Grocery hauls

and my grocery bill is What?    

Since I spent days in bed this month, I had a lot of time to watch gricery hauls on U-Tube,   I observed some hat were really low like one that was a hundred dollars a month for five people , one of which was gluten free. And there was a lady with a family of five with a 640.00 bill.  

I observed that eggs were as low as .55 some places.    A lot of places had a lot lower prices than what our lowest are in the PNW.  

A lot of people are buying alternative foods and swaying away from thentried and true food.   They, also besides sacrificing nutrition, are doubling their food bill.  

There was a post that said that instead of milk, to give your children kale and sardines.  I'm nit sure that I could get our 4 yo to eat enough kale and sardines to give her the RDA for calcium,  besides the fact that if you eat too much make, you can get lead poisoning.  

It was no surprise that the people showing a quarter of their food bill was made up of snack food and store bought cookies  were pleasantly plump.  

You can't stay under four  dollars  a day when 1/4 of your food bill is for chips and cookies, and another  quarter is for sugar loaded drinks with no food value.  Neither is good for you or your budget. Stick to as close to the real thing as possible.  

Have desert and snacks. Opt for homemade , preferably that has fruit or grains like oatmeal  in it , or nuts.   One kind at a time and limit it to after dinner,  not all day long.   Eating sugar with a meal is better for you than eating it all day long or by itself.  

The carts that were a reasonable amount of money and nutrition , had meat and protein , dairy, and veggies as the basis with a few spices added in.

Most of them were buying one or two weeks worth at a time.  I saw no people that were buying the on the cheap way.  That saves anithernfofty percent.

When you opt out of the major snack foods, and the drinks that are devoid of nutrition, and start buying your food at 1/2 price, you will  hace  good nutrition and a lot lower food bill.  




Your shopping cart will look strange because it might concentrate on a particular food group basically because you have purchased things elsewhere.  

The Things that were the lowest orocesmthis month were :

1. Campbells chicken noodle soup for net .45 (1.59) 
2. Progresso Chunky  soup net .75 ( 159) 
3. Betty Crocker cake  mix .88
4. Pumpkin 1.00
5. 1 pound Jimmy Dean sausage 1.50 
6. 1 pound jenne o ground turkey 100
7. Large enchalada sauce .58 
8. Small enchakada sauces 3/100
9. Chicken breast 1.28
10. Cheese 2.00 a pound 
11. Eggs .40 
12. Apples 1.00 
13. Milk 100
14. Sour cream 100

Buying what's on a real sale  and buying enough for a couple of weeks or until it goes in sale again cuts your food bill.   

Buy a so called loss leader protein and buy enough for a months worth of that meal.  I.e.: of you eat ground beef once a week, you will buy four portions.    

Dairy goes on sale here (Kroger) at Fred Meyers for a dollar once a month,  get things with far out pull dates.

Buy veggies and fruit in  season.   they will taste better and be cheaper.  

Buy grains in bulk when it makes sense.   Ditto dry beans.   

Ten ways to save on groceries

Ten ways to save on groceries

1. Buy just what you are going to use when it comes to produce.   Buy 1/2 what you are going to use pfnorganic  if you can afford to buy organic. 
2. Portion control meat bought in bulk when it comes from the store.   If  you make a dull small package  of meet,  the leftovers  will make their way to the backnof the fridge  and become foodnwith hair prettier  than yours.   
3. Incorporate leftovers as planned overs.   Group meals, for instance,  that use a batch of rice together.   
4. Use coupons when appropriate.   Not all coupons are worth using.   They either aren't enough money  enough money, or they are  for ready made crap you don't need.    
5. Use Ibotta or an other rebate site . You can use both, I find  it too too time consuming.   Human nature says if nature says if it's too hard or time consuming, you oribavky won't stick to a habit.  It takes three weeks to create a habit. 
6. Study the ads and mark what items are at a RBP and are things you can use to make a meal.   Take into consideration the bottom line on the price.    You can't make a five dollar meal of your protein costs 8.00 a pound! 
7. Stock non perishables that you use in a regular basis when they are at a RBP. Set stock  limits.  If you ise something once a week, and you want to keep a three month supply, you need 12 cans.   Things  like catsup and mustard, I keep one ahead.   Best prices come during picnic season.   Things like pumpkin and baking supplies are cheapest about October/ November,  if you wait until the week before the holiday, you are going to pay more.   
8. Look up and down on the shelves at the supermarket.   Manufacturers pay slotting fees for the good shelves , you know they are passing those fees on to you in their prices.   
9. Buy store brands.  The store doesn't have factories, they contract with manufacturers to fill in down production times.   Same stuff, Cheaper  price . 
10. Scratch cook.   With few exceptions, scratch is cheaper.    If it takes too long, imeither don't buy it or buy it on the cheap.   I won't make bagels ( I don't buy bagels because they are too carb loaded.   I made pita  bread once, never again.    Pizza dough is a snap, and sooo much better.   Soup and cream soup base is better, cheaper, and not much more time to cook.   

Meal plans

I deviated from our meal plan tonight because the steak was on sale at Winco for 2.97 a pound,   I bought stir fry veggies and made a beef stir fry.  

The rest of the meat I will make a vegetable beef soup with.  

Starting Monday

1. Sausage and roasted root veggies 
2. Pizza 
3. Pasta and sauce 
4. Chicken , acorn squash, bread dressing, 
5. Chicken enchaladas 
6. Chicken pot pie 
7. Baked salmon , rice medley, green beans 

Notes 

1. Sausage was a dollar at QFC.    
2. Pizza crust, homemade. Cheese was 200 a pound,   
3. Pasta sauce was 107 and pasta was .88
4. Chicken breast was 128 a pound ; enchakada sauce was 3/1 
5. Chicken was 128 a pound, veggies, crust was a Dillard for one crust.   
6. Acorn squash was .68, stuffing was .50
7. Salmon was 350, rice is five cents a serving, green beans were .33 a can 

Winco haul

total hauls about 59.00. Budget 75.00.    I will add three dollars at Fred Meyers for tomatoes to reolentish,  

Winco
Blue bunny ice cream 7.76

Sliced steak 3.22

Acorn squash .68

2 pasta sauce -prego. 2.14 or 1.07 each

Green beans .33

Winco olives .58

Winco green chillis .58

Bread, multi grain 1.45

Stir fry veggies 1.37



Stir fry beef meal.   1.61 meat, 1.37 veggies, rice .20.  Total  2.18 .  
Pasta meal.  Pasta .88, 1/2 meatballs .98, sauce 1.07.  Total 2.93 serves four,  

Fred Meyer ads for tomorrow

Satsumas 4.99 / 5 lb box

Chick roast 2.99

Gala or Fuji apples .99

Digiorno pizza 399

Ice cream 2/5

Kroger to,atoms, beans, veggies 2/1.  Limit 6

The bundles are nit a bargain.    The only one that may be a bargain is the Oregon one and that would be if you have a coupon.  

Fred Meyers haul

Fred Meyers haul
No shopping for 1.5 weeks.  

Milk .99

Hamburger buns .79
FF cold cuts 2.99
Peanut butter cookies 2.00
Pie crustv2.00
Pumpkin pie 3.99
Raspberries 2.50


TV dinners.88
Cream cheese .88
Barilla pasta .88
Bacon bits 2.19

Cake mix .88
English muffins 1.67
Pumpkin pie spice 2.00

Progresso beef soup .75 w coupons
Total 38.29

Keep it simple.

I think the  one thing that stands out about  my mothers housekeeping mantra would be keep it simple:

• if we didn't have toys, we wouldn't have to pickup toys,   
• If we didn't have carpets, we wouldn't have to vacuume,   
• If we didn't have trees, we wouldn't have to rake leaves.   
• Of we only had one towel. We could wash it once a week.   
• If we didn't have  many clothes, she wouldn't have to wash clothes,   
• If we didn't have a lot kitchen appliances or gadgets, we children could easily do the dishes and clean the kitchen. ( I was notorious (age 9) for forgetting to use the coffee filter.    I would have to run up the four houses to my aunts house to borrow the sieve so we could salvage the coffee) 

Simplicity in cooking is a key to cooking quickly.    Cooking quickly and simply is a way to free up more time to shop and plan meals and trips.   We are talking minimum time anyway.   Usually, I hit  two stores.   This gives you the opportunity of low prices on more things and a better variety of quality fruits  and veggies.   Better prices translates to more food for your dollar.    

Grocery shopping planning consists of going over the ads and noting what is on sale that you can make meals from-- true sales, not things for sale.   (5 minutes  )   Checking the veggie bin and the dairy supply and nitingnehat you need to fill in ( maybe another 5  minutes.  ) and meal plans.  ( another ten minutes ) .  Your savings will be remarkable.   It's more than easy to make up twenty minutes in the kitchen.   The only other time I will spend more time is when there is a buy XX , save xx.  If you can find things that aren't junk food, and find coupons, you can save lots - I have saved as much as 78 percent.   

Cooking simple.    My mother did that too.     I tend to use more seasoning and add a few extras to make dinner a bit  more special.   You can still do this in a budget.    

• Parsley gives color and makes things a little more appetizing. 
• Giving bread a glaze of   butter, egg wash, or milk makes tops shiny,    
• Serving soups  with sour cream, cheese, or croutons makes them more special.   I can remember our home Ec teacher using popcorn for tomato soup.    

Scratch cooking can be as simple as using a box,   

Using recipes that take few ingredients is a key point.   

Making spice  blends and homemade mixes when you have more time is a great help.  Children can help, it's a good lesson in fractions and counting,  

Bulk cooking meat costs less money and takes less time overall.  It's very hard to pick just enough meat from a ready made package.  Buying bulk means that you can cook it if appropriate and portion control it for the freezer.  It saves waste.    You can get a months worth of food in a regular frodge freezer.  Rotating a protein buy a week to six week rotation gives you variety at the lowest cost.   

• Boneless pork loin : cubes, pork chops, roast .  
• Whole chicken : 4 meals, 1/2 breast, soup, dark meat 
• Chicken breast : split breasts can be de-boned and the bones can be cooked formsrock and the meat licked for tacos or a casserole.    
• Hamburger : crumbles, taco meat, meatballs, meatloaf 
• Cheese - grated cheese makes the best toasted cheese.    
• Eggs - buy a months supply when they are on sale.   Check pull dates to be a month out.
• Beans - I keep a few cans for emergencies .  Otherwise, inkeeo dry beans,   
• Fish - cheapest in bags.    They are individually wrapped so you can pull what you need and run under cold water.   
• Sausage, bulk at Costco or on sale with coupons.    I fry, de-fat, and portion control in freezer bags.   

This gives you a wide variety of meats to choose recipes and does it at the lowest possible price with no waste.   

Five things to buy in the bulk isle

the bulk isle is a good place to find good food cheaper.   Winco had a whole section of bulk foods.  

Five things to buy on the bulk isle,

1. Spices: they are fresh because they have a large turn over.   Cheap.   I save small jars to reuse and make spice blends.    Taco seasoning can cost almost as much as a dish.   
2. Popcorn: about 1/3 of the cost of bulk at Costco.   Save plastic or glass jars.  Dollar tree sometimes has glass jars.   
3. Beans : except pinto beans are cheaper.   Pintos are cheaper at dollar tree.   
4. Dry milk.   Powdered milk is really expensive.  It has a very long shelf life and is cheaper in bulk.   Great for an emergency and for mixes- cocoa and white sauce/ cream soup. 
5. Yeast is a great thing if the bulk package at Costco is too much,   Pizza dough takes less than a tablespoon .

Saving glass jars is a great help.   I get labels from the dollar store.  A package lasts a long time.   I was able to pull the label off and move it to another place when I was helping my daughter with hers.  

The ads

Alberways

Bone in pork loin 1.79

Grapes 1 88

Eggs .99@@
7 percent hamburger  3.49@@

When you buy 10
.88 each

Manwich
Hunts pasta sauce
Catsup
Refried beans




About it.

QFC s ad is the same as last week.  

Rotation meat:   Personally, o don't like bone pork loin.
The 3.49 hamburger is more expensive than I can get usually at Winco and we ground our own from steak we got at FM last week for 2.97.  

whole chickens  are a dollar ( rounding ) at QFC.    Foster Farms would be my first choice, but Draper Valley is ok.  

better, cheaper faster.

The premise of spending more time shopping and planning, assumes you will spend less time cooking.  Of course, if you have an abundance of time, is we it.  Most of us don't.

There are cooking styles to help,

•  The favorite of many mothers is the slow cooker.there is just something  about coming home to a hot dinner that is very refreshing. Dump dinners,
• Pressure cookers  scratch beans - 28 mnutes no soaking. Soup in five minutes.   
• Stair step,   Cook incentive, eat twice,   A double batch of rice makes Spanish rice one night, a stir fry bed another.   Use rice and beans within rhree day. Check your food safety,   
• Pizza. These days yiu can put almost anything on a pizza, 
• Cook meats ahead with portion controls. 
• Quick, soup and sandwich,    Breakfast 4 dinner,  

How do you know a bargain.

My mother is gone now, but I am still reminded daily, just how intuitive and smart she was about human nature.   This election is one instance.  Great grandmother went to finishing school in England. Her words of wisdom- I'm cleaning it up for publication, was  he who poops in britches, accuses other guy of smelling of it.

My mother had an expression too - some people wouldn't know a bargain if it got up and bit them in the butt--
Don't be that person.

Bargains can be deceiving.    When buying durable goods, buy the best you can afford.   Consider used if that makes sense.  

Food can have a 75 percent difference in prices, depending on where and when you buy it, and if you have a coupon.   Every community is different.   Watching food hauls, tells me different parts of the country have circumstances that effect the prices on some things.

I can only address the PNW.

Tracking more than the few things that you use on a regular basis  is fruitless.  If you start out with something that isn't sustainable, you won't continue it for the duration, so, common sense had proven.  
Tracking something that you buy once a year isn't going to help your bottom line much.  Its the things that you buy all the time that will make a big difference.  

Looking at the recipes you cook for dinner on a regular basis will give you the best clue.   Our family likes a lot of Tex Mex and Italian.    I use and stock

• Diced tomatoes
• Beans 
• Green beans 
• Dehydrated potatoes
• Cheese 
• Pasta 
• Pasta sauce 

I track meat prices and have a good fro for my buy prices.   

Buying at the lowest possible price and buying enough to carry you through until the next sale, is important in the goal of paying 1/2 price for your food.    

Paying 1/2 price is going to allow you to feed your family on eight dollars a day equivalent instead of the rice and beans 4.00 a day.    

Starting from scratch .....Meals

Keeping a stock of food  takes some kitchen management.    The reward is younakways have food in the house and can make a quick meal in a snap.  sometimes ,best laid plans go awry.    None the less, a plan is your best hedge to keep on track with a small budget.   Making a meal plan can be a daunting task, or not.

1. List the inexpensive sources of protein your family eats.    In our family that would  be pork loin, eggs, cheese,  chicken , hamburger, beans.rice.   
2. Buy meat on bulk on a rotation basis, a months worth of that meal when the price is at its lowest.    If you eat hamburger once a week, you need enough to make four meals.   I would buy three pounds for three of  us.   Rotate on through using sale prices as your guide.   Stores usually rotate their sale meat.  Take advantage of the sale prices.    A slow week, fill in bulk beans or cheese.    Add a bag of frozen fish,   
3. Make a master list of dinners using the inexpensive sources of protein,    This,will make it easy to meal plan. 
4. Develop a matrix that works for you.   Ours is protein based.   Some people make it theme based-- soup nite, pizza night, etc.   
5. A form helps once you get organized,   It makes planning a snap.   Our form was made in excell.    It has boxes for seven days and the matrix in the eighth box.  I added two columns, one for what I have in the pantry and one that I need to fill in.   It makes meal planning fast, now if only we could cook it that fast!   
6. Some recipes can help you do that.   Spending more time planning and less time working in the kitchen saves money,     Scratch cooking does not have to mean hours in the kitchen.   
7. Precooking, and / or portion controlling the meat before putting it in the freezer makes life easier.    Cook what makes sense to cook.   Batches of hamburger made into meatballs, crumbles and taco meat makes preparing dinner a snap.   Cook once, clean once, the months worth of that protein is done,   Last week we got steak for Three dollars a pound.  We ground our own meat and controlled the fat.    
8. Chicken breast , split can be found for a dollar and twenty eight cents.    De boning chicken breasts is easy.   Throw the bones  in a pot of water and you have chicken  soup.    The result is six dollar a pound chicken for a dollar and twenty eight cents,    
9. Bean prices are going up.  They are still a bargain at a dollar a Pintos are  sixty seven cents a pound at dollar tree.   

Meal plans

Monday's meal plans,  

2 vegetarian
1  beef
3 chicken and pork
1 fish

1. I am using 1/3 of a pound of hamburger for chilli that we ground last week.   Rolls 
2. Sausage saurkraut apples rolls 
3. Chicken parm, speghetti, salad 
4. Chicken stir fry , rice , mandarin oranges 
5. Tuna casserole with peas 
6. Out / pizza 
7. Split pea soup 

1. 
   

The ads

Fred Meyers ads for tomorrow

Sweet peppers .99
Strawberries 2/3 - note its past strawberry season, look closely at the quality.  
Milk, chocolate milk.annd OJ.  1.00
Progresso soup .99@@$$
Large sour cream 2/4

 88 cent sale

Betty Crocker cake mix
Cream cheese
Greek yogurt @@
Hunts sauce or Barilla pasta @@ - note you can get sauce for close to that at Winco all the time, pick the pasta.   Limit 6.

The flu

I got the flu. I don't know if I got the flu from the flu shot , or I just got got the flu.

Needless to say, I spent yesterday on bed. I got up to make dinner. Period. I've been in bed for three days. That's a good reason for having food stocked.

I made pumpkin muffins the other day, ez Peasy. You take a cake mix ( .50) amd a small can of pumpkin (1.00) and mix them together and put on my FF in cups and bake 18-20 minutes at 350 or until toothpick comes clean.

My granddaughter loved them. I wasn't about to let her know she was eating squash. LOL. about a dime a piece.


Finding recipes that are quick and simple helps put good food on the table . Put more time into buying and planning your food and less time cooking, scratch works on a lot of ways efficient,y. You are getting laid with savings when you shop efficiently and plan your meals, you don't get paid for cooking,

The ads

QFC

Grapes 1.28
Draper valley chicken .99
Avacados .99
Buy 8 progresso soup .99 $$ 100 off 4

Buy 4, save 4 - net prices

Jimmy Dean sausage 2.49$$

Pasta sauce .99

Classico sauce 1.88  $$ -'check varieties


10 for 10 - most of the things  are already  a dollar or less elsewhere.  

Alberways

Stock up sale
General Mills cereal 1.49$$.  Couponsmthat shoukd make it a dollar

Just 4 u

Yoplait .39
Ragu 1.79$$

Oranges .99
FF breaded chicken 4.99@@$$-
Green peppers, cucumbers .88



.  

No ads yet.

I have a lot to say, but I am trying  no to keep politics out of this blog.   All I can say.  Is vote with your brain, and not your emotions and we don't need to become AmeriRussia.   Thats not  who we are or what our founding fathers stood for.  

Now, the ads aren't here yet , I have glanced at the ads in line , bit I find it difficult to read vs the paper ones.  QFC has a two week ad, so next week, ads will be slim with only Alberways.   

I did see where buy 8 progresso soups for .99 and there is a Coupon for a dollar off of four.  makes the.  .75 a can. You must buy 8.    A can can feed two for lunch with some fruit  or cheese and crackers.   

Draper  valley chicken for .99 - whole chicken .   I don't consider it as good as FF , but it is grown in Washington.   

There are coupons for 3.75 off  of FF cooked, frozen chicken when purchasing three.   The chicken patties are prices the lowest and are good and low in carbs.   Less than five minutes makes a lunch or dinner with a salad and a chicken sandwich.   A few ready made viught cheaply and with quality in mind saves the take out  gremilins.  

Chicken breast was 1.28 at Freddies and will be until Saturday.   

Note : we are forecast in the PNW for high winds and rain.   When we get high winds, there are a lot of trees here and we loose power frequently, sometimes it has been for  days.  We oreoarenwith logs for the fireplace and I put a cold dinner in the cooker with ice, or make soup so we can heat it in the fireplace or on the BBQ when the winds  die down.   

Good food cheap

you can get good food cheap on a pittance budget.  We all know that some foods are bad for us.   The medical establishment has outlined that we eat too much sodium, sugar and fat.  Saturated fat is more important to watch than cholesterol is what I've read and not all fats are created equal.   Avoid saturated fats and hydrogenated oils.    That pretty much means eat lean meats and only use olive and canola oils.    Butter  is ok in moderation.     Moderation seems to be the key word here.    The last information I heard was that we need six ounces of protein a day and so,e of,that should come from eggs. Eggs have cholesterol : the good cholesterol.  

This is the information that I have read recently.   Of course, you should research things yourself.  

Today, I am de-boning  chicken breast that I got for 1.28 a pound at FM.   They are Foster Farms, grown in Washington and processed in Washington. By spending  a little time ( probably less than twenty minutes for five large breasts.) I can have boneless, skinless chicken breast for 1.28 a pound instead of six dollars a pound or more, and I know where it came from and where it has been,  

My husband is grinding our hamburger today.    FM had London broil for 2.99 a pound,    I can't get good hambirger for that.   I picked a piece that had a little fat, but nit much,   We should get seven percent or less fat hamburger for less than three dollars a pound,    Grinding it stretches it further,    You will eat less as hamburger in a sauce or a burrito than you will if you eat a steak.    I always cook hamburger and de-fat it.   That's hard to do with a steak.  

Eggs , they have discovered recently, are good for you.   They are a dollar or less a dozen lately.   We eat breakfast for dinner once a week.  

Bean prices have gone up lately,   From .50 to closer to a dollar.   Pintos are still .67 at dollar tree.    Other beans are closer to a dollar.    One cup of beans cooked are three cups, so they say.  Even at two cups, that's a bargain .    My last calculations were still pennies a serving for beans and rice.  

Cheese , especially pizza cheese is lower in fat.    Cream soup basemcan be made from low sodium chicken  stock  , non fat milk, and cornstarch.    Good quality pasta can be purchased with coupons. (Barilla) and can be found for as little as a dollar at the dollar store.    Use,coupons to bring it down to anywhere from .38 to .75.   .   If you don't have s large family, measure it and only cook as many portions as you have people.     Pasta has a  very  l-o-n-g shelf life.  

The Internet and pinterest are good sources for cookouts recioes that are kowmcosr and still taste really good.    

ten things to do with chicken

Ten things to do with chicken. .......

1. Chicken noodle soup 
2. BBQ chicken (oven ) 
3. Chicken tortilla soup 
4. Chicken pot pie 
5. Sweet and sour chicken 
6. Coke chicken 
7. Chicken tortilla pie 
8. Cafe rio chicken 
9. Chicken tacos 
10. Buffalo chicken. Pizza.   

I am not finding split chicken  breasts for a dollar lately.   Two rotations of chicken have happened at Fred Meyers and I  found whole fryers and dark meat only.   I paid about double at Winco last time.  It is still cheaper than buying skinless, boneless chicken breast and you know where they came from.  

Rotation of bulk meat still is the best way to stretch your protein dollar.  Look for sources of protein that are really cheap and stock enough for that months worth of meals.   If you eat beef once a week, you are going to buy four portion controlled meals worth.  This week, I bought the four shredded cheese packages ( 2 lbs ) that was the limit at Safeways.  I want close to  2 dollars a pound.    

I will also buy some steak at Freddies for three dollars a pound.    We will grind our own hambirger.  We control the fat and it will be cheaper than buying extra lean hamburger.   

Pinto beans continue to be cheapest at the dollar tree.    They are a dollar a pound on a ten pound bag at Safeways.   The bulk isle at Winco is the next cheapest.    Unless you can get someone to split a bulk bag at Costco or you have a very large family, it doesn't lay to buy the large sacks at Costco.    I do buy the large bag of rice, we eat it often and it doesn't go bad quite as fast,    

Pork loin is 1.69 - 179 often.   Slice the ends that are ineven and make stew meat.    Slice some pork chops and leave a pork roast.   Leftover lord roast can be sliced thin and BBQ pork sandwiches can be made.   

Tuna is ( solid albacore ) a good price at Costco.  I got so,e at grocery outlet - wild caught.    We haven't tried it yet.    It is recommended that you don't eat it more than once a month.    The recommendation that I saw was to buy light tuna,    I don't know the source.    

Frozen fish is cheapest and freshest.    A lot of fish and shrimp is frozen on the ship and thawed to be sold .    The shrimp I bought Saturday had been previously frozen and had a pull date of that day.   We ate it that day.     It's the only way we would have ever got to eat ten dollar a pound protein.    

My protein target s,omit is two dollars a meal.   It has been for many many years.   It only was increased when o had all three adult children at home.   Five of us, three of which were adult men over six feet, changed the dynamics,    The difference between two dollars in   1970 and 2016 is remarkable and we have coped with portion control, eating two meals a week that are vegetarian, and buying  healer cuts of meat.    Beef briskit and flank steak at ten dollars a pound , doesn't happen much.    I get chicken for a dollar a pound, 7 percent hamburger for 3.25 or so, and pork loin for 1.69.  
We eat sausage for 2.00 or less a pound, and I get pepperoni for .50 instead of 1.69 by using coupons.  
I try for cheese at two dollars or close to it.     Eggs are a good source when you can get them for under two dollars a dozen.  

Rotating your meat/protein and buying a month supply at a time gives you variety and low cost.   

Meal plans.

The first step in meal planning is to take a quick inventory and note anything near a pull date or that looks like it needs eating soon.

Next, use a matrix to assure variety of meals.    So,e people use a theme based matrix, some a protein based matrix,  whatever works for you.   It's important to have a plan, even though you might not always use the plan.   Yesterday I went to Safeways to get a few things that were on sale.  I foimd so,e I had t seen, and had coupons to make things better, and I found shrimp with yesterday's pull date at 1/2 off.   We were supposed to have salmon for dinner, it wasn't much of a stretch to substitute shrimp.   I was already 1/2 way there when I had to go to the imaging clinic.    I don't travel ten miles to save .25.   LOL.

I digress - meal plans -  not nexessarily on order

• Sweet and sour chicken , rice, mandarin oranges 
• Pizza 
• Chicken tortilla soup 
• Sausage and saurkraut , apples and bread 
• Speghetti and meatballs , French bread 
• Split pea soup , crescents
• Breakfast 4 dinner 

Notes :   A batch of chicken breasts can be cooked at the same time for sweet and sour chicken and chicken tortilla soup.    I'm still working on dollar a pound chicken.    

Pizza is veggie 

Sausage was bought for a dollar.   Apples cut the sharpness of the saurkraut.    Bread sticks can be made from pizza dough easily.   Make dough. Let rise once ( 10 minutes.) flatten out in a baking sheet with sides,  dish with melted butter or oilive oil. Sprinkle with garlic powder and oak cheese.  Bake as pizza dough.  Slice into sticks with a pizza cutter.    

Speghetti and meatballs.  Meatballs are already cooked.  Speghetti sauce is as cheap as .58 and never more than a dollar on glass or .88 on cans.   Orontonsoegjetti was .75 with coupons.   

Tuna  casserole.     I have been weighing out the noodles, with only three of us eating them, I have been making a 8x8  pan of a casserole instead of the 9x13.   Less waste.    I got albacore tuna , wild caught for 1.25 at grocery outlet.    I make my own cream sauce mix, and cook whole carrots.   

Breakfast for dinner is a given.    Scrambelled eggs, fruit and some kind of starch: pancakes, waffles, English muffins ( cheapest at FM) or regular muffins,    Muffins can be made for less than a dollar.    It a good take and go breakfast too.    

Four dollar a day budgets allow for a dollar a plate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and a dollar for snacks and staples like oil, flour  etc.    

My breakfast consists of a bowl oatmeal made from a bulk oatmeal box from Costco and a banana.   I got a cog box of ancient grains cereal on a sale at grocery outlet o might swap out for some variety.   Less than .50 including the banana.   Bananas are cheapest at Costco.   Look formwhole hands, not singles put on the bag.   Most bags I have found are closer to 3.5 pounds,   If they add 1 banana they are going to be closer to the three pounds.   

Lunch is leftovers or a sandwich or soup,    I got chicken noodle for .45 and progresso  chinky for .75 

That will feed two of us with crackers or bread.  

Having less expensive lunches frees up money for a stock.  Stocking is the  backbone of eating on the cheap.   Good food cheap -  not cheap food.  

10 things never to buy and 5 things that are worth buying.

Ready made on a strict budget is usually a bad thing,  

Ten things never to buy

1. Salad kits .   It's so easy to put a quick salad together.  
2. Microwave popcorn---how many ways can we spell nasty!   Air popped popcorn is a lot cheaper and healthier.   
3. Cookies -   Easy and inexpensive to make 
4. Salad dressings - you can  control the type of oil ( not hydrogenated ) and cut costs too.
5. Bread crumbs, : why pay for  someone else's dry bread.   
6. Spice Mixes - easy, Peasy and a lot cheaper.   
7. Croutons - the dry  bread again 
8. Ready made tea. -- tea is really cheap.   Why pay ten  times the amount for a little work.   
9. Pizza crust - another simple , easy recipe that's so much better,    
10. Refried beans- simple recipe, better nutrition, no oil.    

Five things to buy 

1. Tortillas 
2. Tortilla chips. 
3. Pasta sauce : with coupons and sales, it's cheaper than scratch 
4. Salsa - unless you can grow your own, tomatoes cost more than the ready made.  
5. Pasta   You can find good pasta , some with double fiber and  pronto for anywhere between .38 and .75 a pound,     It's not worth the effort to make it scratch,  

Safeways and Fred Meyers.

I did go to Safeways after my  appointment at the lab.   They had grated cheese, shirt included for 1.25, limit 4.   Inakso got origressonsoup, for .99 and had a coupon for 100 off 4 - the amount if quality for the  discount.   They had shrimp for 1/2 price with today as a pull date,    We were going to have salmon for dinner, I'm switching it to shrimp.   It oays to be flexible,    Tortilla chips were 3/5 and we were about out,  

Fred Meyers for tomorrow.  


Honey crisp apples 1.68
London  broil 2.99 - portion control, but at 2.99 it would make sense to grind your own hambirger.  
Pears .99

Freschetta 3.99

Yoplait 3/1 limit 6@@
Ice cream 1.99 limit 2@@

That's all for bargains.  

Grocery Outlet and Dollar Tree

We did go to grocery outlet and dollar tree.    We had DDG with us,    I'm always just looking for anbargain that I will and can use.   

Grocery outlet 

Split peas .99

Coffee 4.99

Four cans of wild caught albacore tuna 4.99

Tomato paste .39

Original grains cereal.  1.59

Crescent rolls ( 4 ea in roll) .25 

Pepperoni  1.50 ( spices) 

Spent 21.00 saved 56.00

Dollar tree 

Name brand enchalada sauce 3/1.00

Taco shells 1.00

Pronto pasta 1.00. Barilla 

And you have what in your pantry?

I will admit that we have a great deal of stock in our pantry.   It was well thought out.   The banks are giving me less than a half of one percent on my money.    I know that we have extraordinary expenses during the last quarter of the year.    If I have a large pantry of food that I have paid fifty percent less on  the dollar for, I can restrict our grocery spending and have more money to pay for the meds.  

I don't like having to spend  money for meds to keep me alive but it's a fact of life and I have to deal with it the best way I can.   End of story.  

It just makes sense if you have a limited amount of money for food to lay as little as you can for good food.  It isn't hoarding  if you have a controlled amount and develop places to keep it.  Now, of you are buying 69 bottles of red pepper sauce that you can never use in your lifetime before it goes bad, that's not being rational.   Buy a controlled amount of the things  you use in a regular basis that you can make a meal out of.   Buy them in themcheaoest sake you can find and use coupons if you can.   Our pantry looks like this, You might very well pick different foods.   Writing a list of typical meals using inexpensive sources of protein helps give you a basis .  

1. Chicken noodle soup.   A good staple, especially if you have children . 
2. Tomato soup
3. Beans : kidney, black, garbanzo, white, pinto ( canned ) - limited supply for emergencies and when time is restricted.   
4. Dry beans : white , black, pinto, kidney 
5. Diced tomatoes.   Diced tomatoes can transform into a lot of things, anything from salsa. Pasta sauce or a base for soups.    
6. Pasta sauce :  you can get it for as low as .59 and it can make a quick dinner, or part of it can be topping for a pizza in a pinch.   
7. Pasta : a good staple.   I have got it for as cheap as .38 and it has a very very long shelf life.   
8. I keep a limited supply of - Mayo, catsup, mustard, BBQ sauce, a few salad dressings, a back up olive oil.   
9. In the freezer I keep frozen veggies. Cheese, a few back up pizzas, 

A few things can make a lot of meals.   It covers you when there is a disaster,  be it a snow storm, or just sick kids that make it hard to get to the store.   

No child should have to suffer the insecurity of having nothing in the house to eat.   

Food will do you no good of you are feeding it to the garbage disposal.    

Four plus one is five : 4 people, 1 meal, 5 bucks.    

Better, cheaper, faster 

The rest of the story ...ads

Finally.     

Alberways 

Mix or match when you buy 4 

Cheerios. And other cereals 1.49 $$

Just 4 you coupons. 

Yoplait .39

Forgets coffee 6.99

Five dollar Friday 

Skippy peanut butter 3/5

Pork loin chops 1.99

Milk 199@@

Apples .99

Mission tortilla chips 3/5

Red Barton 3/10

Greek yogurt .88

About it.    

The ads

I still don't have the ads.    I picked  up QFC ad when I went to the pharmacy.   

Strawberries 2/4 

Mandarines 3.99

Honey nut Cheerios  1.99$$ 

Ground pork 3.99

Medicare pays for flu shots, they are free of you are on Medicare.    If you get your flu shot at Fred Meyer or QFC, they give a meal to the hungry.   My sister belongs to group health, and she still good get her shot at QFC.    

$$ means there are coupons for them on line and in inserts.    

The strawberries are at the end coffee their season.   They didn't look so good when I was there.   

The best meat deal this week is at Winco.   With a coupon in the entrance, you can get 1.50 off a pound of ground turkey, of you buy two la Victoria taco sauce or enchilada sauce.    The enchalada  sauce is 1.58  and there is a dollar Ibotta on two.   The turkey I bought was three dollars.   

1.58

.58

1.50 

Total 3.64 for all.    That's less than the price of the turkey elsewhere.  

There is no limit , and it's good into November.    I don't know how long the Ibotta is good for.    

Werther's original carmels are 2/4 at Fred Meyers.   There is a insert coupon for a dollar  and an Ibotta  for another .75.  Watch your package sizes.   

Sugar free chocolates are 4/5.00 at FM.  Usually 2.59-279 

160 count tissue is 1.00 at FM.  

This comes from Dr Oz., so consider the source.    According to him, there are preservatives and msg in Costco rotisserie chicken.    

Where you buy something has a great impact on the orice you pay for the same item.   The same brand and the same size package can be 50 percent or more at another store.   CIP- the same box of of pepperoni at winconfir 1.69 is a dollar at the tree and with a dollar coupon  on two, ot is .50.   

This is the case on many things.    

You don't have to go to five stores a week to accomplish this,   Go to two stores a week.  Mine  lately  have been FM and Winco.    Then, hit the alternative stores when you are in need of the things they are notorious for having the best prices .   

Dollar tree - all regular brands ( the same as the other  grocery store. ) 

Pepperoni 

Pizza sauce 

Pretzels 

Grocery outlet 

Cheese 

Coffee - check prices 

Nuts 

Anything really cheap close to the pull date.    ( just adjust your meal plans to compensate for the pull dates) 

Enchiladas

I am going to make enchiladas today for dinner,    Onfond that if I make dinner in the morning when I am fresh, I am more likely to cook scratch,    The last thing I want to do at 7 o'clock at night is to make a scratch dinner.

I make meals that are about 1.00 to 1.25 per person.    If younfacor in the fact that there are certain staple items,s every kitchen should have - like olive oil, slices, yeast etc.    you,need to stay at  close to five dollars or less a dinner to stay on track for a four dollar ore day per person budget.    Five dollars is based in a Proverbial  famiky of four   Two adults and two school aged children.  

I watch a lot of grocery hauls to get a good feel for food costs.   I study trends and things that will effect food prices.    Seattle is one of the highest  COL in the nation,    We do have the luxury of an economical car and the major chain stores within a five mile radius or less.   Bit by bit, imhave collected the tools I need to make my life easier in the kitchen.   I'm old and I do a lot besides a blog and cook.    I want easy!    I want cheap!   I want good nutrition.   I want it all.  And, I have found a way to get it.  

If you are new, the mantra is to avoid the f word at all costs -- full price.
There are a lot of legal tools you can use to cut your OOP cost of good, nutritious food.  

I digress :

Enchiladas.
You will need

• Enchakada sauce.   I got it for $1.10 a 28 ounce can.    I will probably not need that much sauce.   The rest I will freeze for another dish . 
• Meat: I precook hamburger and portion control it in quart bags and out the quart bags in a gallon bag so it's easy to get out of the freezer.  If something is hard, you will likely be tempted not to do it.    
• Beans - You can use canned beans, drained and rinsed thorally ( reduces the gas quotient, and reduces the sodium. Or, you can cook beans,   I have been using the pressure cooker.  It's a lot easier and you don't have to presoak.    
• Cheese : I usually have a mixed cheese lock n lock on the fridge.    

That's it,   Easy, good protein.  I might ad chilies ( Winco has the best price ) and I'll ad lettuce and tomatoes and sour cream .   I use low carb tortillas and defeat 7 percent hamburger.   Themcheese and a little sour cream garnish is all that is fat.    

Total cost for 2/3 of the pan- the rest can be for a lunch the next day.    3.15.  That includes more cheese than you need and does not include the oil spray for the pan.    Those that want slice can add red pepper flakes or hot pepper sauce.    

Gather ingredients 

Mix hamburger, cooked and de-fatted, beans, rinsed and drained, and 1/2 can of green chilli 

Mix in cheese, grated , a couple of handfuls. 

Spray pan with cookin oil.  Cover bottom with sauce.  

Place filling on tortillas and roll.   Place seam side down in sauce lined bow,  

When all your tortillas have been assembled (6) . Pour remaining sauce over them and sori me with cheese. Garnish with rest of the chilies.  

You can make ahead and remove cover to bake at 385 degrees until heated through and cheese is me,ted.   Probably 30-45 minutes.  Everything is either cooked, or can be eaten raw at this point . So you are just cooking until the sauce is hit and the enchakadas are heated through.   

Grocery shopping hints.

This is something I wrote a while back.   This week I am taking classes for business and am nit feeling well.    Hope this is informative.

OK! Grocery shopping is my game,  finding the ,west orices os my thing.    

1. Cheese.  As of now, two dollars a pound is my target price ( nothing to do with the store with the red balls.) The USDA bought a huge quantity of cheese because the dairies had more than they could sell and it kept the price low.    I suspect that the result will be higher prices in the near future.    It's a good time to stock and freeze.   Grated cheese freezes well.    If you grate your own, add a little cornstarch and shake in a bag to keep it from clumping,    When you measure cheese, a cup of cheese is 4 ounces of cheese.  You can figure that whatever once is in your recipe for grated cheese. You will use 1/2 in actual poundage.    I.e.:   A half a cup of cheese that is grated is 2 ounces.   
2. Spices : they are inexpensive in large containers at Costco if it is a spice you use often.    That would be Italian seasoning here.    I also keep a large canisters of any Mexican seasoning and make my own taco seasoning,   It's a lot cheaper.    Why pay a dollar for seasoning.   The same holds true of seasoning sauces.  Don't pay  more for the seasoning than you do the meat you are putting on it.    Small quantities of slices are best bought in a bulk isle.  Not every bulk isle is created equal.    There is a grace difference between Kroger (QFC)  and Winco.    An example is dill weed.   I needed some to make my own ranch dressing mix.    A smallest container ( the one that is about an inch in diameter and an inch tall.  ) was over 6.00.   Enough to fill that sized container was .18. No, I didn't forget a decimal.    LOL.  
3. Dry pasta is more expensive at Costco than getting it on sale with coupons,     I am getting pasta anywhereI between .38-75 cents.    According to a class I saw in BYU television on food storage, pasta has an eight year shelf life.   I don't think I would keep a eight year supply, but I am well stocked.   It's a good stroke that fills people up and can be very versatile.    
4. Canned goods.   Yes, there is a issue with the lining in cans.   A study using tomato , one of the most acidic foods showed like 6 parts per 3 billion.   All I can say is that I am 70 years old, still kicking, and we ate nothing but canned goods growing up.    That's all there was that was within a reasonable cost.  We had bananas because my dad worked for United fruit sometimes and got them free,    I have target prices for canned goods and buy a select few.    I don't buy canned fruit, I have had it blow up on me and make a mess.    I buy green beans. A small amount of corn, diced tomatoes, some beans, and chicken noodle soup is a mainstay,   
5. Oats : quantity buy.    The individual packages are a lot more expensive than the bulk canister or box.  Costco's box is now .79 cents a pound.  For the same nutrition, you,need to eat three pouches of the microwave stuff.    It is super easy and no more work to make scratch : 1 scant cup water, 1/2 cup oats - 1-1/2 minutes.  Use a larger bowl that you need to so it doesn't boil over.   I add cinnamon sugar and my morning banana and a splash of milk.     You,can also add chopped apple, raisins, craisens, cinnamon, --- dollar store oats are less quality and more money .   
6. Meat :  chicken :   I only buy chicken from the PNW.   I can still find whole chickens for a dollar or less.  I was finding solid breast for a dollar too, but haven't recently,    Then, I would De-bone  them and place the bones in a stockpot with a few veggie ends.    I got six dollar a pound boneless, skinless chicken  breast and a bonus of chicken stock and chicken for a casserole for a dollar a pound.    Whole chicken can be cooked in less than ten minutes Nona passive cooking.    It, too can be purchased for under a dollar.    I recently got foster far,s chicken patties for almost free with coupons.    It s a good go to if you get stuck and cheaper than fast food.   
7. Meat. Beef is expensive.    We have real beef cubes or steak occasionally.   Most of the time, I buy hamburger meat that is seven percent fat and de fat it.   Beef has some nutrients that you just can't efficient get anywhere else.   We eat it once a week.   
8. Sausage is usually cheapest at Costco for Jimmy Dean in a chub.  I have found coupons for it and got it for A dollar and a half a pound recently.   Also, on a sale and coupons made rope sausage a dollar.    
9. Eggs fluctuate in price.   In the winter the chickens don't lay as many so the price is higher.   You can freeze eggs, I'm not going down that road.   We will eat more,abundance in the summer and less in the winter just like we do with so,e fruits and veggies.    
10. Fruits and veggies.   All I can say is season, season, season.  Buy what In season  You will get better quality for less money.   

Monday. Miracles

miracles...I mad it through another weekend,    Maybe..

I have been buying chicken noodle soup at Winco for .75 plus using coupons every time I can find a coupon. That makes it .45 instead of 1.59.  

I have been making a lot of scratch foods, but holding off on a few quick ready made ones,   We all have days when it's just crazy and a few easy things stays off the take out gremlins.   Granddaughter loves chicken noodle soup and it works for those days she doesn't like what we are eating.  

I got chicken patties for .90 by buying three packages and using a 3.75 coupon.   I only buy Foster farms.   Sometimes a five minute dinner or lunch is in order and they are pretty low on carbs.  

We tried a u tube recipe for soup in the pressure cooker,     Im not impressed, the pasta was way over cooked  and even though I cooked and defatted the ground turkey , it tasted boiled.   All I can say is that it cost about a dollar to make and it made four quarts.   We ate it, but I would t make it again that way,    Some things are vest  left to the cooktop or the slow cooker.  

I do the experimenting so you don't have to.    LOL   I did make chilli in the pressure cooker, I just used the slow cooker setting,  

Kitchen management day,  

• Wash and cut up vegetable sticks and carrot rounds 
• Clean the fridge .   Note things to use up 
• Swap out speghetti for pizza.   We have an abundance of pasta sauce.   I got speghetti for .50.   
•  Bake something,    

Most if this weeks meals are easy and need to be prepped the morning of the day we eat them.    

Taking advantage if sales and offers and using coupons and a site like Ibotta lowers your food bill; kitchen management lowers your Prep time .  You are chopping everything at once, and ckeaning up once.    It's a more efficient way of making dinner happen  on the cheap.    

1. Speghetti and meatballs.    1/2 pkg of speghetti, meatballs. 1/2 package, and sauce.    1.63. Add some parm .25 and a salad 1.00.    Total 2.88 or less than a dollar a serving.  If you are not going to eat a whole package of pasta, cook a half a package.    Meatballs are frozen.  You can take out just what you are going to use.   Portion control.    A jar or can of sauce can be split and you can cook part of it and use the other part for pizza  sauce or add it to soup or freeze it.    
2. Pizza crust is a ten minute job.   It costs about .40.   I have got cheese for as low as two dollars a pound and I still see white cheese for that  at Costco.   Stock if you,can.  I have a WAG that you will have to pay more when we get closer to winter.    Chop veggies as you go during the week, and pepperoni is .50 a package at the dollar tree with a coupon.   The same package is 1.69 at Winco.    It pays to watch your prices.    Pizza sauce is a dollar at dollar tree.  The same brand as you get at the other grocery stores for 1.50 or more.    Freeze it on ice cube trays and place it on a zip lock on the freezer.    Take out a cube or two per pizza.    Total cost of a pepperoni pizza.  1.60 vs anywhere from six to ten dollars for a take n bake, and twenty at a pizzeria.   
3. Enchiladas.    I have got tortillas for a dime a piece.   Enchilada sauce for as little as 1.08 for 28 ounces.   Cheese and meat, and chillies.   Cheese is two  dollars a pound. A cup of grated cheese is 4 ounces of cheese.  1/2 lb of beef and turkey mixed is 1.25.   Cost 3.09 for three servings.   
4. Sausage and roasted root veggies.    1/2 package of sausage was 1.00.   Red potatoes were 5 lbs for 2.28.  Carrots were 2.58 for five pounds.    And radishes were .60.    Total 2.50.   
5. Chicken parm noodles.  Noodles .50.   Chicken 1 lb 1.00,    Parm .50. Mixed cheeses .50, peas .22.  Total 2.72 
6. Breakfast 4 dinner.   1/2 dozen eggs .20, cheese .10, muffins .50, fruit cup 1.00.   1.80 
7. Salmon, 3.35 ( 1/2 package) rice medley .10, frozen veggies .40.   Total 3.85 .   

Cost for three servings.   Total seven days 18.44/ 7 =2.63 a meal. Or .88 a plate. 

This does not include staple items like spices , olive oil. Etc.   

Meal plans

Monday.

Turkey vegetable soup with macaroni

Tuesday

Pizza

Wednesday

Beef enchiladas , rice

Thursday

Sausage with oven roasted red potatoes, radishes, and carrots,  

Friday

Salmon , Rice medley , salad

Saturday

Chicken parmesean noodles.  

Sunday

Breakfast 4 dinner

Fred Meyer ad

tomorrows ad

I made turkey vegetable soup with the leftover chopped veggies from last kitchen management,    I had pasta left  from yesterday's Mac and cheese.   Of o take the total of a bundle from Winco and subtract the cost of the enchilada sauce ( a good buy in itself ) the turkey cost .40 a lb.  

A noteworthy blurb -   The coupon book in tomorrow's paper has .40 off of four campbells souls.    I have been dining 1.29 off of four, but not of late,    They are .75 in the first isle of Winco.  Nets 65 instead of the 1.59 that I have seen elsewhere.  

Freddies

Grapes .99
Shrimp 5.99
Peppers and English cucumbers .99
Milk, chocolate milk, or oj is .99

General Mills cereal, or cereal bars 3/5@@.  - match with manufacturers coupons.  $$
Sour cream or cottage cheese 4/5 @@

 Berries 2/5 ( season running down, watch quality )
Cantaloupe 2/4


Not much there.

Free or almost free food.

There's no issue,  free dinner is a good thing when you are on a limited budget.  

I shopped two stores.    We hit grocery outlet when I had to go to a neighboring town for business.  
I spent six dollars.  

QFC
Hummus kit  reg 2.38 -  FREE

Eggs - 1.59.  - FREE

2 Jimmy Dean pound sausages @3.00 less coupons 2.00 nets 2.00 each.

Pork sausage links 1.99

Pumpkin pie.  2.99 ( the pumpkin when you can find it is 2.48 a can )

Total 8.98 - calculated savings 16.46

I always consider it a win if I save more than I spend.

Winco

Cucumber .68
La Victoria enchilada  sauce 1.58 ( less Ibotta )
Ground turkey 1.48 with coupon

Chicken patties and nuggets ( Foster farms ) 4.47 and 8.94 less 3.75 coupon.  Makes a chicken patties  package -3 meals - .72.

White beans 2.36

Campbells chicken noodle soup. (8) 6.00. Less 2.40 in coupons or 3.60 or .45 a can.  1.59 a can  at other stores.

Red potatoes -5 lbs.  2.28

Total 23.72

Total spent 32.70. Less 1.00 ibotta. 31.70.

5 ways to save on food.

FOve ways to save on food.   

• Portion control 
• Use every bit of what you have : don't waste 
• Shop sales ( true sales ) and never pay full price. Stock enough to last till the next sale.  
• Use coupons ( especially stacking with sales ) 
• use a rebate site like Ibotta   

Extreme couponing at QFC

QFC s  bundle sale  is a good coupon winner.    That's usually when you can get a good deal-- when you are buying multiples.  

Buy 4/8.00 and get free milk ( Frosted Flakes or Keebler cookies.  )
Pair with buy 5, save three coupon on coupons.com.  

You are paying a total of 10.00 less 3.00 is 7.00 less 2.50  deducted 2.50  for milk total 4.50 for five boxes of cereal.    Or .90 each.  

Your OOP is 7.00 for five boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk.  




Buy 2 Jimmy Dean sausage at 2/6 Get 1 dozen eggs.  
Coupons,com has a dollar off coupon.  
Two jimmy dram sausage 4.00. Less a dozen eggs for 1.00 is 3.00 net or 1.50 for sausage.  

Your OOP is 4.00 for 2 lbs sausage and a dozen eggs.  

Price Lists and organizing the kitchen.

Back in the day......I developed a price list to track prices of the things that I used on a regular basis.  

I got a small spiral bound notebook and topped the sheets with the product and description.

Line items


Date.      Store.           Price.    

9/1/16.       Fred Meyers.              2/1.00           Coupon in ad


That told me when and where the cheapest  price on that particular item was.
If  prices are in a fluctuation mode, that's probably still  a viable tool.

Since we don't buy a big variety of foods, I have been able to keep the prices in my head.   I have target prices ( nothing to do with the red ball store) .   I know I want to pay .50 for beans and veggies and tomatoes,  I want chicken for a dollar a pound or less.   And so it goes.   I try to buy enough to last me until I find it that price again.   This one thing saves a ton of money.    Dried beans are about a dollar a pound,  pintos are cheaper at the dollar tree.   The rest are cheaper at Winco in the bulk isle.   I have started to use the canisters that pop corn comes in from Costco.  I want the same canister in a row in my pantry shelves.    I bought labels from the dollar store.   They can be removed from plastic.

I helped my daughter last night reorganize her kitchen.   She had a shelf in between her cabinets in her pullman kitchen.   It made it so that she locked up two 24 inch cabinets and the kitchen always looked messy and was not efficient.  We took the shelf out to be used to organize shoes or toys.  We made a cupboard just for lunch makings at a lower level so granddaughter can go in a pick her juice box and her snack.   I bought canisters and we labeled them and put the canisters in a cupboard and a drawer.   We purged glasses down to one cupboard for glasses and coffee mugs and out extra glasses for back up incase one was broken in storage.    Appliances she doesn't use often we put in a cupboard and big canisters of bulk items went in a bottom cupboard.   Her counters now have appliances she uses daily and a counter designated for a work surface with a bamboo cutting board.  She still needs an apartment sized fridge.    Having an efficient kitchen helps  enormously.   Scratch cooking is a lot easier.   It doesn't have to be a huge kitchen.  She has a pullman  kitchen.

Finding zones based on activities makes everything you need for a particular project condensed in one place.  You save steps not running all over the kitchen and it eliminates some of  the chaos of doing a task.   If it's more pleasant, you feel more like doing it.

The ads 9/28

QFC

Apples,199
Pears .99
Yoplait 2/88. **



Bundles :   Thrifty or nay!  

Dijorno pizza 2/10 get ice cream free ( Haagen das)
Frosted Flakes 4/8 a free milk gallon
Jimmy Dean sausage 2/6. Free eggs
Wheat thins buy 3 at 199, free 8 oz cheese.  
Buy 2 5.99 k cups free creamer

Most of those don't sound like a great bargain.   I do not know ifmyou can  use a coupon  on the buy ite,s. But I suspect so, since these specials are not on a coupon.     There aremcoupons for frost d Flakes and sausage.  

Pumpkin pie 3.99

Alberways

Beef roast 3.88 lb

Grapes 1.49


Five dollar Friday's
Pork tenderloin
Barilla 5/5
Bread .88@@


That's about it.  


Grocery outlet had
Cheap on
Seasoned whipped cream cheese ( peach)
Cake mixes 2/1 ( use soon,).
Tomato paste was …39


About it.    

Ways to cut your grocery bill.

Simple ways to cut your grocery bill

1. It's hard to believe, but one study says that we spend 1/3 of our grocery bills on drinks.  Cut the pop or soda oit completely.  It's not even good for you.  We should all be drinking water unless you have medical issues.  Put a pitcher of water in the fridge.   It will taste better because it's cold and because the chlorine will dissipate. When my daughter was small, the nutritionist told me to give her an apple instead of apple juice.   Apple juice is especially bad for children in tippie cups.   Iced tea is cheap and there are all kinds of herbal teas out there.   They still cost pennies a bag.   No need to drink kool aid.    Don't be a coffee snob.  Use the cheapest  you can find.   
2. Don't waste food.   Portion control.   Read packages, they are a good source for portions.   A half cup is a portion for cereal.   Oatmeal or cream of wheat is better than cold cereal , especially sugar loaded cold cereal.  Give a child a small portion of something and give them more within reason if they are still hungry.    
3. Eat foods  high in protein.   I learned at diabetic school that foods high in sugar or starch are processed by your body fast, and leave you hungry. Eat protein with your carbs,  the protein is digested more slowly and you are fuller longer.    
4. Fix  plates in the kitchen.   Or cook with portion control in mind,  it takes 20 minutes for your brain to figure out you are full.   If you eat until you are full, you are probably  over eating. Some teen or pre teen boys will make a game out of how much they can eat.   Don't allow it.   It's not good.   Yes, I do know that growing boys , especially active   ones need more calories.  They don't need to eat a two pound roast!   
5. Use all of your food.   Another study says we throw out 1/2 of our food.   Not so in our house.   If you have leftover meat, go to a website ( Betty Crocker on  line  cookbook is one ) and insert the item in the search box,   Recipes using that item will pop up.    Think outside the box.   Leftover chilli can be chilli dogs .   It's important to have a meal plan; and just as important to deviate the meal plan to use up leftovers.   Lunch the next day.   A lot of husbands don't like leftovers.   Our home Ec teacher called them planned overs.   Give the food a new face. 
6. When you do your kitchen management. Take note of what's left.   Incorporate it into the next weeks meals.  Think vegetable soup, or chicken vegetable soup.   
7. Of your kids don't eat the crusts if their sandwich, cut the crusts off and place them on a sheet pan with a rack or in the food processor so they dry out for bread crumbs or croutons.   
8. Use an 8 inch plate.   You can easily get 4 ounces of meat, 4 ounces of a vegetable, and a starch on an 8 inch plate.   We feel that we have to fill our plates just as we feel we need to fill the grocery carts,   That's why grocers have bigger and bigger carts.   Have you really looked at the size of Costco's Carts! That's why you can't get out of there for less than 100.00.   The size of the carts and the size of the packages is the reason.  A lot of things are close to ten dollars.    Same with your plate.   Phycologically , we fill our plates.    Force portion control.   Your waist line will love you, as well as the waste reduction.  
9. Meal plan to use up whatever's in the fridge.  Have a list of go to meals written down.   As well as a list of snacks.   As for snacks, growing up, we didn't get any.  None of us were fat.   
10. Give children a portion controlled healthy snack.  Apple slices, maybe with peanut butter.  Crackers and hummus,  make muffins ( muffins can be really cheaply made) they are huge and cost a dollar a piece at the store often.   Air popped  popcorn is a good, healthy snack and really cheap in the bulk bins at Winco.   ( about fifty cents a pound ) the bulk at Costco , I believe is better, but it's 1.50  a pound. )  Oatmeal in anything is good. 

Easy Peasy

I am making two pots of soup for a gathering,   I cooked beans yesterday and chopped veggies the day before And cooked ground beef, defatted it and froze it.    It was a cinch to out ingredients in a pot and turn it on.   It makes entertaining easy.  

It's stressful if you are cooking at the last minute.

Chilli in I sta pot as slow cooker.

Vegetable soup 

• 
  

What am I going I do, and how am he going to do it.

How many  times have s have  asked  yourself this ?

I'm not ready to put Halloween  up yet, maybe a few leaves.   I got a gift of the hot psds and towels from the dollar tree.   I picked up the placemats that went with them for the breakfast bar.   That spruces the whole kitchen up for six dollars.    It doesn't take much to make the kitchen table festive!  
Dollar tree has stemmed votives.   I had three kids, two of them boys.  You can have steamed votives and nice things,    Kids can learn to act appropriately .

Some turning leaves  from the dollar store,    A bowl of fake apples collected through the years.   I saw some at the goodwill yesterday,    Votives from the dollar store,    A crystal bowl was a gift, but you could use any bowl, there are always interesting bowls and baskets at the goodwill.








Kitchen management day,    I have already oreoed somemthinfs.  We went to Freddies yesterday,  I didn't buy much food, but i replaced  the meat tenderizer that my husband broken trying to break up some ice and my diabetic candy was on sale.     What's not to like about 1/2 price chocolate without any Carbs!  LOL.

• Cottage cheese 
• La croix -not in the food budget - - more healthy substitute for pop,    
• 4 fire roasted diced tomatoes, and dining 2 dices tomatoes with jalapeños,   
• 5 pounds of carrots, 
• Radishes 
• Butter 

Basically, what was on sale and some carrots and radishes.    

I saw a interesting article about what store is the best store to shop at.   There is no best store.  No store has the best prices on everything.  Certain stores are nitmed for certain items that they sell a lot of and therefore, can price really low.    Shopping sales and shopping multiple stores is your best  bet to find 1/2 price or more.    I used to shop on Friday and hit two chain stores, the ones with the best prices for the week of the products I needed.     Now, our selection of stores has dwindled.  We have QFC ( Kroger) and Safeways/Albertsons that have merged and have one set of prices that we get the ad for on Wednesday.   Fred Meyers (Kroger) we get on Sunday,    Winco and Costco we don't get at all.   That makes one shopping day a lot harder to manage.    I usually group my shopping so we use less gas,   We do have a car that gets 50 mpg.

When you go to the store and just buy the things on a good sale, they call it cherry picking.  The grocers don't like it, because they want you to buy a lot of expensive things they make a big prodit  on.  I don't usually just get the sale items,   I don't, however, get the high priced items.   A lot of profit is made from. Using soaps and sundries that are priced  higher than other stores.   It's convenient to buy everything in one place,but conveniences have a price tag.  A lot of everyday things like toothpaste, deodorant, napkins, tissue, are at the dollar tree a lot cheaper.  . Same brand. Less money.   

I have found .50 coupons for puffs.  That makes them 1/2 price at dollar tree.  It makes the, closer to 75 percent off from regular stores.   We see toilet paper when we were kids.  I have sinusitis.   I use a lot of tissue.   I want it all over the house.   I got some for .69 at Fred Meyers. It was a smaller  tissue but there were over a hundred tissues in the box.   I'm thinking we don't need large tissues.   

The mantra is to never pay full price.    If you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves.  There is always that person that buys nothing to decorate the house or try to make it festive or fun.  It doesn't have to be expensive, bit it adds  to your quality of life.   A few things, packed away for another year.   

I digress.    This is about food.    Paying 1/2 price or less is the key to eating well on foir dollars a day.  Think  about it, basically you are eating in eight dollars a day.or almost a grand a month for a family of four.   We eat on an  average of  75.00 a week and have for years. Basically, there are three of us.   And, that also stocks a pantry.    It's full at the present because I am expecting a large expense shortly, and we can eat out of the pantry and freezer and balance the budget.  This is the only place that. Can get fifty percent on my money with  relative safety.

Having a stock is not  hoarding.   It's being prepared.    The young people that have never seen the dark side of broke with no safety net don't  see the need.   We had a big snow one year,  the snow plow came down the street and blocked the driveway with a pile of ice. It wasn't safe for us to be walking.    Without food we would have been in a pickle-- no one want to survive on the pickles in the fridge.  LOL.  Stocking gives you a sense of security , you are prepared of there is an emergency and it can be as simple as having a sick child that shouldn't go out.

No child should suffer the insecurity of haveing nothing in the house to eat.  Now, I have known teens that think because there is no chips and pop on the house and they actually have to cook something means there is no food on the house.   LOL.

With a little sleuthing and food buying skills, you can have a lot of food, for little money.   

.

Meal plans

Meal plans for week of September 26

Mac and cheese. Carrots

Chicken tomato salad , rolls

Salmon, rice medley, peas and carrots

Sausage and sourkraut , apples, rolls

Pizza, salad

Breakfast 4 dinner

Meal plan board from the dollar store.     

Winco and meal plans

after the Winco haul , I did some marathon cooking,    I de-boned chicken breast and made chicken stock and picked the vines for some meat-- enough for soup.  

I cooked the six pounds plus pounds of hamburger amd pit some in small packages for taco meat or a casserole or sloppy joes.     The other I put aside for Chilli.  

We had chicken burgers for dinner.    It's best to make something simple after marathon cooking.  

Today I will do the kitchen management and clean out and organize the fridge.  

The pantry is full and so are the freezers ( the fridge freezer is very small) and my husband. Ought a smaller one when we replaced the freezer.  

The do it hike is coming very soon and we will be eating the pantry down.   I'm sitting at 68.00 a week this month.   I hadn't bought a lot of meat until this week.    We had a lot of meat  and I haven't seen a lot of sales.     My pick for this week would be the while chickens of we really liked dark meat.  
I haven't seen chicken breast cheap for two sales rounds now at Fred Meyers.     I broke down and laid 2.28 for split breast.   That's still a lot cheaper than sox dollars a pound and I got stock and chicken pieces.     I'm still averaging 1.25 a meal so I'm not to upset.  

A lot of thing are forecast to go up about 2-4 percent next year.    I see some evidence of that now.  Beef , chicken, eggs, cheese... To name a few.   We can hedge ot a little for a short time,   Stock so,e chicken and cheese and beef.   Eggs will just have to bite the bullet.    There are some substitutes for eggs in the old war time cookbooks.  

Winco haul

Sadly, the pic didn't work.  I'll post it on Facebook for those that are on my Facebook.    Total spent 57.65  Which included our lunch of 4.77  Total 52.88.

1. White bread 
2. Chicken breast 10.97 ( 8 meals ) 1.25 per meal 
3. Yoplait yogurt (8) 3.58 less 100 coupon 2.58 for 8 or .32 
4. Romas (.98) - 1.41 
5. Enchiladas sauce 1.58 times 2 - 3.16 
6. Ground turkey 2.58 less 1.50 coupon nets 1.08 
7. Hamburger Huns .78
8. 2lns salmon 6.98
9. FF chicken patties 4.47 less 1.00 coupon 3.47!
10. Parmesean, real 2.68 
11. Lean ground beef -close to three dollars a pound.    

Note: there is a coupon in the entrance of Winco for 1.50  off ground turkey if you buy la Victoria taco sauce or enchilada sauce.   I had taco sauce and buy it in a 1/2 gallon jug for about 350 with coupons, but enchilada sauce was 1.58 for a 24 ounce can.   Making it from scratch is a bit of a pain.   Not bad, but I'm not going to wink at buying it for 1.58 when I can get meat for a dollar and eight cents a pound.  

Yoplait is 2/88 at Freddies tomorrow, but this was cheaper.    

Chicken patties is a cheap fill in meal when no one want to cook.     

Freddie's ad for tomorrow

o got the paper.....the ad.      

I'm not finding chicken split breasts!  Darn!  
Chicken thighs, drumsticks, and whole fryers.   .87

Butter 2/5

Jiff  peanut butter 4/5@@

Veggies, tomatoes, beans 2/1@@ limit 6

Yoplait 2/88
Sour cream 2/4
Green beans 1.49

Turkey breast 1.99
Hamburger 10 percent 4.99

Roasted chicken.  2 lbs 12 ounces.  9.99 - 3.63 a pound,  
Foster farms chicken .87 a pound

I would only buy a roasted  chicken if I was in a terrible time crunch.   The sky would have to be falling . And then, I wouldn't buy one that was under three pounds.   That's just a rip off.   At least, I would buy a Costco chicken that's three pounds.

1. Three pounds is the break even number for a chicken. At a three pound chicken, you are laying for 1.5 pounds of meat, and 1.5 pounds of bone.   Or 3.33 a pound for the meat.   
2. If you buy a 5 pound whole  raw chicken, you are paying 1.25  a pound for the meat or a 63 percent savings. 
3.  It takes 10 minutes to cook a whole chicken ( non passive time ) .  
4. 5 lbs of rotisserie meat costs 16.65 . 5 lbs of raw  chicken meat costs 6.25.  
5. The difference is 10.40.   If you spend ten minutes putting a chicken in to cook, you are making 62.40 an hour .    

That's the way I figure out if it's worth making something from scratch vs, buying it ready made,    

What's your time worth?    No one ever paid me 62.40  an hour.    The added bonus is that you can get a rich chicken stock that would cost you an additional dollar or so a can.  

Easy whole chicken cooking recipes are on earlier posts.  

The other thing to consider is, my mothers favorite expression, you don't know where that thing has been.  You don't know where that chicken of from.   I do know that Costco chicken is a drawer valley ( PNW grown, ) it took some digging to find that out.  When I asked, I got an I donnno.    Don't hesitate to ask until  you get an answer. You should be able to tell where something is from.  

Freaky Friday.

I think it interesting to note that just because your finances are low, you don't have to be stuck eating unhealthy food or not getting any treats.  

QFC today has free sour patch candy.    There is a coupon in the coupon flyers that came in the paper for a dollar off of Werthers original carmels.  They are at the dollar store, so basically it a BOGO.  

Of course, your doctor  and dentist will tell you to eat sugar in moderation.  

There are a few things that are not  bargain at any cost in my estimation

1. Fake butter : often has hydrogenated oils in it.  Real butter is cheaper and better for you to use in moderation      
2. Corn oil    :  most corn products have GMO.   The jury is still out.  Most scientists say it can't hurt you.   The doctor I read about says to avoid until there is more information out there   
3. Boxed parm cheese.   It's old, rather than fresh,    It has cellulose in it , which is another word for wood pulp.    Buy your own block and grate it or at least buy grated in the deli and  read the contents. A micro plane is worth the investment, yourmcheese is grated really fine and it stretches the cheese.   
4. Chicken that isn't Washington grown,.  Not going into it here, but it's just better.    No chicken in the United States can have hormones.    Don't let the bragging on the oaxkage impress you,   
5. Hydrogenated oils,   A lot of things have hydrogenated oils in them.  To avoid all of them is nearly impossible.    You can start by only buying olive and canola oil to cook with.    Read the labels of the peanut butter and get one that has the least amount,   If they are reducing the amount ifmhydroginated oiks, they'll be shouting it to the rooftops.    
6. Fake sugar .    Fake sugar makes you fat.    It's better for your diabetic numbers but the fake sugar doesn't know where to go because it isn't natural.    So, it attaches to your fat cells and makes them fatter.   Moderation is the key.  
7. Soda pop.    The fizz strips your bones from calcium.  
8. Cocoanut oil.    Two tablespoons of cocoanit oil have more saturated fat than a serving of beef.  
9. Potato chips.   Fat fat fat. Salt salt salt.   No real food value.    Substitute so,thing else for the crunch factor.    
10. Speciality eggs or egg whites.    Scientists have come to realize that while eggs have cholesterol, the cholesterol is the good cholesterol.    You apparently want to boost your good cholesterol and reduce the bad.  Just use regular eggs.    

Shopping day

I made today our shopping day.    Tomorrow is cleaning day, but we already did a lot of that.  

We went to Safeways and the dollar store.    ( next to each other ) and Winco.  

Dollar store netted a jar of pizza sauce.   The same brand  as the other stores,  but a lot less money .
I freeze it in ice cube trays and then put the cubes in a zip lock.   About three pizzas from a dollar jar.
Savings about 33 percent.  


Safeways netted
linguine for .75 ( 1.29)
Fettuccine for .75 (1.29)
2 cake mixes 1.00 ea ( 4.38)
4 -8 ounce pkg. cheese .98 ( 2/7 at FM)
2 butter 1.99 ( 3.69 elsewhere)
1 strawberries 2.99
Apples .99 ( 1.99)

Savings 48 percent.  

Winco
2 lbs frozen peas 1.88
2 cake  mixes .88
PRego pasta sauce 1.57 less coupon.   1.07
Large eggs .90
Lettuce .99
Tomatoes 1.98

Eggs or cheese were basically a buck at Safeways.   I knew that I probably could get eggs at Winco for around that (.90) so I got all cheese.    Cheese is 2/7 at Freddies and eggs were  .90 at Winco.
Knowing prices and adjusting a shopping trip accordingly can save a lot of money.   My target price for frozen veggies is a dollar a pound.  This was under.

I spent about thirty dollars total.  

Dump cake

I made a dump cake for company.  It's a very easy cake.   Some of them say to dump a can of soda over the top of a cake mix.   I haven't tried those.  

Some call for canned or pie filling.   I'm not too fond of that much  sugar.  The recipe calls for a cake mix, that's enough sugar.  

Betty Crocker has a recipe for pound cake.   Three ingredients.   I think you could add some spices .  
It is very easy,    Apples. Yellow cake mix, butter.    I substituted blueberries for the apples.   That recipe called for a little sugar.  

Honestly. five  minutes from scratch to oven.    A little more of you  have to run the apples through
the apple machine.  

Cake mix is a dollar  at the tree. Lately, it  isn't Betty Crocker.  It's always less than a dollar at Winco, sometimes 88.  Butter  is two dollars   at Safeways.