Help reducing grocery bill?

[THEFAN]

Here is a couple things we did to cut our bill. MAKE IT ALL FROM SCRATCH!!!! BIG TIME SAVINGS!! But I digress

Rather than buying 3.00 englich muffins we make .20 worth of biscuits for the week. Great with jam in the morning. 2 cups of flour will make about 12 nice biscuits. Sometimes we add some cinnamin.

We make our own pizzes. 2 large pizzas we like cost about 22.00 here on the island. For 22.oo I can buy all the ingredients and make 8 with my breadmachine.
So far we have gotten back 60.00 on our breadmachine. It's a good one. It can even do meatloaf and cakes. YUM!!

Barter locally for our maple syrup.

We make our jams and barter for some when we can't make them.

We have a friend who gives us eggs each month. We give her our daughters grown out clothing. What a blessing on both sides.



A new idea I am going to try and work out this yr is trading all the mason jars I get for my lambs this fall. I have a ton for myself( 6x6 shed full) but always get 100-200 from our dump and people I know. I asl people all the time. Amazing what people have if you just ask. Most people just give them to me. They have no use for them. Just an idea to barter where and when you can.

I know a lady who sells crab meat. So I mow her yard for crab meat. In the summer we get 1 lb of crab meat a week from her.

I have another friend who trades me lobsters for mowing. So once a month we have a lobster bake in the summer.

Just plain buy in bulk.

Make soups and freeze the left over. I can always get 2 dinners and 1 kids lunch out of a soup. Sometimes more

In the winter we 1 turkey for nov, De, Jan, Feb, We can get a lot of meals out of these buggahs. Especially nice when we payed 39cents a lb back in Nov.

March is Irish month. I don't remember what I do this month. I know I drink a lot.


Just some things we do

 

[kimnkell]

Here is a couple things we did to cut our bill. MAKE IT ALL FROM SCRATCH!!!! BIG TIME SAVINGS!! But I digress

Rather than buying 3.00 englich muffins we make .20 worth of biscuits for the week. Great with jam in the morning. 2 cups of flour will make about 12 nice biscuits. Sometimes we add some cinnamin.

We make our own pizzes. 2 large pizzas we like cost about 22.00 here on the island. For 22.oo I can buy all the ingredients and make 8 with my breadmachine.
So far we have gotten back 60.00 on our breadmachine. It's a good one. It can even do meatloaf and cakes. YUM!!

Barter locally for our maple syrup.

We make our jams and barter for some when we can't make them.

We have a friend who gives us eggs each month. We give her our daughters grown out clothing. What a blessing on both sides.



A new idea I am going to try and work out this yr is trading all the mason jars I get for my lambs this fall. I have a ton for myself( 6x6 shed full) but always get 100-200 from our dump and people I know. I asl people all the time. Amazing what people have if you just ask. Most people just give them to me. They have no use for them. Just an idea to barter where and when you can.

I know a lady who sells crab meat. So I mow her yard for crab meat. In the summer we get 1 lb of crab meat a week from her.

I have another friend who trades me lobsters for mowing. So once a month we have a lobster bake in the summer.

Just plain buy in bulk.

Make soups and freeze the left over. I can always get 2 dinners and 1 kids lunch out of a soup. Sometimes more

In the winter we 1 turkey for nov, De, Jan, Feb, We can get a lot of meals out of these buggahs. Especially nice when we payed 39cents a lb back in Nov.

March is Irish month. I don't remember what I do this month. I know I drink a lot.


Just some things we do

It's great that you can barter for the things you need. Wish we had people that would do that around here.

 

[THEFAN]

There's a reason they call it good old yankee trading. But seriously sometimes you just need to ask people. I have a gift for it so it comes naturally. Plus I grew up with nothing so I had to learn early.

 

[edjanuary39]

we just got 2 pygmy goats, when they get old enough to breed, im going to milk her, I dont think I can bring myself to eat goat meat, but you know how fast I may be forced to get over that! We have 2 chickens, waiting for them to get old enough to lay. I have to get a few more this spring to be able to rely on eggs. But you guys have some great ideas! I'm wondering if you have a good recipe for sandwich bread. I prefer wheat. I have a bread maker, but all the recipes are so heavy, it goes great with dinner, but way to heavy for a pb&j. I love the idea of a veggie journal! How smart! I'm so excited to get my garden going this year, so I can do some canning and just have REAL organic food. I won't buy it. The standards for organic, are just using less pesticide and fertilizer, steroids, and antibiotics. We hope to have a cow in a year or 2, we have a lot of fencing to do, but I want meat cows, we eat alot of beef and we will get more out of beef cattle and milk from the goats. We need to start a recipe thread! I can't afford trying and failing, otherwise we will do without. Our budget has taken hit after hit the past few months, so any recipes are appreciated!

 

[me&thegals]

we just got 2 pygmy goats, when they get old enough to breed, im going to milk her, I dont think I can bring myself to eat goat meat, but you know how fast I may be forced to get over that! We have 2 chickens, waiting for them to get old enough to lay. I have to get a few more this spring to be able to rely on eggs. But you guys have some great ideas! I'm wondering if you have a good recipe for sandwich bread. I prefer wheat. I have a bread maker, but all the recipes are so heavy, it goes great with dinner, but way to heavy for a pb&j. I love the idea of a veggie journal! How smart! I'm so excited to get my garden going this year, so I can do some canning and just have REAL organic food. I won't buy it. The standards for organic, are just using less pesticide and fertilizer, steroids, and antibiotics. We hope to have a cow in a year or 2, we have a lot of fencing to do, but I want meat cows, we eat alot of beef and we will get more out of beef cattle and milk from the goats. We need to start a recipe thread! I can't afford trying and failing, otherwise we will do without. Our budget has taken hit after hit the past few months, so any recipes are appreciated!

You might want to relook at organic standards. As someone going through the certification this year, I guarantee you can't use antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, steroids or "just less pesticides."

As for lighter 100% wheat bread, I find that 1 tablespoon of vital wheat gluten does wonders for a lighter, fluffy bread. Good luck!

 

[FranklinStreetWest]

edjanuary39:
My best recipe is: integrate new things into your life one thing at a time. I want to do everything at once, and buy a bunch of gadgets to do it all... what I end up with is a mess of needless consumption and a fair bit of wasted time and money. The things that seem to stick with our household are the little changes that get worked into our "standard operations" in a way that becomes habit instead of effort....like making pasta sauce. It is SOOO much easier to buy a premixed jar, but we made the switch to homemade & we are to the point where it is reflex.

As I delve into this sufficient (old time) living, I find that not overthinking things is important. Baking soda, vinegar, bleach & alchohol are my best friends. They are by my side for cleaning, insecticides, fungicides, disinfectant, wound treatment, beauty care, general health and wellbeing. Picking up some super antique household guides is worth it, and approaching cleaning from a "chemistry" standpoint will open doors! Is that a blood stain? What is blood....iron. What removes iron? Spot treat blood stains with that. What enzymes are in wine, grass, oil...what from a chemistry standpoint will counter those things? Personally, I am not a diligent laundress. My clothes are mostly "work clothes", and the nature of it does not require stain removal so much as dirt and odor removal.

My bread (yeast bread, sweet bread, biscuit, pasta, springerle, pizza & pie crust, etc.) recipes are never carved in stone, and ALWAYS changing. I am learning that there is a real art to stone ground flour, and a big learning curve to working with it! If the processing is done wrong, it will effect the finished bread product. Different kinds of grains yeild different textures. Humidity level in the house changes amounts of water or milk added. The amount of gluten in a flour effects how it binds and finishes. Our budget for the month determines what things get made out of... butter is $5 a pound, beef & pig suet is 1/4 that price and can be substituted, it just effects flavor...some things VERY favorably! Try beef pot pie made with beef suet in the pie crust instead of butter or vegetable shortening! Or beef stew with biscuits or dumplings made with beef suet! It is important to serve the biscuits hotthough, the texture of the beef suet in the bread is rich and delicious with the meal, but after they have cooled, the texture changes and is less appealing...still good reheated though.

Remember the weird pieces of animals that other people discard... like turkey backs, giblets, beef shank, MARROW BONE, pig hocks. Most times those pieces are much less expensive! The stocks, gravies, soup basess and fats that you can render out of them are rich and delicious! Here was our dinner recently:

1 package "Turkey Backs" [$.51]
2 red onions [$.20]
2 cloves garlic [pennies]
1/4lb. organic carrots [$.40]
some greens, collards stems I think we scrounged out of the winter garden; celery would've been preferred, peas or parsley would be good too
handmade dumplings from 2c. organic flour and 2 eggs [$.60 for the organic eggs cuz my girls aren't laying right now, flour was in trade]
herbs from the garden: sage, thyme, winter savory & a tiny bit of rosemary [all fresh & free]
a couple tablespoons of olive oil, $5 a bottle stuff, nuttin fancy
some salt here and there if you like

Made a 1.5 gallon stock pot full. Fed us for two days.

BTW...goat is yummy and DELICIOUS!!! I am considering raising a couple to butcher out...they are a good quick-finish meat project, and I SERIOUSLY need to cut our meat budget.

My next goal is to eliminate buying pre-made pasta & tortillas. Since we already do most of our bread needs, this is a next logical step that should be feesible to integrate. Since starting to do our own "breads" we rarely use pre-packaged slice stuff anymore. A friend of my aunt's gets tons for free, and the only use I have found for it is drying it out and crushing it into crumbs for other cooking! We almost never use homemade slice bread either...other bread goods are more suited to our daily life. I figure, one good "bread day" a month would work out well. It's all the same ingredients for the various types. Pie crust, pizza dough and loaf bread can be frozen for future use & pasta can be dried and put in glass or tin containers.


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[so lucky]

If you are like me, you don't want to spend much time in the grocery store, but occasionally I look a little more closely at new convenient food items for sale. I am appalled. Did you know you can buy prunes individually packaged? Let's see...I need some single prunes, some individual mustard and ketchup packages, some frozen PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, pre-made mashed potatoes, little bottles of flavoring for my water, and some pre-cut vegetables. Now where did my hard-earned grocery money go????

 

[FarmerChick]

yea packaging drives me nuts also

trying to get a cheap toy out of cemented plastic with twist ties all wrapped in a box can make you insane!

 

[edjanuary39]

Thanks Franklinstreetwest! I'm doing some that now, haven't bought my fats, but I save and reuse, or render for cooking, but this is a new thing for me. I have a bread maker, which makes it so easy! The sandwich bread is something I just can't find a recipe for! I have an 11year old, so he needs lunch. I'm about to just donate a microwave to the school so he can have hot lunches! He would much rather have leftovers than sandwiches, plus that takes out a lot of chips and snacks that he doesn't need anyway! I found a great site-www.budget101.com - this site has great recipes for stuff that you usually buy. I made granola bars- they loved them and didn't last very long! I made hersheys syrup-tasted just like it! Super simple! Bisquick- but make sure you write down how much to use and recipes b/c internet recipes are all wrong! My biscuits were flat and didn't cook right, pancakes were more like crepes. So stand in the store and copy the box! But I have saved alot by not buying syrup- its about $4 and a big thing of hersheys cocoa is 5.38, but I can make 4 or 5 batches from it! My husband is very picky and grew up on name brands and has refused to eat so many things because its made cheap, so when I make something and he says he loves it or can't tell its different im happy! As soon as I get some supplies im starting a window herb garden, been saving mmy empty containers of spices! I will try goat meat when we get our herd built up, we just got 2 last weekend and they are still young. We can start breeding late summer. I will start checking with a butcher shop. I also started making my own egg noodles, super easy and quick. That site has so many things that are just as easy to make as buy, and has no preservatives and junk in it-assuming you use clean ingredients. Thanks for sharing with me!

 

[edjanuary39]

If you are like me, you don't want to spend much time in the grocery store, but occasionally I look a little more closely at new convenient food items for sale. I am appalled. Did you know you can buy prunes individually packaged? Let's see...I need some single prunes, some individual mustard and ketchup packages, some frozen PB&J sandwiches with the crusts cut off, pre-made mashed potatoes, little bottles of flavoring for my water, and some pre-cut vegetables. Now where did my hard-earned grocery money go????

My husband bought socks yesterday b0c his steel toed boots just eat holes in them. He was at the dollar store and they had a sale on them-$5.75 for a package. The package says '1 free pair' it came with 8. They do not sell packs of 7! Its an odd number and makes for wierd packaging! But he fell for it! Marketing kills me! And so many people fall into it so easily! He saved $2 from the sale which is good, but he really thought he got a free pair! Between marketing and packaging Americans get taken everytime! -in general, not all of us. Consumerism is killing our society, people are in debt beyond what they can reasonably pay off-even if they completely turned their lives around- in a year or 2! And now our whole government has carried this into our financial planning of the country.