Stretching the Food Dollar

Our bill was $500 last month for a family of 9. Trying to go lower but also wanting to stock up for the coming food price increases so we’ll see : ).

We have multiple food allergies (dairy, egg, soy, nuts, corn syrup) so have learned to use subsitutions which are an easy way to cut back.  I saw someone mention replacing milk with water. You can also use juice if you need some flavor (ie muffins). Eggs can also be replace with water-2T per egg. When cream soup is called for, make a white sauce (found in any basic cookbook-you can use broth in place of the milk)-about 1C equals a can. You can add whatever spices you desire. One of our favorites is dill on the few occasions we eat ham.

Price books (discussed in the Tightwad Gazette): if you record the items you buy in a book with best prices, you will KNOW when you are getting a good deal. Then you can stock up A LOT! We have 10 turkeys in our freezer because I knew that the pre-Thanksgiving prices here were very low. I do the same for just about every food we buy. You then just shop to fill the pantry and cook from the pantry. Check baking goods this month as they are usually fairly low at Christmas time.

We do grind our own wheat and make most from scratch. To save money on the cooking we have only 1-2 days per week when we bake/cook everything. The most expensive part of baking is the heating up of the oven. Once it’s heated it’s cheaper just to bake a lot instead of heating it again later.

Cook using less meat (1/2lb instead of 1 lb), less sugar (1/2 C instead of 1C), etc.

Storage of items: we lived in a dinky two bedroom with three kids at one point! We turned 1/2 our hall closet into a pantry at that point. You can also store under beds, under dressers, in bedroom closets, etc. Just look around for ANY empty space that could hold a little bit (just make sure you inventory what you have where : ). We keep minimal towels (2 per person), sheets (2 per bed), etc so we have extra room for food.

-Rebecca

Linda, Our grinder is a Blendtec by the kitchen mill. I believe it is also known as a Nutrimill. We like it although it is electric. I think I would buy a non-electric one if I was buying now although I haven’t researched them to know which one would be best.

Another idea I thought of was to check prices across food groups. So instead of looking for the cheapest price on chicken, look for the cheapest price on meat in general. For meat price it out per MEAL not pound-so for whole turkeys I can add an extra meal for the bones and bits of meat that I use to make soup. The one place people usually miss this is for breakfast-they look for the cheapest price on boxed cereal or bagels or something but don’t consider how it compares to cheaper options. For us, my kids can go thru 36 ozs of cereal in a meal. So IF I can get it at 10 cents an ounce that’s $3.60. But I can feed them on 1-3 lbs of oats which I can buy for 50 cents a pound (so $1.50 or less for breakfast).

-Rebecca

I love this thread!  Linda – For grinding wheat I use a Wonder Mill.  I LOVE IT!!!!!  I think it saves me a ton of money because I can buy wheat (and other grains) fairly cheaply.  When I’m close to a Mormon cannery I buy there – if is by far the cheapest you will find.  Other times I have bought at Whole Foods, several hundred pounds at a time and they gave me a 10% discount.  You can order things from them that are not in the bins – they have a big book they’ll let you look through and they’ll place the order for you.  My local food co-op is another great source.  And this year the co-op was able to find a local farmer who sold us wheat for $6 for 50 pounds!!!!!

We live in base housing which is small (they all are!).  My master bedroom closet has huge buckets of grains on the floor.  In every closet in the house there are old juice bottles filled with grains and beans at the top.  Under everyone’s beds we have cans of food.  It’s a priority for us so we make do with less “stuff”.  And maybe my closets don’t look all nice and neat or cutesy, but we have food to eat and that’s my biggest concern.

Rene, that site looks awesome.  Thanks for sharing!

Ladies, do you think we can either start a thread or post on our blogs or something, the recipes we use for “cheap eats”?

Rebecca – we’re trying to get rid of cereal too!  My four boys will eat 2 or 3 boxes at one time.  Oh my holy expensive!!!  Now I have them eating oatmeal, muffins, pancakes, waffles, toast and eggs and other such homemade treats.  I will also cook up large batches (double or triple the recipe) so they can eat them as snacks or a quick breakfast another day.  

Heather

I have both a handcrank (Country Grain mill – we used an enlistment bonus) and an electric (Wonder Mill).  For day to day I use the electric.  It takes too much time and effort for me to hand crank enough wheat to make daily bread for my four growing boys.  I had them grinding it for a while, but it took us most of the day to get enough for our baking.  It’s my emergency back up now.

If anyone is interested we can create a blog very easily and post recipes to it.  We can do it two ways – one, anyone who wants to contribute is an “author” and can post; or two, we have one or two people as the blog maintainers and everyone sends their recipes to them and the maintainers post.  I’d be willing to help “maintain” if needed.  We could call it “Cheap Eats and Homemade Treats”.  Or “Stretching Your Food Dollar” or uh, hm, well…..

Lindsay – how do you freeze your waffles to they don’t stick together?  Mine always end up in a big lump.  And any recommendations on a good waffle maker.  I have the cheapy Walmart one and it doesn’t do the best job.  Dark in the middle, light at the edges.

Heather

Heather,

I have a Krups waffle  maker. It’s a top-of-the-line waffle iron, but we received it as a Christmas gift eight years ago, and it still works like new. My waffles haven’t stuck together, even though I haven’t done anything special when freezing them. I did make sure they were completely cooled before I put them in a freezer bag and stuck them in the freezer. Maybe that had something to do with it? You could also put wax or parchment paper between each waffle if you wanted.

Since so many of your families enjoy oatmeal, I should mention that we make our own instant, flavored oatmeal. I buy the large canister of plain, instant, organic oatmeal, pour it in a big plastic storage canister, add enough brown sugar and cinnamon to flavor the whole thing, and we’ve got flavored oatmeal. I got so tired of paying almost $4 for a box of 6 oatmeal packages! Now I spend around $4 for about 20 bowls of oatmeal. If the kids want “fruity” oatmeal, I use the plain oatmeal, add about 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries and cook. The blueberries sweeten it, so I don’t need to add any extra sugar, and they add color and a different flavor.

I also made my own trail mix the other night, and it was really easy and inexpensive, considering I bought all organic ingredients. I found juice-sweetened dried cranberries and blueberries, unsweetened coconut shavings, unsalted almonds, lightly salted sunflower seeds, and raisins for about $12 total. I used all the cranberries and blueberries, about 2/3 of the almonds, 1/3 of sunflower seeds, 1/2 the coconut, and 1/3 of the raisins. It made 2 quarts. That’s a pretty good price for an organic, low-sugar, high-protein snack that will probably last us over a month.

May I say I am L O V I N G  this thread.  Slapping my forehead about the granola making…we used to do that and it was lots of fun but I just got lazy and stopped.  As Linda says, these are not the days to be lazy.  My children have been almost begging me to start making bread again and the homemade pizza crusts they looked forward to every Friday night…makes me a little ashamed that’s I’ve been so indolent but new days are ahead for us!  You all have inspired me so much and I’m so excited! I have recipes to contribute to Cheap Eats and Homemade Treats when you are ready! 

Loving this thread as well.  I make most everything from scratch and that helps on the budget a ton.  For a long time, I would say I don’t have time to make things from scratch, but now I realize that it really doesn’t take that long.  It just takes planning. Laura at heavenlyhomemakers.com has great recipes for homemade snacks and breads that I use a lot.

I do make pizza dough and freeze it.  I make 6-9 pizza doughs at a time. I drop one dough ball in a sandwich bag and then put all the sandwich bags in a big freezer bag.  There is probably a “greener” way to do it, but this works well for me and it’s easy to grab a couple out as I need them.  I take them out the day before and put them in the fridge and they are ready to roll out the next evening.

Anytime I make waffles, pancakes, muffins, biscuits, etc., I at least double the recipe and freeze extras.  The key is like Lindsay said, let them cool completely.  Then, they don’t stick together.  These things are easy to heat up in the toaster or oven.

Another thing that has helped our budget immensely is to waste nothing.  If there is any leftover meat, save it for soup or casserole.  Save bones for making broth.  If you have any fruit or veggies about to go bad, throw them in the freezer and use them later (fruit for smoothies or baking & veggies for broths & soups).  I honestly didn’t realize how often we threw food out until I made it a point to use up everything. 

I would love to get a grain mill too, but so far haven’t shelled out the money for one.  I did the math at one point and it would take about 18 months – 2 years to pay itself off, but there are also great nutritional benefits.  I asked for one for Christmas, but think it’s a little out of the budget right now.

I use instant yeast for the dough and haven’t had a problem freezing it.  Below is a link to the recipe I’ve been using. This make a thin, crispy crust.  Also, the recipe says it makes enough for 6 pizzas, but these would be small pizzas, so I double it and then make it into 6 balls.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001506.html