Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $8 lunch

Quiet day - meetings got canceled right and left, and because my trainer's in Florida on break I have gym later this week. Did I get a lot done? Nope, got some but mostly I was putzing around and the day dragged a bit. I love being not busy, but its really bad for me.

The banker from WI called me back. The way we are trying it is to set up the joint account as a Payee to my WA checking account. Manual transfers, of course. Wouldn't want to be transferring dollars monthly. So I set it up and transferred 50$ to WI, then alerted sister to see if it worked.

Looked at the receipt for the groceries that I bought last night. I got a .05 credit for using the cloth bag. I'll have to remember that. Not a lot, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as grandpa used to say.

Saving log - $5
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $4.50 curry

Found an interesting tool.

http://walkscore.com/

It assesses the walkability of any address in the United States, giving you a score between 0 to 100. My home address got a 75, my work address got a 91, sister's address was a 62, the farmette got a 0. Check it out - we are still trying to figure out how you get a 100.

I managed to use my cloth bag at the grocery store today. The grocery store was nice about using my bag, and I'm happy that Clif bars are back at .99 apiece.

Paid the sewer, water, garbage bill - $123/ month. I remember when it was in the $80 range 3 years ago.

Only three people were kicking around the department today - it made for quiet times, good times to put in a couple of phone calls.

Call 1: into the Wisconsin Bank that sister and I have a joint account with. I want to be able to electronically transfer dollars from my bank to this account. I figure that mail is slow, and control freak that I am, I want to see both ends of the transaction. I've set up my WA account for bill pay to this bank. We'll see which is easier - pushing money out of my WA account to this WI account, or vice versa.

Call 2: Arranging the pick up of the canning jars. I will be driving (gasp, driving!) Thursday morning. Haven't heard word as to how the berries are doing. A quick look at some of the brambles in our neighborhood tells me it will be another week or two.

Something you don't see every day. The HT Oaktree market near our house is having a grand opening (wha? we've been shopping there off and on for 6 months).

Dragon curled up in back of the martial artists...


And the teacher busting his moves.


Inside, the best price on Rainier cherries this year at $1.99/lb, peaches and nectarines at $.79/lb. DH and I also picked up 2 more cloth shopping bags with HT on them - they were giving those away if you bought more than $5.

We still haven't gotten in the habit of bringing our own bags to the grocery store. Sigh. One of the times that I collect plastic bags is that I often stop and do a bit of grocery shopping during my nightly walk from the bus. Maybe, just maybe, the HT cloth bag is small enough so that I can put one in my purse.

Got bought breakfast by DH.

It was the best grocery shopping deal of the season. Peaches for $1/lb, 1/2 flat of blueberries for $6, frozen green beans for $.99/16 oz bag. (Corn and peas get that low, more rarely broccoli, but green beans getting that low is very rare.) I know, frozen's not as chic as fresh, but the best price for fresh green beans this year was at $1.49/lb, today they ran at $1.99/lb. There's chic, and then there's doing the math - last I checked, 16 oz equals 1 lb. Double the price.

My meal was a festival of good fats - guacamole with avocadoes & salmon, with homemade potato salad with green beans in it as a bit of a vice, and blueberries, blueberries, blueberries.

Up on the DVD tonight is the last episode of Deadwood - let the obscenities begin.

Fun image this week. A little bit of drama on the bus. Will it fall and fly around inside?

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $5.50 lunch + $14.50 groceries

Most of the fun I have catching up with my credit card is that I can spend the cc payment on things I like - namely assets that pay dividends. I've put $500 on one of my DRPs, the one whose transfer agent is on the poky side. It looks like the transfer agent buys the stock once/quarter, but its hard to tell. If I think that the transfer agent is inefficient, then I'm not excited to put a little something in every month - I much prefer to wait until I have a chunk of money to put in. The stock price on that DRP (MI) has been see-sawing a bit, but its been down. I hope it goes down some more during the time that the transfer agent finally buys it.

As I was telling my DH, I didn't really mean to test 4 different cost averaging buying styles. Style 1 (MMM), where the transfer agent dependably buys the stock on Friday if you get it to them by the following Tuesday, I've been playing it like a tennis ball - sending money back as soon as I get the form. Style 2 (KO), where I have electronic deposit at $1/transfer, I allow the account to take out $51/month for a $50 buy. (sucks - that's like a 2% fee). Style 3 (WEC), where the transfer agent buys twice/month, I've treating a bit like style 1. Style 4 (MI), transfer agent is poky, so I buy in a lump when I can.

I can't really tell the difference in results. But it is easiest to buy on the dips if the transfer agent is dependable, so I've acquired those shares quickly.

Found a great deal on frozen corn - .99/bag. I was walking home, though, and I didn't have the energy to lug a lot of bags, not to mention its hotter than -h right now and I didn't want it to go bad. So I bought only 2 bags and called it a score.

So last week we had the Duvall friends over for dinner and Paris pics. They have a few acres, ducks, chickens, a little garden. They also will have a lot of blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. And they want to have a berry picking/ processing party and learn to can.

Well, I'm a pro at waterbath canning, and the possibility of whipping up a few dozen Christmas gifts (jam, sauce, syrup) is highly appealing. So I'm coming with the waterbath canner, the racks, funnel, magnetic lid grabber, recipes, and know-how.

Tonight we had another set of friends that we hadn't seen in a couple of years. Lo and behold, while the late July - early August didn't work for them, they have several dozen canning jars to contribute. A couple will come back filled as a thank you.

Now for the lids and the sugar. Grocery store time. You just don't want to teach people bad habits, and reusing lids is a bad habit. The seal doesn't form right.

The Duvall friends also want to learn to pressure can. We need another friend for later!

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $10 lunch + $20 energy bars

Found the 10 for $10 deal on energy bars at my local Fred Meyer. Its a semi-weird place for me to find food items. I know that the general rule is not to buy items out of place (eg. batteries are usually a bad buy at the grocery store), but being frugal means keeping an open mind and an up-to-date price book.

Also noted that the HT (asian grocery store) has fruit and vegetable prices about a dime cheaper than anywhere else. Including potatoes. At Uwajimaya - another asian grocery store - I saw a package that made me wince. Vermont curry, with a touch of apple and maple (?). Yipes.

From Friday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $15 lunch + $40 DRP

Saturday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $11 breakfast (all meals include tip, FYI) + $44 groceries + $1.85 iced coffee

Friday, not much big happened, so its cleanup of a couple of things. I seem to have lost 3 lbs, so I'm at 184, and now I seem to be back at pre-Paris shape. I'm on a little roll, so I'm aiming to be in the 170s by mid-July.

DJ friend is now in New York, so its time to develop a tight working relationship with my other employee, getting her started on a couple of important projects.

Got a chiropractic adjustment. So much for the "neck adjustment of death." I feel like a daredevil.

Saturday, DH and I checked out a new-to-us large chain Chinese grocery. So far, the best prices of produce. I'm happiest when the produce prices are under $1/lb. I eat more in season that way. Found a splurge - $5 screw container of tea-flavored pumpkin seeds. (Gotta be careful not to eat them all at once!)

I've made it another goal to use fewer plastic grocery bags. It's not a crime to get them - I reuse the bags as wastebasket liners - but the grocery baggers seem to put five items per bag, leaving you to carry 8-10 bags. When you walk out of the store, with your 4-5 bag handles on each wrist, you look like a dog walker of plastic bags. Then when you get home you have to bag up a zillion bags. Its all just so wasteful. Anyway, I've put a collection of 3 cloth totebags in the car on the passenger side floor. If we bring them, we'll use them and if I see them when I get out of the car, it reminds me to grab at least one. The final step is to get the baggers to fill them.

Made it to the Greenwood Car Show in our neighborhood. Nicely restored cars and admirers for 20 blocks, but I was tired and looked at just the ones along my two blocks, then got an iced coffee and people watched for a half an hour.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $3.44 coffee, breakfast + $5 curry lunch

I usually bring (5) .99 clif bars on Monday for breakfasts throughout the week. Today I forgot, so I bought one where I buy my coffee. $1.69! That'll be incentive to remember to put my week's worth of bars in my purse.

Sister called at work. The state of Wisconsin signed off on buying our 73 acres on the second property, so things are moving along. Makes sense, it is now close to the end of the fiscal year (June 30), and the beginning of the next fiscal year. It turns out that I'll be getting slightly more money than sister because sister already got some of the proceeds from the house, etc. The gang apparently has a little betting pool to predict how much the executors and the lawyer will take in fees. Hah hah.

Paypal mailed me the code to unlock my account, so yay, my account is now unlocked and I can put money back into it. Its paying 5.04%.

I signed the letter describing my promotion, so soon I will have something to slip into Paypal.

Saving log - $5
Spending log - $1.85 coffee, milk

Lawyer friend and the rest of the gang took me out to lunch today. Dim sum. I love dim sum and we finally found a halfway decent place for dim sum called Jade Garden. The lobster puffs were fantastic and when I get the chinese broccoli that always makes me happy.

Got a call and an email from sister today. The steel bulk tank got stolen from the milkhouse and the there is some water damage in the house from frozen pipes last winter. Executors for estates take out insurance policies for this type of thing, so it is time for sister and I to assess the damage, and hound the executors on it before we actually inherit the house and farmette on June 30.

From the files of "come to think of it, they should have something like this", an article about price optimization software:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003684689_price28.html

The takeaway message that I get from this is that there is an art to pricing, based on psychology. There is a fair amount back and forth on other frugal sites. Some people, like me, swear by a price book, which is a list of prices, per unit, of items I normally buy, at the store I bought 'em at, and the full date (including year) when I encountered the price. Other people tell me that they have great memories, and they know for a fact that one store had consistently lower prices for stuff so why waste time and effort?

This article strengthens my suspicions that price optimization software really target how shoppers perceive price and value, especially for those shoppers who rely on their memory and impressions. In other words, those who fly by/buy the seat of their pants. A store will specifically target their loss leaders to give shoppers the impression that they have consistently lower prices, yet after a few months...not so much.

Besides, the store is using the most sophisticated calculations imaginable to determine their price. The willingness to maintain and use a price book (and if necessary, not buy) at least shows the shenanigans.

It was amazing to me learning my first week of pricebooking that Larry's Market, not known for cheap prices, beat out Costco's price for canned tuna...handily. And best of all, I could buy exactly the number of cans I had the budget for, not in packs of 12.

So you just never know ... unless you have a price book.

Changing the subject, I added another paragraph to the blog entry How To Store Grocery Produce. I think it's a good tip, making the entry worthy of revisiting.

As threatened...

Well, now that you bought good produce, you’ll probably want to keep it for at least a few days. I like to grocery shop, but I don’t buy every day, and I can’t eat 5 of anything in 2 days. Storage has to buy time.

If you bought items that were heavier than you expected and smelled good, you also bought a little bit more time. Again, remember that a piece of produce is a piece of plant, and that piece of plant behaves like a water pipe with one end open. The two things you must know to store produce properly are:

1.) Produce – if it’s not cooked – is metabolically active. It is a live plant, it respires (breathes oxygen), it photosynthesizes if it’s green, the enzymes in it are active, and it transpires (sucks up water and releases it).
2.) Plants are all plumbing. If water escapes (transpires) and plant wilts, it’s generally all over. Your job is to keep the water in the plant.

Know what should go in the refrigerator and what shouldn’t.

Whole fruit, whole tomatoes, potatoes, onions generally stay out of the refrigerator. All of these guys convert sugars to starch and tend to turn mealy if they’re in the reefer. I like the deep fruit bowl with a layer of cheesecloth on the top to repel fruit flies. Once the fruit is cut, it probably should go in the refrigerator with the knowledge that it better get eaten or tossed within a couple of days. Leaves like lettuce, stems like celery, crucifers (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc), roots (carrots) can go in the refrigerator. Corn and berries are problematic – if they go in the refeer, they get starchy, if they stay out they get moldy. I buy them fresh and don’t bother with long term storage.

Here's an easy rule of thumb if you are trying to figure out whether it goes in the refrigerator or not. How did you buy it? Did you buy it in a bin in the middle of the produce department at coolish room temperature (should probably stay out of the refeer), or did you pull it from the cooler (goes in the reefer)?

YMMV – I live in Seattle, where it doesn’t get that hot. I used to live in Arizona, which was a nightmare for storing produce. Unless you ate it within 12 hrs, it went in the reefer.

With bagged produce, get rid of as much air and keep as much water in as possible, seal or knot the bag tightly. Keep it dark.

Get rid of as much air from around the plant as you possibly can – when exposed to light, the plant photosynthesizes enough to make its own oxygen. To store produce you have to keep it from transpiring – what makes that fog inside the bag – and to do that you have to keep the produce cool (not frosty), dark, and contained. Sometimes adding a teaspoon of clean tepid water to the bag helps.

Refrigerated produce should be bagged. In addition, those little drawers on the bottom of your refrigerator – the vegetable crispers – are your best friend. Use ‘em. Honest. My DH loves the vegetable crispers enough to call them the beer drawers. . The problem with putting produce in the crispers is that its out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

Sterile technique begins at home

Cut your produce with a clean knife. Icky things that eat your produce – bacteria, mold, critters - have to work their way into a plant. Cutting with a dirty knife gives all of them a free pass and a free first lunch. If you buy bagged salad (hey, I do!), shake out the leaves from the bag, don’t put your hand in. Then remove as much air from the bag as convenient and seal.

Pace their ripening

Again with the gas. Ethylene gas, that is. If your fruit or produce is ripening too fast, spread out the fruit a bit, along with eating, cooking, or if necessary tossing the over-ripe offender. If a soft something like a peach is growing fuzz, admit defeat and toss. A hard something like a cabbage you can trim the outer leaves and rescue.

Exit strategies

Vegetable stew, sauces that you can hide chopped vegetables in, roasted vegetables with olive oil, tahini sauce or béchamel sauce, soup, fruit sauces, crumbles, clafoutis, and cobblers. All good exit strategies for slightly over the hill produce. And remember, sometimes you do have to toss. You want dishes, not compost in a pot.

Storage buys time, generally 4 days to several weeks. Happy storage!

At one of the Greenwood yard sales...


That's where I went today instead of the book sale. I stopped off at a number of places, but controlled myself and bought only what I could use right now - I bought a framed poster, a book (that was free), 3 art tiles, bath oils, and a 4 pack of coasters. (15$)

Snapped a number of pictures, including a very cute pug. Hard to shoot pets, they don't stand still.

After the yard sales, DH and I went to the grocery store. The produce looked okay, but the price was wrong, so I only got bananas, spinach, potatoes. I also bought some No Jet Lag for the trip, which several coworkers swore by, and a tube of facial peel. ($44)

And no, although I was tempted and could probably use the item right now, I didn't buy the handcuffs.

Several people –okay, family members – have asked me, “so when do you use that botany doctorate?” Well, as a former plant physiologist, I use it every time I hit the grocery store, fruit stand, or farmer’s market. Now I share some of my tricks and techniques.

If you want to save money and eat better at the same time, you want to buy only good stuff – you’ll want to eat it all then.

A produce item is a piece of plant. Simple enough. Conceptually, it is also a pipe, full of water with one end cut. The more water your plant contains, the more likely it is crisper or juicier and the more likely it will hold up better in storage. If you pick up nothing else from this how to, pick up this tip:

Good produce weighs more than you expect.

Technique 1: take 5 of anything of the same size, preferably medium. Grab each one and gently hold it in the palm of your hand for a few seconds. Pick the heaviest feeling one. No need to squeeze, no need to dig in with your fingernails and disgust everyone. Works for citrus, works for corn, works for melons, works for tomatoes, works for celery, heck, it works for garlic bulbs…it just works for everything.

Good produce smells good.

Technique 2: sniff the stem end of a fruit. It should smell appetizing, like the fruit. If you don’t smell anything and especially if it feels light, it means it’s mealy and dry. If you smell fermentation, pass it by, and if you can’t smell it because it’s wrapped in plastic … ahem, you’re not in the spirit of this, are you? This, along with technique 1, is an especially good tip for melons and pineapple.

Side tip for the uninhibited: A quick way to assess the whole produce bin is to move some of the top most pieces and put your nose in the bin. If you can’t smell anything if you put your nose deep in the bin, it might mean that nothing’s ripe.

Good produce has a firm cut end.

Technique 3: check the stem or the cut end. It should be firm, not soft or slimy or with weird colors. It can have a little bit of soil on it for street cred, but if it’s filthy, pass it by...if it’s a farm stand, pass the whole stand by. It probably means everything was cut with that dirty knife and the storage life of anything you buy at that stand will be short.

Side tip for corn: feel the tip through the husk. The fatter, less pointed tip is the ear you want. Very pointy tips means the ear hasn’t filled out.

Good produce is not the biggest.

Technique 4: try to pick medium, medium-small sized fruit in the bin, not the largest. All the good stuff the plant puts in the fruit – sugars, acids, fragrances, flavors, secondary plant products, water – it seems like the plant will put in a certain amount, but no more. The good stuff in the larger sized fruit is diluted, spread out, while in the medium or small sized fruit, the good stuff is concentrated. It’s no secret that the gigantic apple is going to taste like a softball, while the smaller apple will taste like an apple. Not to mention that it’s a whole lot easier to figure out if something’s heavy when you don’t get thrown off by grabbing the biggest thing.

Good produce ripens with its friends.

Technique 5: check the bottom of the basket. Okay, the joke is that the produce guy puts the rotten strawberries in the bottom of the basket, and I would believe that in some cases. The truth is that many fruits ripen in the presence of ethylene gas, and that ripe fruit produces more ethylene gas. Baskets and bins often produce an enclosed space so that the fruit at the bottom of the bin or basket gets a bigger whiff of ethylene and therefore ripens faster.

Side tip: Aim for the middle of the bin for produce that you want to eat that night. Not everything is sensitive to ethylene – middle of the bin tip seems to work best for citrus, berries, bananas, and apples, and should be applied after all the other tips.

A word or two about the classic, “buy slightly soft, when the flesh yields to gentle pressure.” Good advice for buying ripe stone fruits and tomatoes. However, there are two caveats: 1.) most shoppers know that – after the sixth person submits the fruit to “gentle pressure” I guarantee you that it will be soft, but not in a delectable way. 2) you’ve picked ripe produce. Moreover, if you buy 6-7 ripe pieces of produce, you are committed to eating them within 2-3 days, which can be a challenge.

My aim with these tips is to give you the tools to pick wonderful, ripe and slightly under-ripe produce, some which you can eat right away, the rest slightly under-ripe that you can put in a bowl so you can eat wonderful produce through the week. Lots of strategy here!

Happy produce shopping!

A mixed bag of food buying -

Went to breakfast at a new place considerably closer to our house than the Denny's is. The food was great but the portion sizes were tremendous; I guess for $10, it was to be expected that we were served platters, not plates. Its a step forward though that even my eyes figured it out. Time not to be a caloric hero: got 2 boxes - one for me and one for DH, who actually used his immediately. I was so proud.

There was a party of three at the table next to us - grandmother, mother in her late 40s - early 50s, and son in early 20s. The portions were huge for even them. They ate, son left some bacon on his plate. "It's okay grandma, there some bacon at home," son said.

They left a bit after us, the mother and son to pay, the grandmother a bit behind. The grandmother glanced at our boxes and said sadly, "...tried to teach him some values."

After food, it was hitting a couple of grocery stores - the one next to the breakfast place had only a 10/$10 deal on clif bars, but only in the chocolate/ peanut flavors. Produce looked good, but everything is at least .50/lb more than it was even 2-3 months ago. Anyone else notice?

Next was the HT, which had better produce and fruit prices. I've been on an apple/banana jag for this week which was great because each were .49$/lb.

Then it was cleaning house and watching the afternoon rain. The image today is of wet, newly unfurled japanese maple leaves.


Contacted overstock.com. The camera works great, but the SD card I ordered with it hasn't come yet. They are putting a trace on it and will contact me in 4 days.

Finally, I made some broccoli salad, but I needed tarragon. Went to my third grocery store where I got the tarragon, but also found .99 clif bars in my two favorite flavors - apricot and blueberry. Yippee.

Because my credit card bill is lighter than usual, I put $200 into my ING account.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $10.66 produce stand + 36$ groceries

Blood oranges for $1.49/lb, which is unheard of, along with cheap bananas, cheap orange tomatoes, cheap grapefruit. At the HT, I picked up the cheap cabbage, more edamame, a couple of Mexican sodas, hominy, cilantro, wasabi peas, a coconut tart. Decided on the fine Irish dish of:

Chili.

Well, there are a lot of Irish in Texas. Besides, we haven't had homemade chili in awhile. Paid off the credit card in full, so these next two weeks feel like a retrenchment.

Borrowed a couple of current Paris guidebooks from a coworker, so DH and I will be poring over them for the next 8 weeks. (WOW - where does the time go?) I've planned ahead so I have my passport.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.62 coffee, milk + $15 lunch

Just a lot of Robert Altman-esque Short Cuts today.

Succumbed to the lure of chirashi today. I got a new sushi chef, who gave me a slightly smaller plate but wasn't stingy with the fish. I'll have to remember that my usual sushi chef works on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Found out that the first person I met at work had died. A remembrance of his is tomorrow. He was the computer/network guy who showed up to fix your computer when it was ailing. He retired five years ago, but its still a bit of a shock.

Gave my assistant a little hug as she was leaving on her last day. She told me that she had done more varied stuff in 5 months here than she did in 7 years at workplace unnamed.

The 2007 Poetry on the Bus competition is up and running. I'm a bit lukewarm on the theme - but I have my idea and my twist. All I need is a bit of incubation on a couple of words (you only have 50) and I'll send my shot off. We find out on June 1 - perfect, I'll be in Paris not fretting about it - but by then I'll sure be able to use the $125.

Speaking of the bus, I relearned the pole slide today. It's where you use your angular momentum to slide into a window seat, usually stealing it from someone who hasn't discovered the trick.

DH discovered old stewing hens at .99/ each at the HT. Coq au vin tomorrow!

Saving log - 0$ tip box (right now I get $3.20/day in ING)
Spending log - $10 Denny's + $1.50 tea + $35 Fred Meyer + $3.80 thrift store + $2 spinach

this entry dedicated to Princess Perky.

This afternoon I kicked around my neighborhood after deciding to buy some new underwear. I've dropped two pants sizes, and it means I've dropped two underwear sizes too. Lately I've been rolling the excess - in a sense creating fake "boy shorts" - but after pitching a couple with holes, it was time to refresh the inventory. Of course I buy new and aim for sales; used underwear isn't frugal, its just weird. I walked to Fred Meyer and along with the bikini briefs, just for laughs I got real boy shorts (black), 25% off.

There are few things sweeter, more secret, and more delicious than new fresh undies of a smaller size. The other thrill is that my size is now a medium there, too. I'll have to remember that when that dish of ice cream comes knocking and when I'm trying to do my 10 minutes of night calisthentics.

Inspired, I hit the thrift store. Nothing in the jeans/pants category, but I picked up a couple of tops, one for $1.49. I love dark colors - pastels do nothing for me.

Rounding off the spending by picking up 2 bags of spinach at a $1/bag. I consider bagged spinach (without E. coli) to be frugal because of the rinsing involved. The grit is gone, so it makes it easier for me to eat only vegetables as a late night snack. All that for a $1/bag means its worth it to me.

Friday, Feb 2
Saving log - $8 tip box ($3 to replace what I took out, $5 extra)
Spending log - $2 coffee, milk + $6 lunch

Saturday, Feb 3
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $10 breakfast + $33 groceries

Friday I went to work. It was a trial for the first hour and I thought I would only stay 1/2 a day, but I got a second wind and left only 1/2 hour early. That 1/2 hour made all the difference - I managed to leave work while it was still light. The walk from 8th Ave NW was still dark blue dark, but it is early February.

Took a nap when I got home, then checked to see whether I filed the taxes correctly and when the refund would come (Feb 13, it turns out). Finally, I managed to get 10 minutes of calisthentics in before I went to sleep for real.

Saturday was the usual - breakfast at Denny's and a little grocery shopping for the super bowl get-together hosted by friends in Duvall. The friends are kind of drinkers, kind of not. I wasn't planning on drinking much tomorrow. At the HT Oaktree - whose parking lot today was as busy as I had ever seen it when it was Larry's - I picked up bottles of Mexican-made soda. Interesting flavors like tamarind, mango, guava along with orange and lemon, and at .65/apiece, I figure it will be a trip in a bottle. I bought and cooked our week's meal - beef stew and barley salad. I just didn't want to cook during the week.

Saving log - 0$
Spending log - Denny's breakfast (10$) + groceries (22.54$)

DH told me this week that the old Larry's Market that went under this summer has arisen, phoenix-like from the ashes. Its now the HT (Hop Thanh) Oaktree Market.

Its quite an experience in there. The interior's been remodeled only a little bit, so right now there are still a lot of Larry's bits, some of the signs, the cafe, the kiosks, the sushi stand, the bakery and the wine section hardly look touched at all. And there is a section called "Sales" where I swear the Larry's leftovers landed to be resold.

But it looks like a great Asian grocery store. Picked up a couple of utensils where once the produce was, now its asian cookware and bulk cleaning supplies. Got the fresh seafood - crab, lobster, tilapia. The meat prices look spectacularly low - chicken drumsticks for .69/lb, beef ribs for $1.19 - and if you have a recipe that calls for duck gizzards or pig uteri, well, here's your place.

Freezer section's a treasure trove - I also picked up edamane for .99/lb, checked out the long bean (at $2.19/lb, too rich for my blood), and got a couple of types of asian pears for .89/lb. And for laughs, I got a small bottle of sake for $4.29.

Since I bought over $20 worth of stuff, I got to choose a little thank you gift.

Loved it - it looks a bit like a cross between Uwajimaya, Costco, with some Larry's memories thrown in. The prices seem to run about .20 - $1 cheaper than Uwajimaya, and the parking's a lot easier.

Next door is the Oaktree Cinema - so it looks like we will be smuggling in asian snacks to the movies now.

Savings log (wednesday) - 3$ tip box
Spending log (wednesday) - 2$ coffee, milk + 0$ lunch HAH

Deelish. The four of us (3 backed out) got talked to by two reps. And we each filled out a little sheet. It was all very low-key. Next, should I choose to, comes a 45 meeting with a rep. I don't know - I really like the do-it-yourself portfolio creation and the tweeking. I asked that they contact me via email, it'll be a bit less annoying that way.

And they were true to their word; they talked, they answered questions, then they left and sat at the bar to get a feel for what we were ordering, they paid, and they were gone. O'Asian dim sum was fantastic, albeit a bit pricey (heh heh, leave it to a couple of my friends to maximize that!)

Now to the backees. 2 were kicking themselves today, and I'm guessing that the third will be also...his thought was that since he got the word that his position will be outsourced, his job was in a delicate position. Well duh. And when do you most need the free lunch? NOW.

Yippee - bags of spinach and carrots were 10/10$. I know that salad bags are unfrugal, but having to only rinse once rather than rinsing over and over to get the sand out of the bunch was worth it to me. (2$)

So far I have been doing okay with two of the resolutions - vegetables/salad as the late night snack and 10 minutes of calisthentics. The other ones, not so much.

My best recent purchase, one that has given me more than 5$ worth of pleasure has been a plastic Zyliss shaker. I've been fooling around with making salad dressings, which have got to be cheaper than buying a bottle. Two recipes:

Tahini lemon dressing

2 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)
lukewarm water
lemon juice
salt, pepper
lemon zest (optional)

Add ingredients to the shaker & shake away. Consistency should be the consistency of half and half.

Oil and vinegar
1 part red/white wine vinegar
3 parts olive oil
salt, garlic powder, pepper

Add ingredients to the shaker & shake away.

Did the usual Saturday, lunch out and grocery shopping. To keep our sanity, DH and I split up. He's pretty aimless where food and grocery is concerned. He loves the beer, junk food and fruit - everything else is up to me.

:eyeroll: If somebody can teach me how to make a cursor eye-roll, I'll be grateful. (Thanks, LuckyRobin!) I've been going through the eyeroll phase lately.

Anyhow, DH requested minestone soup, so while he took the aimless route, I picked up the produce and Italian sausage and found tuna for .50/can. Lately that's been a good price, so I stocked up a bit. I filled two large, heavy grocery bags for $21.

With the snow and ice, it was a great time to make the deluxe version of minestrone soup. This isn't diet food, particularly.

3 Italian sausage, sliced. Love the hot stuff!
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely sliced
2 carrots, sliced in discs
1 qt turkey stock or 2 cans chicken stock
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomato (fresh roma tomatoes)
1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce
1/3 head of cabbage, sliced thinly and chopped (what I had on hand)
1 zucchini, chopped
3 medium white potatoes, diced
1.5 c chickpeas, soaked for at least an hour (lentils work here, too)
green beans - I used frozen
1 head fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup orzo pasta
olive oil
parmesian cheese heel
bay leaf, thyme, margoram, salt, pepper
water

Soak chickpeas, then boil until soften. I remove the outer skins; it prevents "colon reverb". Set aside.

In stock pot (I think mine's a 10 qt), add a couple tablespoons olive oil, and saute sliced sausage, onion, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, margoram, celery, carrot until veg is soft and sausage is brown.

Add turkey stock, diced tomato, all the other vegetables, chickpeas, parsley and water to about 3/4 of stock pot. Low simmer for about 1 hr. Taste and correct for salt, seasoning, consistency, etc. If soup is too thick, add water.

Add orzo and parmesian cheese heel. Simmer until orzo is done - about 15 minutes.

Timing is very forgiving, and the vegetables are really whatever you have in whatever form you have them in - fresh and frozen's better than canned.

The cheese heel really makes it for me. When DH and I buy (or are gifted) cheese, we usually save the heel aka the rind aka the cheese closest to the label. Don't put the label in - you lose the gourmet effect.

Saving log - 4$
Spending log - $7 lunch

I just didn't feel like the coffee and milk breakfast routine, so I broke it a bit, frugally. I just wanted a little bit of black coffee and my energy bar.

Cold and blustery at noon, so it was the perfect weather for deluxe spicy pho. Got the chicken pho, with chunks of pineapple and tomato. A quart of pleasure. If it had been any larger, I would have stripped and taken a bath in it.

Not quite ramen or cup of noodles. Even though there is enough salt to drive blood pressure through the roof, that didn't stop me from having a cup yesterday, toasting the inventor of instant ramen. I love them, but not all the time. Too bad instant ramen gives frugality a bad name - the noodles are often the college student's version of frugal. Many people still think that that's what a frugal person does - eat a lot of ramen noodles.

Things are slowly getting back to normal with the new hard drive. I still get an annoying flashing when the CPU is working hard. The wireless connection is a lot better, though. Go figure.

Like standing out in 40 degree weather outside the Roosevelt Safeway waiting for a guy in a green Suburu? All to buy a 2Gb flash drive for 25$.

You see, DJ friend's frugal skill is Craigslist, and he is a master at negotiation over the phone. He got his flash drive for 20$. Seller's new price was 30$, but DJ friend managed to get him down by $5 by "knowing when to be silent". All you do during the seller's offer on the phone is to pause an uncomfortable length of time. Stretch it out. The person who talks first - loses.

DJ friend also taught me more Craigslist philosophy. Your job is to sell the item ASIS with no guarantees, not provide customer service. I fell into that pitfall by trying to sell some laptop memory. I kept getting bites, but they all asked me for advice whether it would work on their systems. Not your job, he said. They should either know that, or are willing to take a flyer on it. If you're only selling it for 5$, the flyer is easy. In other words, asis, no warranty, I dunno, do-you-still-want-to-buy-it?

So I called the seller and arranged the pickup - the Roosevelt Safeway. I felt like a spy, standing outside, waiting for a green Suburu, a twenty and a five twisting between my fingers in my pocket. That's the other device if the seller tries a fast one - 25$ is all I have. I'm only Craigslist challenged. Drove by, I got my drive, he got $25.

Shopping at the Safeway beforehand was an opportunity, though. Got Odwalla energy bars for 1$/bar. I've gotten them for as low as .89/bar, so a 1$ wasn't too far off.

Lunch was with the lawyer friend and the co worker who resigned. Her last day is Friday. The Szechuan noodles and dumplings were wonderful, and we stuffed ourselves for 12$ (we bought for the co worker). I was so stuffed that I held up some bills fanned out, and lawyer friend took what was appropriate. Not a shining frugal moment but funny nonetheless.

Got my sister's Christmas gift. She got the fruit, I got the cheese and summer sausage. Between the two of us we could have a fine party.

Also got a Christmas newsletter in the mail. Sigh. Anybody else throughly creeped out by the verb in this sentence: Male so-and-so gave us (insert baby quantity, gender and generational marker here). Ya helped a bit, but gave? Its a baby, not a piece of property! Yeech.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $2 coffee, milk + $12 lunch + $17 Safeway + $122 electric bill (winter rates).

Wore my medium top to work today. Having a waist is a pleasure that just doesn't get old.

Now with most of the temp staff gone (just our temps that are helping us process the pledges), the office refrig is clear. Today I went back to my trick of buying the foot long sub to eat over the course of two days.

It felt very good.

Throughout the weekend, I managed to put a bit of money into one of the wallet pockets that I don't seem to use. It helped create for me that in-between state of forgetting it was there and not spending it and remembering that it was there to put in my tip box Monday morning.

Tonight DH grilled a chicken breast for me. As I was eating it, something didn't feel right. I set the urn of my kitty's ashes next to me as I ate. Much better.

Saving log - $6 in the tip box + $7.40 this week's t-bill earnings + 40$ into a drp.

Spending log - $2 coffee, milk + $20 chiropractic copay + $6.86 lunch (for 2 days)

Well, its snowing in North Seattle. Turned from rain to sleet to snow at about 2pm, while I was on my walk and trudging through to my errands. Didn't walk that much, but I'm expecting that if you're walking in the cold, you probably will burn off a few more calories because you are trying to stay warm in addition to getting somewhere.

There is about 2 inches on the ground as I type, and its still snowing strong. We tend to have snow days at work in parallel to Seattle Public Schools. If they're canceling school or starting late so do we.

Saturday
Spending log - $9.77 (brushes and paint container for a craft project) + 22.26$ groceries at Whole Foods (WF).

WF because we were in the Roosevelt neighborhood going to an art supply store. Seattle neighborhoods are funny - the Roosevelt neighborhood has about 6-7 audio stores within 3 blocks of each other. The neighborhood that I live in - Greenwood - had at least that many antique stores. Go figure why businesses are so lumpy like that.

I think I managed to get the only decent deals at WF, using my price book. It would have been about 15.00$, but I bought a bag of groceries for charity.

I think WF is so popular because its a prestige place to get caught. I wonder if that's a good general frugal rule. The chance of getting a good deal is in inverse proportion to a place's "coolness".

Sunday
Spending log - $3.28 (bagel and coffee) + 5.76$ (lacquer thinner) + 2.50$ box of crackers

Savings log - 3$ in the tip box
Spending log - 2$ coffee/milk, 7$ lunch, 6$ spray paint

Today in honor the second serious rainstorm, I had another bowl of pho. This time it was the deluxe spicy version - chicken, lots of hot sauce, pineapple, tomato. Yum. Usually this place was fast, fast, fast, but today someone on the kitchen staff was not into it or did something. Lots of yelling by the owner in an asian language. I'm pretty sure that if I slowed it down and got a translation, I'll bet I can learn a lot of new swear words. So dinner and a show.

The spray paint was for the cringe-inducing costume (which actually looked pretty good) at work. Part of the judging was on the use of the color orange, and we could dye and paint our materials. My task was to get orange spray paint.

I could have gotten the Krylon regular orange spray paint, but for an extra $1 more I sprung for the FLUORESCENT orange spray paint, and for a bottle of fluorescent orange craft paint.

Yep, frugality gives you choices. And you just never know, they might have a black light. We are prepared for that possibility.

DJ Myng gave us the first draft of the dance mix with all our voices. I have a distinctive laugh and its going to be immortalized.

Positively Venusian today, with rains, wind and flooding...perhaps you've heard? The rains will continue tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that....DH found my magnetic clip on shades for my glasses, but I won't need them until April sometime. On the other hand, it makes our collective complexions dewy.

Savings log - $7 in the tip box. When I made reverse change I found I have exactly $20, with half the month left to go.

Edited DJ Myng's mission statement for the internet radio station, which took about an hour. Asked him what the next task was and told him to keep the assignments coming - The ETA for the radio station is 1st- 2nd week of January.

Spending log - coffee and milk for $2; lunch was a large bowl of pho - rare beef. There's just something great about a big bowl of pho (Vietnamese soup) when its raining. I saw a lot of pho being ordered, so everyone seemed to have the same idea. (6$).

Made my list of how I'm going to vote tomorrow. Next year and forever more we are all going to vote by mail, and we are going to lose something in the process.

That's for dinner tonight. I got a relatively good deal on well-raised beef stew pieces (I don't remember if they were organic or not) - $2.99/lb (its usually $3.99 or $4.99/lb). We are now also in the beginnings of the November food sales here - canned chicken stock was going 2 for .89, and so were the cans of stewed, diced, and whole tomatoes. That, and for general cleaning, and for cleaning out a lot of produce from the refrigerator made for a very good day.

The $3.99 Charles Shaw shiraz came from the wine cellar via Trader Joes. I took a dusty bottle. After all, what special event was I saving it for?

Found 11 cents in my general cleaning, so I got paid for my work.

It's going to be a very rainy, windy, stormy weekend here. Really, all we did was eat breakfast, hit the grocery store, and hole up reading blogs. Tonight I do some writing for DJ Myng.