Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Joy, Fun, and other frugal three-letter words


I love maps.  When I drove across the country twice, twenty years ago, I did so loaded down with a set of AAA maps and travel books.  I'd wake just before sunrise, jump in the car, and then drive until almost sunset.  Then I'd look in my book for the nearest hotel with a working hot tub (and, coming back across the country, that accepted pets), and stop there for the night.

I love AAA maps.  Lately, I love google maps.  My husband and step-daughter (both more technologically savvy than I am by far) love WAZE.

Yesterday I finally got to pick up the trusty ol' Prius from the service center.  Waiting for a shuttle would have been 40 minutes, plus the 15+ minute driving time.  I popped open my google maps and found a bizarre little-bit-of everything route: across a field, through a pedestrian tunnel, through the mall (dude! I was in a mall!), over a covered wooden bridge, along some yucky industrial roads.  The total distance was about 4.5 miles, a good run . . . and faster than the shuttle.  Saves me time; often saves me money; connects me to the land I'm in.  Man, I love maps.


Especially canning jars.  Good for canning, of course, but also for lunch containers, for mixing bowls (morning scrambled eggs, anyone?), for salt shakers, for drinking jars, for measuring cups, for buying hamburger at market with no trash, for storing all sorts of bulk-bought purchases in usable sizes, for holding leftovers that can go from fridge to microwave.

A subtle joy of canning jars is the lid issue.  Unlike all those plastic containers that used to fill my cabinets, I don't have to play a "where's Waldo?" matching game to find the right lid for the right container.  There are just two sizes of lids.  Loverly.


Not fancy purses, or clutches, mind you.  The humble, re-usable, all purpose bag.  If it has handles long enough to go over your shoulder, you can go hands-free carrying large loads.  Groceries.  Picnic supplies.  Mounds of exams that need grading (or better yet, that are graded and ready to be handed back).  Exercise clothes.

When N-son was just a baby, I used to carry him around in the canvas shopping bag that his adoption agency gave us.  He fit comfortably down in the bottom of it, and I'd sling the straps over my shoulder and tuck him snugly under my arms.

The way that language changes over time, common objects get shorter and shorter names.   Henry Ford's "automobile" becomes the modern "car".  Telephones become "phones"; cellular phones become "cells".  So it's not surprising that many frugal objects -- simple, versatile, humble, common -- have short names, too.


  1. So you get the folks in your meat section to pack your hamburger into glass jars? Do you freeze it in the jars, too?

    I prefer glass peanut-butter jars and their one-piece lids over canning jars (plus they are free for me). They are the only jars I get regularly with the nice, wide mouths (unlike, say spaghetti sauce jars which aren't quite as good). But I mostly use these jars for dry bulk purchases and for home-made liquids like chocolate syrup and salad dressing. I don't microwave things in them because things seem to microwave better when I can spread out the contents more, like in a bowl.

    Mostly I use a knapsack for carrying stuff around, but I also use re-usable grocery bags (I like the kind with a plastic insert for the bottom that almost stays open while you're packing it) for bringing groceries home and for bringing munchies and craft supplies to parties.

    1. I am actually on the cusp of jar-meat experiments. In the past, I bought about 50 lb of hamburger, plastic-wrapped in 1-lb packs. That supply ran out at the beginning of the summer, and so I switched to getting the more expensive meat from market. That, they put in jars. I've called my bulk supplier and asked if there's a way to get my meat trashless, and they're intrigued, but not sure yet how to do this.

      If they can get me trashless hamburger (meat in a bucket?), I think I'll try freezing it in jars and see how it goes. I'm a little nervous about freezer burn . . . -MM

  2. Maybe if the jar is completely full, there would be no freezer burn. But does hamburger expand when it freezes?

    I suppose it would thaw just as well in a jar as in some other package, so long as you have some time to thaw it. Even if not, with a wide-mouth jar, you could soak it in hot water to thaw the edges and then maybe it would slide out into a pan for further treatment.

    I like to brown my hamburger with onion and garlic as soon as I get it and then put that in the freezer, just because I (irrationally) hate thawing hamburger before I cook it. However, I only get two pounds of hamburger at a time. (And this does reduce my flexibility a bit--I can't make burgers, but normally I make spaghetti or chili and my burgers aren't that good anyway.)

    Good luck with your burger bucket--especially if you can return the bucket for a re-fill! I don't use that much hamburger, but now I'm thinking I may try bringing a jar next time I get hamburger and see how it goes.