are competitive people and as such, we want our students to do their best when competing in academic quiz bowls.

 

But who has a budget that will allow for a $400 buzzer system like the Geosafari Quiz Bowl?

 

Part of training kids to be part of an academic quiz bowl game is helping them with the buzzers. We have found that no matter how good a kid is at memorizing the answers, if they can’t manipulate the buzzer they are dead in the water.

 

Unfortunately, the teachers at my school do not have one of those high-priced, professional buzzers that are used at the county and regional level of competition.

 

So we improvise…

 

The most basic, yet I think beautifully frugal, idea is to have the kids hold pens that click open. Find some that make a big “click.”  Last year I had a kid whose mom worked in a doctors office donate a bunch of them (all sounded the same) that were pens given to them as a marketing ploy of some medical product.

 

The pens give the kids the experience of connecting their answer to the buzzer. Kind of like Pavlov’s dog….If they can’t do that, they won’t get to answer the question so it’s imperative they know how to do that.

 

The next solution, Eggspert, allows up to six players and lets you set the answer time from 5-30 seconds. It combines light and sound.  It sells at the academic superstore for around $40.

 

The last cheap solution I have is is to buy the hardware only for the old “Quizzard” game on ebay. These sell for between $20 and $30. Beats the price in the educational catalogs anyway.

 

Team academic bowls are a great way to motivate kids (and tightwad teachers.) Let me know in the comments if you found these helpful or have another solution!

 

 

Educational Video on the Cheap

Let’s face it. Not all our schools have a budget that allows for high-dollar membership in great online teaching resources like United streaming.  What are the rest of us to do?

Well, your school may look at an extremely stripped down version such as learn360 It doesn’t have the lesson plans or full-length videos, but at least it has good short videos that can enhance your teaching and give a visual aspect that kids need to understand concepts they learn on paper.

I’ve been able to supplement with the totally free teachertube.  On the anniversary of September 11th, I found two very moving slideshows that helped kids understand what happened without being so gruesome or scary as to traumatize younger students.

I’ll include links to those teacher-made slideshows soon. Keep tuning in.

Next, The History Channel has wonderful programming for students early in the morning say from 6-8 am EST.  For instance, you cans see all of the excellent episodes of Liberty’s Kids there as well as superior documentaries on most state social studies and history standards.

You can go here to check the History channel schedule:

http://www.history.com/schedule.do

I don’t know the legalities of taping these days so I won’t suggest anything along those lines…

Also at the History channel are short videos you can watch, for instance about Amelia Earhart.  Use these short four or five minute videos as a jump start to your lesson.

I cannot say enough about the math videos at thefutureschannel.  Kids need to see that the daily math they do has real world applications that are interesting. There are resources to go with the videos.

PBS teachers will keep you up to date about what is coming up on programming via email.  This is also a good source of good video and lesson plans and resources for classrooms.

How I Started My Intensively Planted, Organic, No-Till Garden on Hard Clay Soil With Weeds (or “Diary-of-Someone-Who- Saves-Tons-of-Money-by-Growing-Their-Own-Food”)

 

I started by laying cardboard down on top of the grass where I wanted my garden.  Then I threw all kinds of leaves, grass clippings etc. on top.  After a few months, I cut holes in the cardboard, dug a hole and planted a plant with some good compost (spread the poor soil over the compost on the cardboard). The first year I didn’t attempt planting seeds.

 

(NOTE: You don’t have to PURCHASE a tiller!)

  

Thereafter I just kept adding leaves, paper, and cardboard to keep the weeds out.  We don’t have trash pickup so all paper products, boxes, etc. go to the garden.  This is a great way to get rid of juWhy put compostables in the landfill? 

 

My compost pile is constantly moving. When I need space to plant, I shove it over. Or plant in it!  Cover with grass clippings if you don’t want to see carrot peelings and such.  If a weed comes through, I pull it and throw it on top of the compost/mulch.  If it has seed heads, it goes to our free-range chickens.

 

I use a deep composting method in my chicken coop (all free, I’ll mention that later) so I drop composted chicken manure near the base of the plants for extra fertilizer.

 

The first year I didn’t garden at all in the winter (I am able to garden nearly year round in our mild climate).  I simply lay cardboard down so it would be easy to plant (no weeds) in the spring. Then I pulled it aside to my paths.  I kept the boxes from blowing around by weighing them down with uncomposted cow manure or chicken manure (whatever you have on hand).  You don’t want to put uncomposted manure on plants, it will “burn” them.

 

This reminds me why I don’t like raised beds in boxes–it’s a pain to pull the weeds at the outside and inside edges of the boxes.  I can easily put newspaper to the edge of what is growing. Plus, I’m too cheap and lazy to build boxes. And too impatient:)

 

I started with rows, but have now made wide beds that the middle can be reached from each side easily.  When I plant spinach for instance, I fill the entire bed for a foot or so in the bed, then put something else next to it. You might say my rows look striped. I try to confuse the bugs.  It is far easier for them to traverse a straight row of something they love to eat.  They get confused if they have to jump over garlic, say to get to something they love.

 

I use all manner of boxes for my paths. Just stick your thumb on the seam of a cereal box and you will split it.  I put the colored side up on the paths–last longer.

 

I sprinkle egg shells around my tender seedlings to protect them from slugs and cutworms.  I dump my coffee grounds around the base of the plants once they are strong and this fertilizes them and keeps the weeds down at the base where it’s hard to pull weeds.

 

(NOTE: You don’t have to PURCHASE good fertilizer!)

 

 

The first year I started with easy things to grow: beans, squash, garlic.  At the beginning I was not strong enough to dig the holes–I had to rely on my DH!  Now the soil is very workable and almost black.

 

(NOTE: You don’t have to PURCHASE good soil!)

 

When planting, I look for a big weed that needs to be pulled.  I just plant in that hole. A twofer!  When you plant intensively, the good plants crowd out the bad weeds.  You don’t want ANY exposed soil.  So plant lettuce between your cabbages and broccoli in the spring.  Until cabbage and broccoli gets big (and it gets too hot for lettuce) your lettuce will be something to eat while keeping that space from getting weedy.  By the time it’s too hot for lettuce, the cabbage and broccoli leaves have filled in the space.

 

Announcement of soon-to-come-post: You don’t have to purchase seeds! Tune in next time…..

 

 

Cleaning White boards

Speaking of whiteboards, how about cleaning them cheaply?  I like to either use a 100% water spray (recycled spray bottle) with paper towels, or, I mix a small amount of alcohol in with the water for extra oomph. The alcohol helps dry the board.

 

If you are really interested in tested methods of cleaning whiteboards, read this.

 

It beats buying products any old day.

 

Oh, and if you write by mistake using a permanent pen on a whiteboard–write over it pressing it hard against what was written previously. It really works. I wouldn’t believe it either until I saw it!