Friday, July 5, 2013

Finally Friday.

Somehow, my mind thought  it was Monday.  I was giving the mother with the family of eight's,
problem so deep thought last night.  Not knowing her particulars, I can only guess that she has a half a dozen  boys that have hollow  legs.  I had a couple of boys like that !   I solved my problem by buying things that they liked that were inexpensive snacks.  My daughter  liked top ramen and my son liked bean and beef burritos.  They were a quarter at the time.

Now, there are a whole lot of coupons for snack foods that would make them  almost free .  There are websites that match specials with coupons.  If your stores double, all the better.  ,  I got pudding for near free, and if I had found the coupons that were  out there for a dollar, they would have been free.

Another  problem,  I suspect, is that it's hot there and they are drinking  lot of soda pop.  Soda pop is not on the USDA food list.  Food stamps don't  come with instructions.  Try making ice tea or water.  That's what we got as kids.  We survived and our teeth were better off.   I can also see a bunch of kids devour several boxes of sugar coated cereal in a day if they were allowed.

It is important to remember that the food stamps are based on the food pyramid,  snacks and soft drinks are not on the food pyramid.  Think breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or consider a hearty breakfast and dinner.  breakfast is the cheapest  meal to prepare.

The USDA has a food list on their website.

Plan your meals., buy in bulk, stock when you find the lowest price.  Portion control.
There is a recipe for  refrigerator bread dough in  The Tightwad Gazette.  It is also in the older Betty Crocker Cookbooks.    It would  make cheap cinnamon rolls. Buy cinnamon at the dollar store.
buy eggs when they are cheap.  I have got eggs for a dollar a dozen recently. muffins are easy to make and you can make them healthy and out of almost anything from zucchini, to oranges or
lemons.  Banana with blueberries and oatmeal is our favorite.  It's  from the Betty Crocker Bisquick  cookbook.

Go to the grocer and find out when they mark down milk that is near it's pull date.  Go when it is being marked down and buy as much as you will use in that period of time.  If you aren't using it fast enough, make pudding and or potato soup.

Buy meat in bulk when it is at it is a it's cheapest  price.  cook it and portion control it and make meals from it all month.  Start with seven meals.  Rotate them.

When my children were teens, I posted the meals on the fridge.  They knew the foods that I called free foods.  they could have as much of them as they wanted.  The rest of the food was off limits.  it was  for meals.  by the time kids are preteens they can understand that the food has to last all month.  I am not saying that kids have to go hungry. I am saying that they can't gorge themselves with what they like at the beginning of the month and leave the family with nothing at the end of the month.  We all have to learn some restraint in our lives.

Having a plan helps in budgeting.
My meal matrix is :
2 beef
2 chicken or pork
2 vegetarian
1 fish or seafood

Yours may be different.  one idea  would be

  1. Roast chicken at a dollar a pound or less.  (I would cook 4 at a time. ) with potatoes and a vegetable. Portion control the rest of the chicken and freeze, reserving the bones for soup.   Bag the thighs,wings, and legs and the breasts for future meals the rest of the month.  
  2. Chicken soup with noodles using one of the set of bones.  bread sticks from refer bread dough. 
  3. Spaghetti or another pasta with red sauce.  I get pasta almost free..sometimes as low as .38 and sauce as low as .77.  (Hunts)  use some hard cheese for top and a lettuce salad.  
  4. Bean and beef burritos, rice with home made salsa.  I get tortillas at an surplus store or the dollar store,  they are also cheap at the warehouse club.  
  5. pigs in blankets (bread dough) French fries, coleslaw,  
  6. Ham quiche , fruit
  7. Split pea soup
Bulk buy rice, flour, and a large package of tortillas  and twenty pounds of potatoes and ten pounds of beans and 4 boxes of oatmeal at the first of the month. (45.00)


Buy a meat that is really cheap each week.  Enough for a months worth of one meal a week.  
figure a chicken can make a meal and a soup meal, so I would buy four if they were a buck or less a pound.  Figure  two pounds a meal for hamburger.  So I would buy eight pounds at the cheapest price.  Like under three bucks.  you can get hot dogs for as low as as a buck  this time of year.  

A hypothetical list would be

4 chickens, 5 lbs each 20 pounds times 1. Is 20.00 
 ( 4 breast meals, 4 soups, 4 dark meats or 12 meals.  )
8 packages of hot dogs at 1.00 is 16.00.     (4 meals) 
8 dozen  eggs  at 1.50 is 12.00 ( one egg meal a week and one Impossible pie) 8 meals
8 pounds of ground beef at 3.00 (4 meals) 24.00
2 packages of ham cubes ( 1/4 inch) at 3.00 is 6.00 two meals 
Total 78.00

This will probably take several stores to accomplish at low prices.  
Freeze the meats and make sure hour eggs have a far out pull date.  
Divide what is left by 4.2 and fill in with fruits and vegetables and any dairy you need weekly. Along with the bread you don't bake and a stock item.   Make a blank calendar, and fill in the blanks.  

You should have 350 dollars or 85.00 a week for fruit, veggies and dairy and some stock item.    Scour or have your older children scour the net for coupons for free or almost free snacks and pasta.    Find the coupon match up for your area of the country.  When winter comes, adapt to fit the season.  Turkey goes a long way and is cheap in the winter.  


That should be believable.  

Hope this helps.  If you are not the person with a family of eight on 500. I hope you can gleem some ideas from this on a smaller scale.  I usually just try for the least expensive, but if you have kids with hallow legs it takes a little more planning.

Thanks for stopping by

Please share

Jane















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