How many times have s have asked yourself this ?
I'm not ready to put Halloween up yet, maybe a few leaves. I got a gift of the hot psds and towels from the dollar tree. I picked up the placemats that went with them for the breakfast bar. That spruces the whole kitchen up for six dollars. It doesn't take much to make the kitchen table festive!
Dollar tree has stemmed votives. I had three kids, two of them boys. You can have steamed votives and nice things, Kids can learn to act appropriately .
Some turning leaves from the dollar store, A bowl of fake apples collected through the years. I saw some at the goodwill yesterday, Votives from the dollar store, A crystal bowl was a gift, but you could use any bowl, there are always interesting bowls and baskets at the goodwill.
Kitchen management day, I have already oreoed somemthinfs. We went to Freddies yesterday, I didn't buy much food, but i replaced the meat tenderizer that my husband broken trying to break up some ice and my diabetic candy was on sale. What's not to like about 1/2 price chocolate without any Carbs! LOL.
- Cottage cheese
- La croix -not in the food budget - - more healthy substitute for pop,
- 4 fire roasted diced tomatoes, and dining 2 dices tomatoes with jalapeños,
- 5 pounds of carrots,
- Radishes
- Butter
Basically, what was on sale and some carrots and radishes.
I saw a interesting article about what store is the best store to shop at. There is no best store. No store has the best prices on everything. Certain stores are nitmed for certain items that they sell a lot of and therefore, can price really low. Shopping sales and shopping multiple stores is your best bet to find 1/2 price or more. I used to shop on Friday and hit two chain stores, the ones with the best prices for the week of the products I needed. Now, our selection of stores has dwindled. We have QFC ( Kroger) and Safeways/Albertsons that have merged and have one set of prices that we get the ad for on Wednesday. Fred Meyers (Kroger) we get on Sunday, Winco and Costco we don't get at all. That makes one shopping day a lot harder to manage. I usually group my shopping so we use less gas, We do have a car that gets 50 mpg.
When you go to the store and just buy the things on a good sale, they call it cherry picking. The grocers don't like it, because they want you to buy a lot of expensive things they make a big prodit on. I don't usually just get the sale items, I don't, however, get the high priced items. A lot of profit is made from. Using soaps and sundries that are priced higher than other stores. It's convenient to buy everything in one place,but conveniences have a price tag. A lot of everyday things like toothpaste, deodorant, napkins, tissue, are at the dollar tree a lot cheaper. . Same brand. Less money.
I have found .50 coupons for puffs. That makes them 1/2 price at dollar tree. It makes the, closer to 75 percent off from regular stores. We see toilet paper when we were kids. I have sinusitis. I use a lot of tissue. I want it all over the house. I got some for .69 at Fred Meyers. It was a smaller tissue but there were over a hundred tissues in the box. I'm thinking we don't need large tissues.
The mantra is to never pay full price. If you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. There is always that person that buys nothing to decorate the house or try to make it festive or fun. It doesn't have to be expensive, bit it adds to your quality of life. A few things, packed away for another year.
I digress. This is about food. Paying 1/2 price or less is the key to eating well on foir dollars a day. Think about it, basically you are eating in eight dollars a day.or almost a grand a month for a family of four. We eat on an average of 75.00 a week and have for years. Basically, there are three of us. And, that also stocks a pantry. It's full at the present because I am expecting a large expense shortly, and we can eat out of the pantry and freezer and balance the budget. This is the only place that. Can get fifty percent on my money with relative safety.
Having a stock is not hoarding. It's being prepared. The young people that have never seen the dark side of broke with no safety net don't see the need. We had a big snow one year, the snow plow came down the street and blocked the driveway with a pile of ice. It wasn't safe for us to be walking. Without food we would have been in a pickle-- no one want to survive on the pickles in the fridge. LOL. Stocking gives you a sense of security , you are prepared of there is an emergency and it can be as simple as having a sick child that shouldn't go out.
No child should suffer the insecurity of haveing nothing in the house to eat. Now, I have known teens that think because there is no chips and pop on the house and they actually have to cook something means there is no food on the house. LOL.
With a little sleuthing and food buying skills, you can have a lot of food, for little money.
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