How to Eat (Well!) for a Week on $20…Without Coupons!!

You don't need a wad like this to eat great meals all week long...

 

Hi friends! I’m happy to report that we are (almost) settled in our new home, meaning I should now have the time and energy to do regular posts and coupon matchups! Yay!! I’m also happy to report that my new kitchen affords me A LOT more room to maneuver and whip up some tasty dinners.

Alas, a new house means we are putting out more money every month on bills, housing costs, utilities etc., so I’ve been thinking extra hard about how to cook up a week’s worth of delicious dinners (and pack a big enough lunch for Mike and myself), while spending even less money on groceries than we usually do. I guess my gratuitous shopping trip to Pier 1 Imports for new (upholstered) dining chairs and a hand-carved trunk from India to serve as a new coffee table (with storage space!) didn’t help financial matters much either, but a girl has to shop sometime (especially when decorating a new house), and FYI I got everything I wanted for half off or more, thanks to a few barely noticeable scratches and stains. Don’t be afraid to point out imperfections when shopping the more expensive stores, or to purchase floor models, it can save you a butt-load of dough!

My new coffee table from Pier 1...a trunk from India hand-carved from mango wood...got it at over 50% off!! Love at first sight!!

If you read this blog, you know that I spend around $20 each week…that includes food, personal care items, laundry detergent, cat food, and everything else in between.

If you are smart (and short on time, as I have been this past month!), you can still accomplish this goal without clipping a single coupon. Don’t get me wrong, I loooove the coupon game. But at certain hectic times in our lives, all the researching, sorting and clipping may not be possible.

Buying grocery store loss leaders, cooking from scratch, utilizing items that you have already stockpiled, and carefully planning meals will be your greatest ally if you need to go “coupon free” for a week (or a month).

Anyway, I thought I’d share next week’s shopping and cooking plan to illustrate how easy it is to have a weeks worth of tasty home-cooked dinners, and simple, filling lunches without breaking the new budget!

Here are my steps in accomplishing this goal:

1. Take stock of your pantry/stockpile. This will let you see what you have on hand, and you’ll probably see that you already have the ingredients for quite a few meals before you even have to open your wallet. Can of beans and a bag of onions? You’re halfway there towards a huge pot of chili. Tuna pouches galore? (guilty!) Try tuna croquettes, a tuna-based pasta sauce, or good old fashioned tuna noodle casserole (or even Tuna Helper…thanks to some awesome sales on Tuna Helper, my pantry probably contains about 40 boxes of the stuff for lazy, hassle-free dinners.
2. Read your grocery store ads, and make note of the best deals (loss leaders). These are usually on meat, lunchmeat and veggies. When I see a great deal, I stock up in bulk, portion it out, and freeze it. For example, this week’s ads are compelling me to buy ground chuck (at $1.89 per lb), whole chickens (at .98 cents per pound), and seedless grapes (at .99 cents per pound). Combined with the deals I got in the past week or two (chipped ham for sandwiches at $1.98 per pound, a 10 lb bag of potatoes for $2.25, etc., I should be able to come up with some fantastically tasty (and super-cheap) dinners for the week.
3. Plan your dinner menu for the week. This saves time, money and, most importantly, your sanity. Remember those chickens for 99 cents/lb I told you about?? Well, with careful planning, a 5 lb bird will easily feed us for 3 days, and the meals will be so different, it won’t get boring. I’ll show you my meal plan shortly.
4. Keep lunches simple. And breakfast too. Here’s my answer to lunch: I stock up on lunch meat when it’s cheap ( like last week) and freeze it into pound-sized portions. Mike usually gets sandwiches made with said cheap meat and homemade/on-sale/bakery outlet bread. On the side I pack him brownies and cupcakes I make at home from mixes I bought for a quarter or less (sale+coupons), hopefully some fresh fruit (like those grapes for 99 cents/lb), and often some leftovers. Sometimes I’ll make a huge pot of chili or soup early in the week for dinner one night, and use the leftovers to put in his thermos for the rest of the week. It costs me around 50 to 75 cents a day to send him to work with a manly-man sized lunch. Breakfast is usually some cereal or scrambled eggs and toast.
5. Try doing one meatless dinner per week. A simple pasta, some pierogies with fried onions and sour cream, filling bean burritos, or some black beans ‘n rice are just as satisfying as a hunk of cow. I know the man in your life might protest at first, but sweeten the deal with some homemade, fresh-from-the-oven brownies or cupcakes after dinner. This works especially well if you’re not the Betty Crocker type.
6. When following a recipe, use slightly less than the called-for amount of meat. As I’ve said before, I portion my ground meat into 3/4 lb portions instead of 1 lb portions, which is what a typical recipe calls for (meat loaf or burritos or tacos or a casserole). No one is ever the wiser, and that 3 lb package of ground chuck just became 4 meals instead of 3 thanks to your craftiness. Good for your heart, great for your wallet!
7. When it comes to meat, start big and work your way down. I call this method of cooking my 3-Day Plan. By this, I mean it’s usually much cheaper (and tastier) to purchase a whole chicken than boneless, skinless breasts, and you are able to stretch that bird into 3 nights of mouth-watering, unique dinners. Ditto for a roast as opposed to those pre-cut hunks of stew meat that cost about a billion dollars per pound. Don’t pay for small conveniences! You can buy a pork-butt roast and cook it up whole the first night, with some mashed potatoes and veggies on the side, and then re-purpose the leftovers the next night by whipping up some Carnita Quesadillas with the leftover shredded pork, some sauteed onions and green peppers, and a little leftover shredded cheese. Slap it on some flour tortillas, and grill it up on the stove-top grilled-cheese style. Serve some cheap -as -dirt rice on the side, with some mexican seasonings and maybe a can of kidney beans. The next night use the rest of the leftover meat in a stew or soup. If you’re stumped for ideas, the internet is a wealth of information. Some sites, like allrecipes.com, allow you to search for recipes based on ingredients. Be creative! I’ll show you my 3-day plan using the 98 cent/lb chicken below.
8. Know which stores have the lowest prices for staple items you regularly buy! Especially if you are too busy to do the coupon dance. For example, I know Aldi’s has loaves of whole wheat bread for 69 cents. Dollar General has the cheapest olive oil if I need it. And so on and so on. Don’t get stuck paying a gazillion dollars at the grocery store on a jar of cajun seasoning you need for a recipe. I can tell you from experience: walk away from the overpriced, teeny-tiny spice jar that costs $4.99!! Go next door to your local dollar store and get it for 50 cents. Put it in a cute spice jar. I won’t tell. Trust me, the difference isn’t that noticeable.
9. Be on the lookout for great sales that you can combine with coupons (especially double coupons!), and when you find them, STOCK UP!! This is how I came to have a pantry/freezer that is full of commonly used staples like frozen vegetables, shredded cheese, cream soups and butter that I got for pennies. While I wanted to do this post to show you can still get a TON of food without coupons, never underestimate the power of a great sale combined with a high-value double coupon!!
10. Make your own snacks! I plunder the discount produce rack for overripe bananas and make some amazing banana bread or muffins. I also use all those cake/brownie mixes I scored for under 25 cents each to bake up some treats to have on hand. On the healthy side, veggies or crackers dipped in some homemade hummus are amazing! And frozen grapes are a sweet treat that’s right in my price range this week! Don’t pay for pre-portioned, pre-packaged snacks!! If you are getting store-bought chips or cookies, buy the whole bag, not the cutesy, individually packaged mini-bags! You’ll pay over double for the “convenience”.

 

My Shopping List for The Week

(Notice that I usually buy more than what I need for the week when the prices are right, freeze it, and save it for later. So, in actuality, I’m spending less than $20 for the week. Cherry-picking the best-0f-the-best deals each week and buying as much as you can afford or store can add up to tons of $$$ saved. Each week I use a combination of what I’ve newly purchased, and items I’ve stockpiled previously in my pantry or freezer.)

• 4 lbs of ground chuck at $1.89/lb (which can be divided into 5-6 portion sizes for dinners) On sale at Shop ‘n Save this week (and at Giant Eagle until Thursday as well)
• 2 4 lb whole chickens at 98 cents/lb (one for this week, one to freeze for later!) On sale at Shop ‘n Save this week, but you can usually find whole chickens anywhere for not much more! Giant Eagle also has fresh boneless chicken breasts on sale for $1.98/lb this week if you’d rather go that route.
• 3 lbs of seedless grapes at 98 cents/lb (you can freeze grapes too!) On sale at Shop ‘n Save this week
• 2 loaves of wheat bread (69 cents each at Aldi’s)
• 1 pint of milk (we don’t drink milk, just use it in cooking) $1.19
• Flour tortillas (99 cents at Aldi’s)
• 1 package of generic American cheese for Mike’s lunch sandwiches (99 cents)
• Beans for chili (I usually use black, kidney and great northern beans) $1.50 for all at Aldi’s. Note: buying dry beans is waaaaay cheaper. I love beans, and plan on starting to use the dry version, which requires an overnight soak. MUCH cheaper, MUCH healthier….slightly less convenient.
• Red or yellow peppers (in the summer, I’d get this from a friend’s garden for free…now that it’s cold outside, I’m stuck paying ridiculous pepper prices. These babies can cost up to $4 PER POUND at the regular supermarket, but luckily, Aldi’s has 3-packs for around $1.50. This summer I’ll be growing my own out back in my garden!)
• Spring Mix for salad (99 cents at Aldi’s)

(This all equals out to around $25, but, as you can see, I’m buying enough meat to be the basis of at least 2 weeks worth of meals. If you only bought what you needed for the week using the sale prices I’ve noted this week, your total would be around $10 for my shopping list. Yours may vary depending on what you have on hand, but remember my shopping tips above to get the best deals and the lowest prices! Remember, this is just an example!)

In addition to the items on my shopping list, I’ll be using some things from my pantry/freezer/fridge: onions, potatoes, rice, tomato paste, shredded cheese (frozen from a great sale+coupon day when it was nearly free!), frozen veggies, spices, garlic, lemons, cornbread, olive oil, butter, etc.

The Week’s Meal Plan

(I’ve included links to some of my favorite versions of these recipes below, but feel free to get creative! Use up what you have on hand, crack open those recipe books your grandma got you for Christmas five years ago, and get cookin’!)

• Monday: The week starts off with a great big pot of chili. I use a recipe I adapted from this Jamaican Me Crazy Chili recipe. It’s VERY flavorful, and a just a little bit different, but still has that classic chili taste. Feel free to omit or substitute items if you don’t have them on hand, I do. Not only is this a great meal for the start of the week (I’ll probably make some corn muffins or corn bread on the side), but now I have a ton of leftover chili to pack in Mike’s lunch for the week so he has something hot to eat.
• Tuesday: It’s time to bust out the bird! A simple dinner of Roast Chicken is a nice change-up from the chili last night. I usually make some homemade mashed or scalloped potatoes on the side, and pick a bag of frozen veggies (in winter) from my stockpile in the freezer.
• Wednesday: Leftover roast chicken makes for excellent Chicken Enchiladas! To complete the South-of-the-Border theme, I usually do some Mexican rice on the side using my rice cooker, and maybe a can of re-fried beans from my pantry.
• Thursday: I work late on Thursday, and there’s still some life left in that old bird, so tonight I’ll probably use the rest of the meat to make a nice, hearty chicken noodle soup. But first, I make my own homemade stock using the chicken carcass, some herbs, and some onions and carrots and celery I have leftover from Thanksgiving. The soup will taste 100 times better with the homemade stock!! On the side I might make some biscuits or rolls, I usually have the refrigerated kind handy from recent sales to make it easy on myself. A nice salad with the spring mix and some dressing from my stockpile will round out the meal.
• Friday: To be completely honest, Friday is a day where we will order a pizza half of the time. Mike is super exhausted from a long week at work, and I don’t get home from work til around 8:30 or 9 pm, so a coupon for a $5.99 pizza delivered to our doorstep is a godsend sometimes. Or we might just have some of the leftover chili from earlier in the week to finish it up before it goes bad. We often make some simple grilled cheese sandwiches on the side to go with the chili, using up any leftover sandwich bread from the week. Mmmm…
• Saturday: I’ll defrost one of my 3/4 lb packages of ground chuck and make a Taco Lasagna. We love mexican! This uses the rest of the tortillas from the package we bought for the enchiladas as well. And I always keep my own special Mexican spice blend on hand. Cheaper than traditional Italian lasagna (damn you, ricotta cheese!), but just as tasty!
• Sunday: I work til 8 pm and usually don’t feel like slaving over the stove since it’s the end of my work week. We will probably do something simple like frozen pierogies and salad, as well as raid the fridge for leftover Taco Lasagna. I usually do a batch of cupcakes or brownies or banana bread for dessert as well, so Mike can have it in his lunch all next week.

There you have it, my low-cost menu plan for the week! Next week it’s back to coupon-clipping and building up my stockpile! I’d love to hear your low-cost menu ideas in the comment section of this post (I’m always on the hunt for some new ideas!)

Extreme Couponing for Us Busy Folk…Only the Best Coupon Matchups for 7/21 through 7/27 That Can Save You Bundles at Shop ‘n Save (Pittsburgh, PA area) and Help Start/Grow Your Stockpile!!

Hot Deals This Week!!

Here is the pick of the litter, the cream of the crop, the most worthwhile deals to be had out there for the week of 7/21/11 at your local Shop ‘n Save (Pittsburgh area only guys, no worries, I’ll be doing national chains tomorrow) 🙂 ...in an abridged version. I’m only sharing the best of the best here, friends…because when I visit coupon matchup sites, I HATE having to scroll through a War and Peace length list of sale/coupon matchups and realize at the end of it all I’ve found only about three worthwhile bargains. Most of the deals listed here are well under 99 cents, and usually cost much, much more. I’ll also be adding some meal/recipe suggestions based on the deals in a day or two!!

I hope you’ve been saving and collecting your coupon inserts my friends, so you can stockpile a few of these great deals!!!

Shop ‘n Save (Pittsburgh, PA area) Sales+Coupon Deals

*Shop ‘n Save is Having Some Awesome 10/$10 deals!!*

 

FYI about Shop ‘n Save…all stores are independently owned and operated, meaning there are no collective, all-encompassing coupon policies or “rules”  that every store must operate under…the best thing to do is to go to the customer service desk and inquire about the specific policies of your local branch…I CAN tell you that all stores DO double coupons (up to 99 cents), and most accept internet coupons and offer rainchecks on out-of-stock items…however, some Shop ‘n Save locations impose limits on the number of internet coupons a customer can use in a transaction, and some stores may double internet coupons while most stores DO NOT. Some stores in the Pittsburgh area also accept competitor’s (other grocery stores, not drug or other types of stores) coupons, which is really cool!! When I went to the customer service desk and asked about the coupon policy at my local branch, they were MORE than happy to cheerfully ramble on for five minutes about the ins and outs…make sure you ask if you can get a copy of a written policy if your store offers it!! Mine did not!

(note: you do not need to buy ten items to get the sale price. This promotion generally means all of the mentioned items are on sale for $1 apiece, regardless of the quantity you purchase!)

• Hamburger/Chicken/Tuna Helper (selected varieties) on sale for $1! ( Use the 75 cents off of three coupon from Smart Source insert 6/12 or 7/17, which will double at Shop ‘n Save to $1.50 off three. If you buy 3, they will only cost 50 cents apiece, a great stockpile price, as these usually go for $2 per box. A 75 % savings!

• Wacky Mac Pasta is on sale for $1 per bag. Use the coupon from the 5/08 Smart Source insert ($1 off 2 bags), and get your pasta fix on for only 50 cents a bag!

• Dirty dishes?? Palmolive is also on sale for $1,  and if you use the Smart Source (7/24/11)  35 cents off coupon (which doubles to 70 cents), you are looking at ULTRA CHEAP dish detergent, a 7.5 oz bottle for only 30 cents!!

• A single roll of ultra-durable Bounty paper towels is also on sale for $1 this week. Use your 25 cents off coupon from the 6/05 P&G Brand-saver insert (which will double to 50 cents), and you’re looking at some heavy-duty paper towels for 50 cents a roll, much more inexpensive than the less effective generic brands.

• Skintimate Shave gel for women is on special this week for $2. Use the 55 cents off coupon from the 7/24 Smart Source insert (which, as you should know by now, doubles to $1.10) and get some premium shaving cream for only 90 cents!

• Click here for a 50 cents off French’s Worcestershire coupon you can use to make the sale price of only$1 for this product go down to at least 50 cents, maybe even free depending on the internet coupon policies of your local, independently owned Shop ‘n Save.

• Who doesn’t need to stock up on aspirin for cramps/headaches/backaches/etc?? Check out this sweet deal: Bayer aspirin (20-24 count) is on sale for only $2.99…use the $2 off coupon from the 6/12 Smart Source insert to bring the price down to 99 cents, and send in the rebate form on the same page as the coupon to be reimbursed for the store price of the Bayer, meaning you can make a little money off of buying Bayer this week. Limit one rebate per household, though. Still, isn’t life grand? 🙂

• Betty Crocker Potato side dishes are on sale for $1. Print this 50 cents off two coupon to get them for 50 to 75 cents apiece, depending on your store’s coupon policy.

The Best Non-Coupon Deals on Meat and Produce:

• Gold Kist Fresh Chicken Leg Quarters are only 59 CENTS A POUND!!! There is so much you can do with this type of chicken, I admit, I was a boneless, skinless chicken breast addict, but if you cook these in the Crock Pot they can either be the main dish with a little seasoning/bbq sauce, or you can shred the meat off the bones for chicken quesadillas/burritos/enchiladas/white chicken chili/chicken n dumplings/chicken noodle soup/chicken hamburger helper/etc. THEN you can use the bones and carcass to make some restaurant-quality chicken stock for your next soup or recipe that calls for it instead of paying over a buck for a little can of crappy chicken broth. Don’t be afraid of a little bones and skin!! Trust me, this will turn out SO much more moist and  tasty than plain old chicken breasts if you cook it in the handy old Crock!

• Green Peppers are on sale for only 99 cents a pound!! I use onions and green peppers in just about all my recipes, so when I find a decent price, I like to stock up a bit, chop the suckers up, leave some in the fridge for my cooking for the week, and vacuum seal and freeze the rest. Green peppers are so versatile… I use them in tacos, sloppy joes, burritos, chili, stuffed pepper soup, etc. etc. This is a decent price for them, not a HOT DAMN!! price, but good enough if you aren’t fortunate enough to be able to garden and harvest your own vegetables (don’t worry, I can’t either and it makes me sad 😦 )

• Red, green and Romaine leaf lettuce is also on sale for 99 cents a pound…use it with some of that super-cheap Kraft salad dressing I clued you in on last week for a great start to any meal!!

• Eckrich Bologna is on sale for $2.49 per lb…best price this week for Mike’s lunchmeat, although he still has some turkey breast and hard salami to use up, so I may have to freeze it!

Sweet Tooth Alert!!!

• OK…it may not be the GREATEST deal on earth, but Chips Ahoy! are on sale for $2 this week. Use the Smart Source 6/19 insert coupon for $1 off two Nabisco cookies, and you can have all the chocolate chip cookies you want for $1.50 per box (when you buy two). Best chocolate fix I could find at Shop ‘n Save this week, so I had to include it in case any of my dear (female) readers were expecting their…ahem…(monthly) visitor any time soon!!!

Soooo…if you are using about $25 dollars worth of collected pocket change from the week, what could you purchase utilizing these sales??(cook some of it this week in conjunction with what you already have in your pantry, and add some to your stockpile). Just a suggestion:

• 2 Betty Crocker Potato Sides

• 2 bottles French’s Worcestershire sauce

• 4 rolls of Bounty paper towels

• 5 Palmolive dish soaps

• 6 bags of Wacky Mac Pasta

• 6 boxes of various Hamburger/Tuna/Chicken Helper

• 8 lbs of chicken leg quarters

• 2 lbs of green peppers

• 1 lbs of romaine lettuce

• 2 boxes of Chips Ahoy! cookies

• 1 lb Eckrich Bologna

• 2 Skintimate Shave gels

• 1 box of Bayer aspirin, which you will actually get your money back and then some after the rebate, but I’m just counting the out-of-pocket expense right now

GRAND TOTAL: $24.97 plus tax (spend more or less according to your stockpile/grocery needs…and don’t forget I’ll be adding Giant Eagle, Rite Aid and Target deals for the week tomorrow!!! But so you see how much you can get for around $20?? It’s a different method of shopping, but when you combine your deals and freebies from week to week you’ll be creating some awesome meals and STILL saving tons of extras for your growing stockpile. It’ll all start to make sense after a few weeks!! After only about a month or two of stockpiling I can look at this seemingly random list of groceries and come up with TONS of meals based on these ingredients combined with what I already have on hand from previous weeks!!

What would YOU buy from this list to equal around $20??

How I Pay for My Weekly Groceries (and stockpile for the future) on Our Pocket Change Every Week

Yes, you too can get everything you need at the Grocery Store for a pile of loose change!!

I’m not exaggerating here folks. Every week I go to the Grocery Store, dump our leftover change for the week into the CoinStar machine, and get pretty much everything we need without having to hand over one paper bill!!

OMG!! The Masters of Frugality would probably say. That machine charges 8 cents per dollar!!! Roll your own coins and take them to the bank and you won’t have to pay the fee!!! What are you crazy??

Well, yes, more than one person has told me I’m crazy. But that’s not the point. I work 50 hours a week, do some freelance writing on the side, keep up with this blog, and still manage to put a nice, homemade meal on the table for Mike 5 times a week. Not having to roll our change (because I SUCK at it, slow as molasses) is something I’m willing to lose out on 8 cents a dollar for.

We routinely have around $25 to $30 worth of change (after the troll in the CoinStar machine takes his cut) and that’s usually all we need to buy our food for the week.

So how do I buy what we need for the week, plus extra to stockpile for the future when the price is free or super cheap?? (FYI…“Stockpiling” is a term, recently made more popular by all the Extreme Couponing going on, that refers to an alternative method of shopping where one buys extras of non-perishable of freezable items when the price is free, for pennies, or severely discounted, so that the shopper will never have to worry about paying full retail for commonly purchased items again.)

Some simple tips, which I will probably expound upon later…

1. Pick your top-ten, most-often cooked, favorite, crowd-pleasin’, hubby lovin’, easy and delicious go-to meals. Scan the ingredients for each. You’ll probably notice several of the same/similar ingredients in a lot of them. Which of these ingredients can you store in your pantry or freeze? This should be the basis of your Master Stockpile List, or the items you should be on the lookout to buy (more than you need at the present) when the price is free, cheap, or heavily discounted.
2. Try not to be brand loyal!! I’m only tried-and-true to a few food items in life, other than those items, I can zig-zag between brands and generics without a second thought. One that comes to mind is Jiff Peanut Butter. It’s OK to have a few favorites you will not deviate from. But have a sense of adventure when it comes to everything else, and your purse will thank you for it. Be willing to try whatever brand is cheapest. I bet (most times) you won’t be able to tell the difference.
3. When it comes to meat, buy Grocery Store Loss Leaders. These are the meats/other deals on the front page of the grocery sale ad, put there to lure the consumer into the store with super low prices. If I find boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.69 per pound, I’m stocking up for two or three weeks on chicken. If I find pot roast on sale for BOGO, I’m getting 4, not 2. Freeze what you don’t need for the next few weeks, and you will be eating cheap chicken instead of paying $3.59 per pound for chicken breasts next week when you get a hankerin’ for some General Tso’s Chicken.
4. Clip your coupons!! Besides everyday essentials like milk, bread, cheese, eggs, and meat, I get everything else I buy for FREE or PENNIES by combining coupons with sale prices. Every blue moon, you CAN find coupons on things like cheese and meat (usually in the form of a store promotion or Catalina coupon offer, but don’t hold your breath!!) Things like condiments, prepared sides, rice, pasta, beans, salad dressing, cake and brownie mixes, canned tuna and many others can be found for free or nearly free by buying at the right time, and then buying more than you actually need to save for a rainy day. Think of it as an Edible Savings Account.
5. Fruits and Veggies?? Plant them yourself, or do some creative bartering if you live in an apartment, like I do!! Trust me, If I had the land, I’d be gardening everything from basil to pumpkins. So much healthier, so much cheaper, so much more rewarding. But I don’t, and I HATE grocery store produce most of the time. Somehow the idea that my tomatoes took a cross-country trip in the back of a dirty truck that took god-knows-how long isn’t appetizing to me. But I digress. I advocate gardening whenever possible for fresh veggies and fruit. Hell, even an apartment dweller can cultivate a pretty nice window herb garden that will save bundles on fresh herbs called or in recipes. What to do if you can’t grow it yourself, and don’t want to pay crazy prices for border-jumping plums? Option A: Your local farmer’s market is WAY cheaper and WAY fresher (aka healthier) than the sad, tired produce being misted in the bins of your grocery store. Option B: Find someone in your community with an ample garden, and offer to take some of their harvest off their hands. This is easier than it sounds. I know so many people who are overrun with zucchini they are practically BEGGING people to take some home. I personally trade one of my happy-hour bar regulars a nice 26 oz draft for a bag full of fresh, organic produce every week.
6. Make it from scratch!! We eat a lot of Mexican around here. Tired of paying $1 to $2 for a tiny seasoning packet for tacos, burritos, chili and the like, I did a quick internet search for homemade spice blend recipes. Now I am making my own out of the spices in my cupboard for a fraction of the cost, and they taste a lot better. It’s up to you how far you want to go with The Homemade Revolution, even thought it’s quite in style right now. For example, my sister makes at least one loaf of homemade bread every day, if not more. Now, she’s  a Stay-at-home mom of only one child, so she spends a bit more time in the house than I do. I’m not sure I could ever have the time or patience to replicate her bread efforts. Quick breads (like banana and zucchini) are relatively simple and fast to concoct, not to mention super-delicious. The homemade possibilities are  endless. My next to-do on this list is to make my own fried rice and Mexican rice, instead of buying those convenient 7 minute packages.
7. Buy cheaper cuts of meat, because a crockpot is your best friend!! As I’ve said before, I’m a Crockpot Zealot. It’s almost magical to me. I almost shed a tear. Throw in a cheap cut of meat and a few veggies/beans/spices/whatever, walk out the door and put in my 8 hours at work, and come home to a house smelling divine with some melt-in-your-mouth dinner waiting for me, all hot and ready to eat?? Sign me up!! With a crockpot you don’t have to pay premium for the choice cuts of meat. You could probably cook a boot in there (as my hunter/fisherman/bar patron John likes to say) and it would taste delicious!!  Buy that whole chicken for 69 cents a pound, slap it in a crockpot with some seasonings, and feed you and your lover for 3 days on mere pennies!!
8. Watch your beverages. Like I’ve said before, we are Iced Tea crazy. We used to buy a gallon a day from the convenience store, and those high prices added up. Now, we brew our own, or purchase drink mixes when they are on sale and we have a coupon, or drink plain old healthy water. Not into water?? Install a filtration system right onto your tap (like Brita), or buy a filtered pitcher. I’ve even seen pitchers on Amazon.com that I’d like to look into, where you can put some fruit or whatever you’d like into a little reservoir in the pitcher, and it infuses the water with the flavor of your choice! Cheap alternative to that expensive Vitamin Water crap that is all the rage now.
9. Pack your lunch! Mike is in HVAC and Plumbing, and these guys can eat A LOT at lunch. Rather than handing him over 5 bucks or more to scarf down some artery clogging fast food in the middle of the work day that might lead to a massive heart attack when he’s out in the sun lifting 50 pound pipes a half hour later, I pack him a lunch every day. Oh sure, I got him the cool NASA-Technology (exaggerating!) thermos, and the super-size construction worker lunchbox/water jug combo and all that (on sale of course), but I only spend around $1 a day packing him a manly-mans lunch, if not less. That includes two or three sandwiches, or leftovers, or a combination of the two, homemade brownies or cupcakes, some pretzels or chips or jerky to snack on (portioned out myself from a regular sized bag), some pasta salad or some fresh fruit. In the winter he gets hot soup/chili in his thermos as well. He’s never hungry, and that’s a hundred dollar savings a month over him buying a fast-food lunch. That’s $1200 a year. That’s a vacation. Think tropical paradise, margarita in your hand, cool ocean breeze blowing over your suntan oil scented body as a steel drum plays somewhere in the background. Is that worth you spending two minutes every night packing your man a lunch? It is sure as hell worth it to me!!

What I Bought This Week:

Remember, I have a lot of our repeat performers stockpiled so I don’t need to buy everything I need for a particular recipe. Right now I even have some cheese and bread stashed away because I got it at a great price. I haven’t been using this method of shopping for too long, so this could be you in a month or two!!

• 4 lbs of chicken quarters (I was a boneless, skinless, chicken breast freak…but one day about a week ago my friend John gave me the most succulent, tasty, moist, bbq chicken he’d cooked int the crockpot. For a lot less a pound, I’m willing to give the chicken quarters a try!! And we’ll get a few meals out of it too, these puppies are huge!!)  $4.00
• Jiff Peanut Butter (Told ya I was very brand loyal to this!) $2.00
• 1 lb of ground chuck (pricier than I’d like, but Mike’s crying for some red meat, and I haven’t found a good price on it in ages!) $2.59
• Butter (store brand, 4 sticks, I will only use REAL butter) $2.39
• Pint of whole milk (likewise, we only like whole milk. Granted, it’s used for cooking 95% of the time, so it’s not like we’re chugging gallons of it. $1.19
• Value pack of bologna (this, and the peanut butter (already have the jelly), will get Mike through the week on lunch till next week, when some nice deli prices roll around and he’ll be enjoying turkey breast, roast beef and salami) 99 cents
• 3 bottles of Kraft Salad Dressing, Asian Sesame, Balsamic Vinaigrette, and Zesty Italian (For all the free Romaine lettuce I’m getting tomorrow from my gardener friend. Got these on sale with a coupon, and would like to stock up on more. $1.50 for all 3 bottles
• 2 huge jars of Pillsbury chocolate frosting with sprinkles!! (Have a nice stockpile of free brownie and cupcake mixes, now I’ve got the frosting to ice them with!!) $1 for both jars
• Sunbird General Tso’s seasoning mix (Mike’s favorite dinner…I haven’t found a homemade recipe that’s cheaper or tastier…just mix this handy little seasoning packet with a little sugar, soy sauce, water and red pepper flakes, and VOILA, you’ve got a recipe quality Chinese dinner at home for a few bucks!) $1.10
• 7 Oral B toothbrushes (to add to my stockpile and give to friends) FREE
• 5 Crest Toothpastes (see above) FREE
• 2 canisters of ready-to-go Kool Aid and 4 canisters of Crystal Lite (His and Hers drink mixes on the cheap…what I paid for all would equal what we used to spend in 2 days on Iced Tea, and these will last us for a looong time!) $4.00

Total Spent:$19.76 plus tax

CoinStar funds from our weekly change:$20.73

Remember, I have cheese, keilbasa, bread, smoked sausage, chicken breasts, beans, frozen veggies and rice already on hand, in addition to a stocked pantry (which includes instant potato sides and hamburger helper for lazy days) so we have a lot of meal options out of this!

And don’t even get me started on all the freebies I got at the drug store this week…my bathroom is starting to look like a mini-CVS! (and Mike is starting to complain!)

What can you do with your leftover change this week! I’d love to hear what you get for it!