I am bulk cooking three pounds of Jimmy Dean sausage. While opening the chubs, I was reminded of what I paid of these sausages . One was free, one was 2.25 purchased with a coupon, and one was full price ( a mistake ) and 5.79. All were not out of date and all were the same sized package, That's a 5.79 difference in price spread. A good reason to pay attention to prices and not just put the same thing in your cart at the same store every week.
That almost six dollars can buy another two meals if you continue to look before you leap.
Consider this, it's called the snowball effect.......only it is much better than that snowball the neighbor kid threw at your picture window. Lol
I got a free chub of sausage with a coupon, That saved 5.79. With that 5.79, I bought 4 ragu pasta sauces with coupons for .75 each. Now I have 2.79 left. I bought 4 Barilla pastas for .625 each with two coupons, that's 2.50. Now I have .29 left. Now I have the start of
4 full packages of pasta
4 jars of pasta sauce - 4 pasta dinners plus a hold lit for a pizza
Enough sausage for part of a pizza
The rest of a package of sausage for a quiche for dinner
And the pizza sauce of o snag a little from the pasta dinner.
Or, the majority of five dinners.
My argument for spending a total of ten minutes while I was waiting for my turn at the hair salon on couponing, This week I got :
- Free pound of jimmy dean sausage
- Free sack of frozen peas
- Free nacho chips
- Free dipper yogurt
- 4 jars of pasta sauce 3.00
- 4 packages of pasta 250
- 2 packages (1 lb) cheese 1.76 7.26
- 10 lbs potatoes 1.78 9.04
That is enough to go a long ways to feeding a weeks worth of dinners, Granted, this works best when you find an equally good week and buy other foods to rotate. But, essentially you can :
- Pull a few tablespoons of cooked and de-fatted sausage for the pizza. Add cheese and pepperoni bought with coupons for .50 at the DT. 1/2 a package will do.
- Pull half of the remainder for nachos add cheese , the free chips and anything you have to augment - peppers, tomatoes, beans ....
- The rest can be for a quiche. Add eggs, milk, cheese, and bisquick
- 4 meals of pasta and sauce . Add parm cheese? A salad?
- Baked potato bar- add a dollar can of chilli, cheese.
- Potato soup- add biscuits or corn bread, milk and carrots, celery.
- Scalloped potatoes, ham cubes, and peas . Ham cubes are - little more than two dollars at Winco, or you might have some left from Easter.
Basically, notmcounting bare basics like flour, yeas, milk spices etc. you would need :
Pepperoni .50
Can of chilli 100
Can of beans .50 ( or a 1-1/2 pound of dry beans for 100 at the dollar store.
Can of doced tomatoes .50
Milk 149 this week at QFC
Carrots 100
Ham cubes 2.39
Celery 100
Salad 100
Another 10 dollars.
7 dinners for under twenty dollars. - the price of a take out pizza or two dinners from a meal service.