Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Tikkijane]

I rarely ever pick up ground beef.. I would if I could find it raised locally but it disgusts me that my ground beef contains meat from 100's of cows! No wonder there is meat bourne illness, any of the MANY cows in your ground beef could carry it! Just grosses me out!

Find a good butcher and buy by the 1/2 or whole. Yes, initially, It's more. My last cow ended up being about $3.40 a lb- for everything, including the prime cuts. You can tell them what cuts and lb/size you want. I know folks who go in together and get a half.
I'm seriously disappointed that I haven't found one here yet.

 

[Tikkijane]

You might think that you're getting a good deal buying spices at the dollar store, but, I urge you to do some comparison shopping at a health food store.  I can buy a nice bag of extremely fresh spices for less than the dollar store offerings.  And, I know that what I'm getting at the health food store is very fresh.  You can smell the difference.  Also, those snap benefits are given in monthly allotments.  If you plan a budget, and meal plan, you can save a lot of money by buying all of your food in bulk.  Of course, some of that depends on your freezer space.  But, if you buy the largest economy cans of tomatoes, and cook all of your sauces at once, or use what you need today, and break the rest of that tomato sauce/puree/dice into smaller portions, those can then go in the freezer.  There is also a discount grocery store in nearly every city.  I find that when I shop at the one nearest me, I save at least 10 - 20 cents on every item that goes into my cart.  Meats are often 50 cents/pound cheaper, and they appear to be better quality than my local Hannaford store offers.  An other huge savings:  Buy only what's listed on sale in the fliers.  Work your menu around those offerings, go to more than one store, buying the specials at each store.  Make your own mixes:  A bag of flour, sugar, some oil, baking powder, powdered milk will provide you with biscuit mix, pancake mix, muffin mix, and you'll be well set up to do some extra baking besides.  Buy your milk at the gas station.  They often sell it at the state minimum.  That works out to almost a buck/gallon.  Don't use a gallon at a time?  It freezes well.  Make your own breads, or go to the day old bakery.  I can spend $8 at the day old bakery and come home with what would cost $30 at the grocery store.

My gas station habitually sells expired milk. Sam's Club or Costco can really save some $$$, too.

 

[erinszoo]

We have a place called the Spice Merchant that sells bulk spices. They carry everything plus some. Prices are very reasonable. They do sell online too, but I don't know what shipping charges are. I bought 4oz of vietnamese cinnamon, the good stuff, for $2 and some change. They literally sell any spice youve ever heard of. They also sell bulk teas and coffees and make their own extracts.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I never looked at the diabetic exchange diet--so I am no help there. I dropped the material in recycling when I got home. SHe lost me at 300 carbs a day and peanut butter and crackers for snacks. TAT would send my blood sugars soaring for sure!! THru Atkins and reading the entire book and rereading it over and over as it is mostly a reference guide, I have increased the variety of vegies we eat, have a better understanding of food allergies and definitely eat much better. BUt then I have control of the foods purchased , for the most part.

I gave up margarine abut finally bout 25 years ago in exchange for butter. And DH took a bit longer, lol, but only buys real butter now. NO trans fats.

Youngest made an awesome "cake" yesterday: chocolate, butter, eggs and coffee. OMG!!!! A 15 out of 10!! And very easy.

Quote:
You can lead a horse to water ... as the saying goes. My son was raised with home cooked meals, good nutrition, etc. We even went for a walk everyday and went hiking and swimming, etc. We rarely had take out meals. But off at college he eats what he wants ... pizza and taco bell are his big winners.

In other matters, I went through our seed stash yesterday and made a list of everything we have. 120 varieties of stuff. 18 different tomatoes. A mix of purchased, saved, and traded. We're pondering seeing if we can lease an acre of land from a farmer friend and plant things like tomatoes, potatoes, squash, and okra out there while keeping our greens and peas and smaller things here. With hubby out of work I don't know that we'll be able to afford to, but it can't hurt to ask. Maybe we could do some work for him since he runs his farm by himself with no sons to help out. And give him some of the food, too. His wife cans things and they help out their daughter. This past year he planted a hundred foot by 10 foot wide row of turnips and gave them away to whoever wanted them. We're still going out and digging them up to feed the animals.
You have so many skills and opportunities to put food on the table!!! I love turnips. Just don't eat them often because of the high carb level but they certainly are a good food!! GLad they seem to hold in the ground well as storage. Definitely a help right now.

 

[Arielle]

Arielle, I'm very like minded on the carbs. Was just in the hospital for chemo...and steroids. Of course my sugars went up. They have a carb count on the menu and I kept my carbs low, but that wigged everyone out. The idea seemed to be "eat what you want and we'll cover you with insulin". Uhh....no thank you. My poor abused body has a hard enough time processing sugars correctly. Every time they give me steroids I'm afraid it's going to tip me over into type 2.

My honey has lost 50lbs and dropped his A1C down to a normal level doing low carb.
My mother has controlled adult onset seizure disorder with low carb.
Plus, it makes meals so much easier! Like you said, meat and lots of veggies and good fats, no worry about fixing side dishes.
My teenage boys actually fill up on a lower carb diet. We keep some carbs for them, but they're not at all filling. The same boy who would literally eat almost an entire box of cereal will top out at 2 big bowls of chili.

People really want to believe that the meds will fix the diabetes, BUT that unfortunately is not true. I had to figure out for myself that I have already upset the apple cart and have a body already several steps closer to diabetes 2. My docs don't even talk to me about it--ever.

I like that we can diet on low carb to decrease the body fat AND change the l ining of the arteries. However when the veins/arteries have already started to stiffen much of the damage cannot be undone. I do love that many docs are giving a diet and exercise plan instead of surgery for those patients that have a small window before needing emergency surgery.


THe hospital food can be a nightmare! After emergency surgery at BWH followed by 24 hrs in 1:1 care, I was hungry and wanted real food, grateful for the miraculous surgery performed. I was given a tray of all white foods. White wonder bread, and such. I couldn't eat it. Just couldn't. I hadn't come this far to eat junk.

Glad you could stick to your plan !! A1c is the best judge for a good insulin level, though know that the best is just below "normal" as that number is skewed.

GLad to hear of another person with teenage boys that fill on good foods and not need to come back for more. I don't buy ANY breakfast cereals. NONE.

I have asked my family to ONLY make low carb foods so that I can eat them and start getting these pounds off AGAIN. I regain at the holidays . . . .

We have a 500 recipe cookbook by Dana Carpender. We rate the recipes!!

While I am impressed abouthe the $2.50 per person perday food bill . . . . I cant recompare it to how my family eats. We bought a stalk of brussel sprouts, removed the buds and weighed them up. 3# for $6. THat is 1$ cheaper than bagged ones.

I don't buy much pasta. White flour not only has NO nutrition, it steals nutrients away fromt he body . I had already started to wonder about this when several doc on PBS have mentioned this. So we rarely buy pasta. Easy to make our own if we really want it. As for flour, other than the holiday sugar and flour is not purchased.

Kisa will have fruit in plain whole milk greek yogurt as a snack or meal at home. For school, I am still stuck with sending prepackaged ( read WELL sealed) commercial yogurts that we buy on sale usually in the seconds bin. Making our own yogurt is very easy.

I also pickle beets, beans and eggs to keep extras that might otherwise spoil before eating them up. I use Braggs vinegar to UP the microbe content, only a smidge but adding as much probiotics to my diet as possible is a goal. SUpposed to help with overall health, not just digestive health.

My son just grabbed a bag of green beans and a blob of ranch dressing for a snack!!!

 

[erinszoo]

I'm sure this has been mentioned on this thread before but once again we've bartered for what we need. We've been raising rabbits for a number of years but we were down to one male and he wasn't doing his job. We had gotten two females from a friend not long ago to replace our aging females. One of them was pregnant when we got her and she gave birth to five beautiful babies. We wanted to breed her again and the other female so we asked the friend if we could bring her out to breed her to one of her males. She told us she wanted to get rid of her rabbits though and we made a deal to get a male from her in exchange for a female duck that we hatched last month. So we took her two female ducks and she gave us the male rabbit and two more females.

It was a good deal for both of us as we hatched the ducks to put meat in the freezer and the males grow bigger faster than the females. And she wanted to get rid of rabbits ... so win win. I like these kind of deals.

 

[Arielle]

Nice trade erinszo!! WIn-win for sure.

As I was feeding the crew this morning, I realized that I can still collect fallen leaves for bedding. The snows have been scarce this year so far, only a coating or inch due tonight. Hoping to get the kids to help me rake up a few bags this afternoon from the woods. TO put in a few of the coops to freshen them up a bit.

WE bought two bookcases from salvation army and still need to make time to get them in place. THey are cluttering up my entry. lol

Kids shoes have grown bigger and don't fit on the book shelves any more. Been brainstorming a new solution, closer to the front door, to keep the mud and dirt closer to the door. lol

 

[Outpost JWB]

Yes @hennible , I am cross posting

So about being frugal....I bought some mistinted paint and transformed my laundry room that was stuck in the 1980s to a nice updated look.
The paint was nearly $40 a gallon. I paid $5 per gallon each x2.

Before:



After:

 

[Arielle]

Just love the color! My DH bought a similar color on sale too!!! $2 a quart so I cant use it for such an ambitious project as walls, so I plan to repaint my flat ware drawer!!

 

[perchie.girl]

Nice trade erinszo!! WIn-win for sure.

As I was feeding the crew this morning, I realized that I can still collect fallen leaves for bedding. The snows have been scarce this year so far, only a coating or inch due tonight. Hoping to get the kids to help me rake up a few bags this afternoon from the woods. TO put in a few of the coops to freshen them up a bit.

WE bought two bookcases from salvation army and still need to make time to get them in place. THey are cluttering up my entry. lol

Kids shoes have grown bigger and don't fit on the book shelves any more. Been brainstorming a new solution, closer to the front door, to keep the mud and dirt closer to the door. lol

How about three staggered rows of Closet rod mounted on a heavy board... slip the boot over the top and everything airs out. A pair of rods for a pair of shoes.

I have another reason to get the shoes off the ground.... Scorpions and black widows... but mostly scorpions. Here in the desert the bugs climb in for shelter.... NEVER just put your shoes on without banging them out a couple of times.

deb