The original intent of this blog was for frugal living tips and ideas. I am by no means a frugal expert, but I have been working towards a more frugal lifestyle for about a year now. I believe getting organized is a major factor in living frugally. If your stuff is organized you save time by not having to endlessly search for the things you need and you save money by not buying duplicates of an item you can’t find. That said, updating about how I organized this or that in my house has gotten boring for me, so I can only imagine how boring it is for readers (both of them.) With that in mind, I have decided to skip some organization conversion chronicling and move on to some of the money saving tips I have been using.
Like many families, groceries are one of our biggest expenses. At the beginning of the year, my grocery budget was just about equal to my rent budget. This is due in part to a ridiculously low rent payment, and our grocery budget does include non-food items like diapers, paper goods, cleaning supplies etc. but it still makes for a very large grocery bill. Over the past few months, we have managed to cut $100-$150 out of our grocery spending each month. Of course, so far, NONE of this extra cash has been applied toward reducing our debt because the house and cars seem to sense that we have some extra and greedily find ways to use it up. While it is frustrating that we haven’t been able to apply the extra money toward paying off debt, at least we had the cash to pay for repairs and didn’t have to go deeper into debt to pay for them.
The very first thing to address when trying to cut down food expenses is waste. In my home I see a few types of food waste.
1. Food going bad and having to be thrown away before it gets used.
2. Kids throwing half of their meal away
3. Parents (that’s me) eating twice as much as we need to feel satisfied
Issue number one can be prevented by keeping better tabs on what we have in the pantry and refrigerator and occasionally planning a meal around an ingredient that is about to expire. I have also found that vegetables that have wilted to a point where I wouldn’t serve them fresh can often still be used to make broth. This can apply to freezer burned veggies as well. Milk that is past drinkability can still be used for cooking and baking and can even be used as a substitute for buttermilk in recipes. Of course sometimes food is too far past its prime to be salvaged no matter what you were going to use it for. If your milk resembles yogurt, I wouldn’t recommend making pancakes with it. When we do have produce or bread go past all hope of salvage, it goes in the compost pile which then helps fertilize our garden, so at least it isn’t a complete waste.
Issues two and three can be handled the same way, portion control. Portion control is probably the thing that saves me the most money on groceries. I used to take a recipe meant to serve four and automatically double it to feed my family of six. This wouldn’t be a big deal if we had two portions left over for lunch the next day, but we didn’t. Either I would give the kids large portions and half of it would get thrown away, or we would eat all of it, sometimes even after we were full. Now I either increase a recipe just enough for six, or I prepare it for four and add an extra side to our meal to make sure everybody gets enough to eat. If I do prepare enough for 8, I try to pack up 2 portions for lunches before I serve everybody. I give everybody small portions that are less than I think they will eat. That way if they aren’t hungry (rare), or don’t really like it (less rare), there isn’t as much waste.
Portion control can not only cut down on waste, but it can save money by stretching your food supply. The biggest example of this is meat. Americans as a whole eat WAY more meat than we actually need. If I am using boneless skinless chicken that needs to be cut up and added to a soup or casserole, I will usually use just one breast for the entire meal. If I am serving chicken breast as a main dish by itself, I will use no more than 4 (sometimes even 3) to feed the whole family. Usually for this type of meal, however, I use thighs and legs and each person just gets one piece. Where I am really able to stretch my budget is with ground meat. We pretty much only buy ground turkey, but it would work with beef too. We get a 5lb chub of ground turkey each month. Using my 12 inch sauté pan, I cook the whole batch using dried minced onion, garlic powder, season salt, and paprika as a general seasoning. I then divide the cooked meat into 12 portions and seal it up using my food saver and throw it in the freezer. Once sealed, I spread the meat out in the bag to make as thin of a package as possible. This way it is not only easier to stack and store, but it also defrosts much faster. Each one is less than ½ a pound, but it still manages to be plenty for most meals. Because the meat is already cooked it saves me time in the kitchen during the hectic dinner hour. We use these mini-portions in spaghetti, for casseroles, and in any recipes that call for a pound of ground beef.
As a busy mom, I am a big fan of the one dish meal, whether it is a stir-fry a casserole or whatever. I almost never buy things like Hamburger Helper® or similar boxed meals, but I found a recipe for Hamburger Buddy that is essentially a homemade version that is fairly simple to make and is much healthier. Of course, I used turkey instead of beef and I used one of my mini portions rather than a pound. The recipe calls for a food processor to finely chop the veggies. This works well for hiding vegetables from picky eaters, but I have also made the recipe by roughly chopping everything with my Pampered Chef ® Food Chopper. It wasn’t as sneaky, but it tasted just as good. My kids really liked it and it has turned into a very adaptable recipe.
You can make many variations of this recipe with the following formula:
1 lb ground meat*
3-6 cups vegetables
4 cups liquid (broth, water or a combination)
2 cups dry pasta (small pasta works best. My favorites are shells and elbow)
Seasoning
Thickener (I have used ¼ cup sour cream, cheese, and flour or cornstarch mixed with a couple ounces of reserved broth)
One of my family’s favorite of these adaptations has been dubbed Cheeseburger Buddy. I don’t measure ingredients unless I am following someone else’s recipe, so I am guestimating on all of these measurements.
1 lb ground turkey or beef*
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 small onion, diced
1 15 oz can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1 2 lb. bag frozen chopped broccoli
4 cups chicken, beef or vegetable broth
2 cups whole wheat shells or elbow macaroni
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 slices American cheese
¼ cup sour cream
In a large sauté pan, brown the ground meat with the garlic and onion until there is no pink left. Drain fat. Add can of tomatoes, and broth and noodles. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally until pasta is partially cooked but not yet tender. About 5 minutes. Add frozen broccoli, Stir to distribute, cover and cook another 3-5 minutes until pasta is tender. Add cheeses and sour cream and stir until cheeses melt and create a sauce. 1-2 minutes. Serves 6.
*I use one of my mini-portions of ground turkey
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