What is Really in a Frugal Fridge?

I posted a question on one of my favorite boards asking for ideas. There were some really good ideas there.

In the Complete Tightwad gazette on page 265 a couple of things in which Amy has listed in "The Tightwad Refrigerator" which I hadn't thought of or heard of is Homemade refrigerator dough and yeast. I had never heard of keeping yeast in a refrigerator. Neat idea!

My friends on the message board had some good ideas too. like a refrigerator muffin mix that would be handy too.

I have in my frugal fridge right now, apples,celery,juice,bologna,homemade jam, pickles,pickled beets etc.... I just feel like I am missing something. I usually have a salad made up in a huge bowl for the week to go with suppers,snacking, lunches etc....I don't add cucumber to this bowl however as I find that it will go soggy so it is usually cut up in a small seperate soup bowl to add.

I am still curious on what others keep in their frugal fridge :)!

Chicken Terriyaki

This is definately one of my families favorites! I usually double the sauce recipe and have made it with ribs as well as the chicken. You could also make up the sauce and I would bring it to a soft boil on med/low heat in a pot on the stove stirring regularly for about a minute or so then simmer for a couple of more minutes, cool and put in a jar/bottle for future use for stirfrys etc.......


Chicken Terriyaki


3 to 3 1/2 lb. chicken, cut up

1 tbsp. oil

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp. water

1/4 tsp. ginger

1/2 cup soya sauce


Place chicken single layer in baking pan. Mix next ingredients and dissolve sugar. Pour sauce over chicken. Cover and let stand 30 minutes in fridge (turning regularly). Bake skin side down and covered at 350 for 45 minutes. Turn meat and bake uncovered another 20 minutes.


Recipe from; St. Maurice Catholic Church

Morris, Man.

Homemade White Bread (4 loaves)

I had gotten this recipes Years ago from Dhs Aunt. This recipe is also Great to use for homemade pizza dough!




4 cups warm water

1 cup powdered milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp yeast

1/2 cup of cooking oil or melted butter/margarine

1 1/2 tbsp. salt

1 egg (optional) I usually make this bread without

10 cups flour ( might need more or less depending on dough texture, if too sticky add more etc...)


In a big bowl put warm water, milk, sugar and yeast, let stand till foamy then add 4 cups flour, salt, egg and oil and stir then add rest of flour and Knead well.


Let rise 1 hour.Punch down dough, Cut into loaves, put in pan and rise for about an hour.

Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.


When I take my bread out of the oven I use wax paper and rub some margarine over the top......this helps to keep the crust soft opposed to having it hard and crusty.

Cook Once And Eat Twice...

Cook Once And Eat Twice...

I have been cooking once and making enough to start filling my freezer so that we may eat twice. This is an awesome way to save money.

Tuesday I had baked a Roast Pork Tenderloin (bought on sale of course!). As soon as I took it out of the oven the first thing in which I did was to take 1/2 and set aside so that everyone knew this was going to be for another meal. I find that my family, myself included, will get up for a second helping even though we are not really hungry, just because it just well....tastes so good! I have been adding a salad as a side dish. I will be starting to alternate and make soups to freeze as well opposed to salads as an appetizer to give a bit of varity along with homemade breads/rolls on other days.I am also going to start making deserts on a regular basis,this helps to not feel deprived.

This week so far for my freezer I have for meals at another time : pork roast tenderloin, meatballs for another meal, sweet and sour sauce, 1/2 of a homemade apple crisp.

It is a start that is for certain and I used to do this all of the time. I didn't make up a double batch of Beef Enchilada Casserole yet, I am thinking that I will do this next week.

Signing Off....

Chocolate Chip Cookies (with a touch of Oil)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 lb. margarine

1/4 cup oil

3 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 tsp.soda

1 tsp. baking powder

12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups flour


Mix fats and sugars, thern eggs, beat well. Add rest of ingredients. Spoon or roll. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 400 on middle rack in oven. Optional: add 2 cups oatmeal.

Recipe is from : St.Pierre Roman Catholic

St. Pierre Jolys, Man.

Needing to Save on those $.

Well now, I have been doing dishes in a dishwasher for years now. I had always hated doing dishes by hand, I put it right up there with trying to sort out socks in the laundry basket! Well I have seen a new direction and figure if I can save almost $5 for a pack of 3 in 1 dish gels which by the way I was buying every couple of weeks, then doing dishes by hand in the sink is the way to go. It actually hasn't been too badly and instead of having dirty dishes sitting in the dishwasher until I had gotten a full load to start washing, I am finding that there are hardly dirty dishes at all. Weird I know but the key to it is to not have so many dishes lol. When we were getting our house ready to sell I packed up about 1/2 of our dishes and stored them wrapped in boxes in the shed and I guess I had better donate them or have a yard sale as they are still packed and in our shed here and I don't miss them nor want them back!

We are a family of 5 at the moment living here and I have 8 cups, 7 glasses, 8 dinner plates, 8 side plates, 8 saucers and before I do forget 6 tea cups hanging on a rack in my cupboard which were my grandmothers before she passed. This is not bad at all however as it takes no time flat to get everything washed and put away....it doesn't seem to be so overwhelming and a couple of years ago I bought the Corelle plain white dishes so the plates are very thin and it even looks like less dishes to wash lol.

Ok, now lets move on to Cable t.v. We have gone almost 2 weeks without it and I am L-O-V-I-N-G it!! It is so peaceful here. I don't want it but I am out voted in this family which I love so much so I guess all good things must come to an end. I did make a couple of phone calls regarding prices and with bell I can get the whole shabang for $71.99....this is satelite and if I remember correctly you can even pause the pictures etc (Rolling eyes here lol!). I had also called vidiotron and for a really nice package I can get digital cable for $20 taxes included......the savings? $51.99. In other words Videotron won by a long shot and each and every month I will be banking that amount of savings plus the $10 in savings for the dishwashing gel cubes at the beginning of each month for a total so far of $61.99.

Ok so on to the Food Department. I went grocery shopping the other day and bought mostly from the lost leaders in the flyers. I didn't do to badly but I still spent more than I had intended. I really need to figure out a menu for the upcoming weeks. It is way more convienent not to mention when organized it can save money. I do know that we are having a pork tenderloin roast for supper tonight with mashed potato,gravy, and veggies. The first thing I am going to do however is when I take out the roast I will take at least 1/2 and put aside for another meal and freeze it so that way I can keep track. I buy my meats a bit bigger than we will eat at one sitting so that I will have another meal on hand for another day.

Tomorrow I will be making a beef enchilada casserole....matter of fact I will be making two so that I can put one in the freezer for next month.

Well, signing off for now........

Finally Offical, We own our New To Us House!

Finally! When we sold our other house we were told and had on paper by the bank that we needed a certain amount of $ for a down payment to buy our other house to have the same exact mortgage payment as before. When we were getting ready to get our appointment with our lawyer we then found out that we actually owed $3000 more then what we would have originally needed as we didn't take into account for any extra fees taken out of the sale of the house money such as survey fees etc...Big Whoops and all I can say is that we learned from our mistake!

I thought how on earth will we come up with $3000 more on top of the $11,000 and money from the sale of our house we had already come up with which was already $19.500. With the help of our mortgage broker and some shuffling of funds we managed thank goodness!

I have been wanting to invest in real estate but by gosh, I had better get things straight right off the bat as this could have been a Huge Disaster.

We had bought an investment property (house) in my home town 3 months prior which my parents have been living in until they sell their house. I don't know how this will end up but they have not had an offer on their house in the past 3 months. Dh and I have been covering the mortgage and insurance except for Septembers payment as they paid but it is really hard on my parents and they can't afford it. They might have to move back to their old house and take it off the market. If this does happen we will be putting up the investment property for sale. We would keep covering it for them but it is very tight for us as well especially paying for two mortgages,insurances, taxes etc...in such a short period of time.We would have been "ok" for a bit if we hadn't had purchased two properties so close together.

Dh and I have been talking again about him retiring by the time he is 55 which is 10 years away. He does have a military pension which is a big help, I think that I have mentioned that before? It won't however support us at this time. The only way I can come up with and possibly make this a reality is by investing in real estate. Location is key, this I know along with being at the right place at the right time to get a good deal. I am learning as I go and keeping track of our "mistakes". So far there are quite a few.

Another idea in which I am playing around with is to maybe buy a house, do some cosmetic work, live in it for a year and then sell it for a profit and buy another house to live in for a year etc...Almost like the show "Flip this house" but instead of taking so many weeks to do it we would be doing this within a year. In Canada you do not pay capital gains on the profits from the sale of your house if it is your main principle dwelling for one year minimum. That would be a lot of moving though but I think we will consider it for this house and see how it goes, we are not totally sure of the "route" we will take as of yet.