Do you ever feel like a short-order cook as you prepare school lunches?  Requests coming from every direction, and no one likes the same thing?  Well, here’s a recipe from Be Thrifty via Storey’s Kathleen Cannata Hanna that kids, teens and grownups will all appreciate. In this build-a-lunch model, he who hates olives can simply leave them out.  Lunch nirvana….

Make-Your-Own Pasta Salad
This pasta-salad recipe functions like a deli counter, a blank slate that will please the vegetarian and salami lover alike. Just prepare the pasta, present the ingredient options, and let everyone go to town. (Serves 4-6)

1 pound short pasta, such as corkscrews or farfalle
Salt
Italian, Caesar, or Greek salad dressing

1. Bring salted water to a boil for the pasta.
2. Meanwhile, choose desired topping ingredients (see below) and toss gently in individual-size to-go containers.
3. Cook the pasta in the boiling water until al dente. Drain and rinse briefly under cool water; drain well. Add to the individual containers with chosen ingredients; drizzle with enough dressing to coat everything well.
4. Serve warm or chilled.

Possible toppings:

Marinated artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
Roasted red peppers, drained and sliced
Thinly sliced salami
Thinly sliced deli ham
Canned tuna in vegetable oil, drained and flaked
Thinly sliced red onion
Chopped tomato
Broccoli florets
Pitted green or black olives
Cubed provolone cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese

For more money-saving school lunch tips, check out yesterday’s post–”Cheap Lunch 101“

It’s that time of year…fall is almost here and the kids are back to school, which will prompt the inevitable push and pull of what goes in the proverbial brown bag for lunch.  You want to give them a piece of fruit….and they want the tiny bag of cookies with their favorite cartoon character emblazoned across the package.  But maybe both sides can have their way, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Courtesy of Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross, Be Thrifty offers up kid-tested tricks  for packing economical school lunches that will be the envy of the cafeteria.

Cheap Lunch 101

• Create a budget target, and do the math. First determine what you think is a reasonable per-day amount to spend on a school lunch. Use the shelf labels in the supermarket to help you compute the per-unit cost of prepackaged foods and snacks. Figure out how much meat, cheese, fruit, bread and peanut butter you’ll use in a given week, then divide the total by five to see what each day’s lunch costs.

• Invest in an insulated thermos. They are perfect for keeping soup and leftovers hot and yogurt, Jell-O, and fruit salad cold.

• Ask for feedback about what your kids are and aren’t eating in lunches packed from home. There’s no reason to send apples at 50 to 60 cents each if they’ll be thrown out.

• Kids love small cups and tubes of food, but unfortunately, these items are the most expensive way to buy food. Take small, reusable plastic snack cups and fill with applesauce, peaches, pineapple and raisins.

• Look for reusable drink cups that don’t leak and are sold with a built-in straw. Add juice from a large bottle to the cute cup for an individual serving that costs pennies.

• If you need to send plastic spoons and forks to school, buy heavy-duty utensils and ask your kids not to throw them away. They can go through the dishwasher and then be reused.

Check back tomorrow–we’ll be posting recipes for a build-a-lunch system that will satisfy all your picky eaters, and work for grown-up lunches too!

My sad, undone button

I’m on my way to work, steps away from the subway, when the unthinkable happens–a button pops off my jacket. I’m able to chase down the button–half the battle on a subway grate-filled block–and think “Do I walk all the way home and get a different top?” even though I’d really rather not…

Be Thrifty to the rescue! One 2 dollar sewing kit from the bodega across from the office and a few minutes later, my button is securely back on my blazer, ready to be secured for warmth on this unusually blustery August day!

I know, sewing a button isn’t brain surgery, but I’m always afraid my poor handiwork will cause the button to fall off again and I won’t be lucky enough to recover it a second time. Using the instructions below, I am fully confident in my button’s stability–maybe I’ll even re-attach the other one for peace of mind!

Button-Sewing 101 from Be Thrifty

Button-sewing is phenomenally easy, so don’t be discouraged by the number of steps below–this technique is particularly good for staying power. To sew on a coat button, use extra-strong thread, or try unwaxed white dental floss. (Color the floss with a marker to match the button)

Re-attachement in progress

Tools: Button; needle; thread; scissors

1. Thread a needle, double the thread over, and knot the end twice.

2. Starting from the underside of the fabric, make two stitches, one on top of the other, where you want to affix the button. This anchors your knot.

3. Hold the button over the “anchor” stitches and pull the threaded needle through from the underside and up through one of the button’s holes. Go back down an adjacent hole. Don’t pull the stitches too tightly–you want wiggle room so you can button the garment when you’re done.

All done--good as new!

5. Pull the button slightly away from the fabric and wind the remaining thread several times around the stitched thread, under the button and above the fabric.

6. Push the needle back through the fabric and knot on the underside, then make a few small stitches over the knot to secure the button.

7. To make your work last, put a drop of clear nail polish over the thread on top of the button.

We’re celebrating wine and cheese this week within the Workman family with the publication of two new books–The Guide to West Coast Cheese and Essential Wines and Wineries of the Pacific Northwest. Learn even more about the delicious marriage between dairy and grapes at the Timber Press blog and Story Publishing blog.

Selecting wine at a restaurant or for a dinner party can be an intimidating process, especially if you’re not familiar with the lingo. I’ve been asked if I like my wine to be bright? Tannic? Round? Complex?  Um, well, I’m not really sure. Thankfully, Pia Catton and Califia Suntree’s Be Thrifty includes a concise chart outlining which wines will pair well with different types of food.  Here are some guidelines to use as a shortcut:

• Match delicate to delicate, robust to robust. A delicate red burgundy will taste like water beside a dramatically spiced curry. Dishes with bold, piquant, spicy, and hot flavors are perfectly cut out for big-flavored wines.

• Saltiness in food is a great contrast to acidity in wine. Think about smoked salmon and champagne or parmesan cheese and Chianti.  Asian dishes that include soy sauce often pair well with high-acid wines like German Rieslings.

• Saltiness is also a stunning contrast to sweetness. This is the principle behind that great old European custom of serving Stilton cheese (something salty) with port (something sweet).

• With desserts, proceed with caution. Sweet desserts can make the wine they accompany taste dull and blank. The best dessert and wine marriages are usually based on pairing a not-too-sweet dessert, such as a fruit or nut tart, with a fairly sweet dessert wine.

In the spirit of Postcards from Yo Mamma (hi Doree!), I’m introducing a mini-installment of Emails from My Actual Grandma. Warning: The cuteness of what you are about to read may cause permanent damage to your eyeballs. Okay, it may not be baby pic cute (and I do want to get a montage of our Workman baby bonanza eventually–two more imminently on the way!), but pretty darn adorable, especially from my perspective.

Background: My grandmother appears in the book Be Thrifty, in a small but very VIP way. She’s feeling modest or something and didn’t want me to use her name–so for the purposes of this blog she will remain “My Actual Grandma.” (How’s that for a tease? Buy the book and see if you  can figure it out! Muhahahahahahha!)

Anyway, the point is, when her (yes, comp) copy of the book arrived, it started off a slow-building hurricane of thrifty activity. She’s already without a doubt the thriftiest person I know, but the book seems to have given her a newfound enthusiasm for the lifestyle. Basically, she’s pimpin’, thrifty style .

Right now the focus is decidedly on the cleaning section of the Home, Sweet Thrifty Home chapter.

Here she is on June 10th:

Hi, dear,

Am experimenting with soda and vinegar.
Even soda alone works wonders!  Also, the microwaving of lemons.
Love you,
Grandmother

I mean, the poetry of “Also, the microwaving of lemons”? But that’s just the beginning. Witness July 1:

Savannah, dear, I’m cleaning silver, sinks, tub, outside of frig with soda.  It’s so much more fun than using all those sprays.  And I had no idea it would even work on my everyday silver since I have only polished it once in eight years!!  Shame on me!

Love,
Grandmother

Yes, shame. Things are getting shocking. Plus, an addendum!

I want to get into some other chapters, but I really enjoy scrubbing the tub now.  I just look at it and smile!

More breaking news and smiles to come, but FYI, Abby Stokes, my grandma uses WebTV, and it’s really a lovely no-frills way for her to communicate with family (and high-school beaus!). Are you down with that, or opposed? Should she escalate?

Love you Grandma!

P.S. To share your thrifty tips, go here.

I could probably write a book about thrifty mistakes, but I’ll start by breaking the topic down into two categories. (That’s how you know things are serious, people. Categories.) Let’s call category one The Execution Mistake. You’re trying to be thrifty and you buy all this rice. You screw up the cooking time and end up throwing bad rice and good money down the drain. Or worse, you try to hem your brand-new pants and you end up with brand-new too-short pants that make you look like a nerd. (Don’t get me started on pants.) Basically, the stuff of tragedy.

Behind door number two lies The Personal Taste Mistake. That’s when you buy something to be thrifty and then find out you just don’t like that thing. You either have to try to act thrifty and suck it up and use the thing (whether it’s an unflattering shirt or a new type of grain), or you have to throw it, and your money, down the drain. Neither option is particularly appealing, so sometimes it pays to give an initially despicable purchase a little bit of time to grow on you.

Which brings me to Campari. Let me stock a bar, I thought, because Pia and Califia told me this was thrifty. I will entertain my friends at home, and we will drink delicious thrifty drinks from my at-home bar.

Turns out Campari is one of those things I only think I like (because it’s all sophisticated and bitter) but really ewwww I totally don’t at all.

I felt guilty about that now totally unthrifty bottle of Campari, so every once in a while I would try having some with soda. Yuck. Then one night, I made an amazing discovery . . .

Gin + Tonic + Loads of Lime + Splash of Campari = TOTALLY DELICIOUS

Adding a sprig of mint = I’M A MIXOLOGIST

Emboldened, I added a splash of Campari to a glass of iced tea. Too subtle. What did it need? Shockingly, MORE CAMPARI. At which point it became totally delicious.

A happy ending to a thrifty tragedy. Clink!

There are about four piles of untouched work sitting in various places in my apartment, eight or so long articles hanging around in the “Read me!” bookmark on my laptop, and countless stalled projects vying for space inside my head, but I’m in my kitchen, scrubbing my pots with baking soda and steel wool. Removing tarnish from the outside of my pots certainly isn’t high on my to-do list, but it somehow feels like a small step toward reclaiming my free time from the leaky overflow of office work.

Scrub-athon as instant vacation? Sounds like the good-old exfoliating spa treatment/tall glass of cucumber water combo. Which is exactly where I’m headed with this. Somehow we (and by “we” I mean a certain urban, work-centric population) have come to think of the massage, the overpriced cocktail, the shopping spree, as our reward for spending the bulk of our time at work. To put it plainly: My notion of taking care of myself has often involved springing for things I can’t afford. The phrase “I deserve it” has been known to run through my head.

But what is it exactly I think I deserve? I guess it’s been my belief (and I don’t think I’m alone), that at the end of the workday, it’s my god-given right to phone in the delivery order, prop my feet up, and take the proverbial load off. In other words, the notion of coming home and doing more “work” has not sat well with me.

As a side-effect of working on BE THRIFTY, though, over the past year I’ve been trying on another version of self-care. Saying no to that ten dollar cocktail, which I totally deserve, when I’m out with my girlfriends. Taking pleasure in filling my refrigerator with foods I’ve cooked or will cook myself, and in restoring my shabby apartment to a state of livability.

The mantra that runs through my head as I scrub isn’t necessarily “Thrift on, soldier,” but something closer to “Go ahead: You deserve it.”

It feels pretty good. And—necessity being the mother of invention—it’s even led to the creation of  a couple of highly delicious (and totally proprietary!) cocktails. Thirsty? Check back in next week.

A visual missive courtesy of Califia Suntree, one of the authors of BE THRIFTY: HOW TO LIVE BETTER WITH LESS . . .

Nothing like a dose of old timey propaganda to get you pinching pennies. “Beans are bullets”?! This is serious, people.

Want more? Check out this exhibit of war-era food posters.

Want to make something thrifty to eat? Check out the book.

Whether you’re starting a new career, part of a new family stretching the dollar, or a recent graduate on an entry-level salary, staying on a budget can be hard. That’s why Be Thrifty by Pia Catton and Califia Suntree focuses on living better with less through countless tips, specific techniques, and learning quick fixes to prevent overpaying for help.  Learn how to save money around the house in the excerpt below.

I’m not one of those people who loves cleaning, although I wish I were! It’s no fun, and it can be confusing and costly to figure out which products to use. I’d already swapped my brand name cleansers for some bleach or ammonia (but never together) diluted with water in a spray bottle, but I kept seeing more and more delicious-smelling, but occasionally pricey, “green” cleaning products on the market, and amazing-sounding new technologies to clean faster and better than ever.

But this is where Be Thrifty swooped in and changed my cleaning style forever with…microfiber. That’s all! You can use it wet or dry, with no other cleaning products, it will disinfect and wipe up like a dream, and it can go straight into the washing machine and come out good as new.

As soon as I read this, I immediately went on a hunt for a microfiber mop, and while I wasn’t able to track one down at my local hardware store, I found a bunch of options online for less than $20. I scored a style with a terrycloth-like texture lime green mop head that I got to put into action this weekend and it was so easy to use, it actually was exciting. Yes, exciting!

I also bought a couple of extra mop heads, but it was extremely easy to rinse the mop head in the sink with a bit of castile soap (another Be Thrifty-inspired purchase) when it was dirty and I didn’t want to wait for the washer.  I also found dirt-cheap packages of microfiber cleaning cloths for other dirty jobs around the house. These were sometimes marketed for washing cars, but it worked wonders on the gross splatters all over my kitchen, picked up dust with ease, and was way more sanitary than the sponges I usually use in the bathroom, with no stinky bleach smell! The novelty of microfiber had me giddily scrubbing away at everything in sight and for the first time in my life I think I’ve run out of things to clean!

For more thrifty cleaning tips, and tons of other cost-saving tips, read our other Be Thrifty blog posts or pick up the book.