frugalers...advice/info please

**tammy88** · 07-26-2007, 12:52 PM

Hello

i will be having extremely TIGHT weeks. im out of meats, and we are meat eaters. what are some cheap, good meals. i probably cant spend more than $25.00. i have some can veggies, fresh veggies from a garden, milk, eggs, i need bread. what do you do on tight weeks and you are low on food.

how does meal planning help, how do you meal plan.
does a price book for the grocery store really work? that must take a lot of time.

thanks for any info

**Radish4ever** · 07-26-2007, 01:14 PM

Cheap, short term meal planning for us usually includes pasta, tuna, rice, sandwiches (if we have pb and jelly or something cheap like that), and loss leader fruits and veggies (the cheapest items that the grocery stores lure you in with on their sales ads) - super cheap loss leader meat is also something we get if we have the money for it!

**babymakes5** · 07-26-2007, 01:19 PM

I love to cook with ground turkey to help save money, and it is cheaper then good quality ground beef, and better for you. Also, buy a pot roast and you can get a roast one day, add BBQ and have sandwiches the next day. I like Quick Fix Meals on Food Network, because alot of the meals she makes she stretches it our over 2 or 3 days. She had recipes on the site.

What works for me is making a menu...just like you would see at a school or daycare. For example, spaghetti, corn, garlic bread, peaches. I make enough meal choices for a week, plus two extra. Then I go through my fridge, freezer, and pantry, and buy only what I need. I don't have a grocery price book, is that something you buy or something you make?

**tammy88** · 07-26-2007, 01:24 PM

does anyone here have really picky husbands? mines not too bad but he wont do the ground turkey. i will, i think its okay. he doesn like it. my sons easy he like oddles of noodles and spagettios.

the price book is something i heard about that you make. to keep a book on cost i guess. i dont know too much about it yet

thanks!

**babymakes5** · 07-26-2007, 01:30 PM

My dh use to swear that he didn't like ground turkey, so I started buying it, cooking with it, and not telling him, he never knew the difference. I won't make hamburgers with it, but I use it for everything else. I even make a meatloaf last week with it and he couldn't tell the difference. The only time we have been unhappy is when we bought white meat only ground turkey.

**Radish4ever** · 07-26-2007, 01:31 PM

a price book is good over the long term, but it can be really time consuming at first and it does need to be adjusted periodically as prices change (usually increase!)

You basically make a list of staples and items you buy regularly and list the non-sale prices at all the grocery stores you normally visit for those items. It helps you to plan ahead for grocery shopping and also helps you to see if what is in the sales flyer this week is actually a good deal or not! It can also help you to see how much something will be with coupons (if you have any).

**Radish4ever** · 07-26-2007, 01:36 PM

Oh and YES I have a picky DH! If it's meatless, he will NOT eat it. He's not too picky about what meats we eat, just as long as he gets at least a half a pound of it per meal. LOL
He also hates vegetables!

**kallik** · 07-26-2007, 02:10 PM

You could do a oriental dish with white rice, broccoli and cauliflower, and bits of chicken in it. I keep sweet and sour sauce on hand, and that would be good with a little bit over it, or a bit of soy sauce. Maybe baked potatoes if you have them, opened up, with whatever you have on hand, some butter, and cheese, onion, brocolli, again some meat on top like chicken. I think chicken thighs or chicken legs can be gotten inexpensively. Does your family like hamburger helper? It's usually pretty cheap. Okay, I'm making myself hungry!

**cheles2kids** · 07-26-2007, 02:13 PM

I am vegetarian and cook mostly vegetarian at home, so some of my cheap no-fuss ideas would be:
egg sandwiches (fried eggs on toast)
scrambled egg & shredded cheese burritos (you can add browned diced/shredded potatoes here)
veggie soup (I usually use frozen veggies with a good veggie broth, but you can defiantely use canned) along with some grilled cheese sandwiches

pasta with marinara sauce
black bean nachos with whatever toppings your family like
refried bean roll-ups (warm refried beans, spread onto warm tortillas add shredded cheese or not), slice and serve with salsa
beans cooked in the crockpot with homemade rice & cornbread

I'm sure I have other ones, but these come to mind right off.

HTH some,
Michelle

**auntie2many** · 07-26-2007, 03:27 PM

My family is the same way with show me the meat. Maybe add some sausage that you buy in a one lb. bulk chub to some pasta sauce for spaghetti and meat sauce. Grilled hot dogs count as meat too when the dollars are tight. A whole chicken roasted one night and then made into chicken, veggie and rice soup the next night.

All of the ideas are good. The thing that you will have to do is put down your essential items on a shopping list and see if they come out to $25 or less.

Another thing to do if you can is to fix some sort of dessert. I have found that during lean times, we do not feel as deprived if we have dessert. It could be a box of pudding, snickerdoodle or sugar cookies just something.

auntie

**leezza** · 07-26-2007, 04:04 PM

How about the large cans of White Meat Chicken that you can get at Costco I think its now $12.00 for 6 cans......thats 6 meals at our house, and they are very easy to use in recipes.

Pot roast in the crockpot as someone else said: I made a pork roast (got on loss leader sale at safeway for $5.42) in mine last week and used green enchalada sauce for the liquid....everyone thought it was great!

Good Luck!
leezza

**Siebrie** · 07-27-2007, 08:52 AM

Mix pasta, beans and / or diced potatoes into all your meals. They are great stomach fillers.

Start the meal with a bowl of soup for stomach filling also. This may be plain stock, but maybe you can add some herbs, cream or leftover veg (save the meat for the main dish).

You can cut sausages open and use the ready-spiced meat in bean and pasta dishes. That way you will need even less meat to get the meaty taste.

Do desserts, preferably the old-fashioned ones with cooked grains.

Go to bed on time, before you feel like snacking. I usually want something to eat when I stay up after 10.30 pm.

**AspiringToBeFrugal** · 08-01-2007, 05:11 PM

Depending on where you live and how many people you are planning to feed, there's likely a lot you can do w/ $25. Many people on this thread mentioned the loss leaders, which should help you stretch your money.

Other options include potatoes and pastas, both of which are pretty filling. I've found large jars of name-brand pasta sauce at the dollar store. I don't drown our pasta in it so one jar can usually last us two meals. Another affordable option is beans. You could make bean and cheese burritos, ham and beans, etc. Rice is also fairly inexpensive and can be used for Mexican, Oriental, or southern-style recipes.

Although they aren't as healthy for you as a complete meal, boxed mac & cheese (not the microwaveable kind) and Ramen noodles are pretty inexpensive and could be used as your "last-resort" option until you get some additional money. Again, a lot of these things are found at the dollar store for a very low price--sometimes 10 cents a package! You could also buy a cannister of rolled oats at the dollar store which can be eaten as cereal or mixed into ground hamburger for a meatloaf (you may not have to use as much meat this way).

As far as meat goes, someone else mentioned roasting a chicken. This is a great idea as whole chickens are usually much cheaper than the ever-popular boneless, skinless chicken breasts. While you may have to work at it a bit, de-boning a chicken can result in meat for several meals as well as chicken stock for a future chicken and noodles meal!

As for the bread issue, could you make your own bread? Sometimes that is cheaper than purchasing a loaf. Other options: the local bakery or grocery store may mark loaves of bread down that weren't purchased the day they were baked. The dollar store sometimes carries bread and in our community we have a bakery outlet store where the regular sandwich bread is usually under $1.

I feel for you and understand how difficult it is to look a week or two down the road and see you only have $__ to spend and wonder how you're going to make it work. My suggestion would be to challenge myself (kind of an Iron Chef thing) to use up what I have in my cabinets, refrigerator and freezer before making myself go to the store. After all, necessity is the mother of invention! Good Luck!
Allison

**tammy88** · 08-01-2007, 05:19 PM

thanks

all of this has been so helpful
i wasnt very good i actually spend $65.00 but i got 6lb of ground beef 90/10%fat for .99 each so i stocked up! so right now i have 4/5lbs left of ground beef and 1 thing of chicken. im using my beef tips tonight. i like the idea about going to the bread store but kroger had bread for $.88 so igot that.
i took the left over spegatti noodles and made a pasta salad to go with dinner tonight. im trying to figure out how to make bisquits without bisquick or butter milk. because i made a skillet pot roast that i would like to combine with the biscuits to be like a beef pot pie

THANKS EVERYONE!

**AspiringToBeFrugal** · 08-01-2007, 05:21 PM

Oh! I was also going to address your meal planning question. For us, it's usually a matter of sitting down with a couple of cookbooks on Friday night (when I'm too tired to do much else!) or Saturday morning, making up a list of seven or eight meals and then writing down the list of ingrediants I'll need from the store to complete those meals. I usually have a few items on hand and may only need the meat or fresh items to complete them.

I usually only plan out our suppers as I'll make enough for leftovers which I eat for lunch. Breakfast is usually some fruit or cereal, neither of which require much planning. However your family may be different so you can plan accordingly.

I'm a Rachael Ray fanatic so I have several of her cookbooks. Her pasta recipes are pretty good and don't require ingrediants that are too expensive or hard-to-find. This makes it nice and easy when supper time rolls around. You could check out www.rachaelraymag.com for some recipes.

I've also found that Taste of Home or Quick Cooking magazines (I think you can also find these online) have some great, fairly frugal recipes. And you can't go wrong with those old church cookbooks or family member cookbooks...I've found that many of the people who submit recipes for these books are of the generation where frugality was a necessity and way of life. The recipes oftentimes reflect that attitude which helps us out considerably!

Good luck!