Bread

Bread, they say, is the staff if life,    It is also, expensive  compared to the actual cost of making it. 

Flour when bought in bulk is .15 a cup.    Yeast is inexpensive in bulk at Costco, or you can get it for pennies in the bulk isle at Winco or a store that carries bulk.  Most bread is flour, salt, water, yeast and sometimes olive oil.  Pretty cheap.   Pizza crust is about .40.   ( when I price things, I don't include staples that are less than  two tablespoons.   It's too much work for what it is worth.  )

With the invent of machines and techniques, it doesn't have to be time consuming.    You do have to be home.  But, you can start bread, and go about laundry and house or yard work and come back to another step.  

I used to make a pizza dough in the food processor years ago.    It made a thick crust.   We cooked it partially and then filled it.  The Internet is full of recipes.   We picked one that is super easy and uses the food processor.   You can a,so make bread sticks from the same dough.

Making bread is pretty easy,   I used to be intimidated by anything with yeast.    New easy recipes make it easy.   Bread machines are really cheap at thrift stores these days. The good news is that it tastes sooo yummy right out of the baker or oven.  The bad news is it has no preservatives and goes stale fast.  In our house or doesn't last that long and we can make bread crumbs.  

Bakery items are pricey and you cannot control the ingredients.  They can be time consuming.   I think that's why my mother taught us at an early age, ( 9 yo) to bake.   We had a small list of recipes from the old Betty Crocker cookbook that we used to make on a regular basis.  They called for basic ingredients that mom always had on hand.    Now I would have to find substitutes for the shortening or margarine.   I tend to make apple crisp or brownies.  

A cup of flour has 96 grams of carbs.


Groceries on the cheap is looking at the "put the meal on the table train" from  a diferent perspectives. 

The emphasis is on purchasing good shelf stable or frozen food  for a RBP in quantity - enough to last you until they goes on sale again or to keep a controlled non-perishable stock of the things you  use  on a weekly basis. 

This means that instead of shopping daily or weekly for just the things you need to cook your 
meals for the week. You go to two stores and buy :
1) a protein that is a RBP - enough to make that meal for x number of days. (I.e.: if you eat it once a week, buy enough for 4 meals.)
2) produce and dairy you will need to fill in the meals for the week. 
3) a stock item, if you need to and it is on a RBP - enough to fill in to your self imposed stock level. 

You often are paying 1/2 price for your food.   This allows you to put well-balanced meals on the table consistently on a four dollar a day per person budget.   You spend more time on the 
locomotive ( planning and shopping ) end of the train, and less time in the caboose ( kitchen )by
cooking more efficiently. 

 Four dollars a day is the target amount for people on snap.   My premise is that of you can do it on 4 dollars a day, spending