Rising cost of groceries...

[Wildsky]

I went out and bought one of those vacuum sealer things for our food, I now seal all my leftovers (poor chickens) if there is enough left over for a one person meal, it gets sealed and frozen.
I can also now buy meat in bulk and package to freeze. For our family of four, 2 chicken breasts make for a meal, if I chop it up it goes further!
I can also buy large jars of sauces or ? and use half and seal the other to freeze.... I LOVE my vacuum sealer. (Meat can last up to 3 years sealed this way)

I quit buying packaged "add water" junk a while ago - but that saved us a few dollars, I no longer buy those, the potato and rice etc... that takes a few minutes - the real deal is a lot better tasting anyway.

I do have a garden, just started as we were getting snow still a few weeks ago.

One of these days I'll venture into meat chickens......

 

[wischickenlover]

'm not sure if it's this way at all of them....but at Kwik Trip by me, they ALWAYS have white bread at 3/$2.00 (used to be 3/$1.49) and bananas are ALWAYS .29/pound.

 

[inudat12]

Has anyone tried Angel Food Ministries? We have used them and get quite a bit for the money. The only downside I have found is you pay for them, then have to go pick it up when the order comes in. Other than that it is a great program. There are some products our family doesn't care for, so I donate them to the local food bank.

Here is a link: http://www.angelfoodministries.org/

There is no qualifications or financial restrictions. You just tell them how many of the monthly boxes you would like, pay for them and pick them up when the order comes in.

The boxes are $30.00, you then have the option to order add-on packages for an additional cost. The website gives you a list of the items that are on the menu for your state.

HTH
Tracy

 

[Rosalind]

Community supported agriculture shares are pricey up front but end up more than paying for themselves in the end.

Also, seriously consider going vegetarian. Just ignore all those spendy fake-meat things in the grocery store, beans-n-rice and burritos and pasta are what most vegetarians eat. When I was in college and impoverished, the one thing that truly helped cut back on the grocery bills was only eating meat as a main course once a week. The rest of the week, if we ate meat at all, it was a condiment (bacon bits, leftover ham bone for soup, &c).

Nowadays the only meat I eat is venison. Hunting and fishing licenses are cheap. One deer can feed us for a whole year.

Trying to think of what else we had when I was in college. The weekly menu was kinda predictable:

Sunday, meat main course (baked chicken or meatloaf, ham or pot roast was reserved for special occasions and holidays)
Monday, leftovers in a casserole or soup with home-baked bread
Tuesday, veggie stirfry
Weds., spaghetti or some similar pasta with salad and foccacia bread
Thursday, spread leftover foccacia with tomato sauce and cheese, add mushrooms and maybe some chopped olives or pepperoni if it was on sale, pizza night
Friday, fried zucchini sticks and mushrooms with ranch dressing and salad. Homemade veggie soup and rolls in winter. It's amazing how many soup variations you can make on broth + couple of cooked veggies + roux (oil & flour cooked together). Or how many variations on chowder you can make depending on what's in the freezer and how many bacon slices you have.
Saturday, veggie-rice casserole. There are oodles of variations on this, too. Another possibility was pancakes for dinner, also depended on how much bacon or sausage was in the fridge.

For two people, the grocery list was usually 1 lb. ground meat or 1 smallish whole chicken, 1-2 heads of lettuce, 1 jar sketti sauce, a few yeast packets, a couple of tomatoes, 1/2 lb. bacon, bouillon cubes, a bag of rice or quinoa, 2 cans beans, 1 package pasta, a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, 1/2 gal. milk, 3 zucchini, 1 bunch carrots and 1 big carton mushrooms. This assumes that you already bought flour and oil in bulk, and that your drink of choice will be homemade iced tea. Homemade iced tea is darn cheap and easy to make, and peppermint iced tea in the summer is a fine, fine thing. I didn't have chickens in college, so we ate generic brand cereal or oatmeal for breakfast and leftovers or PB&J/toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch with a cup of leftover soup. Maybe an apple too, if they were on sale.

We were a lot thinner, for sure. I have heard many people swear that they personally could not possibly do this because of men needing extra protein or some health condition or whatever, but DH was working a shipping dock loading tractor trailers by hand at Sears while we ate this, and I was doing field biology (lots of hiking) 40 hours/week in addition to working as a lab tech 25 hours/week and going to school full time. You get used to it and you lose weight, until your metabolism reaches a new setpoint and then you're just very lean. Believe me, if your other choice is starving or being evicted because you had to choose between food and rent, you'll learn to live without meat.

 

[patandchickens]

My $0.02 is that I think we just need to get used to spending more money on food, just like most of the rest of the world does. Food accounts for a smaller percentage of income in the U.S., on average, than practically anywhere else in the world. So perhaps this is "just" a reality-check on our lifestyles, for the majority of us.

If you're spending money on, like, buying new clothes every few months, shoes to match different outfits, decorative knicknacks and candles for the house, cable TV, soda pop, store-boughten prepared food and mixes, meat in excess of our daily protein needs, cell phone service in addition to a land line, new (as opposed to secondhand) toys for the kids, videos and games, etc... then that is money that could perfectly well go towards food.

Cleaning products? North America is so weird about cleaning products

The vast, vast majority of things that need cleaning, need only hot water, elbow grease and a little regular ol' detergent or soap - vinegar or baking soda for a few other particular situations. You do not need a shelf's worth of cleaning products. Air fresheners either. The world is supposed to smell like a world, not like fake-lemon-in-a-can

I mean, if you can easily afford all that sort of thing and like it, fine, but it is a LUXURY not a staple.

It's really amazing how quickly our culture has taken things that are luxuries and assumed them into what we feel are basic necessities of life. There certainly ARE those of us who don't have enough to afford even the real true basic necessities - nutrition, shelter, winter heat, electricity, and health care. But there's a much much much larger number of use who've just been conned into trying to live a lifestyle beyond our means, and those days may be drawing to a close.

JMO,

Pat

 

[BearSwampChick]

Quote:
As always, Pat, you've said it very well and succinctly. I couldn't agree with you more.

Susan

 

[Sparks]

Pat...Awesome and very true. Thanks again for the reminders!!!

 

[BettyR]

Another really low cost meal that’s surprisingly good is Top Ramen Noodles and eggs.

Beat your eggs in a bowl and set aside (I use 2). Cook your noodles as per package directions; when they are done remove the noodles to a bowl but leave the cooking water in the pan. Bring it back to a boil and stir it to get it swirling. In a slow stream drop the beaten eggs into the swirling water and bring it back to a boil. Mix in the Ramen seasoning packet and pour over the noodles.

If you like Top Ramen Noodles you will love this.

Edited to add: It's not pretty but it tastes wonderful and it's very filling and stays with you a long time.

 

[thechickenchick]

Thanx for the ramen idea BETTYR. My hubby and son love Ramen. I am always trying to come up with other wasy to use it. I have added burger, broccolii, onion and diced up cabbage. I added the seasoning to the burger while it was cooking. Then the veggies to soften then added the noodles. They loved it! When my hubby asked what it was called I said Mother Hubbards cupboard casserole!

 

[Cats Critters]

My mom had the joy ( not! there went the tax return) of Buying new appliances. So yesterday she bought (all energy efficient ) New Refrigerator, old one stopped working. We where living out of an miny refrigerator. new washer and dryer , old ones not in very good shape and a standing freezer, The old one is an OLD, HUGE chest freezer that my mom has had for 20 years and when she got it was used. after that just about any thing was more energy efficient


Saving:
coupons
gernric
hunt
fish
Garden
Also only buy in Bulk if you can use it all before it goes bad.