The basics : Coupons, are they worth it?

Coupons these days are for bigger amounts than they were in our mothers days,    There are a lot of dollar coupons , so it doesn't take a lot to add up.  We don't buy a lot of ready made things and I can still save three to six dollars a week usually.  

 Coupons can be found in inserts that come in the mail and in the Sunday paper.    You can also print coupons on coupons.com.   You can print 2 of each,   Of course, if your printer messes up, you are out of luck.    That's what happened this month! Lol

Coupons are on a first come first served basis.  There are limits as to how many coupons can be printed,   Be kind and don't print  any coupons you know you aren't gong to use.

Example,:  I saw a package of sliced sargento cheese that retails for 3.50 an 8 ounce package.   That's 7.00 a pound and over my target price.    But, it was on sale for 2.50 and I had  .55 coupon.  Now it is 1.95.   Now, I got a .50 Ibotta on it and now it is 1.45.  

I keep my coupons in a 3  ring binder in plastic sleeves.    You can also find a coupon envelope at the dollar tree.    Or use a envelope or envelopes from the recycle.

Ibotta is one of the rebate sites.   You sign up, preferably with a friends code, and you can get rebates on many things, sometimes just for buying tomatoes or other generic food.   When you have enough. They will give you a gift card for Amazon or movie tickets or.......

It all adds up.   It only takes a few minutes while you put the food away!

I recently had a Facebook post from years past pop up.   It was on a coupon that I had found.
Rite aid had laundry detergent for 3.99.  I had a three dollar coupon.   That made the  detergent .99.  Now, there was a coupon for a free detergent bottle on the bottle.   The second detergent bottle cost me the price of a stamp.   240 loads of wash for 1.47.    And who says its too time consuming and there are only coupons for stuff you don't need. LOL.

Costco and winco grocery hauls

Costco - business

6 cans chicken 9.99

3# bananas 1.39

Large strawberry. 3.99

Large cornstarch 2.99

18.36

Winco 

Hot dog buns .75

Blue bunny ice scream w coupon 2.75.  Compare to 4.50 at fred Meyer.

Salmon burgers 2.48

 Total 5.92 

Wednesday chain store ads

Alberways,

Johnsonville brats 3.77
Blues 2.77
Extra lean ground beef 3.99
Star kist tuna. .59 @
Walla walla onions .99

Five dollar friday

Corn 10 ea.  - thats fifty cents an ear.  
Salsa 3/5

There are some BOGO things,   But not knowing prices doesn't give me a clue.


QFC

Peppers, English cucumbers .99
Milk 4/5
Cottage cheese, sour cream 4/5
Red cherries 2.99

That's about it.

The basics ,Finding a RBP.

Finding the best prices on food is not such a hard task.   It can be overwhelming, but not of you break it down to a few steps

You have already--

• Identified sources of protein  that you will use in your meal plans.    These should be less than two dollars a pound of you are trying for a four dollar a day budget.   (Snap guidelines ) 
• Identified the items you buy on a regular basis to prepare meals from those protein sources. 
• Now, gather your ads,    Our Winco doesn't have an ad, so you just have to visit the store. Every Winco has different prices because they work  off of a list to provide prices lower than  the competitors.  It's important to note, that no one store can have the best prices on everything,   
• Take a short inventory of your fridge,pantry  and freezer.    This will tell you what you are missing.  
• Now, start circling everything that you need that is a good price.   Check for coupons to  remember what you clipped.   $$.    I usually do that for people on the Seattle area.  There are some sites that work in other areas.   Try favado.   
• Soon, you might start seeing better prices at one store over another in an item.  
• Circle, star, or tag any item you intend to buy,   I put a check mark on anything I might have a coupon for,   The best use of coupons is when you find a good buy and can stack a coupon with it.  You can't stack an electronic coupon with a paper one. Most  all stores take them.   
• I have a meal plan form I made in excell.   It has seven blocks in one side of the landscape sheet and two columns on the other,   In one column I have listed the things we buy on a regular basis that are perishable to fill in meals,    The second column is blank so I can either mark how many we have or note that we need it.   This  makes doing an inventory a couple of minutes. 
• Now, decide who has the RBP  on what you need.   Here, it is usually Fred Meyers and Winco,    Occasionally, we find a good sale with coupons at Safeways or QFC.   Costco is always go to to for bulk Purchases.    I continue to check prices, but unless something is in a huge sale, you can't beat the few things I get from Costco,   Not everything is a bargain at Costco.   Look for a rotation meat.    My standby if I can't find pork loin cheap is to look at Costco business.    It's in the next town, so I don't go unless I'm out of a few things that they have that regular Costco doesn't carry.  Costco has grains that were not part of our vocabulary in the fifties, and seaweed.   But, they don't carry corn starch, or large canisters of broth granules or some spices.    I bought a larger than large sack of salt and soda.   I will never have to buy them again! Lol.  They were cheap.    They can be used for cleaning as well as food.    
• Having a target figure ( nothing to do with the store with the red balls ) for your basics list is Germaine in knowing if something is a stick up price.  Try to never lay full price  for your basic needs list.    Canned veggies should be less than fifty cents,   Ditto diced tomatoes, beans of you buy canned.   I want 149-1.69 a pound for pork loins,   I want .88-1.00 a pound for Foster Farms chicken,    (Locally grown ) hamburger  3.28 or less for 7 percent fat.   I want pasta sauce in glass for close to a dollar.   In cans for under a dollar, pasta ( Barilla) should be under a  dollar...preferably .50-.75 cents.    It is always a dollar at the DT. ( dollar tree) as is canned pasta sauce and they take coupons- up to four a  day, and some won't take two  coupoms for two   of the same thing.    That's not the written coupon policy, but best not to argue.  They have the last word.   I want frozen v goes for under a dollar a POUND.   Many vegetables are in 12 ounce pkg.  Cheese  should be less than 2.35 a pound.  Different states have different prices.   
• If you live where there isn't a variety of stores, you probably have higher prices,because there is no competition.  Consider scoping out the next big town and finding the best priced stores.   You can sometimes get the store to send you the ad, or find it on line.  Or get a family member or friend to take a snapshot of other and Facebook it to you.  Find the best sake week and go once a month,   if it isn't  near other errands you,need to do, consider carpooling with a friend or neighbor.  Split the gas bill, or take turns.    We used to drive ten mikes to Winco once a month before we got one in our town.   I hear Aldi is expanding to almost double stores.  Think outside the box.    
• The best prices you can get with coupons is when you can find something on a mark down table and have a coupon. ( I got two cans of s and w beans for .08  total.    ) or you have a buy XX things, save XX dollar sale .  Our Kroger has those often,    You have to make your choices carefully, a lot of junk food here sometimes, but with careful planning, you can match coupons and make out.  I saved 78 percent one time.   
• You can a,so make out with a basket coupon ,   That's where they give you  XX number of dollars off a XX dollar basket of food.   Do the math,    Find the percentage of discount,    A five dollar off of fifty dollar basket is only ten percent,   If the prices are already high, it doesn't  pay.  This is another time when buying what's on sale with a coupon and adding the basket coupon can make you really clean up.   IF.  You stick to buying the maximum of the blanket or basket coupon.  Any amount over will lower your percentage off.   

Why bother, my time is worth more than that!  Is the most heard excuse about coupons and target shopping.    Let's break that down.     The average family our size spends 7800 a year on food.   We are at a pace to spend 2700 dollars his year and maintain a small emergency stock.    That's five THOUSAND dollars.    That's one nice trip to Disneyland or Hawaii.    Or covers the cable and the heat bill.   Or makes a car payment.     

Its a matter of thinking

Saving money and trying not to waste is a  matter of thinking. Its a frame of mind.  
Little things add up.   One attitude leads to another.  

Ideas

1. Cut the ends  off a pepper first.  Then slice peppers from the inside out.   It will make slicing easier.   This works for tomatoes too.   Save the ends to chop for cassarole, salads, or pizza.   
2. Save the ends of your bread (heels) .   Why pay upwards of 2.40 cents a pound for someone elses dry bread?   Use it for meatballs, breading, toppings for mac and cheese or other cassaroles.   
3. Buy diced tomatoes with seasonings.   Buy the seasonings according to what your family likes. Our family likes to eat italian and Tex mex.   So chillis and italian herbs work.  
4. If you know you are going to make a recipe with jalapeño in it. Try buying the jalapeño cheese instead of regular.   I added a 1.25 bag of cheese to my order at Safeways because i needed to come up with a 20 dollar market basket to get a 15 percent discount.   I used the cheese in my cornbread instead of adding jalapeños.   That saved me a 66 can of chillies.   It also kept our cost down to the proverbial five dollar dinner.   
5. When chopping celery for soup or stews, use the top an bottom of the ribs.   Leave the middle for celery sticks.  
6. Baby carrots are just the culls of the carrots that are cut down and bleached.  It cost a dollar for a pound of carrots.   Five pounds of carrots are less than three dollars.   
7. Ends of carrots an celery can be used for chicken stock.  
8. Butchering you own split chicken breast to make boneless , skinless , chicken breast saves about seven dollars a pound.    Throw the rib bones in your slow cooker with water, the ends of carrot and celery and cook on low until the meat falls off the bones.    Pick the meat and freeze the stock.   Now you have not only saved a lot per pound on your chicken, but you have free chicken stock that costs over two dollars a quart.    
9. Use the bits of chicken that you pick off the bone for taco meat, cassarole, chicken soup, chicken and dumplings. Burritos, chicken chimichangas, chicken salad. Pulled chicken sandwiches. Etc.   
10. A few meat dripping can make gravy.   No need to buy an expensive gravy mix.   All gravy is is the meat drippings, some flour, and water.    Some cheap flour and the dripping you throw away.    Heat the drippings in a frying pan. While the drippings are on low, shake some flour into the drippings to absorb the fat.   Gradually add water and stir with a wisk until the right consistency.    Add salt to taste.   

Grocery haul 7/16/17

I did the kitchen management today so we could work in the yard later.    Went shopping after we cleaned out the fridge.

Fortunately, we threw very little out.   

A 48 cent cucumber did not get eaten.   

Fred meyers:   Not everything on my list was a good price at Freddies.    There were no bags of real carrots.   The trick is to get the best of to stores.    

Fred Meyers

2 dozen eggs. .89

Cottage cheese 1.25 

Apples 2.80

Tomatoes 1.43

Total 7.25

Winco 

Pizza snacks 2.18

2 lbs FRIES. .....99

2 LBS SEASONED FRIES 1.68

Milk 2.28

Grape tomatoes 1.78

Mild green chilies 66

Carrots 2.28 - five pounds 

Celery 2 heads 1.96

Lettuce .98

Watermelon 3.97

Total 19.42

Monday: kitchen management

kitchen management is a tool that saves a lot of time during the hectic dinner hour.   Prep work done in mass is a lot more efficient than doing it piecemeal.  

Based on yesterday's meal plans.  

Pizza is a no brainer.  I just have to make the crust the morning of and put it in the fridge.   We already have grated cheese, pepperoni if we want it, peppers are always chopped in the freezer because I save the ends of the peppers for pizza topping.   Ditto any little extras that happen to be hanging around the freezer or fridge.

Mark the meal plan for the day before we have chicken nuggets so the chicken is defrosted.  
The dredging is done the day of.  It can be done in the morning and put in the fridge so that the breading sticks better.  

Wash the potatoes for the nugget meal and the corn chowder, and oven  tries  and dry.   Put in colander to store.  

Wash and cut veggie sticks

Cook chicken in the insta pot from frozen. Dice.

Clean out the fridge , noting anything that neeeds to be used soon and adjust meals accordingly.

Wash the kitchen floor and disinfect the sinks, counters, and drains.

Rotate the chores of cleaning the stove filter, icemakaer drip tray, waxing a side of the kitchen cabinets and washing the outside of the fridge (air vent )

Straighten the pantry.  Note low quantities .  

Ham and Corn Chowder

Taking old recipes and making them better, cheaper, and/or faster.

Ham and Corn Chowder

 Two medium potatoes , peeled and diced
1/2 of 16 ounce bag of frozen corn
2 cups ham cubes,diced small.
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2  TSP EACH of garlic and onion powder
Salt, pepper
3 cups chicken broth - homemade and defatted.

Place ingredients into a six quart stock  pot and cook on medium heat until the potatoes are tender.
Make a slurry of 2 T cornstarch , 2 cups milk
Add to the pot and stir.  Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Add
1 cup cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
Parsley
Stir unti the cheese is melted.

Insta Pot.
Place all ingredients down to the chicken broth in the pot.   Cover and process 4 minutes.  Quick release.   Check potatoes for doneness.

Turn off the pressure cooker and switch to sauté mode.   If your potatoes weren't soft, cook until they are soft before you make  your slurry .   Add slurry to pot and stir unti soup has thickened.   Add cheese mixture and stir until the cheese has melted.

Sunday meal plans

1. just a note:  Sunday meal plans will continue to be on this blog.  They will also be on my new blog "Dinner:  Better, Cheaper,Fasster.    The second bog will have content that is strictly related to recipes.   Recipes that are adapted to be cooked in the insta pot and recipes that have been family favorites , but they are adapted to be a bit more healthy .   Less saturated fat, salt, sugar, preservatives, hydroginated oil, transfats, and hfcs and still with less money and efficient cooking.   

Meal plans : 1 beef, 1 fish or seafood, 2 vegeartian, 3 Pork or chicken,

• Pizza 
• Breakafast for dinner 
• Ham corn chowder , loaded cornbread 
• Nachos loaded 
• Salmon patties, oven fried potatoes, fruit 
• Chicken burrito bowl 
• Chicken nuggets, oven fried french fries, veggie sticks 

Notes : 

Pizza is scratch.   Cost is a little more than a dollar for a 14 inch pizza.   

The last of the pumpkin pancakes, maple syrup, fruit cup, eggs 

Ham corn chowder adapted for the insta pot 

Nachos:  taco meat, tomatoes, black olives,  green chillis , cheese, chips from Costco . 

( 3 lbs for 3 dollars and change and they dont shout grease!)

Salmon patties can be made from a can of salmon or purchased from winco quite inexpensively.   

Cut potatoes in wedges an toss in olive oil and sea salt or garlic pepper.   

Chicken burrito bowl is on the dinner site.   Delish.   

Chicken nuggets are homemade, along with the fries.  New topping will appear on dinners sometime this week.  

Spending more time planning a. Shopping trip and planning your meals and less time in the kitchen is a way to eat well and cut food costs.   

Fred MEYER AD FOR SUNDAY

THE THRIFT GODS ARE AGAINST ME THIS WEEK I GUESS, MY PRINTER ATE THE PRINTABLE COUPONS.  MY SIL PRINTER ATE ANOTHER BATCH, THERE ARE NO INSERTS IN THE NEWSPAPER THIS WEEK. AND I LOSST TWO RETAILERS IN ONE WEEK.   DISCOURAGING, BUT I TRUDGE ON.....

FRED MEYER AD 

Blues 377

Peppers 88

Eggs 89

Washington cherries 299 **

Jazz apples 99

Ground turkey 350

Tomatoes 99

Sour cream 125

Frozen potatoes 179 - 2 lbs

Butter 2/5 **

Notes i think it interesting that Washington cherries 🍒 are cheaper in other part of the ountry.   

Frozen potatoes are cheaper at winco, but they arent uniform in size.   

Butter is cheaper at Safeways this week nad even cheaper if you have a just for u basket digital coupon.   

The gal at Safeways loaded the just for you to my phone that will make it a lot easier to use th just for you and you can google an article and see if there is a digita coupon for it and instant add.   

I dont think that turkey is a good buy, it is a buck in other parts of the country.    Just a note.    

Eggs are remarkable.   If I have an abundance i dry them for when they arent as cheap or if we canat get out for some reason.  

Crayons 49 

Recipe ; better, cheaper, faster

Chicken Tetrazzini - serves 4

8 ounces spaghetti, broken
1 frozen chicken breast - at least 6-8-ounces
2 recipes cream soup base **
2 slices red pepper, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
2 ounces parm cheese for topping

1. Place frozen chicken breast in insta pot on rack.  Add 2 cups water or chicken broth.   Seal the pot. ( close lid and make sure the vent is on seal) and push the poultry button.   
2. Cook and drain the spaghetti.   
3. Make a double batch of cream of ....soup base.   
4. Grease a two quart cassarole and add the cream soup base, chopped red pepper, peas, and cooked spaghetti .  
5. When chicken is done with its cycle, finish de-pressuring and remove chicken from pot. 
6. With two forks, shred the chicken and add to the baking dish.   
7. Stir gently.       
8. Cover the dish, bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Uncover and add cheese and bake an additional 10 minutes or until the dish is bubbly on the sides.

Your chicken, spaghetti and cream sauce can cook all at the same time.   I cook thespaghetti in the microwave, so the spaghetti and chicken are self cooking.   All I have to watch closely, stir, is the cream  soup base.   

Toss all ingredients in a covered, greased cassarole and bake in the oven and you are free to make a salad and set the table.    

Thursday bullets - cookbook review.

Taste of home - make and take

A complete book of all kinds of summer recipes from appetizers to deserts and everything in between.

• Chicken parm sliders  
• Cheddar veggie appetizer torte-- surprise crust and enough protein  to be a main dish. 
• Mini BLT - stuffed tomatoes 
• Texas taco dip platter 
• Swiss cheese bread 

• Hawaiian Pork roast (butt) 
• Beef  and cheese tortilla pie 
• Greek pasta and beef 
• Monitire meat pies
• Sauerkraut cassarole 
• Beef and veggie sloppy joes 
• Meatball subs
•  brocolli slaw 
• Layered picnic loaves. 
• Chicken chilli with  black beans  
• Double butterscotch cookies 
• Raspberry white chocolate bars. **
• Berry white ice pops ***

** white chocolate chips are on the bulk isle at  Winco.    Buying just what you need sometimes saves money. 

*** popcicle molds are at the Dollar Tree this time of year.     A lot more healthy than  sugar water.    

 ,

dinner take along.

Made new recipe of bread dough.

King Arthur refrigerater bread makes two loaves. 

The last batch 2nd half is above.   Take it out of the canister, knead it a couple of times on a flour covered  board and set it on parchment paper in a Dutch oven to rise in a warm oven, turned off.   

Parchment paper is cheapest at the dollar treee. 

Meanwhile, I cooked a cup of mixed beans in the insta pot with 8 cups of water. Seal, and push the bean button.   Walk away!  When it was done, I released the pressure, (use a towel and a wooden spoon) and drained the bean juice.    Turned the insta pot off.   

I opened two cans of non bpa lined diced tomatoes I paid 39 and 50 cents respectfully, and a handful 

of dried carrots and celery.   The pic is an old pic because i took pics but forgot to G plus them. We added sausage to that one.     I added 2 quarts of tomato stock and Italian spices.   Put the pressure cooker on slow cook for 8 hours. 

Meantime, i swept the kitchen floor and filled the 5 gallon bucket with flour and put  my dishes to soak.   

After the bread doubles in size, I will bake it for 35 minutes, covered, and another three uncovered so it browns on top at 450 degrees.   

The new bread dough will rise on the counter unti double in size.   It is 2 liters now and will be at the four liter mark when i place it covered in the fridge.   Now, it is partially covered to let the gasses out.

Total time, a little mor than an hour.   That's cooking beans from scratch and taking pictures even though they are lost in cyberspace.      

Ill post them on facebook for anyone on my Facebook.   

In depth ~. Scratch cooking

Scratch cooking...the art of spending all day slaving over a hot stove to produce dinner.   ~~ not any more.   The old days left with the invent of frozen premade meals and components.  Now, the tides have turned and to save money and avoid preservatives, we are going back to scratch cooking.  Everything old is new again, but with a twist.

The invent of countertop appliances and the ingenuity of five ingredient or less cooking. Scratch can be just as efficient and a lot cheaper than using something out of a box or bag.    Buying basic ingredients in bulk is a lot cheaper than buying individual boxes of food.

A box of bread mix is almost three dollars.   A loaf of artisan bread is three dollars at winco.   A loaf of bread made from bulk flour and bulk yeast cost.  Thirty cents and takes ten minutes.  And thee ten minutes doesn't t have to be in the same block of time.   It can be that ten minutes while you wait for something else to be done.   I like to pay a game:  what can I get done before the  microwave finishes.
I can get the floor swept, unload the dishwasher sans the silverware, or throw the ingredients for pizza dough in the food processer.

When a pizza costs less than driving to little Cesar's, the cost of a food processer just became manageable.   It cost 1.40 with pepperoni and peppers.   A loaf of bread cost between .22 and .30 cents.   That five dollar bag of cooled chicken breast pieces costs about .66 . And takes about four minutes to cook and chop in an insta pot.   You are cooking with steam, no fat.

Before I went to almost all scratch cooking, my weekly average was 72.00 ; after it is about 53.00.   That more than pays for a insta pot and a food processer.   Honestly, I have a kitchenaid mixer, but i don't use it as much as i do the food processer and the insta pot.   I use the meat grinder and the  slicer attachment more.   At twenty dollars a week, it doesn't take long to pay for an insta pot.

When food is going to be wasted because we didn't eat it fast enough, i have been slicing it and dehydrating it.   That 1.39 bag of bananas got ripe too quickly.   I sliced them and dehydrated them.   My granddaughter ate them in two days.  She would not have eaten the bananas that quickly.    We paid 69.00 for the dehydrator and have used it twenty years.  Beef jerky, eggs, carrots, potatoes, fruit. That 40 cents worth of dried bananas would be well over a dollar and took me very few minutes.   My husband opens the banana and leaves  section of skin on it.   Then he can slice it really fast and dump the slices.

No, I'm not getting paid to promote the insta pot,  I just love mine.   Its three appliance in one, does all of them well.  Saves time and money.    Beans don't freeze well.   They don't hold well.  Their refrigerater life is short.   Beans and rice spoil fast and I don't take chances on food poisoning.    Before the insta pot where I can cook beans in a matte of a few ~ like maybe two minutes , we used canned beans,   The difference in sodium and cost is remarkable.   Retail on beans is a dollar a can.  I can usually find them for 50 cents.  The cost of scratch is about 16 cents.

Efficient scratch cooking can save time and money.  Invest in appliances that make sense and are workhorses in the kitchen.   Develop a binder of five ingredients or less recipes that your family will gladly eat.   Take the time to make your own mixes and spice blends.   Even at 50 cents taco seasoning is a rip off.   Cream of xxx soup is more of a rip off.    That hour you spend on a rainy Saturday can save tons of money.  

The average family spends 5000 a year more than we spend and probably don't eat any more nutritious.   .

Thursday bullets : small kitchen tools that save time and/or money

Ten kitchen tools that save time /money that are cheap.

1. Rubber spatula , get the last bit of product out of a bowl or jar.   Betty Crocker ones are at the DT, buy the best you can afford.   
2. A potato masher,    Besides mashing potatoes, you can break up hamburger while frying it.  There is a special tool for that, it was over 20.00.    
3. Jar opener,   I have one from the 1920s that is the best, but there are good ones on the current market too,    
4. A food thermometer,     Test bread water, the doneness of meat, and baked products (200 degrees) 
5. A food scale ,   Break down packages like for pasta.   It you cook the whole package and you don't have a large family, the leftovers will go into the fridge and get shoved to the back until it has hair prettier than yours in a typical family.    Portioning out a box of pasta saves a lot of waste.    Saving the landfill also saves money,    
6. Portion scoops.   Very inexpensive at Costco business, a restraint supply or on Amazon.    Great for making meatballs or cookies uniform size so they all cook at the same time,   Great portion control.    Filling cupcakes or muffin liners.   
7. Cupcake lines in silicone , They wash and you aren't replacing them over and over. I paid five dollars.    
8. A non metal wisk.  Saves scratches on pans and bowls.    
9. Silicone bowl covers save money not buying all that plastic wrap.  
10. Parchment paper is cheapest at DT especially for smaller jobs.    

Safeways haul.

Again, we went to take care of another errand, and stopped at Safeways.   I'm still under budget for the week, but I did well with a 3 dollars off of 20 electronic coupon.   The gal there also loaded the Safeway app to my phone for me.   It's a lot easier to post your coupons,


I went for as close to twenty dollars as I could.    Our ending balance was 16.69

Large coffee
Oreo wanta be
2 -12 packs sparkling water
8 oumces shred  cheese
1 lbs butter
I carton ice cream
Grapes

Chain store ads

There is no QFC ad this week, it was a two week ad last week.  

Alberways

Butter 199@@
Ice cream 2/5
Grapes 1.28
Radishes .79
Cantaloupe 2/5
Kraft Singles 1.99@@

Iceberg lettuce each .99

Walla walla onions, .99 lb
Tomatoes .99 lb

Grocery outlet haul

Had to go to a few towns over for the last time for business.    Stopped at dollar tree and grocery outlet   on the way home.  

Chocolate chip cookies l lunchbox size 4/1.00
Hot salsa .99
Kashi bars .98
Designer sausage 2.99

Total 5.96

What tools do you use?

There is a lot of discussion out there about not using a warehouse club and not using coupons to save money on groceries.  

Guaranteed, if you order your groceries on line and pay for delivery, you are going to spend a lot more than of you do
 the work yourself.   I certainly get it that there are disabled people that have no choice because they just can't go to the store, let alone several stores.    It's a convenience, and sometimes necessity to order your food, and yes, you are paying for it just like any other time you pay for convenience.  I wrote in the 80 s that the word convenience starts with $$$$.  

It just makes sense to me that if you use every available tool at your disposal to save money on groceries, you will save more.  The caviat here is to do it in a manner that makes sense.     The business world has an expression, " return on your investment.  

If you use coupons, you can save money,   I average about 300.00 a year.  Your savings is based on how much you spend on food and how many coupons for real food you can find.   If you were to spend 40   hours a week clipping coupons , you would not get much return for your money.  Another way to look at it, is saving 300.00 and spending 160 hours to do it nets you 1.88 an hour.  Not enough in my book.   Spending six hours would mean  I am making  50.00 an hour.  A bit more rewarding,

Warehouse stores,:   First of all, we have a business membership.   It costs 120.00.   Whooo..... we get 2 percent back on our purchases,    Which pays for half if we don't have a major purchase like a television.   Gas is anywhere from .30-.50 a gallon cheaper.   If we use 200 gallons of gas a year, it


pays for the  membership.    That's four gallons a week.





Not everything at Costco is a bargain,    Not all bulk foods make sense to all families.   If you throw away a lot of why you buy, you aren't saving money.   The best way to make your membership work is to buy the things that you use frequently and avoid the marketing blitz.   Buy what is cheaper than anywhere else.   We buy flour, beer, cheese, yeast. Rice, tortilla chips, bananas, bacon, blue cheese, spices and over the counter meds that my doctor has ordered.  The meds save a lot of money,  for the cost of one copay for us, I can have 1/2 a years meds of a particular medication.    As any store, put on blinders for anything you don't have on your list. Get in and get out.    Pick your time to go so you aren't waiting too long in line.  

Shopping two stores saves a lot of money.   You can get your return on your money by using the planning. ,Blinders , in and out theory and planning your trip to maximize your gas,   If your two stores aren't close together, plan to shop in conjunction with other errands.   If you have to go far, plan your trip , do it monthly, and make it worth your while-- stock non perishable foods you use in a
regular basis.   When we had to go ten miles one way to Winco, I would plan what I knew was cheaper, gather coupons, and I always have cooler bags in the trunk.

Ibotta is a rebate site,   It takes a few minutes to download to your phone or tablet one time,   If you go from a referral. You get money and the referral gets money,    Sometimes ten  dollars.  You scroll threw the store you shopped at, click in the thingsmyou bought, "look" at the 30 second video .  Take a snapshot of your receipt and money drops on your account,   You can get credit at Amazon, movie tickets and more credits.   How much you get depends on how much you buy.   It can be anything from tomatoes to wine,    Obviously, the wine has a larger rebate.

One thing that came to mind while writing this , is that children are tech savy at early ages.   A preteen to teenager can "earn his spending money by printing coupons  for what they onowmyou buy and doing the Ibotta thing.  They are learning to save money and you aren't giving them an allowance.   Just a thought.

Scratch cooking,.   This is where I use the return in your money 💰 comcept the most.   If it takes too long time to make, it's not going to happen.   Do the math.   If I'm making .60 an hour unless there is a h u g e health  benefit, I'm not going there. Making mixes saves time and money, and has health benefits.   Making bread is a ten hands on minute chore and saves 90  percent of the cost.   And bread hot out of the oven is sooo good.  If it takes ten minutes and I save 2.70 I am making 16.20 an hour.   Or 32.40  for two loaves that wouldn't take any longer.   No preservatives control the fat. ( there is no fat)

Use time wisely.   We save 5000.00 a year over the average grocery bill .   Being efficient and spending less time cooking, and more time planning and shopping trips makes it happen while eating home made scratch cooking meals.

The basics,:buying in bulk.

We covered protein, the most expensive part of your food budget.  To recap, picking bulk meats that are  versatile are your best bet in reducing the cost of protein.  Eating a vegetarian meal once or twice a week helps greatly too.    Buy bulk meat enough to rotate that meal for a month.  In other words, if you want to eat Pork for two nights a week, you will need enough for 8 meals.   Portions should be around four ounces.   The RDA for protein is 45 grams for women and 55 for men, minimum, for low activity people.     There are 61 in a 8 ounce boneless, skinless chicken  breast.

 Knowing the RBP of rotation meats is key,   Chicken breasts should be no more than a dollar a pound.   In most places, you can get them for that.  Seattle is one of the most costly places to live and I can get chicken breasts with ribs for .88 and cut the ribs off for stock, pick the bones for more meals.   Pork loins are between 1.50 and 1.79.   Good (7 percent ) hamburger is 3.28 here.   Ground turkey a dollar  a pound chub  in other parts of the country, frozen,

Buying other things in bulk only Makes sense if you use it regularity,   There are three of us basically.    I can still buy certain things in bulk.  Rice is one.   Rice has a long shelf life.   It is 8.47 for 25 lbs at Costco.   That makes a rice serving pennies.

Oatmeal is close to 8.50 at Costco for ten pounds,   We eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast and I use it for oatmeal, blueberry, banana bread and oarmeal cookies.

Flour is  6.39 for 25 pounds.  25 pounds lasts us about three months,  I make our own  baking mix, cream soup base, muffin mix and bread.   Bread cost about .25-30 cents a loaf.  It takes about ten hands on minutes.    Making your own mixes means you can control the fats and avoid hydroginated  oils and too much sugar.    Cream soup base is a lot less than opening a can of cream of....soup and takes not much more time.

Bulk yeast is a good investment if you are going to make bread.    For little more  the cost of one packet you can have enough for dozens of loaves.

I don't buy pinto beans on bulk because we don't eat enough to use them up before they are hard to cook.     The cost difference is ten cents a pound.  I can  get 1.5 pounds at the dollar tree for a buck and they are non gmo and grown on the USA.

Our Winco has a bulk food isle and some things are cheaper. .   It is especially good for anyone that wants to try something or need just a little bit  - yeast comes to  mind if you just want to try bread baking.  Don't give up, it may take a few loaves to get the hang of it.  
We like the chocolate and white chocolate chips. Dry milk, and spices.    Look on your area forma bulk isle.   Our Kroger has one, but the prices are a lot higher.

Cold cereal in bags are a lot cheaper than in the boxes.   We don't eat a lot of cold cereal.  I buy chocolate rice crispies for rice crispy treats.   Store them in a sealed canister.  

Contrary to some opinions out there, bulk buying can be a money saver.   You need to exercise caution and buy the things that you use a lot of on a regular basis.  One pound  of rice at the dollar  tree is a buck. Twenty five poumds of rice cost 8.47.   For the cost of  8.5 poumds, you can have 25 poumds,    That's a remarkable difference,    That's almost three times as much.

It just makes sense.

Winco haul

Sitting at 45.00 a week this week not including the Costco run of long term bulk.   That total is 59.00.

Winco

Foster Farms chicken patties 3.99
Blue bunny ice cream 3.50
Jalapeño poppers 1.78
Cucumbers 2/96
Potato salad 298
Hit dog buns .75
Green chillis 2/132
Black sliced olives 2/188

Total 18.51

Monday kitchen management - July 10, 17

Kitchen management is when you take a block of time once a week and clean and prep for the week's meals.   This hour to two hours saves a lot of time during the hectic dinner hour.  

Start with your meal plans,   Make notes on them the night before you need to defrost meat,  

Recap :

Spareribs, roasted veggies
Pizza
Salmon ( cook from frozen )
Tacos l Spanish rice
Chicken pot pie
Pork chops, oven roasted root veggies
Breakfast 4 dinner

•  Straighten pantry 
• Sweep and wash floor 
• Make something sweet - muffins and/or peppermint pie.   
• Clean fridge 
• Wash veggies to be ised this week with vinegar and water
• Defrost spareribs for tomorrow 
• Cook chicken for pot pie tonight 
• Clean counter under coffee station
• Post Winco haul and check ibotta .   

Cleaning out the recipe dump.

I'm not alone !   We all have that binder or box somewhere where we out recipes that we need ormthat we are going to try someday,    Someday may never come,    I just went through mine and dumped 1/2 of them in the recycle.  I did find tue recipes for my  moxes  all on scraps of paper.  
The thought came to me to put them on a vkogmtomsharemandnto out them in my oldest personal cookbook   from the 70's that  has the rest  of my mix recipes.  

Pancake mix.
To make pancakes : Water and mix equal parts.    Add fruit?  
12 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 cups powdered milk
5 Tbls baking powder
1 Tbls salt

Mix and store in airtight container.  

Ranch dressing mix 
1 Tbls EACH
Dill
Garlic
Onion powder

1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp pepper

Baking mix 
3 cups flour
1-1/2 Tbls baking powder
3/4 tsp salt.
3 T oil

Mix and stir in container with tight fitting lid

Self rising flour 

1 cup flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt


Onion soup mix
3/4 cup  minced onions
1/3cup beef bouillon granules
4 tsp onion  powder
1/4 tsp sugar

5 T equals a 1-1/4 ounce package

Sunday : meal plans

Meal plans based on fruits and veggies in season and a inventory of what's in the pantry and  freezer,   We often purchase  in a small bulk buy, things that are nearing their pull date.   Often , depending on the product, they will be good for months to come.  Still, using them in or beforemthe pull date makes sense.   Case in point, I bought 11 packages of mashed sweet potatoes.   They were .33 instead of 1.25 each.  We have until mid September to use them up.    I plan to have pork chops ormxhixken and sweet potatoes once a week through the summer.    Buying not yet expired foods that are not typical of the season is a way to cut your food bill dramatically,   The food is as good as any other food, it's just not eaten in a traditional way,   I also got a desert mix that has a chocolate Oreo type crust and a peppermint filling-- no doubt for Christmas -- it cost.....wait for it........50.    The Oreo cookies would cost that much.  

Meal plans.   I'm going to be taking you through my mindset, nitmbecaise anyine has to follow me. But, rather, to let you see how I reach my decisions.  

I got country ribs for 1/2 price yesterday.    I will divide the mega pack in three that will allow us three big ribs for two of us.   I doubt that granddaughter will like them.  I will give her a taste of mine so she experiences the taste.   Introducing taste is a way to let children become accustomed to different tastes.    

Our matrix for meals is  1 fish or seafood,  1 beef,  3 chicken or pork,and 2 vegetarian 

• Spareribs , roasted potatoes and carrots.  
• Pizza ( homemade crust ) 
• Breakfast 4 dinner - pumpkin pancakes, bacon, fruit ( the last of the pumpkin bread mix ) 
• Salmon, Sweet potatoes, broccoli ( mashed sweet potatoes and broccoli got for .78) use 1/2 
• Tacos. Spanish rice
• Chicken pot pie ( biscuits were on sale for a dollar. ) - peppermint desert 
• Pork chops. Oven roasted veggies ( I have large radishs from last week and just bought a bag of potatoes). 

Using the insta pot, none of these meals will take more than 15-20 hands on time to prepare.   

The basics :meal plans

We have covered the two little things that you can do to cut  your food bill and contribute to better health too.   We have found ways to get your protein at the RBP and start the journey to build a stock for emergencies,    Emergencies can be as little as a snow storm, a sick  child, or the flooding of the main  road so the grocery stores can't get their restock.    Yes that did happen , and it was Christmas to boot.  

Let's talk about meal plans.   Meal plans save you from the pizza delivery demons. Being organized reduces stress.   If things are set up, almost anyone on the family can finish dinner even if you are otherwise occupied.  

Have a plan or plan to fail.    There are no magic surprises if you have  a basic stock of food on hand that you can make meals from .   Having a few aces in your hole doesn't hurt either.  Always have a few easy, cheap meals in your pantry or freezer.   I buy Foster Farms chicken patties when I find them
on sale,   If you have pasta and pasta sauce, you have chicken parm.

We always have ground beef already cooked and in portion controlled bags in the freezer.    It's a versatile base for any number of meals.

The basis for a lot of this organization is making a list of ten to fourteen meals your family will eat. At least, most of your family will eat, there is always that one holdout.    We didn't have that when we were kids,  you ate  or you waited for the next meal,  no snacks there.    I digress

After your list is  complete and you have analyzed it for budget breakers......this list should be economical meats and sides.    A lot of things like asparagus, and water chestnuts are  out of reach for a super economy meal. Stick to basics.

Ideas

Spaghetti and meatballs
Mac n cheese
Pork chops and dressing
Nachos
Tacos
Enchaladas
Chilli
Vegetable bean soup
Chicken roasted with garlic bread and oven roasted root veggies
Chicken soup
Chicken pot pie - one crust or Biscuit topping
Chicken stir fry
Breakfast for dinner
Quiche - impossible pie
Sloppy  joes
Chicken chimichangas

Now, make a list of ingredients that you need to make these dishes.   Note the things that you can buy in bulk and use for several dishes.

In our house that would be diced tomatoes. Other than tomato paste, i don't buy a lot of tomato products. Simplifying your grocery list for things that are versatile makes life and budgets a lot easier.   

Pasta sauce and pasta are items you can find coupons for and are often on stock up sales.   Being able to match a good sale with coupons, doubles your savings.   Planning a buy 5 save 5 type sale can take some time, but it can make remarkable purchases.   One time I saved 78 percent.    So much for not wanting to use coupons to save .25 cents.    Lol.

Potatoes, celery and carrots are a staple here.
I keep one ahead of things like catsup, mustard, and mayo.
Canned green beans, beans ( some) and corn 🌽.
I get dry beans in bulk, not too many they do go bad.  And also rice and flour.   You can make all kinds of things in a pinch with flour-  anywhere from noodles to crackers, tortillas, biscuits.....

Instant mashed potatoes and dry milk are nice t have on a pinch,
Tortillas are versatile, cheapest usually at dollar tree or Costco.    You can use them for quesadas , enchiladas, chimichangas, tacos, taco chips for nachos.  

It's a lie that shredded cheese is more expensive than  brick. A pound of cheese is a pound of cheese.   Watch those small bags, they can be a budget killer.  If you use a lot of,here's, buy five pound bags at Costco.   It does freeze.without harm.    I pay close to two dollars a pound.   It can be up to seven.  

Diced green mild  chilies and sliced black olives male things special.    Cheapest at Winco here.

All of this is bought at discount, of course, and over time.

Pit groceries for three of us has been less than 55.00 a week.  That is about 45 percent of the usda stats for poor people.    They call it thrifty.    Lol.    We eat well. And we don't eat rice and beans,  
We also don't get our groceries on line and pay full price with a delivery charge,   We don't buy junk food for the most part.   We scratch cook efficiently.   I rarely spend more ham fifteen  minutes hands on time cooking dinner at dinner time.  So,e bulk cooking and the insta pot helps remarkably,

Fred Meyers ad for tomorrow

First, today big lots  has 20 percent off everything,    6 pads and 12 toilet tissue were ten bucks.

Freddies tomorrow

Pork loin 1.99 - that's at the top of my rotation cost.
Cherries 1.77
Tomatoes .88 lb
Berries 3.99
Parsley 2/.99
Green onions / radishes 2/.99

Tillamook ice cream 2/6$$
Milk 1.79 gallon
Yogurt 10/5 $$
Sour cream leg 1.99

Zucchini.99


That's about it.  

Country style ribs in the insta pot.

It ts no secret that I love my insta pot and no, I'm not sponsored.  .   It's just a very versatile appliance that gives you a lot of bang for your buck.  You can slow cook, brown, make rice, and pressure cook, Some of them have yogurt features.

Wednesday, I got country ribs for 1/2 price and then I got another 16 percent off of that aa enough for two of us to have four meals for less than 8.00.   I'm not fond of baby back robs because you are paying for a lot of bone and not much meat.    This blog is all about. S t r e t c h i n g  your dollar.  
Of course, you can do the same recipe in a traditional slow cooker.  

Country ribs in the insta pot.

1) turn on the sauté feature .   Dry the ribs with a paper towel and salt and pepper both sides.   Brown the ribs in olive oil .   Try to keep a single layer of ribs.  
2) turn the Sauté feature off and add 2 cups of broth : chicken or tomato. ( tomato bullion is in a jar- add to water, )!
3) cover, shut vent, process on meat for 30 minutes.
4) de- pressurize naturally. Place ribs on a broiler pan, spread with BBQ sauce and cook at 400 degrees in the oven for 10 minutes or until the sauce has caramelized.

Rice :

Put equal parts of rice and water or broth in the insta pot.    Add a pat of butter  or a drizzle of olive oil.   Stir.    Place lid with the vent on seal and hit the rice button.    Done.  Let it de pressurize naturally.

Costco haul for the month.

Hopefully the last Costco run for the month for food.   Gas is  sooo much cheaper that it pays for the membership.  

25 lbs flour.  6.29

Bananas 1.39

Sour cream 3.99

4 lbs butter 10.99 2.75 lb 

Mozzarella -5 lbs 10.99 - 2.20 lb 

3 lbs tortilla chips 3.59

Blueberries 6.99

Total 44.23

Most of this was bulk that can be split over two weeks to three months.   

Twenty loaves of bread at 3.00  per loaf would be 60.00. 

A sack of flour costs 6.39 

Difference is 53.60

Yeast and salt when bought in bulk are mere pennies.    

The savings on  bread alone would feed us for over a week.   

Hands on time for a loaf of bread is about ten minutes.    

Thursday : basics - little steps

Back to basics.  Groceries on the cheap takes a different  look at traditional grocery shopping.   Instead of going to a store and buying a weeks worth of groceries and coming home and planning meals, you go to two stores and buy :  a rotation protein, what's in sale that you can make meals from, and replentish   dairy and fresh veggies hopefully on sale / and/or in season.

This takes a little time, but the rewards are amazing,   You eat better and have enough to take you through the month,   No one , especially children , should suffer the anxiety, stress, or insecurity of having no food in the house.  

The thought of doing this is a bit overwhelming to some people.    Basically, its not  hard and not impossible ,     You think you don't have enough money to do that,   But, in actuality you have more than you think.    If you buy 1 chicken a week for 1.68 a pound, you get 1 chicken,   If you don't buy one this week, and buy 2 chickens for .88 a pound next week, you have 2 chickens,    If you know how to stretch that chicken, you can have 8 dinners from those 2 chickens.   That's a quarter of the month  covered for dinners.    Do that will all your food, and you have meals plus a stock built to cover you if you can't get to the store for some reason or an  other mishap happens.

In this series, we will take one step at a time. Baby steps. Habits.   For many people making a drastic change that takes a lot of time, doesn't work because it isn't sustainable.   We eat for a small amount of money and have a back up small stock.  It didn't happen in a day; rather, it's been an ongoing mantra for fifty years.  I just kept perfecting the concept  and adjusting to fluctuating  prices and new revelations of foods that can effect your health .   Baby steps.   They all save. One year and your savings will grow.

• Write down and gather recipes if you need to for 10-14 meals your family likes to eat,   These meals should be made from low cost sources of protein.  
• In our house that would be 1) pork loin that can become chops, roast, or stew cubes; home butchered boneless, skinless, chicken breast; 7 percent hamburger, or home ground  low fat hamburger; cheese, beans, and some tuna, shrimp, or salmon. 
• Now, find two stores in your area that consistently  have the lowest prices.
•  Research the prices in your area for those sources of protein.  You are looking for the RBP ( rock bottom price ) .  In the PNW, I can get split chicken breast , locally grown, for .88 a pound. This turns into boneless, skinless, chicken  breast and chicken stick and loose meat. Pork loin is 149-1.69 a pound,  this turns out to be roast, chops, and stew meat. Hamburger is 3.28 a pound for 7 percent fat,   If a roast or steak is cheaper and has little fat, we will grind our own. Cheese can be purchased for 2.35 a pound or less, and sausage with coupons or at Costco in a chub is around two dollars a  pound.  I just got rope sausage for two dollars a pound, fry it and de-fat it, and freeze it. 
• Protein is probably the most expensive group of foods you buy, starting with it gives you more return on your time,   
• Next : what to go with the protein  .   Remember, baby steps,    

Safeway haul

Safeway haul using a four dollars off of 25.00 coupon.  

3 speghetti @ .58
2 cans coffee @ 4.20
10 yoplait @ .34
Country ribs 1/2 price 7.36 ( 3 meals )
10 lbs russet potatoes 2.09

Saved about 46 percent

Wednesday chain store ads

Alberways - a compilation of Safeways and Albertsons because the two stores have identical ads.  

Cherries 1.88

Pork shoulder blade roast .99
Eye of round roast.   3.99


Lucerne yogurt 4/1.00@@
Coffee 5.00

5 dollar Friday
Pork loin tenderloins
40 oz jig peanut butter



QFC ( Kroger) two week ad

Buy 3, save 3

Grands biscuits .99. - sometimes coupons
Coffee .99
Jimmy Dean sausage 2.49
Free download - BBQ sauce usually fridays,

Green beans 1.99

TUESDAY notes - two easy concepts.

I was thinking the other day.......scary concept in  itself. Lol.  There are really two major concepts that can cut your food bill drastically just by implementing a few changes.  Now, I realize that change is never really easy, but often the rewards are two fold.  LOL 😂

Number one

The average cart consists of 1/2 drinks and snacks,    Fruit juice, pop or soda , and a dozen packages, especially individual  packages of  cookies or chips  are not good for you or your budget.  Save the chips and cookies for special  occasions.  Fruit juice can have as much or more sugar in it than pop.    The bubbles in pop are expected to leach the calcium from your body at certain ages.    And, we all know that fake  sugar is not good for us as well as sugar.  I read where fake sugar is simethingnyour body doesn't know what to do with , so it sticks to the  fat cells and makes them larger,      Too much meat, sugar, or alcohol  are killers of the kidneys.    Stick to coffee, tea and water and some milk.   It is, no longer recommended that you drink three glasses of milk a day.    Check the RDA on milk per age group.     A nutritionist  told me years ago that giving my daughter an apple  was better than giving her natural apple juice.    Popcorn air popped is 12.00  for a humongous canister at Costco.    I save the canisters to store my beans etc in the pantry shelf.  It makes for a more uniform look in the pantry.

Number two

If you are going to one store and buying just what you need for one week, the budget odds are against you.  It's rigged, the same as winning at the casino.    Did you ever notice that if hotdogs  are on sale, the buns  aren't.    If pasta sauce is on sale, the pasta isn't!     No one store has all the bargains.    Shopping the TRUE sales and working your meal plan to compensate is a real budget stretcher.  Buying the best of two stores and buying more than one of anything that is on a real sale and is a commodity that you eat on a regular basis is also a real money stretcher,   Why buy 1 can of green beans at .33 instead of .68 and then buy the next can next week for .68.  That makes no sense.
you are buying  the same food, you just buy six green beans this week, and maybe four frozen broccoli next week.  The end result is the same in quality and kinds of foods, the budget result is remarkable.  

We are eating at 40 percent of the USDA stats for thrifty people.   We eat good food.   We eat fresh fruits and vegetables.   We eat meat, and fish, and chicken.   And rice, beans, pasta, and potatoes, the same as many other families.   We watch salt, sugar, trans fats, hydrogenated oil, and HFCS and buy highest quality I can afford.    We just don't pay 💰 full price for our food.

Why bother with coupons on a meager budget?

I have heard it all......every excuse in the book........I don't have time, it's a waste of time, I'm too busy, why bother it's just for junk food anyway,    If you don't want to clip coupons or bother, that's totally up to you.   I'm just showing a case senecio of what could happen .

Saegento cheese slices.    Retail 3.50 a package - 8 ounces, (1-2 lb) that's 7.00 a pound,   I would never pay that .   Presliced cheese melts better and is more uniform in size.    It's got a better bite.    But, I don't want to pay more than 2.35 or so for a pound ofmcheese,  I will splurge a little, but not a lot.

Retail 3.50

Sale price 2.50
Less .55 coupon
1.95
Less .50 Ibotta
1.45

That's almost 60 percent off.  Or, you can easily get a full pound for the price of a 1/2 pound,   You can eat several meals instead of one.

It is never cheap to order your food on line and have it delivered.   If you are sick and homeboimd it is a great service. But, it comes at a price.   There is a delivery charge, a tip, and the prices are higher and they don't  take coupons.

Monday kitchen management

kitchen management for week of  July 3rd.

1. Mark meal plans with days to thaw meat, especially the chicken that didn't get done last week,   
2. Clean the stove fan filter.   
3. Wash and wax floor 
4. Straighten the pantry.   
5. Disinfect sinks, countertops, and drains, 
6. Check potatoes and eggs and dehydrate if necessary,    

Fred Meyer and grocery outket

We went to Freddies and the GO.    GO in north Seattle is not  as good as the Kenmore one,   To start off, someone  was trying all the car doors to find one open when we arrived.   Most of the good stuff we got at Kenmore wasn't there and the give five, save five wasn't clearly explained,  

I did get a box if nutragrain  bars for .99
Hello kitty cookie mix .33
Small tomatoes .99
Danimals smoothies 1.17


Fred Meyers total 22.17

Watermelon 1.88
English muffins,    Dozen 1.67
Radishes - large .79
Celery 1.16
Cottage cheese -dbl 1.99
Nathan's franks 2/5
Sargent sliced cheese 2.50 less .55 coupon 1.95
Strawberries 1.25
Green grapes 199 lb


That's about it.    I didn't need meat, but the meat was a good buy.

Meal plans for week of July 3

Lots of BBQs  this week and the ads are full of specials on that type of food.    Fred Meyers ad starts on Sunday,   Winco doesn't have an ad, their prices are based on local market prices and they try to be the lowest priced market.    Fortunately for us, the two stores are basically on the same road a few miles  apart.  

• Pizza 
• BBQ - 
• Bacon, feta stuffed chicken breast, broccoli 
• Pork chops, sweet potatoes, peas 
• Tacos, rice 
• Baked salmon, rice, glazed carrots 
• Breakfast 4 dinner, 

• 
  

Fred Meyers for Sunday

Sunday ad
3 day sale SMT

Sirloin steak 2.97 -
Nathan's hot dogs 2/5
Dreyers 2/5




Broccoli .99
Blackberries 2/5 - QFC 1.88
Strawberries 4/5
Milk 1.79 gal
Grapes,1.99
Corn 3/2


***
Split chicken breast .87. Foster Farms Fresh

*****

Ground beef - 20 percent fat...3.49...... this would be a good time to buy the sirloin steak instead and grind your own,    2.97 vs 3.49  and you will have less fat if you pick your steak.    Traditionally , sirloin  has less fat.    Use a food  processor, a grinding attachment in the kitchenaid, or you grandmothers old fashioned meat grinder.   Grannies meat grinders can be had at  estate sales, or antique stores for a few dollars.    I can remember my aunt grinding a few pieces of leftover roast and adding mayo and pickle for a sandwich spread.  

The rotation meat would be by far the chicken  breast.  Breakfast Knesset, skinkess chicken  breast at QFC is 8.00 a pound,    That's over a  ninety percent  savings.

QFC haul

note : QFC has buy six, save three sale.  That doesn't mean that you have to buy six of any one thing.
There is an electronic coupon form.60 off of hillshire  Farms sausage.   Gummy bears were free this week.

Taco shells .79
Hot dog buns 1.00
Milk (3) .99
 Crescent rolls (2) . .99
Hillshire Farms sausage 1.39
Red pepper 1.00
Berries 188
Hummus, reg 4.99, w coupon  1.99

Total 14.86

Savings 19.02.  43 percent

Where to buy what

Certain retailers have purchased things  at a lower price.    That is to say that they consistently sell certain item the cheapest prices in the area.    Taking advantage of those proces when  they happen is a good  way to cit your food bull without much effort.    

Fred Meyer (Kroger )
Usually that is the place for dairy.    Milk is often a dollar  for regular or chocolate .   Sometimes sour cream  and cottage cheese are 1.00 or 1.25.  

I can get butter for 2.50 all the time at Costco.   I would rather pay 2.00, and have been finding it here and there, mainly Safeways and grocery outlet.  

Cheese has been close to two dollars a pound.   Watch closely the small packages, what sounds like a good deal, really isn't,    Fivenpoumd sacks are around two dollars a  pound to 2.35 at Costco,   Sometimes business Costco is better.  

Eggs are cheap these days,    I have been getting them at Safeways for .78 a dozen.   Drying eggs is a royal pain, but it will help when the price goes up.  

You can usually find ice cream coupons.  



Next : meat and protein,

Winco.

There was a question on Facebook about can you really. Save money at Winco.    Winco is just like any other store, they always have a certain  amount of bargains.    It is one of my go to stores.  Or seems these days the usual stores for the Best bargains are Freddies and winco.   I can still during a good sale find some buys at QFC and Safeways.  Dollar tree , grocery outlet and Costco are one of those places we go to once or so a month usually . Costco is on a must need  basis.  

I replied to the lady that wanted to know if you could get good bargains at Winco that I fed three of us for 53.00 a week.  

The moderator asked me what some of our favorite meals were.    I was sure she was waiting for a response of.   Beans. Beans. And more beans!    I said.....

• Roast chicken with oven roasted potatoes 
• Pork chops with dressing with apples  and craisens 
• Meatball subs and French fries, veggie sticks 
• Homemade pizzas 

Another installment of what can I do with 20.00

Ok, the martians came down and stole your pantry.    How can two people get by with 20.00. I'm picking grocery outlet and dollar tree because there are two places on the Seattle area that have grocery outlets and dollar  trees side by side.  They are the cheapest places to go if you have no money.   Buying bulk and watching sales can net cheaper prices, but our senecio is more, we are in a pickle, what can we do,   

Dollar Tree 

1. Pinto beans 1.5 pounds 
2. Rice 1 pound makes 6 cups 
3. Pasta sauce 
4. Pizza crust 
5. Tortillas 
6. Eggs 
7. Bread 
8. Pasta ( use coupons if you have them ) 
9. Oatmeal 
10. Pepperoni ( coupons if you have them) 
11. Salad dressing 

Grocery Outlet - prices aren't as predictable 

1. Cheese ( as much as you can for six dollars ) dollar tree sometimes has real cheese, but watch, sometimes it's fake.    Compare prices 
2. Tomato paste 
3. Milk 
4. As many vegetables as you can get with what's left.   This will depend on how much cheese you can find. Stick to veggies that are close to a dollar.   Now is not the time for a five dollar watermelon!    Carrots, celery, peppers, lettuce, tomato. Bananas.    Sometimes yogurt is really cheap at GO.   

• Rice and beans - enough for several meals.  There are six portions for two people out of the rice.    
• Pizza
• quesedas  
• pasta  w sauce (2) 
• Eggs and toast 
• Oatmeal 
• Bean and rice enchiladas.    ( use tomato paste and water and slices for sauce. ) 
• Salad w pepperoni and hard cooked eggs, cheese 
• Toasted cheese sandwiches .   Carrot and celery sticks 

This assumes you have the basics.   If you have staples like butter, flour etc.  you have a lot more options.    This is by no means sustainable. On a long term basis.   It is, rather. Make your tu,my happy until a regular  budget happens.   

This is a challenge.    What can you do!    

Friday recipes -'chicken

surprise.....it's chicken !

Easiest chicken recipe ever...... one day I went into QFC and there was a managers special on  chickens.  They were .50 a pound because they had to be cooked soon.  The pull  date was the next day,

My mother had an expression that went something like,  some people wouldn't know a bargain if it got up and bit them in the butt.  Don't be that person.

I bought three.    I came home and went hunting  for a good recipe for efficient chicken cooking.  I have two ovens so I knew I could roast  two of them in the oven . Cooking two chickens side by side didn't work, the center portions never got done.

I found one !

The easiest, most efficient way to cook a whole chicken.   Five minutes flat!

• Peel and rough  chop an onion, or two if they are small.   And place in bottom of slow cooker.  This is key,   I tried it with carrots when I didn't have an onion, it doesn't work.   Even if your family doesn't like to bite onto an onion, this works because you aren't going to eat the onion.   
• Pat your chicken dry with a paper towel.   
• Rub a dry rub on the skin.   Recipes for dry rubs are on the internet and you can choose which one you that like the sounds of the ingredients.   If you like it, make a jar so it's ready for you.   Or use  seasoned salt.   
• Place in slow cooker.   Cover and turn on high for an hour a pound or until it tests done. The leg with remove from the body easy and juices will run clear.  Temperature should be 180 degrees in the thigh meat.   

Some of the meat can be fall off the vine, but it's easily used for recipes like casserole, tacos. Enchaladas , pizza......

How to roast a chicken 

• Wipe the chicken with a paper towel.   
• Stuff the cavity  with just about anything you have hanging around short of the kids dirty sox! An apple. An orange, lemon, onion
• Rub olive oil onto the skin.   
• Season with salt and pepper.   
• Place on roasting rack in the roaster.    If you don't have a roasting rack, you can use a baking dish and lift the chicken up by placing it on a bed of onions, carrots, or potato or some of each.  
• Roast at 375 degrees until the internal temperature is 180 and it tests done.   I use a meat thermometer with a probe.   It really works well.   

Thursday bullets - chicken

Thursday's  bullets   in keeping with this weeks theme.

Things to make with chicken

• Roast chicken breast with oven roasted veggies 
• Chicken dinner :  mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, green salad 
• Buffalo chicken pizza 
• BBQ chicken pizza 
• Chicken noodle cassarole 
• Chicken soup. 
• Chicken tacos 
• Chicken enchaladas with sour cream sauce 
• Chicken salad 
• Stuffed tomatoes or red peppers. 
• Chicken pot pie 
• Chicken veggie packets 
• Chicken and orzo with grape  tomatoes. Spinach and feta cheese 

• 
  

Chain store ads for 6/28'

Alberways

Blueberries 299
Cherries 2.99

Buns 2/1@@
Best foods mayo 2/5@@
Heinz ketchup .99
Lettuce .99

Sour cream 4/5!



QFC   (Kroger )

Berries 1.88
Cherries 3.88
Sour cream 4/5
Buy six, save three

Milk, reg, chocolate 1/2'gal .99
hillshire farm sausage 1.99
Sweet baby rays .99
Yuban coffee 7.49
Jumbo biscuits .99


That's about it.   Ck coupons for sausage.  

Grocery outlet haul

This is from kenmore

Good buys

I always keep protein bars because the are good to stabilize blood sigars and stave off the fast food gremlins

Kind bars, almonds and apricot. 1.99/4
Betty Crocker  tenage mintant turtle cookies mix  .50
Fiber one bar pkg  .99
Shortbread cookies,.99
Coffee 6.99
No bake cheesecake mix .50
Dill pickles 1.29
Tahoe cookies 1.49
Cheese  slices 2.39

White bread .99
Black Forest ham 5.99
Hebrew national franks 3.00
Total 31.98

Efficient economy cooking.

We all have cooking habits.   It's what works for us,   Over the years, our particukar  circumstances seem to dictate what cooking style we adapt to dot our changing needs,  

I'm old.   We have a three generation house.    I have adapted to easy, home scratch cooking.   It works.  I suspect it will work for many people.   It's the best of two generations.   I want, frugal, quick, and homemade-- I want it all.    And, I got it.    😂

Enough about me.

People have developed many ideas to save time and money on the kitchen,   It's all aboitnoersinalm preference.  Some wash with me, some don't.

Some things, like couponing, if you don't go extreme can add more money to your grocery budget.    Last grocery haul netted us five bucks.  It took about five minutes to net that five bucks.  I did it while watching tv.    Virtual paycheck is 60.00 an hour.  Gone are the days where you get ten magazines and flip through them looking for something that is a coupon for actual food. Cohponong has met up with the electronic age.  There are digital coupons, and printable coupons.  The others appear in your Sunday paper that we get at the DT or in the mailbox,   A few seconds and you can flip through and cut the few that you are going to make use of.   The people that think it's really time consuming, , I'm suspecting  don't multi task.  

My husband watches the microwave microwave.   While the microwave, microwaved yesterday for two minutes, I swept the kitchen floor.    Time management  skills.   Involving a child teaches them something, and saves cleaning up the mess they are making while you are working,    😂

Personally, I don't can.   I am too afraid of killing off my family!     I do freeze, and dehydrate.  I dehydrate and out things in clean canning jars and use the food saver to pull the air out. It's a good way to preserve bulk things that you find aren't being eaten fast enough,    It takes less room, lasts longer than freezing, and takes less hands on time.  I can pit vegetables through the food processer and slice them. Place them on the trays, plubmthe dehyrater on and walk away,    Children can put vegetables on drying trays while you run the food processer.  

Freezer meals :  freezer meals take a block of time.   I can see where if you were young and had the stamina, you could cook  all day and have dinners all month,  I went to a class on that,   Personally, I think it might work to have some meals at the ready for emergencies,   I have a small freezer and don't want to take up freezer space with anything that doesn't have to be frozen is my only hesitation.
With the insta pot, I can throw ingredients at it, some dried, and program it and walk away in less time than it takes for me to walk down to the basemeat and get the freezer meal.

Batch cooking - buying a select few meats in bulk at RBP and cooking when appropriate or cutting into manageable, portion controlled meal sized packages is a way to save a lot of money.   More bang for your buck .    Pork chops can  be close to three dollars a pound, or youmcan spend ten minutes cutting them from a pork loin and get them for 1.50 a pound.   More meat, less money.   Chicken breast withnribs is the same price or less here than thighs and legs.   Pretty much, about .88 is the cheapest chicken you are going to find,   Our family isn't too much dark meat eaters, so, if I take less than an hour and de-bone chicken breasts we are money ahead,   Boneless, skinless  chicken breast is 8.00 a pound,  split chicken breast is .88 a pound.   I can de-vine six breasts in about 30 minutes and throw the bones in a stockpot with veggie ends and some herbs and water and cook them off for broth and pick the meat for another meal or two.   All this takes about an hour and a half actual hands on.
Virtual paycheck : 42.00.
Hamburger can be cooked and de-fatted for crumbles and/ or taco meat.  The savings here is not on the money, bi more on health.   I am a firm believer that we need some beef on our diet.   De-fat   low fat hamburger is easier and you are more likely to do it in bulk.    I wait till I get 7 percent fat hamburger for 3.28, or I find lean steak for about 3.00 and grind it ourselves.  

Finding simple meals that are scratch, but don't take a lot of time or money  is key.    Pinterest is full of them,   Bear in mind, you do want somewhat healthy  : low fat, sugar and salt.    That and portion control is paramount.    Lower your budget and your weight at the same time!   Win win situation.  Add some veggies to your diet and cut the three portions of meat.   Corn is a starch, not a vegetable.  As is sweet potatoes and winter squashes.    I learned that in diabetic school.  
A half a cup of pasta is a portion,   Load it with  vegetables and meat!   Try soup and bread for a meal,   A hearty soup is cheap and fills you up.   It's easy to make a cornbread or a loaf of beer bread,  or a loaf of artisan bread- cheesy biscuits. Some soups  are easy in the slow cooker or insta pot.

Pick what efficient cooking works for you.  If you spend more of your allotted time e for dinner on the table function on shopping and planning and less time cooking, your food budget will be better off and you can still have balanced good meals.

Tuesday notes

Let's talk about making a go to personal cookbook.   Some recipes we have committed to memory,   It's not too hard to make meatball subs.    A lot of savory dishes are not that technical and don't need a particular  recipe,   Like how hard is it to split a hogie roll, scrape out some of the  insides, save them for bread crumbs,and fill them with warmed , BBQ sauced meatballs.   Your meatballs are either Armour, or homemade .

Recipes usually come from the internet these days.   There are letter sized plastic sleeves sometimes  at the dollar tree.   I finally bit the bulletin and bought a box at Amazon because it was cheaper .   I can get two recipes to a sleeve and the recipe doesn't get dirty during cooking.   I keep a few recipes on a magnetic clip on the side of the fridge.   I can see them that often.

1. Refrigerator bread dough 
2. Pizza dough 
3. Rice crispy treats 
4. Refried beans in the insta pot.   

Three ring binders are easily found, I have bought them at garage sales, the goodwill, and at the dollar tree.    My granddaughter is more than happy to draw pictures to slide in the covers.    LOL 

I still.have a binder from the 70s.    There are some recipes that I still refer back to, like the mixes .   Some of them are clippings from women's magazines because we didn't have internet back then,   I can't believe we have the technology now that we have vs what it was "back in tue day".  oir  greatgrandmothers would be amazed; yet somethings have never changed.   

-my meal plans are on a clipboard folder that I got at target,   It works out well, and imhave a pocket for recipes I need for the weeks meals, a perishable  list to check off , and a tablet for notes,   I recently reassessed the cost of bulk essentials: flour, oatmeal, beans, rice.   Bulk foods should be things you eat a lot of that won't go bad before you use them up.  We buy beans at the DT.  They are a dime a pound more than Costco bulk purchases, but we wouldn't eat 25 lbs of pinto beans and they would go to waste.  In that case, we wouldn't be saving anything,   At this writing, DT is the cheapest I have found.    Kroger is the most expensive.   

Keeping track of food costs helps to reduce the cost of meals.   We are working on the assumption that we are on a four dollar a day per person budget-- the amount they say snap is based on.   We actually are eating on less than snap.    The caviar here is that granddaughter is small, and we are old.   A younger, more active  family would eat more. They also, would have a larger allowance for food.    The best way to tell how close to reality you are is to look at the USDA stats of cost of food at home.    They are in the internet.   Last I looked, we were at a hundred dollars for my husband and I . We have been spending less than 55.  This month was 50.00.   About 1/2 price.  Eating well doesn't have to cost a fortune.    In fact, cutting out the foods that are bad for you can actually save money and teach your children good habits.  When they see you drinking a so. Pack of pop a day, they think that is normal behavior.    It's teaching them a bad habit.   

Having a personal cookbook is an easy way to refer to the recipes that are too complicated to remember off the top of your head and makes life a little easier.   If I had to try to remember where  a particular recipe was and find it before I could  make it. I probably  wouldn't bother.    

Monday , kitchen management 6/ 26/17

kitchen management for June 26

Kitchen management saves time and hassle when the hectic dinner hour comes.   You are using less space in the frodge because  you aren't cooling the inedible parts of the veggies and the bones of the meat.     That sound trivial unless you are stocking for the future when  things are cheap.  

1. Clean fridge, wash ice maker catch basin, 
2. Wash veggies for salad 
3. Mark meal plan to thaw chicken 2 days ahead 
4. Make sub rolls 
5. Straighten pantry. Take inventory 
6. Wash kitchen floor 
7. Disinfect sinks
8. Deep clean the stove. ( drip pans ) 
9. Find recipe for stuffed chicken 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/16682/feta-cheese-and-bacon-stuffed-breasts/

Dollar Tree Hacks (DT)

My father used to say, it cost the same to keep the top end of the gas tank full as it does the bottom end.   

• Keep one ahead of those things that you can't love without, but don't see that much better f, catsup, mayo, mustard........
• This is a big one.......buy a 4 pack of toilet paper from the dollar tree.    Put it in the very back of the cupboard.   When you reach the "emergency rations " it's time to buy more.  And, don't believe everything you hear.....Costco toilet paper is very good quality.     
• DT small plastic boxes are a great organizational tool to make your freezer more accessible , or assemble bath items for the shower.    
• Stacking crates are good for things in the pantry.    It makes things like pasta boxes or small cans easier to store.    
• I keep scissors all over the house.   Small ones in the bathroom to open cartons.   A pair of scissors belongs in my coupon binder in a zipper pouch for clipping in ad coupons.    Naturally, the desk, and kitchen scissors are a must.    And, of course, the studio.   
• Glass bottles with booze stopper tops at the DT are good for olive oil, vinegar, and dishwashing soap.    I keep my soap on a bottle that looks like a fish that had wine in it.    I buy dawn so it can't be confused with oils.    
• DT place,acts for the patio are washable and add a splash of color to the table.    
• Betty Crocker kitchen tools are exceptional for the money,    I also got rolls at IKEA that were a good buy.   Love Betty Crocker kitchen shears.   I have several pairs because I want to put anything that touches raw meat through the dishwasher, opened.    
• Individual drawer organizers are great for hair things like barrets and ponies.   
• Canning type  are great for storage and organizing,    Theyndint seal likemcanning jars, but are fine for "stiff" you need to keep together,   

Anything that contains little pieces is a great help in killing the chaos monster.     

Meal plans - June 26

Meal plans for June 26.

I bought feta cheese because it was in sale at Costco.about 40 percent off.
First, I went over the basic perishable food list to take inventory,  
I keep a small stock of things that we use in a regular basis and usually keep one ahead of things like mayo, mustard and catsup.    I got on that habit when we lived out in farm country and it was eight miles  to the nearest store the next town over.    You didn't just run to the store to get a little something in the middle of cooking dinner.  Besides being exiensicenti buy it that way, it was nit convenient woth a Baby!

Meals : working on a matrix of 1 beef , 1 fish or seafood, 3 chicken or Pork, and 2 vegetarian,    Having a vegetarian meal or two really cuts your cost of meals.

1. Chicken parmesan, green beans 
2. Pizza 
3. Meatball subs, salad 
4. Enchiladas, Spanish rice , lettuce and tomato 
5. Feta and bacon stuffed chicken breast 
6. Pot luck: salad ( spinach, strawberries, feta, walnuts,) 
7. Breakfast for dinner 

Meals are not listed in any particular  order.   

.

Winco and QFC (Kroger)

QFC has a buy six, save three sale.   Most of the time, those sales are t a real bargain in,sea you can match with coupons.   I bought six, saved six.

4 Ragu pasta sauce.    Sale 1.99 less .75 coupon 1.25 net
2 milk at .99 one reg, one chocolate.  .99'each


Store calculated savings 56 percent
Spent seven, saved nine


Winco

Fries , 5 lbs. 3.18
Sandwich bread 1.18
Rolls for meatball subs .76
Street taco shells (24) .98

Sugar free BBQ sauce 2.98

Olives .68

Blue bunny ice cream 3.00 w coupon

Frozen vegetables .74 w coupon

Armour  meatballs 1.98
Tomato .74
 Total 19.77

Total per week for 2 quarter.   53.00

Fred Meyer ad for Sunday

Sunday's ad for Fred Meyers (Kroger)

Cantaloupe .99
2 lb strawberries 1.99
Pork shoulder roast 1.69

Best foods mayo.  2.99. $$
Hillshire Farms smoked sausage 2/5

Peaches 199

Nathan's hot dogs 2/5

Cottage cheese, sour cream 4/5


About it.

Coupons worth noting in Sunday's paper

Ritz snack crackers at FM 3/5 : .75 off two.    1.295 each.  
You don't have to buy three if you don't want to buy three.  

Coupon for sure jell if you are making jam

1.00 off Birdseye or c and w veggies
 50 off any dole canned fruit,
.50 off five  yoplait yogurt.  

Note Winco wanted .69 for Yoplait.
I paid .23 with a coupon last time including chocolate.  

And who says coupons are only for garbage food.