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Saturday, September 4, 2021

Use your Skill Sets

 Skill sets!  What skill sets?  

Look, you don't have to have acres of land to put up things for a rainy day.  When you're watching sales and stocking up on the good buys, don't over look things like meat and fresh vegetables on sale.  

But I don't have a second freezer!  You don't have to have a second freezer?  Packaged  well, you can store quite a bit in a refrigerator freezer.  

Option #1- Store ground meats in quart size freezer bags.  Press flat, freeze and stack.

Option #2- Cook the ground meat first, then package, and freeze  

Option #3- Cook whole chickens, and turkeys, debone, package, press flat, freeze and stack

Option #4- Milk can be frozen, did you know?  If you have the space to store gallons of milk, great, but if you have limited space, you can always do like the ground meat and pour it into freezer bags,  freeze flat and stack

I know, it doesn't take a great amount of skill to put something in a bag, but what skills come in handy when you are out of space in your freezer and need to store something?

Enter Canning!  

If you have the ability to can, you aren't limited to just what would come out of your garden.  You can buy vegetables in season and can them up for winter.  

Now you need to figure if it's going to be more cost effective to can them yourself or just buy them canned ( buying them on sale of course).  This past year I've canned up store bought fresh carrots and applesauce from fresh apples.  My calculations told me this was the most cost effective way.  Both items were in season, on a great sale, and once I did the calculations; a money saver.

I will say something I've discovered is canned tomato sauce, paste, diced tomatoes, or crushed tomatoes are actually a good buy; especially if you can find a good sale.  When you factor in the pounds of tomatoes it takes to make these, unless you grow them yourself, just buy them canned.  I've never seen a sale on fresh tomatoes, so good as to be less expensive than just buying the items canned at the store.  Even growing my own is a mild competitor.  I lose a lot to pests, both buggy and animal.  I do love a fresh tomato though.  Another thing to consider is, unless you're getting in season fresh tomatoes from a local farmer, the store bought canned ones might be your better choice.  Instead of picking them under ripe to ship fresh, canned tomatoes are picked ripe and canned immediately.  

Water Bath Canning-  All you need is canning jars, lids, rings, and a deep stock pot.  Jams and jellies, tomatoes, and pickles can all be made in this boiling water method.  

Pressure Canning-  Needs a bit more, but it isn't scary I promise!  You just need to pay attention to the gauge.  I use my grandmother's pressure canner that was made in 1946!  My dad was 7.  


Pressure canners are an investment unless you inherit one like I did, but you can can pretty much anything in it, so worth more than a passing thought.

But, Frugal maven, I've filled my small freezer, I don't have the ability to can, and don't have a lot of space!

Answer: Invest in a dehydrator!  



We bought ours back in March and I have used it!  It was about $40 and well worth the price.  I've dried herbs, tomatoes, kale, spinach, onions, squash, etc on this thing.  It's taken large amounts of produce and shrunk them down to fit in a mason jar!  4 gallon size bags of kale down to 1 quart jar.  That works!   Best of all, it doesn't take a large amount of skill to slice things and lay them in a single layer on a tray.  You would be amazed at how much you can store with these tings.  To rehydrate it for eating you simply pour boiling water over it and wait 15 minutes.  

Don't want to buy a dehydrator?  You can do the same thing by taking your items and placing them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and leaving them in there with only the oven light on (Or pilot light if you have a gas stove).  It will take longer, but still works.  Eh not sure I would make jerky this way, but maybe?  Someone whose made jerky this way before, chime in !  Let me know!  I have no experience making jerky. 

Skill sets that are more wide spread would be cooking and baking.  As I've mentioned before, buying sugar and flour when they go on sale will go much further than buying boxes of cake or cookie mixes.  The same can be said for meals.  FYI, canned soup is not a good buy.  I don't care what the sale.  You would do better to make your own, even when buying the ingredients when they are NOT on sale.  If you like the convenience of premade mixes, Make your own!  The internet is filled with recipes for making up mixes.  I actually found a book on mixes at a thrift store.  For us, the only mixes I use are seasoning mixes like taco seasoning, spaghetti sauce mix, and season salt.  Mix them up, store them and enjoy.  Just get your ingredients on sale.



These are just a few of the skill sets you can use, but my main goal is to show you that there are ways around growing a garden or raising chickens to help you save money and store up good food.  My point also is to think outside the box when it comes to what you buy, how you buy, and how you use it.  

If a garden is possible, then by all means go for it.  Especially if you can save seeds or grow perennials that come back every year.  But, like I said, not everyone can.  This post is for them!

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