From Leftover to Starring Role
If your refrigerator is at all like mine, it harbors leftovers and an odd assortment of “almost empties,” bottles and jars of dressings and condiments. What can you do with them? Try these suggestions on for size.
Applesauce
That last bit of applesauce will make a wonderful coleslaw dressing. Make sure you have about 1/2 cup applesauce left in the jar. Then, add the following ingredients right into the jar:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/3 teaspoon celery salt
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons water
Apply the lid, shake well and toss with 4 cups shredded cabbage or packaged coleslaw mix. Refrigerate overnight to allow flavors to meld.
Salad dressing
It’s a rare refrigerator that doesn’t have an assortment of almost-empty salad dressing bottles. Here’s what you can do with any oil and vinegar dressings like Caesar, Italian or other vinaigrettes: Mix them together to make a marinade for beef, pork or chicken. The oil adds flavor, the vinegar and other acids like lemon juice tenderize. Coat the meat or poultry with the mixture. Then, cover and refrigerate it for at least an hour before roasting, grilling or baking.
Buttermilk
That 1/2 cup of buttermilk left over won’t last forever. Before it goes bad, use it to make fabulous oven-fried fish. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a baking pan or cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray. In a flat dish or pan, mix together 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1/8 teaspoon cayenne, stirring with a fork until blended. Pour the buttermilk into a shallow bowl.
Cut fish fillets (catfish is perfect for this recipe) into four equal servings. Dip each piece in the buttermilk and then in the cornmeal mixture, making sure to dip both sides of each piece. Place fish on the greased foil. Drizzle olive oil over the fillets and bake for 25 minutes.
Cooked rice
Turn that rice into a wonderful quiche crust. Mix together 2 cups white or brown leftover cooked rice, one beaten egg and one teaspoon soy sauce.
Spread evenly to cover a well-buttered quiche or pie pan. Bake crust at 350 F. for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Place any kind of fresh or frozen vegetables (broccoli is a good choice) or meat in bottom of crust. Mix together 4 beaten eggs, 1 1/2 cups milk or half-and-half, salt and pepper to taste and a dash of nutmeg. Pour over vegetables. Top with 1 cup grated cheese (Swiss, cheddar, Jack or any combination). Bake at 350 F for 45 to 50 minutes or until a knife inserted near center of pie comes out clean. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.
This recipe is so versatile, you can practically clean out the refrigerator right into your quiche pan. Just remember to add the cheese last to make a beautiful, mellow, brown crust on the top.
Successful At-Home Work Fills a Need
Ads offering at-home work are everywhere, stuck to telephone poles, tucked under windshield wipers and cramming our email boxes to the brim. You may find these ads enticing, but proceed with extreme caution. Not all work-at-home opportunities can deliver on their promises. Deceived consumers have lost thousands of dollars and a lot of time and energy because they fell for the promises of work-at-home schemes that only benefited the promoters.
Medical billing. Promoters will promise you a substantial income working full or part-time providing billing services in your own home. For your investment of $2,000 to $8,000, a promoter will promise software, training and technical support. You will be shocked when all of those helpers disappear and you are left to find your own clients and sell your own services. Competition in the medical billing market is fierce and limited to a number of well-established firms.
Envelope stuffing. Promoters advertise that, for a "small" fee, they will tell you how to earn money stuffing envelopes at home. When it’s too late, you find out the promoter never had employment to offer. Instead, you will get a letter telling you to send the same "envelope-stuffing" ad to thousands of email addresses, place it in newspapers and send it to friends and relatives. The only way you’ll earn money is if people respond to your stuff-envelopes-at-home ads.
Assembly or craft work. These programs require you to invest hundreds of dollars in equipment or supplies and require you to spend hours producing goods for a company that has promised to buy them. Then, fraudulent operators don’t pay you because your work doesn’t meet "quality standards." No work is ever "up to standard," leaving workers to find their own customers.
If a work-at-home program is legitimate, the company will tell you in writing what’s involved. Here are some questions to ask:
What tasks, including every step of the job, will I have to perform?
Will I be paid a salary or will my pay be based on commission?
Who will pay me?
When will I get my first paycheck?
What is the total cost of this program and what will I get for my money?
If you ask most successful at-home entrepreneurs the secret to their success, they are likely to tell you that they identified a need and found a way to meet it. You may already have what you need to start a cottage business.
One day, the gift shop manager at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello mentioned in passing to visitor Posy Lough that she wished someone would re-design the shop’s counted cross-stitch kits to more accurately depict the beauty of the site and the spirit of Mr. Jefferson. In a flash, Posy envisioned what that project should look like. Today, The Posy Collection (www.posycollection.com) designs, creates and supplies over 400 historically accurate needlecraft kits to the gift shops of America’s museums and historical sites.
The secret to making homemade money is to offer what you do best. Identify a need that you can meet with your skills, and adopt the heart of a servant to fill that need. If you are patient, diligent and willing to work very hard, you will find great success!
Financial Ease in Uneasy Times
My life changed radically 17 years ago when I broke my self-imposed gag order and told the whole world about my struggle with a debilitating spending problem. I had no idea at the time that this would be one of the smartest things I could ever do. By telling my story and owning up to my problem, I became accountable.
Since then, I’ve read and written hundreds of thousands of words on the subject of money management. I’ve experimented with various methods. I’ve addressed audiences large and small. I’ve listened, pondered and asked questions. I’ve collected enough data to choke even a well-adjusted accountant.
I have come to thousands of conclusions, but my most important conclusion is this: Anyone can learn to control their spending, even in the face of a sudden job-loss or financial challenge.
If you are experiencing financial trouble, it undoubtedly can be traced back to a time when you failed to control spending. Then, the trouble started to grow. For some of us it grew and grew.
For almost two decades I’ve lived and breathed money management and financial fixing. I’ve concluded that, regardless of the amount of money we have, these are the main reasons so many people experience money troubles:
1. Financial problems are rooted in one’s refusal to accept the fact that life is not fair. As long as you feel entitled to material things you cannot afford, you will have money problems.
2. Money problems are the result of irregular and unpredictable expenses. Most people don’t think about the things that don’t happen on a regular basis when they add up their monthly expenses. When irregular expenses creep up, they see them as emergencies or financial crises.
3. Money problems will never go away as long as unsecured debt is carried from month to month. Credit card debt has an odd way of reproducing.
Financial ease has nothing to do with being rich. It comes as the result of taking responsibility and by following sound financial principles. The more accountable I am, the greater is my freedom. The more I am disciplined, the more numerous are my options. The more carefully I plan, the bigger I can dream, and the better my life becomes, the more joy I will experience.
I know that whether your financial situation requires a minor correction or a major overhaul, no situation is hopeless. Not even in these recessionary times. No matter where you are right now, you can take control of your finances. You can get out of debt and learn how to live below your means. You can get off the financial roller coaster and stay on level ground where money ceases to be an issue.
If you feel beyond hope, you can change. You can stop adding to your credit card debt. You can put yourself on a spending diet. You can start tracking where your money goes. You can do this starting today!
Ditch Your Unrealistic New Year's Resolution
How's your 2009 New Year's resolution going? Did you break it yet? We're only a few weeks into the year and most resolutions have already been forgotten. Why? Because we make promises we cannot keep, set goals that have no structure and effectively remove all likelihood of sticking with our resolutions.
Take the one I used to make every January 1: I will never eat again. See what I mean? That is unrealistic, unreachable and, even worse, not very much fun.
I'm proposing that this year we team up for some highly entertaining group resolutions that will help us stick together and in the end keep us focused on this journey we're taking to financial freedom. In that spirit, I propose the following:
We will not fall for any dumb get-rich-quick schemes. These scams are easily recognized because they contain phrases like Nigerian bank, envelope stuffing, double-your-money-this-month and You-Can-Make-$17,500-a-Week-in-Just-2-Hours-of-Your-Spare-Time. Our response will be, You're kidding, right? Then we'll hit "delete," hang up, tear up, excuse ourselves or whatever we must to get that offer out of our face.
We will not spend coins. From this moment on, we will spend only currency, no coins. Even if the tab comes to $4.02, we will hand the clerk $5, and pocket 98 cents in beautiful change. At the end of each day we will deposit all coinage into an appropriate receptacle. Oh, the fun we'll have seeing the money multiply as it turns into a viable savings stash.
We will stop all the annoying telemarketers who invade our homes without our permission. As soon as we realize we have a telemarketer on the other end of the line, we'll interrupt by saying: Put my number on your "Do Not Call List." Then, we'll go to the National Do Not Call Registry at www.donotcall.gov and register our home and or mobile number. We are now officially registered and if we receive a call from a telemarketer we can report them.
We will call 888-567-8688 once each quarter to "opt-out." The law gives everyone the right to tell the credit bureaus not to sell the information in our credit file to credit marketing companies, but until we formally "opt-out" we have given them permission by default. Every time we fill out another application we cancel previous opt-out instructions. So, as a safeguard, everyone should call once each quarter to renew our opt-out for every member of our household. The automated process takes about four minutes. You can opt out online, too, at www.optoutprescreen.com.
Personally, I cannot wait for the year to proceed. I have my change jar emptied and ready to go. I have the opt-out information posted by the phone and there is no way I will fall for some stupid get-rich-quick scheme.
So, are you with me? Great! It's going to be a very fun year.
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