Saving Money on food

With the economy like it is, we are all trying to do more to save money. And there are as many ways to do that as there are grains of sand at the beach. Not every tip will work for all families but a few are just common sense. Don't buy it if you don't need it, shop around for the best deals, don't buy disposable anything if you don't have to, etc.

Since I have two teens, one of which will be headed for college in the fall, we have to save wherever we can. Our biggest way is to cook at home instead of eating out. In the last year or so, we have cut back on the number of times we eat out every month, and have started being more careful of what we buy at the grocery store. I have even found better ways to use up leftovers (so they don't look like leftovers).

My absolute favorite way is to cook big once or maybe twice a week, and eat leftovers the rest of the time. I use my smoker a lot that way. Smoke a pork roast or fresh picnic roast. The same time you are smoking the pork, you can smoke some whole chickens for later in the week. Chop up what meat isn't eaten and put that into meal sized freezer bags and throw it in the freezer. The leftover pork roast can be heated with BBQ sauce for sandwiches the next night, and the bones and meat tidbits left (not the BBQ ones) can be thrown into a pot of beans for yet another meal. And the leftover beans can be used to make bean burritos the next night or for lunch. The chicken can be sliced onto a salad, sauteed into a stir-fry, made onto sandwiches, chopped into soup or dumplings, or make chicken salad. Not only are you stretching your food costs by only cooking once or twice a week, you give yourself some very easy, super fast meals for hectic weeknight dinners.

Another way to save money on food is to do it yourself. Shredding your own cheese can save dollars per pound on the cost of cheese. And is will not have all of the anti-clumping additives that are just not really healthy for you. Buy a big chunk and shred it all at once. This is why Ziplock bags were invented. And as an added tip, use the finest shred you can. Your cheese will go farther. It is all in the psychology of it. It looks like you are using more, but by weight, it is actually less. And sharp cheddar will go farther than mild. More flavor, and all of that.

Not everyone has the time to make it all yourself, and sometimes it is just cheaper not to. Take bread for instance. It is cheaper for us to buy our sandwich bread from the bakery thrift store than it is for me to make it. That is partially because of the price of ingredients and the electricity to run the oven, but more because we can buy a loaf of 100% whole grain, Name Brand bread at the thrift store for 80 cents, and the store is only a couple of miles from the house. And we drive by it fairly often. I still make things like flat breads, baguettes and dinner rolls, but hamburger and hot dog buns and sandwich bread we get from the thrift store. This won't work for everyone, but there ya have it. Bread does freeze well, so if you stock up by buying a month's worth at a time, it could be worth a special trip to the store.

Use your freezer. It is more than a place to store ice cream sandwiches. Any time meat goes on sale, or veggies, or most fruits, you can stock up and freeze what you will not up fresh. Just remember to get as much air out of the freezer bags as possible to prevent freezer burn. And date everything so you will remember to use the oldest first. I have even frozen leftover veggie side-dishes (like corn or green beans) into 1 large bag and when the bag gets full, make soup. Soup is an excellent way to use up leftovers before they go bad.

We also have what we call a freezer night. Once a month or so, I go through the freezer and pull out partial bags of french fries, a few pizza rolls, whatever I can find in there that needs to be eaten. I usually will have several things that don't really match what you would consider a "normal" meal. A couple of burritos, some fish sticks, some mixed fries and tater tots, that bag of frozen brussel sprouts that you got on sale and never cooked, you know, that sort of thing. Cook it all. Everyone can get a bit of everything or one person can get all of the fish sticks while some one else gets the burritos. However you want to do it. This is a great way to not only clean out the freezer to make room, but also you are not wasting food that you would normally have to throw out because you forgot it is there. And my kids think it is a fun way to have dinner since it isn't so formal. I will usually bake everything that I can (like fries, fish sticks, and burritos) on the same baking sheet to avoid making a mess frying every thing. And it is just faster too. Microwaves are good for doing the veggies. So I can generally have dinner ready in less than 30 minutes without a lot of fuss or a lot of clean up.

But anyway, saving money is all in the mindset to think outside the box. Find ways that your family can live with. Look back at some of my other posts for other ideas on how WE save money.

Preserving foods

There is more than one way to preserve the fruits and veggies of summer. You can either can, freeze or dehydrate just about any kind of produce to save it for later in the year. I use all three different methods not only to save money, but also to control the quality of the food my family eats.

The dehydrator is a wonderful appliance for drying fruits and veggies for later use. It allows me to buy fresh food when it is on sale and use it later. I have dried onions, bell peppers, corn, strawberries, cantaloupe, fruit leathers, potatoes, whatever I have that will spoil before I can use it all. Just the onions alone save me a lot of money over buying the dried onion flakes. The strawberries are great in breakfast cereal, and the kids just love the dried fruit and the fruit leathers as a snack. I can store the fresh foods in the pantry instead of in the refrigerator so it take a lot less space and I know that they are eating something healthy instead of junk food.

The freezer, for us at least, is a must. I store everything from fresh veggies and meat to bread and grains in my freezer. Most foods can be frozen without loss of nutrition and it is extremely easy to do. And you do not need any special equipment to do it. All it takes are some good quality freezer bags. Just look in the frozen food section of your local grocery store to see the wide range of fruits and vegetables that can be frozen.

Canning is more time intensive and requires an investment in equipment and supplies. But once the initial investment is over, you can save loads of money on food by growing your own. We have such a tiny yard that we only grow high yield foods like beans and peas, but we do get a larger selection by going to farmer's markets and roadside stands. We also hit up relatives who garden for their extra produce. It is cost effective and delicious.

Some foods can be processed into jars without the use of a pressure cooker. Things like fruits generally do not have to be canned with pressure. Jellies,jams, pickles, and most tomatoes do not have to be pressure canned.

There are lots of resources online to find recipes for canning. Or you can buy a Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It will tell you how to preserve just about everything by several different methods. You can get one on Ebay for a couple of dollars or on Amazon for anywhere between $5-25 dollars. They are an extremely valuable resource for anyone who wants to preserve their own food.

Farmer's Markets, Freezing corn

Growing your own food isn't the only way to save money on groceries. If you don't have enough space, or if you just don't have the patience or knowledge to grow your own veggies, find a farmer's market or produce stand. Not only will you get the freshest possible food, you will be helping local growers as well.

There are some things that I just suck at growing. Like tomatoes. If, for some reason the bugs don't get them, some other critter will. So I have given up on them. My dad always plants way more than he needs and gives me some. Last year, he gave me 2 5 gallon buckets full. That was something like 35-40 pounds of tomatoes. So I made salsa and spaghetti sauce.

I don't have the space to grow bush beans or corn, both of which my family eats a lot of. So I will be finding farmer's markets and folks selling from the back of a truck to purchase these things this year.

1 ear of corn will equal about 1 can of store bought. If I can find sweet corn on the back of a truck for 2 dollars a dozen, that is the equivalent of about 16 cents a can. And I can control the amount of salt in it. Personally I don't use salt in my corn. And it is very easy to put up.

All you need is a cookie sheet, quart freezer bags, and a very sharp knife. Shuck and silk the corn. Hold the corn by the small end and cut the corn kernels off of the corn cob. You want to cut the kernels about half way to the cob, maybe a little bigger. Any closer than that you will start to cut cob. The edges on the cookie sheet should keep the corn from flying all over everywhere. Turn the cob after every cut so you get all of the corn off. Don't throw the cob away yet, you will need it in a little bit.

When you get all of the corn cut, or your cookie sheet gets full, fill the freezer bags. I generally don't fill them packed tight, but a little over 3/4 full is good. I will explain in a bit.

When all of your corn is cut from the cob, now you use them to make cream corn. Hold the cob the same way, but turn your knife around so that the flat side is against the cob. You are not going to be cutting this time, you will be scraping. Firmly slide the back of the knife down the cob. This is getting the germ, liquid, and any remaining pulp from the cob. Be VERY careful with the sharp edge of the knife. After all of the cobs are scraped you can throw them away. You should now have a pile of very juice corn pulp. This is your cream corn. You can either put it in a bag just like it is, or if you have a partial bag of cut corn, you can add it to that. Either way, it is exceptionally good.

The reason you don't want to fill the bags all the way full is because if the corn is looser in the bag, it is easier to just take out what you need for each meal. You don't have to cook an entire quart every time make corn. If I am making vegetable soup, I may only need a handful. If I am making dinner for my family of 4, I might use half a bag. If I have company, I will probably use the entire bag. But if it is packed tight into the bags, the kernels will freeze together and make it hard to just get a little out at a time. You just have to make sure that you get as much air out of the bag as possible before you put it in (or back in) the freezer. You can do this by shaking the corn to the bottom of the bag, then rolling the bag up before you reseal it. Freezer burn is caused by air drying in the freezer. Less air, less freezer burn. This goes for everything you put in the freezer.

I would also suggest you use good quality bags. The generics are fine for short term freezer storage, but for long term, use the good bags. They will keep out more air and not be as likely to get torn or pop open in the freezer. That is important because it is a real pain to clean corn kernels out of the bottom of a chest freezer.

This corn should keep up to a year as long as it doesn't freezer burn.

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.