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Large families and groceries… (& hard boiled eggs)
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Ok so I went grocery shopping last night and it seems like every time I go it cost me more and more. So I was like am I spending what an average family of 9 (with a 9mo who is just starting to get pureed food & has to have formula) would spend a week? If so great, if more what am I doing wrong?
What if you don’t mind sharing are you coming out with? How are you keeping your costs down? We have a cow (another sad issue as it’s alomost gone) in the fridge, we have meat birds who not yet but soon will be in the fridge, and we raise layers. So I’m not buying all that. I have a garden which I only can harvest lettuce right now.
Any thoughts or comments would be great!
Misty
PS – how do you if you have layers hard boil them with out loosing half the egg while pealing? I just can’t figure it out?! LOL
I can help on the egg peeling part. The most important parts:
1. don’t use fresh eggs, let your eggs get anywhere from 3-5 days old before hard boiling them. They haven’t lost any fluid to evaportion-the insdie of the eggdoesn’t have any space between it and the shell- so part of the white layer comes off with it.
2. add some vinegar. Vinegar esp. helps break the shell down. Not a huge amount, though.
3. cool on the stove for a half an hour, then move to ice cold water for 5 min., then peel. I don’t know your technique, but crack the egg on egg end, then roll it under your hand back and forth. (This separates the membrane from the entire egg) Then, peel the shell off, starting at the larger end. The shell will come off easily.
Do you have access to a natural food co-op to buy foods in bulk? Everything from grains, sugar, beans, hot dogs, froz. fruits, dairy items, seasonings, etc. Others have teas and coffee available.
Do you make farmer’s cheese, yogurt, cereal, breakfast porridges yourself? I don’t buy boxed cereal-first of all, it’s rancid due to the processing and secondly, it’s so expensive.
Do you grow your own herbs? They are expensive to purchase.
Do you make your own garden sprays? I have some recipes.
When you look at your receipt, what are your biggest and most frequent expenses? What of those can you make on your own?
Also, since your garden only has lettuce right now, can you go to a farmers market where there may be more seasonal foods (therefore cheaper) available instead of getting non-seasonal, long-travel foods (both causing higher prices) at higher prices at the grocery store.
Looking ahead, are you preserving your egg ahrvest for winter use? Are you ready for preserving season for other squash and veges and can you plant a Fall/Winter garden, too? Prices will only climb and the dollar weaken..
HTH,
Rachel
Can’t help with the grocery costs, because I can’t seem to cut ours any. We seem to spend about $1000-$1200 a month and there’s only 6 of us (course the boys are in the teen stage and the girls can eat more than me…). I make a menu and go in with a list…
We did start a small garden this spring, nothing huge, but it’s a start. I feel caught in the middle. I could shop cheaper if I used box mixes, etc… Meat, cheese, and produce seem to add up exponentially.
We have laying hens. I agree not to boil the eggs the first few days. We use salt in the water. Put eggs in cold water and add 1/4 cup salt to it. Bring to a boil, turn off and let sit for 12 minutes and then rinse in cold water. Sometimes I add ice to water and let them sit for a couple minutes.
I’m looking into getting some meat birds. Anyone with meat birds, are they hard to clean? I am working on my hubby to let us get a cow. What is upkeep on a dairy cow?
Food is a neverending expense, isn’t it? We’re a family of 8, so not where you are until January, but I’ll share what ours is.
Our food budget is $600 a month on groceries($150/week), but we don’t usually spend all that. What happens is we spend what we need, and when I find a great deal on something we eat I stock up with the extra money sitting in the food budget. So when a meat we like goes on sale we buy $50 worth (or more). We have bought half a cow in the past and now we know what cuts we actually use, which is helpful. We do have a chest freezer, plus the basement looks like a mini-grocery store with shelves of food storage.
We cook and bake most things from scratch. We don’t buy a lot of snack foods, usually just pretzels and tortilla chips at GFS (they sell in bulk to restaurants and those are cheap), and then apples or carrots. I bake cookies, cake, bread, muffins, pancakes, etc. We do rice in a rice cooker often with stir fry (heavy on veggies, minimal on meat). We’ll eat pb&j, spaghetti with or without meat, soups, beans, and so on.
We make our own popsicles from fruit and yogurt for a treat.
We don’t eat eggs at all, so I’m no help there.
Some things we don’t buy, that I don’t know if you’re including in your grocery budget figures: paper plates or napkins, bakery items, frozen pizzas or frozen meals (the exception – lasagna when the big $20.00 ones are on sale for $10.00, or when I’m about to have a baby if I’ve not had energy to freeze meals), lots of dairy items (we do yogurt and cheese, but limit how much can be eaten or the kids clean it out in a few days), roasts, steaks, any meat cut that is more than $2.00/lb, preferably cheaper. We do eat cold cereal but will only pay up to 14 cents per ounce, so typically the cheap stuff like corn flakes, puffed rice, and shredded wheat.
I don’t know if that really helps any, but it’s what we do right now.
Sometime I feel like I am buying the bare essentials and still I spend to much. We have 5 kids, age 19 months to 8. $150 is the absolute max I can spend, but it is best if I can keep it closer to $100 so that I don’t come too close on bills. I am in a constant struggle of cost verses health. I mean lets face it ramen noodles are so cheap but not healthy. I have resolved to eating them once a week to keep costs down and that 1 time a week we will survive. I mix them with broccoli and carrots.
I buy those large veggie bags in the frozen section and the large bags of strawberries and such. I want to have a garden but the sheer start up cost are not in the budget right now. I haven’t found a local coop here other than angel food. They don’t seem to be a better deal than walmart.
We almost never eat meat and we don’t eat eggs, cheese, yogurt or drink milk. If I had my own chickens I may do eggs, but I don’t buy them. I buy a lot of dry beans, brown rice that sort of thing. Take a look at beans. While dry beans on a whole are pretty cheap…some are cheaper than others and with basically the same nutrition.
I buy only oatmeal no other breakfast cereal. We do peanut butter and almond butter some but the kids are not big fans.
I think it is a struggle for everyone. I would like to make my own stuff more, eventually get a grain mill and put in a garden.
Not sure I helped much, but i will be watching this too.
I try to stay away from all convenience foods, make our meals from scratch and buy on sale. I do not buy bagged veg or salad as prepared produce costs more often than prepping it yourself and storing carefully. I waste little and use a lot of veg stems and things in stock for soup. We bake everything from scratch and try and keep our purchases to things with simple ingredients, processed food is so unhealthy and is full of toxins. I like to use local farmers for eggs and produce, and we also have a basement freezer and stock up at sale time. We seldom eat out, and then we have take out from a local Italian and eat at home – that only happens on birthdays and anniversaries. I usually cook enough of one meal to freeze some for another day. It is a struggle for everyone and my best advice is to learn to cook/bake from scratch and grow what you can if that is possible. Even growing your own herbs can be a big help – I grow mine, dry them and store in jars for the year. Herbs are expensive and I even keep a rosemary plant in the house to use during the year. Also make the most of your leftovers, you can re-engineer leftovers into something else tasty with a bit of imagination. Good thread and look forward to reading more ideas.
This is something we struggle with – I pretty much cry (inside) everytime I go grocery shopping.
A while ago some of the mom’s from here started a blog with a number of cost-saving ideas. I haven’t seen any new posts for a while, but there is a lot of good “stuff” here…
We had to take a sabbatical from the blog, because I had my daughters major ongoing health issues and Lindsey had some committments that meant she could not get on the blog as well. We hope in the future to get back to it I am sure. Please don’t give up on us, keep sending the tips and when we can we will try and get it going again. I am sure though all of you understand that at times family/homeschool and life just get too hectic and busy to attend to the blog. Thanks for mentioning it Suzukimom, you are right there are some good things on there. Linda
Hey, Misty! What a fun thread! We are gluten, dairy, and yeast free so I spend more than I ever have for food now. We have 6 people and spend $600-650 a month.
I make everything from scratch – from taco seasoning mix (has yeast in it from store) to all baked goods, soups, broths, enchildas and spaghetti sauces. I have a pretty large garden in our back yard. I grow tons of tomatoes and can those into ready to eat jars of spaghetti sauce, two kinds of enchiladas, diced tomatoes, marinara sauce, and pincante/salsa. I usually can 50-60 quarts of spaghetti sauce, about 50 -60 quarts of the echiladas (might up that this year – dh likes them a lot) and about 50 each pints of the marinara and picante sauce. I usually can around 90-100 pints of green beans. I grow the peppers and things for the sauces.
My plan for next year is terracing the hill in the back yard and put in a couple each apple, peach, and cherry trees. Then on the other side I am putting strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. I am also putting in a privacy fence and building a combination greenhouse and chicken coop. This should save me money in a year or two. =) We eat lots of fruit and I am trying to add more veggies. By terracing the hill I triple the size of the garden.
I want to add a few chickens – I read somewhere that people spend like $700 a year on eggs. Although, buying scratch and care products might cost as much. I am doing it because my kids need a non-allergic pet and so that I can have fresh eggs. It is not always cheaper to grow things than the store – but sure tastes better to eat the “sweat of your brow”.
I also plan to grow an herb garden. They are so expensive and I can dry them and use them like Linda says.
Something else that saves me TONS of money is making my own hand soap and making my laundry detergent. I think that the cost for it is pennies on the dollar. I figured that I could make a five gallon bucket (which I get free from a local bakery) for about $12.00 and save around $50 – $60 (and I do not ever buy the expensive brands!) I also make a homemade dish washer soap that only costs about $.22 a wash instead of $.55. I do find that lots of our “food” budget is eaten up with the other essentials – soaps, toilet paper (and no, I don’t make my own – and the catalog page idea is just gross unless it is a dire emergency)
and other such things.May I also recommend hunting for the “free food” that exists in most, if not all towns. We started this a couple of years ago and have 5 apple trees with 3 different types, muscadines/scuppernongs and 1 pear tree that we harvest from from people’s yards and from local businesses in the town square. There’s also tons of wild blackberries in our backyard and around N. Ga.
Drive around town and keep your eyes peeled for fruit trees and bushes. Mainly they exist in yards of older homes and businesses. Just go ask the homeowner and/or business if they harvest it themselves and if not, would they mind if you do; you could tell them you’ll even bring some made goodie from the harvest as a thank you!
I’ve found that people would rather the fruit be used than just fall off and go to waste. If you harvest those that have fallen on the ground, then you can feed your animals, too for free.
Chickens:
we raise dual purpose heritage breeds for meat and layers. The heritage breeds take a little longer to get to butcher weight (22-26 wks), but they are the types that our ancestors raised on homesteads and backyards for both purposes as well. We picked Buff Orpingtons, Partridge Rocks and Barred Rocks for: temperament, size for meat, laying in Winter, large size (males are up to 10 lbs and females up to 6-8), and broodiness to be self-sustainable instead of buying new chickens every year. We keep one rooster ( a 10-12 pd. Mr. Buff, he’s so beautiful!) to keep order, provide protection and do his part to provide for offspring.
We raise the cockerels and hens together until the cocks start acting up, then move the cocks to a separate run and finsh them on higher protein foods (more worms, crickets, boiled eggs, curds, organ meats, etc; cheap stuff that’s available here). My great-grandfather had a hen house and a broiler house that he separated them into very early. Then we have a large crate that we use as a brooder home for a momma hen and her chicks for about 8 weeks before incorporating them into the larger flock.
Our our last hatch, we had 4 cockerels and 1 female. We just moved the 4 yesterday into a separate run due to hen harrassment; they are 21 and 25 weeks old and will be butchered in the next couple of weeks and one of our hens just went broody 3 days ago and is setting on 5 eggs.
I wouldn’t use the hybrid chickens that were created for commercial meat production mainly due to conscience; but they eat massive amounts of feed and aren’t as efficient for a small homestead lifestyle as older breeds that were raised and bred for homesteading purposes, not commercial purposes; lastly, they don’t reproduce according to their kind, so you can’t be self-sufficient in that area either. You get plenty of meat off of the large heritage breeds.
HTH,
Rachel
Ours is a family of 7, (my kids are little but they eat like big people because they have their Daddy’s metabolism, he’s 6’4 and lean) and our monthly budget is 400.00. My costs are kept down in a few ways, one is unfortunately by processed foods, but I don’t mean frozen pizza, nuggets, etc. I just mean animal crackers for snacks, condensed soups, and cereal. Cereal is 2.99 for a 32oz bag, so .09/oz which helps us a lot. We also do lots of oatmeal to fill up first before the cereal. I really enjoy my freezer downstairs for stocking up like other moms mentioned, we buy Honeysuckle ground turkey in the frozen 1lb rolls and I call ahead and pick up about 48 rolls. That lasts for a long time. I also buy frozen vegetables, you can get 12-16oz of steamable in the bag veggies for .69 and then I buy about 20 bags. As far as herbs, I can’t afford fresh so we do the spices already in containers, which isn’t best but is very cheap.
I also cook most things from scratch so it’s cheaper. I agree with the statements about rice/beans, brown rice and lentils are very good for you and you can make large batches. I also stretch my meat buy adding beans and rice to taco meat, and even black beans in our spaghetti sauce, I use 1 lb meat with 2 cans sauce and then the beans. The other way I save is to price match at stores that allow it, so I get fruit for .99/lb(cant., straw, pineapple, blueberries, etc) quite often. Our farmer’s market isn’t cheaper here so I get it from the store. I’m not allowed to have chickens in our city, but I watch for sales and then we eat lots of eggs:) Gardening also is awful here with the rabbits and I haven’t been able to buy correct fencing to keep them out, and I also figure that I spend as much in watering as I do on produce at the store so this will be my last year for a while. Tristan was right about cutting out things that some people use, napkins/paper plates, etc. We use cloth napkins, and I usually only have about 1 roll of paper towels on hand but use rags for cleaning most things. We also don’t buy junk food, we fill up on fruit or crackers instead. You can also cut out coffee or tea which is a large monthly expense, we do water only with 1 cup 100% juice each day. My friend is so great about coupons, she gets many trips for free, but it hasn’t worked that well for me, I use a few coupons and do the price matching, but with 5 little ones I don’t have time to go to all the different stores to use the coupons. Looking forward to more ideas too, Adrienne
Rachel, I actually looked up the post about chickens that had been done about 10 months ago, where you explained so much about them then. I re-read everything and checked out the website. I got some books and I am going to go with the Buff Orps per your recommendation. My brother was going to bring some chicks to me the other day, and something got them before he could. As awful as it sounds, I was relieved – they were all different kinds and I do not have any where remotely safe for them yet. I am one of those people who like to read up on things and be prepared for it =) Besides, I personally have seen snakes, cats, skunks, raccoons, and a huge possum walking around in my yard. Poor chickens would have no chance here at the moment.
My only problem is that I do not really want to be the exectutioner in this. I have helped with it before, but I didn’t “know” the hens then. How do you handle that? I was thinking about paying a teenager from church whose family does it to do it for me. =)
Rachel, I actually looked up the post about chickens that had been done about 10 months ago, where you explained so much about them then. I re-read everything and checked out the website. I got some books and I am going to go with the Buff Orps per your recommendation. My brother was going to bring some chicks to me the other day, and something got them before he could. As awful as it sounds, I was relieved – they were all different kinds and I do not have any where remotely safe for them yet. I am one of those people who like to read up on things and be prepared for it =) Besides, I personally have seen snakes, cats, skunks, raccoons, and a huge possum walking around in my yard. Poor chickens would have no chance here at the moment.
My only problem is that I do not really want to be the exectutioner in this. I have helped with it before, but I didn’t “know” the hens then. How do you handle that? I was thinking about paying a teenager from church whose family does it to do it for me. =)
Thanks so much ladies! I spend about 175-200 on groceries a week at this point with all the extras(paper plates, TP, soap, etc). I could really stand to get it down to 150 and that would be a huge help.
So do you feel like you reallyl save using plates verses paper?
Would love some recipes for laundry soap, hand soap, cheese, yogurt etc! Bring them on!
Does anyone else feel like they are keeping there kids from eating? My boys are constantly hungry. If I let them eat each meal till they were FULL we’d be living in a paper bag. I’m trying to learn because the groceries are only going to be worse as they get older.
We usually make all our snacks, breakfast is things like toast, home-aid granola, apples and PB etc. Lunch is 95% of the time left overs from the night before.
But I must be doing something wrong? I need to down size.
I totally know what you mean about them eating until they are full. I feed them whole grain and veggies then they are starving 1 hour later. I feel like they know if they are hungry or not but yikes and they are so little still. We will need another job or two to feed them when they are bigger!
I do let them eat until they are full and do my best not to fret about it. That said though once they have had their plate full and seconds if we have any then I give them bread, a roll, or similar.
I do my best not to let any of us be hungry..if that means we eat ramen noodles from time to time then so be it. When my mom was a kid she remembers her parents going hungry so that her and her 5 sisters could eat and often they were not full. It really scared her and I would not that for my kids.
I might go for the animal crackers…they sell large buckets of them at Sams. I am always afraid they will eat a ton of them and be hungry a short time later though since they are pretty much white flour and water.
and other such things.
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