Spring Slow Cooking-and on Not Doing

I don't know, maybe it's spring cleaning time, but the last few days I've checked out more than one blog on the topic of DYI or outsourcing. When one should do it, whether one should do it, and even on on the "doing everything yourself theory". There were the pay for it when you hate it people, the do it when you can whether you like it or not folks, and even one woman who suggested that we should "outsource" everything-because in her case at $150 an hour it made more sense to spend that time working.

Of course as retirees we don't have that kind of income, and I'm not at all sure how many people do, on a full time basis. But if that works for her.....

At this point in my life, as my body changes and my movements become limited, I am mainly in the "do it if I can, whether I like it or not" theory of what I do myself. With the possible exception of cooking-but them I am a basic, not great cook at best barring slow cooker use, so that one probably falls in the middle. I clean the house because I mainly can (at least with special tools) for now. On the other hand, I can no more reach my toes with a clipper these days than sing opera, so to the friendly pedicurist, I go. And so on.

What most of these articles don't take into account from what I can see is the third category-the don't do category. Obviously because I have chosen to rent, I have more of those than someone else might. The landlord cleans the gutters, trims the trees, comes when there is an issue with the dishwasher and other stuff. But there are other things-I have short white hair so I don't have to decide whether to color myself or pay someone else. I haven't had clothes that needed an iron or dry cleaning (assuming they are hung immediately) in years. I've eliminated most of the maintenance type stuff from my life, to put it simply. And most of the time, life is so much better for it. 

My kitchen has no window near the cooking area or sink, so my food pictures are rarely of the food porn type,but you get the idea.

As for the at home cooking part,  I use the slow cooker as much in the hot weather as in the cold-albeit not for soups. Once a lazy, single step cook, always a lazy single step cook.  I had some cold weather type cuts of meat left in the freezer. So yesterday morning I pulled out a huge boneless chuck out of the freezer.  One that I bought for $2.50 a pound. I cut it into a few pieces and seasoned it by pouring one of those Good Seasons dry Italian seasoning mix (the kind meant to be mixed with oil and vinegar) all over it. The original recipe called for beef broth, but I threw a can of coke on top of it, cooked it on low all day and called it good. At the end of the day I shredded the meat in a bowl, served it on steak rolls with sliced provolone (bought on sale and frozen) and whatever salad and coleslaw we had left in the freezer and called it tasty. Frugal, cheap, lazy and good. And nothing to clean but the slow cooker.

I keep telling myself that as the frugal retiree I should start costing out meals or per person servings. Perhaps I'll start doing that on occasion. But I figure that as long as the weekly and monthly dining-be it in or out-meet my threshold, I'm doing okay. This month, honestly, that will probably be a little skewed after treating my kids and son in law to meals out for a week.. But that's why I do the dirt cheap grocery thing and free entertainment stuff otherwise, after all.

As long as I can alternate frugal, cheap, lazy and at least halfway good with paying for others to cook, I'm okay with paying others to cook. Sometimes.