Recipe for success

This  is about setting up a coupon book.  If you just sticking  a coupon in a envelope and shoving  it in your purse, you are not likely to use it.  If you clip every coupon you see in an insert and on coupons,com , you are likely to be overwhelmed and not use anything.

Only clip the coupons and print the coupons from coupons.com  that you are likely to use.

Coupons,com is a website that allows you to print up to two coupons per item per computer.  There are a limited number of coupons that can be printed and when they are gone they are gone.  It is a good idea to print your coupons the first of the month when they are first listed.   Please don’t print coupons that you are nit going to use, or you don’t know someone that is.  Leave the things you are not likely to buy to someone that is likely to buy the product.

The coupon inserts here come in the Sunday paper and some people get another in the mail.  The dollar tree has the Sunday paper for a dollar.  Not every paper has coupons,   The Seattle Times does not, the Everett herald does.  Again, just cut the ones you know you would likely use.

We find that one paper is enough.  I get another set of inserts from a friend that saves hers for me.

A three ring binder with dividers and photo pages is a good way to organize your coupons.  Photo sleeves are at the office supply stores.  They are a copy paper size and have clear pockets that easily hold a coupon.  The other option is baseball card sleeves.

I added a pencil pouch that has a small pair of scissors, a calculator and a red pen.

My categories  for dividers are :
Baking
Breakfast
Cleaners
Condiments
Dairy
Dental
Drinks
Dry goods
Frozen
Grains
Meat/ cheese
Paper
Sweet

Use the ones that you are likely to buy.

One final idea.   If I have a coupon, and I see someone in line ahead of me with items that I have a coupon for, I do a random act of kindness.  It has cost me nothing and you never know what can make someone’s day,

One day, I was in Winco.   I saw a young man that was buying progresso soup.  I could see that he was stopped adding the purchases  up in his head.  I asked him how many soups  he was buying.  He said two.  I had a coupon that would make another  soup free.   I passed him the coupon.  He thanked me,  he ran into me in another part of the store and thanked me again.  That never happened to me before.  I think that I just gave someone a meal he needed and it didn’t cost me a thing.  Random act of kindness.

Hauls to 11/21/18

Dollar Tree

Sara Lee bread, whole wheat (2)
Enchilada sauce
Pinto beans (2)

Total 5.00

Safeways
Eggs free
Sour cream 2.50
Tillamook ice cream 3.00 (2)
Muffins (2);BOGO 3.99
Ground turkey 2.50
Fresh cranberries 2/5.00
Yams 1.36

Total
21.35

Total 26.35

Fred Meyers

Pork roast 3.97 -8 lbs

Ice cream FREE
Pie 4.99

Oranges 1.11

Hummus (2) 3.99

Total 14.06

40.41 grand total

Happy Thanksgiving

🍁🦃🍽

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone has a wonderful relaxing day.


I am thankful that the have the opportunity to teach people how to s t r e t c h their food dollars and have food in the pantry at the end of the month.

10 easy ways you can do to cut your food cost.

We didn’t get the ads yesterday, I am assuming they are coming Black Friday like some other parts of the country.

So, ten easy ways to cut your food costs.

• Eat breakfast for dinner one night a week.  Eggs continue to be a cheap source of protein.  Add waffles or pancakes and some fruit. Or make a quiche and a field green salad . 
• Eat vegetarian two meals a week. 
• Portion control your meat to a four ounce portion.  
• Shop two stores .  Plan meals around what’s on a real sale and produce  that is in season. Remember just because the ad says it is a good deal, doesn’t necessarily mean it is. 
• When something is a rock bottom price, buy two instead of one.  This, of course is providing you can  freeze it or it is a shelf stable item. 
• Cut your snack food consumption.   It’s good for your waistline, your pocketbook and your health.  The average grocery cart is 1/2 full of drinks and snacks.   
• Soup is a good , easy meal.  It’s versatile and stretches protein. It is also flexible in a slow cooker for days whenever family is on different schedules.   
• Buy mega packs of meat, portion control it for the freezer in quart bags and out the quart bags in a gallon bag and label.   Bulk meat on sale can work even for small families.   
• Pork loin can be as cheap as a dollar a pound.   It is an easy butcher jobs and saves a lot of money and you control how thick you want your pork chops.
• Split chicken breasts can be a lot cheaper than boneless skinkessmchicken breast.  Processing them is easymand nets you chicken stock and chicken pieces for soup or burrito filling, 
• Stir fries, soups, fried rice, enchiladas or burrito bowls all can stretch meat quietly. 

Tuesday - how did she do that?

Tuesday is usually the quest for an efficient scratch cooking recipe.   There is a comment section on the bottom of the blog..  Please feel free to let me know what you would like to see.

Instead of taco Tuesday, we have pizza Tuesday.

I make a thin pizza crust, but I ran on to a recipe to make pizza crust in the kitchen aid and it makes 4 crusts.  That is enough for us to have one crust and freeze the other three for the rest of a months worth of pizzas.

I freeze the pizza sauce from the dollar tree in ice cube tray and then twist it out into a quart. Freezer bag,  two cubes cover a small pizza.  That makes the sauce twenty cents a pizza.   I keep the sauce and crusts in a door shelf in the freezer.  You can also save bits of any vegetable or meat that you can put in a pizza.   I would keep separate bags for the meat, but the veggies can be in the same bag.  Pepperoni has been on coupons lately, but you can also get it at the dollar store,   Both the pepperoni and the pizza sauce are name brands that sell for a lot more elsewhere.

I take advantage of anything that I can find that is a huge rice difference and is good quality name brand.  It’s a way to cut your food bill without cutting your quality of life.

Little steps placed on the freezer make for a good dinner without much work.  At 4, we let our granddaughter fill a pizza.   She announced to her mother when she came in the door from work that she was making a happy face.  I guess you know we had a pepperoni happy face pizza for dinner!   Lol 😂.   It wasn’t long until she was helping her mother roll out their dough.  Teaching a child to cook with you keeps them out of trouble and give them self confidence.   When they are a bit older, it can take a lot of pressure off of you.  I follow a large family in u tube,  their teen makes dinner some of the time and she makes recipes I have never tackled.

The kitchen aid pizza crust is from Noreen’s kitchen on u tube.

My thin crust in the food processor, can be made by hand too.   It takes less time to make the thin crust, roll out and fill it than it does to go for a pizza and get back from the take and bake,  the cost of a cheese pizza with grocery on the cheap ingredients is a dollar.  

Please look the recipe up on the internet.  you can print it from there. 

gather ingredients : oil, flour, water, salt yeast 

place dry ingredients in processor bowl.  add water and oil through the tube and 

process until dough forms a ball. 

place dough on a floured board and knead a few times for form a ball. 

let dough rest 10 minutes while you gather your toppings.  

or, dough can be stored in a zip lock until dinnertime and stored in the refrigerator. 

Roll dough thin, place sauce, cheese and toppings of choice and bake at 450 until dough is done and cheese is melted.   

Epic fail .......

how many hits can this bring!  Lol.

We cooked the pork shoulder in the insta pot slow cooker mode,   In ten hours it never came up to temp.   I’m afraid to eat it.  It isn’t worth four dollars to give us food poisoning.  If I were to do it again, I would cook it on the pressure cooker mode for an hour.  I am glad I only bought one.  It was the first time for cooking pork shoulder so I decided to error on the side of caution,  

Win some, loose some.

On to kitchen management .  Kitchen management is a tool to save time and money on the kitchen and make the dinner hour less hectic.  Normally , anyway.  This is thanksgiving week.  

• Take the turkey out to thaw in the refrigerator.  Be sure to use a tray to keep any juices from contaminating other foods. 
• Wash vegetables that you will  use in meals this week, 
• Wash and disinfect the kitchen counters, sinks and drains. 
• Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead 💀. 
• Make taco soup and place on the slow cooker, 
• Wash kitchen floor 
• Clean oven 
• Wash the microwave. 

• 
  

Meal plans

Meal plans are a way to save time, money and stress.   Knowing what you are going to eat and knowing you have all the ingredients isnanreal stress buster.  Most dinner hours are hectic, especially if you are dealing with coming home from work and children.   Prepping ahead of time and having a plan is a good start in making life easier.  Knowing scratch cooking recipes that are efficient that your family will eat is another good trick.  

This is Thanksgiving  week, like no one knew that.   Lol.  

• Soup. Bread 
• Pizza
• Pork sliders 
• Thanksgiving 
• Leftovers 
• Tacos, refried beans or Spanish rice 
• Breakfast for dinner 

Notes :

Fred Meyers had pork shoulder roast for .49 a pound.   I have never cooked pork shoulder roast before.  I’ll take you along.  Otnwqs not on my plan, but adapting to someth8ng that is a remarkable buy isnanway to reduce your food bill more.  It has been a lot of little things that have added and snowballed onto the food for less that just happened.  Finding a very easy bread recipe , learning to cook efficiently from scratch, having an insta pot, rotation meats, all added to the journey,

1. Soup in the slow cooker is a good meal when people are eating at different times.  It’s ready when they are and almost anyone can serve themselves.  
2. Pizza is a mainstay,  the crust dough is in the frezer.  Making a monthly batch in the Kitchen Aid is a great time saver.  Just take it out to thaw in the refrigerator in the morning,  
3. Pork sliders are happening because if the bargain roast. It is always good to check the large bins on the meat department as well as the markdown bin,   The markdown bin sizes too yield much here,  it it does on other parts of the country and I have sound a few bargains every now and then.  
4. Thanksgiving , is well, thanksgiving.  Fred Meyers has a deal where if you bought a Marie C. Pie for five dollars, you got a ice cream for free,  I got peppermint ice cream and turtle pie.  Yum!   Please remember the CDC is warning of salmonella in turkey this year,  take extra s actually steps.  Wash your hands, use gloves, contain any raw juices on a sheet pan you can put in the dishwasher including on the refrigerator when you thaw it.  Cook it to well done and check more than one place on the bird.
5.    Leftover thanksgiving is better than the day itself.  All the good taste, without the work.   
6. Tacos mix things up after a couple of days of thanksgiving meal. 
7. Breakfast for dinner is a family cooks dinner, 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving menu plan

• Turkey breast - thaw Monday or Tuesday. 
• Mashed potatoes, gravy 
• Sweet potatoes, mashed with a strusel topping 
• Green beans with mustard 
• Stuffed celery, green and black olives and pickled veggies 
• Cranberry sauce 
• Pumpkin pie, apple pie. , whip cream
• Sparkling cider

Notes 

1. Cook turkey thoroughly.  Make gravy from drippings. 
2. Boil potatoes and sweet potatoes , mash 
3. Make topping from flour , brown sugar and butter , cinnamon 
4. Stuff celery, arrange platter 
5. Make pumpkin pie early .
6. Chill cider
7. Make cranberry sauce 
8. Make mustard sauce 

Numbers 5-8 can be done ahead of time.   

Tuna cakes

Gather ingredients -  2eggs, 1 cup bread crumbs, 2 T milk, 1/2 tsp EACH of garlic and onion powder, 2 -7 pumice cans of albacore tuna, drained.

Beat eggs and milk.  Add to bowl with bread crumbs and seasonings.   

Drain tuna .  Drainer is from Betty Crocker at the dollar tree.  A good investment for a  dollar.   

Mix all ingredients together 

Firm patties 

Fry patties until cooked through .   Garnish with paprika and parsley 

It is not what you buy as much as.....

It is not as much what you buy as it is when and where you buy it. 

I was thinking about the 29.00 challenge and the fact that buying your groceries hand to mouth a week at a time doesn’t work to get the optimum prices on your food.  It is true that at least one week of the month—*the week retailers know that they have you .  You have nothing left in the pantry and you just got paid.   That is the week that real bargains are in very short supply. Kinda like the day before Christmas when the jewelers  mark everything up.  The trick is not to be in that position.  They take advantage of your fight or flight mode.   It’s also a time when one would be tempted to buy a whole lot of snack food.  You have already been eking out meals and feel deprived.  

Change your mindset, and  change your life.   A few lifestyle changes can reduce stress, and change your perspective on life.  It has been shown that living with no food in the house reduces your life expectancy.  

Que replentish grocery shopping.  

Once you have set yourself up to buy what’s on sale and replentish your food on a need to basis, you can just pretty much skip that week and buy bare necessities.   

Most dairy has a month out pull date.   Buy a stash of dry milk powder for a back up.   It lasts forever and is a good thing to have on case of an emergency.  Keep a two week supply of eggs on a rotation basis,  this heads off the two dollar a dozen price hike that is inevitable in the winter.  

Meat can be purchased on a good sale and rotated on a four to six week cycle.   Most regular refrigerator freezers can hold a normal family’s month worth of meat.  

Shelf stable items can be purchased at  rock bottom prices.   The difference between rock bottom prices and regular prices afford you to stock some ahead.   This is not HOARDING.  Buying a closet full of pop is hoarding.  Buying a four to six week supply of basic food is being prepared for an emergency and using your food budget wisely.

Now, what you have to buy is fresh fruits and veggies.  Buy what is a good processor.  I try for a dollar limit.  Some things are a bit more, but never more than two.  Three dollar cauliflower doesn’t cut the mustard.

This is all believable and it works.   You can eat well on less than four dollars a day.  I didn’t set out to do that.  I just started using every trick I could find to lower food costs.  It became a game,  when I started this blog, it was to help people. With that in mind, I branched out and kept trying new things.

Thank you for stopping  by.  Please share and follow.   I can’t help people, if people don’t know where I am.  LOL

If we can make it with some of the highest cost of groceries in the nation, others can too.  Seattle has double the cost of vegetables this week than the mid west states.  Ohio has sweet potatoes for .39, ours are .99.  And that was just the beginning of a mirage of prices many of which were half or less than our prices.   How about .27 a pound turkey.  Now, we know that Seattle has also got higher wages, but that doesn’t help the people on fixed incomes.
 

What we ate...nov 1-15

What we ate on less than four dollars a day.

It’s not what you buy as much as it is when and where you buy it.  Theremcn be as much as a two dollar swing on a single one, depending on when and where you buy it.  

1. Chicken pot pie 
2. Garlic linguine, salad 
3. Pork roast, potatoes, green beans 
4. Mac and cheese 
5. Sausage and root vegetables oven roasted 
6. Pizza
7. Chicken and fries 
8. Spaghetti and salad 
9. Chicken, sausage and shrimp gumbo, rice 
10. Out - fondue party 
11. Squash, acorn squash, carrot and raisin salad 
12. Tacos, refried beans (scratch) 
13. Chicken parm 
14. Sloppy joes, tater tots. Veggies 
15. Tuna melts, seasoned rice, carrots 

Hauls 11/15

QFC
Savings 58 percent and that does not include our freebies that we will get tomorrow

Cheese (5).99
Butter (5) 2.49
Spaghetti (3) .49 charity
Turkey 5.12
Pie 3.49
Bell peppers .99

Total 26.27

Free from QFC
Polish sausage
Bc cake mix
Idaho mashed potatoes
Total free/ 7.47

Total savings 63 percent

Winco
Potatoes 10 lbs 1.98
Acorn squash .64
Apples 1.11
Buns .92
Apples 1.83
Carrots .98
Zucchini .55
Grapes 4.40
Ham 2.48
Strawberries 1.58
Meatballs 1.45 coupon
Total 17.68

Grand total 43.95

The 29.00 challenge.

There are a number of snap twenty nine dollar challenges out ther in u tube land.  It could be possibly the hardest way to make a four dollar a day budget work.  Snap gives the recipient a “debit “ card with a month’s worth of money loaded to it.  Setting aside what may be needed for fresh ingredients and once a month shopping at an appropriate time would be a better alternative for one person.  This assumes that there is. I food in the house at the first of the month.

Regular groceries on the cheap would be a better alternative.  Obviously, cooking for one probably necessitates eating the same thing for more than one meal.  

But, this blog will be honoring the rules and one weeks worth of food will be virtually bought.  We will use more than one store.  

Separate a budget .

Protein
Vegetables
Starch/ carbs
Breakfast
Snacks
Dairy

Winco

1. Eggs 1.29
2. 5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast @1.28 is 6.40. 
3. 1 package of cubed ham - 2.28
4. Cheese 1.67 - 3.33
5. Red or orange pepper .99
6. Pasta sauce .88
7. Apples 2 lbs @.88 is 1.76 
8. Potatoes 1.00
9. Lettuce 1.00
10. Tomato 1.00
11. Carrots .98 
12. Cans of corn, green beans, tomato 

Dollar tree

Oatmeal canister

Barilla spaghetti 

Flour tortillas

Milk 

Beans 

28.23

• Ham and eggs, fried potatoes 
• Ham and bean soup 
• Oatmeal 
• Cheese quesadillas 
• Chicken fajitas 
• Chicken breast, potatoes, green beans 
• Spaghetti with sauce 
• Chicken noodle soup 
• Ham and potatoes 
• Chicken taco bowl.  

Lots of food left . 

Chain store ads

It is typical for the prices to go up the closer to the holiday. It doesn’t pay to procrastinate.  

Fred Meyers
Note : this is at the shoreline store only 

Potatoes 5 lbs .77
Oranges .88
90/10 hamburger 2.99
Sour cream 2/3 


Alberways

Tillamook ice cream 2/6 must buy 2
5 lbs mandarines 4.88
Butter 2.49@@
Canned veggies 2/1.00@@
Sweet potatoes .99
Cranberries 2/5

QFC
Grapes 1.49
Butter  2/5
Cereal. Post or GM- Buy 4, free milk 4/10.  This is only going to be a good buy if you have coupons,
Sweet potatoes .99

Fred Meyer regular

Clementines 3 lbs 2.99
Organic berries 2/3
Cranberries 1 lb 3.99
Sour cream 2/3
Cake mix 4/3 digital coupon
Cream cheese 3/4 digital coupon

Grapes 1.99
Broccolli 1.49
Brussels sprouts 1.49

Tuesday - on inspiration

 Part of groceries on the cheap is using what you have and not wasting. There are several web sites out there that let you put an ingredient in the search engine and out pops a multitude of recipes that use the ingredient.  The online free Betty Crocker cookbook is one that we use.   Also, a few old cookbooks.  Back in the 40’s and 50’s , salads that used winter vegetables and inexpensive fruits in season were prevalent.  Salads like carrot and raisin; apple, celery and  walnuts, pineapple or other fruits and cottage cheese come to mind.  Our grandmothers used canned fruit and winter veggies to get through the winter.  

This weekend we made a carrot and honey quick bread.  It is a healthier bread using honey instead of refined sugar and part whole wheat flour.  It was good, bit s more dense bread.  We grated the last of the oldest carrots in the vegetable drawer and had some left over grated carrot after making the bread.  We had carrot and raisin salad for dinner with acorn squash and part of a rope sausage.  

We had purchased chicken basil sausage on a buy 10 at Fred Meyers.  There is always half a sausage left.  I entered sausage into the Betty Crocker  search engine.  Out popped a recipe for  gumbo.  I had never made gumbo before, but it called for cooked chicken, shrimp and sausage and we had all three.  I omitted the black eyed peas.   It was good and we tried something different.  My husband made a pot of rice to go with it in the insta pot.

Thinking outside the box can stretch your food dollar, avoid waste, and spice things up so that dinner  is a bit less boring — all on four dollars a day.  

I have been w arching videos of people that attempt to buy food on four dollars a day.  Mostly single people.  Buying food for one person is a hard job at best, and doing it in four dollars a day is a challenge.  Grocery stores are not set up to have small quantities and when they do, they are costly.   The only way to do it is to buy a month at a time and portion control.  Your freezer will be your best friend.  Another alternative is to set up a food pool where others in your position get together and each of you makes a family meal, portion controls it, and you do a food swap.   You get several different meals and cook a family meal.   There would have to be a discussion of food preferences and a monetary limit on ingredients, but it could and has worked.

You can still eat on the same principles as groceries on the cheap, just on a smaller scale.   There are two of us,   It works.   It also works for larger families.  

I am making an effort to be,o as many people as I can,  of anyone has an idea of what they would like to see here, please feel free to comment.  Thank you for stopping by.  Please share,  you,never know who you might be helping.  

Taco seasoning,

Taco 🌮  seasoning can be a dollar for an ounce packet.   Making your own can save a ton of money and you can tweek it to your families taste.   I tend to use taco seasoning in any southwest dish that calls for southwest spices.  It’s just easier.

1/2 cup plus 2T chili powder

2/3 cup paprika

1/2 cup plus 1T cumin

1/3 cup onion powder

1/3 cup garlic powder

1-1/2 tsp cumin

Red pepper flakes as desired

Mix together and store in jar with tight fitting lid.

Monday kitchen management aka meal prep

Kitchen management is a tool to make life easier when it is time for the sometimes hectic dinner hour.  Otmafords hou the luxury of cleaning as you go and not having to deep clean the kitchen of you rotate the larger chores.

• De fating hamburger is on a different bkog we did yesterday.  It takes a lot of the fat out of your meat and makes for easy, quick meals when time is in short supply. 
•  Carrot and honey bread was a good more nutritious addition to a meal.   Grating more carrots than needed meant carrot and raisin salad for dinner.   Doing double duty saves time.

•  Wash kitchen floor.  

• Wash and disinfect countertops and sinks and drains . 

• Clean out refrigerator and dump anything dead 💀. Note foods to be eaten soon. 

• Chop any veggies needed for dinner. 

•  Wash potatoes for the oven fries. 

• Make refried beans . 

•  Straighten the pantry.

 

Ten ways to eat healthy on four dollars a day

Just because you have limited funds, or not, you can still eat healthy.

• Avoid junk food.  Substitute veggies and peanut butter or hummus for those potato chips or other salt or sugar laden snacks.  If you don’t buy junk food, you won’t eat junk food,   Popcorn is a good alternative.  Costco has popcorn to be air popped inexpensive.  
• Eat fruit instead if drinking juice,  it is better for you and doesn’t have added sugar.  Avoid those individual servings .  Packaging sometimes cost more than the product. You save in garbage too. 
• Use garlic pepper instead of garlic salt . 
• Avoid too much salt, sugar, hydrogenated oils, HFCS, and fat. 
• Pick inexpensice of meat and pick ones that are low fat.  De fat your ground beef, cut the fat layer off the pork loin, amd use  boneless, skinless chicken. breast. They are all very versatile cuts if meat and if you buy them in bulk, you save time and money. 
• Keep a stock of fresh fruits and veggies in season.  In season veggies and fruit are more favorable and cost less.   Potatoes, carrots, celery. Grapes, strawberries, apples, zucchini, acorn squash were all reasonable prices this  week at Winco.    Peppers were a dollar at qfc.  I suspect that is the case at any discount store in other parts of the country. 
• Buy basic foods and learn recipes that are efficient scratch cooking.  Teach older children how to bake and cook basic things,  that’s good for their future well being as well as your time constraints.  When you scratch cook, you control the preservatives and sugars.  Baby carrots are just a farmers way to sell his rejects for twice the price of the regular carrots.   A great mRketing ploy that has made millions.  
• Pick mozzarella cheese becaise it is made With part skim milk.  Hard cheese like Parmesean does not have the lactose that other cheese have. 

• Avoid the so called healthy fads.   It’s supply and demand.  If it is a fad, the price is going to go up. I recently saw cauliflower for over three dollars. It’s a fad.   Like the pet rock!   Avoid it.  Get the same nutrition elsewhere. Buy a whole head when it is a dollar a pound.  A dollar is my buy price for veggies.   A bit more for fruit.  
• Invest in good equipment,  a little at a time if you need to.  Shop estate sales amd garage sales, the goodwill.  Life is easier and you will be more inclined to grate that carrot or make that pizza dough if it is easy.  Many will pay for themselves in the long run.  A can of beans can cost upwards of a dollar.   It costs a nickel  to make them scratch.  Ninety percent profit.  

Don’t eat this!

This is the fat that you don’t eat when you denfat your ground beef.   80/20.

Taking up to 17 percent of the fat out of ground meat

Taking the fat out of your hamburger is a healthy thing to do. Cooking it on batches and freezing it makes for faster meals at dinner time and is a way to cut costs and waste.

Frozen hamburger meat 

Fry until no longer pink and it tests done with your thermometer. 

Partially Cooked meat

Drain in colander over a pot.  

Pour boiling wTer over colander.  Use a pan to collect the fat if you have too much to go down the drain. 

Portion control for meals and place in quart bags and place quart bags in a gallon bag and label and freeze.   

You are on your way to fast, more healthy meals.