Another episode of how did she do That!

Almost free pizza.    Now that I have your attention......lol

Cheese pizza when purchased ingredients are at RBP cost about a buck.  The thin crust recioemcosts .19.   My cheese “buy” price is 2-2.50 a pound.  I get my best shit at hat either at Costco business in five pound bags or watching for Kroger sales.

Pizza sauce is cheapest at the dollar tree.   It is a name brand and cheaper than any other store I have found.  freeze it in an ice cube tray and place the frozen sauce on a zip lock on a specified freezer door shelf .  Two ice cubes tops a pizza.

On the same shelf, put in bags anything that goes on a pizza that is left from other meals.  In other words, if we are frying bulk sausage, I pull off a couple of tablespoons and place it in a bag for the pizza shelf.   Coloured peppers when they are at a dollar or less are cut into strips after the top has been sliced off.  The top gets chopped done and —you guessed it, goes into a bag for the pizza shelf,

Pretty soon, you have enough fillings for a pizza.   When pizza day comes, you make the dough and the fillings are already chopped and ready for the pizza.

Any pizza menu off the internet will give you many ideas for pizzas.

Pizza and breakfast for dinner are always hits at our house and both can be real money stretchers.   Any meal that your family likes that is economical is a winner in my book.    And, if it isn’t labor intensive it’s just divine! Lol

Monday kitchen Management aka meal prep

Kitchen management is a tool that takes a hour when time is more manageable Kane saves a lot of tome during the hectic dinner hour.

Reminder of meals

1. Sausage, and oven roasted veggies 
2. Pizza 
3. Mac and cheese, peas and carrots 
4. Spaghetti and meatballs 
5. Pork stew skillet pie 
6. Shrimp fettuccine 
7. Breakfast for dinner 

Notes 

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Clean and disinfect countertops and sinks and drains.
3. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead 💀.
4. Make a nit to incorporate any thing that is nearing expiration, 
5. Wash root veggies , dry 
6. Make a note to thaw pork? 
7. Make carrot honey bread 
8. Thaw pizza dough 

Meal plans for week of 11/5

Meal plans are a necessary part of your meal prep.   Theynsave tome and money and make life a bit less hectic in the dinner hour.  A mantra is to soend a little bit more time planning and shopping and less time cooking if you are time crunched.   You save money and have better meals if you can efficientkymscratch cook and buy your food at rock bottom prices.  I want my financial adviser to buy stock  high and sell low said no one ever, so why buy  your food thensame way?

I digress mea Plans .   We use a protein based matrix for variety.

• Chicken basil sausage, oven roasted veggies 

•  Pizza 

•  Mac and cheese, peas and carrots 

• Spaghetti and meatballs 

•  Pork stew skillet pie -taste of home 

•  Shrimp fettuccine 

•  Breakfast for dinner 

Notes :

1.  Chicken sausage was in sale  at Fred Meyers for 2.50 on a buy 10  mix or match.  
2. Pizza crust is on the freezer, I made a monthly batch to save time and money. 
3. Mac and cheese was a request. Using multiple kinds of cheese makes the flavor interesting. 
4. Spaghetti and meatballs cooks in 8 minutes in the insta pot.   
5. Pork stew is from m the pork loin that we purchased for 1.69 a pound .
6. Shrimp fettuccine used the other half of the fettuccine noodles from last week. 
7. Breakfast for dinner is a family affair and everyone cooks.   

Incorporating what is on sale at the store is an age old trick to save money.  Eating in season hero’s greatly too.    Taste of home has a honey carrot bread I am going to try this week.   It sounded good and carrots are a good way to get vegetables into someone that doesn’t eat vegetables often and should,   

Eggs

Eggs in previous years have gotten a bad wrap.  They are a good source of protein, inexpensive  most of the year and are very versatile.

Last year, when eggs were .78 a dozen, I dehydrated some.  It is not an easy task, but it allows you to have the option not to buy them when the cost is prohibitive.

Breakfast for dinner is a good alternative to a traditional meal.  At our house we all cook or contribute to the meal.  Little ones can butter toast or English muffins or with help set the table.

Nutritional content of eggs

Saturated fat 1.6 grams
Polyunsaturated fat .07
Monosatursted 2 grams

Cholesterol 187 mg
Potassium 63mg
Sodium 62mg
Total carbs .6 grams
Protein 6 grams

Vitamin A 5 percent
Calcium 2 percent
Vitamin D 1 percent
B12 10 percent
Vitamin C zero
Iron 3 percent
B6 5 percent
Magnesium 1 percent

Vitamins are percent of daily requirement for a 2000 calorie diet
Saturated fat should be 16-22 per day,

Cocoanut oil has 12 grams per tablespoon of saturated fat
Butter has 7 grams per tablespoon
Top sirloin steak has 6 grams per 9 ounce steak.

How to cook hard cooks eggs

In the oven
Place eggs one each in the cups of a muffin tin .
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place muffin tin cups on oven and bake for 30 minutes
Immediately place eggs in an ice water bath.
Store on refrigerator.

To cook hard cooked eggs on the insta pot. This is for a 6 quart pot
Place 1 cup water on the pot.
Place trivet in pot.
Stack 6-12 eggs on trivet
Process manually for 7 minutes
Quick release .
Immediately put eggs in an ice bath for 1 minute.
Store in refrigerator.

As a protein for a meal, Eggs  are actually lower in fat than some alternative. It is also lower in protein.
1 cup of chicken has 5 grams of fat. And 25 grams of protein

Balancing your protein sources gives you the best case senero and a variety of  meals.

Friday hits and misses

We try to eat the old favorites and mix it up with some new recipes to be a little adventurous and keep growing as people.   They say that’s what keeps you young.  Use your brain or loose it. Right?

Last night was a hit.  Dinner took all of five minutes and it cost less than 2.25.  It could have been less, but that would have taken more time.  I used a premade pie crust (1/2 a box ) instead if making my own.  I already had .88 a pound chicken cooked, debined and on a bag on the freezer,  we have had a lot of meals off that .88 a pound chicken and I have at least one or two portions left.   I used the dregs if two bags of frozen vegetables lurking around the freezer and some red and yellow peppers,  the cream of mushroom soup we bought for .49 finished it.

Last week I made chicken tamale  pie. That recipe went in the recycle bin.  It had good ingredients, but turned out just a wrong  consistency.  It was dense for  lack of a better word.   The taste wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t appealing,

Pizza, glorious pizza , wasn’t that glorious.  I guess we are spoiled,  I have to admit it took another five minutes, but it tasted like it took five minutes too.   I should have defrosted a batch of pizza dough and made scratch instead of using the premade ones for 1.50 at the Winco.   It would have been cheaper and taste a lot better,   It was Halloween and I was cutting time to be on trick or treat detail.   As it was, We only had one group of children.  Most of the children went downtown.

White bean vegetable soup was good,   It took a bit more time because even in the insta pot, you  have to make the beans and drain them, and then add your soup ingredients on slow cooker mode.
It was inexpensive and fed us enough for a couple of lunches too.  

My husband made hamburgers from some patties we got for a discount a few weeks back.  It made the hamburger two dollars a pound .  A few oven fries in the hot air fryer and some tomato and lettuce finished it off.   It was a winner and I didn’t have to stand with health issues this week,  

Hits or misses, life goes on and we survive, a little smarter than we we re before.   We still made it I. Less than four dollars a day and have a pantry and freezer.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained,

We are going to try garlic linguine today.  We have all the ingredients.  QFC and Fred Meyers have farmland bacon for 2.99 a pound Friday and Saturday only with a digital here.  It will  be another stock up, but well worth it.  It freezes.

Garlic linguine has spinach, bacon, cherry tomatoes, and a sauce.  We have all of that because I have been eating vegetable omelettes for breakfast to reduce my carbs.    Eggs are still cheap and I get a free carton from Safeways on just for you.

Hauls 11/1 18

QFC

Pumpkin pie 1.99

Safeways

Ice Cream - free
Apples .88
Eggs
Total 5.05

Grand total 7.04

Winco
6 pasta sauces (charity) .88

Mission low carb tortillas 3.09
Darigold butter (2) 2.98 minus coupon 1.00 total 4.96
2 pizza crust 3.48 coupon attached
Diced tomatoes 6 at .58 for 3.48
Acorn squash .54
Salsa 1.98
Grapes  4.79
Pears .75
Stove  top 2 pack 1.98
Syrup 2.47
Lettuce .98
Turkey 2.88
Taco chips 2.28
Croissants 3.48
Ham 2.18
Raspberries. Double pack. 3.98
Cake mix .88

Total 44.18

Grand total 51.22

Chain store ads

First, Alberways would not be otmthos week.  Sorry, other than cucumbers and bell peppers for .79, I’m not feeling the love.  

Fred Meyers

Friday and Saturday inky, digital coupon, you can buy 5
Farmland bacon, full pound 2.99


Buy 10, save 5 
Foldgers 5.49
Tillamook ice cream 3.49
Nalleys chilli .89 
Land  of lakes butter 2.99
Cream soup .49
American beauty pasta .49
Cheerios 1.99 $$

80 percent ground beef 2.99 sold in 3 pound chubs 8.97

Grapes 1.99
Milk .99


QFC
Grapes, organic 1.48
Broccolli .99

Buy 10, save 5

Land of lakes butter 2.99
Ritz crackers 1.99$$
Cream soups .49 
Hillshire Farms sausage 2.49


Pears are .99. They are  .79 at winco,

Same digital deal Friday and Saturday as Fred Meyers.  

Another episode of “ How did she do that ?”

Meal plans.

We recently got a magazine from QFC ( Kroger) .  It had recipes with by lines that sparked my imagination.

Low maintenance Monday
Taco Tuesday
Worldly wednesday
Thrifty Thursday
Meat free Friday

Having a theme of some kind to make a matrix for meal planning makes the job easier and faster.

Our matrix is based on protein .  That gives us variety and makes everyone happy at least part of the time.   You can’t please all the people all of the time.  Fact of life.

Others use a matrix of those of meals,  pasta, Tex mex, Sunday dinner, etc. There are a lot of meal planning videos on u tube.   It helps to find one or two you can identify with and follow them,

The bottom  line is that if you plan meals and prep food ahead of time, you save time and money.

This is on a clipboard folder I got at target.   You can put recipes inside that you are using for the week and the form has a master grocery list to mark ff what you have and what you might need.  I made the form on an excel spread sheet.

Monday kitchen Management aka meal prep

Kitchen management is a too, to save time and money on the kitchen.  We all have to eat and a little prep for an hour when Time os more relaxed wil, save a lot of to,e when it’s not,  

Reminder of our meal plan

• White bean soup and rolls
• Buffalo chicken pizza
• Bacon burgers 
• Linguine with garlic sauce 
• Creamed chicken on mashed potatoes 
• Tuna puff sandwiches 
• Breakfast for dinner 

To do : 

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Wash and disinfect kitchen counters , sinks and drains. 
3. Clean refrigerator and dump anything dead 💀. 
4. Put the stove vent screen through the dishwasher.
5. Start the beans for the soup. 
6. Wash and chop vegetables for weeks meals. 
7. Cook chicken and freeze of not already on freezer, 
8. Copy recipes . 
9. Make bread crumbs 
10. Fill any salt bins etc that are low. 

.

Meal plans

These meals . are based on the Taste  of Home “Busy Family Favorites” cookbook,   Most Taste of Home recipes can  be found on the Internet,  

• ‘White bean soup, rolls pg 46
• Buffalo chicken pizza, salad 
• Bacon burgers, salad oven fries  pg 71
• Linguine with garlic sauce, green beans, cheesy bread pg 94
• Creamed chicken on mashed potatoes, 
• Tuna puff sandwiches page 164
• Breakfast for dinner, 

Notes 

Based on a protein source matrix: 

• 1 beef 
• 1 fish or seafood 
• 3 chicken or pork 
• 2 vegetarian 

We all have our favorites, this makes everyone happy at least part of the time.

1. There are vegetarian and with ham versions on the cookbook,   Mostly white beans, broth, and carrots, celery, and zucchini, I have dehydrated zucchini and it can be made smaller in the food processor.   
2. Buffalo chicken pizza starts with the bulk pizza crust that I made last week and put in the freezer, but the shells at Winco were really cheap too.   Instead of red pizza sauce, use ranch or blue cheese dressing,  add cooked chicken cut up small, some red pepper cut into small cubes, mozzarella and blue cheese.   
3. Bacon burgers have cheese, onion, and an egg and seasonings in them.   Oven fries are raw potato wedges , soaked on water, drained and sprayed with olive oil and cooked in a hot fryer or in the oven on convection.  This makes for almost no fat and what fat there is is the good kind because it boosts you good cholesterol.  
4. Linguine is on our meal plan because when I sent my hubby to the store for spaghetti on sale with a coupon, he grabbed linguine instead! Lol.  It has spinach, cream cheese and nuts,  I have spinach from last week and I got cream cheese with far out pull dates for a dollar a few weeks back.   Using things that are versatile that you got on sale helps reduce your costs. 
5. Creamed chicken on mashed potatoes 🥔 is quick and easy.  I have chicken in the freezer from the whole chicken I cooked in the insta pot a few weeks back . 
6. Tuna puff is from tuna bought at Costco when it had a markdown.   It is quick, cooked in the oven and goes together on about 11 minutes,   
7. Breakfast for dinner is always a staple here,   It can be expensive, or cheap and always a family affair. Everyone participates.   

The notes here are to show my train of thought.  It’s nit necessarily what you need to do, it’s an Example of how I get to where I got.  Groceries on the cheap is a mindset.   You can eat well and still keep a very low budget.   

A recent test of prices here found the following stores with the best overall prices .  Note grocery outlet is not a complete  store and I avoid meat and produce.  

Grocery outlet 

Winco

Fred Meyers 

Saturday concepts...why ?

This blog all started with my daughter who at the time was teaching some children  from low income families.  The mothers were lamenting that they couldn’t get to the end of the month without running out of food,  my daughter said, oh my mother knows how to stretch a buck in that department!   It was my children’s idea that I start a blog,   I’m really,nit very tech savvy, but with their help, I started a blog.

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 learned to bake sourdough bread and buns.
•  I got a insta pot.  The savings on rice and beans alone have laid for the pot.

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.

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.

Saturday concepts.

Grocery shopping.

Needless to say, you should go to the grocery store with a plan.   I shopped yesterday inbetween physical therapy and picking up granddaughter from school.   This meant that I had more time than usual.   The more time you spend in a store, the more money you are going to spend.   It is orchestrated that way.  The bigger the cart, the more you feel the need to fill it up.   I didn’t have my normal bags that clip on the cart.   They are well worth the cost,  an alternative would be the ones made out of what we used to call  oil cloth. Fill the bags, put the food on the conveyer belt and put the food back in the bags.  In addition, we have had checkers remark that the bags make their job a lot easier.   They aren’t lifting bags and we have hit and cold bags.

My plan was to get fruit and veggies that were a good price for the week and look for butter and diced tomatoes,   We use a lot of both and I always keep a stock.   There is less saturated fat in a tablespoon of butter than there is in a tablespoon of coconut oil.   November should be a good time for any baking supplies to go on sale.   Winco has a whole wall of pumpkin everything.  Name it, it’s there.

Soon, the new crop of vegetables should have hit .and canned goods from last years crop should go on case lots.   There is still over a year on most cans for a pull date.   It’s a good time to stock. Last year I got corn , green beans diced tomatoes for .39 because safeways also had a basket coupon for 10.00 off of fifty dollars.  I made sure that I stuck to my fifty dollars.

Diced tomatoes have been a dollar a can even at the grocery outlet,   Winco has them for .58 so I have been adding six  cans a shopping trip.   Hopefully I will find a case lot.

Adapting your meal plan to include what you can find that is a good price is an easy way to reduce your food budget.   I found acorn squash for .39 a pound at Winco,   It’s a dollar elsewhere.   It’s good nutrition and easily baked in the microwave.  Microwave for a few minutes after you poke it with a fork a few times so it won’t blow up.  It makes it easy to cut in half .  Then scoop out the seeds and fill with a little butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Yum.

Pork roast was well under two dollars a pound,   We didn’t buy any because I bough loins last week, but it would be a good purchase of you needed meat for the week,   You can cut off part of it onto stew meat.  Stew cooks in 35 minutes in the insta pot.   It’s an easy hearty meal.

Roasted pork and acorn squash and a vegetable would be good too.

Taking advantage of vegetables and fruit on season and incorporating them into your meals can make a dismal four dollar a day budget look a whole lot more appealing.

Peppers were a dollar each.   Chicken fajitas comes to mind,   I use red peppers a lot on anything that is too white..you eat first with your eyes.

Grapes  were a buck last week, lettuce was a dollar at Winco, nuts  are in the bulk isle, add chicken and have chicken salad,

A hole bag of croissants were featured inexpensive  and ham and turkey were also within reason.   What a treat for lunch,  you could also use them with some chicken salad the kind that is chicken and mayo based.

I picked up stove top stuffing for 1.98 for a two packet box.  Adding apples and Craisens and pork chops that have been browned on the stove and baking it off is a good meal and not to time consuming.

If you spend more time  shopping and planning, and less time efficiently cooking, you will be better off with your budget and still have time for you other life.

Premade pizza crust was 3.49 for two and a coupon for a dollar off if you bought two PACKAGES.  That makes the crusts 1.50 each,   It is only .19 to make a crust, but in a pinch, or for a fast lunch, that is still really cheap alternative, even considering fake and bake,

Huge container of salsa was 1.98.  Chips were 2.28.  That makes nachos a good alternative for a Friday night movie dinner.

I saw cheese for six dollars a pound.  My buy price for cheese is two to two fifty a pound,  I can usually find it, but not if I were to buy one bag at a time.   Grated cheese has a good refrigerator life and you can freeze it with success.

Cake mix was .88.  Cake mix has been as much as 2.76.   Same cake mix.  Same brand.

Buying the same things every week.  Just what you need without cost observing is not going to cut your food bill.   Would I buy 10 bags of chips. No, if I bought ten bags of chips, they would eat ten bags of chips.   The only bags of chips I buy is tortilla chips.   For an occasional chips and salsa, or to have nachos for dinner or as a condiment for taco soup or chili.

Studies  say that 50 percent of a average market basket is snacks and drinks, cut the snacks and drinks, and you have saved a bundle.   Coffee, tea, and vegetable juice is it here.   Anything else
comes out of an entertainment budget.  It makes how much you are spending on garbage more
visible.

You can do this, it’s just about changing habits, the reward is better food and you s gay within a limited budget.

What we ate on 4.00 a day.

1.  Chili, beer bread 
2. Chicken bowl  
3. Chili burrito bowl
4. Tacos 
5. Chicken fajitas 
6. Tomato blue cheese , basil soup, rolls 
7. Vegetable bean soup 
8. Spaghetti 
9. Hamburgers, fries 
10. Spanish rice, homemade sausages , acorn squash 
11. Pasta primavera 
12. Tacos 
13. Pizza 
14. Bbq ribs , acorn squash 
15. Bacon, lettuce and tomato sliders, fries , salad 
16. Beef sliders, fries, fruit 
17. Cheeseburger macaroni 
18. Shrimp scampi with herb butter sauce, wild and brown rice, mixed veggies, 
19. Bbq pork sandwiches, oven fries, salad 
20. Chicken noodle soup, cheese biscuits 
21. Pumpkin French Toast,  reakfast sausage, fruit
22. Chicken tamale pie, salad 
23. Pizza 
24. Chilli, beer bread 
25. Leftover chilli and rice 
26. Birthday dinner 
27. Pork chops with mushroom gravy, acorn squash, green beans 
28. Pork stew and rolls 
29. White bean soup. 
30. Hamburgers, and Ben fries, salad 
31. Pizza

Our three quarter average for food is 51.90 a week.  Four dollars a say equals 59.05.  

Hauls to 10/ 25

Winco
Hamburger 2.98
Milk 1.28
Yellow cake mix Bc .88
Strawberries 1.98
Buns .92
Acorn squash .79
Grapes 1.58
Parmesesn 4.98
Pork riblet 5.21

Total 23.43


Grocery outlet

Black beans .99
Pumpkin .50
Tarter sauce 1.29
Sliced cheese 1.99
Bacon full pound 2.99

Total 17.52


Safeways

Barilla 5.94 charity

French fries 2.00
Pork loins 8.5 lbs 14.11 with coupon
Hormel pepperoni 3.00 with coupon
Cucumbers .88
Total 21.99

Total 62.94

Big lots
Vanilla wafers
Jelly
Peaches
6.00

68.94

Chain store ads

A lesson in patience.....no mailman ads.  Safeways ad on line was 2 inches by 1.5 inches.
Safeways is the only one that refuses to be on Flipp.

Fred Meyers

Digital, Friday/Saturday only , limit 5
Oscar Mayer hotdogs 1.99
Red barron pizza 1.99

Grapes .99
90/10 hamburger 3.99
Brats 3.99

Progresso soup .99 must buy 8

Foldgers coffee 7.49
Canned chicken breast 6/8.99

QFC

Draper valley chicken breast BOGO
Ore Ida Potatoes BOGO
Orowheat bread BOGO-note that select varieties are at the DT

Oranges, pears, .88
Cottage cheese/sour cream 4/5


Free Friday 9 ounces sausage (hot)

Peppers .99
Pumpkin pie 3.99

Alberways

Eggs .99@@
Ragu 1.99@@-you can use a paper coupon and stack
Pasta .70@@
Bacon 2.99@@


Country ribs 1.99
80/20 hamburger 2.99
Hebrew National 3.99
Hormel pepperoni 2/7$$


Gala apples .88

Peanut butter 2/4   16 Oz

Kellogg’s cereal 4/10 free milk - this would be good if you have coupons

Tuesday : how did she do that?

Que bisquick Impossibke Pies

Last night we had chicken tamale pie.  I didn’t realize it until I started cooking that it was basically an impossible pie.   It was good, I would serve it with salsa and a salad,  

Impossible lies are a good go to when you have little tome and need dinner.   They can be prepared in five minutes and go in the oven about a half hour.  

They come in many many varieties,   From sweet to savory.   From taco to pumpkin pie and everything in between.

Basically you oil the bottom of a pie plate or small, shallow baking pan, dump your ingredients in layers into the pan.   Then mix egg, milk and bisquick together,  I use the blender thing so everything is homogeneous.  Pour the liquid over the solid and place it on the oven.   You are done.  There is protein, sometimes a vegetable, and it comes out with a biscuit topping.

You can make your own bisquick and there is a recipe for it with vegetable oil that has no preservatives and no hydrogenated oil.

It’s not something we eat on even weekly basis, but it is a good go to when times are tough and time  is in short supply,   Anything you can set it and forget it so to speak is a good thing.  I had three active kids and I am well aware of how hectic dinner time can be especially  if you work outside the home.  You hit the door and the kids want to tell you how there day went, the mail comes in, there is homework to do, and the  last thing you want to do is to put dinner on the table.   But, life goes on,  that’s why it is a real help to spend an hour or so prepping on the weekend to make things run smoothly.

Kitchen Management aka meal prep

Kitchen management is a tool that takes usually about an hour.  Sometimes that includes putting on the nights dinner.   An hour doing deep cleaning of a small area and prepping goes a long ways towards making the dinner hour go smoothly.

Recap of menus

• Chicken tamale pie 
• Pizza
• Smoked paprika garlic chicken, yellow rice, green beans 
• Chili , cornbread or beer bread 
• Salmon, scalloped potatoes, peas 
• Breakfast for dinner

1. Wash kitchen floor 
2. Clean and disinfect countertops and sinks and drains. 
3. Clean out the refrigerator and dump anything dead 💀. 
4. Clean the microwave. 
5. Thaw the chicken for tamale pie and paprika garlic chicken .
6. Make a batch of pizza dough-Noreen’s kitchen u tube 
7. Make muffins 

Notes 

Muffin mix takes most of the work out of making muffins.  I will use the rest of the pumpkin I didn’t use for the pumpkin French Toast we had last night for dinner.  Using all of your food saves a lot of money. Waste not, want not as our great grandmothers would’ve said. 

Pizza dough is anrecioe from Noreen’s kitchen on u tube,   It makes a batch of pizza dough and you can freeze part of it for other weeks.  It doesn’t take any longer to make 3 batches of dough than it does one and you eat all month...well, almost.  

Yellow rice is a dollar at the DT and is the same product as the one at Winco.  

Beer bread is our substitute for cornbread because some people on our family don’t like cornbread,   It is easy to make and tastes good.  

Turn on some peppy music and happy cooking!

Meal Plans

plans change and we deviate, but it is still important to have a plan.  Having a plan keeps us organized and takes stress out ifmthenhectic dinner hour,  it answers that nagging question, “ what’s for dinner? “  the leaves are falling, fall is on the air.

• Chicken tamale pie 
• Pizza
• Smoked paprika garlic chicken , yellow rice, green beans 
• Chili, beer bread or cornbread 
• Pork stew
• Salmon, scalloped potatoes, peas and carrots 
• Breakfast for dinner 

1. Chicken tamale pie is a Betty Crocker recipe.  You can find it on line.  
2. Pizza is a mainstay around here.  Noreen’s kitchen has a new pizza crust recipe.  You can freeze some for another day, 
3. Smoked paprika chicken is a taste of home recipe and yellow rice is everywhere, but also cheaper at the DT, 
4. Chili In the insta pot and slow cooker button is easy,   Beer bread is even easier.  Cornbread is an option of your family likes it.  Adding mild chillies and cheese is an option, 
5. Pork stew is from the pork loin we bought this week.  35 minutes in the insta pot.   There are also oven and slow cooker options, 
6. Salmon is frozen from Costco,   
7. Breakfast for dinner is a family affair and we all cook.  Fun times.   Even small children can butter the English muffins or set the table.

You can eat on four dollars a day and eat real food.   It just takes some key concepts. 

• Eat fresh fruits and veggies in season, or eat frozen if they are a good price. Watch your frozen vegetables and fruit, produce from China can be found at other stores too.   
• Try to never pay full price,  there can be as much as a two dollar swing between the exact same foods between stores.   Remember RBP on the things you use most  often.   That can of cranberry sauce you buy once a year won’t make much impact on your budget, but the can of diced tomatoes you use twice a week will. 
• Scratch cook when it makes sense.  Some things can be prepped ahead of time when things are more quiet, or delegated to an older child.   Making mixes ahead helps.  
• Buy when prices are low and eat when they aren’t.  Stock a four to six weeks supply.
• Consider eating taste preferences not  in season.  That gingerbread protein bar that is still in its lull date is just as good in August as it was in December, it’s jut 75 percent off.  
• Avoid convenience foods,  you are laying for someone else’s labor and they often have ingredients you don’t want to eat.  Read labels.  There actually are foods that contain soap and wood pulp along other science ingredients.  
• Cut up fruit and vegetables cost more and you risk contamination.  There are more recalls on those products.  Just sayin.
• Simplify.   Less variety makes for less work.   Choose foods that are versatile ingredients for many meals. Basics are best and buy in bulk when it makes sense.  A seven dollar 25 pound bag of flour can save hundreds of dollars.   Pizza is a buck, bread a quarter, muffins .50 plus a fruit,  pancakes are pennies.  They are all much less than ready made.
• Invest in a few well thought out appliances.  They pay for themselves in a shirt period of time. We are nit talking about hot dog makers here, but, rather, insta pot, griddle if you don’t have one for the stove, air fryer to reduce the fat in food, a good food processor, and a blender he,o a lot.   My husband would tell you that the toaster and the coffee pot were necessities.   

Simply Saturday

Unfirtunateky, the coupons on the Sunday paper are almost non existent for anything worth buying.  There  is the usual Cheerios and tube biscuits.  

I am working in haunted house boxes for my granddaughters class for Halloween.   

There is another recall for English cucumbers bought at Costco and for salads and entree bought at Trader Joe’s.   It seems as if Trader Joe’s has more than their fair share of recalls.   It could be that they just carry a lot more hand made entrees  or salads.   Whenever fruit is processed by human hands it is more expensive and you risk the possibility of getting germs from the food.   Consider how much time it takes to cut up a cantaloupe and how much more you are laying for the privilege of having it done for you,   It’s what we call virtual paycheck.  If it takes you ten minutes to cut up a cantaloupe and you pay 4.00 extra for the bowl.  You are paying 24.00 an hour for someone to cut up your food.   

Or to look at it another way, you just made 24.00 an hour,   

That is a good concept when deciding if it is worth it to make scratch vs, buying somethings  ready made.   Making your own tortillas doesn’t pay.  They are so labor intensive that I think you make ten cents an hour.  Especially when I got hem for fifty cents during cinco de mayo.   I just refrigerated them or you can freeze them.  They are a dollar at the DT and reading the labels, they don’t all have bad fats.   

Homemade waffles, pancakes, muffins, and sourdough bread, however, have a huge payday.

If you don’t have time, consider teaching older children how to cook them.  We started baking goodies at 9yo.  I remember making 7 minute frosting.   Our favorites were snicker doodles and a blond brownie because they called for ingredients mom always had in the house.   Peanut butter was another favorite.   Some of those are good for children to help with with washed hands.  Flattening cookies with a glass or fork, or rolling balls are easy and keeps them from making a mess while you are baking.  

Our six yo just set the table complete with silverware and goblets.   You would be surprised what children can do and it give them a sense of accomplishment and belonging,  

Another labor moneymaker is cutting up your own meats.  Pork loin can be as cheap as a dollar a pound.  My buy price is under two dollars.  Center cut pork chops are sometimes 3.50 a pound.  At a dollar or even 1.69 a pound cutting your own is a great savings for a few minutes work.  The end cuts can be stew meat or sausage without sulphates. Also, stir fry meat.  

This also holds true for split chicken breast.  .88 instead of 8.00.  

And deli chicken vs making a whole chicken is another huge savings. 

Grinding your own hamburger works if you find a roast really cheap.   

You can wind up with less fat and you control the far.   

Having proper appliances a good thing and can be paid for in savings if you pick them carefully.  They can make scratch cooking easy and inexpensive. 

Friday recipe

Part of feeding a family on four dollars a day or less is not wasting.  When there are two or three members of a family,  that sometimes means leftovers or planned overs.  Having leftovers for lunch helps.

Spaghetti and meatballs can use the rest of the batch of meatballs on meatball subs.  It helps to skip a day and serve a leftover the next day.  Morphing it into another dish helps.

Eggs are cheap and a good way to stretch your food dollar.   A vegetabke omelette, toast or an English muffin, and fruit makes a good breakfast for dinner.  If your breakfast for dinner has pancakes or another dish that is short on protein, try adding a yogurt parfait with yogurt, fruit, and granola.  

Soup and bread is a good hearty meal and can be really easy and inexpensive.
Peasant bread is .25 to make and takes two sessions of ten minutes or less to make hands on.
A loaf of sourdough bread costs upwards of two dollars.

A twenty five pound bag of flour from Costco can give you many times it’s cost in savings.

A recipe for muffin mix is on the Internet,   I don’t think I can resist it without violating copyright laws.   It’s from taste of home and it’s the one that takes a egg, I stick of butter, and a cup of milk in addition to the mix.  It goes together quickly, and it only takes about five minutes hands on time to make muffins,  you add the extra you want,   Last time I washed and cut up an apple and added cinnamon.  Blueberries can be frozen or fresh.  There are many possibilities.

Pancakes are very expensive the frozen food section of the grocery store.  They take minutes.  And having an electric grill helps.

Bread  is the biggest savings .   Yeast is a bit over three  dollars a jar .  It goes a long ways.  Some recipes call for a quarter teaspoon.   There are breads that take little time.  And, quick breads Re a big savings too.

Finding recipes that you family likes that are inexpensive to cook and don’t take all your time on the kitchen is key to making a four dollar a day budget work.