Different take on meal plans.

Meal plans are frivolous to some people.    Without a plan, when things are hectic, it is a real temptation to go threw the drive through or order pizza.    It's a sure way to bust a budget.   If you are on snap, those expenses aren't covered with your money.

There are many ways to meal plan, I read somewhere of a lady that was selling a fifty page meal plan form.   That would take to long for me.  My object to a months meal plan is that :(;(: happens and it isn't flexible enough,    My meals in the summer are a lot different than my meals on the winter.

For a while, my mother would cook the same thing on the same day every week.   She had a schedule for wash too.    We knew that Thursday she would bake bread and we would have pizza.    That was short lived, she must have thought it was too boring,

I usually meal plan by using a form with two columns in the left, one for what we have with the things that need to be used up soon highlighted and one for anything I need to buy to complete a meal.    That's usually a fresh thing like green beans for fish bundles.   *
The right side consists of seven boxes and a box for my matrix.   I mad a matrix as a guide.   2 beef, 2 pork or chicken, 2 vegetarian, and  a fish.    Is is based on my family's preferences to try to make everyone happy.   Yours might be different   After I survey the fridge, I write  down What I have to be used up about mid week.   Then I make the next weeks meal plans on pencil and adjust the rest of the week if necessary to accommodate what we need to use.   Waste not, want not.   It's a natural way to cut food costs.   There is an estimate that we waste thirty percent of our food in this country,   I don't think that is the case with us, however finicky eaters waste food.   I have taken to giving a child a small amount of everything so that of they don't eat it, a lot isn't wasted.  They can always have more.  

This takes about ten minutes, then minutes well spent.   About that time, the ads are here and I can analyze them and check stock and do some planning.   Last weeks planning was a an aboration - hauls like that don't happen often.   But, I can consistently get stock items for half price or more.
I always buy protein at the RBP and buy bulk.   And I buy dairy and fresh produce at the cheapest price and the produce in season,   If something is not on season, it is more money for a fruit or vegetable that is probably not as high a quality as if it was in season.  

If there is a week where I don't need anything, I don't shop.   We might pick up milk when we are out and about.    Preferably where it is the cheapest.  

Lately, I have taken inventory and rotated stock per sell by date and bought a lot of pizza because I got 6.77 pizza for as low as 2.44.  I also got eggs for 2/3.   So, I temporarily changed my matrix to a theme based, rather than protein based plan.


We are having

1. Pizza 
2. Breakfast for dinner 
3. Fish - salmon or clams 
4. Pasta 
5. Sunday dinner 
6. Leftovers 
7. Soup

This is based on things I need to use up and have a large stock on.    

Whatever works.    You don't have to stick hard fast to a plan, just have a plan.   

Jane 

Beans

beans beans the musical fruit; the more you eat, the more you toot!    So says my grandfather, I hear tell.   I surmise it was a nice way of saying that beans can give you gas.    ..make you fart a lot,  LOL

Beans and rice has long been thought of as the perfect pair-- a complete protein.  Actually. nutritionists see that beans are more expensive and people are eating more rode than beans,   Eating more beans they say, can reduce the chance of diabetes and heart disease.   But, the kicker for most vegetarians, is that they aren't in total the best source of protein,  you need to eat meat too.    Brown rice is better than white.

If you are vegetarian, you need to be mindful of your iron and vitamin b12 levels on your blood.    Lack of vitamin B12 can be very serious.  If you are vegan, double the concern.  

Beans that are not cooked well can make you sick, albeit short lived, not pleasant.  Beans shouldn't be left out of the fridge more than two hours.   They should be eaten or tossed after two days.    They do not freeze well; the freezing changes the texture.  

All this makes me believe that they are not worth cooking from scratch unless you cook a small amount and eat it that day or the next.   For a small family it hardly seems worth while.  

Canned beans are inexpensive on sale.   You can and should rinse them and throw out the water that they are packed in.   This reduces the salt.  Some are concerned about BPA.  The FDA says it is harmless in the dices we get as humans.  

For everything that exists in the food industry, there is someone that can dream up a reason why it's bad for you.    If you took all of those items off your table you wouldn't die  from the cancer, heart disease or other toted diseases, you would die  from mal- nutrition.   I thinI one has to use some common sense.   Moderation is the key.

Remember when butter  and eggs were terrible!    Seems that eggs are supposed to be eaten even daily, and, butter in moderation is better than the fake alternative.   The fake alternative has palm oil in it and other vegetable oils that they are saying are processed with metals.   Did you know that if you eat too much kale, you can get lead poisoning.    I could go on and on, but you get the drift.
Everything has its good and bad.

I read an article about what we shouldn't be eating.   Some of it  isn't in  our diet anyway,   I tend to buy only are items with food value in them.   Potato chips and soda are not it!   I use some sugar free, but use it sparingly.    The article says that you can't cut all of out, there would be nothing left to eat.

Salad dressing is a culprit.    I guess when ours is eaten, we will use an oil and vinegar with olive oil and make our own ranch and blue cheese.   You can get mayo that has olive oil in it.  It was the same price as regular.     It doesn't cut all of the salad oil, but it cuts down on it.

Baked deserts are also a culprit.   That's easy to reduce or cut out of your diet.   I've already done that except for occasional special occasions.

Again, I think that moderation is the key.   There has to be other factors in these foods making you get a particular disease, or all of us would have all of those diseases.

We do know for sure that our bodies need a certain amount of salt, sugar / carbs and fat.   We eat far too much in America.  There are easy ways to reduce our intakes.

Ps  I did see. Ore research on that article.    There is no BPA in canned beans.  There is salt and it can. E greatly reduced by rinsing the beans.

Lay off the salty snacks. Rinse anything that is canned.   Make a substitute for cream base that has low sodium and fat free ingredients.   Steer clear of baked goods and eat fresh fruits on season instead, or yogurt.

For those that have Pinterest, the article I am feeling to is on it.

http://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2016/01/top-5-ingredients-to-avoid-in-food
disclaimer -  Many of the products that they say are bad do not have those ingredients in there. I think you have to read your labels.

Thanks, Jane

Fred Meyer ad

Not a lot. But what there is bears repeating, 

Stock up time.    This is when you take someone with the on there are limits.    

Vegetables, cleans, tomatoes. .49@@ limit six.    A good time if you don't have your stick yet.   

Eggs 2/3@@

Hillshire farm sausage 2/5@@

Best foods 2/5 @@

Chuck roast 2.99

Best ever deals on clearance clothes in the am.   

That's about all.   

One note.   We never use a whole bag of potatoes.  Single potatoes are usually too expensive and too large.   I bought a five pound bag of potatoes for a buck,    I made a concentrated effort to be sue the, up before they went bad and not burn is out on potatoes.    

I made 

1. Clam chowder
2. Sausage, peppers and potatoes 
3. Baked potato bar 
4. We are having baked potatoes and meat  loaf for dinner.    

That about does it.   

Recap.

Oops one of the most Important  things I didn't discuss was the fact that you need to set a budget.  If you are on snap, it's pretty much done for you.  Otherwise, the USDA has stats to go by.   There are four levels of budgets, and it is broken down by age groups .   Remember to read the fine print,   There are adjustments for smaller and larger families.

If you are on snap. Divide your monthly total by 4.2 to get your weekly budget.  

To recap

 Groceries on the cheap  takes a different approach to grocery shopping.   Instead of going to the store and buying one weeks worth of groceries you think you will need. You buy the perishables you need and a loss leader protein..  You identify shelf ready stock and frozen foods that you use on a regular basis, decide  how much stock you will carry and replenish the stock when you can get it for a rock bottom price.    ( sales and coupons,) .

Stocking affords you the luxury of always having food In the house.   It is a good hedge against many disasters, great or small.    Anything from being to sick, or having a sick baby and not wanting to go shopping, to that dastardly s word in this part of the country.  (SNOW) .

No child  should suffer the insecurity of having no food in the pantry.

On the meal train of life, the engine makes the planning and the direction.    The cars are the shopping and the planning of the meals, the next car the cooking,     If you spend more time on the front end of the meal train, and less on the back end, you will be better off financially.

After analyzing the ads, pick the two stores that have the best buys on what you need to buy,   Take your coupons, the ad, a calculater and leave the family at home.    Get in and get out,   The stores make most of their money on impulse buys. Stick to your list unless you find an unadvertised special that is on your stock list.  Get in and get out.  

Make final meal plans after you get home from the store.   A plan beats the take out gremlins.

Finding recipes that your family likes  and learning how to semi- scratch cook makes cooking more efficient and saves time and money.

 Taking a quick survey of the fridge mid week saves money because you can incorporate anything that you need to use up on your meals.

Use bins or mark shelves with you shelf ready stock items so that you can tell at a glance what you need to start watching the sales for.

Snap has been reported to be four dollars per person per day.  That breaks down for a four person family to be 1.25 a meal and a .25 snack.  That's a five dollar dinner.    Remember that the total you spend on lunch and breakfast has Leave money for  pantry items like mustard , catsup, flour, sugar etc.

Balance every meal with protein and fiber.    Sugars and carbs leave the body fast, protein and fiber stay and will help you not be hungry before the next meal.  

Buying your food for 1/2 price or less allows you to have a treat every now and then and give you the luxury of always having food in the house.



Jane

Your own cookbook.

I started a personal cookbook on the 70's.     It's full and still has recipes o use often.  It also has my recipes for mixes.    I used it for years. I started a year or two ago making a  I used it for years. I started a year or two ago making you one new one.. Mostly of recipes that were given to me and some from the Betty Crocker recipes I get online. Now I have three binders  hey now I have three binders college :  One for desserts and baking, one for side dishes , and one for main dishes.    I keep two sheets back to back in page protectors from the dollar store. This helps so if you take one out and use it while your cooking, it's staying clean.  

Just remember, no recipe so etched on stone,   The only recipes that you have to stick pretty much to the letter are ones that have leavening in them.    If you don't have a particular mix or bottle of something, punt with  something similar or find a recipe for the mix.  

You can find binders at the goodwill or sometimes at yard sales.  

Thanks for stopping by


Jane

Next car on the meal train.

Next car on the meal train is related to the efficient cooking car.   Stair stepping is when you cook more of an ingredient for one nights dinner so you can use it for the next day's dinner.  

One idea is to chop extra of anything that goes on a pizza.   Put it in a small container or zip lock and put it on the door of the freezer.   Of you are like most people putting it in the main freezer portion is like putting it in a black hole.   lOL.

If you are making sweet and sour chicken or pork, save a little pineapple for your pizza meal later on the week.    Ham cubes come in a bag and can be used for many meals including ham and pineapple pizza.    I get three to four meals from a door to five dollar bag.  

Pineapple and ham pizza
Ham and cheese quiche
Ham and beans
Ham  and split pea soup
Chop salad
Ham and scrambled eggs.
Ham and scalloped potatoes

Wednesday's stirfry rice can become Thursday's rice pudding, or part of the rice and bean burritos another day.    ( rice has a short fridge life.  Use it fast.)

Many other ideas are in a recent blog.   Examples

The slow cooker can be your best friend on the kitchen.  There is something about coming home to dinner cooked and the smell is glorious.    Just don't forget to plug it on or turn it on!    Slow cooker recipes are all over the Internet and many cookbooks address them as well.  Betty Crocker   on line cookbook is a good resource for ideas.

Many people freezer or marathon cook. It can be a few batches of something  or you can cook for a day and eat for a month.    I don't have the stamina or time to do that.    Plus, I would rather not fill the freezer with items like carrots that can be in the fridge.    My freezer is precious territory and can be better used for meat and vegetables.    And ice cream......did someone say ice cream!
A few go to easy meals always help when you are going to or have had a hard day.   Always have a back up easy meal to revert to when you just don't feel like cooking or you are having an Alexander  day.   It used to be a jus sandwiches when beef roast was within reason.  I froze th thin slices of beef in a freezer shrink bag and always had sourdough brown and serve baguettes.    Dinner could be done on fifteen minutes flat.    Now, I resort to pizza.    I buy pizza on sale cheap and can add toppings .   Sometimes , we make it from scratch. But a frozen pizza that I can get for less than three dollars with coupons can also fit the bill and everyone eats it without complaints.  

The pressure cookers of today are electronic and a lot safer than our great grandmothers version.    Split pea soup can happen in  a flash.    There are pressure cooker cookbooks and a lot of recipes on line.  

Next : your own personal cookbook.  

Quick hauls

The second haul was from Winco.   I got three pounds of the leanest hambirger you can buy at about three dollars a pound.    Hamburger and hot dog buns were .38 with an Ibotta.   My daughter found buns for 3.50.    That's a difference of about 90 percent.   Grands biscuits were bought with a coupon and an Ibotta was use that nets them at a -.02.   ( they paid me two cents to take them from the store) 

If only we could buy all our food that way!    Olives were less than a dollar, and donuts were 1.69 ( my granddaughters favorite! ) a gram can spoil her granddaughter...right!!!.    

The first haul was from QFC.   I saved 75 percent.   All that was six dollars and change.   I used coupons and sales.  Because I kept the haul small and just got what I could use, ot only took a few minutes to complete the planning,    I got a dozen eggs, three cans of Campbell's chunky soup, two boxes of 2.5 more fiber pasta elbows, a package of Hillshire Farms  sausage, a package of frozen broccoli, a package of chocolate chip cookies.    

Batch "cooking" pork.

When it comes to pork and batch cooking, I only cook crumbles of pork sausage.   I buy jimmy dean from Costco.    It has been the cheapest price on a three pound log.  

When I can find a half of a pork loin for as low as 1.69-2.00, I bring it home and slice off pool chops, leaving enough for a roast.   I freeze the port chops and cook off the roast for that,nights dinner.( or the next night) leftover roast gets sliced thin for BBQ pork sandwiches or leftovers.    Stir fry works too.  

Sometimes I find a pork tenderloin for five dollars on Safeways five dollar Friday.   I recently got two for five dollars at Winco.   They taste so good.   I just roast them off on the oven,    They don't take very long.  

To recap:   Buying the loss leader and filling in with freezer/ fridge things on weeks when proces aren't being friendly is a way to hav protein with the lowest cost and cooking efficiency,  

Rotate per week using the loss leader and buying enough of that meat to cover that meats meals for a month or six weeks.   Some weeks there may be two loss leaders and some weeks, you might not find any.
I rotate :

1. Whole chickens my RBP is .87-100 a pound - Foster farms 
2. Pork loin RBP 1.69-200
3. Pork sausage , jimmy dean at Costco.- around 250 a pound 
4. Ground beef - 7-9 percent RBP - 3.25-350.   -
5. Tilipa - Winco in a bag , shrimp RBP 5.00 at Safeways, tuna from Costco, 
6. Cheese, grated, Costco RBP is 2.08-2.25 in a five pound bag.  

1) Chicken we eat 1-2 times a week.   Once a week would mean I need a whole chicken a month.   

2) Pork loin and sausage would share once a week.   I would buy a sausage roll every every three months.   ( six meals, shared with a pork loin six meals , is 12 weeks.  Pork loin would be every three months as well.    

3) ground beef we eat twice a week,   Three to four pounds will cover a months meals.   

4) tilapia shares the limelight with tuna, shrimp, amd clams.   I buy a bag when we are out. 

5) we eat a lot of cheese. I buy it when we are running low.   

6) I buy eggs as needed and try for two dozen at a ceiling price of 2.00.   

I rotate on a regular basis : 

Chicken, ground beef, port loin, and rotate the fourth week between cheese, sausage, and a fish.   

We only eat fish once a week.   Once you have stocked, you can skip a week of there are no sales.    

Pre cooking and batch cooking saves time in the kitchen.   Portion controlling protein saves money .   The guidelines I am hearing is that we need six ounces of protein a day and part of that should be 

eggs.    A quarter of our plate should be protein, a quarter should be starch, and 1/2'should be vegetables or fruit.    That's hard to figure with a casserole, but a good rule of thumb.   

Some children would eat all one thing of you let them. portion controlling the meat ( protein) will force them to eat the rest of the plate.    

Next: stair stepping.   

Batch cooking ground beef or turkey

I recently have seen some ground turkey for three dollars a pound.    I get ground beef ( 7-9 percent fat) for 3.20-3.50 a pound.  The price of beef rose dramatically a couple of years ago.  Supposedly it was because of the drought and it would be temporarily.  I'm  not seeing that.    A lot of people choose not to eat beef altogether.  I believe that it is the easiest way to naturally get your iron.   I try to get one or two servings a week of beef.

Flavorful meat loaf can have a mixture of beef, turkey, and or pork.   I don't buy ground park often, but I got it for free when Winco opened.  

Batch cooking ground beef takes a little longer than chicken.   I get between three and five pounds of ground beef when it's a good price.   I will opt for five if it has a larger fat content.   Five pounds are easier to work with.  
I set out to make :

1. A meat loaf 
2. Meat balls 
3. Crumbles 
4. Taco meat.  

1) I first make the meat loaf.  This will be that nights or the next nights dinner.    

     Meatloaf consists of about 2 pound of ground beef, a handful of bread crumbs you have made yourself, 2 eggs, a  teaspoon each of parsley, onion powder or a bit of grated onion, 2 tsp Italian seasoning.  Mix together and place in a loaf pan .HINT: Set out the ingredients in small bowls ( eggs, spices. And breadcrumbs before you start,) after you dump everything on the bowl, all you have to do is wash the bowls.  It  saves cross contamination, and a lot of washing hands.    I use a meat loaf pan. It consists of two pans, one inside the other, and the top pan has holes for drainage.    

2) meat balls - about the same recipe as meat loaf, I set a metal rack on top of a sheet pan ( or use your broiler pan that has been sprayed with cookin oil. ) and a portion scoop to make meatballs.   The trick is to make them all the same size so that they are all done at the same time.    Bake at 400 degrees, start checking after 7-10 minutes.   They should be 180 degrees and no longer pink in the inside.   Cool and portion control into bags for the freezer.   

3) crumbles are just fried ground beef, defatted.      Cool and portion control into enough to add to pasta sauce or a casserole, make sloppy joes, or pit on a pizza.   That's about a third of a quart bag or about 1.5 cups for us.   I make my own sloppy joe sauce .   

4) taco meat - cook crumbles, defat, and add taco seasoning.  ( I make it myself.) 

Mixes and sauces will derail your meal train fast. I take some time in a lazy day and make my own for the few things we use.    I make taco seasoning and a cream soup base mix. 

Sloppy joe sauce is catsup, water, a tsp of mustard ( I use dry) and a drop of liquid smoke.    Liquid smoke is two dollars and lasts forever.    I skip the sugar, no one has noticed.   

The least expensive buns  I have found are at Winco.  I found some at the bakery outlet for 1.25.   They were 3.50 at one store.   One of the tricks a retailer will do is to put the hot dogs ( I only buy Hebrew national or Nathan's) on sale  and Jack the buns to full price.    That's where shopping at two stores really helps.    I don't stock buns.     I buy them on a need basis.  

I try to limit our consumption of processed meats to once a week or less.    

That's about it for ground meat.   

Mixes are addressed on a precious blog.   

Jane 

Ways to beat the clock in the kitchen.

I am all about not standing in my feet for an hour at dinner time. I suspect that dinner time is hectic around many households.    The more you can do ahead of time, the better off you are in aleveating the stress.  
 One of the things I found most useful is too batch cook.    Buying a loss leader meat in quantity and cooking it all at one time saves money and time.   You are washing the pans and kitchen once.    I am always careful of raw meat.   I disinfect all my surfaces and the sink after I cook.  This means that I am doing it once, not three or four times.    Some of this work can be done while sitting on a stool or at a kitchen table.

• Chicken.   Whole chickens are the cheapest way to buy chicken.   I get Foster Farms for a dollar or less a pound all the time.   Never buy a chicken that is less than three pounds.  Three pounds is the break even point.  Your pay is much for bones as you do for meat.   Most deli roasted chickens are 3 pounds or less. Even at Costco, you are paying  1.67 a pound.  That's twice as much as cooking it yourself and you get more meat for your dollar.    
•   The easiest way, by far, to cook a whole chicken when you have no time is to put it in the slow cooker.  Peel one large or two small onions.   Cut them in half or quarters accordingly.   Dump them in the slow cooker.    Wash the chicken under cold water.   Clean out the insides.    Use plastic gloves if you want.   Pour a couple of tablespoons of salt in the cavity.    Put it in the slow cooker and put a dry rub on the skin.  Use a dry rub that doesn't use sugar.   I made one out of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and some pepper.    Like more paprika than the rest of the spices. Cover and cook for an hour a pound on high.  I take it out and reserve the broth for soup.  You can easily separate the breast onto two meals. Take off the thighs, legs, and wings for another meal, and put the rest of the meat and bones on a bag for soup.   Four meals for about 1.25 per meal for meat.    
• Chicken pot pie
• Chicken tacos
• Roasted chicken "Sunday dinner" 
• Buffalo chicken sandwiches 
• BBQ chicken sandwiches 
• Chicken orzo soup
• BBQ hicken thighs and legs 
• And the list goes on .....check the Betty Crocker on line cookbook.   

 Roasting a chicken takes a little more time, not much.   

Wash the chicken and clean out the insides.    Salt it.   

Put about anything inside the cavity that you have laying around the kitchen--

An apple, orange, lemon, onion...... Rub olive oil on the skin.   Put a meat thermometer in the chicken by the thigh half way in, not touching a bone.   Use a thermometer that is supposed to be left in the oven.  I have a programable one that works great. It beeps when the meat is done.  It was about twenty five dollars at Amazon.  Cook until the temp is 180 degrees.   I check several places.   I cook it at 375 and turn the oven on for 1.5 hours and add time  if necessary.    

Sometimes I get chicken thighs for as low as .68 at Winco.   I only want chicken that comes from The PNW.   I bake them off in the oven and freeze them.   When we are ready to eat them, I thaw them in the fridge and either shread the meat for tacos or BBQ sandwiches, or I put BBQ sauce on them and broil them until they are warm.   

Frozen boneless chicken breasts are 6.99 at grocery outlet - Foster farms.   

I keep one  bag for emergencies.    

I think the reason why a lot of people don't scratch cook is because they have stopped teaching home Ec in school. Watching some of the cooking shows, ought gove you the impression that it takes a long time in the kitchen.   There are simple ways to cook that don't take hours in the kitchen and still make a flavorable meal.   Knowing how to cook a good meal from scratch is key to feeding a family on a four dollar per person a day budget.   

We, actually, eat on less. 

What now!

OK we talked about the meal train. We talked about the engine being the start  of it all, the brains that plan and identify meals, ingredients we should stock, and how many we should stock.   We want enough for us to be covered in an emergency and enough to last us until we can find a RBP again.   But, not so much that we can't use it all up before pull dates.  

Next, planning and analyzing the ads to make a list of things we need to buy to fill in our stock, buy dairy and other perishables, and our so called loss leader protein.   

With lists of ingredients in hand, we can plan our meals with a matrix to speed the process.    

The shopping day, or a day or so later, ( watching sale dates) we can batch cook or separate the loss leader protein and place it in portion-controlled packages for the freezer or fridge whichever is appropriate.    This makes the dinner hour less hectic and more pleasant.   Having a plan keeps the drive- thru gremlins away,   On days when you know it's going to be hectic , you can put a meal on the slow cooker and dinner is covered.

On shopping day, enter the amount you spent on groceries on a spread sheet or in a notebook.   I keep a spreadsheet with how much I spent per week at which store and keep an envelope with the receipts in it.   

The next car on the meal train: 

Ways to make cooking stress free or be more efficient at cooking a meal.  

• Pre cooked, portion controlled meats- batch cooking.   
• Stair - step cooking. 
• The wonderful slow cooker 
• The pressure cooker. 
• Your personal cookbook of easy recipes your family likes
• Freezer meals.
• 
  

Coupons, favado and Ibotta .

Coupons got a bad rap when the extreme couponing  show came on.  In case you haven't figured it out, that show is scripted and those deals don't really happen in real life.     Most grocery stores now do not take dozens of coupons for the same thing,    Good thing, most of us dont need  85 bottles of hot sauce.    lol

Coupons are a good way to further reduce your cost of food. You can also at times get personal hygiene products for free.
It doesn't have to take 40 hours a week to clip coupons. I buy a Sunday paper the Saturday  before at the dollar tree and pull the Fred Meyer ad and the coupon inserts. P &G comes out the first weekend  of the month. Also, we get other inserts in the mail about Wednesday or Thursday. I put the inserts in a file folder  sorted by month.   It really helps of you write the date on the outside of the insert.

Once a month at the first of the month, I download coupons that I will use from coupons.com.
I file them in a binder.  

When I find a good buy for something on my list, I look at favado to see if there is a coupon  for it.
If don't have the insert or coupon on my binder, I download the coupon, or go to the insert  and clip it. This takes minutes, instead of clipping all the coupons and filing them so you can pull them when they expire.    Minimal time for maximum benefit.   Watch for coupons everywhere.    Today, I found a coupon for a dollar off of two cans of green chillies.   It made two cans of,chillies thirty five cents each.   That was over a two dollar savings, depending on where you shop.   All those two dollars add up.  

Ibotta so a program ap that I downloaded.   I check it after I get home from the store.   You listen to a shirt commercial while putting away the groceries, and snap a pic of the barcode and your sales slip and they put money in your account.    You can get rebate money for many fresh perishables that almost never have a coupon .  I am saving for an Amazon credit so I can use it for printer ink or toilet paper.

I can average five or six dollars a week using coupons.    I don't think I spend more than five  minutes a week getting them.  That's sixty dollars  an hour for my time.   I have never made sixty dollars an hour tax free!  

There are a lot of naysayers out there.   I've heard it all.   It's just for processed food is one of them--
Most of us use things like yogurt, butter, ice cream, cereal and a whole lot more that is not a hambirger meal box or a box of Mac and cheese.   Talk about processed foods!

   There are a lot of fat free, sugar free, gluten free, taste free foods out there.   Most of them have something else added to them that maybe worse than what you are trying to eliminate on the first place.

   My attitude is to eat basic foods, eat in moderation, use the USDA food pyramid and stick as close to real food as is realistically possible.  Tongue in  cheek news flash.... You are not going to spend six dollars a gallon for milk, and eight dollars a pound for quinoa and feed your family on four dollars a day!  Reality check!

I looked at the butter substitute today.   Ingredients are to be listed in order of volume.    The first thing on the list was water, the next thing was palm oil.    Palm oil is a trans fat.   My nutritionalist told me that I was better off using a skim of butter on my toast than to be using a fake butter.    Notice I didn't say a pat of butter!  

In my opinion, there is too much hype, controversy, and opinions out there to not take them all with a grain of salt.

I do know these things to be true:

1)  You can't take a entire food group out of your diet and not find out from someone who knows what they are doing ( not Aunt Martha) LOL. What you need to replace it with to give you a balanced diet.
2) Many things that weren't good for you a few years ago, are good for you now.   Time has a way of changing people's minds.

Now, I am a firm believer that too much salt, sugar, and  fat is bad for you.    I also believe you can rinse canned food, defat  ground meats, avoid processed meals and some take out meals that are sugar loaded, not serve desert every night, avoid things like potato chips and other salt and sugar loaded snacks.   Oven roast your fries instead of frying  your food.   You can do a lot without becoming an extremist .

Jane

Retailers dirty little secrets.

If You know their tricks, you can  beat them at their own game.   I used to work for a non profit that helped small companies to bring their food products to market.    It is really tough for small companies to get onto larger stores.    Shelf space is at a premium.

1. Manufacturers pay slotting fees ( basically rent ) for shelf space.   The eye level shelves are most desireable and command the highest "rent ".  It's not too far of a stretch to expect that they are going to factor  their rent into the price of their product.   Save:  look up and down.   
2. Most of a grocery stores profit lies in impulse buys.   Write  yourself a list of sale items and stick to it unless something shouts I really can use that and the price is right.   You don't really NEED M and Ms-- that hamburger that is priced at two dollars a pound because tomorrow is the pull date, however, can be a bargain to be wreckened with.   Take it home and cook and freeze immediately.
3. It is No accident that the toys are on the same isle as the sugar coated cereal or the candy and gum are near the checkouts.    First of all, avoid taking children to the store with you.   Some husbands can be just as bad.LOL. Leave the kids home if you can possibly find a way.   You will be less distracted and can make better decisions.   Try swapping babysitting with a friend or neighbor.    Leave them with dad or grandma....
4. It is also no accident that some retailers change their stores around what seems like weekly.   Costco is notorious for that.   The longer you spending a store, the more money you are going to spend.   The bigger the cart, the more money you are likely  to spend.   If you have to look for something, you are likely to go down every isle.   Costco does not mark their isles.  
5. When walking around the store, the  outside perimeter of the store has most of the dire necessities : dairy, bakery, produce, and meat departments.    The inside isles have sundry items and canned, boxed goods.    Don't go down a isle unless  there is something you need down it.   
6. Don't touch anything unless you are going to buy it,   Statistics show of you touch it, you are probably going to buy it.  
7. Retailers use, music, lighting, and smells to draw you in and keep you there .   They have studied shopping trends.  Focus on your list.   
8. Pricing is another way to disarm you.   Just because something is 10/10 doesn't mean you have to buy ten.   Some smaller packages of cheese are price low until you do the math,   And find out they have exorbitant prices.   It helps to learn basic figures in your head .  If something's 3/2 it is .67 each.   3/5 is 1.67 each.   There are 16 ounces in a pound, but a cup of grated cheese is four ounces.    Go figure.    
9. Ten dollar off fifty dollars. Those coupons are meant to get you in the store.   The more you spend over the fifty dollars, the less percentage you are getting off your purchase.   If the products are 125 percent of retail, you haven't saved a thing.   Do the math, and plan your trip.  If you have coupons, factor them on and try to stay as close to the fifty dollars ( or whatever the amount is ) I shop with a plan and my husband adds our purchases with a calculator from the dollar store.    
10. Buy six save three.   Do the math.  check the bottom line,  if all the products on  their list are highly processed junk food, it's not a bargain at any price.  It all boils down to the first basic tool you need to do groceries on the cheap!    

KNOW YOUR PRICES.   Every item in that store has a RBP.   You can really score if you know what that RBP is and use coupons or rebates to get prices as low as possible.  Remember, the store doesn't care if you use coupons. They get reimbursed for the coupon and are paid a 

Jane 

Fred Meyers ad

Fred Meyers ad...for what it is worth.    

Oranges are .69
Milk including chocolate and on is .99@@
Ground turkey 2.99@@
bumble bee tuna .79@@
Cheerios 3/5@@$$
Freschetta pizza 3.99 limit 2@@$$
Frozen veggies.79@@

The meal train....

for those people that need a visual, I came up with a meal train.   I'm not the best of I,lustrators, so you will have to use your imagination.    If you start with the engine, it's the brains if the train.   It's the part where you plan and organize.   Once you are done, you are done with the exception of adjusting it for price adjustments.   ( i.e. Beef quadrupling in cost ) , 

The next car on the train is shopping.   It's a long one.  There are many facets to shopping,   It's not just asking into a store and buying anything your eyes touch that looks good.   It would be a nice experience, but probably wasteful and not very economical.   There are so many facets that it's hard to know where to start .  

• Picking your stores ( yesterday) and you buy your  groceries where? 
• Planning your trip and start to meal plan. 
• Strategies to get out with only your list in your cart.   
• Knowing and avoiding the retailers tricks.   
• Coupons , favado and Ibotta 
• What's good for you?    Is this Hoarding?     Is this wasteful?    Cut the negativity hype.   

Yesterday we covered you buy your groceries where and analyzing the ads to pick the best price for the week on what you need.   

Now, planning your trip.  This probably will repeat some things from yesterday. Before you know what to buy, you need to look at what you have.   I made a form for meal planning.   its one page.   

To the left there is two columns.   One for what you have, what you,need to eat soon, and one for what you,need to fill in.   The other side has seven boxes for meals and one box with my matrix.  Having a matrix makes shirt work of planning a meal.   This shouldn't take most of a day.  Ours is 2 chicken or pork, 2 vegetarian, 2 beef, and 1 fish.   This is only an outline to help.   

Start with what you have to fill in the blanks.   Taking a quick inventory is a good start so that you don't overbuy.   Organize the fridge so that the same type of things are in the same place.    Minimize the amount of salad dressings etc you keep on there to make room if you need to.    The goal is to be able to look at a glance and see what is not there.    

This makes it easy to make a list of what you need.  Not over buying perishables helps keep the budget down and not waste.   I always keep celery,and carrots because they last a long time and are a good go to if you are out of other things.   Apples are another good staple.    

Fill out the have column, start the meal boxes.    Some people prefer to meal plan by category too. 

Like-- a soup, a pizza night, a taco or Tex mex night. Breakfast for dinner.   Sunday dinner, leftovers, 

And a quick pick.   

Making a list and sticking to it is the best way to stay on the track. Having a meal plan is the next.  

 Not knowing the answer to what's for dinner question is a sure way to derail your train.    It too easy for the take  out gremlins to intervene.  LOL.   I keep pizzas I get on sale for that day when no one feels like cooking.    I add our topping we have chopped on the freezer and some more cheese to a cheap pizza and salad is on the fridge and dinner appears on the table.   

Knowing what you need is the first step.  Now, if you don't have an ad for all the stores on your area, check favado.   It's not always 100 percent accurate, but it will tell you if there is a coupon for the ite, you are wanting and where it is.  Often it is a click away and you can print it.   Also check Ibotta of you have already picked your stores.   Sometimes there is an Ibotta for milk and other staples and if the price is the same, you can score more.   It's the only way you can "coupon" for perishables most of the time.    

Pick your stores, plan your trip to save gas.   

Bring a coupon book of you have it, your coupons, the ads, and a small calculator.   

Next: strategies to get out of the store with just what's on your list and retailers dirty little secrets if there is time.   

Thanks, Jane

Analyzing the ads

Where we are, the ads come in the mail every Tuesday or Wednesday.    The Fred Meyer ( Kroger) ad comes in the Sunday paper.    Winco has no ad.   Favado is an ap for your phone or  computers that is supposed to tell you the ad prices on some things. It is not always accurate. But, it also tells you where to find coupons that match the ad prices.   No all the coupons are available on our area, but it is a starting point.  

Start by getting a good feel for the things on your stock list that you are running low on.   Take a quick inventory of your perishables and write  them on your meal plan sheet.    Now let's go over the ads .   You are looking for  anything that you need to buy to replenish your stock and perishable that
You need to fill out your meals.  Circle or mark the things that are in your list.    

For example. Safeways has coffee for 7.99.
Sour cream, 24 ounces is 2.99 ( cross off,mots 1.25 for 16 ounces at QFC)
Tuna, bumblebee is 3/5 ( cross off, it's 1.00 at QFC)
DiGiorno pizza is 2/9. ( cross off , it's 3.99 at QFC)
20 percent ground beef is 3.99 ( cross off its 3.99 for 7 percent at Fred Meyers.)


QFC has
DIGiorno pizza for 3.99 - note there are coupons 150 off on 2 , or buy two get one free, and no they are not stackable.
Cheese 5.99. Cross off, it's 2.08 a pound  at Costco.  
Sour cream 16 ounces 1.25
Oranges .69
Ground turkey 2.99
Berries 2/5
Cheese, 8 ounces  1.99 cross off its 2.08 a pound at Costco.

Ok, as you look at the ads, and cross off anything that is cheaper elsewhere.  You will soon see a picture of the best grocery store that will  give you what you need for the best price.
In this case, I don't  have the Fred Meyers ad to compare.   I am using last weeks ads.  

Seeing the prices, I would pick QFC and Fred Meyers.  analyze the stores.   Pick two stores that have the best buys for the things that you need.

 Some stores are notorious for having good prices on some things. Knowing that in advance,  pick two stores that have the best buys for the things that you need.  If you pick two stores a week and plan your trip  you can be more effective with your gas. We choose to go to Costco  on an as needed basis.   Costco is my go to store for grated cheese, oatmeal, bacon, bananas,  tortillas, butter, and sometimes sour cream. We go to the dollar tree and grocery outlet when we are in the area.  They usually have a fill in things  so we don't need to make a special trip. Dollar tree has yummy shortbread cookies with chocolate, french fries, and hand soap.     Grocery outlet is a good source for cheese, mostly sliced, but sometimes they have grated cheese cheaper than Costco.    I always also look for coffee and Foster Farms boneless skinless chicken breast.

 Winco has a lower prices  many things.  Sometimes,  I go to Winco first and then Fill in what is cheaper at the other stores.

When I go to the stores,  I am looking for the perishable fruits and vegetables we will need for the week.   I am also looking for a loss leader so to speak of a protein.   I want to buy a meat or other protein in bulk.    I want to buy enough of that meat to feed us that type of meat for a month.    It's other words, if we use a pound of ground beef per meal and we eat ground beef once a week ,I will
buy 4 pounds. When I get it home, or the next day, I will batch cook it and divide it into portion controlled packets.    I might rotate between

1. Ground beef or turkey ( around 3-3.50 a lb) 
2. Whole chicken ( 1.00 or less for foster farms) 
3. 5 -10 pounds of grated cheese- ( as close to 2.00 a pound I can get) 
4. pork loin or tenderloin ( 2.00 or less for the loin, five dollars for the tenderloin. 
5. White fish or shrimp, ( five dollars a pack for shrimp. ) 

On any shopping trip. I am looking for inexpensive prices on dairy and produce, a loss leader protein for the week, and anything in my stock list that is at a RBP.   

Thanks for stopping by

Next. 

More shopping strategies 

From the beginning.....

It's probably time that we start from the beginning for those that are new and wonder what this is all about.

It came to my attention that some people on SNAP were running out of money before they ran out of month.   My daughter said, you know how to stretch your food dollar.   You should write a blog.    And the rest is history.I have learned more since then.

Groceries on the cheap takes a different approach to grocery shopping.   Instead of making meal plans and shopping for one weeks worth of meals, you shop to replenish your stock and purchase the perishables you will need for the week.   This allows you the luxury  of always having food in the house. If something happens that you can't get out of the house you don't have to shop. No child should suffer the insecurity  of having nothing in the house to eat.

 This allows you  to shop the sales and only purchase your food what is that a rock-bottom price. Most of the time you can get your food for half price.  This takes some planning and organization, but I would say that it will probably take you less time to shop that you were taking before.

Getting started. Lets outline the steps. Anything you do  starts with a plan.

1)  identify the sources of protein that your family likes to eat. In our family that would be eggs,                                                 cheese,  beans, rice, pork, chicken, beef.

2)  write down 7 to 14 main dishes  that use these ingredients.
     Example : speghetti with red sauce, stir fry, chilli, chicken pot pie, quiche, tacos or burritos.
     There are many more .

3) now identify the shelf stable ingredients that you will use to make your meals.
    These will be your stock items.  Most people have a list of 10 to 15 items.
      For example, ours would be beans, rice,  diced tomatoes, green beans, pasta, pasta sauce, green                             chilies, Black olives,  refried beans, instant mashed potatoes, corn.

4).  For your stock items, start a little notebook or a spreadsheet. This is your price book. You want to identify  The item,  The size of the container, and the rock-bottom price. Also, decide how many items  of that product you are going to stock. Example: if you use diced tomatoes and use two cans a week, and four wee and use two cans a week, you will use 8 cans a month.    Either estimate when you think this will go on sale again or pick a comfortable amount of months stock.

5)  this won't happen overnight.  As you see things on sale or on sale with a coupon that makes them the rock-bottom price, you buy your regular food and add  A few cans at a time. You can find more money in your budget by omitting  Snackfood (empty calories)  and things like pop or soda. surprise surprise, you do not get snacks like potato chips and soda and steak and lobster on a snap budget.  Keep a separate budget if you have to have those items. If you have a snack budget you will soon be aware of how  much you are spending on junk food.

Next: analyzing the ads and finding the  rock-bottom price.

Strike while the iron is hot.......

Good morning.     I have been thinking of things I would include if I did a class on cutting  your grocery bill.    It's one of the biggest expenses of your discresionary spending --especially considering that the cost of gas has gone way down.   

One of the things is that certain items go on a really good sale once or twice a year.    Usually you can get catsup and mustard and BBQ supplies really cheap with coupons about Memorial Day and the fourth if July.    Frozen pizza is always on sale with coupons before the big game.    Back to school supplies in August is a good time to stock office supplies even if you have no children at home.    

I found 1.50 off two DiGiorno pizzas coupon and I found, buy two, get one.   Unfortunately, you can't use both at Fred Meyers on the same transaction.   You would have to buy five pizzas.    In other words, the coupons can't stack.    Fred Meyers has the cheapest price on DiGiorno pizza.    I had to take the pizzas out of their boxes and save the directions on the fridge to get them on the freezer, but we have enough for pizza once a week for a month to six weeks.   I paid 2.66 instead of 6.77- sixty percent off.   

Grocery store on the cheap takes a different approach to shopping for groceries.   It works at any budget level, but especially for people with a really tight budget.    On a tight budget it may take a while to build up a stock! But it is doable-- especially fm you get your grocery money on a lump sum at the beginning of the month.    

Basically, instead of meal planning and buying a weeks worth of groceries.   Forgetting something and going back to the store, you replenish what you have used when it is on a good sale, and adding a coupon of you can is even better.  Once you have got yourself up and running, you go t the store to buy : 

1) a "loss leader " protein.   If I can't find a good meat , I use that week to buy cheese or fish.  I can always find Fish for a good price at Winco. Grated cheese is best at Costco, or at grocery outlet if it's on sale.  Recently, I got feta for 1.20 a pound and mottzerell at 1.50 a pound,   I have a set price.    I want as close to 2.00 a pound as I can find it.   It is paramount to have set prices you will pay for products.   I call that the RBP ( rock bottom price, or my target price.) I want pork to cost 2.00 a pound, and chicken to be a dollar or less.   7 percent hamburger is about three dollars a pound when I get it on sale.    

If you are working on a foir by four budget, dinner should be five dollars total.   ( four people, four dollars a day - - so called SNAP budget.   We aren't in snap, but I use the budget anyway.  I feed us ( three adults and one child) on 75.00 a week and keep a stock.    Actual food eaten is closer to sixty dollars.     I couldn't do that without stocking.    

2) replenish perishables-- dairy and fresh veggies and fruit.    I want to pay 2  dollars to 2.50 a pound for butter.   - real butter.  The nutritionalist told me that a little butter is better than a lot of margarine or substitute.   I wait for specials and stock a reasonable amount for the pull date on milk, cottage cheese, and sour cream. Fred Meyers is usually a good place for these. Milk is a dollar with a coupon, and sour cream is either a dollar or a dollar and a quarter.   I was buying the big ones at Costco ( cheaper) but we didn't use all of it up before the pull date.   Eggs I was paying a buck a dozen for, now I try for two dollars.   Always check to be sure there are no cracked eggs in the carton.    Buying a five dozen crate doesn't work for is, we don't use enough,    

3) fruits and veggies.    My RBP for them is a buck a pound, or 2.50 a box for berries.    I get apples for a dollar all the time, berries are either 2 or 2.50 a box.   Bananas are 1.39 a bunch at Costco.  It makes no sense to buy organic bananas.   I buy organic of the price is the same and I can use them up immediately.    Otherwise, I wash my fruit and vegetables or peel them when that is appropriate.    I don't buy juice at all.  It's expensive, it's too sugar loaded, and a distortion told me that the children were better off eating the fruit.    Buy fruit in season.    Buy vegetables when they are at their peak.    

They will be cheaper and better quality.    

4) bread and bread products.   My RBP for bread is 2.50 a loaf.   The bread store is good of you have one near you.   I always get a big package of English muffins from Fred Meyers for 1.67.   (3/5) Winco has cheap white bread for .88.  I prefer a wheat bread that has less than 10 carbs a slice.    My husband would rather have the white stuff.    Sometimes I make bread.    I always make bread crumbs.  Why pay upwards  of 2.40 a pound for someone else's dry bread.   

Getting to the replenish stage is another chapter.     

Thanks for stopping by

Jane 

little work, little time, little money

I am all about doing dinner with as little effort as possible.  I want it to taste good, take little time,  and be inexpensive.

Enter chicken dinner.    No, not Rotisserie chicken and sides from the deli.....that's not little money,  

The key is three ingredients and passive cooking.    You can't  count cooking time when the food is cooking and you are at the gym or watching tv.    

Chicken :  Dump a rough cut onion in the bottom of your slow cooker.    Wash a whole chicken, spread it with a home-made dry rub, and put it in the slow cooker with the lid on.   Cook on high for an hour a pound.

Now, grease a 9x13 pan with  cooking spray.    Dump sliced apples on the bottom of the pan.   Dump a yellow cake mix over the top, and drizzle melted butter over the mix.  ( Betty Crocker CB on line - Apple dump cake )

Instant mashed potatoes ( Idahoan makes four cheese .60 with a coupon at Winco) and a frozen veggie cooked in the microwave completes the meal.

Part of the chicken breast 1.25
Onion .25
Cake mix .88
Apples 1.25
Butter .94
Potatoes .60
Veggies .65
Total   5.80

This assumes you eat the whole pan of cake for dinner!    1/2 a pan would being ot down to 4.30.

Stair step meals.

Stair step meals are meals where what you cook today, meets up with another meal later.    Its not leftovers; but  rather, planned double batching to cut the work in the kitchen.  I'm all about cutting work for in the kitchen while attempting to make scratch cooking easy.    My mantra is spend more time planning a shopping trip and shopping for RBP, and less time in the kitchen.  With tricks you can make semi scratch cooking and save a lot of money.   I do a lot of prep and batch cooking early in the day or on weekends so that I don't have to cook an hour meal at dinner time.    ( I'm old and I have a toddler to watch at meal time. ) sometimes we cook together.   She loves to count and stir.

I digress, stair step meals. ( written some time ago)
Anytime you are chopping anything that could go on a pizza, put it in a bag or box that you keep in the freezer door.   Ditto meats ( keep them separate).  Mark the containers and reuse them.  Anytime you are ready for pizza, the hard work is already done.  I call this almost free pizza.   O

1) impossible ham and cheese pie.  Green salad, or salsa of salad greens are too expensive.  At the time of the original writing, lettuce was three dollars a head.  Ham cubes are anywhere from 4-5 dollars a package.  A package can stretch to three or four meals depending on whether or not it's the only protein in the meal.   ( use 1/3 of the package)

2) pasta bake - use sausage and cheese.   Serve with salad or fruit cup.( not in an individual cup) ,
     Save some pasta sauce for pizza.  ( freeze)

3) roast chicken or pork mashed potatoes, green beans, salad.   Save some,chicken or pork for sweet and sour chicken or pork later in the week.  

4)sweet and sour chicken or pork.  
     1 lb chicken or pork cut into cubes
      1/4 cup Dijon mustard, divided
      3 T soy sauce , divided

1 pkg chicken flavored ramen noodles
1-8 ounce can pineapple, reserve juice.
1/2 cup water
2T brown sugar
1/2 tsp ginger, 1 T cornstarch
2 cups broccoli, cut
1/4 cup chopped red paper.
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup shredded cabbage
2T vegetable oil ( or olive)

In bowl, combine chicken , 2T mustard and 1 tsp soy sauce.  Set aside
I'm small bowl combine remaining mustard and soy sauce, chicken flavor packet from noodles, reserved pineapple juice, water, brown sugar, ginger,  and cornstarch,

This is where I wing it because my notes from forty-five years ago, got up a split from my 70s cookbook.

Stir fry broccoli, onion, cabbage, red pepper on the oil.   Add chicken, add pineapple mixture.  Heat through.

Serve over rice.    ( reserve rice)

5)  stuffed green or colored peppers ( from the bag of peppers? ) use reserved rice, cooked hamburger, chopped peppers. And a can of diced tomatoes, drained.  Reserve juice to add to tomato or pasta sauce to bake the peppers in.

6) almost free pizza.   Use reserved past sauce for the pizza sauce.   Add saved pineapple, ham, or cooked hamburger, peppers, onion, chicken and cheese, or any combination you prefer for pizzas.

Tomorrows ad- Fred Meyer and notes

Feb 2nd, Tuesday, is senior day at Fred Meyers.   Ten percent off private label food and regular merchandise ( with exceptions).  This is in addition to any other coupons  or discounts.   There is a twenty percent off housewares coupon in the paper.  

There is a coupon off red Barron pizza in the paper ( insert) .  Note that next weekend will be the sale of the year on pizzas.   I haven't found any DiGiorno or Freschetta coupons. But they will probably appear either on coupons.com or in the inserts.  I do try to find red Barron on sale cheap.   We add our own toppings and I basically use it for the crust.   Sometimes ,  I don't feel like making crust from scratch.  

Private selection ground beef 3.99 ( senior ten percent on Tuesday) 3.60
DiGiorno pizza 3.99.
Nalleys chilli .99@@
Red Barron 3.19$$
Mission tortillas 1.00$$ makes them .75
Johnsonville smoked sausage 2.99- coupon?  
Private selection fruit pie 3.49 - 3.14 on Tuesday for seniors.  

That's about it.  

Thanks for stopping by

Jane

Five Easy Meals

I'm making a point this month to
A) use up the things in the pantry that are accumulating,
B) use up leftovers and not waste.   Keep a better eye on the crisper.  
C) try new recipes - broaden our horizons.  

I have a lot of cookbooks and I just found two from the dollar tree that are very interesting.   One is southern comfort foods and the other is western foods- a lot of ethnic foods.

1) tonight we had hot dogs ( the 2nd half of the package I got at QFC for three dollars.  Buns 1/2 from Winco  .68. And a suddenly salad from the pantry (.75) with grape tomatoes .50.   Total 3.09.  

2) I get a box of organic tomato and roasted red pepper soup from Costco.  ( 10.99/6) we usually ad basil, milk or cream, and blue cheese.    I plan to add the milk and basil, but skip the blue cheese.   I found a recipe for pepperoni and cheese breadsticks in the Bisquick CB.   I get pepperoni form.50 at the dollar tree .   1.83 , .50, .50 equals 2.83.

3) we have a pork tenderloin from when I got them for 2/5 at Winco,    I will add mashed sweet potatoes (1.00) and some veggies from the freezer.  .65.  Total 4.15

4) chicken pot pie.    1/2 chicken breast 1.20,  cream of mushroom soup .40, mixed veggies .65.   Bisquick   Total 2.25

5) chicken nachos : adapted from Betty Crocker on line CB.  1/2 chicken breast, black beans, mixed peppers chopped, black olives sliced, drained chopped tomatoes, tomato sauce, cheese over tortilla chips.   Total,cost 4.99 less leftovers 3.99. ( see cookbook for recipe) .

Five meals all of which are less than five dollars.    Not including staple items, but still well under the five dollar amount and kid friendly.  


I've read a lot of articles , books, and booklets on eating in a low budget.   I am convinced that instead of sacrificing taste, nutrition, or omitting a food group, it makes more sense to eat regular meals and concentrate on cooking from scratch, making some mixes of your own, and buying your food at rbp's.  

You don't need to steal sugar packets from fast food, take the family through Costco on sample day , or forge for food.    Just buy the best quality inexpensive cuts of meat and be diligent about finding food at rbp's and keep a small stock so you can eat until that product goes on sale again.  

Thanks for stopping by

Please share

Jane

The ads

Yesterday, we went to QFC with five dollar off twenty five dollar coupon.    The closer you stay at the twenty five dollar mark, the better buy you get.    Five off of twenty five is twenty percent.   If you spend more, your percent off goes down.   I spent 25.06.    I didn't use a calculator, I just kinda added on my head.   QFC has a two week ad.

I bought meat, eggs, and fruit and vegetables.  All were on sale and I used coupons.

I then went to Winco and filled on the few things that I still needed.    I still haven't found white beans at RBP, but I picked up two to get me by at .68.   Winco does not have white beans with their brand on them.    My husband informed m after the trip that we are out of French fries.  That's hard for me to believe, so I'm going to have to make my way down stairs ( no easy feat with my hip) and make sure no one put the right thing in the wrong bin.   Our freezer is organized by bin.   All vegetables , frozen potatoes, and meat by categories are in their separate bins. ( dollar store) when the bin is getting low, someone is supposed to tell me.  I don't  get downstairs often.  It's a challenge.

Buns for hot dogs and hamburgers are 3.50 at our neighborhood store.   The hot dog buns I got were .68.  That is a remarkable difference.   Usually, hamburger bins are .88.   They are a little smaller, but since  I am counting carbs, that doesn't bother me.   Sliced black olives in a small can are a good buy, more oroduct for your buck and they were lower than the usual .70.  Coffee was 5.88.
 Total 28.56 for both stores.  

Safeways and Albertsons ad
Again, not much there that is a bargain.  I used  to find good prices at Safeways.    Now, I am spending more at Fred Meyers and Winco.

Buy 5, save 5
Cereal 1.99-2.49.
I don't buy cold cereal much.   If I do, it's in a bag or at Costco.    Sugar coated cereal is another way to jack your bill up.   Granddaughter likes mush (oatmeal) .
BBQ sauce .99
Kraft salad dressing 1.49$$
Mayo 2,99
Coffee 6.99$$ maxwell house

Pork chops , seasoned B1,get three.   The last time they had this price, the packages were 25.00 and netted 2.00 a pound. With a coupon!

Five dollar Friday Safeways
Ff wings
Dijourno
2 lbs cheese
Pudding ring 2/5

Five dollar Friday Albertsons
Chilli 5/5
DiGiorno
Cheese

That's  about it.  

Thanks for stopping by
Jane

Chicken soup

Yesterday I cooked a chicken in the crockpot.    Undoubtedly, the easiest, fastest, no brainier way to cook a whole chicken,   I got a 5.5 pound chicken for .87 a pound.    I'm thinking it was 5.50.   We have three other meals out of it besides the chicken soup I made last night.

Crockpot chicken. 

1) peel and rough cut a medium or two small onions and put in the bottom of crockpot.     

2) make a rub of paprika, onion  powder, garlic powder and salt and pepper.    

3) clean out the insides of the chicken.  I put it in a colander in the sink.   Put some salt in the cavity.  

4) put the chicken in the crockpot and coat  the chicken with spice rub.   

5) put the lid on and cook on high for an hour a pound.   ( I cooked the 5.5 pound chicken for six hours) 

This makes fantastic stock.   I defatted  it , added some better than bouillon, chopped  celery, carrots, and some of the tomato  spaghetti from the other night cut up. 

 I pulled the chicken from the crockpot and cut to breast portions off. I cut off the legs and thighs and wings  and put them in a Ziploc bag for the freezer. I put each breast in a separate bag. With the rest of the carcass , I picked the meat and put it in the soup pot. 

I served the soup with Italian bread made with parmesean cheese and peppercorns.  

Easy, and a lot of passive cooking,   

I will get three other meals from the 5.50  chicken plus a lunch-about 1.40 a meal .  

I will also make 

Chicken pot pie from 1/2 a chicken breast, mixed veggies, white sauce made from a homemade mix. And Bisquick.   

BBQ thighs and legs ( put BBQ sauce on thawed chicken that has been heated on the microwave for 2 min or so.  Broil in oven.   Serve with French fries and fruit or green salad . 

Sliced chicken breast,  mashed sweet potatoes , peas and carrots.     

4 meals for three ( daughter  is a vegetarian) for 5.50. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Jane 

What to do with what you got.

I am hearing that the biggest problem about meals is knowing or getting inspiration about what to cook.  I decided I would try to take what I purchased on sale yesterday, a lot of which was 1/2 price or more and make dinner plans.   Having a list of meals might give someone inspiration.  

First, I got up this morning and put the chicken in the slow cooker and put a loaf of parmesean peppercorn Italian bread in the bread baker.    I'm on the road to a chicken orzo vegetable soup and French bread for dinner.  

1. Chicken orzo, vegetable soup.   Italian parmesean peppercorn bread . 
2. Chicken pot pie. ( frozen mixed veggies, 1/2 chicken breast cut up,1 recipe cream soup base, and a Bisquick crust.   
3. BBQ chicken thighs and legs.   French fries ( five pounds for about 3.00 at Winco) blueberries and oranges ( oranges are a buck a pound or less everywhere, Blues were five for 18 ounces) . 
4. Bacon, waffles. Yogurt parfait a ( youngest, blieberroes, granola.   ) granola is at dollar tree, yougert  was .40 with a coupon at FM, ) 
5. Roast chicken breast, mashed sweet potatoes,  mixed vegetables.  
6. Tomato basil soup.   Parmesean pepperoni bread sticks ( Bisquick CB)  soup is at Costco in a box.   
7. Pizza - add cheese and pepperoni 
8. Pizza - add cheese and pepperoni 

I still have artichokes, cornbread and rice mixes.    

Other meals 

From ground meat 

1. Shepherds pie 
2. Spaghetti and meatballs 
3. Meatballs, broccoli rice, white sauce. Mixed veggies.   
4. Sloppy joes. Use buns from Winco (.88) and sloppy joe sauce ( catsup, water, dry mustard, liquid smoke, ground pepper 
5. Hamburgers ( rest of the buns) 
6. Chilli, beans, corn bread 

From pork chops 

1. Stir fry and rice   ( stir fry vegetables are 1.29 or so at Winco. Cook rice from dollar store, add cooked park chopsmthatnaremcut into small pieces.    
2. Pork chops, browned and put on top of bread dressing with Apple and dried cranberries.    Salad 
3. Pork chops, mashed potatoes w bacon ( .60 with coupon at Winco) crazed carrots 

I could go on forever prolly, but hats a good start.   

Thanks 

Jane 

Grocery hauls-- Sunday

Big lots was twenty percent off the whole store.   I went to dollar store( across the street) to get the Sunday paper.    Then, we went to Fred Meyers.   I lucked out at all three stores with coupons.    Not the two cent bottom line that one might find in the infamous tv show, but half is good to me.   I want to average 1/2 on everything .

Big lots

1. Christmas was 90 percent off and then another twenty percent off.   I got 25.00 worth of things that mostly go for year round for less than two dollars.    Wrapping paper ( stR wars, Disney princess and Dora for twenty cents a roll.    Decorated boxes for .56 instead of 7.00.   A red bow (Valentine's day) for .18.   
2. Marshmallows that are cheapest at 1.00 were 2/ 1.52. 
3. Marie calendars corn bread 1.52
4. Artichoke hearts .80

Total 4.64 

Dollar tree 

1. Uncle bens rice mixes 2/1.00 with coupon 
2. Jenne-o turkey bacon 
3. Hormel sliced pepperoni 2/1 with coupon 
4. Betty Crocker mashed sweet potatoes 

Total 4.00         2.00 in coupons 

Fred Meyers 

1. Two packages frozen mixed veggies 1.28
2. Yo plait 10 /4.00 with coupon 
3. Mission tortillas (10) .25 with coupon 
4. Blueberries 18 ounces 4.99
5. 2 milk 1.98
6. 2 red Barron pizzas 2.88 ea 
7. Foster farms chicken 5.49 ( .87 per lb.) 

Total 23.75  coupons 4.55

Grand total for food 32.39

Coupon savings 6.55

Does not include the savings vs regular priced .   

Quality or quantity -- ?

 Quality or quantity ?.... Why not have both.    If you shop wisely, you can have both on a meager budget.    It takes time.    I make up the time by being very efficient in the kitchen.   I don't believe that you have to sacrifice meat to keep on a small budget.    I'm not convinced that eating no meat can give you proper nutrition.   I am hearing if too many people that have iron deficiency .  It is very hard to get enough iron and not eat meat. There is iron in turkey, but more in beef.    We do not eat the beef  we used to eat when it was cheap.    We still eat beef once or twice a week.   We also eat fish and chicken and pork.

Skimping on quality is not something I'm going to do.  You can still eat inexpensive cuts of meat and buy the best quality.  There are some things I am very picky about.  

•  I only buy NW chickens.    I buy whole usually.  It gives you the most meat for your buck.    
• I buy hot dogs occasionally, mostly in the summer.  I will only buy Nathan's or Hebrew national.    
• Kirkland albacore tuna is the best I have found. 
• I buy seven to nine percent hamburger.   I de-fat  it as well as sausage.   
• Sausage is jimmy dean,   

Staying in a limited budget doesn't mean you have to eat lesser quality.   You, obviously aren't going to buy a lot of lobster and beef tenderloin.   But, you can eat well.    

I don't believe that you have to spend hours on the kitchen baking your own bread and making your own tortillas to save money on groceries.   Now, if you have the time and you enjoy that, by all means I think you should do that.   Personally, I don't have the stamina to do that and I always had more than enough to do when the kids were all home -- like 17 loads of laundry a week, cleaning house and working sometimes  holding down two jobs.    lol   I do have a quick and easy pizza dough recipe that doesn't take hours standing time,   I found one in the Bisquick cookbook too, but we haven't tried it.   

My answer to buying quality and quantity is to know your prices and buy quantity when the price is low.   Most people have a list of ten to fifteen things that are non-perishables and they use on a regular basis,     By tracking prices, you can find a RBP and buy a quantity when it comes on sale.  This means you are not going to buy just a days worth of food, or even a weeks worth of food at a time,    You keep a stock and when you shop you are looking for perishables: dairy, fruits and veggies,  a loss leader protein and anything that is a RBP on your staple list.   Decide  how many you are going to keep ahead. Some people try to second guess the sale cycles.  I tend to try for a three to six month stock of key things,   Things like catsup and mustard go on sale on the summer,   I keep one ahead on mustard and two on catsup to last us the year.    I buy canned beans because rice and beans have a very short storage life.  Never hold rice or beans out more than two hours.   And keep on the fridge no more than three days.   Saving money doesn't make sense if you are taking a chance on making family sick.    I can get beans for as low as fifty cents a can.   I cooked a whole pound bag of rice.   Most of it went in the garbage.   Rice and beans don't freeze well- back to the quality issue.  

I average seventy -five dollars a week for four of us.   My daughter supplements their food with the alternative things because she is vegetarian,    Still, the stats for my husband and I are almost a hundred dollars for actual food eaten,    I spend 75.00 and maintain a stock,   I haven't deviated from that in years except for the time this last year when Haggens took over Albertsons and Safeways and prices rose remarkably.    It's not good for the consumer when two grocery chains dominate the marketplace.   Winco dropped my grocery budget remarkably.   I am not seeing a lot of good buys at Safeways and Albertsons lately and both have almost the exact same ad.    Fred Meyers and QFC haven't been too good lately either.    

Grocery outlet is good for certain things.    They are carrying more alternative foods - or foods from
IMars as I call them.   They have good prices on cheese and have unusual ones at good prices.     Find frozen Foster farms chicken, and sometimes bulk French fries cheap.   

The dollar tree is another resource.  No, everything isn't from China or Mars.    There are a lot of snack foods that I don't touch.   Snack foods are one of the best ways to jack up your food budget and not get much nutrition for your buck.   There is still a few things that are a good buy.   They sometimes have a seasoned frozen fry for 1.5 pounds.  They have a chocolate striped shortbread cookie that is good.    Hunts  pasta sauce is .75 with a store coupon at times.   Gnocchi is from Italy. 

Big lots has a few things.    A couple of times a year they out the entire store on twenty percent.  On right now.   

Costco is my go to for laundry detergent if I can't find free, toilet paper, bananas, bacon, sausage, over the counter meds, sometimes refried beans, oatmeal, soda, salt , better than bouillon, butter and sour cream.   Costco has the cheapest price on grated cheese unless grocery outlet does a two-fer. 

Spending a limited time going over the ads and checking favado for coupon match ups will save you a few bucks a week.   Ibotta helps also.   It gives you money  back on some fruits and veggies, milk etc that you never get a coupon for.   QFC and Fred Meyers have milk for a buck at times.  

Gotta go..........


Thanks

Jane 

The ads

These days we basically have two ads that are print d.   Safeways and Albertsons are just about identical.    There is not much there.  


BUY SIX, SAVE  THREE- NET COSTS
QFC has buy six, save three sale on .  A lot of junk food.    Some things stand out. As Boeing a bargain.   You can surely find six things without  overstocking( at least in our house.). It's cold and flu season and facial tissues are 160 count for .99.   Watch the count, not all the boxes are 160.   The best I can find is 120 at dollar tree.   So,stores I can find a case at big lots and this weekend is 20 percent off-- Saturday of you have a card and Sunday of you don't.  

Milk is NET .99 also OJ
Tide  is 5.99
DiGiorno is 4.99
Marie calendars a healthy choice is 1.78
Dryers is 2.49
Facial tissue 160  count .99

Remember you can still use coupons if you can find them as long as they are manufacturers coupons. QFC has a dollars off total cost coupons we got in the mail.  I don't know if those apply also or not.   Read the fine print.

Other
chuck or London broil 3.99
Peanut butter 2/3
Raspberry, blackberries 2/4
Yogurt 10/5
I'm going by memory.  Proces are gove  or take a few pennies..  
Now, I went to Winco today.    Apples continue to be close to a dollar for several different kinds.   Hamburger (high fat) was 2.18.    (Remember you can defeat a hamburger and reduce the fat by 17 percent.) I read that on the Internet and the technique makes sense.    Chili is close to a dollar, canned beans (Winco brand are close to .50) they have no great northern - I bought dried.   The pepper jack cheese was close to 2.00 a pound.    Ham cubes were close to four dollars.    I had a coupon for Idahoian  mashed potatoes net cost was .60.   Some stores want 1.25.    Chopped tomatoes continue to be .38 cents..  

I got a southern living comfort food cookbook at the dollar store.   It is full of really good recipes-- not all typical southern fried food.  

I splurged and bought a Cobb salad.   It was three dollars and very good.   It was huge!  
Could have easily fed two of is and full of meat, cheese, and egg.  

Guess that's all.    

Thanks. Jane

No ads yet.

We have no ads yet because of the holiday.    I am seeing a coupon flyer f om QFC, wondering if Winco has taken some of their market.   It is for dollars off a minimum order for several weeks out.  
On another note, big lots has a twenty percent off everything Saturday for people with rewards cards, and Sunday for everybody,  

My post before this was an experiment because I know there are people that are left in a position that they have a limited amount of money and no food on the house.   It was supposed to be a stop gap to get someone through a short period of time,    Basically, keep tummies happy until regular money came in.  

My daughter and I went to the dollar tree and grocery outlet is weekend,   I got a lot if necessities-- I came with a list.    I found feta cheese fir 1.20 a pound,  you can freeze feta and use it in cooking,   I saw a recipe for a Greek pizza that sounded very interesting,    I also found fruit snacks for my granddaughters treat boxes for Valentine's Day for her class.   They aren't what I thought they were, but they will work and the mothers should be happier with those than candy.   I thought they were the kind that was more like candy with fruit juice added.   These are dried raisins, craisens, and mango.   My granddaughter loved them and her class is four to six yo, so there shouldn't be a choking hazard.  

One nnte, I think is most interesting,    I needed facial tissues.    Going down the isle at dollar tree, it started with boxes of 85, then 120, finally 200.   Everything is a buck, so who would buy 85 when they can get 200?     They had a southern cooking comfort foods cookbook at the dollar store,   They have chocolate striped shortbread cookies at the dollar tree.  

Grocery outlet is the best place for sliced cheeses.   Tortillas are better at the dollar tree.   Salsa was the same price per ounce and cheaper for the same brand as the regular chains. They had hard salami ends and pieces for a good price at grocery outlet.   Most of the time, Foster farms chicken breasts are cheaper.  

I have nothing in the pantry,and twenty-five dollars, what can I do?

This is an experiment that my daughter and I researched at the dollar tree.   The answer to I have nothing in the house and twenty five dollars to spend.   7 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for 24.00 for two people .  

Is is not what I would recommend you eat on a yearly basis:   It has a fair amount of carbs and no fresh food.   It's basically survival mode.  

Grocery list. Everything is a dollar

1 package instant oatmeal ( a canister would be better if they have it)
1/2 dozen eggs
1 carton almond milk ( our dollar tree does not carry real milk)
1 package  top ramen ( 5 or 6 depending on the package )
3 cans  pasta sauce ( sometimes there is a coupon so you get four for the ride of 3) this will be split into several meals)
1 pkg speghetti or pasta
1 pkg (2) brown and serve sourdough bread
1 steak
1 pork chop
1 pkg mixed vegetables
1 pkg stir fry veggies
1 pkg fingerling potatoes ( cook in the oven , smash, and broil ) or substitute instant mashed
1 pkg ( or two with a coupon ) pepperoni
2  packages cheese
1 pkg tortillas
1 pkg peppers (frozen )
2 pounds rice
1 lb beans or a can of chilli
2 portions salmon
1 package broccoli

Breakfasts :
Oatmeal (5 days) egg 2 days

Lunches
Top ramen or
Eggs (1)
Leftovers

Dinners

1. Speghetti with red sauce, sour dough bread.   Use 1 bread and all but 2T of red sauce.   
2. Beef soup.  Use 1 can pasta sauce, mixed veggies, top ramen flavor packet, water, and cooked steak that has been cut into small pieces..  And the other 1/2 of the bread.    
3. Pizza Quesedas.  Tomato from reserved sauce, pepperoni, cheese, and some peppers(thawed)  
4. Pork stir fry and rice .  Cook rice reserving 1/2 for another meal.  Stir fry pork chop, cut into small pieces, stir fry vegetables.  Serve over rice.   
5. Spanish rice .   Use pasta sauce , reserved rice, peppers. (Beans if you cook scratch)   
6. Burritos made with rice and  beans and cheese or chili over rice and Quesedas   
7. Salmon baked, fingerling potatoes, broccoli.    

That's about all.  Lots of food for 12.50 a person.    Or 1.77 a day.  

Thanks

Jane

Five meals under five bucks.

The premise of cooking in the cheap is to remain in the budget if someone in snap.   We are not on snap, but we eat less than snap, assuming snap is four dollars per person per day.  
To do that for a family of four, dinner needs to be five dollars.    That leaves enough for snacks, drinks (coffee, tea, milk, tea) and breakfast ( muffins, oatmeal, egg muffin occasionally. ) and lunch ( school, leftovers, pb&j, toasted cheese) .


Five  $5 dinners
This assumes you are finding RBP and usual stock items that are in a kitchen ( oil, vinegar, etc)

1) slow cooker sausage and bean soup.   Chicken stock, 2 cans diced tomatoes, 2 cans beans if choice, 2 stalks celery chopped, 2 carrots, chopped.  1/2 lb cooked sausage ( bulk) . Serve with cheese biscuits.

2) speghetti, red sauce, parmesean cheese for garnish, salad,   Speghetti .58, sauce .75, 1/2 lb ground beef 1.65, sour dough French bread .95 (Costco) , lettuce and tomatoes.  

3) chicken stir fry, rice.    Chicken ( 1/2 breast) 1.00, stir fry vegetables 1.29, rice. .67,

4) bean, rice, chicken burritos.     Burritos 1.00, rice .33, beans .53, chicken 1.25 cheese 1.25

5) ham and scalloped potatoes, broccoli .    Potatoes 1.00. Ham 2.00, broccoli 1.00.

That's two processed meats.  We have left the sausage out of the soup,mot still tastes good.
1 bag of rice cooked, save enough from the stir fry to put in the burritos.  


Thanks for stopping by

Please,share

Jane

Meal planning - my take

I a, seeing fifty page meal planning books on the Internet.    I'm f I had to fill out fifty pages, it wouldn't last very long time no! loL. I don't have that kind of patience.   Id rather spend my time on the front end of shopping,  planning a trip and making sir you have a good feel for prices is more important in my opinion.   I essentially get paid for shopping , not for cooking or planning.  

Everyone has their favorite meals.   We tend to eat th Mesa,e 7 or so meals over and over.  I try to shake things up and add some hing new, esp cially because we have a toddler in the house that needs to be subjected  to different tastes.  

I have a matrix for meal planning that helps speed things up.  We don't always fo,low it to the ,ether but it is a good jumping off point.   I made a work sheet that has two columns , one for what we have, highlignited needs to be used soon, and one what I need to purchase to fill in the meals. The left side of the paper  has seven boxes for dinner plans and one box with my matrix.   It makes meal planning a quick and easy project.  

I cook protein ( meat) as it comes home from the store of appropriate or soon thereafter.    It means that I can portion control it and freeze ot so we aren't eaten me the same thing four days in a row.  
The plan is to buy one loss leader per week, and bulk buy it and batch cook it.   Ot saves time, and more importantly, it saves precious time at the dinner hour.   Last night I cooked Mac and cheese from scratch and we had broccoli.   I cooked it at dinner time because I had a long list of things to get done yesterday.   I really wanted to take a nap.   Lol

This week I bought a foster farms chicken from Safeways for .88 (RBP) a pound - dove pounds and two pork tenderloins for two dollars a pound ( five dollars).  In order to stay  within a snap budget ( or less) dinner needs to average five dollars for four people.   This is really believeable and you can eat a variety of meals if you watch prices and portion control.

I saw a blog, ( nothing but love) on u tube where she made meals from the dollar store.  She states that things r made in the USA.   ( things made in China will have a 471 or 6 beginning) they do have gnocchi made in Italy.   I'm not impressed with the meat.  The stir fry peppers weren't the quality I would like, stir fry veggies are 1.29 at Winco.    I do like some seasoned fries they carry for 1.00 for 1.5 pounds ,     I couldn't find them last time.    Some brand name things are cheape r and most of the time they have the same pull dates as the other stores.    I don't buy much from the dollar store, but I can see if you really needed to put food on the table and had no money, it is doable.  She spent twenty dollars and got four meals for four and a couple of lunches.   Some things are cheaper at regular grocery stores.  

Yesterday I

1.  Rearranged and took stock of the pantry, no one what we had plenty of, and what we were short of.   
2. Made black and white rice crispy treats    
3. Took down and stored away the winter decorations so I can out up Valentine's Day soon. 
4. Made twenty ( actually thirty) milk carton boxes for Valentine treats for granddaughters preschool class    
5. Grocery shopped two stores.   
6. Put everything away, checked Ibotta 
7. Made dinner from scratch 
8. Made two new card cuts.   

It was a full day.   

Thanks for stopping by

Please share 

Jane