Tips and Tricks for the Strapped for Cash Among Us

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Find a partner with their own home that's already paid off and who has their own car also paid off..
Oh wait.. I did that..
I should have my gf write this.. She reuses trash bags and throws almost nothing away.. At first the house was a mess, but it's now quite tidy..

Well, if she dumps me I'll forward her number and email address..

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Got to thinking about this thread and thought maybe we need one about recipes that are cheap and easy to make and ones that lend themselves to easy improvisation.
Not only did I go to school to study culinary, but I've worked in lots of kitchens as well as raised 4 kids and grandkids and have done most of the cooking for my family.

One of the things indispensable to my diet is chicken broth.  Most groceries will sell whole chicken minus the guts feet and heads. They're better with guts than without, but go ahead and cut one up and boil it in plenty of water.  You can use the meat for lots of meals, but the broth is the best part.  Strain it to get any loose skin or bones out then set it in the fridge overnight till the fat rises to the top and solidifies then skim it off if you want,  but the broth will keep for quite some time if kept covered and refrigerated. Use the fat for all kinds of flavoring.
Not much makes better mashed potatoes than chicken broth and it's great for starting soups and other things.
Even chicken thighs,  backs, necks or most any chicken pieces make a good broth and if you have a cold you can't find much better than a steaming cup of chicken broth to feel better ..

[Munch]

mums taught me the great value of how to use everything brought to make it go further. Buy a whole chicken and roast it for a sunday roast, then the next day use the leftover chicken for chicken salad or soup. Buying a back of minced meat can make better burgers and if its just you can last several days, also she taught me the value of cooking a large pan of soup, like she did once when dad was still alive and she was on holiday, and he was clueless about cooking, so she left him soup to warm up each day.

[Mermaid]

APA, you went to culinary school!? Cool! That's on my bucket list. I don't want to be a professional chef, but I want to be able to cook like one.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

APA, you went to culinary school!? Cool! That's on my bucket list. I don't want to be a professional chef, but I want to be able to cook like one.

It's not all its cracked up to be for home cooking. Culinary schools generally teach cooking in institutional settings such as restaurants and large cafeterias serving hundreds of people at a time. They don't generally teach much about home style stuff,but you can learn some really nifty techniques like handling knives,  sauteing (sp) large portions of food at once, etc. It really depends on the school though and what you want to get out of of it.  Most won't teach recipes, but instead teach formulas. There isn't much in the way of ounces of cooking, but more like cooking pounds of food at a time.  You can definitely adapt what you learn to use at home.  There's a strong emphasis on safety, nutrition and sanitation. To this day I have a tough time wanting to eat off a plate washed by hand by 99.99% of the population. If you go to a culinary school be prepared to wash your hands 99 times a day in water that feels like it might boil your skin right off.. LOL
TV cooking shows that have the chef stuff is completely divorced from reality. A chef is much more about the executive functions of restaurants than actual cooking of food.

[Aletheia]

Our diet for a while now has been rather simple. First, we start off with chicken leg quarters (catch them on sale for about $.29 per lb), which are deboned and cut into bite size portions, tenderized with a mallet and then marinated in soy sauce (and any other Asian flavourings). We then boil some medium sized Asian noodles (stir for 3 minutes while on high, then for 1 minute with the heat turned off). The chicken is stir fried until nearly cooked, then the noodles, vegetables, mushrooms, spices, and extra sauce are added. It's important not to cook it for too long.

Lately we've been using fish, since someone gave us 40 lbs of catfish.

[Mermaid]

Good perspective, I'll have to see what is offered. I was thinking more balance and flavor, butchering, and basic techniques like that. There's a brand new culinary school right across the street from my job, I can take classes there through a community college.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

First things first ..Sanitation! Food's no good if it's full of unwanted bacteria.
Get a really good set of heavy chefs knives and a good quality steel to keep them good and sharp then learn how to handle them without leaving body parts in the stew .. Get a good quality pocket thermometer to keep foods at the right temperature.
Geeez ..I could go on and on about this stuff. In a restaurant I'm no fun to work with because most people who work in them are slobs who could care less if they poison you.
I'll leave it to your collective imaginations of how safe it is to eat out much less at a friend's house .. LOL

[Mermaid]

I have training in microbiology and worked in a bac-t lab for a few years, so I do have a pretty good handle on sanitary food technique and holding temperatures, and some knives and not halfway bad knife skills. Maybe I should just go to culinary boot camp at the CIA or something.

People like me appreciate people like you working in a kitchen!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The culinary school in the community college in Dayton Ohio I think has two sections now. One for people who want to make a living working in the business and the section for people who want to improve their day to day home cooking skills.  I'm not sure if they actually got that off the ground or not, but I remember them discussing doing that.
Learning from people who do or have worked in the business can really teach you a lot.

[JBCuzISaidSo]

Awesome thread is being awesome. Seriously, this is great!

My additions are simple but do require some income;

1. Nobody "needs" cable, if they have good internet. putlocker.is has all you need, mere minutes after the show credits sometimes, such is the case for my 2 favorite shows, TWD and Z Nation. Sometimes a day or two, like Ray Donovan airs Saturday and loads Monday, but we're beggars not choosers.

2. My phone costs $35 a month. With data, on an htc one android kitkat. I use that awesome internet for wireless while I am home. (btw, the internet is $50/month for the fastest fiber optics in the US, Vermont rawcks!)(My kid works for this company.)

3. I clean toilets for a living (okay whole houses, but nobody cares about the rest), and I can tell you that one box of baking soda can alter your entire mood, since a clean home is a mental health issue. Put it on ANYTHING, add water, let set, scrub/wipe, holy CLEAN.
--3.(a) Baking soda/water paste = toothpaste without fluoride, which is all you pay for, and bs gets it whiter.

4. Dawn dish soap is flea killer for pets. Wet, squish on some Dawn original, leave for 5 minutes, rinse VERY WELL, no fleas.

5. The main ingredient for heartworm pills from the vet is Ivermectin. You can buy this at Tractor Supply for cattle for under $10, and use it for up to a year. About a quarter size on your palm of the cattle paste per month for a medium sized dog. NOT FOR CATS, DOGS ONLY. Ivermectin is toxic for cats.
--5. (a) Also for dogs, they make a Strongid paste (wormer) for cattle that can be used on dogs and is MUCH CHEAPER.
--5. (b) Tobacco is a natural wormer for dogs and cats.

6. For smokers! I roll my own, and pay about $0.80 a pack. A hand-roller (I use http://www.thesmokingstore.com/gambler-cigarette-rolling-machine/ ), lasts years, tobacco can be found at $15-$20 for 16 oz, king tubes at $3-$5 per 200. Shop around and find local after the initial machine purchase. Per 16 oz bag, I get 4 boxes of tubes, it lasts almost a month I think. I smoke not quite a pack a day.

[Mermaid]

4. Dawn dish soap is flea killer for pets. Wet, squish on some Dawn original, leave for 5 minutes, rinse VERY WELL, no fleas.

5. The main ingredient for heartworm pills from the vet is Ivermectin. You can buy this at Tractor Supply for cattle for under $10, and use it for up to a year. About a quarter size on your palm of the cattle paste per month for a medium sized dog. NOT FOR CATS, DOGS ONLY. Ivermectin is toxic for cats.
--5. (a) Also for dogs, they make a Strongid paste (wormer) for cattle that can be used on dogs and is MUCH CHEAPER.
--5. (b) Tobacco is a natural wormer for dogs and cats.

I appreciate the need to economize, but I have to comment on this. I am a veterinary parasitologist for some background.

Calculating doses accurately is very VERY important. I cannot stress enough how careful you need to be in calculating the proper dose. It is VERY easy to OD them with paste dewormer, and it is very hard to measure in such small amounts. The paste is very concentrated, cattle weigh 1000 lbs or so, that's a very big difference from a dog.

What you are suggesting, a quarter-sized blob for a medium sized dog, is far, FAR overdosing for heartworm control.

Ivm livestock paste is 1.87% ivermectin, or 18.7 mg of ivermectin per mL of paste. Say a quarter-sized blob is about 1 mL. A medium sized dog is about 30 lbs, or about 14 kg. That is 18.7 mg/kg.

The dose for a Heartgard chewable is 6.0 micrograms per kg body weight. 6 micrograms is 0.006 mg. By giving the dog 18.7 mg/kg, you are overdosing your dog by over 3000x. Do not do this. I realize that lots of people do this with paste dewormer and things are fine, but this product bioaccumulates in the fat. With every subsequent dose, more accumulates in the fat. You can push the dog over the edge months after the first dose. Please be very very careful when doing this. Please. I have seen animals who have been OD'd and it's very painful and unpleasant, and there's nothing to be done for them other than support them and wait it out, which can take many days. Some do not survive. It is important that dogs are on heartworm preventative, but I beg you to be safer about it.

-There is nothing magical about Dawn dish soap. Any soap will kill fleas on a dog or cat. That's great. You should know, however, that 95% of any flea population lives off the pet and in your house. Soap has no residual effect, so new fleas will just jump right on. Using a daily flea comb will help you clear up the environmental flea infestation that you may have, but you need to be very patient, this can take months of daily combing.

-Tobacco is toxic to both dogs and cats (and humans!). Commercial dewormers are safer, inexpensive, and more effective.

[JBCuzISaidSo]

Some great points on the paste wormer. To note, though, dogs generally are dosed higher than cows, not lower, and the paste is used on swine as well. Most breeders I know (a lot!) use the injectable which I was never comfortable using. Check dosing, research it if you plan to utilize another means of heartworm prevention on a budget.  If you have a breed with the sensitivity mutation (collies, to name one off the top of my head), avoid doing it yourself.

The Dawn, I have used this also. It does work. Flea combs are cheap, though, and it's fun to watch fleas drown in soapy water. :)

Tobacco was a wormer used before commercial wormers came about and many farmers still, actually, use it. These days, the expense is too high, and too much extra is added, plus nicotine isn't good for pets. (http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/natural-dewormer-livestock-zmaz77mazbon.aspx -- read if you want) Smoke it instead!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

A half and half mixture of regular dawn and white vinegar heated up in the microwave a bit makes quick work of cleaning a shower that has mold growing in it.
One expense most people can live without is replacing your lawn mower engine every year.  Avoid gasoline with alcohol in it. Most cities have gas stations that sell alcohol free gasoline. It costs more, but it's still much cheaper than replacing the engine or having to take it all apart for repair. Small engines do not like gasoline with alcohol in it.
http://pure-gas.org/ is one place to find it locally ..
I used to roll my own smokes for years, but finally broke down and decided to buy them prerolled up the street cheaper than anywhere else in town. It's South Carolina so there aren't a lot of taxes on them.

[Mermaid]

Ivermectin is used for a very different purpose than cows, (intestinal parasites), and cows are dosed a lot higher than dogs are for heartworm control.

Cattle are dosed at 0.2 mg/kg for intestinal parasites
Dogs are dosed at 0.006 mg/kg per kg for heartworm

The injectable is actually a good alternative to the paste, I'd rather give that if I were doing my own dosing. You can calculate and dilute with saline with a syringe, and give it orally. You can squirt it right into the mouth, and it's way easier to accurately dilute. But the cost for a bottle of cattle injectable initially is higher than for a tube of dewormer paste. I can't professionally or ethically recommend either, but I'm just saying people do that all the time. :)

The neonicotinic class of insecticides are derived from tobacco. The active ingredient in Advantage, imidacloprid, is a good example of this.