Cheaper Ways to Eat

Hi D.,

here is a web site:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/07/30/16-ways-to-e...

Hope this helps. Good luck. D.

try searching www.allrecipes.com -- it allows you to choose budget meals and print a shopping list so you know what you are in for when you shop. Also, cafemom.com has a deals and steals section that people post coupons and discount offers on various items. If oyu have a Wegmans near you, they have cut their prices to help customers weather the economy. I thought it was a marketing scheme until i shopped there. They seem to have REALLY reduced their prices... especially on canned goods. I stick to te wegman;s brands... they are just as yummy as the expensive brands at a significant savings. There is also www.couponcabin.com for printable coupons. good luck, hope this helps!
A.

I am an advid coupon cutter. I get out the sales ads and make a list and try to find coupons. You can even get on line to find more coupons on items you use the most. Also if there is a save-a-lot or aldi's in you area, you can save money @these stores.

Sorry to hear about your dh's job... this is such a tough time right now. My grandmother always said you have to have money or have time, and now that you don't have money, it is going to "cost" you time to get through this. I would subscribe to Grocery Game, for Giant Eagle (or grocery store of your choice) AND the local newspaper that carries coupons. On Sunday, sit down with Grocery Game and your coupons and make your menu for the week and your list. Also, check out Money Saving Mom for CVS deals. I get TONS of stuff at CVS for free-- some groceries, but also lots of makeup, skin care, etc-- the kinds of stuff that you are going to have to be skimping on, so here's a way to treat yourself for free. MSM has a great explanation of how to "do" CVS (and Wallgreens-- but I don't do as well there) well. Make your plan, and stick to your list! Also, if you are in Pittsburgh, check out Trader Joes'-- their prices are really good for organic food.

You could sign up for the www.thegrocerygame.com. This will help you buy items when they are at their lowest prize. You need the coupons from the Sunday Paper. ask your friends who don't use coupons for theirs.

You get a lot of items for free by using coupons and the list the website will provide for you. Toothpaste, cereal, boxed potatoes are some examples of free items.

It cost $10 every 4 weeks. It takes time getting used to. If you want to try it. There usually is a promotion where you can try it for a dollar.

Save the sunday coupons for 4 weeks before you sign up so that you will have the coupons they will be telling you to use.

Hope this helps.
J.

s.

You could check out
www.couponmom.com
It's free (and simple) to join and it will tell you the best deals per week at your local supermarket. It does help--even if you're not much of a coupon clipper.
Also...make something like meatballs then make it stretch into two dinners, meatball sandwiches O. night and pasta/meatballs the next.
Same with chicken--make enough for soup then make a chicken casserole bake the next, etc.
Good luck!

You've got some great tips in the responses, and I didn't read thru the all completely, so I may be giving some repeat advice.

Amazon.com sells groceries (non-perishable), and gives extra 15% off for standard monthly orders, along with free shipping.

Discuss with friends/neighbors about meal-sharing - if there are 8 of you, each brings a meal that will feed 4 - there will be plenty to eat and variety. There's not always leftovers, but its a fun time.

Cook vegetarian once or twice a week.

Cook breakfast for dinner once in a while.

Just read a great book called The Tightwad gazette about ways to cut corners. It was really helpful. There were several good recipes to do things from scratch. Also just found a discount grocer in Woodlyn, "Amelias", that sells groceries near their expiration date and about 1/2 price. Hope this helps.

www.angelfoodministries.com

This is a great resource that my husband and I have been using for over a year now. You can go to the site to find out if there's a church in your area that offers it.

Basically, you pay $30 for a basic box of food and then go back and pick it up toward the end of the month. I don't know about your area, but the money for ours is due by next weekend and then pick up is on Saturday, January 17. Here's what's in the regular box this month (though it's also on the website):

Ribeye steak, chicken leg quarters, beef patties, cheese manicotti, pork rib strips, chicken breast fajita strips, ground turkey, broccoli, peas, oatmeal variety box, shelf stable milk, blueberry muffin mix, white corn tortillas, pinto beans, chicken flavored rice, dozen eggs, and a dessert item.

The dessert item may just be a box of cookies, but sometimes it's a pie. There's always a breakfast item. This month is eggs, but next month might be a box of cereal. As long as you purchase one basic box, there are specials you can purchase, too. I definitely suggest checking it out.

You have received lots of great ideas. I shope regularly at Aldi -- I find that most of the products are of very good quality, and because they do not have a wide variety, it is quick to shop there. You need to bring your own bags and a quarter for a shopping cart, that you will get back.

Also, dust off some of those appliances. Do you have a bread machine? Pizza dough is easy to make. You could also make your own bread. You may find that you are all healthier making your own stuff from scratch.

Here are some websites you may find useful:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/10/16/how-to-plan-ahe...

http://www.chieffamilyofficer.com/

The first one has all kinds of financial tips, but he is long winded, only draw back. The second one is more geared towards two parents working, but check out how she plays the "drug store game" to get money from the programs that the drug stores run. It is very time consuming, but might be worth it to you.

walmart is definantly good for grocery shopping. i am the only working as the father of my child stays home to watch out 17 month old son. at walmart, the ground hamburger and turkey meat come in plastic tubes and they are very reasonable. you can do hamburger helper just read the ingredients on the side to make sure there are no ingredients anyone is allergic to. buy in bulk whenever you can,use coupons,buy stuff on sale and shop around at a few seperate stores to find the best deals. by the way, i found that rite aid has milk cheaper than the grocery store and walmart is pretty reasonable. if you have a target near you with a grocery store in it they are pretty reasonable.

D.,
With the rising cost of food and energy, I am constantly looking for ways to save on food and other items. Some things that I do are:

Buy fruit and vegetables at flea markets or stands. I save a great deal of money doing this. Sometimes the price is $1.00 or more less a pound.

I buy whole chickens, roast them and use them for different dishes. One day you can eat roast chicken. The next day, you can make chicken tacos or fajitas. I often cut up the chicken and add onions and gravy and serve over rice. I also make a salad and add chicken with toasted bread for a nice meal. Adding broth and vegetables to chicken makes for a good soup.

Spaghetti is usually at least a 2-day (sometimes 3-day) meal. If you cut up lettuce, carrots, and cucumber to make a small salad, it is very satisfying.

I also clip coupons and use them whenever possible. Sometimes the store brands are less than the price of brand names even with the coupon.

Stores usually mark down their meat a day before it expires. If you take it home and freeze it, it is fine.

For items that we use a lot of, I find the store that offers it at the lowest price, then stock up on it there so I don't have to make too many trips.

Also, I try to stay away from prepared foods. I make most meals from scratch. I sometimes buy sauce and gravy packs, but other items, I make myself. I hope this helps.

You've gotten many wonderful tips.I don't know if I can add to it, except to say that cooking from scratch is usually the cheapest way to go. I am very fortunate in that I learned to cook from the time I was a little girl. I've been where you are, husband out of work, kids to feed. We had our share of meals that were basically cottage cheese and apple sauce. These days I try to save money because we have two sons in college. We do well enough that there is not a lot of financial aid for our sons, but I don't have a problem with that. We can always trim our budgets. Sit down and go over all of your expenses and cut everything you don't need. Check to see if you have any automatic draws to your credit card(s) or debit card(s). I found about $120 a month in things we had simply forgotten we had purchases on an automatic basis! I canceled those services and use the money more wisely now.

As far as food, plan, plan and plan. I still sit and cut coupons, check the circulars for sales, and shop where the prices are low. I second the recommendations for Aldi's. If you have one near you, they have great prices. I've been seeing a lot of buy one, get one free sales on roasts lately. I will buy a whole roast, cut it into smaller portions, or cook the entire roast and make several meals out of it. When my husband was out of work, he learned to cook and shop while I went to the office. It can be a chore, but after a few weeks, it gets easier. Crockpots make easy work of cooking, and if you have a large one you can cook in large batches and have leftovers for later.

My grandmother raised 4 children during the Great Depression. She could feed 6 people on a single chicken for days! Roast a chicken for the first night. Then pick the leftover meat from the bones and use that with a simple white sauce, add some veggies like onion, celery or carrot, and serve over pasta or rice. Use the carcass of the chicken to make stock. (I freeze until I have 2 or 3 chicken carcasses. Then I make chicken soup.

Hearty soups and fresh bread are healthy and filling. Once you have stock on hand, you can add veggies and leftover meat. Add noodles, rice, or rivels (little dumplings) to soup. Fresh bread isn't hard to make, though it takes several hours to rise. I have a food processor, so mixing up the dough is quick. So healthy and yummy!

Eat vegetarian more often than you eat meat. There are tons of great recipes online.

Plan menus around sales, use coupons, cook from scratch... those things will save you a lot of money.

I know where you're at. Cheap meals that you could do are pasta dishes, tuna helper,tuna on toasted bagels,speggetti dinners, chicken and rice dinners and even pancakes for dinner to mix things up!

Also if you're not too far from the Souderton area there is a great place called Care & Share that has every household items you could possibly need...including clothing and toys!
I've made out like a bandit there especially on their half-off sales. Every little bit you save helps!

Hope this helps!

We feed six of us on one small salary (and i mean small). I wanted to let you know that it is very possible. You can even eat like a king here and there. The left over filet mignon that did not sell for the holidays was 19.00 to feed all six of us. Don't get me wrong there will be days that you have to resort to creative dinners :-) Nobody said you can't have breakfast for dinner...it is actually fun here and there. I really think the mom that said home cooking was dead on. It seems to save a lot of money. I make a ton of homemade sauce to use on everything. (spaghetti and meatballs to chicken parm). You can survive on one salary, you may just have to make a few sacrifices, but know that you are not alone. Also know that it is still rewarding and i don't feel much different from the families that can buy the filet mignon whenever they want.

Sorry for the ramble.... it is hard for me to explain how we do it with 6 and one income. The most important thing i needed you to know is that it is possible and you can be happy at the same time.

savingdinner.com has some free menus or you can sign up for a subscription. There is also a cook book you could check out of the library to see if it would work for you.

I think the basic concept is to plan your dinners in advance, stick to a list when shopping and then actually eating the left overs.

I"m too picky myself so i don't thinkit would work for my family. but it might help you. so sorry to hear about hubby's job, hope bigger and better opportunities await.

menus4moms.com

Love the site. Has a free menu sent to you weekly for the week nights. Some of the meals are a little skimpy though. I do like to go through the archives and pick out things from the past to make though.

I had purchased the frugal menus, and they were cheaper, but even more skimpy than the regular meals--so I would stick with the free ones.

But some favorites in my house are:
Spam noodle casserole
1 can spam
1 can cream of celery
1 bag noodles

start water for noodles
cube spam and put on med heat to crisp
put noodles in to cook
add in can of cream of celery to spam and mix
can add in veggies (carrots, broccoli, celery, mushrooms or even frozen mixed veggies)
might need to add a little milk to make it more runny
add in to noodles

Beef Stroganoff
1lb beef cubes (i use stew cubes and cook em extra long)
8oz mushrooms
1 can beef stock
1T cornstarch or flour
1 bag noodles

start water for noodles
Cook beef thoroughly seasoning with salt and pepper
remove beef onto plate. do not clean pan!
saute mushrooms in pan used to cook beef(and other veggies as desired, i use carrots, scallions, and peas)
cook noodles
add in beef stock and bring to simmer
add cornstarch or flour to some warm water and whisk through
then add to the pan the flour water mixture continuing to mix so it doesn't get lumpy
add in beef cubes
bring back to a slight simmer until the right consistency is reached
add to the noodles!
TaDa!

Chili in a can
1lb ground beef
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can stewed tomatoes
1c salsa (or another bit of diced tomatoes)
1t Cumin

brown ground beef in large pot (i usually add scallions to saute here too)
after browned add in kidney beans and black beans
add diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes and salsa (or more tomatoes)
and season to taste with cumin. can add chili powder, tabasco, garlic powder etc as desired.
Bring to boil then simmer for 15-20 mins.

After browning the ground beef, I like to toss everything into the crock pot on high for an hour then med til we feel like eating dinner. It really cooks the flavor into the food.

Also, use mashed potatoes or rice as a side dish for meals. It is filling and can stretch meals.

Remember that americans like to overdo the portion sizes. Meat should only be the size of a deck of cards! and we should eat a lot more veggies!

Hope things look up for you. I lost my job recently too, so things have been really tight.

Best of luck::hugs::

Check out Angel Food Ministries! http://angelfoodministries.com

It isn't going to help you immediately, but it's almost time to start your summer garden. Buy some seed packets (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans) and start them indoors - very inexpensive way to give your family healthy choices all summer long (and fun for your six year old to help and to watch them grow). Once the weather breaks, you can plant lettuce, carrots, onions and any other goodies that you love . . .

Hi D.,
Not sure where you are but if you anywhere near Shady Maple their supermarket is worth a trip. I live in MT Penn and drive there once every few months and stock up on meat. They have a freezer section full of meat at unreal prices. I spend about 100 dollars and get enough meat to last a family of four for 3 months. I went in the beginning of Oct and just recently had to go stock up. The other things there are normally priced, but I have found no where cheaper on meat.

I have been doing the same thing because our son's medical costs have really strapped us for cash in the past year. We obviously can't cut out the medical costs and have cut back on most of the extras. Here is what I have found:

There are a lot of Web sites where moms combine coupons and weekly sales. I never used coupons because I didn't have time to make them worth it, but it takes the work out of them. These two I follow most - they are mostly PA moms.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
http://www.momsneedtoknow.com/ (she has a lot of really great info on here)

I also started shopping at CVS and Walgreens - sounds crazy, but a lot of times I can get things about 80 percent off there with coupons and special deals and so it accounts for the mark up they always have. I mostly get razors, shampoo, conditioners and Tylenol. (Example: I got 5 large containers of Children's Tylenol brand Tylenol for about $2 a bottle a few months ago and they will last us until next summer, well before they expire. I often get shampoo and conditioner for free or less than a dollar as well and I know we're generally stocked up).

You can get the weekly paper, with coupons, at the dollar stores for $1 a week. Buying multiple copies of good weeks help stock up for weeks there are not good ones. It also helps you take advantage of buy one get one free deals. Say Juicy Juice is BOGO at Acme - about $4- and you have two $1 off coupons, you can get two bottles for $2. That's a lot less than the store juice.

I have been buying our fruits and veggies at Tanner Brothers Dairy Farm in Ivyland, PA http://www.tannerbrothersdairy.com/ . They have local apples for $.69/pound, blueberries for $1.70 ish a little box and a lot of their produce is local so it lasts longer. Their milk is hormone free and is cheaper as are their eggs. They only accept cash and checks, but I go there once every 10 days and bring $30 or so and can feed my family lots of fruits and veggies for that. We round out the meals with pasta and meats.

Good luck and feel free to email me with any questions. I have been able to cut down so much of our family food budget because we needed the money to come from somewhere. I know we're not the only ones. (We were students until two years ago and have two little boys:)

I will also say a pray your husband can find a job soon. I am sure it is scary in this economic environment especially.

I hope this offers some new ideas:)

This is all stuff we do: the meals that have packaged pasta as side dishes, add more plain pasta when cooking - the taste has a little less flavor but to us it's just right. Do the same with packaged rice side dishes - add some extra plain rice. Try eating a squeak less meat. Try as much as possible to make meals from scratch cuz it's a whole lot cheaper than boxed and prepared meals although it does take longer. Try to make bigger meals then freeze some in containers for quick meals later. You can even make yummy cookies and biscuits, etc. and freeze them in smaller portions so you can eat 'em here and there instead of having to eat two dozen cookies/biscuits, etc. at the same time. Also, have you ever considered getting food from a church food bank (we have at South Hills Assembly ###-###-#### when times were tough - they don't verify income and most of the food is good). Also, have you tried ALDI's discount food store? There is one on 88/Library road in Bethel Park - the canned veggies are very good and at less than 50 cents a can! We can get a whole month's worth of canned veggies for side dishes for like forty or fifty bucks. I second the tip for Angel Food Ministries - South Hills Assembly does this program (www.southhillsassembly.org click on the top banner "ministries" then click on the angel food ministry link or call ###-###-####) One more thing - the absolute best cleaner: use plain baking soda to clean everything - sprinkle on carpet, leave it on for about ten minutes then vacuum (soaks up smell from pets and stuff and makes it look fluffier); sprinkle plain baking soda in toilet, tub, sink, tile floors, counter tops, fridge, stove, etc. add just a touch of water to make a grit like substance and scrub a lot and then rinse - it removes just about any type of stain. Hope this helps :)

Hello D.,

Buying in bulk is one way to save on your grocery bill. Stay away from junk food, which is very expensive. Whole grains may be cost a little more, but they're more satisfying and you don't get those between meal hunger pains as much. Cook meals from scratch. Cut up your own veggies, rather than buying pre-packaged ones. And of course, plan your meals and grocery lists carefully.

Besides food, you can save money by switching to Shaklee's Get Clean household products. For example, Basic-H2 will replace over 6,000 bottles of Windex or more than 400 bottles of 409 or Fantastic. In fact, the Get Clean Starter Kit will replace more than $3,400 of the same cleaning power in products you would buy at the super market! I'm offering a 10% rebate on your first order through my business, Bolthouse Associates.

Hope this helps.
E. B

Hi D.,

What I do is look at the grocery store circular (most store have it on line)and make up my grocery list and menu for that week by what is on sale. I also know what my grocery budget is and doing this helps me not go over it.

L.

I can understand finding cheaper ways to eat. Two years ago I married and bought a house and we have two young children. I moved near a food store called Aldi and I do most of my food shopping there every weekend. They are a no frills market. They have mostly their own brand of food and every now and then they have name brands for a short period. I was very hesitant to try their food cause I was used to the name brands but I have been pleasantly surprised. They have almost everything you would find at a regular market just in smaller quantities. You either have to purchase bags there or bring your own bags. I cook five nights a week and spend on average $70 a week, i do buy some cookies and snacks. I have gone to other markets and spent over a $100 for comparable food items. I do have to stop at a regular market for baby itmes but that is pretty much it. Hope this was helpful. Best of luck.
A.

YES ! Go to www.angelfoodministries.com -- it's run by a non-profit group, usually thru churches. You purchase and pay for the food in advance, but it costs 30.00 and $30.00 will purchase enough food to feed a family of 4 for a week -- give or take a few idiosyncracies. Go to the website, and click on "this month's menu", that page will show you the menu for January's shipment, and there's also a link on that page for where to find Angel Food Ministries near you. We did it for a while, and there was always enough -- and while it wasn't always the food WE would choose to eat, what we didn't like, we simply gave away so someone else could benefit. You aren't likely to find shellfish on the menu, and everything lists ingredients, so you wouldn be able to safeguard against the nuts.

Good luck !! You're smart to start cutting corners early, rather than waiting until life is near impossible. Should you end up on foodstamps, be aware that Angel Food Ministries accepts them, too. (But all others do have to pay for the food upfront, in cash, before it is shipped. They don't take checks)

Barb