Dreamseekers and Company

You can find:
Part 1 here.
Part 3
Part 4 (frequent use meals)
February’s Shopping Trips
February’s Meals
February’s Meals Photojournal
September 2013 budget update

Recap – our grocery budget is about $200/month plus $25/month saved towards summer produce. This isn’t a competition with anybody except yourself. My grocery budget is 100% separate from supplies and eating out. There are three parts to this thing (blog subject) so far and I plan on following it up with some of my favorite, lower cost recipes. Part 1 is done, this is part 2 and part three will be next Friday. The list of recipes and other stuff will be the following Friday! Because I’m not getting other blogging done, I’m staggering this out. 😀

Got spaghetti?

6. Cultivate a list of meals you like that use very inexpensive ingredients
I don’t only eat beans and rice… but you know what? Dry beans and rice are CHEAP! And very healthy! There are certain “expensive” ingredients that go on sale regularly… so I buy those when they’re on sale and sometimes I buy them full price and I mix it up with inexpensive ingredients. Yummy and less spendy. It’s a compromise for us. But I do stick with a more limited range of recipes and therefore only have to have a limited range of ingredients. It’s still a lot of food, but I do tend to stick with basic things like flour, rice, beans, hamburger, canned tomatoes, cheese… you get the idea. There’s little purchasing cans of prepared foods (condensed soups, american cheeses, convenience meals, flavored bread crumbs, preformed patties, ricotta cheese (buy cottage instead), pre-cooked rice, fresh herbs, etc)… I like those things, but they aren’t the cheapest way to eat. And if there’s one thing I am, it’s cheap.

7. Stock up on good sales
This has made one of the biggest effects on my budget. There are certain things that I only buy on sale… because I know they will go on sale. Significantly! (I like canned chopped green chilis, but those tiny cans have almost no nutritional value and cost $2.50 or so! Ouch! So I buy them with coupons when on sale and get a bunch so it’s worth my time to coupon) The most I spend on a loaf of bread is $1.25. It used to be $.79 but I just can’t seem to find that anymore. (and there is a certain bread I prefer that is kinda a mid-level bread… not the super cheap or super expensive stuff. It’s regular price is $2.79 or something a loaf) I never spend more than $2/lb on chicken breasts. I try to spend less than $2/lb on hamburger, but that can be harder. (and I only buy 80% lean or better) I get really excited when I find tortillas for $1 per 10 pack and I stock up since they freeze well. I am still waiting for another cheese sale. I used to buy it at $2/lb. but now I am happy if I can find it for $2.50 or even $3 per pound. Sometimes the shredded cheeses go significantly on sale and then I really stock up and fill my freezer with pizza cheese. 🙂 Anyway – if there is a good sale on a staple, get enough for several months if you can.

8. If your kids don’t like grown-up foods like mine, don’t buy more expensive convenient foods for them.
My kids love happy meals and those little lunchables. But if I bought those, I would more than double our food budget just on feeding the kids! Our kids also like less expensive foods that satisfy their limited tastes as well as their nutritional needs. We’re unusual in America for eating food that varies so much every day. I tell that to myself when I see my kids eating pbjs and noodles day in and day out. They’re happy! I don’t usually buy boxed macaroni and cheese… it’s more expensive, though a pretty cheap convenience food. (Anna loves it – may need to buy some boxes to get through first trimester here!) We put cheddar or parmesan cheese on the noodles. Sometimes a little butter.

9. Shop at less expensive grocery stores
This is one that is rough for my sister. She lives 10 minutes from a grocery store with high prices and over 30 minutes from a less expensive store. I do my main grocery trip at Winco if I can make it. They have certain things that are just WAY less expensive there… yeast and nuts come to mind (or almost anything in their bulk). In general, their prices are just lower. They don’t have sales that I try to pick up… but I haven’t chased deals frequently lately. My sister is stuck much farther from cheap stores… I have it pretty easy, being close to many good stores. If I were her and had the time, motivation and energy to plan, I would head to town when I could hit a couple stores and pick up multiple good deals at once on my big day out. Just typing that is making me tired, though.

10. Don’t buy as much produce
I didn’t realize I didn’t buy much produce. Ok, I kinda realized that, but never thought about it. I don’t, though. I always have onions, I sometimes have potatoes and it’s not unusual for me to pick up some apples and bananas. But the fruit runs out before my next shopping trip. Sometimes I buy salads – lettuce and carrots…. I can’t wait for spring, though… we’ll eat LOTS of salad then!!! But I do save lots of money and lots of spoilage by cooking mostly from stored/preserved type foods. (flour, rice, canned tomatoes, etc.) So Lindsay, I don’t go buy fresh stuff much during the summer. I do cook some meals with fresh stuff, but I cook pretty seasonally. So this spring/summer I will have loads of fresh produce and will have to remember to cook things in the right order so they don’t spoil. But during the winter, we eat our home canned fruit and tomatoes and eat cheap winter prodcue like potatoes, onions and such.

Part 3 coming next week!

Can you share your favorite lower-cost recipes?

This blog is just keeping it real, folks. The beautiful model in the pictures, the random stuff in my kitchen, and my truly witty humor. Hope you like mayo!

I had the food we needed for sandwiches. Lunchmeat sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, other random combination sandwiches… but I had no mayo. And you’ll recall that I’m early first trimester and feeling like food has a rather nasty personality towards me right now. So, I wasn’t really feeling like going to the grocery. “I wonder if I can make mayo?,” I thought to myself. So I googled that.

I found LOTS of recipes where making mayonnaise looks really hard and tricky. Then I found this:

That’s what I’m talking about! A “quick” recipe where the instructive video is only two minutes long. And where the man doesn’t separate the yolk, because what do you do with egg whites anyway? My kinda recipe for sure.

So here’s my photojournal of making mayo out of common household ingredients:

The ingredients on my counter: (no, you don’t need two stale crescent rolls or a half-eaten graham cracker for the recipe)

Cheap olive oil from Cash n Carry (any oil will do), salt, eggs, lemon juice, dry mustard (can use regular mustard too) and vinegar

My recipe:
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 cup oil (I used cheap olive oil from cash n carry – it was $12.99 for a gallon. Nowhere on this jug does it say “cold pressed, first press” or any other such compliment… haha)

Step 1: Look slightly nauseated like you have morning sickness while measuring everything but the oil into a jar or other tall-sided container.

Step 2: Take a picture, because you’re blogging.

Step 3: Use your nifty-wifty immersion blender to whip it together briefly. (I’ve heard some people use food processors or blenders instead.)

Step 4: Slowly drizzle in the oil as you continue blending. I recommend you use something that dribbles less than my one-cup measuring cup.

Step 5: Get serious with the blender for a few seconds when all the oil is in. Try to look like you’re crying for the picture. Crying for joy. (Almost decided not to post this blog thanks to my attractiveness being off the charts!)

Step 6: Admire your white, smooth, greasy mayo. You are now an accomplished chef. Thanks to me. (hehe) Eat a sandwich. This stuff looks and tastes just like… mayo. If you are a miracle whip fan, I’m sure you can adjust the lemon/vinegar/salt to make it more like that. Be grateful nobody is taking your picture any more. Take a nap.

Are you looking for:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 (frequent use meals)
February’s Shopping Trips
February’s Meals
February’s Meals Photojournal
The latest update and how much I spend now in 2013

Master Salad.... oh yummy!

I feel like we do a good job of staying on a good grocery budget. My sister and I (hi Melissa!) were talking about grocery budgets, so I’ve been thinking about it more lately. So I’m going to “think out loud” here about my money-saving strategies… maybe I’ll figure out a way to save more money by thinking it through again!

We have two adults and three small children in the family. About the same as 3 adults in consumption… perhaps a little more.
Our grocery budget is completely separate from our home supplies budget and eating out budget. Not that adding in our eating out budget would change things much. (haha!)
$200/4 weeks for family groceries (that works out to $216/month)
$25/4 weeks saved up for summer produce expenses (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, sugar for canning, salsa ingredients, etc.)

Strategies 1-5:

1. Meal plan and shop with a list
I don’t think anybody would disagree that if you know exactly what you need to get through the month, you won’t spend as much money on just-in-case or easy but a little more expensive meals. 14 meals is enough to feed us for 28 days, the length of our budget cycle. You may make more meals than that, but it shouldn’t affect the cost of cooking unless more of the food is lost to waste. I make a list of all the ingredients needed for those 14 meals. I add on any staples we need, including breakfast foods. I never shop by memory and I don’t shop to get ideas for what to cook. I used to. It’s fun. But it’s expensive!

2. Shop as infrequently as possible
Something that definitely hurts my budget is running out of bread or milk. Because then I go back to the store. And I always see other things I need while I”m there. But when my grocery money is gone, I have to stop going to the grocery. If there’s still 2-3 weeks left in the budget cycle, then I sometimes have to get really creative with the food I have! It’s always better to shop once and have all the food you need for the whole month’s meals. Then you can save what’s left for a good sale on a staple you use all the time and stock up! But anyway, I try to avoid going to the grocery if I can wait.

3. Always eat all the leftovers
We would need a lot more meals than 14 per month if we didn’t eat all the leftovers. (I am afraid my meals are big enough for about 3 family meals… not that the kids help us significantly with eating much; picky things!) We regularly look through the fridge for anything that might be getting old. I put other meals on hold to make sure food I paid good money for doesn’t get wasted. We also tend to eat tried and true type meals, not that I don’t experiment too, because then I have fewer flops to throw out. Brian has a microwave at work, so his lunches (as well as ours at home) are almost always dinner leftovers. I have a pretty good list of inexpensive dinners, so I don’t buy much lunchmeat or other lunch supplies. Leftovers plus carrot sticks or dried fruit from the summer serve pretty well.

4. Rarely, if ever, buy snacks.
Because snacks aren’t worth FOOD money. Food is for nourishing you. Snacks are for whiney kids and those moments without self control. I have a little more self control when there aren’t snacks to choose from. haha But really, snack foods are much more expensive per calorie. And snack foods can be homemade or they can be simple… or both. Snack ideas: dried fruit from the summer, crackers from when they were on sale (ok, I do buy some fish crackers), muffins, carrots, applesauce (homemade)…. ummmm…. my girls have dried fruit every afternoon I think and we won’t run out for another few months. Hopefully not before strawberry season. For morning snack, they usually have crackers or yogurt or fresh fruit or some other random thing that needs eating. Sometimes it’s fun to make something special… you know if you put peanut butter and raisins on it, it’s probably more special because you did it yourself.

5. Never buy ingredients that are expensive, even moderately expensive foods take big bites out of your budget.
I don’t remember the last time I bought these things, even though I like them: out of season produce, water chesnuts, shrimp, most garnish produce, umm….. most things that come in a box or jar? Ok, so I don’t have a good memory. But there are definitely things I don’t buy that I used to buy. If you have favorite recipes that call for things that cost a lot (hey, I don’t want to spend an extra $.50 on green onions! Or $5.99 on a special kind of oil or vinegar that is really yummy, but is sooooooo expensive and can be substituted.) then I substitute or omit. Those examples aren’t “expensive” but they they each take a bite out of my budget that I’d much rather spend on hamburger, rice, cheese and so forth that is both tasty and filling.

Part 2 – coming next week! (There are 3 parts written so far as I thought of things… and I think I will finish it with a list of my favorite recipes. What do ya think?)