My friend Jen Singer runs a website called MommaSaid.net, which tagline is “the stay-at-home mom’s coffee break.” I am one of her columnists, and she recently put up one of my posts, which originated here. It was the post on how to be frugal without being miserly.

I know that you probably already read it here, but you might want to check it out over at MommaSaid–and then check out what else is on Jen’s site. Her site is fun and very addictive. Enjoy!

A Goodwill Industries blog posting gives The Lean Green Family a thumbs up in a post about holiday gift ideas. Plus, it’s got some nifty suggestions that even I hadn’t thought about. Go check it out.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping to pick up a few things we needed–with list and meal plan in hand, thank you very much–and spent only $90. Woohoo.

But this post isn’t about my successful shopping endeavor. It’s about what I discovered in our “overflow” refrigerator when I got home and was putting away some groceries.

There in the take-out containers that we’d used to take home our meal were leftovers from Thanksgiving. (We had Thanksgiving at a local restaurant.)

Good thing I didn’t decide to heat them up for lunch. According to the USDA website, turkey leftovers are toast after 3 to 4 days. Well, today is day 6 since we all gave thanks for whatever we are thankful for, so those leftovers are seriously past their prime.

Sure, we’d all like to be frugal and make sure that we use up all of the food that we have in our refrigerator, but not at the risk of getting sick. So if you haven’t already done so, toss any and all Thanksgiving leftovers in the trash. The only caveat? If you happened to have frozen your leftovers immediately after the big meal, then you won’t need to toss them for another six months.

Now go take care of those leftovers!

As you may know, throughout the month of November, I had a survey up on this blog’s homepage (it was in the upper righthand corner in most web browsers). I wanted to get a sense of which regular features on this blog readers like yourself liked the most–and which ones you could do without. Now that the survey has closed, I thought I’d share the results with you.

Of those surveyed:

* 74% like the “10 Tips/5 Ways Postings” the best.
This doesn’t surprise me given that most blog gurus say that the way to drive traffic to a blog is to offer service-oriented information that readers can use–as opposed to just spouting off on your soapbox day after day. When someone stumbles upon interesting advice, they’re more likely to link to your blog, which also drives traffic and ups your rankings in Google.

FYI, if you want a quick way to figure out if someone has linked to your blog or website, type the following into your web browser address box (without the quotes): “link:yourwebsiteaddress” You’ll be amazed at the results this search brings up.

* 30% of you like “Random Reusables” and “Suddenly Frugal Seal of Approval” equally well.
I’ll be sure to keep writing those.

* Only 17% of you like the “Q&A” posts.
This surprised me a bit. Oftentimes when I write and post a reader Q&A, other readers post the most comments in response. But given this feedback, I guess I won’t stress out about soliciting questions from you guys for Q&A posts in the future.

Or is it the Q&A format of the post that you don’t like? Because these posts often end up with a ton of service in them. Maybe I’ll just change up the format.

In addition to taking the survey, a number of you posted comments on what you’d like to see me cover in the near future. Here are two of those comments:

“I’d love to see something on giving from the heart for the holidays – gifts that we can create with our own hands and love rather than adding to already stretched out wallets. Any suggestions?”

I’m definitely going to post some ideas on handmade gifts. In fact, today I’m heading into NYC to tape an interview with the TV show “Inside Edition” on why homemade gifts from the heart make sense this year. I’ll just be talking about it, not doing a demo. But maybe I’ll do a videoblog posting with some homemade/handmade gift ideas.

“How about the real tree/fake tree issue? I’ve heard arguments supporting both sides.”

See the newest survey that I just put up, which asks the kind of Christmas tree you use at the holidays. However, even before the survey ends, I’ll write a post on the pros and cons of each choice.

Thanks for the suggestions and for your readership. Now I’ve got to go catch a New Jersey Transit train into Manhattan…