Thursday, still no ads

Thursday, still no ads.    You gotta love holiday weekends.    We changed up the meal plan yesterday because I found ground chicken on sale for a dollar.    I was always afraid  of cooking ground chicken because what I had purchased  before was really fine grained and hard to cook without it looking mushy.  This looked more like ground beef, so I,thought I did t have a lot to loose, of try it.    I fried it and used a lot of my homemade taco seasoning,    I saw no fat  being rendered.  I had come across a cowboy spaghetti pie recipe when I was filing recipes, so I opted to,change from shepherds pie to spaghetti pie.    It was alright, I would add a little more liquid if I were to do it again.   I used a can of diced tomatoes with jalapeños instead of adding jalapeños.   Buying tomatoes  with seasoning added is a good way to save money too.  Not much, but it keeps you in the thought process.  

Saving money is a thought process.  Watching forming that you can make dinner with that are on sale is just a habit.   Once you have the habit, it's just second nature-   Like brushing your teeth every morning.    It's a mindset.    It's easier to save money than it is to make it.   Consider it a challenge-- a game.    How cheap can I find good food and make a dinner out of it.    

Cheap food doesn't mean you have to settle for HFCS or saturated fat, or hydrogenated oils-- you can avoid those things and still get good food cheap.    I don't think itmosmoossiblemon a budget to eliminate all the things people have decided  are bad for you, but you can eliminate or drasticlh reduce your consumption of those things.   

We ate regular food for years.   I never heard of anyone growing up being lactose intolerant, or gluten intolerant; so, what happened?    We never heard the words vegan or vegetarian.   We Jane state and considered ourselves lucky we had food on the table.   My mother cooked clean and simple.    My dad wouldn't allow is to have junk food.   No kool aid, pop, sugary cold cereal, Popsicles, marshmallows were a rare treat.    We got them in our sweet potatoes in thanksgiving.   We could have cornflakes or wheat puffs from a bag in the summer sometimes.     She didn't believe in taking meds, so we just suffered through.  Even my asthma wasn't treated until I got to a life threatening episode.  ots hard for me to understand people going on special diets without their doctors telling them it is necessary for their health.    I get the low salt, sugar and saturated fat and hydrogenated oils.   I'm a diabetic from meds I took for asthma.   I eat a special diet. I just don't scream it.  I don't expect anyone to cook special for me.   I just eat what I can eat.  Just old  fashioned   I guess.   Fad diets are like fad clothes. Only fad diets can kill.    There is some theories out there that when we went to not feeding children anything but milk for the first year of their life , that the children developed an intolerance for some foods.    I didn't do that for the kids growing up.  They got cereal and fruits one week at a time so I knew if they had a reaction, what was the cause of the reaction. Neither of the children have a adverse reaction to food.    Eat balanced. Eat in moderation.  Eat a variety of foods.   

Off the soap box.    

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

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 more is not hard.