Stretching Your Food Dollar

               

-Frugality means to practice careful economy.”  -James E. Faust

A long journey begins with a single step and this is your first step. Begin with your own attitude towards being frugal, because it will impact the rest of your family. How can they be excited about changes if you aren’t? So start by being thankful for all that you do have. Compliment your children for trying new things and explain that you are trying to follow the prophet. Cooking frugally is like changing your diet. You need to learn gradually how to save money by cooking and eating frugally. Don’t expect that you will get your food bill down to $150 a month for 4 people in the first month if you are spending $600 a month now. Don’t get discouraged if one idea fails. Try another one.

Keep a list handy in the kitchen. As you cook day to day, note what you use that you would like to keep on hand. Note items that you are low on. Before you shop, take a tour through your pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Add those items to your list. If you are a fan of coupons, make sure that you buy only what you ordinarily eat. Stock up on genuine bargains.

Keep track of the prices you are paying for items you often purchase. That way if something is “on sale” you will know if it really is on sale or not. Become a comparison shopper. Try the cheaper “store brands” they are often produced by the same manufacturer as the “name brand”. Watch for grocery sale ads and shop the specials. Many stores rely on the fact that you will buy more than the specials. Watch for cash register errors when checking out. Create menus from the weekly specials in newspaper ads and seasonally available items. Plan your meals in advance. This will end the “what’s for dinner?”  dilemma that often ends with take-out pizza.

Don’t purchase food that is a convenience item, such as pre-made sandwiches. You are better off buying the ingredients and making them yourself. Don’t assume that bulk is cheaper. Compare costs by the ounce or pound. Observe “unit pricing”.

Shop for healthy items, stop buying things like toaster pastries and breakfast bars – instead eat oatmeal, pancakes, granola and fruit in season. Substitute cooked cereal for boxes of cold cereal.

If you don’t have one, invest in a good freezer. Then when you find a good deal on foods that can be frozen, stock-up. Find a close “day-old” bakery outlet for bread items and freeze until needed. Every time you have a few left-over fruits like strawberries, store them in the same zip-lock bag in the freezer. Then whirl them together in the blender for a smoothie snack. Take a few hours on the weekend to cook from scratch. Many dishes can be prepared ahead of time and frozen until needed. Purchase large packages of meat, they are often cheaper than smaller sizes and can be divided and frozen for later use.

Use individual freezer containers to store leftovers. Then use them later for individual lunches. Bag your lunch. At $6.00 each working day, you are spending more than $1500 annually. Skip the vending machine, pack a snack. Start collecting recipes using leftovers and trade them with friends and family.

Dine out less often – make it a special occasion to go out to eat rather than a common event.

If your family is used to drinking milk, juice or soda with every meal, start substituting water with meals. You can also try having just one glass of juice or milk then only water after it is gone.

Do not convert to a wheat diet overnight, allow time for changes. Start small and then keep going. Use powdered milk whenever possible in your recipe. Mix powdered milk with your whole milk to stretch your milk supply. You can add flavored powders, like Nestle Quick, to help with the taste.

This month try two meatless meals a week. Have a “meatless Monday”. Beans are an inexpensive protein. Add them to tacos, casseroles, salads, etc. Dedicate one night to a “budget meal” and put the saved money towards your food storage items.

Grow as many of your own vegetables, fruits and herbs as you can. Stock up on “in season” foods. Learn to preserve what you grow or purchase to stretch your savings.

Ben Franklin advised “use moderation in all things – don’t deny yourself too many treats or you will never stick to your new eating habits.

Choose a few of these ideas to implement into your regular routines. Feel good about the progress you are making even if it only seems small. Figuring out a savings of $20 a week adds up to over $1000 a year!

Generators and Fuel Storage

I've had a good number of people ask me about what kind of generator we have and how we store the fuel for it. My camera is MIA right now or else I would have posted a few photos of what we have. (My 2-year-old carried it off somewhere I'm sure.)

Generators - We went for the large potable one that we could get locally. We waited until we had a 10% off coupon for the store and used it to save us some money. We researched sizes and capacities and decided if we really did have a big power outage we would be grateful to have a generator that could handle more items. We could run our freezer, fridge, and even our microwave off our generator at the same time.


Fuel Storage - We have a couple of 5 gallon gas cans that we keep in the garage along the outside wall as far from the house as we can. It would be better if we had a shed, but we don't yet have that at this house. We also never let our gas tanks in our vehicles get below half full so we could siphon the gas out if needed. This is really the safest bet for longer term storage. It is constantly being rotated and is always available.

To keep a freezer cold, keep the door shut and then run a generator 1 hour in every 4 hours. The frozen food in the freezer will last quite some time without even running the generator especially in the winter months when we are more apt to have a longer power outage due to a severe winter storm. I can't remember for sure how long 1 gallon of gas is supposed to keep a generator going. It seems like it is either 3 or 5 hours. If it is 3 hours then 5 gallons of gas will give me 15 hours of usage which will actually allow me to do the one hour on, 3 hours off cycle for 60 hours. So 10 gallons would give me 120 hours. With our gas cans and our vehicles we have more than 30 gallons so we could last quite some time.

Hope this helps -

Loving the Harvest

I'm behind in getting posts written for this blog because it is harvest time around here. I have learned to love the harvest! This is the time of year when all the hard work of planting and caring for a garden pays off.

People have been very generous this year. Since others know that I am willing to go to the work of preserving the fruits and vegetables, they are kind to offer to share their abundance. We have picked apples, plums, blackberries, nectarines, and zucchini this year. I've also driven out to the orchards and picked up peaches and pears.

With the help of my extended family, we canned 228 quarts of applesauce and juice! I've also done 7 dozen jars of peaches and so far I have done 4 dozen jars of pears. I have 4 more dozen to go before I'm done. I've  done about 20 batches of freezer jam and lots and lots of fruit rolls. Salsa is half done and the ingredients are all waiting in the freezer for me to harvest enough tomatoes to finish the batch. Our family is more than set with our year supply of fruit to pull us through until next year's harvest! It feels so good to have the shelves in the storage room and freezer full again.

The fruit is so pretty in the jars and it tastes heavenly! I realize that it is a bit of work to get it all done, but I work extra hard for about 5 days and then have it set to go for the rest of year. I am teaching my kids important principles at the same time. Those lessons are priceless!

Defrosting the Freezer

Once a year, every summer, I learn just what I have stored in our big freezer. I have a pretty good idea since I am constantly rotating items, but when it comes time to defrost the freezer, I find everything that may be hiding. This summer the ice had built up quite a bit since my kids left the freezer open a couple of times after getting popsicles out. Thankfully, I do end up in my freezer a few times a day so it didn't go very long before being discovered.

The first big task requires turning the freezer off and then emptying it out.

We filled our coolers first, and then filled every laundry basket.

As the ice begins to soften, I've learned to scrape at it a bit with a spatula.

My kids love making snowballs in the summer and my neighbors get a kick out of watching their snowball fight in 90+ degree weather. (I've learned you have to make work fun!)

To speed up the process a bit, I pour hot water over the built up ice.

We are making good progress!

After clearing out all the ice, I dry it well with a towel.

Then we restock the shelves! Order has returned to our little part of the universe! From start to finish, it took us just over an hour. The other great thing is that I only had to throw 2 items away because they had gotten lost in the corners and were too old and freezer burned.

A full freezer allows me to sleep better at night because I know our family will be taken care of for quite a while. Hopefully, these pictures inspire you to stock up and count your freezer as part of your food storage. (We do have a generator and fuel to help us get through a longer power outage.)

Storable Breakfast or Snack - Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

This if especially for those of you with dairy and egg allergies - but they are so good, no one else needs to know they are missing these key ingredients!

Here's a quick and tasty egg-free, fully-storable muffin! I'm getting better at being confident about tweaking a recipe. I looked up a few recipes online for oatmeal muffins and then came up with this variation. I baked them up on a Saturday night to be ready for a quick family breakfast before early church meetings the next day. I also figured that if they flopped, it would give me a chance to throw something else together. Why did I doubt myself? They were delicious!

Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup quick cooking oats

1 cup water

½ cup applesauce

½ cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt         

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp white vinegar

1 Tbsp oil (optional)

Soak the oats in the water for 10-15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir just until moistened. Fill muffin cups ⅔ full. Bake at 400° F for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you choose to leave the oil out, the muffins just won't brown as nicely. They will still taste great.