Suddenly Saturday

I had a family emergency and still didn't get to go to QFC.    I did get to SAFEWAYS.   I got a piece of chuck.  It was three dollars a pound and we haven't had a real piece of beef in a long time.   I also got chicken for a buck a pound.   Cod is four dollars a pound at QFC and beans and tomatoes are .50.

I am still on target for my budget.   I try to keep a lot of fruit and veggies on the house.  

Working with a small budget takes a bit of a balancing act.   Setting certain figures for each category of food helps stay on track. Especially of you are stocking and don't buy a weeks worth of groceries on the same week they are eaten.   Last week, I bought no protein.  This  week I bought two.   I average one large piece of meat a week, buying bulk and cooking / and or dividing it up into meal sized portions.   I want to buy one meat a week ( or source of protein) and buy enough for the month of that meats meals.

I have a matrix for meal plans.  It makes meal planning easier and insures you are getting a variety of protein.   Yours will probably be different than mine.   I am trying to please a meat eater, a semi vegetarian and I am diabetic.   It's a balancing act.

2 beef
2 pork or chicken
2 vegetarian
1 fish or shellfish

Looking at the ads again this week only exemplifies that the most important tool you can have in eating on a small budget is KNOW YOUR PRICES.   Often  lately I have found the spread between prices of the same thing has been double.   These are things that are on my stock up list.   Things you can make good cheap meals from are the basis of my stock list.  

The idea  is to buy low and eat when the prices are high.   It works.  It works no matter where you are, or what prices are prevelant in your area.   I saw a weeks meals on another blog that was written in another part of the country.  Some of the prices  were more than we pay, and some were less.  
It's all realitive.  


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Jane