How did she do that?

Chocolate zucchini muffins.   Yum.   An easy way to get a green vegetable into husbands,. I’m not saying children, because granddaughter loves vegetables.   Lol

A friend gave me zucchini last night,   Our zucchini plant gave up one zucchini.  We probably,should have put some slug bait out.  I didn’t think that it would be a problem where we planted it.   I really appreciate her sharing.

Most “quick breads” are best made with the least amount of mixing .  Over  mixing  causes the bread to be tough.  Measure and stir the dry ingredients together in one bowl,  measure and stir the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients,  don't  over mix,—  just mix until all the dry ingredients are no longer visible.   Put your mixture into a prepared  pan and bake according to the recipe.

On another note.  Life is not perfect and you are always going to have some fails.   The buttermilk pancake mix I made the other day was one of those fails.  It turned out to be so thin, it just didn’t work.  Thankfully I had made french toast to use up the bread that was hanging around too long,  I froze it in four slice lots in quart bags.  A little time in the toaster and it saves the day.  It is a good way to use up Texas toast bread that is not being used up fast enough.  It makes for a quick easy breakfast that a older child could make themselves.

I did try another recipe for buttermilk pancake mix.   Thankfully I had only made a half batch. In retrospect, I probably could have used the mix for breading.   I try to limit carbs, however , so I use a combination of nuts, breadcrumbs, and parmesean cheese to bread things like chicken nuggets.  Its really good and it cuts carbs and adds protein.  

Looking for ways to keep costs down while providing good nutrition is a way to eat well on four dollars a day.  Keeping a stock of basic food that is efficiently versatile is a good way to cut food costs.  This is a good time when less is more.  If you have less variety you can buy more of it in bulk and save a lot of money,   Packaging is expensive.  I keep a small amount of dry buttermilk.  Real buttermilk is a good ingredient in baked items, but buying liquid buttermilk is just nit practical.  Amazon had dry buttermilk, local. In a plastic bag for far less than the box in the grocery store.  That’s when saving the wide mouth jars you have instead of putting them in the recycle.  We also got a big canister of chicken bouillon.  The cost was drastically lower than buying the little jars at Winco.  It is good anytime you need chicken stock.  That happens a lot when you are scratch cooking.  We try to make stock, but that doesn’t always happen.

If you buy something that doesn’t spoil in bulk once, you can mark that off your list.  It simplifies your grocery shopping,   Bit by bit you find yourself buying dairy, perishables, and a rotation meat.  You are scratch cooking efficiently and cutting your time and money a lot.  And you are not eating out of a box or bag and are controlling salt, sugar, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, HFCS, and gmo s .and the food dyes.

Monday Kitchen Management aka food prep

Kitchen   management is a tool that saves time and money in the long run.  It makes life less stressful during the hectic dinner hour.

Reminder if menu

• Tacos, refried beans 
• Pizza
• Meatballs, with mashed potatoes, veggie 
• Pork roast, baked potato. Salad, vegetable 
• Vegetable bean soup. Bread sticks 
• Beer cheese soup, brats 
• Breakfast for dinner / french toast, bacon, cantaloupe 

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Clean out refrigerator and dump anything dead. 
3. Clean and disinfect countertops and sinks and drains. 
4. Wash and dry carrots and potatoes. 
5. If having refried beans today, make them. Insta pot is a good resource,  
6. Clean the drip pans on the stove, 

Meal plans

Meal plans are a tool that saves time and money.
The first week and a half was regular spending, the next three weeks will/ have been no spend,  no spend just means that we will only buy perishables and things that we are completely out of.

• Meatballs with mashed potatoes and a veggie 
• Tacos, re fried beans (scratch) 
• Pizza
• Breakfast for dinner 
• Pork Roast , baked potatoes, salad 
• Vegetable bean soup , biscuits 
• Beer cheese soup, brats 

Notes 

1. Meatballs are cheaper to buy than make at Winco. Make gravy with beef stock. 
2. Tacos are made from already cooked hamburger,   Re fried beans are in the insta pot, no fat 
3. Pizza is homemade. Pizza costs a dollar, the crust is .19 of it. 
4. Breakfast for dinner is a mainstay.  Everyone cooks.   We have fruit, french toast already made from the last of the Texas toast from the  Read store. 
5. Pork Roast is from a ,99 a pound pork loin, 
6. Vegetable bean soup is a personal recipe, made from scratch, beans and all. 
7. Beer cheese soup is a new recipe and we already have break sticks in the freezer.   

What we ate for dinner so far...

For August 1-17 , 2018.   Part of this was no soens. The first week was not.

1.  Texas French Toast, bacon, cantaloupe 
2. Hamburgers, pasta salad, fruit 
3. Sausage, potatoes, carrots , roasted 
4. Bbq beef sandwiches, corn on the cob 
5. Insta pot spaghetti, salad 
6. Salmon, twice baked potatoes. Green salad 
7. Potluck, veggie tray 
8. Bbq beef sandwiches, oven fries, salad 
9. Potluck dinner- pasta salad 
10. Nachos 
11. Chicken patties , oven fries. Fruit 
12. English muffins, scrambled eggs, fruit tray , bacon 
13. Sloppy joes. Corn on cob, fruit 
14. Fish n chips , coleslaw 
15. Clam chowder. Fruit 
16. Pork fried rice, chicken dumplings 
17. Taco soup , tortilla soup 
18. Antipasta plate 
19. 
    
20. 
    
21. 
    

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.