Kathi (00:02.168)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. Guys, you know, okay, I’m gonna sound like a fangirl here. You guys have heard me interview celebrities. You have heard me interview famous, famous authors.

But I am interviewing Lauren today and she’s going to get really embarrassed here. You guys, feel like I’m interviewing one of my friends, but she doesn’t know me. So here’s how I know Lauren. As you guys know, I kind of love me a little TikTok. It’s kind of my wind down every night after a busy day of content creation and writing. And Lauren is one of the first people who comes up, which, okay, I have to say,

Lauren (00:37.737)

Thank

Kathi (01:02.392)

One of the reasons she’s one of the first that comes up is she actually accepted a friend request one time. And I don’t do that. I don’t do that. So how I first started following Lauren is we have an epic battle in our house, my husband Roger and I, about use by and sell by dates. This is a battle to the death. I live on the edge. Like if it smells good and it tastes good, it is good.

Lauren (01:51.561)

Yes.

Kathi (01:56.574)

And Roger thinks that if a can of peaches is one day past its expiration date, that that may cause him botulism and he may die right here as I’m serving him peach cobbler. So I started watching you and I’m like, yes, somebody who is saying about this. And I started following your videos and they’re just delightful. They’re delightful. So I’m going to stop talking and I’m going to ask Lauren to talk.

Lauren (02:09.845)

Poor guy.

Lauren (02:17.691)

Thank

Kathi (02:25.365)

Lauren, welcome to Clutterfree Academy.

Lauren (02:27.841)

Thank you, Kathi.

Kathi (02:29.8)

And this is your first time ever on a podcast, even though you have a quarter of a million followers on TikTok. This is your first time on a podcast, right?

Lauren (02:38.055)

Yeah, I’m actually not big on social media. TikTok is pretty much the only social media I do. It just kind of happened.

Kathi (02:44.884)

Okay, let’s be clear, you’re huge on social media, you just have one form of it. So I’m just gonna, I am going to do a different podcast with you to talk about your TikTok journey, because I find that fascinating. But today, what I want to talk to you about is how you you are extreme when it comes to I think you’re extreme when it comes to saving money on your budget.

Would you call yourself extreme? Are you okay with that term?

Lauren (03:15.081)

I I feel I don’t feel like I’m extreme, but realistically, I probably am.

Kathi (03:19.768)

I was going to say, as the population goes, I would say you’re in the top 10 % of saving money on your budget. You are always looking for ways to save money on your budget. And so I tried to think out how many ways I have seen you save money on TikTok. And I just want to go over these because there’s about, I guess there’s seven that I have noticed.

Lauren (03:27.999)

Probably.

Kathi (03:46.748)

and I may be missing something. But I think the first video I ever saw was you using some ground beef that you traded for concrete work, right?

Lauren (03:59.488)

Yeah, I mean it was it wasn’t a straight-across trade, but it was a good portion of it. Yes

Kathi (04:05.022)

Okay, so you actually, your husband has a concrete company. And so what you did is you guys did this concrete work and part of the payment, was it a full cow? Was it half a cow? What was it?

Lauren (04:19.699)

It was a quarter cow, we traded for our labor portion.

Kathi (04:23.082)

Okay. And by the way, you have stretched that cow. Holy cow. Like you’ve made, I’ve seen you use that quite a bit. You’ve been able to use it quite a bit. So trading, have you ever done trades like that before? Is this your first time?

Lauren (04:38.365)

Not necessarily for the business, but we do trades all the time. You know, like my neighbors, we trade produce in the summer and she’ll leave me a big bouquet of flowers because I can’t grow flowers or, you know, we trade our land. People put their bees on it and they trade us honey for use of our land. We have all kinds of stuff like that.

Kathi (04:57.292)

That’s amazing. here’s a question, because I think people might feel awkward about asking, you know, would you be willing to trade? Can you give us just an idea of how you approach the subject or do you just hang out with people where this is kind of a way of life?

Lauren (05:14.837)

pretty normal in our community. We’re pretty rural. So a lot of us have more, you know, like food items than we do money. So plenty of us trade and it’s not a big deal. but we also, you know, if there’s something we’re super interested in sometimes just say, how would you feel about, know, we deduct a portion of this in exchange for this? And usually people are very open to it.

Kathi (05:22.54)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:36.386)

Yeah, and even if they can’t at that time, they may be open to it later on. For us, you know, we’ve done some trades and what I’ve noticed is the first thing to trade is something of small value if you’re like just kind of sussing out if somebody wants to do something. So like if we had extra chicken eggs, seeing if they might want to trade for some honey or something like that, and you know, getting your feet wet. But yeah, when you know you have something, especially when

Kathi (06:05.716)

egg prices were going through the roof, we could have traded them for bars of gold. It would not have mattered. Not that we could do anything with bars of gold, but yeah. Okay. So that was the first time I met you was finding out about the trade. But the reason I hung with you is the buy-nothing groups. So can you tell me a little bit about how you use buy nothing? And let’s talk a little bit about the extremes of your buy-nothing.

Lauren (06:10.209)

We kind of traded stuff off on that so come back.

Kathi (06:35.478)

Because you kind of don’t, when people do pantry cleanouts, you kind of don’t care. Well, you explain it, please.

Lauren (06:43.861)

The buy-nothing group is amazing. They’re actually all over the place and they’re specifically to Facebook. Well, I think they have a website that’s not, but they are everywhere. Some towns don’t have them, but people can create their own. There’s just a website. It’s, I think it’s like buy nothing.org that tells you kind of what they expect. So it’s sort of across the board. So it’s not like a need-based website. What it is is everybody has the exact same opportunity. If there’s stuff that you don’t want or aren’t going to use, you post it up there.

And you just let it sit for a day or two and let everybody that’s interested get a chance to say, Hey, I’m interested. You don’t really volunteer extra information. Like I could use this for, or I really need this because you just, I’m interested. And then they just randomly choose whoever they’re interested in gifting it to. So it’s cool. Cause everybody has the exact same opportunity. Nobody feels put on the spot. Nobody feels strange about it. And there’s a lot of things. mean, there’s clothes, there’s food items, there’s anything, anything in your house you would give to Goodwill. It goes on by nothing.

Kathi (07:43.04)

Okay, so I’m already finding out I did it wrong because I, we just had a big order at Sam’s and they, my husband went to pick it up and they accidentally included five gallons of two and a half percent milk, a bunch of Lunchables and some Romaine lettuce. And literally I just picked up 2 % milk and Romaine lettuce and I’m not a big Lunchables fan.

Lauren (07:59.777)

Wow.

Kathi (08:11.286)

So I put it up on our community group, because we live in such a small town, we don’t have a buy-nothing group. And I just gave it to the first person, but it was our school. So I feel good about that. But you’re kind of supposed to let a bunch of people leave it up for a couple of days and then pick somebody. Is that kind of the standard? Or can you give it away right away? Is that OK to do?

Lauren (08:30.606)

You can.

Lauren (08:35.421)

You can, yeah. People put like flash gift and like for example, last summer somebody cleaned out their freezer because they needed room and they had a picture of a bag on their porch with frozen stuff in it and just said, Hey, I cleaned out the freezer. Whoever can get here first can have it. And literally nobody commented on it, but me. So I ended up getting a big paper bag full of random, like the spinach I used in the spinach artichoke dip and peas and all kinds of stuff.

Kathi (09:01.058)

That’s amazing, I love it. Okay, so why are those pantry cleanouts so controversial? Because you get some pushback on them.

Lauren (09:09.757)

I get a lot of people that are really angry about the pantry pickups. Like there are so many people that are so angry, but I don’t know. I think it’s maybe the thought that like people think that I’m taking from somebody who needs it more. But like I explained, the buy-nothing group is everybody has the exact same chance and you just get randomly selected.

Kathi (09:12.812)

They’re mad at you, Lauren. How dare you? There are a couple of reasons, right? Yes.

Lauren (09:33.057)

But in our town, also have multiple, I think we’ve got like four churches that do food drives every single week. We’ve got our school that has a pantry twice a week. We’ve got a food bank. We’ve got so many resources in our community that nobody is lacking.

Kathi (09:48.46)

Yeah, and as somebody who gives things away when I don’t need them, we have a business here and we have to buy lots of food sometimes and sometimes there’s extra. And I just want what’s going to be convenient for me as I’m hosting all these people. Like we’ve got too much stuff. I just need the first person who could come here. And so there are lots of opportunities for people who are needs-based to get free food in our community.

Kathi (10:16.652)

but I’m just trying to manage my resources and get it out the door. The other reason that people get upset with you is because you take things past their expiration date and they think you’re going to die, right?

Lauren (10:31.297)

Yeah, a lot of the things that we get in pantry cleanouts are opened, which some things I feel comfortable using because I might know the people or I just, I don’t know, just get a wild hair and think it’s fine and use it. Anyway, a lot of people are like, aren’t you going to get poised? Yeah.

Kathi (10:44.072)

and you’re still here to talk about it. You are still here to talk about it.

Lauren (10:49.025)

Yeah, most people are good. They’re not out there trying to poison somebody randomly. I mean, they’re good-hearted enough to give away their extra. They’re probably not trying to kill you. And then the rest of it is just expired. Our food pantry can take up to a year, I think expired or maybe it’s six months past. It’s not very long, but everything else they just can’t give away to food pantries. And like we just used a can of soup from 2017 the other day, which freaked Devin out. He’s like, you try it first.

Kathi (10:57.942)

Right.

Kathi (11:17.367)

You

Lauren (11:18.45)

BOOF!

Kathi (11:19.926)

You’re the king’s food taster. I love that.

Lauren (11:22.305)

But you know, like I said in a million of my videos, mean, shelf stable foods are made to last. The USDA website even has a thing on it. I mean, it’s indefinite. The food is indefinite. It’s not going to stay tasting great, but it’s not going to kill you.

Kathi (11:40.396)

Well, Lauren, I wrote a book several years ago called Ready for Anything about being prepared for disasters and things like that. And that’s when I found out canned food almost doesn’t expire. It might lose a little of its flavor, but you’ve been trying to educate people on this. they’re staunch like if it’s a day past it on the box, I’m throwing it out. And I found out something really interesting.

You live north of me, I’m in California. And they are going to radically change the food date system in California. You heard about this, huh?

Lauren (12:21.217)

Well, I actually heard about Canada changing their food. They’re taking off the Best Buy dates.

Kathi (12:26.786)

Yes, because there’s so much food waste for people not sniffing or tasting, but just saying it’s a day past, I’m throwing it out. And the estimate is that Americans waste about 40 % of their food that they purchase. It’s crazy.

Lauren (12:43.133)

which is crazy. There are so many Americans that are hungry every day that don’t need to be because this stuff doesn’t need to be thrown away.

Kathi (12:49.674)

It does not need to be thrown away. Okay, the fourth way I’ve noticed that you are saving money on your food is gardening. say you can’t grow flowers. I’m very sad.

Lauren (13:04.863)

No, I am not a flower person or an indoor plant person.

Kathi (13:07.223)

Okay, that’s a hey, it’s good to know our strengths, right? It’s good to know what we’re able to do. But what do you grow that you feel like makes the biggest impact on your grocery bill?

Lauren (13:13.153)

Thanks.

Lauren (13:20.641)

the berries 100%. My kids, we have five boys. They, they just want berries. So we do strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries. I mean, if it’s a fruit, we probably grow it. So that makes the biggest impact.

Kathi (13:32.728)

I’m surprised you didn’t say blackberries. Do you have blackberries on your land?

Lauren (13:38.323)

We do have blackberries. just, it’s not something you really try to grow in Oregon. They just kind of do their own thing and you try to rip them out constantly.

Kathi (13:44.696)

Yes. I was going to say we have a constant supply of blackberries, not necessarily ones we want, but yeah. Okay, so the berries are making the biggest, I think that’s really interesting. So, but you also grow a really big variety. I’ve seen beans and jalapenos and things like that. So what do you grow that adds the best flavor to your food? Like that you get excited about?

Lauren (14:12.885)

The potatoes are my favorite. I know they’re not a flavor item, but they’re my favorite. They’re so versatile.

Kathi (14:16.16)

Yes, because I tell people how you grow them.

Lauren (14:20.777)

Well, I’m actually I’m doing a video on it now, but I won’t post it until I’ve got like showing how it actually does. But so you use layering method. It’s really awesome. We do it in buckets. You put a potato in the very bottom and just cover the top of the potato with dirt. And when it starts to sprout its little leaves, you cover those and then you just keep on repeating. So you hit the top of the bucket and wait till the leaves die and then you harvest.

Kathi (14:41.496)

Okay, I am 100 % gonna try that. I can’t wait for that video. You guys, I’m obsessed with her. She probably thinks I’m creepy at this point. You guys know I’m not creepy. can I just tell you, because I live rurally, and most people are not going to adopt all seven of your practices. Do you love that I’ve just said, here are your seven practices, Lauren? But so many of these,

Lauren (14:44.347)

It’s so easy.

Kathi (15:10.253)

I vibe with because it’s just we can’t get to the store but once a week. And so you start off almost all of your cooking videos. Can you give us the line?

Lauren (15:23.137)

It’s time to make dinner using what we have on hand. That we’re not going to the store, we’re not going out to eat. Yep.

Kathi (15:26.678)

Right.

Yes, because I can only cook from what I have on hand. There’s no going to Chipotle. So this makes me so happy when I’m able to see. Here’s my question. How did you get to be such a creative cook? Was it necessity? Your grandma. So tell me about her.

Lauren (15:43.553)

That would be my grandma.

Lauren (15:48.507)

she was obviously part of the great depression because she’s my grandma and that was the age, but she, her pantry was, I don’t think I ever ate food that was actually in date ever at her house. And she was just to keep it until it’s gone. Cause you used it person. She’s the one who taught me how to sniff and smell and you know what I mean? Make sure everything’s kosher, but she did, she just made what she had. So it was a lot of random. can see her pantry just stacked with like.

Kathi (16:00.384)

Okay.

Kathi (16:05.176)

Mm-hmm.

Lauren (16:17.633)

200 cans of random stuff and she’d throw it together because she’d say hey this looks good and I think this would go with this and this would go and she just had something.

Kathi (16:26.024)

That’s amazing. Okay, we’re gonna take a quick break, pay some bills, and when we come back, I wanna talk a little bit about how I see you stretching your food. Because I think that’s where you really shine. So we’re gonna take a quick break and come right back.

Lauren (16:37.449)

Okay.

Kathi (16:47.424)

Okay, friends, we are back with Lauren who is an extreme cooker, food buyer. She lowers her bills in such an amazing way. And I find it fascinating how you stretch what you have. So for those who listen, a lot of us have problems with clutter. My dad was a hoarder. We tend to collect, but don’t always use.

Kathi (17:16.352)

And so we may want to grab all those things from a buy nothing, but then they’ll sit in our pantry until they’re 10 years out of date and nobody in our family will touch them. How do you get yourself to be like, I’ve got this can of, don’t know, let’s, I’m trying to think of an ingredient.

Lauren (17:39.774)

Okay.

Kathi (17:41.298)

canned potatoes, because I’ve seen those before. I’ve never actually used them. But you would do something with those. How? What’s your thought process for? I’ve got this thing that I may have never used before, and I’m going to do something with it. How do you go? How do you approach that?

Lauren (17:58.764)

I tried to just figure out what the main ingredient that would be that could go with it like those hearts of palm that’s something I’ve never had before but I googled it like what are these because I didn’t know and it said it was similar to artichoke so I was like okay so we can just treat it like artichoke so hence the dip that was born

Kathi (18:08.662)

Right.

Kathi (18:17.782)

Yeah. Okay, so you’re kind of reverse engineering it instead of approaching it recipe first, you’re approaching it ingredient first and then googling or looking, you know, on recipe sites to figure out what you can do with it. Really.

Lauren (18:32.705)

pretty much or like the clams like what do do with this clam chowder? I didn’t make a dip but I will because I have more clams but I made a chowder just because it sounded the best and I had the closest ingredients to what I thought it would need on hand. Okay and the rest we win.

Kathi (18:35.988)

Yes, and you made a clam dip with those, right?

Kathi (18:51.028)

Okay, that’s okay. That’s, I love that. And if you’re saying, well, that’s easy for Lauren, but you know, we have food allergies, would please tell about your special circumstances.

Lauren (19:01.333)

We have food allergies. We have food allergies too. We, one of our children has a really severe peanut allergy. So we have to be careful with cross-contamination, which is big in dinner, obviously, but things like Asian dishes that use peanut sauces, you know, you got to watch. but I am gluten-free. The rest of my family is not. So I just have to be careful. but that even includes like these cream of soups or, know, like a tomato soup and I put in the meatloaf or those things all have.

Kathi (19:28.417)

It’s in everything.

Lauren (19:29.951)

wheat. Yeah. And some of the seasonings. some stuff I get a really unpleasant surprise once I’ve made it. I’m like, I feel like crap. And some stuff we just kinda, you know, I’ll make the recipe like it’s supposed to be. And then maybe I use gluten-free flour instead of regular flour, or I set off a little portion of my gluten-free noodles or my gluten-free sauce on the side and just kind of do it deconstructed. There’s ways around it.

Kathi (19:37.569)

Yes.

Kathi (19:52.978)

I love it. When you do those pantry cleanouts and there’s like a gluten-free cake mix or something, I’m so happy for you. It makes me so happy for you. Okay, another part of what you do is you shop the sales. I am on the constant lookout for the bacon deal at Safeway because of you. tell us your approach to shopping the sales.

Lauren (20:20.645)

so a lot of stores like Safeway specifically, they’re really expensive. I would not normally shop there, but they have loss leaders. So every week they post like just a couple things that are way below what they should be to drag you into the store. So you get the rest of this stuff while you’re there. We don’t do that. We, we have to drive 20 minutes to get groceries anyway, which is pretty normal. But if we’re going to trip, we hit Safeway for its little deals. And then we hop over to the Kroger store, Fred Meyer for its little deals. And you just kind of bundle it in. There’s a grocery outlet up there.

Kathi (20:24.972)

there. Yeah.

Lauren (20:51.041)

do, or like Fred Meyer started doing their weekend freebie this weekend, Saturday and Sunday it’s free bacon. So I was going to take my mom grocery shopping today, but if I literally just wait until tomorrow, cause she’s going to spend more than $35, she gets a free pack of bacon. So there’s no point not waiting.

Kathi (21:07.832)

Perfect. And I’m so jealous of your store selection. We have Safeway, which by the way, we have a child who works at Safeway and his girlfriend. so I was trying to shop the sales there and I was like, guys, it’s so confusing sometimes with their deals and things like that. And my son’s girlfriend says, yeah, they should offer a Duolingo course.

Kathi (21:35.988)

on how to read the Safeway ads. They work there, it’s confusing to them. But Fred Myers and all these croakers, you have some really good options over there. So you’re just kind of, you’re spending a little bit more time going to different places, but getting the things on sale that you know your family will use. Is that correct?

Lauren (21:57.313)

Yeah, and for me it makes sense because they’re all close together. So it’s not extra gas or really extra time. I mean, I’m spending the exact same amount of time and the same amount of gas. So, but it doesn’t make sense if they’re all spread out. Before we go, we look at, I look at the Safeway ad and the Fred Meyer ad and see what I want to do that’s on my list. I write it all down and then I check Ibotta, which is a, like a rebate app on your phone. See if anything matches there. Basically we just kind of hop around the coupons.

Kathi (22:25.272)

So you feel like Ibotta’s worth it?

Lauren (22:28.412)

I know a lot of people don’t, but I like it.

Kathi (22:30.38)

No, no, I’m just curious. I’ve never really used it. So I’m going to check if Lauren says check it out. I’m going to check it out. That’s what I’m going to do.

Lauren (22:38.468)

It’s worth it if you’re buying those items already. Like don’t go out of your way to buy something that they’re rebate. It’s not worth it that way, but if you’re already buying it, it’s just extra.

Kathi (22:43.671)

Right.

I love it. Stretching your cooking. You do such an amazing job stretching your cooking. I’ve seen you when you have a protein that you’re using instead of using a ton of that protein, adding beans and things like that to it to make it stretch. Give me a couple of ideas of some of your favorite stretching techniques because like you said,

you’re feeding five boys plus the two at seven people. And I remember having teenage boys and a couple of teenage girls that if it was on the table, it was being eaten. Like there was no end in sight. So I’d love to hear a couple of ways that you’ve found that you can really stretch that meal.

Lauren (23:34.613)

Rice is the cheapest, best stretcher that we have ever found. It is such a good filler. We do do mashed potatoes, but sometimes the kids aren’t super into those. So rice seems to be the go-to. Beans are really, really good one. It makes everybody super full. They don’t even know it’s there because we usually cook it in with like the taco meat or the soup or whatever. And it just, doubles your meat volume without actually changing what’s in it.

Kathi (23:39.927)

Yeah.

Kathi (24:00.02)

my goodness, I love it. And then the seventh way that I’ve noticed is substituting. You substitute all the time. You’re not going, I have never heard you say, like, I can’t make this because I don’t have X, Y, Z. You are constantly substituting. How do you get a sense of what to substitute? How do you know it?

Lauren (24:13.473)

Yeah.

you say like…

Kathi (24:29.588)

Is it just a sixth sense that none of us can really learn or how did you learn to substitute so well?

Lauren (24:37.63)

I actually just made a lot of stuff that tasted really bad and learned that that was not gonna work. Do it again!

Kathi (24:42.922)

I love it. It really is trial and error, right?

Lauren (24:47.585)

Yeah, it’s not some crazy sixth sense. just, you know, it’s like, this sounds like a good idea. And sometimes it is. And sometimes it’s really not.

Kathi (24:55.638)

Whenever I’m experimenting, I always tell my husband, and there’s a frozen pizza in the freezer if this is terrible. Like we have that back. Top Ramen, there you go, right? Because yeah, that’s the gold standard. Okay, is there any strategy that I haven’t mentioned that you feel like really helps with that grocery budget?

Lauren (25:17.71)

As silly as it sounds, I do the can collecting. I haven’t done a video in a very long time, but we live really so we live kind of by a park. And so there’s a ton of people that throw beer cans and things out their window, which is disgusting and a terrible habit. But I walk the road sometimes more frequently in the summer, but get exercise. You’re picking up the cans. Every bag is like seven bucks. It adds up over time.

Kathi (25:44.312)

And you’re helping the environment too. You’re helping to keep your community a place that people want to be. I love that. Okay.

Lauren (25:52.863)

You look like a weirdo, but it’s okay. I do it at at my son’s football game that we were just at I was picking up a couple that were under the bleachers and he was just like mom. my god

Kathi (26:01.813)

Mom. Yeah, but you know what? Here’s the beautiful thing. You’re not gonna have to take care of me in my old age because I’m in debt for the grocery bills of raising five boys. Yeah, you know what? If that’s the weirdest thing about you, mom, I think we’re good to go. Lauren, this has been so great. I’m gonna put your TikTok handle.

Lauren (26:14.657)

because I’ll be that little weirdo out the parking lot collecting cans, yep.

Kathi (26:26.424)

in the notes so that people can go find you. But I just think if you’re going to spend a few minutes on social media, spend them with Lauren. She is not controversial unless you’re weirded out by expiration date. She’s not controversial. You’re so encouraging to people. And I love that you’re helping us think about our food differently. Thank you so much for being on today.

Lauren (26:35.083)

for it.

Lauren (26:39.521)

I’ll play it twice.

Lauren (26:50.057)

today. Thank you, Kathi. This is really fun.

Kathi (26:52.998)

my goodness. And friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.