March 2015 Grocery Spending Journal

Our kitchen table for Easter week -- the rabbit is a garden ornament

Oh, I can feel it already. This is going to take discipline. I'm beginning the month with a deficit of $77.40 to subtract from our budget of $175. So, I have $97.60 for the month of March.

March 4. Cash and Carry has mozzarella and pizza blend cheese (mozza, provolone and cheddar), grated in 5-lb bags for $9.98. I buy 2 of each (4 bags total, 20 pounds). The expiry date is in August, so even if I don't freeze this, it will keep a long while. While I was in the deli walk-in fridge, I checked the prices of other cheeses, and it appears that cheese prices are falling. Grated cheddar was about $10.98 for 5-lb bags, down about $2.20 per pound. This is good news for shoppers. I also bought 2 10-lb bags of fresh carrots, at $3.48 each (works out to 35 cents per pound). They also had 25-lb bags of juicing carrots there, for $11.48. But at that price, those carrots were about 45 cents per pound. Always pays to compare unit prices. Total spent today, $46.88.

What I didn't buy, as you might be interested in what I resisted -- bananas at 49 cents/lb. I was hungry for fruit, so they were tempting. I still have about 15 pounds of oranges at home, and several frozen bananas. I'll survive. We'll be buying lots of bananas when the oranges run out in just 2-3 weeks. And I already posted, on March 5, on not choosing the frozen peas, split peas and soy milk.

March 6. At Fred Meyer to buy a couple of non-food items, also run by the dairy case looking for markdowns. I find gallons of milk marked down with about 8-10 days left before expiry, at $1.50/gallon. I buy 4 gallons skim milk and 1 gallon 1%. This milk is lower in fat than I prefer to buy, but we'll live. I'm still making yogurt at home with whole (4%) milk, so the overall dairy consumption is higher in fat (this is a concern for the one daughter who needs to constantly work at keeping weight up). I also buy onion powder (32 cents) and garlic powder (75 cents) from bulk section, for a couple of specific recipes.

And . . . this is where I'm human like the rest of us. I've been craving beef like crazy. Almost obsessed with beef, at times. I thought of running by a good hamburger joint and picking up lunch, but that would cost just over $5, for the quality of burger that I prefer. I checked every markdown package of beef. They were all about $11 to $15, and still the price per pound was so high. I went back and forth between the freezer section (with preformed burger patties), the regular meat section, the butcher counter, the markdown meat section. I think I spent a half hour ruminating on beef. I finally decided on going to the butcher counter and asking for 6 ounces of the super lean (7% fat) ground beef. I would split this in two portions, 1 for today's lunch, and freeze the other portion for a day in the future. I spent $2.03 cents on beef today. And that was for just 6 ounces -- that's how expensive beef is in our area. But in my mind, I rationalized it this way. I could have gone out for a $5 burger, and had a good quality meat patty, but with white flour bun (which I don't care for). Instead, I spent $2.03 for 2 patties of meat, cooked just the way I like them, and no white flour bun. (note: the meat was very good, I had the patties 2 days apart, and I felt satiated for beef for the time being. But as soon as this grocery spending freeze is over, I'm going to make beef a priority in our budget, once per week maybe, instead of once per month.)

Total spent at Fred Meyer $10.60

March 6. Dollar Tree -- I buy 2 quarts of soy milk to get through the month for my own use. Spent $2.00

March 14. It's felt weird not going to the grocery stores as much, but a nice kind of weirdness. I'm saving gas, money and time. But today I want to make my bi-monthly stop at Cash and Carry. I have to be in that area to get my daughters from the main transit station, as both had activities and work on campus, today (Saturday). Cash and Carry's ad's run every other week. There's not a whole lot that I want this time around, but they do have garbanzo beans and loaf sharp cheddar on sale. I buy a 25-lb bag of garbanzo beans ($19.29 -- that's about 77cents per pound) and a 5-lb block of sharp cheddar ($10.98 -- $2.20 per pound). We like garbanzo beans cooked, as is, in salads, in tabbouli, in hummus, and in garbanzo bean soup, both the pureed version and the tomato broth version. These will be a nice change from pinto beans. And the sharp cheddar is for sandwiches and homestyle macaroni and cheese. Spent $30.27, for a total month to date of $89.75.


I still need to pick up some heads of cabbage, and whatever other basic items that I find at their lowest price for the season, i.e. white sugar and white flour, as I'm very low on both, or eggs, but those will hopefully be on sale the week before Easter at Walgreen's. Fortunately, our freezer still has plums, strawberries, rhubarb and blackberries from last summer, and our garden is producing some greens (watercress, sorrel, kale, mustard greens, chives and parsley) for use now, and I just planted a new batch of kale and lettuce under a row cover. I'll get the spinach planted this week. And we still have canned pumpkin, canned tomato paste, canned stewed tomatoes and canned pineapple in the pantry, and plenty of fresh carrots, shallots, onions and potatoes in the fridge. For meat, I have 2 whole turkeys and 2 hams, still. I'll be roasting a turkey this week, to give us plenty of meat for several meals this month.

March 17. Dollar Tree for miscellaneous stuff. But I did pick up 1 quart of soy milk, as I used quite a lot of my stash of soy milk for cakes/frostings/homemade macaroni and cheese this month (so I can eat it too). Spent $1

March 17. Safeway had the lowest price on cabbage this week, for my stores. I bought 4 heads, at 49 cents per pound. Not a stellar price, but for fresh produce, 49 cents per pound beats most other vegetables, and gives us something to eat fresh, as in slaws. Spent $5.10.

Total spent month to date -- $95.85

It's March 28 today. I'm planning on swinging by QFC to pick up 1 ham, at $1.29/lb. This means I will go over our allotted amount, by about $10 for the month. I will go into April with a considerably smaller deficit than previous months, so I feel okay with going over.

March 28. I did go to QFC, bought 1 ham at $1.29/lb. Spent $11.52.

Also went to Fred Meyer, to use a coupon on eggs and redeem a courtesy voucher for $2. 18-count eggs were on sale for $2 (or $1.33/dozen), limit 2 with coupon. I thought I'd redeem my voucher from when I bought a box of rotten salad greens last month, so in that sense, the eggs worked out to be about 66 cents/dozen. Also found 2% milk in gallons marked down to $2.00/gallon. I picked up 4 gallons. Not a stellar price, so only bought enough for the next few weeks. (Earlier this month I found gallons of milk for $1.50/gallon.) Total spent $10.00

For the month of March, I spent a grand total of $117.37. That put me over budget by $19.77, which I can handle. This means that next month (April), I will have $155.23. One more month of working extra hard at keeping my grocery spending in line. I've already been making up a list of must-haves for next month, and will try to stick to that list, plus any stellar deals that I come across on essential foods (produce, meat, dairy, baking basics, beans and whole grains).

I will say this about my shopping this month. Although I went over budget, I didn't buy a single questionable nutrition-wise, food. I bought milk, eggs, cheese, meat, fresh carrots, fresh cabbage, dried garbanzo beans, onion and garlic powder, and soy milk. You cannot get much more basic than that.

And to prevent needing to do a humongous shopping once April 1st rolls around, I've been very careful to use our ingredients wisely, looking for ways to prepare favorites without eggs, using less sugar, looking to the garden first for our produce needs, and minimizing food waste. We're eating very well. I've started keeping a log of all of our dinners. It helps me to see what we're in fact eating. When I read our past menus, I can see for myself that no one is going hungry, being deprived of nutrients or missing anything special. I'll be happy to post some of those weekly dinner menus, if anyone is interested to know just how I use these very basic ingredients.

Until next month. . . can you believe tomorrow is April already?!

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Comparing the price of cake to pie

We've had a run of cakes lately. I do love a good slice of cake. But, after totaling the cost to make a layer cake, it just seemed expensive. I also a big fan of a good slice of pie. So, I was thinking, just how do the two compare, price wise.

My layer cakes cost me about $2.75 per whole cake (if using cocoa powder, for chocolate buttercream frosting). One cake is enough for dessert for 5 of us, on 3 nights (slim slices of cake). That's about 92 cents per family-dessert.

I get 2 dinner's worth of dessert for 5 of us from a pie. (Again, slim slices of pie, drat those kids had to grow up and eat more! Now my slice of pie had to shrink!) But what does a typical pie cost me to bake?


My pie pastry recipe makes enough pie dough for 5 single crusts. The whole batch costs about $2.15, for my ingredients, so 43 cents per single crust.

If I make rhubarb custard crumb pie (garden rhubarb), my additional ingredients of eggs, sugar, flour and butter cost about 75-85 cents. So, my rhubarb-crumb pie costs as much as $1.30 per pie, or 65 cents per family-dessert.

If I make 2-crust blackberry pie (with free blackberries, they're everywhere, here), I double my cost on the crust to 86 cents, but only add 15 cents of additional ingredients (sugar, flour, salt), for a pie costing $1.01 total, or 51 cents per family-dessert. Apple pies, made with home-grown apples compare similarly to the blackberry.

Pies for which I have to buy filling ingredients (like lemon meringue, banana cream or chocolate cream) can be considerably more expensive to make. Of the store-bought filling choices, lemon meringue comes in at about 80 cents for the filling (using bottled lemon juice and skipping the lemon zest), or $1.23 for a whole pie. A banana cream pie costs about $1.10-1.20 for the banana, whip cream, and scratch-cooked vanilla pudding, or $1.65 to $1.75 including the crust, or almost 90 cents per family-dessert (close to the cost of scratch-baked cake with buttercream icing). And chocolate cream pie is a sheer indulgence, at over $3 per whole pie.


So, my conclusion with this analysis, if I'm counting pennies closely, then a simple pie made with home-grown fruit is most affordable, and more nutritious than cake.

This past week, I was wanting a frugal pie for dessert, meaning no eggs and less sugar. We are now entering rhubarb season. Rhubarb will be my most economical fruit for the next 2  1/2 months. But, "regular" two-crust rhubarb pie does not thrill me. So, I scrounged the freezer and found a few bags of frozen blackberries from last summer's harvest. I used half blackberries, half chopped rhubarb in this pie. I flavored the filling with some orange zest, and used about 2/3 cup sugar, and a pinch of baking soda (to reduce tartness, without adding more sugar), plus some flour for thickening, and a dash of salt. It was delicious, satisfied my hunger for pie, and only cost about $1 for the whole pie.


However,  there is 7-minute frosting, which brings the cost of layer cake way down . . .
Hmmm, I may need some more calculations, and a bit of baking and tasting :-) .

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Comparing my "old" grocery shopping to my "new"

I was browsing my old grocery journals, looking to see which month I made the biggest changes. If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you might remember that my husband's work situation changed in July of 2013, reducing our income by 30%. I couldn't find a July grocery journal in my files. It was a crazy month of adjustments, so maybe I lost track that month. But I did find June's for 2013. (I accidentally re-posted it briefly the other day -- hit the wrong button, oops!)

My thinking on groceries has changed very significantly. Here, I'll let you read it, but I'll edit out some of the commentary, to shorten it, just so you can get an idea of what I used to buy.


"June 4. Dollar Tree, bag of corn chips (to go with chili) $1

June 5. Trader Joe's, rice cakes ($1.49), almond milk, 2 qts. (1.69 ea), 3 pack 72% dark chocolate bars ($1.79), 1/2 lb almond slices (2.99), brown rice tortillas (2.69), bananas, 7 (19 cents each)  total spent $13.67

Produce stand watermelon (29 cents/lb), yams (69 cents/lb), small avocados, 2 (25 cents ea), roma tomatoes (98 cents/lb), whole wheat tortillas ($2.49)  total spent $8.58

June 7. Albertson's eggs 88 cents/dozen, limit 2, corn tortillas (1.69)  total spent $3.45

QFC marked down bananas 39 cents/lb, whole milk, gallon (3) - $1.99 ea, skim milk, gallon (1) - $1.99  total spent $9.75

Manna Mills Natural Market brown rice flour (2.05/lb), millet flour (1.85/lb), buckwheat flour (3.59/lb), GF hot cereal blend (2.69/lb)  total spent $3.94

June 11. TOP Foods -- bought gummy bears and turkey bacon, spent $4.49

QFC for markdown milk (99c for a half gallon, bought 3), spent $2.97

Country Farms produce stand in the afternoon for 2 small avocados, 1 cantaloupe and 1 tomato, spent $1.47

June 12. bought slider beef patties and 7 gallons of markdown milk ($1.89 for 1%), spent $24.22

June 14. Country Farms produce stand, bought 1 watermelon, a bag of cauliflower and a tomato. spent $4.97

Manna Mills Natural Market Bought arrowroot, tapioca flour, sorghum flour and cream of tartar. spent $2.15

June 17. QFC, found 1 gallon milk ($2.99), and 15 lbs of baking bananas, another bag of beef slider patties. spent $19.61

June 20. Cash and Carry wholesaler. Bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts, almond milk, 5 lbs carrots and a 10. lb bag of potatoes. Spent $15.93

Trader Joe's is just down the street, so picked up more almond milk, vegan mozzarella, cashews, almonds, GF hamburger buns, tofu and corn pasta. spent $21.72

June 21. Fred Meyer, bought more turkey bacon, breakfast sausage, 2 packs chocolate chips, an oregano plant (mine didn't do well over winter this year, so it was cheaper to buy a new plant than have to buy oregano at the store) and a good bar of chocolate. Spent $13.01

June 25. Dollar Tree. Bought 1 bottle of cranberry juice, $1

Month to date spent -- $151.93

It's June 28. I've got to go to Trader Joe's for a couple of items to get through the weekend and next week. I'm doing much better than I thought with the budget. I've been very, very busy. Staying out of stores helps with the budget, that's for sure!"



That's where my online grocery journal ends. My on-paper accounting shows that I spent more, bringing up the total of grocery spending for June 2013 to abut $190 for the month. While $190 sounds like very little, look at the items that I bought. I was in no way stocking up on staples, to carry us through future months. I was buying a lot of convenience items, to get through 1 week at a time, such as tortilla chips, rice cakes, tortillas, chocolate bars (a lot of chocolate bars, apparently, and some gummy bears), buns, and some meat items that are now simply out of budget for me, like beef slider patties and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I don't think I was caring as much about prices, back then.

To be fair to myself, however, this was the second month of trying to get my digestive issues under control. I had a cross-reaction to gluten in May, due to over-consumption of dairy. And so I was trying a GF lifestyle, which proved to be very expensive, and not wholly necessary for my body. I have since learned that if I limit my dairy, and use lactase enzyme tablets when I do consume dairy, I can have some high-gluten foods, like breads and pastas. I just have smaller portions of the wheat-based foods than the rest of the family, and I avoid barley, almost entirely (I have an intolerance to barley).

But, even taking this into consideration, my shopping had a different feel to it. I was buying impulsively, and not finding the biggest values. For instance, buying slider patties instead of markdown cuts of beef, or buying boneless, skinless chicken breasts, instead of whole chickens when on sale. I spent $2.69 per pound on a GF hot cereal blend. Meanwhile, brown rice is also GF, and I pay about 45 to 50 cents per pound for brown rice, bought in 50-lb sacks. Brown rice, either whole or roughly ground makes a nice GF hot breakfast cereal, at 1/5th the price of the special GF blend.

I had no idea that a major income reduction was coming. I was truly blind-sided by that one. So, I could afford to shop in a comparatively haphazard manner. Once the budget change took place, though, I was finding many, many alternatives to reduce our spending.

In place of a bag of corn chips to go with chili, I now always make cornbread. A pan of scratch cornbread cost about 60 cents, compared to $1 for the corn chips. Rice cakes are something of a "fun food". $1.49/ package at Trader Joe's, I have since seen them at Dollar Tree for $1 a package. But for me, now, I just don't buy them. If it's nutrition I'm after, a scoop of cooked brown rice has the same nutrients. A couple of mentions of buying nuts, then it was almonds and cashews. Now, I buy mixed nuts and peanuts, in large quantities, in November/December, and at the wholesaler in super large cans, when found on sale.

I'm satisfied with any of my produce purchases, as produce is definitely a dietary priority for our family. But even still, I could have found better deals by buying in bulk, such as larger bags of carrots and potatoes than what I did buy (5 and 10-lb bags).

Grocery prices began to sky-rocket, at about the same time that my budget was reduced, adding to my challenge. I think I was able to prove to myself that we can still eat great meals, have some treats, and continue with good nutrition even in such a financial squeeze. My grocery budget has been around $170-175 per month since August 1, 2013. I won't say it's easy. This is a difficult amount to keep to, even for me. But I'm glad to know that I can do it. If finances allow, I would like to increase this budget to about $210, where we had been for many years, but this time, spend that additional amount on more meat for our diet.

As a post script, the funniest line in the journal to me now is at the end, "I'm doing much better than I thought with the budget." My perspective has definitely changed, don't you think?!

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What are you hoping will go on sale the week before Easter?

I look forward to grocery shopping the week just before a major holiday, as I find some of the best prices on a select few items, with each holiday. Before Thanksgiving, it's frozen turkeys, canned vegetables, potatoes and butter. Before Christmas, it's usually ham and cream cheese.

For Easter, it's often ham, again, asparagus and eggs.

So, this next week, I'm hoping to find another ham (I've got 2 in the freezer, I'd like one more, which, after baking 1 for Easter, will give us 2 additional hams to use sometime in late spring, maybe around Mother's Day, and again in early fall, to give us some breakfast meat).

I'd also very much like to find eggs on sale. Last year, Walgreen's had a dozen eggs on sale for 99 cents/dozen, and no limit. I checked my April grocery journal for last year, and I bought 17 dozen eggs in the month of April. I remember freezing about 5 or 6 dozen eggs. I'd like to buy 18 dozen eggs this April, if the price is right, and freeze about 7 dozen for future baking and cooking.

I'm also low on cream cheese, and in some years, I do find cream cheese on sale the week before Easter. I'm hoping for more this year, too. I'd likely buy 6 8-oz bricks of cream cheese, at the right price (paid 88 cents at Fred Meyer last year).

It would also be nice to find canned pineapple for $1 or less. Last spring, I found canned pineapple for 88 cents at Fred Meyer. I bought a dozen cans, then, and am just now down to my very last can of pineapple.

So, that's what I'm hoping to find on sale the week leading up to Easter. How about you? Are there specific items that you usually find on sale the week before Easter?

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A frugal supper for the last week of the month

I can't believe that I am still under budget for the month of March, and here we are in the very last week of the month!

This was dinner the other night.

I had roasted one of the turkeys from last November's purchases. My daughters helped me get every last bit of meat from the bones, after making stock with the skin and bones. Surprisingly, there was enough meat removed, after making the stock, for 3 pots of soup.

I made a very hearty turkey minestrone with canned tomato paste, carrots, onions, garlic, herbs, cooked garbanzo beans, pasta and turkey.

To go with the soup, I made garlic bread from one of the loaves of French bread I'd baked the week before, kept in the freezer. French bread is so economical to make, and very forgiving, for a yeast-raised bread. So, I make this a lot when I'm low on my regular sandwich bread, and know I won't have the time to do a big baking.

For dessert, slices of birthday cake, a scratch yellow cake, with plum jam between the layers, and cocoa powder buttercream frosting.

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Why do I keep the grocery budget so tight?

I know you must wonder this.

My answer is two-fold. Here's my thinking on grocery spending.

1) It's the only budget category that I have complete (and I mean complete) control over. No one in this house ever goes grocery shopping, besides me.

I can't really control our water bill (I can nag people to get out of the shower, but unless I'm in there with them, with my hand on the shower faucet, ready to turn it off, I don't have complete control). I can't control what my husband might charge at the drugstore or online. I can "suggest" better places to shop, or price points to look for, but I can't control his spending. I can't even control how much electricity we use. Again, I can nag everyone to turn off lights, etc. But without coin-operated light switches, I really can't control use.

But, as I said, I *can* control grocery spending. And we can still eat very well, even when not spending very much on groceries. I can make sure that what we keep in stock is healthful, wholesome and has variety enough to make pleasing meals for the whole family. And still do this on a tiny grocery budget.

And 2) It's the area of our budget that I can make the greatest difference. At $175 per month (my current budget), I'm spending $2100 per year on food.

The USDA currently estimates a "Thrifty Food Plan" for our family of 5, based on age and gender of each member, to cost $862.30 per month, or $10,347.60 per year.

So, here it is, my savings, by cooking and shopping/procuring food in the frugal manner that I do:

I save our family $8247.60, per year on food.

I can't shave $8000 off of our heat bill, electricity costs, insurance, property taxes, or gas costs for the cars. But I can save this amount on our food expenses.

(And these calculations were, indeed, based on the least expensive estimate. I checked and double-checked. Just for fun, I ran the numbers on the "Liberal Food Plan". For our family of 5, we would be spending about $1700 per month, or over $20,000 per year. I think if I spent that amount, there would be a lot of waste in our home, or else we would gain a tremendous amount of weight. Perhaps if we were all training for marathons, year round, we could eat that amount of food.)


So, when the overall budget is under stress, the first area I usually look to reduce spending, is groceries. Basic, (and I do mean very basic), food items are not expensive. I just need to have the willingness and time to turn those basic ingredients into interesting meals.

I choose to spend my "work time" in the kitchen. I think of it as a productive hobby. I could spend most of my "work time" cleaning, ironing, doing laundry, or decorating. For me, though, cooking is the most pleasant of all of my homemaker duties.

So, when you wonder why I make the budget choices that I do, when we could spend more on food, and less on other areas, like education or travel, that's my answer.

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Updates on my grocery spending for the month (and making a dozen eggs last for all of the cooking for a week)

My pantry and freezer are looking so clean these days. You can actually see the pantry floor again! And we can make ice in the freezer, once more, with the new-found freezer space.


Last week, I bought 4 heads of cabbage and 1 quart of soy milk. I had run through most of my soy milk. My thoughts were to just not buy more, but that would mean I'd be left out of any baked goods and no milk for my oatmeal and granola. I chose to buy 1 quart and make it last for the remaining days of March.

The cabbage will add to the carrots in the fridge, canned tomato products and pumpkin, frozen fruits and spinach, and fresh kale, watercress and herbs in the garden, for our produce needs.

The cabbage was 49 cents per pound, not as great a price as many areas were seeing for St. Patrick's Day, but an okay price for our area. I did make sure to choose heads whose outer leaves looked to be in good enough condition for eating, so I wouldn't have to throw those outer leaves out. (You know what I mean? Sometimes the outer leaves look bruised and discolored, not very appetizing.)

I have just a couple of dollars left in the budget for March. Which, while not awesome, is something. Even if I do go over, it won't be a substantial amount, as in previous months. I can see that I am catching up.

However . . .

I'm down to my last dozen eggs. I expect to find eggs on sale the week before Easter, likely at Walgreen's, as in past years. So, I just need to make these 12 eggs last through all the cooking of the next week.

Here's my basic egg-sparing plan:

• use egg substitutes when baking (here's the basic guide that I follow for egg substitution)
• change my own breakfast routine (having something other than eggs for breakfast)
• prepare fewer family entrees that are egg heavy, such as frittatas and quiche, and have more bean-based vegetarian entrees this week (for our vegetarian nights)
• skip the egg (as a binder) when making bean burgers this week

How's it working out?

On Friday, I had wanted to make waffles or pancakes for breakfast, but decided on oatmeal instead, saving eggs, milk and white flour (yes, low on white flour, too). I've been thinking about oatmeal all week anyway, so not a sacrifice to have that instead of pancakes or waffles.

Then on Saturday, I still wanted waffles, so I made a batch with 1 egg instead of 2, plus an egg substitute for the missing egg, and mostly whole wheat flour. I used 1/4 cup of pureed, cooked oatmeal in the batter, to add moisture, plus 1 teaspoon additional baking powder (actually, baking powder substitute). They were delicious, and it was completely unnoticeable that I used 1 egg when the recipe called for 2.

My daughters are making hot dog buns this weekend, wanting to use a recipe that called for an egg in the dough. They weren't happy, at first (but got over it quickly), but I nixed that recipe, and suggested one that didn't call for eggs.



It just seems to me, that when eggs are in short supply, baked goods and quick breads are the least effective way to use the eggs, when there are several egg substitutes available. It makes more sense to use the eggs where the eggs are noticed, such as egg salad, deviled eggs, topping for a potato salad, or boiled, pickled and sliced as a side dish on a dinner plate.


Just trying to hang in there with the eggs, until they go on sale, hopefully in a little over a week from now. I would just hate to spend $2 for a dozen eggs just a day or two before they go on sale, in order to use just 1 or 2 of a new carton of eggs.

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Free manly-man gift wrap

I receive these maps in the mail, free, about once every 6 months. They come with a request for a donation from Doctors Without Borders.

They make great gift wrap, especially nice for masculine gift wrapping.

Father's Day is just around the corner, and I think this map will be used then!

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Salvaging the mildly wrinkled potatoes

I'm down to my last bag of potatoes from my November purchase. I have no idea when I'll find another good buy on potatoes again, so I want to make sure that I use every last one from this bag.

About 25 spuds, of this last bag of potatoes, were found to be in the early stage of wrinkle-dom. They're still good to eat, but I know they should be cooked very soon. Yesterday afternoon, I went ahead and peeled and cooked all 25. I mashed these with plenty of butter and froze all that we wouldn't be eating for dinner last night.

The texture of mashed potatoes changes a bit once you freeze them. However, once thawed, I whip them hard either by hand, or with the mixer, then I use them to top Shepherd's Pie, or, put into a buttered casserole, then sprinkled with cheese and baked for a cheesey-potato casserole, or, as the base for a pot of potato soup.

I have enough leftover mashed potatoes for about 3 more family dinners, all cooked and ready to use, tucked away in my freezer.

That's what I do with leftover mashed potatoes, but what I really want to know, is what do you do with leftover mashed potatoes?

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Needing a small gift for a girlfriend's birthday

(another break from the grocery chatter)

Over the weekend, I found out that I have a girlfriend with a birthday this week. We generally don't do big gift exchanges, and often our gifts to each other are homemade.

I had thought to run out and pick up a small gift Saturday afternoon (to give on Sunday, after church). Then rethought that, and checked my gift stash. Nothing too appealing, so I checked my preserves from last summer.

I collect nice canning jars when I hit second-hand shops. With those, I use to put up some of my nicer preserves, to be gifted later in the year. Last summer I made cherry preserves, and spiced fig jam, both in some of the nicer canning jars that I've acquired. For my girlfriend, I chose a jar of Spiced Fig Jam.

Wanting to spiff this homemade gift up just a tad, I made a couple of labels, using a printable "frame" from Graphics Fairy, and adding customized lettering from the Pages application on my computer.

I printed out these labels onto regular printer paper. I cut them out, then reinforced and waterproofed the front of each label with a strip of clear packaging tape.

I adhered the labels to the front of the jar and the lid with a little glue stick, as well as the small amount of overhang from the clear tape (when cutting the tape, I allowed a narrow margin of clear tape all around the paper label, for extra adhesion).

A plastic bag and nice ribbon and my small gift is ready to give.

An update: I gave this to my friend on Sunday after church, as planned, and she loved it. I knew this would be the sort of thing she would like!

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Still working at keeping our grocery spending low -- I resisted the urge to buy more

To the wholesaler the other afternoon, I brought my "reinforcement team" (my two daughters). They come with me for their brute strength (those 25 and 50 pound sacks get heavy), and to remind me of what I've been saying about needing to get our out-of-whack grocery budget back in line.

My usual, when I find a great deal, is to buy a lot of that item. This week, it's sharp cheddar, at about $2.20 per pound, in a 5-lb loaf. Each loaf was $10.98. When I picked up a block of cheese, it just didn't seem like I would be stocking up by buying only one. I was imagining this 5-lb block of cheese getting gobbled up in a matter of weeks, and how we *needed* much more.

But I was also keeping in mind my goal of getting the budget back on track. I went back and forth on this one. A few blocks of cheese, or just one. It was tough, but I exercised some discipline, and only bought that one 5-lb block of cheddar. And I used some reasoning to come to that decision.

Cheese is not a necessity. We can get the same nutrients from milk, which I find on markdown often enough, to rarely have to pay full price for milk. So, while I would have loved to have bought several large blocks of cheese, my budget goal was more important this time.

I'm keeping a close watch on my spending. I tally up the receipts as I bring them home. For the month of March, I've now spent about $89.

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This and that: what might have ended up in the garbage . . .

Things I salvaged this week

Some paper doilies from one of the church teas. They were used once, each, under plates of cookies. About to be tossed out, I quickly snatched them to take home, knowing I could use them again. I'll be using one of the larger doilies under my daughters' birthday cake next week.

The plastic outer wrap from a 20-roll pack of bath tissue. Fits our kitchen step-can perfectly, as a liner. I also use the large plastic bags that the 25 lbs of dried beans and 12.5 lbs of popping corn come packaged in, for liners.

The tail end of a loaf of sourdough that just didn't turn out well and became hard as a rock. It still tasted good, but was far too chewy to really enjoy. After slicing thin, I cut the slices into strips, then dices, and ran through the food processor. It still didn't become small crumbs, but more like barley-sized lumps. I added these bread lumps to a batch of chili at the last minute, and declared them a "meat substitute", as they kept that chew-texture for the first few minutes of eating the chili.

The scrapings from another pan of homemade cornbread. I can get one or two tablespoons of crumbs from each batch of cornbread. I scrape them into a container for the freezer, then when I have a half cup or so, add them to any recipe calling for bread crumbs. These were added, along with the rest of the freezer container-full, to a batch of bean burgers.


How about you? Did you snatch something up, just before it got tossed, this week?

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So I baked a cake . . .

I was desperate for a chocolate bar yesterday afternoon. I had errands to run, and the thought to stop and pick one up kept running through my mind. Although this would be a treat, it would still come out of the grocery budget.

To save that $2 on a chocolate bar, I decided to bake a cake once I returned home. It's not a fancy cake. Just an ordinary, weekday cake.

Part of the draw to the decision to baking a cake at home is the cake batter. Yeah, you know what I mean! Who here has never baked a cake with the primary motivation being to eat some of the batter?! Cake batter is one of the perks of being the baker, I say.

Since what I was wanting was chocolate with fruit (one of my favorite chocolate bars has chopped dried cherries and roasted almonds in dark chocolate), I decided on a chocolate cake with homemade cherry preserves and chocolate-almond frosting between the layers, and the top and sides covered in more of that chocolate frosting.

I baked two layers. I used one of the layers for last night's cake, and wrapped and froze the other for another day when I'm craving chocolate again.

I handled a craving which would have required me to spend more of the grocery budget, instead with a homemade treat using my supplies at home. I'd say that's a success in the financial column, but a failure in the diet column. Oh well, I'll start my diet on Monday. Yeah, right. . . .

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Getting every last scrap of meat off of the chicken bones

Picking the meat off of bones is not one of my favorite chores. In fact, sometimes I get downright lazy about it and just figure, "oh I got enough meat off of this batch of bones", when in fact there is still more there.

But I am proud to say that I put the effort in this week, to really get these bones ready-for-science-project clean! Not that I intend to use them for a project of any sort.


Recently, I've been able to get 3 good meals from a whole chicken for our family. This time, I was able to get 4 entire family meals from this one whole chicken, two nights of chicken and gravy,

one night of very chicken-y soup,

and this Club Chicken Casserole, in the freezer right now, to be used for an easy on me, Sunday supper this week.

After slicing and pulling as much meat as I could off the carcass, I simmered the bones for a couple of hours, and was able to pick another full cup of meat off, even from the backbone area. I find that if I hold backbone pieces, loosely in my hand, the small bones fall apart from each other, revealing a small lump of meat between each pair of bones.

It wasn't pretty, and my hands smelled like chicken for hours afterward, but I was able to get an extra night's worth of meat to feed my family from this last of my whole chickens. Pretty satisfying.

I think that knowing this was the last of our chickens from the freezer, really gave me the impetus to glean as much from this one as possible. Do you feel that way about things, ever? It's the very last of something, so you try and get the most from it?

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Making a salad when it seems as if there's not enough of anything

To go with dinner the other night, I had planned to make a bowl of cole slaw, with the last of the cabbage.

When I got the head of cabbage out, I realized that there was only a small section of the cabbage left. After shredding it, I could clearly see that this would never feed the five of us.

Out to the garden I went, to see what I could possibly find to add to the cabbage. The watercress was looking good, so I picked all of the leaves big enough, washed and chopped them, and added to the cabbage.

Still not enough salad, I grated a carrot to add to the salad. Now to add some dressing. I am all out of mayo, for a creamy dressing, so I made an oil and chive blossom vinegar dressing to toss the vegetables in.

My salad bowl still looked slightly skimpy for 5 adults, so I cooked up a cup of shell pasta, to add to the salad.


What began as cole slaw managed to morph into a cabbage-y pasta salad. Not nearly what I had planned, but delicious anyways!

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Springtime gifts to make

I'm taking a brief break from grocery budget issues on my blog today, as lots goes on in my humble abode, besides cooking and budgeting.

We have several spring birthdays, plus there's Easter and Mother's Day just around the corner, too. So, I'm busy making some gifts this month. I'll show you one or two each week, until I'm done.

These first two gifts are for my daughters. They'll be turning 20 years old next Tuesday. I had noticed one daughter was pinning one of her scarves to wear as an infinity scarf. Hmmm, that must be something she's interested in.

These are spring infinity scarves. They're made from 1 yard each of lightweight fabric. I spent a grand total of 3 hours sewing them (and that includes working with a misbehaving sewing machine), and they were super easy. Straight stitches, plus a bit of hand whip-stitch at the end. Nothing more to them.

I bought new fabric, but these could also be made with fabric from a garment, cut into sections. I had very specific ideas on fabric choice -- to go with some tops that I bought for the girls at Wet Seal, for $4 per top. So coupons in hand, I went to Jo-Ann fabrics. Each scarf cost about $7.50, after coupons. And even though I bought new fabric, they were still half the price of what I saw at the mall at Claire's.

I have the scarves hanging on flocked, sectioned accessory hangers. Maybe you've seen these in stores. I saw these a while back and thought they would be great to help my daughters with a little closet organization. After Christmas, I found them on clearance at Michael's for $3 each.

While at Jo-Ann's, I saw some lovely burnt red gauzy fabric that I'm thinking of picking up, to make one of these scarves for my step-mom for Mother's Day or her birthday. They were so very easy, I suspect all of the women on my gift-giving list will be receiving one of these this year.

One of the gifts for spring, with more to come!

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Another tweak to my grocery spending

Last month, I made a couple of small purchases, in an attempt to give myself an easier Sunday, each week. I've been working at making Sunday a truly restful day for me. For lunches, I set out leftovers or a jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread, and everyone helps themselves. But I was still left with making Sunday dinner.

So, in February, trying to simplify dinner prep, twice I bought flour tortillas from Dollar Tree, for making bean burritos. Now these only cost a dollar a package, so no big deal, right? But for this month, at least, as I try to cut my spending to catch up on our budget, I had to make the decision to *not* buy any convenience items, like those flour tortillas.

I have a new plan for Sunday dinners, for the month of March -- making something during the week to heat for Sunday supper. This past week, that was pizza. I made 4 large pizzas during the week, and froze the leftovers. On Sunday, all I needed to do was make carrot sticks, a dip, some dried fruit, and reheat a pizza. For a dip, I made a quickie marinara sauce in the microwave, with tomato paste, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, oil, water, basil and oregano. Both the carrot sticks and the pizza could be dipped in the marinara.


Cooking ahead is not a new idea. However, it's an idea that I'm dedicating to my Sunday dinner prep for the month. This should save us $4 in extra grocery purchases (by not buying those packages o tortillas) for the month of March.

This is not a "forever" plan. But it's helpful in a pinch. If I remind myself that a change from routine is short term, it easier to carry out. In April, once the budget is back on track, I may return to buying packaged tortillas to keep my Sunday supper work to a minimum.

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Using my supplies prudently: measuring the cheese for pizza

So, I bought four 5-lb bags of grated pizza cheese last week. Of course, I had to make pizza that very same night. I like pizza as much as the rest of the family!

What I did differently, this time around, was to actually measure the amount of cheese I used on each pizza.

The cheese package label said that 1 serving of grated cheese is 1/3 cup. That serving size has 7 grams of protein, roughly equivalent to the protein of 1 egg or 1 glass of milk. So, I went with that as a portion for each person, on each pizza. We eat 1 large pizza, split 5 ways. I used 1 & 2/3 cup grated cheese on each of the 4 pizzas I made (for future meals). That amount is 5 servings of cheese, so just right for one large pizza for our family. And FYI, it melts down to look like much more cheese than when it is first scattered on the pizza.

The label also says that each 5-lb bag contains about 80 of those 1/3-cup servings. At 1 & 2/3 cup cheese per pizza, I can get 16 large pizzas from each bag. And at $9.98 for each 5-lb bag, the cheese portion for each pizza will cost me 62 cents. Factoring in all the other ingredients, I can make a large cheese pizza for about $1. (My crust and marinara sauce are from scratch.)

You may wonder how we can ever manage on 1 large pizza for our family of 5. To be truthful, we like pizza, but more than what the large will serve us is too much crust for most of our family. I usually serve pizza with a couple of substantial sides, like a pasta, bean and veggie salad, or a green salad with hearty toppings, like cooked garbanzos, homemade croutons and boiled egg slices.

Going forward, I plan on measuring more of my ingredients, the ones that tend to pour out loose, like shaped pasta and grated cheese, to make sure I am using the appropriate amount for the dish I'm preparing. My last big stock-up of cheese was in the fall. and it felt like we plowed through it all rather quickly. I'm hoping to make each bag last a month, which means I won't need more pizza cheese until July.


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Another budget-friendly dinner for the family

This was dinner the other night. It was not just budget-friendly, but downright cheap with a capital CH.

• bean burger patties, using 2 cups of mashed, cooked pintos, a cup of cooked barley (for chew), some chopped onions, chili powder, salt, 1 egg and a handful of bread crumbs from the freezer. (The bread crumbs were the pan scrapings from several batches of cornbread. I can scrape about 1 tablespoon to 1/8-cup of crumbs from each pan of scratch cornbread. Then save in a container in the freezer.) I fried the bean burgers in ham fat (stored in the freezer) combined with veg oil. Very good! I offered mustard and BBQ sauce to everyone for topping the patties.
• oven-roasted potato wedges, using potatoes bought in November for 10 cents/lb. I had exactly 5 packets of ketchup (1 per person) from the horrible lunch at a fast food place, the day of my biopsy. (Anything would have tasted horrible on that day, so I won't knock the ff joint too much.) It's been a while since I made a batch of ketchup. I'll do that again the next time I open a large can of tomato paste.
• dried fruit, part of the tray of dried fruit given to us at Christmas
• dill cucumber pickles, homemade last summer with garden cucumbers
• sautéed garden greens (kale and mustard greens) with onions, sautéed in ham fat/veg oil. The garden greens are from late summer plantings, and will continue to give me fresh greens until the end of the month.

This was one of those dinners that probably cost just under $1 to feed the 5 of us. Add in cookies and milk, and we're talking a dinner for 5, for well under $2. Not bad!

Making sure I stick to my budget: thinking on the purchases for a couple of days

You know my plight, by now. Over grocery budget for several months in a row. And now it's time to get it all under control. On Monday, I went online to see what the stores had on sale this week. I made my lists. And then . . . no, I didn't go shopping.

I've got my list on my dresser, and I'm just thinking on it. You know, the same sort of advice given for other purchases -- think about it a few days. Do we really need all the items I wrote down? Can we make do without them? Are these true necessities?

So, my list is not extensive, by any means. This is what I found on sale at Cash and Carry this week:

• mozzarella cheese, 5-lb bags, shredded $9.98
• split peas, 25-lb bag, $16.98
• soy milk, 1-qt., $1.14
• carrots, 10-lb bags, $3.48
• frozen peas, 5-lb bags, $3.54

It looks like a reasonable list, right? Well, after giving it a couple days of thought, here's what I will really buy at Cash & Carry this week:

• mozzarella cheese -- maybe 4 bags?
• carrots -- probably 1 bag, maybe 2?

Here's my reasoning. The cheese is the cheapest I have seen it in over a year. That's under $2 per pound, spectacular for our area for cheese. The carrots work out to 35 cents per pound, good deal for late winter, here. And I'm trying to put a cap on price per pound, on veggies for the time being, at around 59 cents per pound.

The rest of it -- split peas are a good source of protein, but lately I've been gagging on split peas. I don't know why, I used to love them. Now, I'm hoping to find black-eyed peas or lentils to stock our pantry. So, nix on the split peas.

I was considering the soy milk, because it could be a better quality than Dollar Tree's soy milk. But I decided to stick to bargains for this month, so will save a few cents per quart, and buy my regular soy milk.

Those frozen peas are a very good price for frozen peas, at abut 70 cents/lb. (But over my price cap of 59 cents per pound.)  I am reminding myself that I will be finding cabbage for a decent price per pound in just a couple of weeks. And my garden greens are now coming back. I will do without frozen peas for the time being. They'll go on sale again, sometime.

Giving a few days of thought to my grocery list helped me to really pare down my spending for the week. I've used this trick for other purchases with great success. Now with grocery spending, the same old trick serves me just as well.

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Getting the grocery budget back in line: stuffed baked potatoes

I've been making stuffed baked potatoes often this winter, with our abundant supply of potatoes from November's 100 pound purchase. These baked potatoes make a nice addition to lunches, in lieu of snacky-type items like chips or crackers.

Anyways, I did have a small supply of cottage cheese to add to them. But that is now gone. So, to make this batch of stuffed baked potatoes, without any type of cheese, whatsoever, I had to get creative in the kitchen.

After baking these, I scooped out the shells, and added some sour cream, salt, butter, frozen chopped spinach, and for flavor, I added sautéed chopped onions. Mashed all of this together and baked for about 20-25 minutes at 350 F, until just browned.

Quite delicious! We think of these as finger food. I've eaten a few cold, as well as reheated.

So, another food item, easy to make, and keeps my family satisfied, without a trip to the grocery store. March 4th and the budget is still intact.

If you're currently trying to get an unruly grocery budget back in line, please share what you're doing. Maybe we can help each other out here, and end March under-budget!

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I am working on getting our grocery budget back on track this month, and here's a start

Starting off the 1st week of March inspired to get our grocery spending back to within the budget. There are a few things I will want to buy this month. But this post is the beginning of showing myself just how possible it is to eat from what we have in store (mostly).

Last night's dinner:

a plate of scratch cornbread, with carrot sticks, watermelon pickles (from last summer) and dried fruit  (a gift at Christmas). This was served with a bowl of homemade chili-vegetable soup, milk and cookies.

The leftover cornbread did double-duty as breakfast on the run for those late to rise in the morning. And the last of the soup was poured into containers for today's lunches.

Another day down!
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February 2015 Grocery Money Journal

Going into this month I'm carrying forward a deficit of $51.28. However, due to my husband's cost-of-living increase, I can increase our budget to $175 for the month. So, for February, I have a total of $123.72 for the grocery budget.

Feb. 4. Fred Meyer -- I found a lot of markdown items this shopping trip. Sour cream, 16-oz 79cents (4), cottage cheese, 16-oz $1.09 (2), 2% milk, gallon, $1.50 (9), ground turkey, 1-lb $2.49, extra lean ground beef 1-lb (2), $3.89, spinach-leafy greens salad blend, 99cents (3), broccoli florets 99cents (4), sliced mushrooms, 8-oz 79cents (11), large eggs, $1.25/dozen (4), garlic flakes 64cents. Spent $50.37

Feb 6. back to Fred Meyer with daughters to buy more eggs at $1.25/dozen. We buy 8, spend $10.

Feb. 8. Dollar Tree for soy milk (4), flour tortillas (1), frozen sweet potato fries for Valentine's dinner (1), animal cookies for babysitting (1), vegetable seeds, 25cents (4). spent $8.10

So far this month, I've spent $68.47.

Feb. 10.  Fred Meyer for butter ($2/lb, limit 2), whole milk (half-gallon, 99 cents, limit 4, good for making yogurt), bulk dried onion (for making French Dip sandwich meat w/ground beef, 40 cents), bulk celery seed (for making au jus to go with French Dip sandwiches, 19 cents). Spent $8.55

Feb. 13. Cash & Carry has butter on sale for $1.69/lb, 30-lb case (you can also buy 1 lb at a time, at this price, but I need a case), total for 30 lbs.$50.70. Also buy 35-lb container of vegetable oil (soybean) for $18.75 (that's about $4.29/gallon), another 40-lb case of navel oranges for $15.48 (about 39 cents/lb), several lbs of bananas for 44 cents/lb, dried cranberries, 3-lb bag for $5.87, 2 heads of green cabbage ($1.42 each), 5 lbs of carrots ($2.15), and 50 lbs of onions ($5.97). Total spent today $104.15.

So far, I've spent over $180 for the month. While this is discouraging, as you can see, I'm not buying junk. With this rough patch I've been going through with my health, eating optimally has become imperative for me. For example, I'm eating more animal protein than previously. For both breakfast and lunch, I add an egg to whatever else I'm fixing for myself. So, I may have some chicken or turkey for lunch, along with an egg. And I'm eating veggies at both breakfast and lunch (spinach is pretty good with breakfast). All of my snacks need to have protein, as well. In addition to all of my needs, right now, I'm also spending now to save later. For instance with the butter, buying a 30-lb case now will save us quite a lot in the future. It's not likely that butter prices will match that price again very soon. So, we're set for the time being with butter. While the dried cranberries sound like a treat, believe it or not, these dried cranberries are currently cheaper than raisins, here.

Our fridge, freezer and pantry are super-well-stocked right now. I keep thinking, "what could I possibly buy next month?" But then again, I didn't think I'd be buying much this month, either.

Feb. 16. Fred Meyer, pick up 2 10-oz containers of spring leafy greens, on markdown, 99 cents each. Spent $1.98

Feb. 18. Dollar Tree, buy 4 bags of clearance, foil-wrapped, chocolate hearts (we'll use these this spring and summer for making s'mores), 50 cents/each, and 1 package of flour tortillas for an easy Sunday supper of bean burritos. Spent $3.00

Feb. 19. Bartell's Drugs store. They have bags of decaf French Roast. As I've now pared my caffeine down to just a half-cup of caffeinated coffee per day and 1 caffeinated tea bag, I now make myself 1 mug of half-caff coffee everyday, and want it to be goooooood. So, I buy 3 12-oz bags at $4.99 each, and spend $14.97.

For the month, I spent $201.12, going over the amount for the month by $77.40. So, best I can do is work at it next month, and hope that the budget works better in March. we are fairly well-stocked, so that is a good thing. I have no need to buy butter for a long time, and most of my other staples are holding out. I'll just do my best.

Hope your budgets worked out well last month!
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