Dining On a Dime - Part 2

More Ways To Tame Your Grocery Budget

1. Buy in bulk, but ONLY if you actually NEED it and it's a good deal. Factor in membership costs. I was guilty of that several years ago. I had a Sams club membership and bought more stuff than I knew what to do with. Yes, 1000 fruit snacks for $5.00 is a great deal, but really…one person can only eat so many fruit snacks. Be realistic about what you’re buying in bulk, and make sure you’re getting it at a good price. You also need to factor in the membership costs. If you shop there once a month and the membership cost is $40, then you need to add $3.33 to your total each trip. So, if you only go to buy toilet paper, then add the $3.33 and see if you’re still getting a good deal. Watch the prices. I have found on a couple occasions that buying the bulk package was actually more expensive than buying the smaller sizes. So you have to pay attention!

Jessica (one of the gals attending the group meeting) mentioned GFS Marketplace in Rivergate. She explained that you can buy things in bulk (especially good for entertaining and parties) without that pesky membership fee.

2. Use coupons and sales ads. Yes, I know…broken record, but I cannot stress this enough. If you save $10 off a $200 grocery bill, you’ve just saved yourself 5%. That really does add up!

3. You HAVE to know your prices. It’s amazing that I saw a “sale” price of the TP we use all the time - $9.99. Um…hello…I can get the exact same TP on sale sometimes for $5.00! That’s not a sale. Actually, yesterday I saw that Fred’s has 5 for $5.00 Elmer’s School Glue (4 oz). Walmart has it on sale for $.25! Seriously, that’s a savings of $.75 just by knowing my prices!

4. Consider buying veggies and fruits from local farmers. You can get some amazing deals at the roadside stands or farmer’s markets. In Portland, we have a ton of people selling fresh produce and you can get amazing deals on some really great tasting produce. Or better yet, plant a garden. We planted our first garden this year, and we have been amazed at how much we’ve gotten from it. It did take some money to start up, but next year it won’t be nearly as much and we’ll make that back in no time. It’s a great way to save money.

5. Buy frozen instead of fresh. Fruits and Veggies are flash frozen at their peak of freshness, and especially if you’re cooking them anyway, you will save a ton of money and not even notice the difference if you buy frozen. I love buying frozen fruit for smoothies – I don’t even need ice because the frozen fruit works great!

6. Avoid pre-packaged and convenience foods. You will pay 25-100% more for these items. Those little individual bags of chips are great, but you can buy twice as much in the big bags for less. The 12 packs of the chips are on sale for $6.00 this week. You can buy 2 big bags of the same chips and get 12 baggies (or more) out of them for about $3.00. Yes, there’s the cost of the baggies, but still…you’re saving money and you can be cheap like us and recycle the baggies. Those frozen lasagnas aren’t nearly as inexpensive as making your own. I can make 2 for the price of 1 frozen one (and I get to control the ingredients).

7. We talked about this a couple months ago, but buy generic instead of name brand stuff. The same people who make cheerios make the generic brands too. It’s the same stuff minus the brand recognition.

8. Check the clearance racks. Clearance doesn’t mean stale or nasty. Infact, I have gotten amazing deals when things are on clearance. 2 weeks ago I hit the macaroni and cheese mother-load – 38 cents a box (as opposed to $1.00 a box or even $.50 a box on sale). It’s good until June of next year. Nothing is wrong with it – it’s just cheap. A couple months ago, I hit Target as they clearanced out a bunch of Huggies diapers. I picked up boxes that normally run for $28.88 for $13.88. That’s a HUGE deal and I almost cleared the shelves buying so many.

9. Leave EVERYONE else home while you go shopping. If you want to save money, shop alone. Even with a list, I will still spend more money if hubby or the kids go with me. They just know how to whine and suck the money right out of you because they see something they just HAVE to have! My kids and hubby will wear me down that I give into buying that stupid box of crackers or the hot wheels car, just because it's easier to say yes than to argue my point for the 100th time.

10. Shop with a calculator. If you know exactly how much you’re spending you can make wise choices. You know that you have a limit, and when you start reaching that limit, you can make choices and maybe put back those impulse purchases or the non-generic things you were going to buy.

11. Pay with cash only. It will save you at least 12% (and up to 50%) when you set the limit, not let the price set your budget. If you go in with $100, you leave with only $100 worth of stuff. You will make smarter choices knowing that you only have so much money and that you cannot go over that amount. People don’t believe me on this until they do it themselves. Just last week, one of the gals I help online said, “wow, I didn’t believe you until I did it myself. I came in $30 under budget and got everything I need for the next 2 weeks.” You WILL come in under budget if you shop with cash only and use that list and calculator! See...I'm not completely full of hot air.


Stretching Your Dinner Dollars

So, now that we have our food, let’s talk about stretching your dinner dollars! These are just some tricks that I use to make the food we do have go just a little further, without us feeling like we’re deprived. Some of these may work for your family, some may not, but the point of this is to get you thinking outside the box.

1. Fillers: Add bread crumbs, rice, potatoes, veggies, and/or beans to meals to make them more filling. We actually enjoy our food more with the fillers I mentioned. We love adding some Mexican rice to our taco meat because it gives it a little something special. We enjoy the taste of hamburgers with Italian breadcrumbs added into the mix. Sometimes the fillers just make it taste better. Instead of using a pound of hamburger meat, we use a half pound of turkey (or hamburger) and with the fillers making up the rest of the volume, we still get as much food.

2. Cut up your meat. This may seem like it’s not that big of a deal, but if you want to make the meat you eat stretch further, this will help. I’ve been a recovering vegetarian for 4 years now, but I’m still not a big fan of slabs of meat, so this is perfect for our family. As an experiment to test my theory I cooked 4 chicken breasts and decided to see how far I can make them stretch. We have 3 (sometimes 4) people who will eat chicken in our house. Our oldest is picky and will occasionally eat it. So, if we had taken those chicken breasts and made them the center of our meal, we would have gotten 1 meal out of it (2 for Jon, 1 for me, 1 for Spencer and Hunter to share. We know that’s how it would have worked because we’ve done that before. So, instead of the big slab of chicken we shredded and diced it up. That night we had fettuccini alfredo with chicken. The next day for lunch we had a chicken spinach salad. For dinner the next night we had chicken quesadillas. Yes, we got 3 meals out of 4 chicken breasts, and fed 3 people (Hunter just wasn’t feeling the chicken thing). So really, it does help to cut the meat up.

3. Make Smart Substitutions. For us, since we enjoy a lot of things with ground beef, the smartest substitution we made was going to ground turkey.

4. Cut portions. Americans generally consume too much anyway, so look at what a serving size really is. If you portion out your meal you will find that you will still get full and will have more food left over, which if you’re trying to shave down the grocery budget is a good thing.

5. Use smaller plates. I can see you all kinda thinking I’ve lost my mind. I see it. It’s alright. I'm essentially telling you to use smaller plates because they less food. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason everyone likes to see a nice full plate. Some people like to PILE up their plates. I don’t know what it is, but a full plate makes you think you’re getting enough food. Well, when you have a bunch of surface area to cover, you’re going to have much more food on the plate (and chances are some will go to waste). If you have a smaller area (but still a big plate), then you can fill it with less food, but still give off the illusion that you have a ton of food on there. We switched to these plates, cut our portions in half and hubby never even noticed that he was eating less food.

6. Don't leave the food on the table as you eat. I know a lot of people like to put the pans and pots on the table so everyone can help themselves, but because our brains and bodies don’t sync up when it comes to feeling full, we tend to over eat. By portioning out the food and leaving the extras out of sight, we can focus on what we’re eating, let our bodies and minds figure out if we’re full or not, and 9 times out of 10 you will have more leftovers than if you had left the food on the table.

7. Serve water - not soda at dinner time. Oh I know…what a horrible person I am. :o) Seriously though, by drinking water during a meal, you will not only feel fuller faster, but you will be able to actually TASTE your food because it doesn’t have to compete with the sugary drinks. It makes the food taste better and because you enjoy your food, you are less likely to want to snack and pick at things later on. Plus, sugary drinks and sodas are expensive anyway.

Well, I know some of you have been sitting here saying….oh this is all well and good, and I’d like to do all those things, but

I Don't Have Time To Cook

To that I say, you don’t have time NOT to cook. On average, one person can expect to pay about $10 for eating out at a sit down restaurant. They will spend on average, $4.50 at a fast food restaurant. By cooking your meals and avoiding the convenience foods, you can cut your costs down to $2.00 per person (or less!!!). That’s a minimal savings of over 50% right there! You just have to make smart choices and you can have a tasty and very inexpensive meal.

Learn to love your crock pot. Crock pots are not only great for roasts, but you can cook up some super yummy things in there! You can make enchiladas, lasagna, soups, bbq ribs, sweet and sour chicken. Oh the possibilities are endless, and the best part is that you can start it when you leave for work, and thanks to timers and such, it will be done and hot when you get home. Talk about a time saver (and money saver because you won’t be tempted to just pick up something on the way home!)

Learn how to make freezer meals! I have just started to learn the joys of freezer meals. These things are wonderful time savers (and energy savers). With freezer meals, you have the potential to do prep work only one day a month, but enjoy the benefits every single night. And if you don’t have that kind of room in the freezer, doing it once a week, or even twice a week will certainly lighten your load and keep you from impulse buying that pizza or KFC.

Freezer Meals

Almost any dish can be frozen and re-heated. The major exceptions are sour cream, cooked potatoes, and blocks of cheese. These things are safe to eat if frozen – the texture just changes. Sometimes you will have to experiment with different recipes. Sometimes it’s just easier (and better tasting) to make the sauce and freeze it, or make and freeze only part of it. One such recipe are stuffed peppers. I think freezing the peppers with stuffing in them isn’t the best thing in the world, but freezing the stuffing and then filling fresh peppers is. So, do some experimenting.

Want some examples of freezer meals?
Chicken Enchilladas, Chicken Tetrazini, Lasagna, Baked Ziti, Chicken or Beef Pot Pie, Beef Stroganoff, Meatloaf, Honey BBQ Ribs, Cream Cheese Chicken, Soups/Stews, Stuffed Shells, Chili, Vegetable Lasagna, Meatballs, Breads, most desserts, and even Waffles and Pancakes.

Oh yummmmmm….they sound so good. We make a lot of these for freezer meals. I will make a double batch – eat one that night and freeze one. That’s especially true for pancakes and waffles. I will even triple the waffle batter and make a ton of them just to freeze because the kids love them and I hate cleaning the waffle iron.

Where did I get freezer meal recipes? Most of them are just recipes I have for regular things that I just throw in the freezer. Some of them came from 30 Meals in One Day (no, I do not own it, I just use the free sample recipes) and some Kid Friendly Freezer Meals, and I am also a member of a group on CafeMom called The Once a Month Cooking Club, and there are some great recipes in that forum.

So really with crock pots and freezer meals, it’s so easy to make yummy home-cooked meals – even for very busy people.

The next thing I hear from time to time, and I used to say it myself was…..

But I Don't Like Leftovers

Leftovers can be more amazing than the first go-round. The faster you eat them, the better they taste. And no, I don't mean shoveling them into your mouth faster. If leftovers are a week and a half old they aren't going to taste that fantastic, but if you eat them the next day or the day after that, they can sometimes taste even better because the flavors have had a chance to meld together.

Find creative things to do with leftovers. We eat leftovers like no body’s business, but I like to give it a new life. I mean, who wants to eat the same thing for 3 meals in a row? So, I try to find something interesting to do with them. One great idea I got from one of my favorite books (and it’s saved me quite a bit of money) is Haley’s Hints. In it, it talks about a creative use of leftover mashed potatoes. You simply roll them into balls, dip into egg, dip into breadcrumbs and bake. How yummy does that sound?!? Way yummier than 2 day old mashed potatoes. If you can’t change the actual food, change the way you eat it. We make this layered hot wing dip stuff, and it’s great, but we’ve had to come up with new ways to eat it or else we get sick of it. The first night we use tortilla chips to eat it. The next we use soft tacos and sprinkle on lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. The third night we do hard tacos (if there’s any left). It’s all basically the same thing, but changing it up keeps it more interesting.

If you learn to like and use leftovers, then you will save a lot of money. For an $8.00 meal (the hot wing dip) we get 4 people fed for 2 sometimes 3 meals. That comes out to about $.67 - $1.00 per person per meal. That’s not too shabby. If we didn’t eat leftovers, it’d be a $2.00 per person meal. By trimming $1.00 off each meal, you’ll save $90 a month! That’s why I advocate the use of leftovers like no-body’s business!

How Can We Build Food Storage?

Another skepticism about meal planning (especially among LDS people) is "If we are buying only what we need, how can we build up our food storage?"

My answer to that is, "By buying what you need, when you need it, you are saving yourself money. Whatever money you save on your regular groceries can go towards building up your food storage. We have built up about a 6 month supply of everything we need BECAUSE we followed a meal plan. If we were still sticking with our old shopping habits, we would still have 10 lbs of rice and that’d be about it. Think about it. If you have $400 a month for groceries and you can cut it down to $300 by meal planning, that gives you $100 a month to get that food storage built up (or to pay off debt, or build savings).

Some other ways to build up food storage while on a tight budget is to:

1. Look for free samples. We talked about that a couple months ago. Those things really add up and are fantastic for 72 hour kits.

2. Use coupons and learn how to play the CVS and Walgreens games. Again, this is something we covered a couple months ago. These are great ways to not only save up money, but we have close to a year's supply of all toiletry items we could ever need.

3. Stock up using teh B1G1 sales. If you're planning on buying one anyway, the free one can go towards food storage. I just did this tonight. We had an extra $60 in our grocery budget this month, so I stocked up on B1G1 Peanut Butter at Publix and now I have a year's supply of peanut butter. Talk about great deals. B1G1 deals are the way to go.

4. Hit clearance racks. Again, clearance food doesn’t always mean it’s bad. Sometimes the product is being discontinued or maybe the box is changing. Either way, you can get some great stuff for pennies on the dollar on the clearance rack.