Saving Money Doing It Ourselves

About a week ago, Melissa wrote about how we were considering doing much of the work on the new house ourselves in order to save money. We’ve chosen to do quite a bit ourselves and save the money we would have spent otherwise. So far it’s working well but taking most of our time. We’re a little bruised and battered from all the physical labor, but after we’re done I think we’ll be happier that we took the time and effort to do it ourselves.

One thing we wanted to do was to add some protection to the walls in the room where we put our litter boxes. We wanted something that looked nice, like Wainscoting, but would add some extra protection to the walls around the litterbox area. We got a quote from a contractor who said it would be $800 in labor alone. We talked to Melissa’s father who had done some of this kind of work before and he offered to drive into town to help us and supply the tools we would need. With his help, we got it done in a single day and it looks great! We saved the $800 in labor by doing it ourselves. I’m not sure how much we saved in parts because we didn’t pursue the work with the contractors but I think we probably saved some money there too. Best of all, I learned a lot about working on a house and used several tools I hadn’t had much need for before and also got time to bond with Melissa’s father which was great. Because her family lives about 4 hours away, we don’t get to see them much, so it was a big deal for them to come up to help us.

We’ve also decided to do the grout sealing ourselves. This has been time consuming and physically a bit rough (your knees and wrists take a beating), but not horrible. We had gotten a quote for $1400 to get the grout sealed (it was an estimate based on square footage so the price might have gone up if they actually came out to quote the work). We spent $100 on sealer so far, and about 3 days (working around other tasks and appointments around the house). We probably didn’t have much choice here because we had not budgeted nearly enough for what we had been quoted. It’s been good honest work and that feels really good too. We may be working at the house about 14 hours a day now, but when we’re done, we’ll have everything in place for our upcoming move.

We were also considering a few other things. This is how they’ve turned out so far :

So far, we are right about on budget. Some things we’ve gone over, but we managed to save money in different areas by researching the best deals or in some cases getting really lucky (Sears had a sale on garage door openers at the perfect time for us).

It feels good to come home exhausted and get a good nights sleep, but I’m missing my time reading and writing. I hope to have a few more moments where I can write up a quick as time (and energy) permits.

Carnival Of The Recipes - Cooking On A Budget Edition

It’s time for the Carnival of the Recipes - Cooking on a Budget Edition! This carnival features the efforts and ideas of those who enjoy cooking and creating wonderful recipes. It’s like a great recipe swap every week!

If you are new to A Penny Closer, welcome! This is a blog about a couple who are working together to reach their goals through budgeting, saving, and learning about frugality. You can read more about our story here or view a single page of all of our posts in our archives.

I have a serious love affair with cooking so every week I feature a recipe called a “Reducipe“. They are recipes designed to reduce your grocery bills by making an expensive meal cheaper, or an already cheap meal better.

Saving money through cost cutting measures in the kitchen can greatly impact your bottom line. I feel it is one of the most flexible and dynamic areas of the budget. With the holidays right around the corner who couldn’t benefit from saving some cash on meals?

We had a lot of wonderful submissions this week and I’ve marked my personal favorites with a star (*). Please enjoy!

Holiday Related

*Christine presents Vin Chaud - Hot Wine for the Holidays! posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France. This is a simple and inexpensive holiday drink to serve at parties. I love that she tried this with expensive and cheap wine and the cheap wine was better! That is always a plus. She also shares with us a kid-friendly version in Hot Orange Juice and Honey for the Holidays!

*Karen Weideman presents Corn Casserole Recipe posted at Balance In Diet. This corn casserole sounds creamy and sweet. I like that it uses cheddar for that savory and salty kick. I’m definitely going to try this one very soon.

Grean Beans*Adam presents Green Bean Casserole Alternative posted at Men in Aprons. Even though I tend to like traditional-style green bean casserole (as long as it is doctored up) I can certainly see why MIA is against it. So many of those casseroles ARE nasty. I think his alternative sounds great - maybe it is time to ditch the condensed soup after all!

Suzanne presents Our Yummy Stuffing Dressing posted at :: adventures in daily living ::. This dressing features raisins, pecans, and tangy dried cranberries. Very festive!

Chef Andrew presents Black Eyed Pea Dip posted at The Recipe Bank. Although he says this is good for a tailgating party I bet this recipe would do fine at an office party or potluck as well. Black eyed peas are traditional around the holidays so this is something I’d love to try.

Diabetic Recipes presents Crunchy Banana-Colada Bread posted at Diabetic Recipes. It says this makes a healthy banana bread perfect for the holidays. Personally, I think anything using coconut is great with the holidays and using granola bars is very inventive.

Career Counselor presents Holiday Season: Simple Ways to Increase Morale and Happiness at Your Office posted at ask the CareerCounselor. Help drum up the holiday spirit around the office with some yummy treats! Here are 6 links to scrumptious looking snacks you can make for co-workers. The holiday bark sounds delicious!

Chef Andrew presents The Recipe Bank: Appetizer posted at The Recipe Bank. Chef Andrew shares a collection of appetizer recipes perfect for casual parties. The layered barbeque bean dip looks like an interesting variation on the popular 7 layer dip. Anything with bacon makes it a hit for me!

Soup’s On!

Chili and Chips*mom & dad presents Making Chili With Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey posted at raising4boys.com. Making chili is a wonderful way to use leftover turkey and this recipe looks really good and family-friendly. The spices would help change the flavor enough to help you keep on using up those leftovers even after you get sick of turkey (usually by the third day for me). Nice photos, too!

*Betsy Teutsch presents High-Quality-of-Life Double Mushroom Barley Soup posted at Money Changes Things. This hearty recipe just begs to be eaten on a frosty winter night. The fact that it is vegetarian is a bonus because I can make a big pot and share it with all of my friends.

Bill presents Crockpot Beef Stew posted at Slow Cooker Recipes. This looks like classic comfort food to me. It’s funny how some of the most soothing food is so simple and inexpensive to make.

Tim Abbott for David Churbuck presents On Chowder posted at Churbuck.com. I don’t see much chowder where I’m from so I wouldn’t be able to identify a proper version if I wanted to. I loved this well-written story about a man and his memories of making chowder. The story made me hungry even though I had just eaten!

Maximizing Meals

Autumn Sausage*DeputyHeadmistress presents Autumn Sausage posted at The Common Room. Autumn Sausage - A great inexpensive entree with sweet potatoes (one of Eric’s favorites), sausage, and apples. Sounds hearty and the sweet potato and veggies are healthier than what you would normally eat with sausage.

Kathee presents Chicken Style Sloppy Joes posted at Chicken Recipes. This is a nice sloppy joe recipe that uses chicken instead of ground beef. Who needs canned sloppy joe mix when you can make it from scratch so easily?

Chef Andrew presents The Recipe Bank: International posted at The Recipe Bank. This first recipe on this page is a Chimichurri Burger (there are lots of great recipes at this link). Eric and I enjoy a burger night every once in a while. To save money, we usually buy a large amount of ground beef and separate it into portions of a little over 3/4 a pound each. We can then freeze these and we split on portion of hamburger for meals that require it. This burger sounds very interesting with lots of unusual ingredients (cabbage, carrots, and cilantro among others). Eric always loves an exotic burger so I can’t wait to try these out.

Thelly presents Chicken Lasagna posted at Chicken Recipes. This reminds me of a local favorite called King Ranch Chicken. I bet this would be great with chili powder and cumin. Reinventing shredded chicken is an art form and variety like this is key to keeping it interesting.

Elisson presents PIZZA OF THE WEIRD posted at Blog d’Elisson. I think pairing apple with cheddar is a good combination. I love that he used these flavors to create a pizza. The picture looks great!

Pancake Recipes presents Lemon Pancake Recipe posted at Pancake Recipe. I wasn’t sure where to place this one. Eric says that when he lived in the Netherlands that they used to eat pancakes as a main course. This recipe sounds great, and the addition of cottage cheese or yogurt makes me believe these pancakes will be extra yummy. I’d probably use yogurt since Eric absolutely loves it.

Healthy Eating

World Famous Recipes presents Healthy Turkey Loaf - Turkey Meatloaf posted at World Famous Recipes. This meatloaf looks simple and spicy. It uses salsa and peppers to add flavor rather than fat. I bet it would be good with more salsa poured on top of each slice just before serving.

Turkey BurgerTurkey Recipes presents Turkey Burgers posted at Turkey Recipes. This turkey burger uses a dried tomato sauce made from minced dried tomatoes and yogurt instead of ketchup as a condiment. It sounds light and tasty and the onion bun is a nice touch!

Joel Fuhrman, MD presents Green, Green, Food, Food! posted at Disease Proof. Wow - just reading this trio of green veggie recipes made me feel healthier. I’m always looking for ways to incorporate the good stuff into our diet.

Deb Bixler presents Cheap Family Meals posted at Increase Metabolism & Live Healthy. Deb gives us tips and tricks on how to eat healthy when on a budget. You know, it’s funny but I find the weeks that I buy mostly fresh food are more expensive than other weeks. I guess that is because fresh foods usually don’t have coupons.

Saving On Sweets

*Stephanie presents Rice - The Perfect Frugal Food posted at Stop the Ride!. Incredibly simple, very flavorful and inexpensive dessert. You can’t get much more frugal than this! We almost always make too much rice when we cook it so this sounds like a great way to use that leftover rice.

*Lucynda Riley presents Apple Biscotti posted at Quietly into the Night. What a cool idea! She says this is like an apple pie in biscotti form. With all the apple pie spices it seems perfect for the season.

Puppy Chowcookingfor5 presents Puppy Chow, Chex Chocolate Snack Mix posted at Simply Cooking. I remember this oddly named snack from years back as well. It was very addictive!

Famous Recipes presents Fudgy Pecan Pie Recipe posted at Famous Recipes. I have had plenty of pecan pie but never fudge pecan pie. Sounds delicious!

Smarter Dollar presents Peach Pound Cake posted at Famous Recipes. Oh man, pound cake! Pound cake is a favorite of mine and this recipe looks great with the fresh peaches. Yum!

Lucynda Riley presents Roasted figs with honey and Rosemary posted at Quietly Into the Night. There is something so elegant and sophisticated about figs. If you have a fig tree you are in for some really good, cheap desserts.

Cooking Know-How

Greek Yogurt*Melanie Rimmer presents How to Make Greek Yogurt posted at Bean-Sprouts. Melanie shows us how to make our own Greek yogurt. She walks through the entire process with detailed instructions and pictures. Now I don’t have an excuse for not trying to make yogurt from scratch. We’ve made Greek yogurt before using store-bought yogurt and straining it with cheesecloth for Raita to go with some of our Indian dishes. It’s delicious! You can also eat it on it’s own (Melanie suggests adding honey too) as a dessert.

*Rebecca presents Design a Brine posted at The Experimental Kitchen. Brining is a wonderful way to add a lot of flavor to your meat before cooking it. We eat a lot of roast chicken and to save money we usually buy whole chickens. We’ll brine the chicken overnight (sometimes longer) and it adds a wonderful flavor. We’ll roast all the chicken at once but our first meal is always just the roasted chicken with some vegetables. Then we take the rest and remove it from the bones for meals for the entire week. In this post, Rebecca walks us through designing our brine to add the flavors we want, as well as the proper proportions depending on how much meat we are flavoring. Great instructions to follow!

Karen Weideman presents Easy Homemade Brown Sugar posted at Thrifty Mommy. I didn’t realize just how easy it was to make your own brown sugar! Karen shows us how to save some money by making it on your own.

Maria Fernandez presents The Silver Spoon - Il cucchiaio d’argento posted at Learn a foreign language - blog. Maria shares with us a very popular cookbook in Italy. I bet you can get a lot of fabulous recipes from that!

–ooOOoo–

So many great recipes this time! Everyone’s got a lot of cooking to do now. Thanks everyone for submitting these wonderful recipes to the carnival!

Most images on this page are from posts for submitted recipes. Turkey burger image by jetalone.

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