Oh, what a change!

I have always been frugal on our grocery spending.  I got in the habit and never changed.   I was digging into a personal cookbook binder looking for my recipe for brownie mix ( a later blog! ) and found meal plans for May 2002.   13 years ago.    

Meals
Pizzas, salad
Meat balls
Ham quiche
Hamburgers
Meatloaf
Dagwood sandwiches
Tuna casserole
Beef Brisket
BBQ Beef ( from yesterday)
Pizza ( ham, pineapple, peppers )
Hot dogs
Roast chicken
Sloppy joes
Chicken pot pie
Tacos , refried beans , Spanish rice
Shrimp muffins, potato soup
Pizza ( chicken, onion, black olives )
BBQ spareribs
Roast pork loin
Shrimp fettuccine
Pork stir fry
Bacon quiche
Tuna casserole
Pasta bake
Steak ( top round )
Roast chicken
Hamburgers
London broil
Pizza chicken casserole
Spareribs

Notes :  for days when only the entree is posted, add starch, vegetable and/or salad

Assumes milk, tea, or coffee , ice tea
Starches: noodles. Potatoes, rice, pasta
Vegetables green beans, corn, salad greens spinach
Fresh mixed vegetables ,carrots,peppers, mandarin oranges
Strawberries, pineapple, peaches, tomatoes, pears.  

Now:
We still eat pizza.  Shave added a buffalo chicken pizza because we all like spice.  
Beef is only eaten once or twice a week, and then it is inexpensive cuts.   We used inexpensive cuts then too, but the word inexpensive cuts is realitive.  For a drought that was supposed to elevate beef prices for a year,it's been a ver r y long year!   I have no hope for beef prices to go down.  Now that they got what the market will bear, they aren't going to go back to lower prices.  

Chicken is still a good buy.   My husband is even eating it, knowing are financial circumstances and seeing for himself the cost  of beef.  I have a let peeve, though. I am going to call the manager of Fred Meyers today.    I have gone three times now to buy the chicken grill packs that are in sale.  They never have them.  If they aren't going to produce an article for sale, they should just not advertise it
for sale.  That's illegal for starts.   It's called bait and switch!   I suppose I could have asked for a rain check for a non existent product.  LOL

We are eating a couple of vegetarian meals a week.   Now that cheese is nine dollars a brick and eggs are doubling, it is harder.  I can still get cheese on a loss leader (so called) sometimes  and it is 2.30 a pound at business Costco.   I got it for two dollars a pound at grocery outlet.   It was with jalapeño peppers -- a product that didn't sell.   Probably because those wieners that so t like hot foods wouldn't touch it, and those that did like spices foods found that you could barely taste the hot.  It was a winner for us!    We will be eating less egg dinners, I don't know yet what I am going to substitute them with yet.  As prices rise, you have to roll with the punches.   Punt.   Be flexible.   It's hard these days to find replacements, everything is going up.  

I think it is interesting that social security thinks the cost of living is only going up two percent when the amount of social security raise was not enough to cover the cost of increasing insurance costs and food has drastically gone up.   It's harder and harder to find protein at a decent price unless you want processed crap.  
It's doable, it just takes a lot of flexibility and hard work.  

I can remember cooking .35 worth of chicken necks ( .10 a pound) and adding mushrooms and white sauce to make hand made stuffed manicotti.   It took me several hours to make dinner.  
I was a lot younger then.   LOL

It's doable, I will continue to search and find inexpensive healthy protein.   It breaks my hear watching women with children on SNAP buying junk food, cheap hotdogs and knowing they are going to have empty cupboards before the month is through.  There is always a way to serve reasonable healthy food on a budget.  Our grandmothers did during the depression, and our mothers did during the war with food rations.   It's always doable. It just takes a little more ingenuity.  

Thanks for stopping by

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Jane