Frugal Friday: Frugal Fun!

Okay well for this Fridays frugal tip I will tell you what I did this week. After spending $36.00 on 3 cook books at amazon I also decided I needed to start watching for cook books at yard sales/swap meets to keep expanding my collection. So last Saturday we went to the swap meet and I got 3 cook books. They were 3/$5.00. So $1.66 each. Tonight I searched amazon to see how much they are going for. I found 2/3 on amazon.

The first one is a bed and breakfast cook book which I love and have already used twice. Click here to see me ramble in another post about this book.
The Bed and Breakfast Cookbook: Great American B & Bs and Their Recipes from All Fifty States by Martha W. Murphy. I looked on amazon tonight and this book is selling right now for $16.93. I spent only $1.66 so that is a savings of $15.27.

The next book is Jenny Craig's No Diet Required: Recipes for Healthy Living It is selling for $14.99 and I got it in great condition for $1.66. So I saved $13.33. The third book I couldn't find at amazon but I am sure I saved money there as well. ;)

Another tip is to look at discount outlets like Ross. My friend Zsuzanna mentioned the other day finding a pizza stone for a great price at Ross so Joe and I happened to be out there today looking to see if I could find any cookware I was interested in. We did find a few mini muffin pans. I was trying on an outfit in the womens room and Joe seen a stand of books and he found me this one. It looked good. I liked also that it had the calorie counts. He said he flipped thru it and saw yummy food he wants to eat. It said $5.99, that sounded fair enough so we bought it. By the way this book is HEAVY!!! It says it has over 1000 recipes and has 564 pages(including index, but still)All-new Complete Cooking Light Cookbook

Since it was brand new and not a used book I decided to take a peek and see how much amazon was selling this book for. It says "regularly" $34.95 but on sale for $23.07! I paid $6.00 for it so we saved $17.07. Now a really frugal tip would obviously be to borrow these from your library. ;)but for the cost of gas nowadays you can't beat $1.66 at the swap meet. In addition you don't have to give them back. They can be part of your ever growing collection and stab at feeding your family lots of yummy wholesome food.

For more frugal tips check out Biblical Womanhood.

WFMW: Using TWO coupons per purchase

I know some of you ladies may know this but hey, maybe some of you don't. This Works-For-Me Wednesday I will let you know how I got 5 boxes of Total cereal today, normally priced at $4.00 a box(so $20.00 worth)for only $7.50. Now I am certainly not the coupon Queen but I do try to clip here and there what I think I will use.

Well my local grocery store was selling Total cereal for $2.50 this week. They also had an "in ad coupon" for $3.00 off if you buy 5 boxes in their flyer. So $12.50 - $3.00 is $9.50, not bad. Well it just so happens I also had a $2.00 off manufacturers coupon for when you buy 5 boxes. So $9.50 - $2.00 = $7.50. Even better! That is the catch. You can use both a manufacturers coupon and a store "in ad" coupon on the same purchase and save even more money.

So check the small print on those coupons ladies and double up where you can. For more tips go take a look at Works-For-Me Wednesday

Kitchen Tip Tuesdays

Here is my tip for Tuesday. Add hummus to your tuna or salmon as a nice healthy alternative to mayonnaise. I rarely ever use mayonnaise. I stick with mustard most of the time, well except when I am at In and Out Burger, then I pile on the thousand island dressing. haha But mustard doesn't taste good on tuna.

The hummus I buy is from Costco. It is Sabra hummus with roasted pine nuts. The ingredients are chick peas(garbanzo beans), water, tahini(sesame), soybean and/or canola oil, garlic, salt, pine nuts and a few other things to season it and keep it fresh. I hope someday to make this myself and use olive oil instead of soybean oil. But the point is it makes a nice spread and you get the benefit of eating one of the worlds healthiest foods. Don't believe me? Go here and check out why chickpeas are so good for you. Garbanzo beans (chickpeas)

Chickpeas can help lower your cholesterol level, lower your risk of a heart attack and even help stabilize your blood sugar. This makes a nice dip for crackers too. I took 4 T of hummus, 1/2 cup of canned salmon, a few tomatoes and a few pieces of chopped up onion and mixed it all together. Add some whole wheat crackers and Voila! A nice healthy snack.
Have you ever had hummus before? Have you ever made your own?

Check out Tammy's Recipes for more tips!