The Price of Food

The soaring price of food itself has been all over in the news lately. I have not personally seen my bill go up but many people have and I believe that it has a great deal to do with what you buy. When I plan out my meals, I always pick things that are fast and easy to make. The easy part means picking meals that don’t require a lot of ingredients in them. This keeps cost down as well as my sanity when I am cooking. I also do not include any meat in my meals. This is because I happen to be a vegetarian but it also has the effect of saving us money. Meat is expensive! I do splurge on some fresh wild salmon when it is on sale but most of our protein comes from cheese, beans, shrimp and tuna. Beans are a wonderful source of protein and they are cheap. That is why they are one of the staples of the people of Costa Rica (named one of the healthiest places to live because their people have the longest life expectancy). There are many wonderful meals you can make with beans being in the main dish or side dish that are very yummy. Like Mexican pizza, Costa Rican beans and rice, and bean enchiladas. You can find more ideas for meatless cheap food at one of my favorite web sites hillbillyhousewife.com. I would challenge any family trying to cut costs with just serving two meatless meals a week. See if it cuts your food bill just a bit. If you just can’t put down the steak, shop the sales and warehouse clubs, and make friends with a hunter. Maybe they will share some of that deer or moose they get with you. Unless they are feeding five children chances are they will have plenty left over after winter.

I am a big believer in store brand food. Look down people! All the way to the bottom shelf, that is where you find the deals. At Fred Meyers (a Kroger store), they even have the cheaper then the store brand. It is called FMV (For Max Value). Now I am not saying that you can go generic with everything but some things are the same no matter what brand they are and some things are better when they are store brand (like the FMV frozen veggies, the only mix with out lima beans all for $0.89). For instance, some store brand items I buy are mayo, mustard, ketchup, eggs, yogurt, canned fruit, rice, sugar, and hot dog buns, but I will buy brand name tortillas, tea, refried beans, fish sticks and bread. It is all about your tastes and the quality of the item. It just requires a little bit of experimentation on your part.

Cheap Date

One of my favorite ways to save money is to play with my food budget. We spend for a family of two (the baby is still getting all of his food from me via boob) $250 a month. That is $200 at the grocery store and $50 at Costco. My husband does not go out to eat for lunch so this figure includes the lunches I pack for him. For some families, $250 is a lot of money for food, but many people struggle to keep there food budget in line. One of the ways that I keep my food budget reasonable is by making a menu of dishes for two weeks and just buying what I need for those meals. I do not schedule what we are going to have on a particular day, I just look at my menu and pick from there. This way I only have to go shopping every other week. This saves on time and gas. It may sound like a no brainer, but I see people running to the store for this or that all the time. It is such a waste! A little planning will prevent this. I also believe that having meals on hand has prevented us from going out to eat many times. We have all been there; you get home from work and look at your mate and say “what’s for dinner?” “I don’t know, let’s go get something.” Trust me, it’s a lot easier to resist that impulse when you have a few meals to pick from and know that you have what you need to make them. Now I am not saying that I follow my menu exactly but I find that having the ingredients to make 14 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners makes it easy to change things up. For instance, I might buy shrimp, veggies, and rice for shrimp scampi, veggies, and seasoned rice, but I can just as easily make garlic chili shrimp, lemon garlic veggies, and plain rice (assuming of course that you have the right spices on hand). Tune in next week when I go over the tips I have learned to make sure you get cheap quality ingredients for your meals.

Hello World!

So here I am blogging, I suppose that I should start out by telling a little about myself. I am a 23 year old stay at home mom to one 3 1/2 month old boy. I have been married for three years to my wonderful 30 year old Harley riding husband. I live in the Pacific North West near Seattle. As the name of the blog says, I am extremely thrifty. Saving money is always on my mind and I love to share my discoveries with anyone willing to listen. Some of the things that I love to talk about are home births, cloth diapering, coupon clipping, home cooking, do it yourself projects, babies (especially mine) and anything that involves saving me, my family or anyone else money. So there you have it.