Tag: frugal librarian

Frugal Librarian #7: Online Shopping

- Bill Leave a comment

frugallibrarianLet’s get stingy with it… The frugal librarian is also too lazy to leave the house to find value.

Become a regular checker of, or subscribe to the RSS feed of slickdeals and dealhack.  These sites have user-submitted deals that are RED hot on hundreds of merchants.  We’re not talking “save 10%” kinds of stuff.  Ridiculously low blowouts that require action within a few days.  So if there’s a knickknack for which you’ve been on the fence for a couple months or something you’re kind of interested in, keep it the back of your mind and wait for it to come across these sites

And for the one-two cheapskate combo punch, check retailmenot and currentcodes for the secret codes you enter while buying to get additional discounts.  Well, they were secrets before astute shoppers or those that subscribe to those merchants insider deals newsletters leaked them to all us common folk altruistically.

Too phobic to shop online?  Completely understand.  Most of the insurance companies out there are offering packages for online identity protection and peace of mind.  $2-$3 a month for $30,000 in coverage is pretty reasonable.  Shoot, you’ll  probably save twice that in gas and time getting dressed.

Frugal Librarian #6: The Latest Dish

- Bill 1 Comment

frugallibrarianSo after a “mandatory” $27 expenditure because it was insisted I MUST eat the Giordano’s stuffed pizza pie, I’m convinced a reasonable knockoff could be fabricated for less money.

Step 1 – Go to the Salvation Army thrift store and get a breadmaker for a couple bucks.  I’m embarassed of this one.  I went there in search of a popcorn popper for my last blog entry, “Magic Beans” Turns out there is a lot of usable stuff there for about zero money.  Lots of ice cream makers too.  Let other people pay full price on newfangled appliances to experiment and you march in there as a lark and snatch them up for two bits.  The dough making alternative is a kitchen mixer with dough hook attachment whose purchase or space usage I cannot justify.  Also, there are people just giving them away as yesterday’s fad.

WARNING: You have to make a conscientious effort to NOT buy anything else at the thrift store, lest you become some kind of disgusting packrat.

Step 2- The doughball. After running your few shillings’ worth of flour, yeast, etc through the “dough cycle” on the bread maker, punch it down in a cake pan.   A quick google search yielded found me this crust recipe.  Cake pan can also be purchased for a few cents at the thrift store.

Step 3-Layer in whatever ingredients you wish and bake for 30 minutes at 375.  The classic recipes tend to suggest mozzerella, sauce, and spinach.  I’m sure pepperoni slices, mushrooms and browned sausage will work.
Hint:  a tube of Bob Evans is less greasy than the ground stuff at your grocery store’s butcher counter

Step 4- Eat this monster every meal for the next few days.