I guess being poor never leaves you

[wishesuponastar]

Goofyismyhomeboy - in the original post on how to save the pasta, I said I would take out the broccoli and olives not throw them away.

 

[ilovemk76]

Really? I'm a spoiled brat because if I made a pasta salad that no one in my family would eat I would probably throw it out rather than rinse it off? I might try to add tuna to it or something but if we didn't like it, it would go in the garbage.

I would do the same thing It seems they did not like the salad dressing used that gets absorbed by the noodles.

 

[mjkacmom]

My mom grew up poor (well, actually, after living through the Depression, my grandmother was SO frugal, that she just ran a very tight household - she died with money in the bank at 95, and had a live-in health aide 24/7 for a decade). There is no way my grandmother would've fixed it - you eat, or you go hungry.

They had no car, my mom shared a double bed with her sister until she married, and they lived in a small apartment. My parents were cash poor when I was little (put everything into a nice house, knowing my dad would be making really good money), and we had one car, and I remember living on hamburger helper and creamed tuna on toast. I rarely throw out food - drives me nuts when I have to.

 

[kerplop]

I guess I kind of have the opposite outlook, which I think is odd of me (not you at all!). We grew up with hardly any money and I was the only kid of a single mother who worked 50 hours a week. And now? Now we are probably lower middle-class and I would have probably thrown it out and started over. Not that I think there's anything wrong at all with trying to salvage it, but honestly mine mostly comes down to being lazy.

 

[MrsPete]

Rinsing offthe pasta is being cheap. A poor person would eat it any way. A rich person would chuck it.

Disagree.

A frugal person would eat it anyway. That frugal person might be rich or poor. To tell the truth, I'm a rich person (or at least upper middle income), and I would've at least attempted to salvage the pasta. If it still wasn't good, then I'd dump it, but I'd give it a shot. I suspect I'd have thought of cooking up some chicken thighs with vegetables and throwing in the rinsed pasta at the last minute for chicken soup; that's an easy "hiding place" for leftover foods.

Other frugal food things I do: If I cut up half an onion, I put the other half into the refrigerator for another use soon. I always wrap up leftovers; those are tomorrow's lunch. If I roast a whole turkey or chicken, I always boil the bones the next day for soup. I wash/reuse ziplock baggies. I do loads of frugal things with food, though they aren't necessary financially. It just makes sense not to spend more than is necessary.

In contrast, a wasteful person (or a person who just doesn't stop to think about money) would chuck it. That wasteful person might be rich or poor. Some of the most wasteful people I know are poor. I'm thinking of students of mine who get free lunch and free school supplies -- some of them won't eat the food (tearing apart the Pop Tarts and throwing them at one another is a problem at breakfast in the mornings), and some of them are incredibly wasteful with their school supplies.

No, I don't freeze bread. My grandmother used to do that, and I don't like the taste (or texture? I haven't had it in forever and can't remember). Anyway, it just isn't necessary for us: We go through the stuff pretty fast, so it doesn't go bad in our house. Also, we drive right by the grocery store and the day-old bread store every day, so it's not a big deal to stop and buy it.

 

[scbelleatheart]

I didn't grow up poor, far from it if you asked others, but my family was frugal. My parents bought a house and 80 acres to get away from crime in the city but they put us on an "austerity" program because my DF hated debt and paid cash. That was a long year. He never had credit cards. cash was king and the only thing we used. He retired around 40.
So no, it's not cheap to repurpose things, it's practical. Just like seeing what you can make with what's in the fridge and pantry that's edible.

 

[NVDisMom]

I agree with Mrs. Pete. Frugal would repurpose and wasteful would chuck. If its not bad, it doesn't get thrown out in our house. Someone will eat it. Especially if food is limited for whatever reason. (in the OP's case because money is tight, in my home because someone me hasn't been to the store in a while) I would have doctored the original as the dressing was probably the most expensive part.

But, Mrs Pete? Why are we feeding those kids pop tarts? I would probably be more interested in throwing them at a friend than eating them too! yuck

 

[RachaelA]

Well I guess I'm a mixture of a wasteful spoiled brat and frugal. I would have chucked the pasta salad because I'm way too lazy to try to split it up and reuse it, but I freeze bread/buns/bagels and only pull out what we need for that day. I buy stuff in bulk and freeze it in small portions.

 

[SandrA9810]

Sounds like people telling me the same thing before in another topic.

I found a great angelfood cake recipe that calls for a dozen egg whites. I was in Texas at the time, and a dozen eggs only costed me 49 cents a dozen. I saved the egg yolks hoping to use it for something. Every one thought it was crazy to save a dozen yolks. The first time my aunt helped me make rice pudding, the second time I made fresh egg noodles, and the third time I made some sort of sponge cake.

Sure it was only a quarter worth of ingredients, but it seemed so wasteful to just toss it.

 

[Bonnie151]

There is no way my grandmother would've fixed it - you eat, or you go hungry.

I'm not poor but that's pretty much my attitude. Unless something is completely inedible (let's say I forgot it was in the oven and it came out a charred mess etc), we eat it and I just promise I'll never make it again! Fortunately that doesn't happen too often...

 

[nunzia]

Yep..I do my best to use it up and change it up to do so.. Things do go bad..bits that don't get eaten and those get tossed, usually after becoming fuzzy. I'm well known (this may not be a good thing) as willing to take home anything that won't get used and then finding a way to make a meal out of it. Our church has a big brisket dinner once a year and every year the guy who makes the brisket (who used to be a butcher) knows I'll take home all the ends and trimmings. These turn into hot beef sandwhices, hash, mixed in Rice a Roni, beef and barley soup, etc. I think I have a few packages still in the freezer and this years beef dinner will come next month. We always freeze bread..tastes fine. Any bread that starts going dry is made into french toast. I don't know if it comes down to being frugal, cheap or just not wasteful, but I'll proudly take any of the three.

 

[mrseace711]

I'd have to agree with the OP... Our family went thru 2 years of hardship, having to stretch $20 for a week or more to feed a family of 6!! I completely understand where your coming from! We do not waste any food to this day, we eat left overs and take lunches to work from previous dinners. Our grociery bill is still pretty low for a family of 6, but Ive learned how to stretch meals and my kids do not notice the difference

 

[Kay1]

I think I would have just changed to the way I liked it and would have eaten it for lunch.

 

[SaraJayne]

I was poor until I was in my mid 20's. I still would have thrown it away.

 

[leebee]

I've washed pasta off before, usually to make leftovers into something different or more interesting. What's wrong with that? I grew up in a single-parent family (my dad died when I was 13); I was the oldest of 4, my youngest sister is physically handicapped, and my mom was an alcoholic, so holding a job wasn't her forte, shall we say. We pinched pennies ALL the time. I still do... it's just habit, and as my DH hasn't had a raise in 12 years, it's a good thing! We don't always have a lot of leftovers, as i have adjusted my cooking to three servings, but when there are leftovers, they NEVER get thrown out. Neither does a teaspoon of chopped onion or anything else that can still be used. We wash out plastic bags and reuse, and I wash and reuse the plastic bags that I put my produce in at the grocery store. If I don't have a carcass, I will buy bones to make into soup, and buy most of our meat from the markdown section. When they are the cheapest option or on sale, I buy whole chickens and cut them into parts; DH likes white meat, I like dark, and the backs and bony parts become stock. We don't buy paper towels (use regular towels for hands or spills and change them regularly, sponges are microwaved to kill bacteria, etc), lunch stuff goes into small storage dishes rather than automatically into a baggie, and we each have our own thermos for cold drinks or soup for lunch. We have empty bottles for shampoo and conditioner, so when I buy new I can split it and add water... it's what you do as soon as you put the stuff on your head anyhow. I buy name-brand dish detergent but cut it with water, too (the name brands seem to cut grease far better than the store brand, but DD and DH tend to use BIG squirts, so I outsmart them!), and fabric softener sheets are cut in half. We are also experimenting with making our own yogurt. Milk is far cheaper than yogurt, and it's getting more and more difficult to find just yogurt with some fruit in the bottom... everything has stabilizers, thickeners, sweeteners, candy, colors, etc. It's 69 cents for a 6 oz container of Dannon fruit on the bottom yogurt in our area, so it seems like we can realize some savings here, too.

One thing I won't do is mix milk. When I was a kid, my mom would make up powdered skim milk and mix it 50:50 with whole milk. ICK! If you look at the sizes of us when we were kids, you'd know it wasn't for the health benefits! and of course in those days, the only store-purchased options were whole or skim. She did it to cut the cost of buying milk, but the milk was pretty nasty tasting, only palatable when icy cold. I just can't go there... we buy 2% or 1.5% milk. I think I'd use water on my cereal before going back to using reconstituted powdered milk! (although my FIL still uses it)

 

[trinchick]

Things were pretty tight for me growing up, but fortunately, I'm in a much better position now. I'm still quite frugal, though. I would have eaten the pasta salad even if I didn't care for it; the rest of my family would not, so I would have ended up eating it all over the course of a few days.

One way to tell that I'm super frugal, though: I wouldn't add other ingredients (the pepperoni and cheese) at the risk of ruining more food. Especially since I consider the meat and cheese to be pricier items on my grocery list.

 

[NCRedding]

Things were pretty tight for me growing up, but fortunately, I'm in a much better position now. I'm still quite frugal, though. I would have eaten the pasta salad even if I didn't care for it; the rest of my family would not, so I would have ended up eating it all over the course of a few days.

One way to tell that I'm super frugal, though: I wouldn't add other ingredients (the pepperoni and cheese) at the risk of ruining more food. Especially since I consider the meat and cheese to be pricier items on my grocery list.

This is exactly what I would do.

 

[rachel09985]

Really? I'm a spoiled brat because if I made a pasta salad that no one in my family would eat I would probably throw it out rather than rinse it off? I might try to add tuna to it or something but if we didn't like it, it would go in the garbage.

I agree with you- you are not a spoiled brat if you throw away something such as pasta salad. I throw away SOO much food because there is only two of us and if it goes bad I don't want to eat it! Who knows if the food is bad. The thought of eating spoiled food grosses me out..

 

[NotUrsula]

I call them "radishes at Tara" moments. You know, "As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again!"

I simply CANNOT invest my personal funds in the stock market; I cannot bear the thought of losing value in an account. DH does invest our joint funds, but I never look at the accounts, I just can't take seeing money just disappear that way.

 

[yoopermom]

This is where having pets and farm animals is helpful, too. If all the humans absolutely won't eat it, they will! My extended family knows that if we're at a family gathering and foods going to be thrown out, to send it home with me. As long as it's "plain" (meat/veg/fruit/carb/etc) the critters will appreciate it.

I know I should save that last cup of green beans and freeze it for later use in a soup or stew, but when five pair of hound dog pleading eyes are staring at me, they each usually get a few instead.

Terri