Concept: how to shop at Grocery Outlet

Grocery Outlet is a discount overstock grocery store.  It is a chain and is franchised like the Dollar Tree.  There are other stores in other states that are similar.

Shopping at the Grocery Outlet is a treasure hunt,   Like any other store,  not all things are a bargain.   You still have to know your prices.

I, personally don’t buy the produce.  I’ve only done it a couple of times at two different stores, and both times had a bad experience.

We have two places on our area that the grocery outlet and dollar tree are side by side.   It makes things more efficient.

I can usually find good sliced cheese, and a variety of cheeses for a reasonable amount.  The exception being grated cheese,  you are better off buying grated cheese at Costco or on sale at Alberways or one of the Kroger  stores.

I can most of the time find a name brand taco kit for a buck.  That’s the price if he taco shells and you get the seasoning and sauce with it.  Otherwise, I get the shells for a buck, my buy price.

Nuts are another thing that we watch out for.   If I don’t find them there, we get bulk at the Winco or bags at Costco.

I was getting coffee, but now I find a lot of the expensive bagged kind, but not the normal Foldgers or   Maxwell House,

Some of the larger frozen food bags are a bargain.

You just never know what you are going to find.   Del Monte green green beans were .33 .  They were close to the pull date.  In those cases, I buy just what I might use before the pull date and put the front of the stack.   I have also got organic diced tomatoes for .50.   You never know what you are going to find.   We got bacon yesterday for 2.00 a pound.   And, tube biscuits , Pillsbury, for .50.  They have to be used  this month.   That’s not a problem for us.   I didn’t buy he stack.  LOL

The basics of this  is :

• Buyer beware: know your prices and check the pull dates .  
• Don’t buy anything in quantity if you can’t use it before the pull dates.  Often something like a cake type mix will be very cheap and you can expect some time after the pull date on those things.  Anything dry is probably better longer than the pull date.  
• I would , personally, avoid fresh foods. 
• They have a large inventory of organic foods
• They often have seasonal things that are perfectly good.  Who cares if you eat pumpkin in the summer? 
• If you find something with shelf life that you really like, don’t hesitate to buy as much as you are comfortable with. It is You snooze. You loose time. 

Miscellaneous carp

Short notes from my reader.....

Someone  said the best gift is a gift of your time.   Consider this blog  a gift.  I am sharing 50 years  of learning how to cut your grocery bill.  We all need to eat, but a lot of us need to have a well rounded life and be able to have a roof over our head, utility bills paid , health care paid for and a few cents  to rattle around  in their pockets.

Yesterday, we went to Fred Meyer,   My husband doesn’t think life is great without bacon? Lol.  I found pieces - 2 pounds for a little more than it would cost for 1 pound of bacon.   If you put them in a low heat while you are cooking other things, they will render down and you can use the bacon for flavoring in any number of dishes.

QFC sends us free food periodically.  Free is a good word.   This time we get free sausage and salsa.   Both are good additions to a food pantry/freezer.

Today I cleaned out the upstairs side by side freezer and cleaned out the bins so that they were better organized.   I found pork cubes I will use for the fried rice in the insta pot recipe iIam going to try.  The insta pot version was a bust; the rice comes out too watery.  It was tender, but I didn’t like the texture.  We had Chinese dumplings with it.  Total cost of the fried rice is about 1.00 including some pork.

My husband went and got 2dozen eggs for a buck a dozen and a two dollar cantaloupe.

No spend means you only buy perishables and fill ins,   It drastically reduces you cash expenditures ,
and pares down the pantry.  That’s a good thing.


There are a lot of good mix recipes on the internet or u tube.   Mixes give you the convenience of a ready made mix without the extra cost.   You can purchase a lot of raw ingredients at the bulk section of Winco or your basic grocery store that has a bulk section.  I’m making buttermilk pancakes and cream soup mix.  Cream of .....soup used to be like .35.  Now it’s well over 1.50 unless you find sakes and coupons.  That is best found around thanksgiving time.

Shopping to stock your freezer/pantry actually takes less time than regular shopping and the reward is that you always have food in the house.   Instead of a large basket of groceries piecemeal, you have less variety of items.  Once you are set up, you go to the store to buy a rotation protein, replenish dairy and produce, and replenish the basics that you have already found advertised that you need.
If you keep your food pantry/cupboard organized, you can tell at a glance what you might be approaching stock up time. Many times you can just shop the perimeter of the store and get on and get out of the store.   Its a good rule of thumb to shop two stores a week.

Spending an hour a week prepping for the upcoming week, saves a lot of time and money during meal time.  It just makes life easier and it enables you to cook scratch food in the same time you might have spent using mixes and ready maxes that might have things from the science department in them,   There are things at the grocery store that we feed our children that have detergent type additives and wood pulp in them.   All I’m an say is yuk!

Groceries on the cheap doesn’t mean you have to buy cheap food.   It means you buy good food cheap.

It’s  not what you buy as much as it is when and where you buy it.

My mother used to say that some people could have a bargain get up and bite them in the butt, and they wouldn’t see it.  Don’t be that person,  know the rock bottom prices  RBP, of the things you use on a regular basis.  Most families have a list of 10-15 items,   Buy in quantity when the Leicester are low.  Its not a new concept.  Stockbrokers have been using it for years,  they buy a stock when it’s cheap and sell it when it goes up.   The difference is there is less speculation with food.

The other example would be on r great grandmothers on the farm.  They would “put up food for the winter”.  Back then they had to make best use of the growing season and they didn’t have the technology we have today,

I hope I gave you some ideas. Please let me know of this type of blog is helpful.

Thanks for stopping by

Jane

Hauls 8/10

Winco

Buns .85

QFC
4 lb cheese 10.00
1 double cream cheese 1.99

Total 14.85.   8/15


Winco
Corn .66
Apples 2.66
Dumplings 1.98
Olives .78
To,actors 1.48
Lettuce .98
Granny smith apples 1.95
Strwberries 1.78
Total 13.05

Total.  27.90

List of basics for emergency storage

Pinto beans
Brown or white rice
Black beans
Flour
Salt
Rolled oats
Sugar
Honey
Nuts
Cornstarch
Baking powder
Peanut butter
Olive oil
Canola oil
Pasta
Pasta sauce
Canned diced tomatoes
Yeast
Dry milk

Chain store ads

QFC was a two week ad last week.
To recap
                       
Peaches
QFC 1.28
Alberways .99

Apples
Safeways .99-gala
Winco .99    Gala and green

Cantaloupe
Alberways 2/4
QFC 2/5

Mandarins
FM -3.99 -3# bag
Strawberries
Fm 2 lbs 3.99

DiGiorno pizza
FM 4.88

English muffins
Alberways .99@@

Eggs
Alberways .99@@limit 2

Cheese -8 ounces
Alberways 2.49
QFC 2.49 part of buy 5
Fred Meyers /F ,SAT only / digital up to 5 @ .99

Tortillas
QFC 1.00

Nathan’s
Alberways 3.99 digital coupon

Hebrew national
Fred Meyers 3.99

Facts of life on a four dollar a day budget.

Reality strikes....

There are pipe dreams and then there is reality,

You can hope for food from the whole paycheck  food stores and perfect meals with no child spilling their milk, or whining that they don’t like peas touching their chicken, or you can embrace reality.

A four dollar a day budget does not include steak and lobster or 5 bags of chips..  You need to figure on buying four dollars a day worth of versatile basic food and   you would be surprised what you can buy on four dollars a day if you shop wisely,

You can buy :

1. We purchase Real Parmesan cheese . It doesn’t come out of a green box,   The green box has wood pulp in it.   You would be surprised what is 8n all the boxes you buy.  They have sneaky ways of labeling ingredients so you aren’t aware of what is in those brightly colored  boxes,  
2. Real honey, 
3. Real maple syrup
4. The best quality tuna we can find at Costco.   Ditto salmon, 
5. Boneless, skinless chicken breast,   It is the lowest in fat.  
6. Good, low fat hamburger, or we make it low fat, 
7. Pork loin,   Center cut pork chops can be 3.50 a pound,   Pork Loin can be 1.00-1.69.
8. Eggs, cheese, and dry beans,  cooking scratch beans doesn’t add salt.  
9. Fresh fruit and vegetables in season    A dollar is my buy price.   Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cantaloupe whit  each, apples at a dollar, grapes at less than two dollars, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots in 5 lb bulk at 2.28 and celery.

Baby carrots are regular carrots that have gone through a machine    It all started with a farmer that was having a really hard time selling his misshapen carrots. He solved his problem by putting the ugly carrots through a machine and making baby carrots.  Que the media blitz.  He had to convince people that his reject carrots worth twice the price of regular carrots.  There are many other new 'inventions that are toted as being healthier for you, that just reduce one bad thing and increase another.  Diet butter substitute and salad dressing come to mind.  

 Virtual paycheck.  Its a concept not everyone can grasp.   But, it is now I decide if scratch cooking something is worth my time and effort.  Face it, kids don’t care if it takes you three hours to make a tortilla .  They are going to make that tortilla disappear in three minutes  or less.   If you calculate how much you are going to save making scratch or a mix and you divide it by how many hours it takes to make it, you get a savings per hour. Now times that figure by 1.25 and it will tell you how much you are making per hour,   I think I figured that making tortillas netted my a dime an hour.   Lemon pound cake from the big bucks coffee shop,  however,  made us 212.00 an hour.  Note you don’t count passive time.

Collecting efficient scratch recipes your family will eat is a secret ingredient in eating on four dollars a day -per person. It also helps to: 

Buying  a rotation meat for a RBP and rotating a four to six week supply affords you, the cheapest and best quality meat and allows you to have a stock of food on hand,   No more scrimping and waiting with baited breath for the paycheck so you can run to the store. Instead you go to the store and buy from your basic list what is on sale for a buy price.  This simplifies your cart and affords you much more food for your dollar.   

A pantry is not built on a day, but you can build it a week at a time if you buy double whenever anything that is on your basic list that is 1/2 price.  Why pay 1.59 for a can of green beans this week and pay .50 for the same can the next week.  You are better off buying three cans the week they are on sale.  

I just watched a grocery haul u tubed by a lady with a large family.  She made a very good point:  anything that you  know if you buy 5, the family will eat five immediately, you just don't buy.    If you are buying  cans of green beans or spaghetti sauce, you buy as many as you can afford if they are at a RBP.   Set yourself a desired limit.  Four to six weeks worth is a good benchmark .

 I am anticipating a time in the fall when we  will have unusually high bills so I will set a larger limit on things that make meals.  If we had a seasonal job, this would be another reason for a larger limit.  I buy our food at about fifty percent off the regular prices.  I cant get that much of a return on my money from a bank.  I was getting fractions of a percent at the bank on my CD.  

 If I find a staple item and it is more than a RBP. I will buy a case.  Like when I  got enchilada sauce for a dime.  I watched for the pull dates and took what I had left to the food bank before it passed the date.  I paid  two dollars for the sauce,  I more than made my profit and can share with someone else. 

Random act of kindness.  There are a lot of things you can do to make someone else’s day better that don’t cost you a cent.  Take your good clean  paper bags to the food bank.  Call first, but our food bank is glad to get them.  We live in a city that has banned plastic bags, straws and utensils.  One day  I was shopping at Winco.  I saw a young man that you could tell was counting  his cart for the total.   He was buying  chunky soups.   I asked him how many he was buying.  He said two,   I had a capon that would make him be able to get three for the price he was paying for two,  I gave it to him.  He was so delighted he thanked me when I gave it to him and saw me later on the store and thanked me again,  I got the feeling that my random act that cost me nothing fed him for another night.  Some lady did that for me years ago.  It was at Albertsons,  she had a coupon that was for free gallon of milk if you spent fifty dollars.  I had three kids at home and fifty dollars was not a problem.   Free milk was a very  welcome surprise. 

You can eat very well on four dollars a day per person by incorporating a few age old basic principles that our great grandmothers used ,  updated. 

• Buy good  food when it is at a rock bottom price (RBP) and buy enough to cover your family for four to six weeks. This is done piecemeal, not all at once.   One can, or jar or package at a time.   
• Avoid  buying empty calories, junk food.--that stuff that is void of good food value. 
• Efficiently scratch cook. If something takes you three hours to make, you are not likely to do it on a regular basis.  We are all busy.  The internet and cookbooks are full of fast and easy cheap meals.  If something calls for a can of …..there are recipes that are easy to replicate that can .
• Rotate buying your protein sources (meat) by buying at a RBP and buying in bulk.  Break down your packages into meal sized portions and freeze.  Do your own butchering.   Its simple and doesn't take much time.  It saves a lot of money. Cook ground meat, de fat it if needed and freeze in meal sized portions.  This saves a lot of time and energy at meal time. 
• Simplify your purchases.   Avoid all the boxes of food.  They are usually full of stuff you don't need to feed your family like preservatives and anti caking agents.  Some have detergent and wood pulp.   Yes, its true.  
• Buy things in bulk when it makes sense.  A bag of flour, rice and a box of oatmeal from Costco in bulk can save hundreds of dollars in a year. Muffins cost a dollar to make.  Making your own mix means it takes a matter of a few minutes  to make--the cost ready made is as much as five dollars .  Peasant Bread costs .25 and takes ten minutes hands on time and that is spread between two days.   The cost: upwards of 2.50. Rice costs .02 a serving.   Oatmeal .085.  Beans .04 cents.

These are all random ideas that all contribute to making a four dollar a day budget happen.  

How did she do that ! 15 minute tacos.

Prep work in the kitchen is a good start.   When you make a bulk purchase of ground meat, it saves time and money if you cook the whole batch until it is no longer pink and then drain it and de-fat it.

Put the slightly cool downed meat in portion controlled quart bags.  Then out the quart bags into a gallon bag,   De-fatting hamburger is pouring hit water over drained meat in a colander .  This can reduce the fat up to 17 percent.


Taco seasoning.   Taco seasoning ing packets can cost as much as a dollar.   A few minutes can save lots and you control the heat.

1. 1/2 cup chili powder 
2. 2 tsp each of garlic powder, onion powder, oregano.
3. 1T plus 1 tsp paprika 
4. 4  T cumin
5. 4 tsp salt 
6. Pinch of red pepper flakes optional 

Store in airtight container on cool place.   

On to tacos.   When you want a meal in a hurry, tacos can be made in 15 minutes.  

• Open a can of refried beans and place in small baking dish.   Smoosh it down level and top with shredded cheese. 
• Place beans in the microwave and heat on medium for 5 minutes . 
• Meantime, get the hamburger out of the freezer and slap it on the counter a few times to break it up.  ( about 1/2 a pound for 4 people.  
• Place a small skillet on the stove .  Add a quarter cup of water and add 1T of taco seasoning,   And the meat.  Cook on low.   
• While the beans are heating, cut lettuce, tomatoes, and take shredded cheese out of the refrigerator.  
• Check the beans,   Return in high if they aren’t hot yet.   Place Taco shells on a plate  acordimg to package directions and microwave.  
• Dinner is done.   

On another note, enchalada sauce is really expensive in cans,   The exception was when o got it for ten cents a can at the DT.   I used 2.00 worth until it was close to the pull date and donat d the rest to the food bank along with a recipe of how to make sloppy joes with it,  

It is just back to the basics of white sauce recipe to make enchalada sauce.  There are a few cooking techniques that are the basic necessities of cooking scratch,   Once you master them, cooking from scratch is a breeze and you save money and avoid ingredients that aren’t good for you that you can’t pronounce,  

Enchalada sauce is a roux of flour and oil.   Add tomato sauce and chicken or vegetable stock.  Now add chilli powder and other Southwest seasonings,   Done,  it’s basically white sauce with tomato sauce   And chicken stock instead of the milk.  Add southwest seasonings. Its a lot less thick 5an a white sauce would be.  I would delete tomato paste of I didn’t have tomato sauce.   I always have chicken boullion granules or better than boullion.   Its much cheaper and doesn’t take the space of boxes or cans of chicken stock,  that is, unless I have homemade in the freezer.  

Monday Kitchen Management aka meal prep

Kitchen management is a tool that takes an hour or so out of a day, but saves a lot of tome during the sometimes hectic dinner hour. Coupled with meal plans, they save both time and money,   Both of which is in short supply in many a home.

Reminder of our meal plan:

• Chicken parm was switched, so we are having sloppy joes and corn on the cob 
• Pizza
• Taco soup
• Fried rice, dumplings 
• Pork chops. Seasoned rice, vegetable 
• Salmon patties, oven fried potatoes, vegetable 
• Breakfast for dinner

1. Wash kitchen floor, wax after finishing the prep
2. Clean the countertops  and sinks and drains, disinfect  
3. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead. 
4. Make a note of what needs to be eaten soon  
5. Clean the dishwasher  
6. Clean the corn, 
7. Check the rice mix and replentish of necessary 
8. Scarves the potatoes with vinegar water and dry well.  Store in vented dish, 
9. Wash and prep fruit, 
10. Check budget.  Buying perishables and I my things that we need to replentish ( black olives ) 

Notes 

Corn on the cob was .33 .  It has been as much as a dollar an ear.  We have hamburger buns that need to be used up.  

No spend month : meal plans

It’s time to eat down the pantry and rotate stock.  The new crop will be coming in and the last years crop will hit the case lot sales soon.

• Chicken parm :  spaghetti, sauce, breaded chicken, parmesan cheese, green beans 
• Pizza 
• Taco soup, tortilla chips 
• Fried rice, egg rolls 
• Pork chops, seasoned rice, peas and carrots 
• Salmon patties, oven fried potatoes, peas 
• Breakfast for dinner :  egg muffins, fruit parfaits, ( blueberries, yogurt, granola layered .   

Notes : 

1. We use 1/2 a box of spaghetti and my big pricej for spaghetti is less than a dollar.  omemcan  still get Barilla for a dollar at the DT.  Use real parm, not the stuff on the green box.  You can eat on the cheap without eating cheap food.   Its good food cheap, not cheap food.   We use Foster Farms breaded chicken .   Its always good to eat local chicken .
2. Pizza is a good thing for a cheap meal,   Scratch dough is fast and cost .19.  The cost if dough in the grocery store is 1.50 to 2.00.   You still have to roll it out and fill it.   Pizza sauce is cheapest at the DT and it is a name brand.  One jar will make 5 pizzas,   Freeze it in an ice cube tray and pop the cubes out into a zip lock.   You can take a couple of cubes out while you roll the dough and they will be ready.  Or zap them  in the microwave for about 10 seconds,   Pepperoni is a dollar at the DT for 2 packages of 14.  Pat it with  a paper towel.   This isn’t 
3. rocket science, my granddaughter has been assembling pizza since she was 4 yo.   From dough to ready for the oven.   
4. Taco soup is easy in the slow cooker or insta pot.   Precooking ground meat and portion controlling it in quart freezer bags is a real time saver.   You are more likely to de fat a whole batch than you are to do it on the Herod the dinner hour,   
5. Fried rice is a good use of the chicken pieces you have in the freezer.   Again, the insta pot is a good resource, bit s frying lean works well with leftover rice. 
6. Pork chops are from the middle of a pork loin,   That makes them as low as a dollar a pound instead of 3.50.  Seasoned rice is a homemade mix with chicken granules and herbs,   
7. Salmon patties use a can of salon from Costco.   Oven fried potatoes are easy and veggies se less fat.   Anytime you can use a little olive oil instead  a lot of a hydroginated  oils is good, 
8. Breakfast for dinner is a family affair here.  Everyone participates. Sometimes it’s waffles, pancakes, occasionally  bacon, a quiche, fruit , yogurt parfaits.  We make our own granola.  That way we can control the ingredients .  Real honey, nuts, and  oatmeal that we purchase  in bulk.  

Anything that you can efficiently scratch  cook is always better than things out of  a box with few  exceptions,    There are a few things that take too much time, or cost.  It is cheaper to buy pasta sauce on sale with coupons than to make scratch.   I recently got Classico pasta sauce in a wide mouth jar I can reuse for dried herbs for .50.   That is cheaper than it cost for the jar.   

Investing in good tools if yo7 have the money and space is a good things no,  you are much more likely to scratch cook if you can efficiently scratch cook.  The insta pot is a good start,  it is a slow cooker, a rice cooker, and a pressure cooker,   The larger one makes yogurt.  I, personally am afraid of anything that I can mess up and potentially sicken my family with, so I will pass on the yogurt!. LOL  that being said, the insta pot uses  a smaller footprint than the three appliances it replaces.   And, it does the three things well.   The savings on rice and beans scratch cooked instead of ready cooked pays for the machine in no time.   I never cooked scratch beans because beans and rice have a very short refrigerator life.  They spoil quickly.  It is too much bother to cook 2 cups of beans the old fashioned way,: wash, soak, cook until done.  In the insta pot, you wash and check for any foreign things, ( like stones) , place on pot.  Add water to cover up to your second knuckle, close the lid , lush a lever to seal position, and push the bean button,  done.   Rice is just as simple.   

Simplify your ingredients , buy at RBP, always keep a 4-6 week stock.   

Four plus  one is five :  Four people, one meal, five bucks.

, 

Concept : FOUR DOLLARS A DAY

Feeding a family on four dollars a day is more what it isn’t than it is what it is.   You can’t feed your family on four dollars a day, at least in the PNW, by purchasing a five dollar jar of tahini and a eggplant and calling it dinner.  I also isn’t too practical to go to the fresh food market year round and buy only fruits and veggies an a couple of eggs and eat .  Those things might work for a single person, but for a family, just plain food on a limited budget is a better fit.

Simplify, buy food at a rbp and in bulk when it makes sense and eat old fashioned regular food that has been updated to be less fat, sugar, salt, hydroginated oils, GMO’s and HFCS.

Its not a concept that is romantic enough to sell books, it is just what works.   It has worked for us for a lot of years.   Good basic food;  we have lived on it for years.  We buy fresh fruit and vegetables on season and when the costs are not prohibitive,

In order to make a four dollar a day budget work, you need to maintain a small stock of recipe ingredients that you have purchased at rbp.   By doing so, you always have food in the house and you are able to make a wide variety of things for meals.  Stick to versatile basics.   On another blog, I lost over 40 basic meals that you can make by averaging costs on four dollars a day and grow stock.  Now, we aren’t feeding a 17 yo linebacker.   We hiwever, have grown a stock enough that we are going on a no spend month,   That means, I’m only buying exactly something we need to complete a meal and fresh perishables.  I’ll take you along,   I generously stocked us in fresh fruit and veggies,   I bought milk, but no sour cream or cottage cheese.  We have eggs and dehydrated eggs,   It’s a game.  We need to eat down the pantry and get ready for the new crop to come in.  The sales on frozen and canned vegetables will be hitting sometime September or October probably would be my best guess.

Studies have shown that your life expectancy diminishes if you have to worry about where the next meal is coming from.  I hate to see any child go through that.

Basics:

• Keep celery, carrots  (whole) radishes, lettuce and tomatoes when they are a realistic price.
• Frozen veggies go on sale for a buck a pound at times,   Stock on corn, green beans, peas, peas and carrots, and mixes vegetables, providing your family eats them  
• Buy protein that is low in cost ( my benchmark is an average of 2.00 a pound for meat.  Buy it in a rotation basis when it is at your buy price,  here, we can get chicken for 1.00 a pound at times, also pork loin for between 1.00 and 1.69.   Hamburger is more, but we only eat it once a week.   Pinto beans are .67 a pound when you buy a 1.5 pound bag at the DT.  They are cheaper by about a dime at Costco, but you have to buy too much for our family of four that eats beans.  I want to pay between 2.00 and 2.50 a pound for cheese.  There is supposed to be a glut  of milk in the country but , surprisingly, cheese is as much as 4.00 a pound.  Eggs are cheap now.  
• Buy vegetables and fruit in season on sale.  No surprises here, we have done that for years, 
• Buy your dairy when it is on sale,   Most of the dairy has a month or so pull date.  Buy the months worth, being careful not to overbuy   You can get a good idea of what and how much you will use,   If you are approaching pull dates, make a concentrated effort to use it up.  Make pudding.  Make a lasagna type  dish, butter can be frozen.   Yogurt can be out in muffins. Google the item in the on line Betty Crocker cookbook. It is free. 
• Pasta sauce is cheaper than making it from scratch,   Buy it on sale and watch for sales and Ibotta.  I got it for .50 the other day   
• 
  
• Diced tomatoes are a versatile tomato.  Instead of keeping a stock of a zillion different types of tomatoes, buy just the diced ones.   They can be used in nachos, in salsa in a pinch, and of you need tomato sauce, just put them in a blender or food processer.   
• Canned vegetables are a good back up.   They are the cheapest in the fall, buy I can usually get them cheapest at the discount type  stores.   (Winco here).   Consider buying a case or two depending on your family size.   I usually juice just get green beans and corn.
• Making your own mixes cuts costs dramatically. Baking mix, muffin mix, cream soup mix, white sauce mix, seasoned rice mix. 
• Buy pasta , the best quality you can find when you find it at a dollar or less.  Pasta has an 8 year shelf life.  Its better to use it before that time  but don’t hesitate to buy in bulk if you can .  
• It is a very versatile ingredient that stretches a buck.  
• Remember that in order to feed your family on  four dollars a day, you need to eat on less than four dollars a day so that you can buy enough ingredients.  Just because your meal costs four dollars, it doesn’t cover the staples you use on a regular basis or the fact that you can’t buy 2 tablespoons on an ingredient.    
• Good basic food bought at a rock bottom price.   Try to keep a four to six week supply of things you use on a regular basis.   That means that, for instance, if you eat beef once a week, you need to have enough beef for 4-6 meals.  Things like mayonnaise , and mustard, ketchup, I keep one ahead,  I don’t want to drop everything if I am out of mayo and I’m making a pasta 
• salad.  
• You can eat well on four dollars  a day by shopping wisely and taking advantage of any bargain you see.  You, however, can’t buy your food at the Big bucks food store.   
• Shop two stores a week,  that gives you the best of two worlds.   You get a better access to good produce cheap.   
• Learn to scratch cook efficiently.  Buy yourself good tools when you can.   

I hope these ideas help you to your journey,   Don’t try to incorporate all of them at the same time.  You will burn out,  this has happened for us over time and a lot of trials and tribulations,   Take one step at a time.   I’ve tried to give you the best ideas and not share my disasters. 

Friday : recipe day

Soup is a good meal with homemade bread and it can be very inexpensive,  
It Can be a very fast meal prep and you can oit it in a slow cooker or an insta pot and walk away.  
Bread can be made in ten minutes actual hands on time and that is split between 2 days,   ( peasant bread) .

Bean soup

1 large carrot
1cup sliced celery
Olive oil

1 tsp minced garlic
2 cups vegetable broth

2 cups white beans -1 can or cooked beans . Drain and rinse canned eans, hold out 2 Tablespoons of beans.  
1 tsp poultry seasoning

1 cup broccolli ,  chopped in medium chunks

Directions:
In a stockpot , Sauté carrot and celery with a little olive oil until almost tender.
Add garlic and continue cooking a minute or so.

Add cooked beans, broccolli, vegetable broth and seasoning and simmer 5-7 minutes

Mash 2 Tablespoons of means and add a tablespoon of broth.  Return to pot..   Stir.

Garnish with parmesean cheese .  

Notes:  I always add the celery tops when I make soup.  
Services 4

If you aren't making bread, a cheezy biscuit works too.   Make baking powder biscuits (Bisquick  works ) Roll the dough into a rectangle, cover with grated cheese all the way to the edge.  Roll it up like you would a cinnamon roll, and slice into 1 to 1.5 inch slices .   Set flat side down on parchment lined baking sheet and bake according to the biscuit directions.  

Hauls 8/3

Grocery Outlet

Bacon 1.99
Hamburger buns .99

Total 6.96

Costco
Oatmeal 8.29
Bananas 1.39
Blue cheese 6.74
Walnuts 13.99
Tortilla chips 3.59
 Total 34.00

40.96

Fred Meyers
Milk .99
Cherries 3.85
Corn 1.00
grapes 2.62
Granulated sugar .99
Bbq beef 3.99
Blueberries 4.99
English muffins 1.67

Strawberries 3.99
Total 24.09
Total 65.05

That’s the total .  We are well stocked, we are going on a no spend  month. Its time to rotate stock out and save up for the new crop coming on.

What to do with a split chicken breast.

Washington grown split chicken breast is .88 a pound this week.  

Binkess, skinless, chicken breast was 4.00 a pound last week and I have seen it for as much as 8.00 a pound,  

To get the most out of a split breast.

• Cit the rib portion off the breast,  you don’t have to be perfect.  Just run a sharp knife along the bone,  be careful to hold the chicken far away from the knife.  Use short, calculated strokes.   Slow.   
• Place the rib portion on a container or gallon zip lock. 
• Put the single breast in quart bag.  We use dollar store bags for this,  you aren’t going to use them again. Then, place the quart bags in a gallon bag.   Label with date and freeze. 

1. Before bed, place the rib portions on a slow cooker and cover with water up to an inch from the top.   Add some vegetable scraps and herbs.  
2. Turn the cooker  on low and go to bed. 
3. In the morning, drain the pot into a pan.  
4. Refrigerate stock .  When cold you can remove the fat from the top.  Portion control and freeze.  
5. Pick the bones for chicken pieces, bag and freeze. 
6. Toss the bones. 

Chicken pieces can become soup, enchaladas, chicken pot pie or taco meat.  

Chain store ads

Alberways

Pork loin 1.79
Shrimp 5.99@@


Grapes 1.49
Blues 2.99

Bread .89@@
Milk 1.79@@



Digital coupons
Progress soup 5for 5 u must buy 5
Blue bunny ice cream, 2 for 5 must buy 2
Yoplait 5 for 2.00.

QFC

tortillas 10/10

Buy 5, save 5

Dave’s  bread 2.99
Cheese 2.49 a pound
BREYERS 2.49
Kroger breakfast sausage 2/5

Strawberries, raspberries 2.99
Melons 2/5

Fred Meyers

Avocados 4/5

FF Split breast .88
Blues 2 lbs 3.99
Grapes 2.29
Oranges 3 lbs 3.49
Corn 2/1.00
Cherries 2.99


Friday and Saturday only
Lunch meat 1.99up to 5
Digital only


B5, S5
Cheese 2.49
Jiff 1.49
Crackers 1.77
BREYERS 2.99
Double cream cheese 2.99
******
What I see out of that is split chicken breast for .88
That’s a rotation meat! At FM

QFC has tortillas

Alberways has Yoplait.

How did she do that ....baked spaghetti

We made baked spaghetti in the insta pot/ oven .  It is easily a five Dollar  dinner for six people.   We made the spaghetti by layering a pound ifmcooked hamburger, 1/2 pound of spaghetti, broken in half and spread like you are making a bird nest, a jar of pasta sauce, and 2cups of broth poured around the edge.  Process for 8 minutes.   Quick release.

I then put it in a 9X13 pan and topped with parm cheese.   I’ll bake it tonight until it is bubbly and serve with a salad.

The key here is to buy ingredients when you find them at their lowest price.


Pasta sauce, Classico, .99 less Ibotta .50. .49
Spaghetti, Barilla , DT. 1/2 box .50
Hamburger, Zaycon , 1lb 2.44
Chicken stock -free
Green salad 1/2 bag.  .50

Total 3.94

Monday Kitchen Management

This week is a break from the usual.  I have already washed the kitchen floor, disinfected the countertops etc snd cleaned out the refrigerator.  

We are going into a no spend rest of the month,  there are five weeks this month .  The new crop is die to come on, so the last years crop will be on sale on the coming months,   Rotating stock to keep things fresh is part of keeping a stock.   It can never be bad to save some money . LOL

So far this month, we have had :

• French Texas toast, bacon, fruit 
• Hamburgers, pasta salad, fruit 
• Sausage, potatoes, carrots, radishes -roasted 
• Bbq beef sandwiches, corn on the cob.  
• Baked spaghetti ( use the insta pot and oven for this) green salad.

Today I am going to clean out the pantry and take inventory,   This will take time, but, re,e,her, the excess in the pantry was purchased with the four dollar a day budget— and we still eat well.    I did spend a lot the last week buying fresh fruit because it’s in season and only happens once a year.   The prices aren’t low enough to put much up.   

We got 4 green beans and 2 zucchini coming so far, and we have enjoyed a lot of cherry tomatoes,   

I plan to pull last times inventory and just change the numbers.   I’ll work from the inventory to make meal plans.   Making 2 meals vegetarian helps to cut food costs.   Baking from scratch helps too.   There is a drastic difference between ready made baked goods and bread and scratch,  there are a lot of easy scratch recipes out there. The internet is a good resource.

Follow me on our journey to reduce the pantry and please consider hitting the follow button and sharing.   You never know who you might be helping.   

40 Plus meals

Meatball subs
Tacos
Sliders
Nachos
Burrito bowls
Enchaladas. Chicken
Enchaladas, beef
Hot dogs
Salisbury steak meatballs
Meatballs with mashed potatoes, rice, or noodles
Shepherd’s pie


Pork noodles
Pork roast, sauerkraut
Ham and bean soup
Cuban pork chops
Pork Roast
Pork sliders
Pork chops and stuffing


Vegetable bean soup
Chili
Minestrone
Great northern beans and sausage cassoulet
Potato  soup
Tomato soup
 Chicken  corn chowder
Beer cheese soup
Chicken gnocchi soup
Chicken salad. Pecans, chicken, grapes, craisens. Greens.  
Chefs salad



Shrimp tacos
Shrimp stirfry


Pizza , sausage, pepperoni
Pizza, buffalo chicken
Spaghetti
Baked spaghetti


Quiche
French toast ,  bacon, fruit
Scrambled eggs, English muffins. Fruit
Waffles , sausage, fruit or fruit parfaits

Chicken parm
Chickn pot pie
Chicken and bacon cassarole w tater tots
Pepperoni stuffed chicken breast

Chicken nuggets
Chicken stroganoff

Meal plans 8/5/8

Meal Plans are a tool that saves time and money.  It helps to  manage your food in such a way as to avoid waste .

• Bbq beef sandwiches, corn on the cob, salad 
• Pizza
• Chicken noodle casserole 
• Pasta salad ( potluck) 
• Insta pot spaghetti , baked, salad 
• Salmon, twice baked Potatoes. Veggies 
• Breakfast for dinner 

Notes : 

1. Use bbq beef purchased at FM and leftover buns, 
2. Pizza is cheap and homemade (1.00) 
3. Chicken noodle casserole made with chicken cooked in insta pot. 
4. Pasta salad starts with Suddenly salad - it’s a dollar at winco and sometimes the DT and here are coupons out there. 
5. Salmon is pepper corn salmon from Winco, 
6. Breakfast for dinner is a family favorite and everyone cooks,   
7.  Insta pot spaghetti is one we found on u tube.   

Saturday Concepts: Retailers dirty little secrets

It should come to no surprise that retailers have studied our shopping habits and our habits in order to extract as much money from us as possible,   Knowing their tricks, you can make the best of their strategies .

• 70 percent of our purchases at the grocery store are impulse buys. Its 80 percent in England. 
• Impulse buys means that we are nit logical about our decisions,   This could speak trouble. 
• 50 percent of any given cart is usually liquids and snacks.  Cutting these off your grocery list can save a lot.   If you just have to have the pop and chips, set aside a different ‘entertainment’ budget so it’s really visable  as to how much you are spending,   
• The verbiage  10 for 10 in an ad, is to entice you to buy 10.  Unless it specifically states buy 10, you don’t have to buy 10.   
• It is no accident that the snack attack and bakery items bombard you as you walk in the door.   Its a good idea to not go to the store hungry or uptight.   Your resistance is down and you will spend more.
• Stock to your list. Make a list, or at least know what categories you are shopping for.  Of you shop to replentish stock, take a quick inventory so you have a good idea that you need dairy, and produce, and quite possibly a rotation protein.   Do keep a list of staples that you are noting are dwindling. Watch for a RBP on those things.   
• Don’t impulse buy, but do take advantage of an unadvertised special if the price is at your buy price or below if you can readily use it.   One time I walked onto QFC and Local chicken was .50 a pound because they needed to be cooked that day or the next.  I bought three and went home and cooked them.  It was then that I researched and found the easiest way to cook a chicken.   
• Offering basket coupons is another way to get you into a store. Pay attention to the minimum amount that you need to spend.  The closer to that minimum amount you come to, the more percent off you are saving,   Be sure to include the coupons you may have on items so you don’t come up short.   Only buy things that are at or close to your buy price.   Its not a bargain if you buy things that they have already marked up the 20 percent they are giving you for instance.  
• Manufacturers pay slotting fees to get to display their merchandise in preferable places.  Notably the end caps and middle shelves.  Some chains get upwards of a million dollars for the pro ledge,   You have to know that the companies are going to still make a profit and that cost is going to be reflected in your purchase price.   Look up and down.   Consider the store brand. Those brands are mostly name brands that manufacture for  the stores.   The cost is remarkably different.  Mild green chillies at Winco for Winco brand are .66.  The name brand is 1.28.  
• Knowing where things are on the store helps.   You can, for instance, pass a lot of hamburger buns at Winco until you get to the bread isle and find the cheapest Winco brand buns.   We are talking 1/2 price.   
• If a store is offering hot  dogs on sale cheap especially on a holiday weekend, you can bet the buns will be full or an inflated price.   This is why you shop at two stores.   
• Shopping  at two stores gives you the best selection of produce and with some ad watching, the  best prices on any particular item on your must have list.  That being said, being flexible can save a lot of money.   
•   Certain stores are have a reputation for the best price on certain things.  Fred Meyers has a huge bag of English muffins for 3/5 all the time.   It used to be by the eggs, but now that they remodeled, I will have to hunt it up again. 
• Going with a clear view in your mind of what you are specifically looking for is you best hedge against falling for the impulse buys.

Breakfast for Dinner

Last nights dinner cost .65 a plate.   We had Texas Toast french toast, bacon, and cantaloupe .

The Texas Roast was purchased at the Franz Bread store for 1.13 a loaf ,.  The cantaloupe was 2.00 at Safeway's and it was huge,   The bacon was 2.43 for 12 ounces at Winco.   Eggs are .88 at the Kroger stores.  We have a lot left to incorporate into other meals.   I made extra french toast and froze it so we can toast it for breakfast.   

Our average this year has been less than 4.00 a day and we supplement granddaughter and grow a stock.  Four dollars a day is what we spend totally.   You can’t call it four dollars  a day when you have to spend ten dollars a day to get the ingredients.   What we have left from last night’s dinner, we can incorporate into other meals and still maintain a four dollar  a day budget.   

Its buying what’s on sale and incorporating it into meals.  Not everything on a sale ad is on sale.   Its FOR SALE, but not necessarily on sale,   There is a drastic difference sometimes  just between stores for the exact same thing.   Picking your store for the best prices that week is a good tool in reducing your food costs.   Going to more than one store is essential .  No one store has all the lowest prices.   And, no food is going to do your family any good if you are feeding it to the garbage disposal.   

French Toast 

Mix eggs with a little water or milk and some cinnamon and nutmeg,   Soak bread in egg mixture,   Cook on frying pan or griddle until browned,  turn and cook  the other side.  I put the toast on a cookie sheet and kept it warm in a 250 degree oven.   

My husband cooked the bacon between paper towels in the microwave while I cut part of the cantaloupe.   

All in all, dinner was really fast, easy, and cheap.    We still got protein, starch, and a serving of fruit. 

Hauls ... 39.78

7/29/18

Dollar tree

3 pasta, Barilla

Safeways

Cream cheese

4 frozen veggies

Green grapes

Spinach

Lettuce

Total

14.33

Total 17.33

8/1
QFC
Classico pasta sauce .99
Beef patties 7.99
Taquitos 5.49
Yoplait .40 with coupons
Ice cream 3.50
Total 22.45

Chain store ads

QFC

Eggs .88
Tillamook ice cream 2/7
Kroger brats 2/5


Buy 5,save 5
Classico .99
Kraft dressing .99
Yoplait 10/5
Beef patties 6.99


Alberways
Cantaloupe 2/4
Lucerne cheese 2 lbs 4.99


Fred Meyers

FF grill Paxks .99
Kroger bacon 3poumds 10.99
Country Ocen bread 3/5
Grapes.99
Cherries 1.68
Milk 1/2 gal .99
Pears .99
Pork shoulder .99
Eggs .88
Strawberries 2 lbs 3.99


DIGITAL COUPONS

Folgers 5.99
Lean cuisine 4/6
Skippy 1.99
Lunch meat 2.49
Classico sauce .99

FRIDAY and Saturday only
Digital coupon
Cereal .99

Another installment of how did she do that?

 Last night we had hot dogs. Oven fries, and a fruit platter.   Its the season and we had grapes, cherries, strawberries,  blueberries and raspberries.

We continue to spend less than our 4,00 a day budget,  I did, however, prorate our case of hamburger purchase,  Zaycon is out of business .

How did she do that!   Meals that are super cheap, especially when you efficient scratch cook

1. Beans, rice, and cornbread .  Rice in the insta pot is easy. Ditto the beans,   Scratch beans and rice save a ton of money,   Bagged Reid rice can be 50 cents a serving,   Homemade costs .02.  Cornbread is another cheap side.  My family doesn’t eat cornbread, so we make beer bread.   It, too, is really easy,   
2. Spaghetti w pasta sauce .   Sour dough bread takes 10 minutes and costs a quarter. 
3. Split Pea soup. 
4. Homemade pizza.  Another one that is cheap and easy. 
5. Bbq chicken (leg portions) and oven fries.  Leg portions  can be less than a buck a pound. Potatoes are a quarter a pound here,  wash potatoes with vinegar water.  We have a dedicated brush,  cut potatoes in eights, dry with a paper towel.  Toss with olive oil and  sprinkle with  desired seasoning,  we use garlic pepper.   Place on sheet pan and bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes,or until done. 
6. Mac and cheese,  scratch Mac and cheese is easy.   Start with a white sauce mix (homemade) add grated cheese.   Cook elbow macaroni until done,   It takes 2 minutes in the insta pot, quick release,   Use a quart of water for a box of pasta.   Have been finding Barilla at the DT.  Put the Mac and cheese in a baking pan and top with a breadcrumb mixture of breadcrumbs, parmesean  cheese and parsley,   Bake at 350 until heated through.  We use homemade breadcrumbs, real parmesean cheese.   You can have real foods and still stay on a low budget. 
7. Stirfry,   Stirfry s t r e t c h e s.   A little meat,    When you are butchering your bulk meat, you can often set aside bits of meat for stirfry,  add veggies and you have a meal.  Add rice or top ramen noodles,  
8. Fried rice, 
9. Cheeseburger macaroni,   Scratch takes no longer than the box and has better and more ingredients,   When we dissected  a box  of mix it had 4.2 ounces of macaroni including the take weight, and a 1.57 ounce package of cheese sauce that didnt have any cheese in it,  It did have a whole lot of things that we couldn’t pronounce .   The recipe is on the blog.   
10. Tuna Melts.   
11. Nachos,   
12. Breakfast for dinner,   Pancakes, waffles, french toast, eggs, fruit,   

The best tip I can give, is to develop a set of meals your family likes that use inexpensive sources of protein,   Keep a stock of shelf or freezer safe foods that you will use to cook those meals,  buy stocking when prices are low,you can maintain a 4-6 week supply of ingredients and you will avoid the pantry is empty and there is 4 days until payday syndrome.   Its a nice place to be.  It doesn’t happen overnight,but it can happen.   

Monday Kitchen Management

Kitchen management is a tool that saves time and energy.  By prepping your weekly food, you do things in big batches and wash up once,  

Reminder of meals,

• Hot dogs , french fries fruit 
• Pizza salad 
• Salisbury steak meatballs, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, 
• Chicken salad, rolls 
• Salmon, rice, green beans 
• Chicken stroganoff , salad 
• Breakfast for dinner 

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Wash and disinfect counters and sinks and drains,
3. Clean out refrigerator and dump anything dead.
4. Put stove vent screen in dishwasher, 
5. Wash potatoes and cut french fries, soak in vinegar and put on container for tonight, 
6. Wash fruit and put in containers 
7. Make salad and oit in paper towel lined container 
8. Cook chicken for stroganoff and salad 
9. Check to see of the rice mix is full. 
10. Fill the oatmeal, flour and sugar canisters. 

Notes : 

Peas and carrots were a dollar at safeways,   I bought seven bags including white corn, peas, greenbeans. Peas and carrots and mixed veggies,   This should last us untIl they go on sale again. The new crop should be coming in and I expect about September there will be more sales.  Both canned and frozen.   

Meal Plans -week of 7/30/18

Meal Plans  are a tool that saves time and money. A little time before the hectic week saves  a lot of stress during the hectic dinner hour.

• Sheet pan dinner:   Sausage, potatoes,carrots, radishes. 
• Pizza Bread, salad 
• Salisbury steak meatballs, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots 
• Chicken salad, rolls or bread sticks 
• Salmon, seasoned rice, greenbeans 
• Chicken stroganoff, salad 
• Breakfast for Dinner 

Notes: 

1. Sheet pan dinner:   Line sheet pan with. Parchment.  Cut rope sausage into pieces, wash carrots and potatoes, radishes in vinegar water.  Cut potatoes and carrots in uniform sized pieces so that they cook at the same time.  Add all vegetables to sheet pan and toss with olive oil to coat. Season with garlic pepper or salt and pepper.   Roast at 400 degrees for 45 mnutes or until potatoes and carrots test done. 
2. French bread purchased at .95 is the base for pizza bread.  
3. Salisbury steak meatballs is from Betty Crocker 
4. Chicken salad uses the rest of the bread from pizza bread 
5. Salmon is purchased at Winco for 5.00 a pound.  Green beans are frozen from the sale at Alberways.  
6. Chicken stroganoff is a Betty Crocker recipe . 
7. Breakfast for dinner -everyone cooks, using Texas toast from the bread store and bacon and fruit. 

Grocery Hauls

Winco
Steak fries 1.06
Mama Rosa Pizzas (8) 4.98
Cherry tomatoes 2.28
Beans .96
Rope sausage 2.58
Bacon 3.48
French bread .95
Total 20.83

Fred Meyers

Cherries. 1.88
Butter 2.50 less 2.00 coupons for 2
Tortilla chips 1.25
Classico sauce .99
Salad dressing mark down .79
Diced am 2.00
Total. 11.64

Total. 32.47

Safeways

Vegetables 1.00
Yogurt .33
Grapes 3.54   (1.77)

Total 8.54

41.01

Saturday Concept

For years I have been reading all I could about cutting food costs.  It has been a constant adjustment for rising food costs ,  availability of foods , and a new approach to eating basic food instead of so much processed foods.

Our media blitz is full of store pick up food and ready prepped food.  All this is more expensive than doing it yourself.  Duh!

Groceries on the cheap takes a different approach to buying food.   Instead of buying 1 day, 1 week at a time, you are buying to replenish a small stock.  Sales are on a 4-6 week basis.   By taking advantage of that, you can save a lot of money and still have good basic food.

By sticking to basic food and avoiding a lot of processed food, you can eat better and spend less.  That’s  a good combination.

In addition, buying in bulk when it makes sense is a really good tool in lowering food costs.   Rice in bulk at Costco ( we dont have Sams Club or BJ’s here ) makes white rice 02 a serving.  Oatmeal is .085 cents a serving as opposed to .40 a servingfor instant that takes no less time.   Flour at Costco is .08 a cup.  That makes a batch of muffins even with fruit added less than a buck instead of five dollars.   It makes pizza crust .19 instead of 1.50-2.00.  A loaf of sour dough bread is upwards of 2.50.  It takes ten minutes and .25 to make it.   Other than the dealing with the very hot oven, a child can make it in ten minutes hands on time.

There is something about a hearty bowl of home made soup and hot crusty bread that is nutritious and satisfying.  It is one of the cheapest meals you can make.   It can be one of the most efficiently cooked meals as well.  That’s a winner in my book.

Another concept is simplicity.  The least amount of things in your cart simplifies grocery shopping.   When you buy a rotating RBP protein and stick to one cut of meat per variety, you save money and time.   The concept is to buy one meat or protein source a week and rotate in a 4-6 week interval.  In other words, If pork loin is on sale for .99-1.69, you buy enough to eat that protein a specified number of times a week.   In other words, we eat pork loin in some form along with chicken three times a week.   So we need six servings for four weeks.  That is because if I cut a roast from the pork loin, we have enough for a Sunday dinner type roast meal and a pork slider eat agin sometime in the week.   This saves time an money. The other three days we eat boneless, skinless chicken breast.  It, too is purchased for a dollar or so if possible.   It is possible to purchase bonless, skinless  chicken breasts for as low as .88.  It may take a few minutes to prep and portion control.

Hamburger is purchased at the RBP as well.   We eat beef once a week.  Buying hamburger in bulk, cooking it until it is no longer pink and de-fatting it is a good way to cut fat and costs.   Portion control it in quart bags and put the quart bags in a gallon bag and mark it with the date.

We have a side by side refrigerator.  I have marked the freezer shelves(bins) with beef, chicken, pork, and fish or veggies.   It makes live simpler.  We eat fish once a week as well.   Please don’t buy tilipa.  It is as far as I ca tell garbage fish from china.

If you don't have a side by side, you can by baskets from the dollar tree and label the with a laminated label and put on with zip ties using a punched holes.   Yes, that takes time, but you only have to do it once.

By picking a limited number of meats that are versatile, you save time and money.   Chicken breast, hamburger and pork loin are all very versatile.   The internet and cookbooks have literally a ton of ideas so you wouldn't have to eat the same thing for months.  That being said, the average family eats a variety of 7-10 dinners.

Eating vegetarian two nights a week helps too.   Our family likes breakfast for dinner.   It’s a way to involve the whole family and it can be a cheap meal.   Or not.

Using these ideas,  we can eat an entire week of dinners for the cost of two dinner at your door meals.    And, you still have to cook those dinners and do the dishes.   LOL.

Sample meal plan :

Breakfast for dinner :  french toast, fruit, eggs 

Pizza - vegetables and pepperoni or buffalo chicken

Pork roast, mashed potatoes, vegetable 

Pork sliders, oven fries, salad 

Baked salmon, seasoned rice, green beans 

Vegetarian chili, sourdough bread 

Spaghetti with pasta sauce, sourdough bread with garlic spread, salad 

In concept , you can save money and cut your food costs by :

Simplifying the food that you buy

Shopping at a variety and more than one store. 

Buying in bulk and stocking when prices are low. 

Portion controlling your food.   No one needs to eat the better part of a two pound roast.   LOL 

Planning meals and cooking scratch efficiently 

Eliminating waste by portion control and morphing  leftovers.  

Friday recipe: Italian hamburgers

Sandwiches on the grill and a salad is a good choice for hot days.  The salad can e made early in the day. 

• hamburger buns. Toasted 
• 
  
• 4 ounces tomato sauce 
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce, divided 
• 
  
• 1 egg
• 1 pound ground beef 
• 3 T dry bread crumbs 

• Mozzarella cheese 
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce with the herbs, 

• Mix tomato sauce and herbs in small bowl or the can 
• Mix together the sauce, ground beef, egg and bread crumbs .

• Shape into 4 patties. 
• Broil or grill patties until done and no longer pink 
• Place some sauce and some mozzarella cheese on top of meat patties 

Place dressed patty on toasted bun 

Thursday grocery Hauls this week

Winco
Roma  tomatoes .77
10 lbs potatoes 2.56

Previous bread 7.88

QFC
4 lean cuisine 6.00
Raspberries 2.99
Total 8.99

Total 12.32-week

Chain store ads

Note:  FredMeyers does not have a paper ad.  The prices are from favado and sometimes include coupons to find or load.  My husband says that he is getting a pop up on his phone fror an ap.

Fred Meyers - the best bet this week. 

Classico Pasta sauce .99 @@

Kraft dressing .99@@

Sour cream/ cottag cheese .79@@

Hebrew National 2.99

Folders coffee 5.99

80/20 ground beef 3.49

Blueberries 5 lbs 9.99

Cherries 1.88

Butter 2.50

Pumpkin pie 4.00

Alberways 

80/20 beef 2.99

Grapes 1.77

Milk 1.79@@

Frozen veggies 1.00

QFC

Berries 2.99

Grapes 1.99

Digital coupons -

Lean cuisine 4/6

Ice ream 1.99

Red Barron pizza 3/8

How did she do that?

Sweet and Sour chicken or Pork 

• Cook rice in insta pot or rice cooker:  insta pot place equal parts rice and water or broth in insta pot.  Stir.   Cover and seal pot.   Push the rice button. 
• We used pork cubes from a dollar a pound pork loin.  , a can of pineapple from the DT and a slice of red pepper from peppers purchased for.88.
• Sauté meat cubes (1 lb)  in a little olive oil on the sauté feature until cubes are browned.   Add 3 cups water.   Seal and set the insta pot on manual for 35 minutes. 
• In saucepan on stove : make sauce.  1/4 cup brown sugar , 1 T cornstarch, 2T vinegar, 2T soy sauce, 3/4 cup ketchup, 1/3 cup reserved pineapple and slice of red pepper, diced small  .  Cook on medium heat until sauce has thickened.   Measuring the ingredients before starting to cook helps make this go smoothly.   
• Add drained meat and canned pineapple cut into chunks into sauce.  Turn heat off and pour sauce ,meat and fruit over rice.
• Cost: less than 3.00 for 4 servings. 

    

Kitchen Managment

Kitchen management is a tool to save time and money in the kitchen and make the hectic dinner hour less hectic.

Reminder of meal plan

• Skinny, creamy chicken enchaladas 
• Pizza
• Hamburgers, hot dogs 
• Pork chops 
• Salmon
• Pork stew 
• Breakfast for dinner 

1. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead.
2. Wash refrigerator and clean the bins and shelves 
3. Wash kitchen floor 
4. Wax south side cabinets 
5. Wash and disinfect counters and sinks and drains 
6. Cook chicken for enchiladas 
7. 
   
8. Scrub potatoes and carrots 
9. Check the seasoned rice mix replenish if necessary. 
10. Make muffins 

Meal Plans

Its going to be hit hot hot this week here .

Meal plans are a tool that makes life easier and saves time and money.

• Pizza , green salad 
•  Breakfast for dinner 
• Skinny creamy chicken enchaladas (BC) 
• Hamburgers/hotdogs, parmesean fries , 
• Pork chops, apple, craisens dressing , green beans 
• Peppercorn salmon, seasoned rice  salad 
• Pork stew, sourdough bread 

Notes

1. Pizza is a favorite here.  Its a good averager—when you are going for a 2.00 average protein, you need some really cheap meals to offset the more expensive ones.   , The cost of pizza is a dollar a cheese pizza.  Saving bits of meat and veggies from other meals adds toppings for almost free. 
2. Breakfast for dinner can also be a good dinner for an average. 
3. Hamburgers uses buns from Winco at .75.  It always pays to know your prices and where things are the cheapest  .  The bread store is good for bagels, English muffins and loaves of low carb bread, but buns are more expensive than Winco.   This time, they had no bread sticks that were low priced.   You just have to “roll with the lunches, so to speak and adapt to what is a good price.   I plan to have french toast for breakfast for dinner because Texas toast was on the 4/5 racks  
4. Pork chops and stuffing is easy and you can put it in the oven and leave the kitchen when the kitchen is hot  
5. Salmon is from Winco and its really good, not too spicy    We make seasoned rice mix ourselves, rice, chicken or vegetable stock and herbs. 
6. Pork stew takes minutes in the insta pot.  Again, you can set it and leave the room. 
7. Skinner chicken enchiladas is a Betty Crocker recipe and is easily adapted to be scratch,   Find it online,   

  Pricing is sooo important,   With the procuring of food at a RBP, you can eat well on a limited budget.  I have heard so many horror stories, that I work hard to teach people how to eat a reasonable balanced meal on a low budget and buy good food.   We have salmon, tilipa is dirty food,  Buying real food instead if fake is always good,   Buying local chicken is always good.   Learning safe food handling procedures  is good,   Buying produce in season is good.   Buying in bulk when it makes sense is good, using coupons when it makes sense is good.   Anything can be bad if it’s over the top,

Thursday: Grocery Hauls this week

Saturday

Franz bread store has military and senior discount of ten percent on Sunday and Wednesday .

White bread .99

Four for  five dollars 

Bagels 

English muffins -2

9 carb bread 

Sour dough loaf 

Total. 7.88

 

Kitchen Hacks

...Tips and tricks to make life easier.

• Having a basic food pantry /freezer reduces your stress because you have the peace of mind knowing that there is always a meal in the house. 
• buying basic food at the lowest possible price and in bulk when it makes sense saves money and time.   
• 70-80 percent of all grocery purchases are impulse buys.   Avoiding impulse buys save money.  Stick to a list or at least get a good idea of what you need before you shop.   Studying the ads for produce in season and a rotation protein on a 'real' sale.  
• Meal Plans just make life easier.  
• The internet is full of ideas for new recipes or variations of old ones.  Switching up recipes helps to keep things fresh.  
• That being said, the average household has 7-10 dinners that almost everyone likes to eat.   rotating the same 10 meals makes you only eat the same things 3 times a month,. 
• Celery and Carrots are cheap and versatile.   
• On a four dollar a day budget, you need to average your protein at 2.00 a pound.   This is believable by having a couple of vegetarian meals a week and buying versatile meats that are low in price when bought on sale.   Chicken breast can be as low as .88-1.00 here at times.   Stock 4-6 weeks.  Pork Loin can be as low as .99.  Again, buy bulk and butcher it yourself.   
• Stick to basic meals.  We like Italian  and Tex mex.  I surmise that others do as well.   Many ethnic food has many inexpensive meals.  Rice and beans, bubble and squeak, fried rice, spaghetti and sauce ....
• Waste not, want not......with a little attention, many bits that may be thrown out can be recycled.  Anything that can be put on a pizza can be frozen and gathered for the next time you make pizza.   Ditto. Bits of veggies for vegetable soup.    Even good, but somewhat wilted greens can be used for fish packets.   (Layer spinach or wilted romaine, cooked rice, white fish, a green veggie on parchment. Wrap it up and bake,   
• Portion control.  Its good for your waistline and your pocketbook.   Buying bulk meat and portion controlling meal sized packets saves a lot of waste...or waist!   
• Taking a bulk package of hamburger or ground meat and frying it up until it’s no longer pink, then draining it and de-fatting it is the best and easiest way to store hamburger.   No thawing, low fat, and dinner can be made into any number of entries faster.   Tacos in 10 minutes.   

Pick up meals ......

We have all been there.  The day has gotten away from us and suddenly its dinner time.   The enemy of any food budget is take out or worse going out for dinner.   At the cost of one dinner out for one p reason , you can feed two people for a week!   Thats probably why I could count on one hand the amount of times during my childhood that I waste fast food or food in a restraunt.  

Having a few quick and easy meals that aren’t premade food gets you beyond the  ‘crisis’.  

• Spaghetti and meatballs 
• Nachos 
• Sloppy joes 
• Salmon, baked potatoes, frozen or canned veggie 
• Tomato soup and toasted cheese 
• Egg sandwiches with English. Muffins. Fruit 
• Chilli
• Impossible pie 

All of these take minutes to prep and a lot of them are a step away from the freezer or pantry.   Keeping a pantry or freezer with some basics helps.   

Thursday hauls

This month’s weekly total average is 56.24.




Winco

26.23

Grapes 4.06
Blueberries 2.98
Nectarines 2.07
Lettuce .98
Buns 2 1,50
Steak fries 1.06
Salmon 4.98
Pickles 1.98
Milk 1.98
Bacon 2.38

Grocery Outlet
Salsa 1.49


Dollar Tree
Cookies 2–2.00
Pasta Barilla 2-2.00

Total 4.00

Safeways

4 Nalleys chili  .99
2 Coffee 5.99
Taco shells 2-2.00

4 frozen dinners. 1.88 ea
eggs .99

cod fish 1 lb 5.00

cherries 1.77 lb
2 cucumbers -.88ea
total 37.84

Chain store ads

QFC
Tomatoes on the vine.   .99
Milk .99


Buy 5, save 5
Cheese 2 lbs 4.99
Ice cream 2.49


Alberways

Red cherries 1.77
Blueberries 2 lbs 4.99
Cucumbers/  bell peppers .88

Mi8x or match 4 or more
Cheerios 1.69
Old El Paso taco shells .99
Maxwell house coffee 5.99
Nalleys chilli .99
Sliced cheese 1.99






Bread .89@@
Eggs .99@@

How did she do that...

Putting up hamburger. 

Precooking a batch of hamburger is a good way to make dinner easy and it can be done when the kitchen is cool to save time and money in the kitchen. 

Pictured is a meat loaf in a meat loaf pan that has holes in an inner pan to reduce the fat and not cook the meat sitting to re-absorb  the fat. 

Hamburger crumbles can be added to pasta sauce or you can make taco meat. Cook the hamburger until no pink remains.   Drain in a colander with a pan to catch the fat.   Remove the pan and pour boiling water through the meat in the colander.   This can reduce fat by as much as 17 percent.  Bag the meat in portion controlled batches. 

Meat balls can be made in the oven .   Use a portion scoop to make the meatballs consistent in size.  Place on baking rack over a sheet pan.  Fat will drain and you can bake a large batch saving energy and time.   Portion control meatballs in a zip lock bag.   

This cuts a lot of time out of meal prep at dinner time.   Tacos can be from freezer to table in as little as 10 minutes.    

Monday Kitchen Management

Kitchen management is taking an hour out if your bust schedule to save stress during the usually hectic dinner hour,   It saves time and money,

Freezer cooking has its place , especially if the resident cook is going to be gone or life is going to be hectic, but I don’t  do it because I dint have the stamina to work 8 hours on my feet and we don’t have enough freezer space to put  things that don’t need to be frozen in it.   Its a time vs stock issue
We are eating down the freezer now and I have  been only buying fresh produce, dairy, and just what needs to be replenished,

I digress, Kitchen Management :

1. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead.  
2. Scrub the bins and shelves . 
3. Wash and disinfect counters and sinks and drains. 
4. Wash kitchen floor
5. Wax north side cabinets. 
6. Wash vegetables for dinners— potatoes and salad ingredients 
7. Thaw chicken breast 
8. Straighten the pantry. 

Meal Plans for week of 7/16/18

Meal Plans are a tool that saves money and time.   Being organized always makes life easier and reduces stress. 

• Chicken Parm, salad 
• Pizza - a family favorite 
• Minestrone , cheezy rolls 
• Beef enchaladas , lettuce, tomato 
• Beer chilli , bread sticks 
• Tuna cassarole,  peas and carrots 
• Breakfast for Dinner- another favorite, everyone cooks. 

Notes: 

1. Chicken parm is an easy, quick dinner.   Spaghetti remains to be a good price often.   It cooks i. 2 minutes in the insta pot.  Quick release.   Pasta sauce is less expensive than scratch.  Parmesean cheese is real and in a deli type container.   Watching at Winco and FM, you can find it on sale often.   If not parmesean, then a blend or Romano works. 
2. Pizza is a favorite.  A cheese pizza from scratch is a dollar.  Pepperoni is a dollar at the DT and there are 14 pieces in half a package.   Freeze pizza sauce from the DT .  One jar makes 5 pizzas.   Save veggies and meat scraps when appropriate.   Buffalo chicken pizza is an alternataive without tomato.  
3. Minestrone is meatless.   Cheezy rolls are a biscuit dough rolled out jelly roll fashio. And filled with cheese.   
4. Beef enchaladas are made with homemade enchilada sauce. Add lettuce and tomato. 
5. Beer chilli is from one of the DT cookbooks .  Cook beans in the insta pot instead of buying cans saves a lot of money.  Beans, hamburger (already cooked) Taco type seasonings, tomatoes, corn, and peppers and beer. 
6. Tuna casserole made with scratch soup base.  Frozen peas and real carrots. 
7. Breakfast for Dinner is a hit here.  Everyone cooks something.   

Groceries on the cheap takes a different approach to putting food on the table.   Purchasing groceries in bulk and when they are at their RBP saves time, money, and affords a piece of mind that cant be achieved buying your food one meal at a time.   Life happens.   Bleep happens to the best of us.  Being prepared and self sufficient is the gateway to piece of mind.  

Studies have shown that people that have to worry about where there next meal is coming from have a lower life expectancy .   Stress is not good for anyone,especially not children.   

You can eat well on four dollars a day.   We didn't set out to do that, it just happened.  I challenged myself to find every trick I could to lower food costs while maintaining a balanced diet .   It became a game.  Groceries are the most expensive thing in most peoples discretionary budget.   If one’s budget is tight, it is the most logical place to learn to economize .  

This blog is free from advertising.   I don't make money from this, I just want to help people.   Bee. There, done that.  I’m sharing.  Please share.   You never know who or when you might be helping someone.   

Dollar stores cook books

There are a few things...that we usually get at the dollar tree.   There are some name brand items that are just plain cheap and are the same quality as you can get other places for more money.

Cookbooks purchased at the Dollar Tree. 

All have really good recipes in them and use name brand ingredients.   Of course, you can always substitute scratch for the name brand ingredients or purchase the items on sale.   Scratch eliminates 

ingredients that you cant pronounce.  

It is always nice to get a different perspective on meals.   We all tend to get in a rut.   Something new is a pleasant change.   These cookbooks have many recipes that can be made efficiently and economically.   

And, who can turn down chocolate....did somebody say chocolate!

Classic baked apples 

Tomato topping for bruschetta

Pulled pork with cola bbq sauce 

Chicken tortilla soup 

Mama’s beer chili 

 Heavenly Harvest Pork Roast 

Boneless Pork Roast with garlic 

From the Crock Pot slow cooker recipes 

Beef Taco Skillet 

Pork chops Florentine 

Beef and Broccoli 

Cheddar penne with sausage and peppers 

Mexican pizza 

25 minute chicken and noodles 

Country chicken casserole 

Chili land rice 

From Campbell’s great for cooking 

Simply. Special brownies 

English toffee bars 

Chocolate and peanut butter fudge cheesecake 

Nutty toffee coffee cake 

Fudge brownie pie 

Easy chocoberry cream desert

Deep dark mousse 

From Hershey’s cocoa 

Well worth a buck.   

Thursday Grocery Haul

First:
Per week expenditures
2107 55.06
1QQ 18 —51.98
2Q 18 —52.40
July 52.57

This’s includes a bulk chicken purchase , bulk pork purchase and prorated beef.

Total below 33.13


Dollar Tree
Kosher spears
Sliced pineapple
Craisens

3.00

Grocery Outlet
Pacific Tomato soup 1.99. (3.49 at FM)
Stuffing mix .99
Cheese , shredded with bacon 1 lb 2.98

Total 5.98


Fred Meyers

Tortilla chips 1.99
Taco shells 1.00
Bananas .96
Gala apples 2.09
Blue cheese 4.99
Total 12.03

Total 21.01

Wednesday,, 7/11

Mission tortilla chips .99
Tillamook ice cream 2.99
Lettuce  .99
Bananas .45


Fred Meyers

Tomatoes 1.22
Pasta 1.00

Cherries 4.48

Concept: Chicken Breast

FM has split chicken breast for .88 a pound.   Chicken breasts here can cost as much as 8.00 a pound.
Foster farms is local chicken here.

Split chicken breast is the breast with the ribs attached.

Its not hard to get your moneys worth and its a good stock up price.

• Work on a sheet pan to contain chicken cooties .   LOL 
• Cut the rib section off of the breast.   Place the rib section in a zip lock bag. 
• Place the breast in a quart bag.  Uses tongs.  We use dollar store bags for this because then we put the quart bags in a zip lock gallon bag to label and freeze. 
• Before you go to bed, place the rib sections in the slow cooker, add water up to within an inch of the top of the pot. And add some vegetable trimmings and herbs of choice.   Set to Low. 
• In the morning.  Drain the stock into a pan through a colander and place in glass jars or deli containers up to an inch or so from the top .  Chill and freeze. 
• Pick the meat off the bones and place in freezer bag. 

Chain store ads; the best of them.....

QFC - we didn’t get the ad this week....my husband went down and got one from the store.  It was on his way to the beach. 

Strawberries 2 lbs 1.99

Raspberries, blackberries 3.99 - 12 ounces 

Cherries 1.99

Buy 5 save 5 

Tillamook ice cream 2.99

Kelloggs cereal 1.79 - should be coupons

Daves killer bread 2.99

NOT A BARGAIN.  Ground beef 5.99 lb 

ALBERWAYS 

Broccolli .99 lb 

Grapes 1.99

Salsa 24 oz 1.79@@

Tillamook ice cream 2.99@@

@@ means there is an in ad coupon or you can use a digital coupon.

FRED MEYERS 

MOST OF THIS IS SPECIALTY SALES; 

BOGOS 

FRANZ BREAD 

FROZEN FRUIT OUTSHINE 

SMOKED CHICKEN SAUSAGE 

TURKEY BURGERS 

4 days only:  W, TH, F.S

Pork ribs .99

Broccolli 99

Tomatoes on the vine .99

Eggs .99

Cherries 1.99

Ground turkey 2,99

FF CHICKEN:  SPLIT CHICKEN BREAST, THIGHS, LEGS, WHOLE FRYERS .88

Digital Coupons, Friday and Saturday Only, up to 5 quanity 

Ice craeam .99

Shrimp 4.77

Buy 5, save 5 

Kelloggs cereal 1.79

Cheese 4.99