the Penny Pinching Pastry Princess
September 1, 2010
Hi. My name is Nikki Palmer and I am an addict. My vices are baking and learning to be frugal. Now please don’t get me wrong … I’m no cake decorator and my dishes rarely turn out picture worthy, but I’m hopelessly addicted to trying new recipes. I mean, hey, just because I love that meatloaf recipe in my box doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try the next one I find because it might be better! My recipe box has more than tripled in size simply because I tried a new recipe and my guinea pigs loved it.
Becoming a coupon clipper has allowed me to test new recipes more often. I can’t wait for Sunday afternoon when I log onto Coupon Mom to print the deals I want to take advantage of. Next I grab scissors, paperclips and every coupon circular I have hoarded over the last few months, and commandeer the kitchen table for a twenty minute immersion into couponing. Here I combine coupons with my selected deals. This system provides for a wide variety of meals so dinner is never boring at our house! Seeing what items I am purchasing this week and taking inventory of what I already have in the pantry helps me create my menu.
Next I look for coupons that will expire this week because it really irks me to pay full price for something when I could have saved at least 55 cents or more! (Remember, Kroger always doubles coupons up to 50 cents.) Then it’s off to the grocery stores. I zoom up and down the aisles grabbing every deal I’ve got a coupon for and checking items off my grocery list. When I get the groceries loaded in the van and can finally look at my amount of savings versus the actual total, well let’s just say I get some pretty strange looks when people hear all the whoopin’ and hollerin’!
Between office hours, helping three children with their homework, and getting everyone to bed at a decent hour, I don’t have much time to cook dinner each weeknight, so Sunday evenings are spent pre-cooking anything possible for the week. While we don’t exactly slip into dreamland with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads, it is a great way to head into Monday. I hope you’ll join me in my quest to become more frugal and please feel free to pass along any tips you may have.
Rainy day on the hill
December 11, 2008
Not much happening today, lots of rain……Good day for coffee, might swing by Hill of Beans for a cup after work.
With no exciting news to discuss this morning, other than the potential auto industry bailout, which should probably be saved for it’s own column, I thought I’d pass on a bit of frugal info that might be useful to someone.
With everyone scrimping and saving this holiday season here’s a tip I just learned about last week. If you have to fly this holiday season, try to do so on a Tuesday. I recently had to take a rather unplanned trip north (above the Mason-Dixon line….It wasn’t all that bad y’all) and shopped air fare for the best rate. I used the Orbitz.com website for the first time and found a check box offering to check for the best rates the day before and after my desired arrival/departure date. It turns out that by returning on Tuesday rather than Monday I saved over $300 a ticket. Apparently Tuesday is a slow day for the airline industry and they offer super rates if you travel on this day. I hear that they also offer the same deals for travel on Thursdays but I can’t confirm this as my travel occurred earlier in the week. This may be common knowledge for most of y’all but I found it noteworthy and though I’d pass it along. Hope it helps someone else this year.
That’s all for now.
