The basics revisited

This blog is about groceries on the cheap. That doesn't mean cheap food, it means good food cheap. The USDA has stats in how much it should cost for a family to eat. It is based on ages and family size. I want to pay half. It is meals: better, cheaper, faster!


1/2 price groceries takes a three pronged approach at getting food on the table.
1) plan and organize 2) shop wisely 3) cook from scratch.

1) plan and organize
First, gather recipes that your family will eat that use low cost sources of protein.
Seven will do to start, but fourteen is better so you have variety. I want to average 5 bucks a dinner. I call it 4+1 = 5. Four people, one meal, five bucks.
Think pork, chicken, vegetarian and some beef. It getting harder because of rising food costs.

When you get home from the grocery shopping trip,plan 7 meals. It doesn't have to be a fancy meal plan-- just jot down 7 main dishes . Make a mental note of what was in the fridge before you went shopping and incorporate anything on the edge in your meals first. Store fresh food properly. There are a lot of storage solutions that keep your food fresh longer. They are well worth the investment.

About once mid week, take stock of the bread bin and fridge and do something with anything on the edge--incorporate it into the next meal,put it up, or as a last resort, throw it out. Bananas can become banana bread, stale bread can become bread crumbs or stuffing mix, vegetables can become stock.

2) shop wisely

The mantra here is not to get stuck paying full price. Make a list of staples you use frequently. In our house, that would be beans, cheese, re-fried beans, diced tomatoes,
Pasta sauce, some canned veggies,some tuna and pasta.

Keep track of how much you pay, where you bought it, and when you bought it. This can be in a small spiral notebook that you can carry with you, or on a spreadsheet. Mark the top of the page with the food and the size of the package. Then take a line to mark the date, the store, and the price you paid. Soon you will will see the lowest price for that product. You need then to buy 1) as many as you can afford 2) as many as the store allows, or as many as you need to maintain your stock, which ever comes first. If I use something once a week, I keep 24. If I use something once a month, I keep six.

When the ads come out, take a piece of paper draw limes to quarter it and top each quarter with the name of the store. Now go through the ads and write down the items and prices of anything on a good sale that you use and the price. Record the fruits and veggies you may need, and the meat prices that are low. Now, cross off anything
That is a higher price elsewhere,and anything that you already have an adequate supply of.

Now pick the two stores that have the best prices. Go there with your ads and list.
Get in, get your list, and get out. The longer you spend on a store, the more money you will spend. The grocery stores have spent a lot of research money to get you to impulse buy. Not all stores are created equal. There is a huge difference in prices, and no one store has low prices on everything. I used to work for a food wholesaler.
on
One grocery store has a 42 percent mark up. That is huge!

Don't overlook the stores that don't sell food for their main focus. Sometimes, they have the best prices. Always check pull dates. For example, I got diced tomatoes at Big Lots for .48. The same brand at QFC this week was 1.00 ON SALE. I think the regular price is 1.59. You can see that it would not take long to realize a big savings.

I am not advocating running across town to save .15. I plan my trips to the two stores to incorporate our other errands and maintain a tight circle so we don't waste gas. Going to the closest store for dinner foods every day or two is the worst thing you can do for your budget.

I have guidelines for meat and veggie purchases. I try for less than 2.50 a pound for meat, and a buck for veggies and fruit. It is not working lately with rising food prices. Balancing good nutrition goes along with this too.




3) Cook from scratch. :

One of the fastest ways to derail your budget is to buy ready-made or packaged mixes.

My daughter and I dissected a cheeseburger macaroni meal box. It had .20.8 cents worth of macaroni, and 1.57 ounces of a sauce mix. We paid 2.08 for the box. At that rate, the Cheese burger sauce mix cost 13.28 a pound. They have to list ingredients in order of volume. The first ingredient was cornstarch and the last was cheese whey and preservatives. I never met a cheese I didn't like, and I never met a cheese that had no cholesterol. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. You can buy REALLY good cheese for 13.28 a pound.

In most cases, there is a way to cook the same things just as fast and a whole lot cheaper. With few exceptions, scratch is better and less expensive without the preservatives. I don't think that re-fried beans and tortillas are worth making from scratch. The few times I make cake or brownies doesn't warrant scratch. I can get the mixes for a buck frequently.

Depending on the time of year, instant mashed potatoes are cheaper than scratch. I can sometimes get them for .50. Pasta sauce ( hunts) is as low as .75. You can't buy the tomato product that cheap!

There are styles of cooking that make scratch cooking fast cooking. The slow cooker is really your friend as is a pressure cooker. The new electronic ones have safety valves. Any food you can prep in a few minutes and put in the oven is fast food. You can be doing other things while dinner cooks.

If you spend time to precook meat when you have a less stressed time, you save a lot of time when things are busier. I cook and defat ground meat when I get home from the store, or the next day. You can roast a chicken, cut off the leg portion, and cut the breast in half. Serve half the breast for one meal, cut the rest of the breast meat in cubes for a pot pie or pasta, and freeze the leg portions to make another meal. Save the breast bones and the neck, etc for stock. Roast off a roast. Have a roast dinner, and then slice the rest of it thin for sandwiches-- either roast beef a jus or BBQ pork.

Making your own seasoning mixes, salad dressing and croutons and bread crumbs is a real money saver.

Basically, if you spend more time on the front end of the "get the meal on the table" train and less time on the back end, you will be better off. No one is paying you to cook, but you are being paid well to shop. The average family spends 150.00 a week on food. If you spend 75.00 and you spend an extra hour shopping, you are making 75.00 an hour. This is a concept nots everyone can grasp. If they don't have the money in their little hot hand, they can't see it! LOL. Another abstract is that you would have to earn 90.00 to spend that 75.00. Food for thought.

Thanks for stopping by.
Please share. The object of me writing this blog is to help people eat better for less. I know the unemployment rate is still high and there are people who have had to resort to getting food stamps. We have all had times when we have had to economize.
I hope you enjoy this blog and get what you can use out of it. Some people enjoy seeing a new recipe, or being reminded of an old one, some enjoy the time saving tips. But, whatever it is, I hope I am helping someone.

Jane