Cheapwad Finds--Opposite of Blow That Dough!

[Jerry1]

And now I'm wondering if instead of signing up for a week, if we'd come for one night and paid the single-night rack rate of $69, if we'd extended after that night, what would they have been charging us? I have no idea. Argh.

My guess is that is the price to keep someone there as longs as there are spaces open in the park. An empty space yields them nothing. Thus, $29.50 is a good deal for them. Hard to know for sure, but I'm thinking it has less to do with the rate you start with and more to do with how full/empty they are.

 

[Cayman]

Spiral ham, the nicer stuff at Publix. 99 cents/LB. Was $3.87/LB

 

[Pluperfect]

My guess is that is the price to keep someone there as longs as there are spaces open in the park

Yeah, but that price isn't keeping someone there unless they know that's the price. That's my point--you don't know there's a discount until you've already decided to extend your stay at the full price.

 

[Squirrel]

Got eggs with a short sell-by date: $4.00 for 18.
According to the egg board:
As long are they are kept refrigerated at 45 °F or lower, fresh shell eggs are safe to be consumed four to five weeks beyond the carton’s Julian date (the date eggs were packed).

 

[Pluperfect]

I keep eggs for much longer than 4-5 weeks after they were packed.

I have four eggs that have a "best by" date of 11-24-24 (I don't have the date they were packed). I ate two of that batch a couple of weeks ago (fried with VERY runny yolks) and they were fine. I just tested one of the remaining four by putting it in a glass of water and it didn't float, so it's still good.

 

[Koolau]

Got eggs with a short sell-by date: $4.00 for 18.
According to the egg board:
As long are they are kept refrigerated at 45 °F or lower, fresh shell eggs are safe to be consumed four to five weeks beyond the carton’s Julian date (the date eggs were packed).

I've eaten them 4 to 5 months after sell by date.

 

[latexman]

Y’all are just nasty! I think more of my health, than that.

 

[Koolau]

Y’all are just nasty! I think more of my health, than that.

I didn't know you couldn't do that. Never got sick yet. I do smell all eggs - even if bought recently. THEN if in doubt - throw it out.

 

[folivier]

Nothing worse than cracking the last egg and it's bad! Gotta throw away the whole batch. That hurts, especially now.

 

[CaptTom]

My theory is that the "sell by" and "best by" dates are a scam to get us to throw away perfectly good food and buy more. And a CYA by the manufacturers, to cover any complaints from selling stuff which wasn't good to begin with.

Eggs are easy to test. If they fail the float test, they go in the trash. I trust that test much, much more than some big ag corporation's marketing and legal departments. I only recall having to do that once, when the older box of eggs somehow got pushed to the back and we forgot it was there.

If you'd rather throw away food, head over to the BTD thread.

 

[audreyh1]

Nothing worse than cracking the last egg and it's bad! Gotta throw away the whole batch. That hurts, especially now.

Haven’t run into a bad egg in a very, very long time. I hope I didn’t just jinx it.

 

[Music Lover]

My theory is that the "sell by" and "best buy" dates are a scam to get us to throw away perfectly good food and buy more. And a CYA by the manufacturers, to cover any complaints from selling stuff which wasn't good to begin with.

I consider best before dates a suggestion instead of a hard and fast rule. Some food is good well past the date, other food not so much.

There are several websites that suggest basic guidelines on how long some foods remain good after the due date. Of course, it all depends on several factors...packaging, storage, if it's been open, etc.

 

[AudiDudi]

Nothing worse than cracking the last egg and it's bad! Gotta throw away the whole batch. That hurts, especially now.

After about 6 weeks at sea on the sub, one morning one of the cooks was making omlets. He'd crack an egg into a bowl, then another one (bad) and toss the two. I bet he threw a dozen eggs away before he got 2 in a row that were good I float test eggs if I think they are getting old.

 

[audreyh1]

All you have to do is crack each egg in a separate bowl before adding to the rest.

 

[pb4uski]

I think I have only had one bad egg in my life. Unfortunately, it was cracked into a bowl that already had an egg in it so the both of them were pitched.

 

[5Miler]

I think I have only had one bad egg in my life. Unfortunately, it was cracked into a bowl that already had an egg in it so the both of them were pitched.

I've experienced more than one bad egg in my life but with HR's three strike rule they proved pretty easy to eliminate.

 

[Pluperfect]

I consider best before dates a suggestion instead of a hard and fast rule. Some food is good well past the date, other food not so much.

You have to define "good." The party line I see about expiration dates these days has to do with "quality" and not "dangerousness." Like something might lose some of its flavor after a certain date, but it's not going to make you sick.

Companies obviously prefer that their products be consumed before they undergo any deterioration in flavor, so they're going to put a date on there that conforms to that. And they'll say, "We never said consuming it after that date would harm you." But understanding that takes a nuanced reading of the situation, and consumers aren't good with nuance.

What drove me bats is when I volunteered at food pantries and they would automatically throw out any product that was past its "sell by" date AND they wouldn't let volunteers take it home, either. I understand the liability concerns, along with the "look" of providing "old" food to food pantry patrons. But it still grates, because there's nothing wrong with that can of corn that "expired" six months ago.

The one that always gets me is yogurt. I used to volunteer at a soup kitchen, where they took all kinds of ratty food to turn it into meals. Pretty much every week someone would bring in expired yogurt from a grocery store, and it had been being driven around in the car for a while, and sitting in a box in the dining room during the meal, and who knows how the store was treating yogurt they were going to throw away. I like full-fat yogurt, which is relatively expensive, so I'd eat one or two while there, and take home any nobody else wanted later in the day. I never noticed anything "off" about any of them, despite being expired and not being refrigerated constantly.

Then again, some of those Thai noodle bowls have chopped peanuts in them, and even though they're sealed in a little pouch by themselves, I've gotten so many that are rancid well before the best-by date that I complained to the company.

 

[FIYes]

My mother would always crack an egg into a small dish…add it to whatever…then crack the next egg into the small dish and so on. I don’t do that but I certainly would if I ran into a batch of eggs that had some bad ones.

 

[CaptTom]

What drove me bats is when I volunteered at food pantries and they would automatically throw out any product that was past its "sell by" date

This is the real tragedy of those phony "sell by" dates.

I don't really care if someone wants to BTD and throw away perfectly good food. But when it's done in situations like that, just to please the lawyers but to the detriment of people in need, it becomes downright cruel.

I eat that stuff now, and I'm fine. If I were to become poor, I'd have no problem eating it then, either. To be told no, I can't have it because of some arbitrary date the manufacturer pulled out of thin air would be infuriating.

 

[MTB4me]

Hmmm, what happened to the cheapwad finds?

 

[Music Lover]

Hmmm, what happened to the cheapwad finds?

Currently in Mazatlán, got a haircut a couple days ago for $7 Cdn.

 

[Sunset]

Yeah, but that price isn't keeping someone there unless they know that's the price. That's my point--you don't know there's a discount until you've already decided to extend your stay at the full price.

Bet you go back there sometime.

 

[Sunset]

My mother would always crack an egg into a small dish…add it to whatever…then crack the next egg into the small dish and so on. I don’t do that but I certainly would if I ran into a batch of eggs that had some bad ones.

I do that as that way I can pick out the shell bits easily.

 

[Koolau]

Nothing worse than cracking the last egg and it's bad! Gotta throw away the whole batch. That hurts, especially now.

I don't recall the last bad egg - and I'm talking about years, but YMMV.

 

[Pluperfect]

If I were to become poor, I'd have no problem eating it then, either.

Me, neither. But I do understand the "message" when people who are poor are given stuff that is inferior. Like Toys for Tots--they don't want used toys even if they're in perfect shape, and I completely understand that.

The food pantry that did this had a limit on what people could take of various categories, and I always thought instead of throwing out "expired" food, they could put it in a different section and let people get extra from that section. That's kind of what they did at the soup kitchen with food they weren't using to prepare the meal, including the expired yogurt.

And, really, I see no reason to prohibit volunteers from taking it. It's not like they're in on something, like when thrift store employees or volunteers can get the good stuff before it's offered to the public.