Doesn't Everyone Know This?
 

My friends and I , all in our 60's and 70's recently attended a cooking school given by a popular recipe magazine. I will not repeat all the snide remarks from our husbands about learning to cook at our ages!!! We said if they wanted to eat again they should keep quiet!!! Anyway we went to the event and enjoyed tasty samples, received a few free nick-nacks, laughed at the comedian, and won a years subscription to the magazine. We watched the cooking demonstrations and whispered among ourselves at what we could substitute for their very expensive ingredients. Then came the 'clincher". The speaker promised to give us the "best tip ever" to use when cooking. We waited through the whole long selling bit and finally he said to get ready to write it down. Pencils were poised, breaths held, eyes glued on him and here it came................."When you have a bit of sauce left in a jar, add a few spoons of water, shake it and you will get more out." HUH? THAT WAS THE BEST TIP EVER? My friends and I looked around at all the hundreds of women, many our age, who were frantically writing and nodding to each other and saying what a great idea. We were stunned! Doesn't everyone know this?

I think that is hilarious! Don't you? What have these women been doing? ha,ha. Lena, I'm 83 and I tell my husband if we had a big recession, we could get by on beans and cornbread.

Well ahhh........ DUH........Room of . Dummmmmys ............is About All I can Say to That. LOL sometimes I'm ashamed of my own sex!

Oh, guess there are only a few of us smarties around after all. May in Jersey

At the Very Least You could Have Stood and Laughed Him out of the Room!

I'll give you an EVEN BIGGER tip ... and it's FREE!!! You can do the same thing with cream or cheese based sauces by adding a little MILK!!!!

Have to wonder if the second class he'll give away the recipe for ice cubes.

When you grow up say. "Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without" you learned a lot from our family that lived through the great depression of the 1930's. I had a friend that re-used her aluminum foil. I have not done that unless it was very lightly used.

:D Just think how clever, he must think he is! :D I agree with the other "DUH!" comments! I've also used liquid from the pickle relish, to get the last of the mayo from a jar (for potato or egg salad).

I knew a lady who moved to Vanuatu and I house sat for her. I swear, she saved every twist tie, plastic bag and margarine tub for 50 years, and shipped it all over to Vanuatu. I had never seen such a hoarder! She also NEVER got rid of any clothes, and had stuff she wore 40-50 years ago. Came in handy, though, when we needed costumes for our theater company. Thing was, when you walked into her home, it looked stunning! All of it was crammed out of sight in every drawer, cupboard, and in cupboards in her very large garage. No cars could get in!!

This is why I have quit buying magazines.....they ALL have the same tips and I read them 30-50 yeas ago and have been using them all along! I am not loving getting OLD! Quilt magazines have some new things for me, but most of them are in my old books and they keep repeating patterns with a different color!

My mother and grandmother never ever got rid of a button. So now I can't either. I wash out my large gallon bags that I store things in and reuse them. My BIL did tell me that his mother used vinegar to clean out the ketsup bottle and I had never used that but it's OK. I know that many of the younger people do not cook much so I guess that 'tip' was fantastic for them.

Me too. I have been looking for more frugal tips and even the online sites don't have anything I don't already do. And some of the tips, I have better more frugal tips. I also noticed the same about quilting and sewing books for that matter, my favorite sewing book is from 1944. Why should I pay new price when I can buy old for pennies on the dollar and it's the same thing in a different color.

I had parents that were raised during the depression and I grew up observing their thrifty habits. Mom used to wash the plastic bags that brown sugar came in and re-use them until dishwater spurted out in all of the holes they developed! I also thought it was common knowledge to clean the last of the sauce out of the container with water, milk, or whatever made sense.

Oh yeah -- and if it is jelly, add a bit of warm water to dissolve the jelly and use it as syrup. My folks were young adults during the recession and they could stretch everything. I have washed out and straightened the tin foil (we used a barely warm iron), washed the pastic wrap (didn't have plastic bags til later), kept a piece of waxed paper in the crisco shortening so we did not use a new piece each time we needed to grease something. We would iron over a piece of waxed paper before starting to iron clothes -- and we would sprinkle clothes with water in a coke bottle with a sprinkler plug in it and store them wrapped in a towel in the refrigerator waiting for ironing day (wash day was Monday and ironing day was Tuesday).

I didn't live in the depression, but for some reason I hate to waste what is left in a bottle. I also save the ketchup packets from meals instead of throwing them out.

OMG, did you grow up in my house and I didn't know it?

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! :d

There was a thread on here about frugal tips. Some of them were quite good.

I have ironed and trimmed many miles of Christmas paper, washed out plastic bags, reused aluminum foil, have never thrown out a garment without removing the buttons and zipper, used both sides of sheets of paper (my mother would have a fit if blank paper got thrown out) - I thought this was all NORMAL ... lol

I hate wasting the last little bit in a bottle too. Has anyone noticed that in a pump bottle of lotion, it quits dispensing when there is at least an inch of lotion left in the bottle? Such a pain! So I heat it in the microwave nad pour it into something easier to empty. It is a hassle, but I am not throwing it out!

The people who were not raised in our era have no idea what good eating is!!! Beans and cornbread are
the best!!!

I store them upside down when that happens. Then I just unscrew the top, use the pump to dab some on my hands, put the top back on and move on. :D

Perhaps, it has something to do with whether you were raised by parents who lived through the Depression, (I did), or people who think abundance is our right.

I knew it.

I just turn it upside down, set in a cup or something, until all the lotion/shampoo/soap runs to the top. Then I empty it into another container.

Wow I learned that tip from my Mother when I was about 4, she did it all the time. Can't believe people of that era did not know about it!

I do love Cooking Light. Just got a great deal on it for 2 years.

Hello

While I am in the 40 plus age group, I did indeed know that!

:thumbup: just the thought of some beans and cornbread has made me want some !! :thumbup:

Doghouse Mom, your ice cube comment brought a belly laugh!! Love your humor!!

My mom still practices the thrift she grew up with in the Depression. My Dad could never refuse a "gift" of someone else's cast off(s), because it "might come in handy someday." I drive my husband nuts when I try to figure out how to reuse things that should be thrown out. It's just amazing how much the 70 and 80's babies don't know. They never had to learn.

I save ketchup packets in my car. You never know when you're going to run out of ketchup at home and those will come to the rescue. To clarify, I don't hoard them there, just save the un-used ones we get from the occasional drive thru.

Lucky you, we have been eating a lot of beans and cornbread because of the bad economy. I ate this so much when I was a child that I never wanted to eat this again, but guess what, cost of gas and food, worse part was having to restrict my fabric buying LOL.

Maybe it's a generational thing. My Mom grew up in the Depression....enough said. When I was younger, her thriftiness drove me crazy. I'm now 59 and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Hubby and I worked hard for our $$ and I do all I can to use up and not be wasteful of food. I also cook most everything from scratch. For every decade of folks born thereafter, the outlook changes. So many people don't know the slightest of cooking techniques or the ecomomics of cooking, sad to say. But, they can make dinner reservations perfectly.

I have done this always. But when my daughter did it and a friend saw her and asked her why ,to get the last little bit out ,, the friend said she was neither that cheap or that desparate. Huh???
Some days I am glad I was raised by my grandparents who were around during the depression. It kills me to see how much stuff my brother and his step daughter waste every day. Reuse containers and jars. NOT thats junk go out and buy rubbermaid, food oh its ok if it goes bad there is always more in the store. ACK Drives me crazier than I already am.

I splurge and buy myself hand made soap but I save every last little piece in an old sugar bowl in my bathroom. I am going to melt it all together when I get enough and add a little lavender and I have my own bar of soap again .. Or I have added a lot of water and made liquid soap with it. :)

That is a wonderful story. I'm not sure how you didn't start laughing, but you were likely too shocked to giggle. I guess we have really have changed the world into non-common-sense creatures. Certainly non-frugal creatures.

Thank you for sharing. I was howling with laughter and it's a good thing you didn't attend with me because I would have been laughing like crazy.

amh

I'm laughing out loud at your response to your hubby. Bet he closed his lips til dinner time.

That hot tip sounds like it might have come from the comedian. Ha ha ha

My parents were both born in 1914, I was born in 1945 and were pretty poor. I grew up knowing how to stretch money and have alot of frugal habits. I could get by on very little. My kids were raised that way too, even though we didn't have to live that close, I saw no reason to live differently. They see no reason to scrimp on much if it isn't needed.

You would be suprised. When I did that my husband's sister-in-law looked at me like I had gone crazy. The look on her face was something to see. That's OK, I'm a better cook!

evidently he was from the new school and not from the old school as we say here in kentucky.i am like you i thought every one new that i have been running a house hold since i was 16 yrs old i am now 49 my age doesn't bother me just my health.lol