Friday Favorites. 3.27

This is not a conversation about going without. Not really. It’s not about discipline, or the kind of frugality that feels like enduring. It’s not about anything more than an invitation to think about things differently, and an assortment of offerings on ways to remain resource nimble.

If you’ve been alive longer than two decades, you also know that nothing lasts forever. So, while this is the world we are living in— raising gas prices and fat grocery bills and a tightening grip on the idea of spending— let’s actually talk about what helps besides never leaving your house, okay?

Before I get into the cute stuff, have you looked at your app subscriptions lately? Have you compared car insurance quotes? Have you thought about temporarily “down grading” your $800/mo car payment? Last year I shaved over $600 a month off my budget by scouring through a mess of teeny tiny payments and services I wasn’t really using and automations designed to get you to forget about them. Dig deep, my friends. That’s basically dollars you are setting on fire and blowing into the wind.

Next up, routine costs. Are you getting coffee out every single day? Lunch? Are you leaving dinner to the last moment and then hitting the grocery store same day for some Instagram recipe you’ve never tried before, or— more likely— turning to meal delivery? What does that do to your existing groceries? How many bags of spinach are you plunging into the depths of the garbage like some sort of sacrificial produce pile?

Just questions. No judgement here.

These newsletters are going to take a stroll back in time to my early independent years, inventions of necessity, the growing grit you get when you are 19 years old and living on your own with three jobs and no savings or trust fund or family help. Just a stack of old Martha Stewart living mags and the will to dream.

After all that, a granola recipe seems kind of twee, but that’s where we are starting. I’ve carried granola in the shop off and on, always sort of double blinking at the sticker price, but it does reliably well so, who am I to tell you you can’t spend $15 for 8 ounces (that’s $30/lb, for those in the back)?

You’ll need:

Fat, sugar, oats. Everything else is negotiable, but I’ll tell you the way I like to make it when I have a lot of partial jars of nuts and seeds to clear out of the pantry. Wasting food is sad, let’s try not to, okay?

One stick of butter, melted.

1/4 -1/2 c. Maple syrup.

3ish cups of old fashioned oats.

Slivered almonds, pepitas, walnuts, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, whatever you got, however much you want, but maybe aim for no more than 1.5 cups?

Mix it all up, spread it evenly and thinly on a parchment lined baking sheet. (You’ll need more than one, or get comfy doing multiple batches.)

Here’s the “can’t mess this up” key: crunchy clusters are equal parts toasted oats and things and ALSO, the fat + sugar reaching adequate caramelization temperature without scorching. For that— we gotta go low and slow. 300° oven, for as long as your particular batch takes to reach a nice and even medium brown.

Second essential factor: you have to have to HAVE to let it cool completely before storing it. I make mine in the evening and let it cool on the kitchen table covered with a clean tea towel overnight. You DO NOT want moisture in your granola. Both for texture reasons and spoilage reasons.

I should mention this makes a family sized portion, so if you’re just one or two people—consider halving it the first time and seeing how fast you run through it, yeah?

Store it in an airtight jar in a cool dark place.

Total cost per pound? Using about $16 worth of ingredients for a hefty 3.5 lbs total of finished product— $4.5 a lb. Make it while you clean your house or read a book, okay?

That’s where we are going with this series, however long lived.

Next week I’m talking at home skincare the skincare brands don’t want you to know about, but I used to work with a middle aged Russian aesthetician in my 20s who had gorgeous skin, and told me evehrhing I needed to make it nice was in the kitchen for P E N N I E S.

Need to cut costs? I’m taking requests. Let’s reclaim self sufficiency from the cold, dead hands of app-life so we can still spend our dollars having coffee with friends out in the world.

See you on Main Street. 💋

XOXI

Michelle