I was a single mother during the time of double digit inflation and we didn’t get a raise in three years. I had learned a lot from my mother, but I set out to learn anything I could to lower our food bills, The rent was going sky high...from 145 to 285 dollars a month and the discretionary spending was all that we could economize on.
When I started the blog, I again, started researching all I could. Three years ago, we had a big shake up in the supermarket industry, Two grocery stores, Albertsons and Safeways merged. A third company bought Albertsons and Safeways, They didn’t make it and declared bankruptcy. One major store ( Top Foods ) closed for a year before Winco went in to the building, . This meant that we basically had two major chains monopolizing the supermarket industry here— Kroger and Albertsons who now owned Safeways. There was no competition and prices were high. Winco was a ten mile drive one way, We didn’t go often. I was spending 72.00 a week on food. Now, my daughter was not vegan yet so she ate more of our food was a part of it too.
Having lower prices on food, and continuing my life long learning how to economize on food has helped reduce our expense to the 51.90 that it has been for the last almost two years.
- We bought beef and chicken from Zaycon which is no longer in business, but another company has tweaked their business plan.
I think the point I am trying to make is that you don’t get to four dollars a week overnight. It is a process of learning a trick and getting to know what you can do to make it happen, one idea at a time.
- I learned to bake sourdough bread and buns.
- I got a insta pot. The savings on rice and beans alone have laid for the pot.
Stocking a four to six weeks supply of food is not going to happen overnight even if you got a windfall of money, You are buying things as they go on sale or you find a good source. Sometimes it has to be a can at a time. Like one lady I found recently said, she is not going to stock anything that her children will eat in a heartbeat if she brings it in the house. Mayonnaise or green beans work, chips or cold cereal won’t. My mother solved that problem, we didn’t get pop, a lot of cold cereal and what cold cereal we got was cornflakes or wheat puffs, and absolutely no chips or what she considered garbage food. If it had no food food value, she didn’t buy it. If we wanted cookies, we were certainly welcome to make some. Snicker doodles, peanut bitter, and a blond brownie were our favorites. She always had the ingredients in the house.
Start slow and build. Save a few dollars a week and dump it into a stock fund. Try a vegetarian meal once or twice a week. Study the ads and make your meals around what is in sale. Our Winco does not have an ad. If there is something really inexpensive, I post it because of that. If you get a good meat sale, you can save enough for a few more things another week that you don’t have to buy the meat. Meanwhile, you are stocking meat. The case lots should be coming in soon. Many times they are store brands so coupons won’t work, I just happened to luck out last year because Safeway's had a basket coupon the same week as the case lot sales.
I have tried to make this happen in a realistic way. Not all of what you read on the Internet makes
sense for a growing family with a working mother, I’m not a working mother now, but I was
for many years. An hour once a week to do food prep to save hectic dinner hour time is believable, a three hour meal prep is not. It is all a balancing act .
It is not realistic to feed your family toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner—that’s my opinion anyway. My husband has gotten a lot more relaxed in his eating habits , but that would receive a oh no 🤦♂️ I am sure.
I do remember a time when we had the boat. I had not stocked the pantry for the season. We still had a few things from the previous summer, He wanted to get on the water before the weather turned, so we took off early, He assured me we would grocery shop when we go to our destination. That didn’t happen. He ran into a long lost friend and got carried away chatting. We had green beans and a emergency hamburger helper with a can of beans taking up the space that the hamburger would have it I had some, He didn’t say a word and had seconds! Lol we hit Albertsons the next morning.
Changing a few little habits can make a difference in the food budget. Just making muffins for breakfast and your own pancakes and waffles instead of buying frozen is a drastic difference in price. Buying your flour in bulk and storing it in a food safe five gallon bucket can save over a hundred dollars. The cost of a pizza crust is two dollars, the cost of making it is .19. Muffins cost five dollars, the basic cost is .30 plus the fruit or spices, pancakes are expensive in the frozen food section. They cost well under a dollar. French Toast bread is a dollar at the DT. Our DT gets orowheat delivery Tuesdays. Eggs continue to be cheap. I have been getting them for a buck. I keep a four dozen supply. Rotating and only buying them when they are under 1.50. Last year when they were .78, we dehydrated some and put them in a mason jar and sucked the air out with the food saver. That’s our back up for an emergency. French Toast can be made and frozen. It takes just a few minutes to toast it on the toaster or heat it on the microwave. Seconds in the microwave or you
will have a hockey puck.
LOL.
Making your own bread crumbs from bread heels or bread that is getting old saves a bundle. Even at Winco it is a dollar a pound. I have seen it upwards of 2.50. You are buying someone else’s dry bread.
Watching your prices and going to more than one store is a total bargain. Prices between stores on some things can be as much as two dollars. Figure 40 items in a grocery cart and the math is staggering. Now, not all things are that much, but a lot of them are.
Another easy way to save a lot of bucks is to buy basic spices in bulk or at a discount store, you can usually find dry slices for a buck somewhere, Winco and QFC both have bulk spices. Making your own blends affords you the best way to cater to your family’s taste and save a lot of money. Things like taco seasoning and fajitas seasoning, onion soup mix, ranch dressing mix and seasoned rice can save a lot of money with little effort.
Rice bought in a twenty pound bag is fractions of what it costs to buy the redi rice or even the instant rice that has mess food value. It is so easy with a rice cooker or in the insta pot . The insta pot is a rice cooker, a slowmcooker, a pressure cooker , and some make yogurt.
The switch from canned beans to dry beans was made in our house when we got the insta pot. I was not going to spend two hours to make two cups of scratch beans. The savings was not worth it. Rice and beans have a short refrigerator life. That’s one of the first things that you learn when studying for a food handlers permit. We don’t eat that much beans and rice to warrant a big batch. But with the insta pot, you wash the beans and pick anything not a bean out of it, place them in the
insta pot, cover them past your second knuckle with water and close the lid, turn it to seal, and press the bean button, Done, Rice is simpler, Place equal parts of rice and water
ormbeoth on the pot, shit the lid, turn it on seal. And push the rice button. It keeps it warm until you get back to it within reason.
The last trick to save money is to fry your hamburger or other ground meat as soon or soon after you take the bulk package from the store. Fry it, de fat it, amd portion control it on bags for the freezer. We put the cooked meat in quart bags from the dollar store, then put the quart bags in a zip lock gallon bag and label and freeze. It makes the hamburger cheaper because you are buying it in bulk and you are nit wast8ng any, and more convenient because you cut your hands on time at dinner t8me drastically. Tacos in fifteen minutes. Lol
Hope this answers the question of how to begin to stock.
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