Tales from the Frugal Side

If I had a dollar for everytime someone I saw in my daily travels remarked upon how bad the economy is currently; I'd have a nice Christmas fund at this point. Maybe I should get a portable credit card scanner, see if I can collect on that "if I had dollar for everytime." Much to my dismay, I'd have to say the odds of collecting those dollars would be very slim. So let's get onto my patent pending Tales From the Frugal Side.

  This week in Frugalville* had it's ups and downs.

1. Once again this year, I used a few coupons and purchased Halloween candy well in advance of the holiday. Once again I planned to hide the candy. Once again this year, the candy I bought is gone before Halloween. The lesson here is that planning ahead when it involves chocolate or Twizzlers is a bad idea. Procrastination has its place.

  Score on purchasing Halloween Candy with coupons: C

2. I met The Man for a fine dining secret shop at a steakhouse downtown. The requirements for what needed to be ordered were not in line with the reimbursment. I will only be reimbursed for about 50% of the total cost of the meal, which is not the goal. The goal is to be reimbursed for the meal as a payment for a detailed report. Icing on the cake was that the steak wasn't good and the service was subpar. We could have had a fantastically yummy meal at  Coopershawk Winery AND  Chucks Southern Comforts Cafe!

Speaking of Chucks, clear your schedule and set the DVR! Chucks Southern Comforts Cafe will be on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Monday October 24th at 9pm! If you have ever been to Chucks you know Guy Fieri is going to love everything!

Score on secret shop steakhouse: D

Score on Chucks being on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives A+!

3. Making bread from scratch. Many a frugal living blog talks about how much cheaper and awesome it is to make your own bread. I was looking in the cabinet and saw that I had 2 packets of active dry yeast that were fixing to expire. Normally I don't say fixing, but making your own bread will turn you all kinds of country. I googled 'easy homemade bread recipe' and I was off to the races. All went well until I noticed my bread wasn't rising. At this point I could have thrown in the towel and threw out the dough, however, since I had spent 10 minutes kneading the dough, I wasn't ready to quit. I returned to google 'my bread won't rise.' and found out that if your bread won't rise it can be salvaged! You have to take more yeast, one or two tablespoons and mix that with a teaspoon of sugar and 2 oz of warm water and mix that together. Next wait 10 minute to make sure the yeast gets foamy, that's how you know it is active. It was active! The next step was to mix that into the dough. This step was gooey and icky. But it worked!

Score on Baking Bread: B- (great sense of accomplishment, but time consuming!)




*Frugalville where are the women are Couponers, the men cut their own grass, and the children wear hand-me-downs.