If you’re planning to take advantage of sales at The Children’s Place, you’ll want to check out this new coupon code for 30% off your purchase of $60 or more through 8/28 – Z9A2010. If you plan to shop in stores, which is what I usually do because I can really get some great deals that aren’t online, you can print your coupon to bring with you.

I like to buy next year’s clothing on clearance at the end of the season. I can get really nice outfits from The Children’s Place and a few of my other favorite kids’ clothing stores for just a few dollars. Right now, The Children’s Place is having a fall sale on summer clothing and some fall clothing lines. I saw some cute t-shirts and shorts for $2.99. If you have an outlet center near you, you can snag clothing from The Children’s Place and Osh Kosh at amazing discounts about this time of year, too.

Don't forget plain white t-shirts for tie die fun! Photo: Billy Alexander/SXC

Also check Kohl’s and local department stores. They want these summer clothes out of there because their second fall shipment and winter clothes are all on their way.

Have you scored any great sales on outfits for next summer yet?

We love corn on the cob, but not when it costs $6 or more for a little package of frozen half ears. This year, I decided we’d preserve our own farm fresh corn instead and save 75% or more of the cost of frozen corn on the cob from the store. I bought a few dozen fresh picked ears from a local farmer and headed home to freeze them. (I don’t grow sweet corn because my neighbor grows feed corn right across from the spot that would be best for a big stand of corn and I figure I’d end up with not so great tasting corn.)

Now, how to do the deed? I read a lot of information on blanching from 3 to 8 minutes, dipping in ice cold water for 3 to 8 minutes and then freezing. It sounded like the corn was almost completely cooked by then and I wasn’t sure it would end up tasting very good, especially since there were warnings about mealiness if overcooked. Then, I came across several different people who froze corn on the cob in the husks and said it tasted as good as the day it was picked. So, that is what I’m trying.

Fingers crossed for delicious corn on the cob at Thanksgiving!

Have you tried freezing corn in the husk?

(Image of Put’em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling via amazon.com.)

I spent $18 on fruit today. You’re thinking, “And you really think that is thrifty?” Ah, but I got a half bushel of beautiful peaches and a half bushel of apples just off the tree for that $18. To put it in perspective, I would be able to get a bag with about 10 apples in it for $4 from the grocery store. My $10 bag has 45 apples in it. (I could have fit another 10 apples in if I was trying to cram it full, but I was more concerned with keeping them from getting bruised.) So, the apples would have cost me $18 in the store and the ones on the bottom of the value bags always look awful. I was able to pick each of mine individually and they were all beautiful and unblemished. I guess they were seconds because of their size or shape. I didn’t count my peaches, but I filled both the crisper drawers in my fridge with them, so there were quite a few of them. The same exact peaches are for sale as local peaches at my grocery store for $2 a pound. I have a lot more than four pounds of peaches sitting in my fridge and I only spent $8.

Photo: SXC

So, how did I cut out the middle man? A few years ago, we drove by an orchard packing house, saw some of the workers taking a lunch break and asked whether they sold peaches at the orchard. Next thing we knew, we were inside filling up a box of seconds that were nicer than firsts that have been jostled around in trucks and handled by produce managers, other shoppers, etc. If you have an orchard packing house near you, it might be worth your while to check to see if they sell seconds direct to customers.

Oh, and if I had a bit more free time, I could save even more. I found out today that I could pick a half bushel of peaches off the ground for $6. A lady who has done it before says they’re usually dead ripe so you have to preserve them right away or eat a ton of peaches in two days, though! (Apparently, orchards have their crews drop peaches that are actually ripe on the ground as they pick because they won’t last long enough for shipping??)

Now if I could just find a local orchard that grew organic fruit, I’d be even happier.

I’ve been canning. I’ve been dehydrating. And I really wanted to freeze some things that would be better in the freezer, but my fridge has a not very adequate freezer with a seal that sometimes doesn’t hold. It is not an old fridge, so I don’t want to replace it yet, but I didn’t want to risk freezing pounds of food and then coming home one day to find the freezer hanging open. Been there, done that. So, if I wanted to freeze more than a few loaves of bread and a few convenience meals, I knew I needed to buy a freezer.

Photo via amazon.com

Tips for Choosing a Freezer

Since I just spent quite a bit of time shopping for my new chest freezer, I thought I’d share a few tips on choosing the right one for your family. The first thing you need to do is think about how much food you want to store. Are you planning to cook a month’s worth of meals for a family of four or are you just stocking up a bit on good meat deals?

Next, think about how you’d handle a power outage, especially if they happen often in your area. Do you have a generator that can keep the freezer going if your power is out for a week or reliable access to dry ice?

Then, you should take a quick look at your electric bill. Is it already out of sight? How much can you afford to pay each month for additional electricity?

Finally, take a few moments to consider your tendency to use the freezer that comes with your fridge. If you end up throwing everything out because you forget about your freezer contents, will you really be able to change your habits or will your new chest freezer just become a frozen food wasteland?

After I asked myself all the hard questions, I chose a smaller freezer than I was originally considering – a GE 5 cubic foot model that only costs $25 a year in electricity and is easily able to be run by my generator in case of a power outage. I was concerned that a bigger model would use too much energy and would lead to wasted food. I’m really pleased with my purchase so far. It is very quiet and still has plenty of room in it after a 1/2 bushel worth of frozen peaches and another 1/2 bushel of tomatoes are placed in it.

Do you have any additional tips for choosing a freezer?

We are planning a new birthday tradition this year – a birthday tree. I think it will be a big hit with all the kids. If I would have come up with the idea before the little guy’s birthday, I would have started it with him, but I didn’t think of it til halfway through this week. We’re going to get a nice branchy tree branch, spray it with glitter paint and glue it in a pot. Then, we’re going to hang a themed group of toys and treats on it. I’m planning to do a bunch of Littlest Pet Shop animals I got for 75 to 90 percent off last year. For the little guy, I would have done army men, I think.

The tree will make a nice centerpiece at the birthday table or could be displayed to the side with all the presents. It could also be a nice way to hold small goodie bags for all the party guests.

Have you ever created a birthday tree for your kids?

I got a big bag of bananas for 39 cents a pound the other day and the kids didn’t get to them all. So, I needed to come up with some ways to use bananas, or at least save them for later use. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. We’d make banana bread. However, normally, it isn’t over 100 degrees outside! No way was I heating up the kitchen with the oven.

Do you dehydrate your ripe bananas? Photo: SXC

I sliced up the rest of the bananas into 1/4 inch rounds and made dehydrated banana chips. Now, if you’ve never tried homemade banana chips, you probably aren’t too excited by the thought of dehydrating bananas. The thing is, these banana chips are nothing like those rock hard things you buy in the store. We dehydrate ours at 135 degrees for about 12 to 14 hours. They come out smelling and tasting just like banana bread. Sooo good. Since they aren’t completely dried out, I recommend freezing your chips instead of just sticking them in a jar in the pantry. We usually don’t end up with enough to bother freezing, though. I stick the bag in the fridge and they are devoured in a few days.

I know. What a corny, corny title, right? But they really were cheap little cheepers! We hatched them ourselves from our own eggs so the only cost was the price of the electricity for the incubator. They are just the cutest things around. Fingers crossed that at least most of them don’t ever emit even the tiniest crow. They come from show quality stock, but it is still really hard to place a rooster in a non-chicken sandwich home and I’ve already been informed that no rooster eaters will be allowed within ten feet of these cuties.

White Rock Bantam Chicks

While these peeps were hatching out, I was making my own cheese. I was going to buy a $50 DIY kit, but it seemed so unthrifty. I did a bit of improvising and a bit of researching and ended up spending $11 total, which included a gallon of whole milk, a container of lemon juice and a packet of rennet tablets. While they can sometimes help you save, kits usually are code for more expensive than doing it completely on your own. Before you spend a ton on something that you may or may not fall in love with, think about whether the original “manufacturers” had all those gadgets. With cheese, the answer was no, so I knew I could scrounge what I needed (except for the rennet.)

I’ve talked about crock pots before, but I thought it was worth talking about them again during all this hot summer weather we’re having. I don’t know how you feel, but if I come home after a hard day’s work, the last thing I want to do it heat up the kitchen. It is really easy to decide to swing by the grocery store to grab some expensive prepared food, like subs, potato salad and a big container of stuff from the salad bar when you are worn out and don’t want to go home to root through the cupboards. That stop can really wreck your budget, since convenience foods have a high price tag attached to them.

photo via amazon.com

Some meals, like the pulled pork recipe from All You magazine I want to try require additional prep work and cooking time. For days that are busy, I prefer easy crock pot recipes that don’t involve the extra work and time. Here’s a family favorite that is super simple:

1 chicken cut up or a package of chicken breasts
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can cream of broccoli soup
1 cup of rice

Cook on low heat for eight hours.

If I have time, I start the chicken and soup first and then add the rice around lunch time. This way, I am not putting rice in with raw meat, which grosses me out, and I can see if I need to add some water for the rice to absorb. If you prefer, you can just cook the rice as you normally do and serve the meat and “gravy” over the rice.

What is your favorite easy crock pot recipe?

This is one of my posts from Simply Thrifty that is still very useful for anyone shopping for an American Girl type doll for his or her child. I thought all my readers here would enjoy it, too:

So, your little one is just longing for an American Girl doll. You’d really like to get one, but the price tag is about 5 times what you can afford this Christmas. Are you going to have to crush your child’s dream? Well, that depends.

Is your child extremely name brand conscious? If so, the only help I can offer is a suggestion to request a gently used doll through Craigslist for around $20. Then, head to the American Girl website and shop the sale page for a reduced outfit so she’ll have something brand new to open. There is usually a sale code of some kind floating around, so you should be able to at least cover shipping costs. (Or check out outfits that fit American Girl dolls on Etsy. There are some adorable clothes there!)

However, if you are shopping for a child who isn’t fixated on name brands, you can find very similar dolls on sale in the $20 price range. They will fit American Girl clothes, including the matching outfits for dolls and girls. (There are many other similar doll lines out there, but they seemed to be almost as expensive as American Girl dolls and I’m trying for thrifty here!)

photo via amazon.com

At Target, we found a really nice line of Our Generation dolls. They are on sale in stores this week for $19.99 and on the website for $21.99. In person, they were cute enough that my mom ended up buying one for a five year old little girl who’s requested an American Girl doll who looked like her. (Update: She’s now almost 8 and still playing with her doll, which held up quite well. For her upcoming birthday, she wants more outfits. When I checked Target the other day, it looked like the doll prices have gone up a few dollars, but they are still a great deal if  they all hold up as well as this one.)

At Toys “R” Us, we found an 18″ Madame Alexander doll line for $29.99 that looked very nice. We actually preferred it, but decided that the child my mom was shopping for would prefer the Our Generation dolls, which came with more accessories to start. These very nice looking dolls are on sale this week for $24.99.

Do you have any thrifty tips for little girls with American Girl wish lists? I’m assuming the desire to own one will spread like the plague on Christmas morning when the other girls see this one’s doll. One thing I am planning is to start sewing some outfits for the doll for a birthday gift. (and maybe at least one matching outfit for her new “mama” as well.) I did this when my sister wanted an American Girl doll when she was little. My home ec teacher was quite impressed because I turned in two pieces for one assignment. I bet I even have the patterns somewhere…In fact, I just found free 18 inch doll clothes patterns to download online!