Tuesday concepts.

Doing research and making a few lists will go a long ways towards cutting your food bill and making good food that your family will enjoy eating.   The bottom line is that making tahini crusted eggplant might sound really good to the clean eating crowd, it will do your family not a bot of good of they don’t eat it.    No food will do your family good if you are feeding it to the garbage disposal.   

First, make a list of meals that your family will eat and use sources of protein that are economical.   For us, we want to try for under two dollars a pound.  I can still get pork loin, boneless,  skinless , chicken breast , whole chicken, eggs, cheese, and beans and some good quality hamburger.   Finding recipes that are efficient scratch cooking is a great help.   Cheap, efficient scratch cooking your family will eat.  

Now, list the ingredients that you need to cook those meals.   Simplify,   The less number of items that you need to stock and purchase, the easier your experience will be.

Separate that list, between perishables and non perishables.   Now, you have a list of non perishables and protein that you need to stock,    It will probably take a while, but I’m time you can develop a four to six week supply of non perishables.

List your protein and buy one protein a week in bulk to make however many meals you will eat on a months time.   If we eat beef one day a week, we will need four meals worth of hamburger.  Buy it in bulk and break it down onto meal sized portions.  We fry and de fat the whole batch and then portion control it.  This saves time and money.  There is little waste.  Make best use of sales and buy your protein at the RBP.

When it comes to non perishables, buy them on sale  and buy as many as you can up to your self regulated stock limit.   List your stock goal with your list of ingredients,   Soon, you will be going to the store to replenish your stoCk if something is on sale, buy your protein, and fresh produce and dairy. Most dairy goes on sale once or so a month and has a four week pull date.   Use sales.  Keeping a four week supply of eggs gives you the luxury of buying eggs 🥚 when they are the cheapest and filing on when are low.   Rotate.  

Big low, eat high.   The basic stockbroker mentality is to buy the stock low and sell when it is high.  It’s a winning theory.

Having a four to six week supply of food is an insurance policy against disaster.  Snow, government shutdown, illness any number of things can happen and having food is a good thing.