Saturday concepts.

Groceries on the cheap takes a different approach to grocery shopping,   In a lot of ways it simplifies things.  No more making a list and forgetting it on the kitchen counter.   No more getting home and forgetting so,etching that you need for the meal plan you have already written.  No more open g the cupboard and refrigerator the day before payday and playing the Mother Hubbard song.

And, you can do this for four dollars a day,   There are two of us, and we have a granddaughter that eats with us sometimes.   I have grown and maintained a stock.  We always have fresh fruits and vegetables in season.   This year, we have averaged 51.89 a week.   Four dollars a day equals 55.00 a week.   We eat regular food.  Pork loin roast, chicken pot pie, burritos, enchaladas, tacos, spaghetti , stew, pizza. Garden salads.and more.

The secret is not remarkable,   You don’t pay full price for your food,   You simplify by purchasing scratch ingredients that are versatile and inexpensive and keep a stock by purchasing them in a regulated bulk.   The difference between eating once and eating twice is that you buy your food for 1/2 price or less and for the same amount of money, you have two items instead of one.

Protein is your most expensive item on your grocery list,   Instead of buying five or six packages of meat, you buy one that is on a good sale and buy enough of that meat to make as many meals as you plan to eat on the following four to six weeks.  If you eat chicken twice a week, you will need 8 meals worth,   Buy it in bulk, break it down onto meal sized bags and freeze what you aren’t going to eat that week.  You can buy split chicken breast for as low as .88 a pound.  boneless, skinless chicken breast can be 8.00 a pound.   A little work and you have chicken stock for free instead of 3.00 a quart, and chicken pieces for tacos or a casserole, and your chicken breast at .88 a pound.

Pork loin can be purchased anywhere between 1.00 and 1.89 a pound.  Again, a little work and your center cut pork chops are 1.00 a pound instead of 3.50.

One of the biggest labor saving services is to buy a bulk package or tube of hamburger at a good price and cook and defat it while you are putting the groceries away.  Bag it in meal sized portions .  We use quart bags from the DT and out them in good zip lock gallon bags and label them ground beef and the date.  Dinner time just got sooo much easier,   I can make spaghetti or taco dinner in 15 minutes hands on time.  That’s less time than ordering a pizza and  waiting for it to come. Or waiting at a restaurant.

By learning how to scratch cook efficiently a handful of meals, you can save the preservatives and a lot of money.

There is a concept of virtual paycheck.  If you figure how much you save between scratch and that meal on a bag or box, and divide it by the extra amount of time you spent making the scratch, you will get an amount per  hour.  If it’s ten cents or you spent more, forget it.  Many times, the amount is remarkable.

My daughter and I thoroughly dissected and made a cheeseburger macaroni meal.   The box had 4.2 ounces of pasta.   (.25) and 1.57 ounces (13.00 a pound based in what we paid for the box) of a cheese sauce that had no cheese on it and did have a multitude of ingredients we needed a science degree to know what they were.    You added all the good ingredients.   Why,nit just add the good ingredients from scratch and avoid the science.   It was actually cheaper to scratch and you had a better product with more nutrition.

We have a buy price for things we use in a regular basis.   If the price is too high and I’m not in dire need or there is not  a substitute, I don’t buy it.   When it is a low price, buy as many as you need for four to six weeks. ( the average cycle on sales) .

A little time can make a lot of difference between eating well for low money, or struggling to make dinner with no ingredients.