First of all, I feel it necessary to share a cyber warning. I have all kinds of firewalls on my big computer, not so much on my lap top. We rarely use it. My husband started to up to look up CNN and found a disturbing, official looking web site. according to them, we have been looking at kiddy porn and need to pay them ( impersonating the police) a three hundred dollar fine.the computer is locked. It was complete even to the instructions how to pay with logos of national chain stores and with pictures of the evidence. Sickening! I made telephone calls and e mails. If you get one of these, DON'T send any of your hard earned money. Your local police and attorney generals office are not in a position to help. Email the FBI cyber crime unit. They are having a hard time cracking down on these people ( I use the term most generously--scum of the earth is a more appropriate description) are out of the country and there are several versions of it. They have sold the "rights" to it on Craig's list and e bay and they are popping up all over. They open a bank account, get several hundred thousand dollars and close the account and move on. It would seem to me that ifna sign was put up in the stores that sell green dots that would solve half of the problem. The other half would be to have someone offer a free download to get rid of it.
On to the subject of this blog.
Corn is .25 an ear at QFC. I am not a serious canner/freezer. I am sure that there is a cheaper price somewhere, but it is better for me to take the .20-.25 cent price and run with it. I would look for better if I was doing a lot and had the freezer space.
Basically,the mantra is buy low, and eat high. Buy your food when it is at a rock bottom price, and preserve or store it so you can eat it when it is at a high price. After you are up and running, you only need to buy fresh produce, dairy and bread if you don't make it yourself, and a loss leader meat a week. Buy the cheapest cut of meat on sale for the week. Buy enough to batch cook 4-8 meals. I rotate chicken, sausage ( jimmynDean at Costco) , ground beef, and pork loin. I used to do a sirloin roast, but doubled up on the pork when beef took a huge price hike. It is beneficial to be flexible. LOL.
My meal planning matrix is
2 beef
2 pork or chicken
2 vegetarian
1 fish or shellfish
My matrix is probably different than yours would be. I am dealing with a man that only likes fish and beef, a daughter that only eats vegetarian and a granddaughter that is semi vegetarian. Thankfully, I was raised to eat just about everything. This keeps everybody happy most of the time.
By using a matrix, 1/2 of your meal planning is done for you. I have a cookbook that I compiled in the 70"s and added to through the years. In the interest of modernizing a bit, I have been building a new one with recipes from Betty Crocker.Her website is full of really good recipes and most are either inexpensive, or can be adapted.
One of the other ways to keep your food costs down is to keep a good handle on your perishables. We throw out too much food in this country. Today I have very ripe bananas. I will make oatmeal, banana bread. I use a bisquick recipe. If you prefer not to use bisquick ( there is a healthy version) I have a recipe on an earlier blog for baking mix. Bananas that have black spots are very beneficial to your health.
Yesterday, I got a free shampoo conditioner and a free box of an ultimate meal box. The regular price was 2.50. My daughter and I plan to dissect it today....stay tuned. It is supposed to be for chicken. I would have liked to compare it to a regular hamburger meal box, but they didn't have an ultimate version.
With coupons, I got some fresh produce and spent 8.00.
That's 63.00 this week. I need to cut this month to make up for last month. My daughter offered to give me money one time, it's not the money, it's a game! I want to see if we can do it with the rising food costs.
Thanks for stopping
Please share
Jane
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