Holiday opportunities to save time, money
Now Here’s a Tip
•What’s on sale in November: shoes, boys’ clothing, blankets, select deals on loss-leader items during holiday sales.
•“With the holidays fast approaching, I found a great way to spend more time with family instead of in the kitchen. I invested in all different sizes of crockpots. This allows me to have food prepared all day. Cleanup is a breeze and storage is even better. I use extra-large bulk sweater plastic storage bags with shelves. I can place at least five large crockpots very neatly in my dining-room closet. Now I can get a hot meal and enjoy my family at the same time.” — B.O. in Pennsylvania
•“After a big dinner like Thanksgiving, there’s much scraping of plates. I keep a bowl lined with a plastic shopping bag by the sink, and we can scrape into that. I believe it keeps the smells down in the trash when all that mess is tied together.” — O.L. in Washington
•Recipe Substitutions: If you need 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, use 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves.
•For wrapping paper in a pinch, try using the funnies from the newspaper, or a map. You also can use fabric scraps or a brown paper grocery bag turned inside out. You can write funny quotes or draw pictures on the plain paper to jazz it up.