Welcome! I’m Holly Hoover, and I’m so grateful you’re here!
Fancy Frugal Fixes started as a way to share tips to create beautifully tasty meals on a budget that help to reduce household food waste. When my husband and I first got married, we had a LOT of student loans to pay off. We got busy finding ways to reduce our household expenses and (shocker) I realized that a lot of our food budget was ending up in the trash. Over the years, I have learned to significantly reduce our food budget and our overall food waste. In this blog, I share tips to help you curate grocery lists to cut back costs and create scrumptious food at home that you won’t believe is budget-friendly.
About Fancy Frugal Fixes
How Did Fancy Frugal Fixes Start?
When my husband and I first got married we had a LOT of student loan debt.
We knew we wanted to work together to pay it down as fast as possible and to get those pesky payments out of our lives— BUT that meant a lot of sacrifices and living on significantly less than we made.
I knew that I could scrimp on almost anything…however, there was no way I was going to be satisfied living on rice and beans and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for years (although I do love both). Upon closer inspection of our grocery bill (and our fridge/freezer), I realized that I was spending a lot on food that ended up going bad before we had a chance to eat it. And I am assuming I am not the only one, as American households wasted an average of 31% of their groceries last year alone (that’s like 3.5 full months of grocery trips). So, I got creative in the kitchen and on my grocery list to create frugal fancy fixes that made us excited to eat dinner and to limit our household food waste.
Waste Not, Want Not
Armed with my PA Dutch family recipes, zealous reading of food blogs, and an ambition to learn how to curate grocery lists to limit our food waste, I got to work to create systems that worked for us. Along the way, I realized how a few simple kitchen tricks could elevate our food to taste better than takeout, found tricks to significantly reduce our food waste, and worked hard to be better stewards of our resources. To date—we have paid off $85,000+ in student loans ( & counting…) and have created so many tasty, inexpensive recipes along the way! Now, I want to help you accomplish your frugal goals and reduce your household food waste.
If you are reading this, I want you to know you are not alone and that you, too, can accomplish your goals— whether it’s to reduce your household food waste, learn to make a less-waste grocery list, or save money on your food. This blog holds a collection of tips, recipes, and ideas that helped us simplify our lives and enjoy flavorful, fancy frugal meals.
Reduce your household food waste
How Can You Spend Less and Reduce Your Food Waste?
Great question!!! What I have found to be true is that the food I waste is often food that I buy on an impulse (say the two bags of chips that have probably gone stale in my pantry or the REALLY unbelievable sale I can’t seem to pass up) and food that only serves a single purpose (like a recipe that calls for just 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree— what do I do with the other 1 1/2 cups in the can?!?). What I want to do is to help you plan meals around using up these leftovers before they go bad and reducing (or finding ways of using up) the amount of single-use items we use in our weeks.
