Why Do I Live In Minnesota?

Why?  Dear God, WHY????  Oh yeah, there’s no tax on clothes or food.  Right.  Almost forgot about that.  (And okay, NO, it’s not this bad in MN.  But STILL.  IT SNOWED AT THE END OF MARCH.  I have the right to be mad.)

Tip Of The Day:  I do like to delegate around the Cheap But Not Easy Empire, so today’s post is brought to you by reader extraordinaire, Tashi, and also my BFF Larue.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have major slacking off to accomplish…

Tip For Tomorrow:  Fun and frugal finds from the Internet (oh how I love alliteration!).  Check out some nifty online stores and eBay vendors who are pumping out cool clothes and accessories at AWESOME prices.  Even the cost of shipping isn’t enough to dampen the savings.

Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal:  Nothing makes me happier than logging on to my email account and finding half my post already written for me by a constant reader.  I got this fun and frugal tip from Tashi just last week:

“I don't recall if you've ever addressed this (nope, I haven’t!), so please forgive me if you have (no need!). It reminds me of one shopping in one’s closet.

Yesterday, I put together a ‘cookbook’, culled from years of clipped recipes that I dug out of drawers – lots of good they were doing there!  I took a 1" pink binder, because I AM a pink-lovin' girlie girl, 2 sets of sheet protectors, scissors, and clipped a ton of recipes, or trimmed down already clipped ones, and added them to the binder.

I didn't organize them in any way, as I simply wanted to get them into the binder – plus I'm too lazy (no you’re not!).  I left the recipes unglued or un-taped to the blank white sheets I inserted into the sheet protectors, mainly because I didn't feel like being that bothered – again, lazy. Also, so I can rearrange clippings, if I so choose to do. I'll keep adding to the binder, as I collect recipes from newspapers, magazines, the Internet, copied from library books, or from friends or family.

While my idea is certainly not new or original, it made me feel proud and resourceful to put the binder together.  I found recipes that I had totally forgotten about, some as old as 1996 (isn’t it sad that 1996 is now OLD?).  Yeesh…  I tend to gravitate most towards chicken, beef, and Asian and Mexican recipes, so I have some variations of the same dishes. But it's still fun and interesting to compare the different recipes.

I spent maybe $2 on the binder, and $4 for 50 sheet protectors – thank you Target for having reasonably-priced goodies – and 15 cents a page at my library to copy a few recipes.  But in the long run, it's cheaper, more eclectic, and memorable than the normal cookbooks we buy, although I still get one on the rare occasion, but used, from Amazon.com, Half Price Books, or Goodwill.

I'd even go so far as to see if one's workplace has used binders one could take home, thus, making it even cheaper. I could have done that, had I not been laid off (bummer, dude).  My old job always had tons of used binders, waiting for a new ‘assignment,’ enough to make a chain of cookbooks from here to New York City (Ooo! We should TOTALLY do that!).  Wish I would've thought of this idea two months ago!

A person could easily share their recipes from the binder, which is another plus for making it. I'm even thinking of someday starting a cookbook/recipe swap with friends, much like how some folks hold clothing and accessories swaps.  Then the frugalness is further passed on (indeed!).”

Tashi also passed along this link to About.com for creating a cookbook using free tools from Better Homes and Gardens Online:  http://freebies.about.com/od/freeprintables/p/createcookboook.htm

I love this tip – it’s the perfect oldie but goodie.  Furthermore, I’m sure we’ve all THOUGHT about doing this, but only one other friend of mine (HaC) has actually taken the steps to pull it off.  So thank you Tashi for the easy, thrifty and fun tip o’ the day!

Last week, My BFF Larue sent me the deets about Nu Look Consignment’s $2 sale, going on now until Saturday in Minneapolis.  She then reminded me of said sale via email yesterday (some would call it nagging, I call it gentle reminders in a timely and consistent fashion).  So I thought it’d be a good idea to remind (nag) all you Twin Citians looking for cheap deals.  Which would be all of us:

Now until Saturday, everything at Nu Look Consignment dated 11/1/08 or earlier is just $2.  You’ll find the dates on the price tags.  And while looking at those price tags, feel free to completely ignore whatever dollar amount they say, because EVERYTHING IS JUST TWO DOLLARS.  Insert Better Of Dead quote here.

Keep those frugal tips coming, people!  Heaven forbid I have to get off my lazy duff and come up with all this stuff on my own.