Let’s talk money......

In the year of 2017, we spent on avrag 55.05 a week.   4.00 a day for my husband and I totals 56.00.
But, that amount covered our food, our stocked food, and partially feeding our granddaughter.   She eats at her house and our too.

We eat meals from Pork Loin, boneless, skinless chicken breast, hamburger, eggs, cheese, bacon, and beans.    No, Virginia, we dont just eat beans......

We can do that by using a variety of tips and tricks to lower our food bill.

Efficiently cook from scratch.  Buy buying certain things in bulk, you can save a lot of money.  There are easy 5 ingredient or less recipes all over the Internet.   A 6.99 cent bag of flour can save you the cost six times over.  Artisan bread, 10 hands on minutes, a quarter.  Cheese pizza 1.05 , muffins .35 plus the fruit.   Pancakes far cheaper than 3.00 a small bag.  Or 8 small waffles for over a dollar.
We also buy oatmeal .085 a serving, and rice at .02 a serving.   That’s a ton of savings.

Find the RBP on the things you buy on a regular basis to make dinner and buy enough to last you 4-6 weeks at the lowest possible price.  Use Ibotta, coupons, and sales to cut your costs

Buy your basic meat at RBP in bulk.  Buy enough of that meat to last you for however many meals you will cook it during a 4-6 week period.   Bring it home and portion control it into meal sized portions.  I cook hamburger and freeze it in meal sized portions in quart bags and then a gallon bag that I label with the type of meat and the date.   We rotate pork loin (.99-1.69), chicken breast (.99-1.77) and hamburger 80/20 that we fry and de-fat. ( 2.00-2.44) .  If there is a hunk of beef that is low fat and cheaper, we will grind it ourselves.

Plan your meals.   Make a plan, or plan to fail.  If you plan your meals and keep a stock, you will always have what you need to make your meals.  A little kitchen management picks up the slack and preps ingredients for the meal.  You can prep, clean the fridge, and rotate a deep clean chore in about an hour.   It saves a lot of time at the hectic meal time.

4 steps, they all take a little work, but they all save time and /or money.   Master one at a time.
You should cut your food bill.   Ours is 1/2 the USDA stats for thrifty.   We eat well.

Winco Haul

Winco Haul 

Green grapes 1.98

Celery .88

Bluebrrries 3.98

Tomato grape .98

2% milk 1.28

Salmon 4.98

Romas .88

Green chillis .66

Black olives .78

Cucumbers .68

Cottage cheese 1.98

Winco stuffing .75

Gala apples. .88

5otal 29.98

Retailer’s Dirty Little Secrets.....

It has been a while since I have addressed this issue.   I have been researching a little m,ore for an class, so I have found more....

Food for thought.....70 percent of a stores profit comes from impulse buys.   There gai is your loss. 

It is no accident that the first thing you see when you walk into a door of the store is something tempting you.    Winco has junk food , tons and tons of junk food.   Topped off with a bakery cart.  They want you to lower your resistance and fill your huge cart.  

We have bags that clip on the grocery cart.  This instantly shrinks the cart.  It also keeps the food off of the bottom of the cart .   Studies have shown the a big percentage of those carts have fecal matter on them.    Yuk is all I can say.   

 Their slow music can add 12 percent to your cart. 

Bringing family members with you can add 10 percent PER person to your cart.   

Face it, you can’t do the math in your head and make good decisions if you are distracted with a child whining they want something that has been strategically placed in their eye level, or how many of us have got to the veggie department to have a child announce that he has to go potty?  LOL 

Its money in the bank to leave them home with the other parent.  If you are single, consider trading babysitting duties with another parent.   Or see if you can leave them with a family member.   

The best bargains are often in the back corner of the store.   After they show you the two dollar plus  for six English muffins in the front of the store (Fred Meyers) , they have 12 English muffins for 1.67 back by the eggs.   Ditto sandwich rolls at winco.  

Manufacturers pay slotting fees.   Basically, that is rent for the eye level shelves.  When its a big retailer, they can pay as much as a million dollars for end caps and eye level shelves.  The retailers no doubt are passing that expense on to you.   The grocery stores make more money from slotting fees than they do selling food.    

Store brands are cheaper than their major brand counterparts.   Often, they are the same item, in a store brand wrapper.   Years ago, my sister worked for a frozen food distributor.   She got to bring home the transition labeled boxes of veggies.   They had two wrappers on them.   The .66 milk green chillies that are winco brand are .66 cents.   The name brand is 1.28.   

In the UK, they figure that 20 percent of the customers give them 80 percent of their profit.   Its the customers that fill their large carts.  

Stats show that if you touch a product, you are more likely to buy that product.   

Non food items have the largest markup.   The store cant buy the quantity that other retailers buy.   You can be much better off buying that article with a coupon somewhere else.   

Eggs, sugar coated cereal and diary have the Biggest markup in the store.   

Those fancy stores have a huge markup on everything.   To their credit, when you carry a lot of specialty items and a lot of items, it just cost more to keep track of all that.   More to stock, more to inventory. You are going to pay for the experience.   

Those racks by the checkouts are nothing but a blast of impulse stimuli.   

I did see an eyeglass repair kit.   It was inexpensive and a real life saver if you wear glasses.   

 

Chain store ads

QFC was a two week ad last week.   

The highlights are 

• Oranges .67
• Draper valley whole chicken .88
• Berries 2/5 

Digital coupons 

You can use up to 5.  That should mean that it is a store coupon and paper coupons should be able to be matched.   Don’t quote me on that, but I heard that someone cleared that with Kroger. 

Cheese 2.49 a lb- my highest target price, but its not bad 

Pasta 1.00

Alberways 

London broil 2.99

Pasta .48 @@

Pasta sauce 4/5 look for prego coupons @@

Cheeese 4/ 5@@. Thats 2.50 a lb. 

My protein rotation would be chicken at qfc and /or cheese . 

For the three of us, we can get 4 meals from a 5 lb chicken.  

Don’t buy a chicken that is much less than 5 lbs.   (4.40) 

My stock buy would be pasta sauce and pasta from safeways.   That’s 1.75 pus meatballs for a dinner for 4.and an extra meal of pasta.    Meatballs are 2.00 a bag at Winco.  

10 hacks to save money and make life easier.

Part of Groceries on the cheap is that you may spend a little more time planning a grocery haul ( when you are dealing with a basket coupon or a buy xx, save xx sale. )  I am not going to tell you that it takes no time to make sure things are put in the pantry in some assemblance of order.   Or that studying  the ads and meal planning is not time consuming.

  I study the ads in our area and I meal plan on line.   You can use all kinds of ways to mealplan that doesn’t take time.   My mother used to schedule the same meal for a specific day.    We could tell what day of the week it was by what she was cooking when we hit a the door from school.    Other people write down 10 meals that they cook on a regular basis and rotate them three times a month.
There are , also, people that meal plan once a month.   All of these meal plans are flesxible.   We don’t necessarily eat Mondays meal on Monday.   It’s whatever works.

Because we all wear many hats, i make up the time I spend planning by cutting time on the cooking end.   I make money (save ) planning, I dont make money cooking.  

• Make your own bread crumbs with heels and dry bread.  Get it out of the plastic wrapper before it grows hair.   Before I had a good food processer,  I used to dry it by putting it in the cold oven until it was dry.   Then I put a grater on a sheetpan and went out on the deck and grated it.  
• Make your own cream soup base.   It saves a lot of money and doesn’t take much time. There are two receipts, one is low fat, the other low salt.   
• Making your own ranch dressing mix, onion soup mix, taco seasoning and seasoned rice mix saves bundles and you can make one a week easy.   Good way to teach children fractions and measurements. 
• Buy broken nuts in the bulk isle. (Winco) .   You don't have to chop them much and they are ready for coating chicken or to put in cookies. 

• Making a quick muffin is a way to feed children breakfast fast and it saves a lot of money.  Breakfast muffins can be made ahead and frozen if they last that long.  
• Buy pizza sauce from the DT.  Put it in a ice cube tray and freeze.  When frozen, dump the cubes in a zip lock bag and store in the door of the freezer.   2 “ice cubes” cover a home made pizza. 
• Pizza crusts are .19 when made with a bulk flour and yeast.   Flour, salt, yeast, water and 2 tsp of olive or veggie oil.   It takes about 3 minutes and pizza dough bought at the store is between 1.50 an 2.00/. 
• Homemade pizza (cheese) is 1.05 a pizza when made with sourced products.   One day next week cheese is 2.00 a lb at Fred Meyers.   I often get it for less than 2.50 a lb.    Pepperoni is a dollar at the dollar store.   Pepperoni coupons don't work for the small packages, but a few veggies added to the pizza and you can get away with 1/2 a package of pepperoni.   
• Hard cooked eggs are a snap when you bake them in the oven.   Put eggs , once each in muffin cups.   Bake  in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes . Immediately, remove the eggs (a spoon works well) to an ice bath. The eggs cook perfectly every time and peel easy. 
• Doing a little prep when you have time and the house is 🤫 quiet can save a lot of time later.  You are doing things in batches and it takes less time with less clean up.

• Deli containers are .50 each at Amazon.  They stack and take less space .

Monday Kitchen Management

Not happening tomorrow.  Guess that means today. (Sunday).  They are cutting our power tomorrow to replace the power poles.  We arent changing the clocks either...why do it twice.   The clock on the stove is especially difficult.

Reminder of meals

1. Chicken pot pie
2. Hot pockets 
3. Roast chicken 
4. Chicken nuggets 
5. Nachos 
6. Salmon
7. Breakfast 4 dinner. 

• Cook chicken for the pot pie
• Wash salad greens 
• Mark chicken to thaw. 
• Make beans 
• Make 2 week bread dough
• Clean refrigerator and dump everything dead. 
• Wash kitchen floor 
• Disinfect countertops and sinks and drains. 
• Wax south side cupboards. 

Meal Plans

Make a plan, or plan to fail.   Meal plans dont have to be a drawn out affair, but plans enable you to eat better and be more organized about it.   Taking a few minutes to do prep work I call kitchen management, keeps the kitchen clean and takes away a lot of the stress during the hectic dinner hour.  Your meals are 1/2 done an life is easssy.   

• Chicken Pot Pie 
• Pizza Pockets (homemade) 
• Roast chicken, oven roasted veggies 
• Homemade chicken nuggets , oven fries , veggie platter 
• Nachos
• Salmon, baked potato, salad, bread 
• Breakfast for dinner:   French toast, fruit platter, bacon?   

Notes: 

1. I bought pillsbury pie crust at GO for 1.50.  It is a double crust, so I will use one crust for chicken pot pie .  Add cooked cubed chicken breast from the insta pot, whit sauce from cream soup base, and frozen mixed vegetables. 
2. Pizza pockets are made from the other pie crust.   Add lettuce and tomato salad.. 
3. Roast chicken, and oven roasted veggies.  You would be surprised how good one roasted radishes are.  
4. Homemade chicken nuggets.  Chicken is cubed from a chicken breast.  It is not re constituted chicken.   Breading is bread crumbs from stale bread , chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts) and parm cheese.   We don't buy parm cheese in a can, or bread crumbs.  Why pay upwards of 2.40 a lb for someone else's dry bread.   Its so easy to pop crusts and leftover bread into the food processor  and whirl it.  ( granddaughters favorite job) .   Parmesan cheese in that cardboard container is just nasty.  Its been hanging around the store, has a lot of wood pulp in it to keep it from caking.   And, I have got more volume for less money fresh at Fred Meyers and winco.   Oven fries are potatoes, scrubbed with vinegar water, cut into wedges, and tossed with olive oil and garlic pepper.  Yum.
5. Nachos are a favorite, especially on movie night.   We got tortilla chips for free this week at qfc.  Add cooked hamburger, beans, cheese, diced tomato, black olives, and mild peppers.   
6. Salmon is still 5.00 a pound at winco in the frozen food section.   Add a salad and peasant bread.   Peasant bread is a no brainer and made in 10 minutes hands on time. And, that is spread out between two days.  Baked potatoes are easy.    LOL.  
7. French Toast is made with french bread from the Orowheat cart at the DT.  Add eggs and milk and some cinnamon.   Bacon was three dollars a pound for one day at qfc.   Fruit from last week.   It pays to have appropriate storage containers..who let the gas out!

Notes: Class

I heard someone on a u tube channel say that the word cheap means inferior quality.   That’s probably true.   With tounge in cheek, we named this blog.   We dont purchase cheap food.   This is good food, cheap.   You can buy the exact same thing in three different stores and pay three different prices.   Why not pay the lowest price?   Its to your own advantage.  

I am teaching a class on grocery shopping and meal planning / recipe gathering, probably next Sunday at our local library.    FREE:   Handouts and a crash course in lowereing your food bill.   There is limited seating so I need to know who is coming.

This is not hoarding, it is keeping a responsible amount of food to take care of your family when bleep happens.   Face it, there is a lot of piece of mind that goes along with being prepared.   We all buy house or renters insurance, and it is against the law not to buy car insurance.  Why not hae enough food to carry you over a rough spot— especially when it cost no more money.   It saves money in the long run, because you can go on no spend  months if you have a heavy expense month and not sacrifice anything.   Its a win: win situation .

We spent 55.05 a week average in 2017 .   That’s about 1/2 the USDA stats for my husband and I.   And....we supplemented granddaughter and built a stock.   We ate well, and Virginia, we didn’t eat beans every day. LOL.

Fred Meyers for Sunday

Finally, after a dry two weeks, there are some good prices.    This is the  Thursday that there is a ten percent discount for military and veterans.   The insta pot is on sale for 79.99.
There is an additional 70 percent off apparel and shoes.

Corned Beef Brisket 2.49 for point cut , 3.49 for flat cut
Cabbage is .49 a lb

Free milk with 4/8 dollar cereal General Mills.....usually you can find coupons.  2/25 smart source 1.00

Grapes 199
Apples 1.49
Berries 2/5
Avacados .99
Organic blueberries 3.99- .22 an ounce.
Frozen berries 3 lb 6.99- 14.5 cents an ounce

Kroger sausage 2/5
FF boneless, skinless, chicken breast 1.99 ( high)
Farmland bacon 4.49 - look for a coupon smart source 3/4 for .75

Biscuits 10/10 - you dont have to buy 10
Kroger ice cream 2/5
Spaghetti 1.00

Digital coupons

Sunday , march 18 only
Turkey breast .88 lb
———-
Saturday, March 17 only
Cheese 3.99 - thats two dollars a pound....buy price

Thursday, march 15
Nathans 1.99

These take a digital coupon and you can buy 5
It’s rotation time for cheese

GO haul

Grocery Outlet Haul 

Many items were .50 or a 1.00/.  

Salad .50

Syrup 2.00

Cake mixes .99

Cookie mix 48

Pie crust 1.49

Sliced cheese 2.00

Black olives 

Turkey lunch meat 3.00

Berry muffins

2 cups baking mix
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1cup sour cream
1 cup berries

Mix dry ingredients.
Mix eggs and sour cream
Dust berries with a couple of tablespoons of dry ingredient,
Mix wet ingredients with dry ingredients,
Fold in berries

Place in lined muffin cups

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes


A good way to use up sour cream .
I always have some , but we go in spurts and use a lot, and then, not so much.  

Practical Thursday Notes

Rotation Meats

One easy way to cut your protein costs is by adapting your food purchases to a rotation meat .  By simplifying your meat purchases to cuts that are versatile, you keep variety in you meals, and cut costs.   This means that you can buy larger quantities for less money and portion control your meat.  This makes for less waste.  

A pork loin can cost as low as .99 a lb.  Costco business has them for 1.59 with a 2.00 discount on the bag at checkout.  That makes the ten pound pork loin 1.39 a lb.  My top buy price is 1.69.   You can make pork chops, pork roast, pork stew meat, and stir fry from the scraps.   To exemplify, center cut pork chops can be 3.49 a lb.  

Boneless, skinless , chicken breast can be purchased for 1.77 here.   I bought direct from the farmer for .99.   Split chicken breast has the rib portion on it.   If you cut the rib portion off, you can cook it and pull the meat from the bones .  The bonus is chicken stock.   A hack I learned from a utube friend, April, is to set your slow cooker on low before you go to bed.   ( bones, veggie scraps, and a few herbs, water up to within an inch ) in the morning, you hae broth and bones you can pick the meat from.   Picked meat can be tacos, cassarole, soup, nachos, etc.   Chill the stock and defat it before freezing .  Leave head room in your container.  

We put each chicken breast in a separate quart bag (cheap ones at DT) and put the batch in a gallon bag with the date and chicken breast marked on the bag.

Hamburger is a whole lot more efficiently cooked in batches.   Cook it until no longer pink, de-fat it, and bag in portion controlled batches.   Cooked hamburger is easily thawed and is a great time saver at dinner time.  You can also portion off enough for hamburger patties or homemade meatballs.   I have found, however, that meatballs are cheaper bought frozen.   I save the inside wrapper of things like cereal, or baking mix to use in place of wax paper separating beef patties.   It is also good if you are making cutlets, or crushing crackers.  

The other rotation weeks can be used for eggs, cheese, and beans.  

No, Virginia, we don’t just eat beans.    LOL.  

Thursday notes

First:   Flour prices have taken a hike.   That translates to higher prices on pasta and bread.   Another reason why it is a good idea to stock.  It doesn’t make the prices any cheaper, but it pads the way so the shock is a little diminished.   I did discover that delivery flour is 7.59.   Bought at costco it was 6.99.  It was previously 6.39.   It still makes a loaf of bread for .25.  

The bargains the last two weeks have been minimal.   We have basically two corporations that control most of the market.  Kroger owns QFC and Fred Meyer.   Albertsons owns Safeways and. Albertsons.
Then, we have Winco, Costco, and Grocery Outlet.   When we had the debacle of Albertsons selling to Haagen and Haggens going bankrupt and selling back to Albertsons, the prices at Albertsons and safeways took a big hike.   I can imagine that all the legal fees took a toll on profits.   At Kroger, qfc is the more expensive and the more full service store in relationship to Fred Meyers.   Winco is no frills and employee owned.   I do find that if you ask a question at winco, you get an informed answer, or they point you to someone that can accommodate you.    Costco is turning into a food from Mars store.   More and more, I am finding that the basics like oatmeal, yeast, and cornstarch are missing or they are out of and they have plenty of hemp, seaweed, and cage free eggs.

Grocery Outlet is appealing to the ‘special’ crowd as well.   There is some bargains, but a lot of organic.    My experience with organic has been that two days after something hits the door, its growing hair prettier than mine.    No food is going to do your family any good if you are feeding itnto the garbage disposal.   Our farm lands  have been farmed for hundreds of years .   To accept that all those pesticides used for years have completely disapated from the soil is not a logical conclusion for me.   Going organic costs 38 percent more than regular food.   The real truth is that you cannot buy organic on a four dollar a day budget.   It is not practical to go to the store every day and buy just
what you are going to eat that day.

We are not store or brand loyal,  thats how we eat well  on less than four dollars a day.  





















.

Chain store ads

Alberways:   Albertsons and Safeways.

Bread .78@@.  (In ad coupon )
Eggs .98 @@
Yoplait 10/5

Friday only
Classico 3/5 (ibotta)
Ice cream 2/5


QFC

Digital coupons
Ice cream 2/5
Chobani 10/8. Ibotta makes it more than free.
Pasta 1.00

Saturday only digital coupons -up to 5
Bacon 2.99- up to a lb package....watch your weights
———-
Draper valley whole chicken .88
Oranges .67
Strawberries 2/5
Cucumbers .99

This is a two week ad, but there is not much in it.
Winco as well as taken a big hike with anything that has flour in it.   I have not been to regular costco to see if flour has taken a hike there too.   I still see bread at the dollar tree for orowheat.   Sometimes you can get bagels, an other rolls as well.

Eggs today were 1.44 for 18 at winco.
Costco has a special on zip lock bags.

Zaycon has boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 99 again.   Code word CHICKEN99.

Tuesday Notes

In 2017 , we spent 55.05 a week on food.   Part of that went to stock.   USDA figures cost of food at home as actual food eaten; not food ready to eat. There was an article on facebook produced by one of our tv stations about a fellow that eats for 50.00 a week..    not the family, just him.    That’s more than we eat for two of us plus a good part of granddaughter.  She eats at home too, but we eat dairy and meat.

We eat well, we eat regular food.  Meal plans show the same things many families eat.   The difference lies in when and where you buy your food.   Convenience spells $$$.   If you want your groceries delivered, if you want to go to the most convenient store and throw anything you want into a cart and fill the cart, you are going to pay for that privilege.   70 percent of a grocery stores profit is in impulse buys.   If you want to spend less, you have to do a little planning and buy your groceries in a different way.   

I happened on to a unreal realization.  I had a coupon for a free cake mix.   It was Betty Crocker.   Somehow, I hadn’t downloaded the coupon correctly.  It rang up at 2.39.  The same cake mix at Christmas time was 1.79 at another chain store.  I had recently bought the same cake mix at a discount store for .88.  That’s a 1.50 spread. It is not as much what you buy, but when and where you buy it.   

There’s a phenomenon called the snow ball effect.  Basically, if you take the savings you make on one thing and spend it on another money saving thing, your savings grow.   Like starting a small snowball and rolling it in the snow  to make a snowman.

If I was going to do one thing to get started, I would go to my warehouse store and buy a 25 lb bag of flour, a 20 lb bag of rice, and a 10 lb box of oatmeal.   This starts a snowball. 

1/2 cup raw oats makes a bowl of oatmeal.  It is as much nutrition as four of those packs of oatmeal that are ‘instant’ .   One cup of water, 1/2 cup of oatmeal in a bigger than you need bowl for 1.5 minutes makes a bowl of oatmeal.  Not much more time than that envelope.   The envelope costs ten cents.   The 1/2 cup costs .085.   Four times the nutrition for less money.   I add a banana, or put a 1/2 a lunchbox apple cut in small pieces to the oatmeal.   Cinnamon sugar is good too.   You can feed a family of 6 on a dollar.   

Rice purchased in bulk costs .02 a serving.   That ready rice is about .50 a serving.   

Flour is the biggest money saver.   Ten minutes hands on time makes a loaf of peasant bread with almost not expertise.   The hardest part is taking the temperature of the water and using good hot pads to take it out of the oven.    The cost is .25 .   The cost of buying that bread is upwards of 3.00.

It cost pennies to make those waffles or pancakes you buy ready made   in the freezer section.   The
bag of pancakes I checked on was 3.00.    A couple of cups out of that bag makes enough pancakes to almost buy the bag.   Ditto muffins.   There are recipes that take almost no time.   My mother taught his at age 9 to bake.   Enlist help.    There are breakfast muffins that take almost no time and are a good thing to have if you have children that rush out the door before breakfast.  

These three things will free up enough money to start a stock.   Set aside five dollars a week for a small family.   This is the only time consuming pencil to paper ( or computer spread sheet) thing to do  and you only have to do it once.   List 10 meals that your family eats that use inexpensive cuts of meat.   Its probably no secret that you aren't buying much steak 🥩 on four dollar a day budget.   

We buy pork loin, hamburger, and boneless, skinless chicken breast.   We fill in with cheese, beans, and eggs.   These can average two dollars a pound.   Again, its not what you buy, its when and where you buy it.  

After you write the ten meals, make a list of the shelf stable ingredients that you will need to make the meal.   Most families have a list of 10-15.   Track these items for price a few weeks.   It should become clear soon what store and price is a RBP.  The lowest price you can buy this item for.   Me aware of the fact that you cant necessarily be brand loyal.   Store brands are often the name brand with a different label.   Now, when you find that item at its rock bottom price, buy 5 dollars worth and stash it.   You are going for a 4-6 week supply.   That’s because some items have that rotation for sales by the stores.   A four to six week supply means that if you eat spaghetti and meatballs once a week, you will need to stock 4-6 pasta sauces, spaghetti, and meatballs.   We use 1/2 a box of spaghetti, because that is four servings.   I cook 1/2 a box because , otherwise we would waste 1/2 a box.   I recently got spaghetti for .50 a box.   I also got pasta sauce for a dollar in a jar.   I can always get it in a can for a dollar at the dollar tree, but it is less than that at winco.   Meatballs are two dollars at Winco in the freezer section.   I can’t make meatballs for two dollars a pound.   

We only buy ready made when it is cheaper or a lot less time consuming than scratch.   

Now, to recap, you have freed up some of your previous budget with making bulk decisions on basics.   You have identified what meals you cook and what ingredients can be stocked and set aside a minimal amount to start stocking.   

Make a plan, or plan to fail.   Meal plans are a intricate part of slashing you food budget.   It only takes a few minutes .   You don’t have to get crazy.  Just jot down the basic main dish.   Most of us sere the same sides with a particular meal.   How many times have you had spaghetti and meatballs with french bread and a green salad.  LOL.  

Stocking means you will have a short grocery list.   You will get to the point where you are going to the best store and buying dairy, fresh fruits and veggies in season, and restocking anything that is a RBP.   

Next:  rotation. Meat.  An important part of groceries on the cheap . Stay tuned for Thursday.   

Kitchen Management

Kitchen management is a tool that takes away a lot of the stress of cooking dinner during the most hectic hour of the day in some households.   It makes cooking dinner easier and faster.   It can also deep clean the kitchen by rotation and save the project of spring cleaning.  

Reminder of meal plans - for 2

• Pork chops , mashed potatoes, salad 1.87
• Pizza 1.05 
• Tacos , Spanish rice, 1.65
• Chicken parm 2.12 
• Salmon, Spanish rice, mixed veggies 2.99
• Roast chicken, roasted root veggies 1.79
• Breakfast for dinner 2.64
• Average 1.00 a plate.   This more than comes in the perimeters of a 4.00 a day budget.  Its not what you buy as much as when and where you buy it.   

1. Wash kitchen floor
2. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead. 
3. Wash the vegetable bin and line with a clean kitchen rag or paper towel. 
4. Wash salad greens and place in container 
5. Mark day to thaw chicken and pork chops on meal plan .
6. Wash potatoes, carrots and radishes with vinegar water and dedicated veggies brush.
7. Clean toaster tray
8. Put oven vent screen through the dishwasher.   

Meal Plans

We are still trying to eat down the freezer and going to try for a no spend month.   The joy of stocking is that when you are having a month with extra bills, you can float for a month.   We can do this on about half of what other people spend on food.   Welcome to groceries on the cheap.

• Pork chops, mashed potatoes, salad 
• Pizza
• Tacos, Spanish rice, 
• Chicken parm, Cesear salad 
• Salmon, Spanish rice, mixed veggies 
• Roast chicken , roasted root veggies 
• Breakfast for dinner. : Egg muffins, bacon, fruit 

Notes:  

Pork chops were from a pork loin purchased for a dollar a pound.   

Pizza is a good , cheap, everyone likes meal.   Cheese is under 2.50 a lb.  Some of it I got for 1.85 a pound 

Tacos are still a good buy because we made hamburger for 2.40 a lb and we make our own taco seasoning.pre-cooking  and de fatting hamburger makes meal prep a snap.   While the meat is simmering on the stove with a little water and seasoning, you can chop lettuce and tomato.   The cheese is already grated in a lock n lock i the fridge.   Spanish rice does double duty for another meal. 

Chicken parm uses breaded chicken breast bought on sale. (Part of our freezer eat down) add spaghetti bought for 50 cents and pasta sauce.   We got pasta sauce for .59 in a close out bin with a basket coupon .   Otherwise, we pay less than 1.50. 

Salmon is 5.00 a pound at Winco.   Mixed veggies are ones we got on sale for .88.   They have taken a hike and I am watching for a sale or coupons, or both.   

Roast chicken is from 1.77 a lb chicken breast and we will use carrots,potatoes, and radishes if I can find them within reason. Radishes take on a sweet flavor when you roast them 

Breakfast for dinner is everyone’s favorite and a family affair with everyone cooking something.   

Fred Meyers for sunday

Strawberries 16 oz 1.77
Boneless 1/2 loin. BOGO        - there is no regular price listed , buyer beware
Oranges .99
Toothpaste 1.00 - coupons?
Biscuits in a tube 1.00


That’s about it.   Food has taken a hike.   Its harder to find a bargain.  

alberways three day sale :  SMT

7 percent fat hamburger 3.49
Lettuce .79
Cheese 2 lb 4.99.      Note FM wants 4.00 for one pound.
Best foods 2.88@@
C of sea tuna .58@@

Coupons:  clip or click
Pillsbury cake or brownies .99
Pasta .79
Skippy peanut butter 1.99

Friday Recipe : Stir fry

Stir fry sauce: 

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 tbls lemon juice 

1 tbls corn starch 

1 tbls brown sugar 

1 tsp minced garlic 

Pepper

Mix together in a small bowl. 

3/4 lb  stir fry meat ( pork, beef, or chicken.) 

1/2 an onion, sliced thin. 

1 bag of stir fry veggies or equivalent fresh veggies 

Place 1 Tbls olive or vegetable oil in a skillet  and stir fry meat until almost done. About 2-3 minutes.  Remove meat from skillet.    Add veggies and 1/4 cup water.   Cook until veggies are cooked.  About 3 minutes.   Return meat to skillet and add sauce.   Stir.   Cook until the sauce thickens.  About 2 minutes.   Serve with rice.   

Notes:   

Stir fry meat can be cut from the ends of a pork loin, as part of a sirloin roast or steak before you grind it into hamburger, or from a chicken breast.   

Lemon juice is cheapest bought in a bottle.  I have even seen it at the DT.  

My family doesn’t eat onions, I might substitute celery cut on the diagonal.   

Top ramen noodles can be substituted for rice if you are in a hurry. 

Stir fry veggies are about 1.50 at winco.   Frozen vegetables have taken a hike in price lately.   I am looking for a coupon and/ or sale.    

Grocery Hauls for this week

Note:  we are eating down the freezer to rotate stock.  

Winco

2 baby cans sliced olives:  .70

1 lb peppercor salmon 

Hoagie rolls 2.98 (12) 

Roma tomatoes at .88 

18 count eggs 1.44 

Sliced Swiss cheese 4.32

Total 15.97

The Swiss cheese was cheaper than the slices at GO by 25 percent 

18 eggs were cheaper than 1.5 times the 12 egg price.

QFC 

Grapes 3.41

Not a special trip

Fred Meyers 

21.39

Total 40.77