Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Let me explian how it works.
No coupons, no gleaning/expired stuff. A big part of it is our breakfast. One and a half cups of quick oats and a quarter cup of raisins feeds me and the kids. Brandon still has Krusteaz pancakes every morning, but anyway, our breakfast is really cheap. We do add about a teaspoon of sugar and a little drizzle of milk to our oatmeal. At 1.88 for the oats, one box feeds us for 8 days (I've checked). That's just .23 cents a day for five people. Rounding up to .24 cents, that's .4 cents per person per day (just for the oatmeal. With the raisins, milk, and sugar, it could be as high as ten cents. Not sure, because I haven't measured those. The number two big thing is to MAKE A MENU! Then make a list based on what you need for the week. For example, if you want to have spaghetti, garlic breadsticks, and broccoli one night, you might have several packages of spaghetti noodles in storage like I do, or not, but you go to the store with noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, onion, and broccoli on your list. I'll assume you have spices and basic baking supplies to make the garlic breadsticks. I know I can get a pound of pasta for $2, an onion maybe .40 cents, tomato sauce is around .50 a can, and groud beef is almost $3 a pound. Broccoli is about $2 per pound. So if you get a pound, add that. That's 7.90 Divide that by six and you have $1.31 per person for dinner. Now we will have leftovers the next day. I will add two cans of tomato soup to that spaghetti and have soup for lunch. At about .75 a can for Campbell's brand (at my cheapest store)and divide by 5 (Brandon is at work) that's .30 per person for lunch. Say Brandon takes a cup of noodles to work. It was 3.36 for 12, so .28 for him. Now we have a total of 1.98 but wait! The next day we might have hot dogs on buns and apple slices for dinner for just about .50 per person. So it's the average that makes it about .50 per person per meal. Plus we had leftovers, so we really didn't use that entire 1.31 for dinner. You do have to start with some basic stored items, so maybe it would be more if I calculated the flour, sugar, etc, but here's the thing. When I go to the store on Monday I can usually get everything I need for the week for just about $40.00. On Friday night or Saturday, I go back and load up on flour, sugar, salt, canned soups, oatmeal, pasta, etc. So I was able to keep it to $80 including storage items that I didn't buy every Monday. Make sense? I do shop at a store where you bag your own groceries and I'm sure that's a lot of my savings right there, but you could do just as well at any discount grocery store. I'll try to keep track of actual prices this month so you can see how much I am paying for each item. Good luck!
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3 comments:
what are creamed pork chops?
so, i guess a week at a time is a little eazier for me to grasp. I make a menu (most of the time) and do my best to stick to it. The whole oatmeal thing is a great idea for keeping cost down and for it making breakfast a really eazy (minimal dishes) food event. i am not sure if we could do that here but maybe there is something that i could do that would work about the same.....
Oh and how often do you use your crockpot?
Other breakfast ideas that are not too pricey, are peanut butter toast, or cinnamon toast, and just add water pancake mixes. Cream of wheat costs a bit more per box than oatmeal, but it serves more than you think, and you can drink it if you add enough milk! Yogurt smoothies are great if it's hot out! I would avoid eggs and meats for breakfast to save money. One thing I have changed is not making hard boiled, or fried, or scrambled eggs. I use them only for baking. I should tell you that this experiment came as a result of an uncomfortable amount of debt. Once we get out of debt, I may increase the grocery budget so I can have eggs all I want, or I might get some chickens this Spring. Who knows. Anyway, the pork came from a recipe where you simply brown boneless pork chops in some butter, then add some cream of mushroom and milk and simmer until the chops are tender. We served them with steamed rice. I found that if I cut up the pork chops, we get more mileage out of less chops (5 chops can feed six of us for example) and we don't have to bring steak knives to the table! I happen to be using my crockpot for chili today, but I really only use it a couple times a month. I stay at home so much, I enjoy adding water to a simmering pot as something to do:) Sad I know.
yes i would love to have chickens too. mostly for the egg part.
ok so see right there we have eggs or some kind of protein for breakfast almost every morning bc i want to make sure i don't have to make anything really substancal for awhile. and protien is a good idea in the morning yatta yatta...
i do like the idea of just add water pancake mixes bc i spend too much time gathering up all the stuff to make pancakes that i almost never EVER make them. maybe that and maybe a little bit of it being over done when i was a kid...who knows.
see and with NOT having pancakes as breakfast you could have them as a dinner....humm...
yeah i'm not a big crocker either. i have one and i've used it....i think 3 times. it is great when i have roasts which i almost never have b/c it makes TOO much for us to eat.
thinking about it more i think that i'm not too too much over spending you. it's just a little differant skimatic i think right? still though. amazing what you are doing (keep posting!! you are inspiring me!!) seriously.
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