Fred Meyer ad for Sunday

• Butter is two dollars a pound today only with andigitL coupon at qfc . You can have 5

• WTH F only w digital coupon. Shrimp 5.77 and salmon fir 5.77
• Petite sirloin steaks 2.97
• Grapes 1.68
• Apples 1.47

DIGITAL COUPONS 

Lean cuisine 4/6

Cheerios 1.49

Breyers ice cream 1.99

Cream soups 4/2

Pasta .50

Best foods 2.99

Peanut butter .99

———————

Ground turkey 2/5

80/20 beef 3.49   Not a good buy 

Apples .99 🍎 apples 🍏 

Note insta pot is 79.00 and vets or service get 10 percent off on Thursday.  Bring the ads 

Sloppy joe recipe. .....scratch

It’s almost as cheap to use the can, but there is some samvings and you can tailor the recipe for picky eaters.  


Sloppy joes -serves 4

• 3/4 lb of ground beef, cooked **
• 1 can diced tomatoes, drained, reserving juice 
• 1/2 of a pepper, chopped -green is good or u can use what u have 
• 1/2 medium onion , chopped 
• 1 clove garlic , chopped 
• Tomato paste as needed 

• In the insta pot on sauté, put the peppers and onion.   Cook until somewhat soft . 
• Turn off sauté function and add cooked ground beef, 
• Put diced tomatoes threw a sieve or pulse in a food processer.   Add to pot. 
• Add seasonings.  
• Add tomato paste until you have the desired color and consistency,  about 1 Tbls
• Slow cook 4-8 hours.  

Notes :  I used the juice from the tomatoes for part of the water in rice.  Also used a yellow pepper because that was what we found on sale at GO.  

We always cook ground beef when it comes home from the store.  Its a real time saver to batch cook and portion control the beef.  It means you can find time to de-fat and when it’s tome to cook dinner, you are half way done.   

Dinner in the slow cooker means all you have to do is make oven fries and get out your ore made veggie tray,   Easy dinner,    

GO haul

GO is our discount overstock grocery store.  Its no frills and the stock is limited to overstocks.  Some things are almost a,ways there, but the rest is a treasure hunt.  Be sure to watch for  pull dates .

Caramel cookie blondness - a takenoff of Girl Scout cookies    ,99
Hot sauce  .69
Mini marshmallows .89
Thin mint cupcake mix .99
Ketchup 1.59
Dill pickles, 1.99

6 English cucumbers 2.99
Peppers 2/1.00

Sliced cheese 1.99
Smoked rope sausage 1,.99
Bacon 2,99

Total 22.08.  Still under budget

Weekly ads

Its a holiday ! Usually the ads for regular  food are not great on holiday weeks,  
No exception.  


QFC

Saturday only, digital coupon, 1.99 butter

Draper valley whole chicken .99


Digital coupons you have to load them on your card can buy 5

The coupon guru says that you can use a paper coupon with digital when it is a store digital

Campbell’s soup 4/3. Or .75 each.   Coupons out there

General Mills cereal 1:79. Coupons

American beauty pasta :50

Best foods 2.99

Kleenex .99 when u buy 1

HF smoked sausage 1.99

Frozen fruit 2.99 when u buy 1

Tide 3.99.when I buy 1 there r coupons out there , but it depends on what kind of a coupon the first one is,   If the coupon works, it would make it 1.99

 __________
Pork shoulder 1:79

Berries 2/5

Alberways

Bacon 3.99, in 2 lb pkg. @@

The methodology...

• Groceries on the cheap takes a different approach to grocery shopping.   Instead  of going to the  store and buying a list of things that you will use to make dinner for a  specific week, you go to replentish your stock.   I have a dry goods pantry and a freezer.   I have done this without my upright freezer, but I have to admit that having a freezer helps.

Once every quarter or less , we do a costco run for the bulk purchases of flour, oatmeal, and rice.

Weekly, I usually hit two stores after I study the ads and share them with you. I am going looking for

• The rotation protein that is a RBP I have identified in an ad. Sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn’t.   
• Dairy:   I almost always have yoplait yogurt coupons.   I am looking for a sale on sour cream, milk, cottage cheese sometimes, and cheese.  I want milk, sour cream, cottage cheese for as close to a dollar as possible.   Cheese I want for two dollars a pound, but never over 2.35.  Don’t overlook the cases of yogurt, I got a case for 1.98 yesterday.   I have a buy price for eggs at a dollar and butter for 2.50.   I have bought butter for as low as 1.50 and eggs for ass low as .7.  When eggs were .78 I dehydrated them.   
• Fresh fruits and veggies in season.   Always check multiples.   One pound of carrots was a dollar yesterday, 5 pounds were 2.28.   Carrots have a every long fridge life.   Carrot sticks are good for a veggie tray.  Glazed carrots with honey, butter, and ginger are delicious with chicken or pork.   Baby carrots are just carrots that they BLEACH and cut small.   One pound is a dollar. Another drastic price difference.   
• Anything on a good sale that the dry pantry is in need of.   The pantry has shelves an my designated limit of storage of a particular product is mapped out.   I can tell at a glacial if I am short of a particular item.   It has to be a very special price, or I don't buy it.   We do have the luxury of diced green chilies that I get at Winco for 1/2 the price of the national brand an sliced black olives that I got at GO for .69 last time.  Winco has a price of .72 usually.   FM is a lot more.   Making things look and taste good makes groceries on the cheap sustainable.  

Stocking: the what and when of it.

First of all, stocking is not hoarding if it is done with some thought.    None needs a coat closet full of sodas.   LOL.  One does not need 150 bottles of hot pepper sauce.

What:

Things like mustard, mayo, catsup and coffee can be stocked for one ahead.   Look for a sale when you pull your backup unit off the shelf.   That way you never run out of something in the middle of cooking.   If you are efficient you should never have to run to the store or the neighbours because you dont have a much needed item.

As for any other food stuff, it depends on how many of that product you use on a regular basis.   Decide how much of xxx you use on a weekly basis.  Now decide how many weeks you need ahead.  This often is predicated on how often there are sales on something.    Shelf stable items can be. Stored up to a year or more depending on pull dates.   Some things are good past pull dales, depending on the item.  There are good articles out there that will give you good clues.   Pasta is supposed to have an eight year shelf life.    Beans , and anything with an acid content do not have much grace period beyond the pull date.

Some canned goods have taken a large hike in cost.   It really is a benefit if you keep enough stock to last you until you find a good sale.    Green beans can be over a dollar a can.   They can also be five dollars a dozen in a case lot.    The difference in cost means that you can eat three times instead of one.


A list of canned items that are a good thing to stock ( provided you eat and use these things on a regular basis ;

• Green beans 
• Corn 
• Diced tomatoes 
• Some canned beans 
• Salad dressing 
• BBQ sauce
• Dehydrated potatoes 
• Pasta 
• Some soups 

 Keep a few of : 

Black olives 

Mild green chilies 

Pepperoni 

Top ramen ( emergency rations )

Dry milk 

Flour 

Sugar 

Brown sugar 

Water:  emergency rations 

Back up salad oil 

Back up catsup 

Back up mustard 

Back up coffee 

Tea 

The key is to know how much to keep.   You don’t want to have the pull date get away from you, but you don't want to get stuck paying full price either.    

This can be done on a shoestring budget.  It takes time and a skill set to buy things whether you need the immediately or not when you find something o a RBP.    You dot wait until you have a fire to buy a fire detector.   Plan.   If you know you are going to go through a financial crisis, or a month where the expenses are great, save for them, but having a full part can also tide you through.   

We know we have a donut hole to ride through the third to fourth quarter of the year.   Maybe for you, you know you are having a baby and aren't going to feel or have time to shop a lot, or maybe not feel like shopping.   Maybe you know you are gong to have surgery or your spouse is going to have to go away for work and you are carrying the full load.      Whatever it is, plan for it.   There is a wonderful sense of satisfaction knowing you always have food in the house.   No one should have to carry the stress of not hang anything in the cupboards.   That stress lowers your life expectancy.   And it is a terrible hardship on children.   If you have any steady food money at all, you can stretch it to cover a small stock.   Sometimes it takes a can or case at a time.    But you can

do it.    

Winco Haul

Winco Haul -some good buys

Maxwell House Coffee 6.48
Nalleys chilli .99 less 20 cent coupon is .79

Stir fry veggies 1.51
Leaf lettuce 1.58
2 grape tomatoes 2.56
Strawberries 1.98
Celery .98
Blues 3.98
Bc cake mix .88
Pickles 1.88
Yoplait yogurt 8 pack 1.98. -thats .25 a carton

Bacon 2.98

5 lbs carrots 2.28
Ham 2.48
Hamburger buns .78
Case of green beans 4.98

The real scoop....on 80/20 hamburger

On a recent U tube, a gal did a sorta scientific experiment on which hamburger was cheaper, 80/20 or 93/7.   A lot of her information was flawed.   Here is the real scoop.


Package w hamburger weighs 1.33 lbs.
Package weighed .39 pounds
Net hamburger less than 16 ounces.

Tare weight of the shy 1 lb hamburger is 11.25 ounces.
80/20 hamburger should be 12.8 ounces
Tare weight , drained and de fatted was 11.64 ounces

11.64 ounces / 1.99 is .17 an ounce.  

Kitchen Management

Kitchen management is a tool that enables one to be organized and keep the kitchen clean on an ongoing basis.   By doing one small deep clean chore a week on a rotation basis, the kitchen stays clean with little work.    Prepping meals for a few minutes one day can save countless stress at dinner
Time.  

Reprint menu:

• Split pea soup/ bread 
• Pizza
• Chicken stir fry , rice , mandarin oranges 
• Tacos , Spanish rice , 
• Sloppy joes, oven fries, veggie platter
• Salmon, potatoes, broccolli 
• Breakfast for dinner 

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Wash and disinfect counters, sinks, and drains 
3. Clean out refrigerator and dump anything dead. 
4. Wash stove drip plans. 
5. Wax south side cabinets. 
6. Wash veggies:  celery, carrots, potatoes 
7. Chop carrots for split pea soup
8. Start bread rising 
9. Thaw chicken 
10. Make sloppy joe filling 
11. Fry hamburger and measure for scientific experiment 
12. Make a veggie tray .   
13. Straighten pantry. 

Meal Plans

Meal Plans are a useful tool to keep you on track.   If you are organized even a bit, you can avoid the takeout demon.

• Split pea soup    Bread 
• Pizza
• Chicken stir fry  rice , mandarin oranges
• Tacos, Spanish rice 
• Sloppy joes , oven fries, veggie platter 
• Salmon , baked potatoes, broccolli 
• Breakfast for dinner.    

Notes:   

1. I finally found split peas.   Seem like I was hunting forever.   Add vegetable stock and carrots.   Garnish with bacon.   The bread dough is hanging in the fridge. A very cheap dinner.   
2. Pizza is a mainstay. The cost is less than a buck when you get your cheese for two dollars a pound.   We make our own crust for .19 and save veggie pieces for toppings. 
3. Chicken stir fry is easy....make double rice for stair stepping into taco day. J
4. Salmon is in the freezer.   We are going to eat down the freezer so we are ready for a bulk meat delivery in spring   Baked potato’s uses up the excess potatoes.   
5. Breakfast for dinner is always a favorite and can be as inexpensive as you want it to be.   
6. Taco shells were .50 for twelve.  That makes 2 meals for us.   
7. Sloppy joes are scratch.   With hamburger for 1.50 a lb, its also a cheap dinner.   Oven fries are a bit more complicated than the frozen ones, but we have potatoes to use up.   

Fred Meyer ad for Sunday

Usually , the ‘holiday’ ads are not a good time for bargain hunters.  This time there is not a lot, but what there is can be good.

My pick for rotation meat would be either 10 FF boneless, skinless chicken breast or 2) kroger 20 percent hamburger.   When you figure the best price for hamburger , calculate the price times 1.xx with xx being the fat content.   This makes sense to me.   There was a person on a u tube that somewhat thought she was doing an experiment. But, it didnt make my accountant logic test. LOL
20 percent at 1.99 equals 2.39 a lb ; angus ground sirloin cost 4.14 a lb.   Now, I did get sirloin for 2.39 a lb and ground it myself.   You can reduce fat by as much as 17 percent by de-fatting it.   Seniors get the ground sirloin on Tuesday for 3.39 or net 3.73

Mandarins -5 lb. 4.77
Blackberries .99
Milk .99

Digital coupons -your qfc card works here .
You cant pair a digital coupon with a paper one.
Net prices

Tide 3.99
Sour cream .99
HS sausage 1.99

Kleenex tissue .99 -   You can get 160 count tissue at DT most of the time.  Sometimes you can get 210 at winco for a dollar.  

QFC Haul

QFC has a mega event.  I’ve seen better, but coupled with the 2 day sale, it netted me over fifty percent off .  


5 -1 lb 80/20 hamburger @1.99

Roma speghetti .49. Given to the foodbank

Digiorno pizza 2.99

Chocolate milk. .99

Goldfish crackers .99

Tillamook ice cream 3.00

Total 22.77 minus the dollar food bank. 21.77

Still umder budget.

Crunchy Baked Chicken

Any meal that you can fix and put in the oven to finish cooking is a good thing.   No watched pot.


1 egg, beaten
2 T milk

1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup grated parmesean cheese
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
Salt
Pepper

3-4 lbs chicken pieces
1/4 cup olive oil

1. Beat egg and milk 
2. Put all dry ingredients in a shallow bowl and stir.  
3. Dip chicken pieces in egg mixture and then in breadcrumb mixture.  
4. Place chicken pieces in greased baking pan.  Drizzle with olive oil. 
5. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until chicken tests done and juices run clear.   

Thursday bullets: substitutions

It is a real bummer to start a receipt and discover you don't have an ingredient.   Don’t let that deter you.   Yes, I guess if you don’t have the chicken for your chicken salad, that would be a problem.  But, not having tomato paste can be rectified.  

• Baking powder:  1 tsp. 1/4 tsp soda, plus 1/2 tsp cream of tarter 
• Bread crumbs :   Crushed crackers 
• Buttermilk:   1 cup. Plain yogurt or 1 cup milk plus 1T lemon juice or vinegar.  Let stand 5 minutes.
• Cake flour :  1 cup regular flour minus 2 T .
• Unsweetened Chocolate:  1 ounce equals 3T cocoa plus 1T butter
• Sour cream:  1 cup equals 1 cup buttermilk plus 3T melted butter.
• Heavy cream:  1 cup equals 3/4 cup milk plus 1/4 cup melted butter. 
• 1T mustard equals 1 tsp dry mustard 
• Tomato paste can be substituted with ketchup 
• 1 small onion equals 1 T dryed minced onion 
• 1T fresh herbs equals 1 tsp dried.  
• Tartar sauce  -1/2 cup equals 6 T mayonaise plus 2T sweet pickle relish 

Chain store ads for today

Alberways

Basket coupon for 5 dollars off of 50.   It’s something , but not enough with their prices to entice me.

Grapes 1.79
Hamburger buns .89@@
Cheese 4.99@@
Medium avacados .88
Hillshire Farms sausage 2/5
Nathan’s hot dogs 3.99

QFC

Cream cheese 1.00

Buy 6, save 5
Tillamook ice cream 2.99
Goldfish .99
Chunky soup .99
Pasta .49
Milk .99
Classico pasta sauce 1.49
Pace Salsa 1.49
Pepperoni 2.99

NOTE:
Download coupons for Friday or Saturday only
Buy ten dollars worth of food,
80/20 hamburger 1.99
Dijorno pizza 2.99
Sausage 1.99

Buy up to 5 ea

Tuesday Notes

It’s definitely Tuesday and I dont have a clue what I want to talk about.  Yesterday it was Kitcenn Management day ,   I made Wednesdays Spicy Pork Tacos filling.    This comes from a very old cookbook from the 70s.  Its like fifty years old.   Some things are still economical.   And healthy enough to add to your good cheap meal list.   I stick with good cheap meals here because everyone can make a meal that costs ten bucks a plate.   If you cant, there are meal services out there that will deliver your food and instructions for ten dollars a plate.   If you know how to eat good food cheap, its not a big stretch to make more expensive dinners.   Knowing how to do it on the cheap gives you the confidence to know you can handle anything life throws at  you.  

I had ground my own pork when I made pork stew meat and ground pork from a pork sirloin I got from Winco for 1.69, and i got 12 taco shells for less than 50 with a coupon .   (And, who says you cant get real food with coupons ?). This made spicy pork tacos an interesting  experiment.

SPICY PORK TACOS

Oil
Chopped onion or onion powder
Garlic
Celery , 1 stalk
8 ounces of tomato sauce
Diced green chillies
Oregano
Salt
1.5 cups ground pork (1/2 lb ).  

Sauté onion, celery, garlic in the oil.  Add tomato sauce.  
Pour into a bowl .  
Fry ground pork until no longer pink and tests done.
Add 1/2 can of green chilies.  
Add back reserved tomato mixture.
Simmer for a few minutes or until the meat sauce is somewhat reduced.

Serve in taco shells with cheese and lettuce.


Notes:
Because of family members personal preferences , i used onion and garlic powder.
I used the top skinny part of the celery stalk.   It just made chopping easier and used what some people throw away. Tomato sauce can be less than thirty five cents, I used tomato paste and water I
got for .16.   Green chilies are cheapest at Winco.  Their brand is .66 —half the National brand.
Ground pork was 1.69 a lb. or .85.  This made 2 cups of meat .  

Total cost :   Celery .10, tomato sauce .16, chillies .33, ground pork .85.   Total 1.44. Add .50 for taco shells, .50 for cheese and .25 for lettuce.   Total 2.69.

At a five dollar meal, you could still add Spanish rice / and /or refried beans.  

It’s Monday, Kitchen Management

No surprise, Kitchen Management day.
Kitchen management is a tool that keeps your kitchen clean and preps diners so the dinner hour  is less hectic. It is an hour well spent.

• Wash kitchen floor 
• Disinfect kitchen counters and sinks and drains. 
• Clean out refrigerator and dump anything dead. Wash shelves. 
• Put stove fan screen through the dishwasher .
• Mark the meal plan with anything that needs to be defrosted before the day of dinner. 
• make salad , put in container with a paper towel . Wash tomatoes . 
• Wash carrots and potatoes in vinegar water and dry. 
• Wash cheese containers and fill. 
• Clean and straighten pantry.   
• Deep clean the self serve coffee pot.   Clean under the hot boards.   

Like bulk buying, prepping saves time and money.  It saves money because you are prepping a sink of vinegar water once and washing all your veggies at the same time.   It, by the way, is a favorite chore of our 5 yo.   Maybe because our vegetable brush is a lady bug.   LOL.  

There is something to be said for having a small stock of food on hand. You can eat well and have a stock on hand even on a budget that is less than SNAP allotment. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t take some planning and some work at first, but it is surprisingly low maintenance once you get the hang of it.   Being organized is key.   Having all of one thing in the same place helps.   A few plastic baskets from the dollar store makes a big difference.   That black hole of a freezer becomes manageable and you can see at a glance what you need to replenish.  Most of the time, you don’t put yourself in the  position of having to go to the store.   

We are on the emergency ration toilet paper.  We do have to go to Costco today.  LOL.  A simple trick. Buy yourself a four pack of TP at the DT.  Put it in the back of the closet.  When you hit the DT stuff, it’s time to go to Costco, but you have avoided a disaster!!  LOL

Meal Plans -Jan 29

First of all, I am under budget so far this year.   Seattle is the 6th highest COL in the United States.   Our grocery budget was 55.05 a week all last year for three of us.   It is less so far this year.   I did buy a case of chicken breasts and a case of ground beef.  It isn’t here yet, but I have deducted the cost of the meat to make our budget 44.00 a week.   The cost of the meat was a dollar a pound cheaper than my cheapest price and it is fresher because it comes directly from the farmer.  But, because we already had a somewhat full freezer, we will be eating down the freezer for a couple of months to make room.           .

1. Pizza 
2. Breakfast for Dinner 
3. Meatball subs and salad 
4. Spicy Pork tacos, refried beans. Homemade 
5. Chicken with apples and onions , rice, peas 
6. Orange chicken , rice, green beans 
7. Bacon wrapped shrimp, oven fried potatoes , glazed carrots.  

Notes :   

1. Pizza is a family favorite.   Cost of a pizza crust is .19.   We use part of a jar of pizza sauce from the DT and freeze the rest in ice cube trays.   The last cheese I bought was two dollars a pound.   Totals .89 for a cheese pizza.   Add leftover meats and veggies for a fuller pizza.   Pepperoni , sausage, peppers, olives, chicken, green chilies all are candidates.  Adding a few still keeps the meal less than five dollars for four people. 
2. Breakfast for dinner can cost less than five dollars too. 
3. Rolls for meatball subs can be made or purchased at the DT for a dollar.   
4. Chicken breast cost 1.77 a lb last time.   New batch is .99 a lb.   Apples are between a dollar an a dollar an a half a lb.
5. Orange chicken uses a orange and oranges were .57 a lb in recent weeks.  
6. We purchased bacon for 3.00 a package and shrimp are in the freezer.   This is more than a five dollar meal, but the pizza and breakfast for dinner balance the budget out.   
7. Spicy pork tacos are from meat bought for 1.69 a lb and ground ourselves .   The taco shells were .48 for 12 and adding cheese, lettuce and tomato adds another few cents.

Its not what you buy as much as when and where you buy it.   Buying almost everything you need on sale and using coupons can reduce your food bill by 50-60 percent.   That, for most families, is a chunk of change over a year.   

Winco Food Haul

Winco Food Haul
—some good buys here

Total 27.24

Holiday almonds @ .99
Parm cheese 1.96
Large eggs .98
Yellow cake mix .88
Taco shells .98 -buy two, uses coupon on display (in diary department)
For 1.00 off nets 2/ .96 for 12 packs

Apples .98 lb
Canned green chilies .66
Bar s bacon 2.98
Cucumber .48
Better than boullion , beef 3.48
2 grape tomatoes 1.28 ea
Lettuce .98
Black olives, sliced .68

Fred Meyers ad for Sunday, 3 day Alberways sale

Alberways 3 day sale.

Mushrooms 2/4
Ground turkey 2/5
Pasta sauce .99 limit 4
StarKist tu a .58

BOGO
Cheerios 
Progresso 

There are coupons that would match with this.


Fred Meyers

Strawberries 1.97
Avocados .97
Sirloin steak 2.97
Hebrew National Franks 2/7

Buy 6, save 3
Tillamook ice cream 2.99
Freshetta pizza 4.49
Hidden valley ranch 2.49



Cheerios 1.79 $$
Kroger Brats 2.99
Cream cheese 1.00
Grapes 2.49