I have been busy

Our local big chain grocery store (coughkrogercough) has 8 lb bags of chicken leg quarters on sale this week for $3.47 a bag, so I got 2. Keep in mind this is before I knew that I would have weekend guests (10 people total in my house). That is 16 pounds of chicken, counting the bones. So this morning I got up, started the coffee, started the laundry, and last night's dishes.

Then I proceeded to debone all that meat. I canned 8 pints. That is somewhere between 10-16 meals for us.

I threw all of the bones,skins and fat into a pot and added a couple of gallons of water and boiled it for the hour 15 the chicken was in the canner.

By this time, DH was home for lunch. I took a few of the bones out of the pot and scraped enough meat off of them to add to a box of stuffing mix (generic, for 89 cents) to have "dressing" for lunch.

After lunch, I strained the rest of the bones, skin, etc off of the pot of broth, skimmed the schmaltz off of it (got about 3 cups of that now in the fridge) and canned 7 quarts of broth.

Then I spent the next hour getting all the little remaining bits of meat off of the bones (did you know that the tiny bit of meat in the tail is white meat?) and with the rest of the broth, I am making up some chicken soup. I should have between 4 or 5 quarts when it is all said and done.

So...for $7 worth of chicken, I have at least 15 meals for my family.

Now I just have to clean the kitchen back up and take a shower before everyone gets here. But I have to get all of this done before the hand surgery. Dreading the 6 weeks of a cast.

I am beat.

The cost of eating

Last night, my husband and I had to make a trip to the grocery store for a few necessities, like milk, tea, lunch meat, etc. and I was just appalled at how much prices have gone up in the last few weeks.

The sale price for chicken breasts was $1.99 a pound! On Sale! That is simply insane. Generic canned corn was 79 cents a can. When did that happen? Granted, I do not buy a lot of canned vegetables since I put up most of ours, but the last time I looked they were around 50 cents a can. Some times, if the store is having a case sale, you can get them 3 for a dollar. But almost 80 cents a can is insane. For generic. I didn't even look at the name brand. I was afraid to.

All of this is convincing me more and more that I am not putting up enough food. We need to be able to eat out of jars or the freezer and not have to make bi-weekly trips to the local grocery store. I have canned some chicken and beef, but I am thinking I need to do more. I need to find a couple of bags of chicken legs and thighs for 59 cents a pound (sometimes I can still find them for that) and can them up. 10 pounds bags will make around 8 or 9 pints of meat and 7 or 8 quarts of broth. So for $5.90, that is a minimum of 8 or 9 meals, but really closer to 12 since I don't always use a whole jar of meat per meal for the 3 of us. And the broth is quite useful for a lot of things too, not just soups.

I have canned a lot of fruit this year. Mostly peaches and plums but I have done a few blueberries and some cherries. I think I have enough beans to last the year, but you never really know. I didn't put up enough corn this year but that is one of those things that sometimes we eat a lot, sometimes we don't. I don't know, I guess we will be OK.

I plan to start curing some more Canadian bacon today. My son really likes that for sandwiches in his lunch bag. And it freezes well so I might as well. And the pork loin was on sale for less than $2 a pound, which is quite a bit cheaper than over-processed lunch meat.

I really don't know how people on fixed incomes or low incomes with families can afford to eat. I realize the over-processed convenience foods are cheaper, but you don't actually get much food value out of those.

There has to be a balance somewhere in all of this.

The daily grind

There is still an awful lot of stuff going on here. Both of the kids are back in school, only one of which is still here, and it seems I STILL have some house cleaning to do from all of the renovations we have done in the last month. The laundry is finally caught back up and the dishes are getting done every day.

Today, I got the joy of sitting in the doctor's office for three hours with an IV stuck in my arm and had to give them large sums for the privilege. But in a day or two, I will not hurt so much. But it is looking like I will be having surgery on my wrist at some point before the end of the year. Won't that be fun?

And to top everything off, my husband's uncle is in a coma and has hung on almost 48 hours longer than the Hospice folks said he would. So, the black suits and dresses have been dry cleaned and are ready to be packed for a quick trip to Fort Worth any day.

We were given a bag of tomatoes and jalapenos yesterday, so I made salsa and I dried the majority of the peppers. Not really sure what I will do with them. We don't eat a lot of jalapenos, but I am sure I will find some use for them, sooner or later.

I guess it is a good thing that , along with everything else, I have some easy meals either canned or frozen. I do not feel like cooking tonight.

Canning Meat

Well, today I am trying my hand at canning some beef. I know that it can be done because it has a list of recipes in my canning bible. I also know because when we were cleaning out my great-aunt's house, we found a bunch of jars of canned meat in the basement. They had shed snake skins wrapped all around them so there is no telling how old they were, but they still looked edible. But we didn't. dumped it all out in the fire pit we had dug to burn all of the other trash. Saved the jars though.

But anyway...

I am running out of freezer space so I thought I would try the whole canning thing. I figured stew meat was going to be the best option and the easiest to do. Pressure canning it should make it really tender. We will see.

If it works out, I may try to do some chicken next. That would be very convenient for those nights this winter when I really don't feel like cooking. That would almost be instant soup or chicken salad. I probably won't can up a lot of meat. Can't really afford to, but when I can find a really good sale, it is an extra option. And it will be nice to have a few quick meals ready for those nights when I will be chasing kids after school.

Pasta, Rice, and Potatoes

A couple of days ago I mentioned how pasta, rice, and potatoes can really stretch your food dollars. I have found that those three items go a lot farther than most people would think.

Let's take pasta first. When most people think of pasta, they think of spaghetti or other Italian dishes with a tomato or cream sauce. But there is a lot more to it than that. You can use pastas of different shapes and sizes for just about any meal. Egg noodles are one of our favorites.

You can seriously cut down on the amount of meat you use for a meal with a simple meat gravy over egg noodles. The noodles are great because they don't take very long to cook, are very inexpensive, and exceedingly versatile. One of the easiest meals that I make with them is a ground beef gravy. Brown about 1/2 pound of hamburger meat and drain off the fat, add your favorite seasoning salt, chopped onion, chopped peppers, mushrooms, whatever you and your family likes. Pour in 2 1/2 cups of water or beef broth (if you use water, add a couple of beef bullion cubes to give it flavor) and bring it to a boil. In 1/2 cup of water, stir in 2 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch. If you have any Kitchen Bouquet, add that to the cornstarch mix (it enhances both the flavor and the color). When you have a good boil going in the meat, slowly add the cornstarch water to the pot, stirring constantly so you don't have lumps. Continue to boil until it is almost thick. It will continue to thicken as it cools so don't worry if it looks a little thin. The thing to remember is that the cornstarch has to boil to cook it or it will taste kinda gritty. Serve over egg noodles. This will make around 3 cups of meat gravy, so if you consider a serving to be 1/2 cup, then that is 6 servings out of 1/2 pound of ground beef. Just make sure you have plenty of noodles. If you don't have any hamburger, you can use round steak or chuck cut into thin strips and cook it the same way. Just remember that it doesn't take a lot of meat. The meat is for flavor, the pasta is the meal.

Another good thing about pasta is that it can be just as good cold as it is hot. Take a pasta salad. That is a wonderful meal for the summer months. You can make it up ahead of time and just chill it in the fridge until dinner. One that we like is almost an antipasto type. Boil a package of rotini (the spiral ones) until soft but not mushy. Drain. Mix in chopped onion, chopped pepper, a shredded carrot, mushrooms, sliced black and green olives, whatever you have handy. You can add leftover chicken (chopped) or pepperoni slices, or summer sausage, or whatever tidbits of meat you have hanging in the fridge. A crumbled hamburger patty is good too. Toss it all with Italian dressing and cover it. Stick it in the fridge until you are ready for dinner. Sprinkle it with Parmesan cheese. This is good with a salad and fresh fruit. Keep in mind that 1 pound of pasta will serve about 8, so if you don't need that much, don't cook the whole pound of pasta.

These are just a couple of our favorites, but they give you the idea. It lets you feed a family a good meal that is also inexpensive. This is also good when you have company coming and not a lot of cash to feed every one. Just make a double batch. Still cheap, but it doesn't look or taste that way.

Rice is another way to spread the meal around. Whether it is steamed, boiled, baked, in a stir fry, risotto, as a pilaf, in a pudding, whatever, rice will seriously stretch out your food dollar. When you consider that a pound of rice is about $1, and it will almost (but not quite, 1 cup of rice will make about 1 3/4 cup cooked) double in size when it is cooked, adding rice to a dish is a great way to bulk out a meal. Add a handful to a soup pot to add texture. Whip up a quick stir fry for lunch. Make a rice pudding for dessert. Drop a couple of bullion cubes to a pot of boiling rice for flavor. Use it as a base for meat gravy instead of pasta. Or just boil some up for breakfast, served with butter and sugar.

You can find a zillion recipes that use rice on the web. It isn't just for Chinese food. And because it is a grain, that is healthy for you. Using brown rice is even better since it is whole grain.

For a meal on the cheap, baked potatoes are probably one of the best. A little butter, some shredded cheese, a few bacon bits, add a salad and dinner is served. Roasted, boiled, baked, fried, steamed, grilled, in a casserole, hash browns, scalloped, au graten, potato salad, mashed, etc, there are enough ways to make potatoes that you can have them every day for a year and never have them the same way twice. They are low fat, high fiber, and best of all, generally cheap. Adding potatoes to a meal will allow you to serve less of everything else since potatoes will bulk out a meal. My general rule of thumb is 1 medium sized potato per adult, 1/2 for each child under the age of 10 or so. This doesn't always work, you have to take family preferences into account, but it is a good general idea. For instance, for fried potatoes, I usually peel 6 for my family of 4 because we really like them. But for mashed potatoes, I only use 4. The plan is to make enough, but not too much. Unless it is potato salad, potatoes don't really reheat well, so to save on waste, only cook what you actually need.

An easy way to roast potatoes is to wash them really well and cut them into about 1 inch chunks. In a large ziplock bag, add about 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning. Add the potatoes to the bag and shake it up really well to cover all of the potatoes with the oil and seasoning. Pour it all out onto a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes start to brown. You may need to stir these around a couple of times to keep them from sticking to the pan, but I promise, they are wonderful.

Pasta, Rice and Potatoes...great ways to spread out your food dollars without your family thinking they are being cheated. Cheap, versatile, and really really good.

Saving Money List

I have been thinking about all of the things I do around the house to save money. Granted, some of it doesn't save a lot, but over time all of the little things really add up.

Take, for instance, light bulbs. Granted, 1 light bulb by itself doesn't make a big deal, but all of the lights in the house over the course of the month actually do make a savings. So as a bulb burns out, I change it to a CFL(compact fluorescent light) bulb. They do cost a little bit more up front, but they burn about a tenth of the electricity and last much much longer. Making sure the lights are turned off if no one is in the room makes another difference.

I know I have mentioned this before, but a clothesline, especially in the summer, makes a HUGE difference. My dryer takes forever to dry things like jeans and towels and that eats a lot of electricity. And it heats up the house, making the AC have to work harder. So by hanging out clothes on the line I have seen a savings of between 25%-50% of the usage on my electric bill. So it is worth the $3 in string and the $2 in clothes pins? Absolutely. And on top of that, I can do more loads of laundry at a time because they dry so much faster. Usually by the time one load is washed, the first load is dry. A weeks worth of laundry done in 1 day.

Turning the AC up to about 78 degrees makes a difference too. With the ceiling fans to circulate the air, it feels much cooler than that and it cuts the electric use as well. If I am in the kitchen canning or baking, I use a box fan as well. If your summers don't get too terribly hot or your house is well shaded, don't use the AC at all. Just open the windows and use the fans. Believe it or not, they draw less power than running the AC.

Cooking from scratch instead of eating out or buying ready made or boxed meals is also another money saver. I can make at least 3 meals for 4 people out of a whole chicken that costs me $5. I actually once made a meal for 14 people out of 1/2 chicken, about 1/2 pound of carrots, some stray pasta, and some left over fresh veggies in the crisper(celery, spinach, onion, bell pepper, and a half shriveled leek) and a couple of dashes of hot sauce. It made about 3 gallons of soup, and we buttered up some sandwich bread that was going stale and toasted it in the oven. By the time every one got seconds or thirds, there was about 1/2 cup left over. With a little creativity, you can make some very inexpensive meals. Pasta, rice, and potatoes are great for stretching out meats to make them go farther without feeling like you are depriving yourself. More on that in another post.

I have also mentioned that I make my own soap and laundry detergent. Granted, making the soap isn't really necessary for saving money, but with all of the allergies in our house, it is just a good idea for us. The laundry soap on the other hand is wonderful. You can use just about any kind of soap you want and it just costs pennies a load. Very easy to make and costs about 70 cents to make 2.5 gallons. Much better than 6$ for less than a gallon of detergent.

We have just about stopped buying cleaning supplies too. Vinegar and water make a fine window and surface cleaner and baking soda works great as a Comet or Ajax substitute.

Stocking up on things when they are on clearance is another way to save cash. I have a freezer full of meat and veggies from the clearance sales. The pantry is full to bursting with food that I have canned myself or things that I have gotten on closeout or on a really good sale. The only thing I really have to grocery shop for is stuff like milk(and other dairy stuff like cheese and butter) and eggs. We have been buying our cereal at Big Lots and the dollar stores and the bread from the thrift store.

One habit we did have to break was buying food just because it was on sale. At one point we had almost 20 boxes of Hamburger Helper because they were on sale for a dollar and we had coupons for .50 off of 3 that would double to a dollar off. The problem with that is we do not eat a lot of Hamburger Helper. We have found that I can make the same thing without the mix. So it is almost a year later and we still have about 10 boxes taking up space in my pantry. So even though they were plenty cheap enough, it wasn't worth the .60 each we spent on them.

Gifting is another thing we have cut back on. It has been unanimously decided by both sides of the family that Christmas gifts are just not needed. We spend way too much time and money on things that will probably not be like or needed so we decided to just cut it out completely. None of us really have the spare cash at that time of the year anyway. For birthdays, we just call the folks and have a good chat. For Father's day this year I made my Husband a shirt instead of buying one. Needless to say, he was a little surprised. I haven't had the sewing machine out for a good long while and I made sure that everything was put away by the time he got home from work.

I have made 2 baby blankets (crochet) for shower gifts instead of buying something. It just seems a lot more meaningful if you make a gift instead of buying it. Time and effort do still mean something to people especially, if it is customized to their tastes.

I am sure there are other things I do to save money that I am just not thinking of right now. But I will pass them on to you when I think of them.

Grocery store canning

Yesterday I took a small trip to the local national chain grocery store to check out the marked down produce. The trucks run there on Tuesday and Friday so if I go in the early morning, they are marking down produce to make way for the new stock. I came away with about 11 pounds of pears for $6, organic baby carrots for $1 a bag, bell peppers for 25 cents each, some really nice portabella mushrooms for $1.75, a big bag of shallots for 50 cents, and 2 bags of green beans for a dollar. I also got a bunch of strawberries for less than the U-Pick-Em price.

Needless to say, I was busy yesterday afternoon. I canned 2 quarts of green beans, 5 pints of carrots, and 6 pints of spiced pears and dried the mushrooms. I am going to dry the peppers today and make some strawberry jam.

So for about $25, I got a pretty fair amount of goodies to feed the family. It may not be enough to last the winter, but it is a good start. And after all, any is better than none.

I still want to hit up the farmer's markets to get peas, tomatoes and corn. I wish I could find broccoli and cauliflower, but it is just too hot here to grow that well and it would already be picked even if it was. Maybe I can find some seeds and start some this summer for a winter garden. I wouldn't can them, but they do freeze very well.

On a side note, I got ambitious last week and decided that the big empty space in my garden needed something in it. I looked around the house for stray seeds to plant. I happened upon a 4 pound bag of dried pinto beans in my pantry, so I took a handful (or two) of them and soaked them for a couple of hours, then planted them. In less than a week, I had almost a hundred (yes, I counted them) baby bean plants in my 8' X12' garden. Wow! I really wasn't expecting that many to come up. After all, they are not intended for seed, they are meant to be eaten so I planted them kind of thick. I did make zig-zag rows to be able to plant more in a small space, but, Geesh. I will likely have fresh pinto beans coming out of my ears before it is all said and done. A good thing we like beans.

All in all, I think we will at least have a good supplement to our winter food supply. Maybe we can come away with a much lower grocery bill and a healthier eating habit because of it.

Get a Freezer, Meat Loaf, Meat balls

I have said it before and I will say it again. If you want to save money on your grocery bills, get a freezer. It doesn't have to be a big one, but get one. Either an upright or a chest freezer will do, just get one. They are only a couple of hundred dollars and the upfront costs are nothing compared to how much you will save. The freezer on the refrigerator just isn't big enough.

Any time your local grocery store runs a sale on something you use a lot of, like hamburger or frozen veggies, buy in bulk. You will save a bundle over the course of a year. It is also very useful for storing things like rice and sugar to keep out bugs until you need them. We even freeze bread we get from the thrift store.

I have mentioned this in previous posts, but you can make up meals and store them in the freezer until you get ready to use them. I make up meat loaf, meat balls, boiled chicken, and smoked pork and put them down into meal sized bags and take them out as needed. It makes it a lot easier on those nights when I either don't feel like cooking a big meal or we are in a hurry because of the kid's schedules.

Meat balls are by far the easiest to do. When your local grocery has hamburger on sale, buy a lot. I generally make up about 3 pounds at a time. Here is my recipe.

3 or so pounds of ground beef
1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs or 1/2 cup per pound of meat
1/2 cup of dried onion or 1 cup of finely chopped fresh onion
1 tablespoon salt or to taste
1 teaspoon black pepper or to taste

Mix everything together very well. I use a stand mixer but you can do it by hand. Make balls of meat about the size of a walnut or about 1 inch balls. Place them on a cookie sheet with the sides just barely touching. When your cookie sheet is full, put them in the freezer overnight. The next day, you have solid little balls that you put in a gallon sized freezer bag.

These are great for a quick meal. Just take out what you need. They don't even have to be defrosted. You can either fry them or bake them and add your favorite pasta sauce, or you can use a brown gravy with onions. We like them both ways. Brown gravy with onions over rice or egg noodles is probably our favorite.

To make a meat loaf, use the same recipe but add about a 1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers to the mix. After everything is mixed together, line a loaf pan with waxed paper and fill it with the meat mix. Freeze it over night then remove it to a freezer bag. You now have a couple of no mess meat loafs for those days you are in a hurry. And since you formed them to fit your pan, you don't even have to thaw them out before sticking them in the oven. It does take a little longer to cook, just use a meat thermometer to check for doneness. A little work up front for a big payoff in the end.

Frugal cooking

One of the best ways I have found to save money is on the cooking vs eating out mind set. Cooking doesn't have to be the chore that everyone thinks it is. Even if you have never cooked before, you can start making your own meals and save hundreds every month.

One of the very first things you should do if you have never seriously cooked before is invest in a good cookbook. I would suggest one of the big Betty Crocker ones with the red and white checked covers. It will cover every type of basic cooking from appetizers all the way thru snacks and desserts and it is also very easy to read and understand. Some of the more complicated dishes even have step by step pictures. Granted, these are generally just basic recipes, but for someone who hasn't cooked before, it is a great asset.

Another thing to do is always keep a supply of staples on hand. I always have a cabinet full of seasonings and spices, dried beans, different pastas, and grains (barley, rice, oatmeal, corn meal, plain and self rising flours, and grits). It is also a good idea to keep sugar or sweeteners on hand, including brown sugar and powdered sugar, and cocoa, corn starch, baking soda and baking powder. These are just a few of my pantry staples to get a general idea. Most of these things can be easily purchased in bulk since they all store well as long as they are kept dry and cool. Add vegetables and meats to these basic things and you can make just about any type of meal you want.

One of the things you really want to stay away from buying is mixes. Do you really need to spend $2.00 on a box of brownie mix when you have everything to make brownies at home already? Lets say you buy the mix on sale for $1.75. You still have to add eggs and oil or butter to the mix. So you buy a dozen eggs on sale for $1.19. You have butter or margarine at home already. So now these brownies are costing you $2.94. At home you already have the cocoa, sugar, self rising flour, and butter. So you spend $1.19 for the eggs instead. Now your decision to make brownies is only costing you a little over a buck. But since you will only be using 2 or 3 of the eggs, it is actually only costing about 20 to 30 cents. See the point?

In the last month, I have managed to cut our food spending by half, just by not eating out. I took a day to cook and freeze several different meats for those days when I just don't feel like cooking or when we would need a quick dinner because of the kid's schedules. Those would be the days that we would normally eat out. I have even made up some hamburger patties and froze them so that hamburgers would be quick and painless.(secret--put small squares of waxed paper between them so they don't stick together.)

Learning to cook is well worth the time and effort if you are serious about saving money and eating healthier. You will be able to control the amount of fat and sodium in your foods, you can make sure that the freshest possible ingredient are being used, and you will not have some minimum wage person that you don't know handling your food. It is also very satisfying to be able to make it yourself. Your friends and family will be in awe of your new skills in the kitchen and will want your recipes.

And the best part is that you will be saving a ton of cash in the process.

Healthy meals on a budget

Low fat doesn't have to mean low taste. I have taken the extra fats out of lots of common everyday meals without any noticeable loss of taste. When you saute meats or vegetables, use broths instead of fats. You are actually adding flavor without adding any fat. I have done this with meats, stir fry, and even vegetables. That is where the ice cube tray comes in handy for freezing broth. Any time you cook meat and there is juice in the pan when you are finished, save it. It is amazing the amount of beef flavor you can get from a pot roast to add later to your soups or rice.

A few tips to follow when you are getting ready to start cooking frugally is to keep in mind the things you have on your shelf. What are you most likely to eat first? Can you make it yourself? Even if you can make it yourself, is it cheaper to make it or buy it? Will everyone in your household like it or just you or your spouse? Is your favorite recipe going to make enough of that meal to feed an army or just the two of you? Can you freeze it?

These are some of the things that ask myself every time I have to go shopping. The things we are most likely to eat first are snack foods. I have two teens in the house and my son will eat the pantry bare if I let him. My husband is also a big snacker. I try to keep things for everyone to nibble on between meals that doesn't involve chips and candy. Brownies seem to work out fairly well as does popcorn.

Since I cook a lot, there aren't really many things that I can't cook myself that aren't as good or better than purchased. This is a major plus on the frugal side. I have learned how to adapt a recipe to use less expensive ingredients and to make it healthier than most of the frozen convenience foods available. Recipes are available all over the internet or just flip thru a cook book to get some basic ideas. Soup is by far the healthiest choice. And soup can be just about anything you want to make it. Have left over mashed potatoes? Make potato soup for lunch the next day. Just add milk, black pepper, and a little shredded cheese. Add a piece of unbuttered toast and a salad and you are good to go. Have some bacon left from breakfast? Make a bacon and cheese sandwich for lunch. Left over breakfast sausage is perfect for adding to fried potatoes or use it to make cream gravy with biscuits the next day( I am Southern, can you tell?) Never let anything go to waste. Have a spoonful of corn and half a spoon of beans or peas left from dinner? Put them together in a freezer bag. Keep adding to it until the bag is full then thaw it all out together and make soup.

I have discovered that while I can make my own bread, it is actually cheaper for me to go to the thrift store to buy it. I can get a big loaf of brand name whole wheat sandwich bread for 69 cents. If I figure the cost of the yeast and flour, plus the energy used in baking it, it cost me way over that. I can still cost effectively make dinner rolls and specialty breads like cinnamon swirl, but for sandwich bread, it just doesn't justify.

Will everyone eat it is a tough one at our house. My husband isn't fond of pork, my son doesn't like sauces or eggs, my daughter will eat just about anything except corn ("corn is evil" she says) and I am not likely to cook something that I won't eat. It makes for some interesting meal times, but we have found ways around it.

Making a pan of lasagna is expensive, but by splitting it into two pans, bake one and freeze one, makes it almost cost effective. Soup can be done the same way. Soup is a very inexpensive way to serve up left overs and you can split it up and freeze part of it for a meal another day. If your family just can't give up an expensive meal, save it for a special time like for a birthday or anniversary. Or if you only make it once every couple of months, cut costs on other meals that month to make up for it. The secret here is to don't stop making it altogether, just cut back on when you make it. You don't want to feel deprived of your favorites, just make them more special.

Another thing we do at our house is freezer night. Evey couple of weeks, we go through the freezer and find the 10 chicken nuggets, 3 fish sticks, a hand full of frozen peas, the few french fries left in the bag, leftovers in the fridge, anything that isn't enough to make a meal by itself and cook it all for one meal. Everyone can take a little of everything or if they don't like it they can skip that food completely. This has a dual purpose. You can clean out the fridge of anything that might get overlooked or buried on grocery day and it will help insure that no food will get wasted. I usually do this the night before a planned shopping trip. The kids like it because it gives them another shot at leftovers they had forgotten about and it is kinda fun to just go digging thru the freezer. It also helps you get creative with ways to recycle veggies into a meal.

With a little planning, the weekly grocery trip will stretch a lot farther.