Meals, day five

continuing with the hot weather theme......

Fruit salad, potato salad, cucumber salad, BBQ  beef sandwiches.

Dollar store and grocery outlet haul

Dollar tree and grocery outlet haul.  

Dollar tree
Chex granola , gluten free
Jello , sugar free
Cookie tins
Salt and pepper grinders full of coarse sea salt and pepper
Individual pizza crusts 2/1.00


Grocery outlet
Small pasta sauce in jars .50
Cheese sticks , 1.00
Alaska smoked salmon 5.00


17.00

This weeks menus , day four.

It's still not here.   Back to my normal go to.   We detoured with a date night to ourselves and a pot luck night.


Day four

Corn on cob, fruit salad , potato,salad, leftover shrimp, ribs, cherries for desert.


Day five coming soon!  

how to plan.

My food averages  1/2 price.   Our USDA stats for thrifty meals comes to 146.00 a week.  I spend 75.00.  That's almost half of the total figure and that includes keeping a stock.   Actual cost of eaten food is probably a little less.  

Eating on the cheap does not have to consume a lot of time.   I have more time now that I'm not working at a job, but still have plenty to keep me busy.  

• I  write once a week I write  this blog.   
• Once a week, usually Tuesday, I analyze the ads ( here) and figure out which two chains have the best buys on what we need.   
• Once a week , about Wednesday, we clean  the fridge and take note of things that need to be used up soon.   
• After deciding which stores we need to go to, I plan my trip.   Check FAVADO for prices on  things that aren't in the ad and coupons that might me stacked.  
• Then, I check Ibotta for any rebates at that store that I might take advantage of.   
• I take a cooler, my coupon  binder, the ads, and a calculator with me. All this is probably an hour expended.   
• When I get home, I post the receipts to a spread sheet.   
• Once a month , I download coupons,  file the new coupons, and throw away the expired ones.    
• Once a week, I make out meal plans. The same day I clean out the fridge and list what we need to use and what we need.   

Not including shopping time or cleaning the fridge, this  is about six hours a month planning time.  

At a savings of three hundred dollars a month, that's about fifty dollars an hour.   

Thanks for stopping by 

Please share and follow

Jane 

Example of why you plan

Yo plait yogurt .85.  On sale for .50.  Coupon .50 off five.   Now it's .40 ( half price ) in comes Ibotta .20.   Now it's .20.   That's roughly 25 percent of retail.

Snowball effect.....take the .20 yogurt, add a glass of fruit juice, freeze in a mold ( at the dollar store or better ones at Fred Meyers) and you have icy treats for .30 instead  of four dollars.

Cheaper,---scratch or ready made!

Ok, it's three in the am and someone woke me up.   LOL

Five...or more things that are cheaper scratch or ready made .....

1. Bread crumbs.    The last I checked , bread crumbs were 2.40 a pound!   Why throw your crusts away and pay for someone else's dry bread?   
2. Chicken breasts.   Boneless and skinless chicken breasts are expensive.  Grill packs are a buck a pound.  You can divide a grill pack up into meals and debone the breasts and freeze them.  As an added bonus, you know where the chicken came from.   Not all chicken has a state of origin.  
3. Lemon juice on a bottle is far cheaper than fresh squeezed.    ( not always the best on fish , but works for many things,   
4. Seafood cocktail sauce is easy and tastes better than in a jar and lots cheaper.  No waste.   
5. Ditto tarter sauce,   
6. Salad dressing from scratch do not last as long as bottled.   With coupons you can get bottled dressing for free or close to free.  Sticking to a few favors assures you can use them up quickly.   
7. Tomato soup is far cheaper from a box or can than it is from fresh tomatoes unless you grow a bumper crop.   It takes lots of tomatoes at a dollar or more a pound to make a pot of tomato soup.    
8. Chicken soup is cheaper made from scratch!    As is chicken stock.   
9. French bread is far cheaper from scratch than it is store bought.   
10. Hunts pasta sauce on sale is cheaper than buying the tomato sauce to make it.   

Thanks for stopping by

Please follow or join.   

Jane 

1024.70 a month

The amount the average family spends on food.  Hard to believe, since for a lot of people, that would be a good portion of their income.   I am maybe guessing that figure includes some serious eating out.
None the less, we are a family of four adults and a child, and we spend less than a third of that.   I am not going to pretend that we spend a hundred dollars a month on food because I did that in 1970, but we do spend around 300.00 a month on food.    I have noticed that we are spending about ten percent more this last quarter than the quarter before.

In our area, one grocery chain bought two others.   Now basically, we have Kroger and Haggens.  We do have Costco and grocery outlet and are getting a Winco soon.   I'm hoping that gives us more competition. I'm wondering if prices have gone up that much, or if I have a lot larger stock built.  Or, if there is some other reason.   I'm still at an average of 75.00 a week.

I'm dong this by using a variety of tools.   It's constantly changing, I am still learning and trying new ways to stretch the proverbial grocery dollar.

1. Ibotta gets you cash back for buying foods that almost never have coupons. 
2. Fav ado  tells you sale prices even when the store doesn't have ads like Costco and Winco so you can compare and it tells you of there is a  coupon and where to find it. 
3. Coupons can be downloaded monthly on coupons.com.   Only download what you think you might use.   Match coupons with sales for the best buys.
4. The Sunday paper has coupons, along with the flyer that comes in the mail with the rite aid ad. I only clip what I know I will I use.  Date  the insert and file it so that you can use it later if you find a match up.   
5. Use the store ads to compare prices and find the RBP on the staples you need and the protein of the week and your perishables.   
6. Pick two stores and plan your trip.   Buy only what is on your list and get on and get out. The longer you spend in a store, the more money you will spend.  Don't pickup anything unless You are going to buy it.   
7.  Buy only amounts of perishables that you will up before they go bad.  
8. Take a day mid week and assess what's on the fridge and use up anything that is in the edge.  Think fried rice or soup.    
9. Compile recipes for the entrees your family likes to eat.  Make a matrix to helping meal planning.  Plan your meals on a worksheet that has a use up and a buy column before you go to the store.  Be flexible and take advantage of unadvertised sales of you see them.   I once got a whole bag of peppers for a buck, and whole chickens for .50.   Find recipes that your family will eat that are quick and easy. 
10. Spend more time planning and shopping, and less time in the kitchen.   You get paid for shopping, not for cooking.    
11. Once you have your basic planning done, ( that's another blog! ) it doesn't take much time to plan a trip and shop.   I don't take hours to plan a trip and I don't take twenty hours a week to coupon.   The time I do spend is well worth the effort.  It affords us a better quality of life.   It means  we can have more than just food and meds.   

Thanks for stopping by 

Please share and follow 

Jane 

This weeks menus, a work in the making , day 2

Sunday :  it's still hot here like the hottest it's been in years.    My take is to make salads early in the day, add to them all week, and cook a main entree to go with.   Tonight  my husband is cooking tuna melts.

1. Mixed fruit salad (strawberries, blues, cantaloupe ) 
2. Pasta salad with peas and peppers 
3. Cucumber salad 
4. Potato salad 

Costs : salads eaten all week. Some  are replenished.   

Strawberries are a  dollar at Fred Meyers.    Cantaloupe was 1.50 (1/2)  Blues 5.00 2 lbs.   

Pasta Salad was .75 .   

English cucumbers were on sale at Costco - multiples for 2.49. 

Potato salad was 3.99 at Grocery outlet.    

About 12.00 divided by four is three dollars a meal.   

Tuna melts were made from English muffins (.50) and .50 albacore tuna from wilco with a coupon.    

Cheese was on sale at Winco.    Total to serve four, two dollars.    

Monday Dinner 

Shrimp and salad 

Notes : shrimp was five dollars at Safeway's.   Bacon  Cesear salad. 

Tuesday dinner 

Part of a pot luck ( what's left) 

Suddenly salad classic , added tomatoes, black olives, peppers, parsley, 

re writing the book!

You can take almost  any recipe and remake it to suit your needs.  I have noticed with my daughter that she thinks she needs  exactly what a recipe calls for.   Not so.   You can adjust a recipe and sometimes make it better than the original.   There is a recipe circulating on social media for meat lovers Mac  and cheese.   It's got a bit too much meat to suit me and therefore , not a good on the cheap recipe.  

Use either /or a combination of leftover meat to total about 1/3 a pound for four servings

• Cooked hamburger 
• Pepperoni
• Bacon 

Cook 1/2 a pound of shell macaroni until done, drain.
Meanwhile, make 1 cup of white sauce.   ( 1 T fat, 1T flour, and 1 cup milk.   Or use my white sauce mix.  
Add six  ounces of grated cheese of your choice ( 1/2 cup or so) or a combination of cheeses enough to make sauce cheesy.

Pour sauce over drained pasta in a baking dish. Stir in cooked meat.   Top with a couple of chopped green onions.  

Bake at 375 until bubbly.

Serves 4 .

I would add some frozen mixed vegetables to round out the meal.  


Notes :

• I never lay full price for pasta .  I have paid as little as .38 a pound with a coupon for the blue box, double fiber    
• Mixed veggies are .99 at Fred Meyers and there is a .2o Ibotta on them.  
• My white sauce mix recipe is on a older post.   Less fat, less salt.   
• Grated cheese is as low as 2.00 a pound at grocery outlet or 2.30 or so at business Costco.   If I can't find it cheap, I use blocks of cheese I find on sale.   Great it and sprinkle with about a tablespoon of cornstarch per 2 pound Brick   A mixture of cheeses is best.   
• Save hamburger from your portion controlled bulk meat purchases. 
• Turkey bacon is at the dollar store and there is an Ibotta on it if I'm remembering right   
• There are coupons for a dollar off two normal pepperoni and you can get them at the dollar store   

Pasta.   .19

Cheese .50 

White sauce mix takes water 

1/2 pkg pepperoni .25 

Green onion @.59 bunch .10

Total cost 1.05.   

Knowing your prices and getting things at the RBP is worth the effort of you are trying to stretch a budget.   

The Sunday ads

Fred Meyers is the only store that publishes  their ads om Sunday.

Tuesday is senior day and everything, with exceptions, is ten percent.   Only private band groceries are ten percent.

Strawberries .99
Blues 2.99
Good ground beef 3 99
Dryers 2/5@@
Sour cream .99@@
Raspberries 2/5
Green onions/radishes .59
Vegetables, frozen .99
Tillamook yogurt 10/5
Lettuce ,99
Bag of peppers 3.99


Thanks for stopping by

Please follow

Jane

FYI. Ibotta has .20 on frozen veggies at Fred Meyers.  Makes a pound of veggies .79.

The Snowball Effect

There is a theory in the  Do it on the cheap  community called the Snowball  Effect.  

Basically , it says if you turn the money you save on something into saving on something else, the money grows.   Like picking up more snow when you roll a snowball!   

If I save twenty five dollars on Ibotta, and spend it on a Starbucks card or movie tickets the stops.  If I get a Amazon card and spend it on something that will save me more money, my savings grows.  Maybe I buy a food processor.   Hen I make my own breadcrumbs a crust and she more money.  

never buy bread crumbs.   It is it smart to throw your bread crusts away and then pay someone 2.40 or more for someone else's dry bread.   

There are all kinds of things that would parlay money into saving more money.   Maybe toilet paper so cheaper ,  I haven't checked.  Or a blender would make smoothies if you buy them.    A fast coffee maker in the morning would save the trip to the lots a bucks coffee  stop?   A crockpot would make dinners happen when you get home from work saving take out?   

Use your thinking cap, I am sure  you can think of many more.   Cloth diapers?    Cloth  napkins!    A small freezer!   

The snowball effect.   Stretch your dollars, bye sing the savings to stretch more dollars!   

5 web sites that HELP groceries on the cheap!

I have been finding web sites lately that are a lot of help in the quest for groceries on the cheap and what to do  with them after  you got them.

1. Betty Crocker on line cookbook.    Tons of recipes   and an ap to plug in what you have and find a recipe!
2. Fav ado -  lets you plug in the stores around you and they will tell you what's on sale, prices and if there is a coupon for it, and where to find the coupon ,
3. Ibotta - download and watch some easy short videos and earn  money  when you buy some groceries.   It's about the only way in this part of the country that you can make money on groceries.    Get cash for buying things that there are usually no coupons for ...milk, eggs, bananas, booze, bread, fruits....
4. Coupons.com.  - printable coupons   You can print two of each one.   They come out the first of the month.   Manufacturers limit the quantity printed.   
5. Coupon grocery cart......coupons in your e mail box

Simple, beat the heat!

Early,this morning, I  made a pasta salad and cucumber salad.   We went to the dollar store and I picked up ice cream cookies and some Popsicle molds.   Grocery outlet netted is some potato salad.    We are having salads and open faced sandwiches for dinner tonight on the back deck where it is cool.

The kids are playing on the wading pool I bought with  credits from Amazon.   I have added some money to Ibotta account and will save them up until I get Amazon credits.    I can always use Amazon credits for toilet paper among other things.

There is a new batch of coupons on coupons.com.  This time I found yogurt and suddenly salad coupons and pepperoni coupons.  

Planning

Meal planning/ grocery management work sheet.   Squares  for daily menu plans.   A box for your menu plan matrix, and columns for inventory of items that need to be use and a shopping list.  

Planning is the first step to eating in the cheap.    

Ten ways to save in your food budget

It's no surprise that the cost of groceries has gone up.   I am seeing a ten percent increase in my food expenses from the first quarter to the second quarter of this year.   It could be that we are very well stocked and the actual cost of our food at home is not  appreciably more.

Last year about this time, we both lost our jobs because a developer decided to upgrade the building we were working in.  That  left a big hole in our budget.  Coupled with the rise in the cost of living , it left me a void to fill.

I started trying to sell excess things in the house on Craig's list.  No luck.   I think they get buried in a sea of garbage.  I'm trying Offer Up.   It helps maybe to see the pics up front.
In addition we :

• Re assessed our car insurance and got a reduction in premium, It was still a raise in the amount we pay because of price increases, but less than it would be. 
• We reassessed our communication bill and got more for less.   More than ten percent discount. 
• I started taking advantage of our unseasonable hit weather and hanging clothes on the line.   
• I started filling pitchers with water while waiting for the hot water.   . I can use them to water the plants or wash fruits and veggies.   
• I turned off the furnace and we are using fans to cool the house along with closing the shades on the hot  side of the house in the morning. 
• I buy children's clothing and my seasonal clothes at the goodwill on senior discount day.   

I digress   Back to food.  

The USDA cost of food at  home for my husband and I using the thrifty category is 93.39.  This is the
basis of SNAP, plus the COL factor.   We are feeding ourselves and supplementing our daughter and granddaughter.   My daughter buys their specialty diet foods and my granddaughter eats lunch at school during the week.    That being said, our total cost including stocking, is 79.02 a week.   Actual cost of food eaten  would be less because we are well stocked at the moment. I'm have taken inventory and can tell better next quarter.   

Ways to cut food costs and lower your food bill. 

• Stock.   By stocking the basic staples when the price is lowest, you save having to pay that dreaded F word...full price!   
• Buying your protein on a rotating basis, using the so called loss leader for the week assures you the lowest prices and is a more efficient way to buy and cook your protein.   Set yourself a matrix for meal plans.   Ours is 2 beef, 2 chicken or pork, 2 vegetarian, and 1fish or shellfish.  Buy what you can find on sale each week and buy enough to portion control as many meals as you will need for the month.  We would buy enough hamburger to feed us 8 times.  Then I would make crumbles, meatballs, taco meat and a meatloaf enough for eight meals.   Freeze what you are not eating that week.   Next week, it might be chicken.   
• Fav ado is an ap that lets you choose the grocery stores in your area and compare prices.   Know your prices for the staple items that you use on a regular  basis.   It also will match coupons.   
• Use the ads and an ap to compare and find which TWO chain stores have the best prices in a particular week for the protein , produce, and stock items you need. Plan your trip.  The object is to pay RBP on your food.   
• Coupons can be found for the things you need to buy.  Don't buy junk food or mixes with few exceptions.Sundry   items are not best purchased at the grocery store.   There is a dollar store for that.   LOL. Coupons are the best way with advertised real sales to purchase things like laundry detergent and shampoo.    The least amount of products you can get away with the better.   I never buy dryer sheets, fabric softener, conditioner for our hair.  We do buy color 
• catchers for loads of brights that might bleed.   They are worth  the cost if they save a load of expensive clothes.   
• Coupons.com is a website that has coupons for a lot of things.   They come out the first of the month.  There is a limit on how many you can print (2) and you have to go through a lot of junk to find the coupons for real food.    
• The newspaper inserts are another resource.  I buy one Sunday  paper at the dollar store.  Another insert comes with our rite aid ad in the mail on Tuesdays usually.   I only cut things I regularly buy and file the inserts by month so I can retrieve a coupon if I run into a match up.   
• Write the date in the insert.   It helps a lot!   
• You can use multiple coupons on a product  at a store.   That is, a store coupon and a manufacturers coupon. Everywhere here, but Winco.   Winco will not stack coupons.  
• You can also use Ibotta with manufacturers coupons, store coupons, and store sales.  Ibotta is a web site that lets you earn money on he purchase of certain products on certain stores.  It is a good way to get discount in milk, eggs, bananas, and other things that you almost never find a coupon for.   
• Meal plans, inventory, and assessing your fridge for the things you need to incorporate into your meals before they go bad saves a bunch.   

Know your prices, buy at rock bottom prices, and use up everything.  

Four plus one is five.   Four people, one dinner, five bucks,   If you have a three hundred dollar snap budget, you need five dollar dinners ( average) to have enough to make it through the month,   

Do your math so you can budget appropriately.  

You can eat realitively healthy and not spend the farm or run  out of SNAP before you run out of month.  You can eat all month and have pantry items left on full snap.   Snap does discount your allotment of you have other income.  They expect you to supplement your allotment.  

I started this blog because I knew that there were people that have to be on snap and have not experienced the situation before and didn't know how to eat on the cheap.   They were eating crap and running out of money before they ran out of month.    You can have good food on a dime.   

Save anyway you can!

I just got my husbands loaf of bread for five Cents!  Using Ibotta!   It was easy and it took only a few minutes.   I saved more than half on our food today . The  top pic is the things I got for  a song at the Goodwill with senior discount Wednesday.   I got a brand new industrial sized cotton yarn spool for 1.60.   I see a lot of dish cloths in my future.    LOL?  The bottom is the groceries haul.  .  All purchased at half price average.   Using coupons, sales. And Ibotta!  

1-2 priced food. Save any way you can. Ibotta is one way to save on things that never have a coupon.

Meal plans

Developing a meal plan matrix is one of the fastest ways to beat the what's for dinner syndrome.  Everything is better with a plan.   I am working this week with a thirty minutemdinnermcookbook I purchased at the dollar tree.   It is supposed to be five dollar dinner meals.  I'll believe it when I do the math.   LOL

I did a meal plan work sheet.  It has squares for seven days, my matrix, and two columns.  One for food to buy and one for food to use up.  

Meals

1. ( Ham) and apple waffles 
2. Chicken primavera rigatoni
3. Eggs
4. Sausage and sauerkraut 
5. Taco salad 
6. Fish packets 
7. Chicken enchiladas 

Beef has taken a backseat to chicken because  of prices.   I still try to get two servings a week for the iron.   Beef is still the best way  to get iron on your diet.  At least the most efficient to get it naturally.   

Just my opinion based on information I have found from the USDA.   

The goodwill and/ or the dollar  tree are good sources for cookbooks or magazines for inspiration. Also the  online version of the Betty Crocker  cookbook has searching that will help you plan a meal from the  things you have.   

Thanks for stopping by

Please share 

Jane 

This weeks ads , July 1st.

Things are a changing,    After the big merge between Haggens  buying Safeways and Albertsons, I see subtle differences coming.  Five dollar Friday's Safeways  were scaled down last week.   This week there are a few days of five dollar specials.   The ads are almost identical in layout and prices are more expensive.   I can't wait until Winco joins the party and we have a bit  more competition.   

Safeways 

Pork country style ribs 1.79

Corm 3/1

Melons  2/5

Hot dog buns .88@@

Tillamook cheese 4.99@@

Folders coffee 6.99@@

Bushes baked beans 2.49@@

Kraft singles 1.99@@

 15 percent beef 3.49

Radishes or green onions 1.00

Condiments BOGO.  I don't know of that's a bargain or not, prices  are not listed.   

Catsup is at the dollar tree for a buck and there are  coupons at the dollar tree for .50 off two.   That's the cheapest price I have seen it.  Not all stores have coupons, mi have seen them at aurora and Kenmore. I see wish vine salad dressing.  With BOGO and a coupon on coupons.com for 1.00 off two, it could be a good score!   

Five dollar for five days...July 1-5

Blues

Dryers or drumsticks ice cream 2/5

Pulled pork or ribs 

2 salad kits 

Hills hire farms smoked sausage 2/5

QFC

Hebrew national franks 2/7

Tillamook cheese 5.99** cheaper at Safeways w coupon. 

Tillamook ice cream 3/10 

Berries 3.99

Hills hire farm smoked sausage  buy 6 2.99* cheaper at Safeways 

Albertsons 

Bbq sauce .99@@

July 1-4 only 

Drumstick ice cream, dryers 2.49

Hebrew national franks BOGO?   

Coupons 

Bushes beans 3/5- cheaper elsewhere

Mission tortilla chips 1.79

Haggens -  my advice would be to not bother.  Everything is a lower price or the same elsewhere.   

Blues 2.00 pt.   

Hebrew national 3.99

Fry 2.99@@

Bushes beans 2/3@@

E

Trying new foods makes Eating on the cheap fun!

   

Safeways haul last week