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Desperate Measures

 

In the last few weeks, I have had many people contact me, asking how to cut their food budgets deeply in a time of economic stress.  Some have lost their jobs or had a death in the family, others have had major and unexpected medical expenses.  But the questions are basically the same.  How do you cut your budget to the bare minimum when you don’t have any income to speak of?  Here are some ideas to help reduce your budget drastically during a difficult time.

 

  • Drop your standards for food.  Non-organic beans and grains will not kill you short-term, and you’re still eating whole foods even if they’re conventional.  If you can manage it, do continue to purchase organic raw dairy, fats and meats.  But if you can not afford that, you know this is only temporary and eating at all is more important than eating organic.  Avoid going into debt for living expenses if at all possible.
  • Switch your diet to consisting more of the lower-cost grocery items such as beans and grains and cook everything from scratch.  When deciding what to buy, compare not just the cost of different brands, but the cost per serving.  50 cents for a serving of scrambled eggs (3 eggs) isn’t as good of a deal as 23 cents for a serving of oatmeal or even 22 cents for cornmeal pudding for breakfast.  But 50 cents for a serving of scrambled eggs can be a wonderfully cheap and filling dinner once a week.  Figure out what the best deals are for the prices you have to pay for each meal and arrange your menus around those items.
  • Learn to substitute ingredients and change recipes.  If you need help ‘cheapening’ a recipe or converting it to being currently in season, post on the forum for assistance.
  • Find out what day your local store marks down their meats, so you know what day and what time to shop.
  • Double your dinner and eat the leftovers for lunch, or make something cheap and filling for lunch, like soup and bread or meatless chili.  
  • Do not eat out if at all possible.  If you’re leaving home for a run into town or errands, always take food and water with you so you won’t get caught hungry if you are delayed.
  • Drop your meat consumption to 1-2 meals a day instead of 2-3.  Eggs are a good protein source that is cheap.  When in this position, we eat a meatless but high-fat breakfast, a lunch that contains home-made stock, but no meat, and some meat and stock with dinner.
  • Use this calculator for cost per servings to calculate the best deals on meat.  This allows you to compare not only by cut, but compare chicken to beef to find the best deal.
  • Do ‘rubber chicken’ recipes.  Roast a chicken and eat a small amount of the meat for dinner, then split the remaining meat into two ziplocks and make stock out of the carcass.  Then you have chicken soup for a second meal, and a meal calling for already cooked chicken for the third meal, such as enchiladas.
  • Casseroles, soups and similar dishes are much more budget friendly than those that have a separate meat, since having a separate dish encourages more meat consumption.  If you are doing a separate dish that involves cooking more than what you want to consume in one meal, such as a roast or whole chicken, cook the dish and remove the excess meat and place it into the fridge before the meal begins, otherwise it will likely get eaten regardless of what your intentions are.
  • Instead of splitting chicken breasts at the table, which normally tends to arguing between children and feelings of deprivation, split them in half with a meat cleaver before cooking.
  • Log the prices of items you buy regularly into a price book so you can keep track of when prices hit their lowest. Once you figure out that a particular item comes on sale at its lowest price every 6 weeks, you can plan to buy 6 weeks worth of it once it's on sale and save the difference. Start your book by pulling out your recent grocery receipts and logging the prices, and build from there.  That way, you never spend more than you need to in order to have what you need.  Many companies use deceptive sale and advertising practices, so you can’t always go by the ‘normal’ price on the label.  I’ve seen some stores raise their price on an item the week before a sale, put the item on sale, then drop the price back down to it’s normal level in another week, so the percentage of savings that was listed with the sale price was inaccurate and very misleading.  You can catch these deceptive practices and avoid spending more money than is necessary because you have a price book.
  • Carry a calculator with you so you can figure out cost per ounce to compare items if your store doesn’t print that information on the shelf tags.
  • Contact the companies whose items you purchase and see if you can get coupons.  There are also websites that sell coupons for a small handling fee.  Combining coupons with your pricebook information can be a cut-throat way to reduce your budget, IF you stay away from processed items that aren’t necessary.
  • Make your own condiments.  There are recipes in the Recipe Archive on the forum if you are a subscriber.
  • Begin stretching your meat meals with beans, lentils, rice and other grains.  Instead of using 1 pound of ground beef for a meal, use a half-pound and add an equal amount of cooked grains or beans.  For example, when I’m fixing dinner and need leftovers for lunch the next day, I use 1 pound of ground beef and 1 cup of lentils that I cook separately to make taco meat.  Then I stir them together and add 4 Tbs taco seasoning mix and this is equivalent in volume to 2 pounds of taco meat.  You can stretch this further by using refried beans or Spanish Rice as a side dish.  I’ve even seen people put whole kernel corn and shredded and cooked carrots and celery or other vegetables in with their taco meat to stretch it.
  • Look in the yellow pages for scratch and dent or salvage grocery stores.  Also, discount chains such as Grocery Outlet.  These places take short-dated items and things with damaged packaging and sell them at a discount, sometimes a steep discount.  Our local Grocery Outlet sometimes has frozen organic vegetables for the same that I would pay for conventional at a normal grocery store.  Since these places rotate items regularly and you never have any guarantee as to what they have in stock, it is better to go shopping here then make your menu, instead of vice versa, to take advantage of the items that you can get for the best discount.  Be careful that you don’t use the low pricing in these stores to sneak processed and packaged junk foods into your diet.  If you need a treat, limit yourself to one treat item per shopping trip.
  • Aldi’s and similar grocery stores can significantly cut your budget.  They carry one type and size of each grocery item that they stock.  So, while you only have one choice of which rice or pinto beans to get, the price can be significantly discounted from a store like Wal-mart.  The last time we asked, their canned vegetables were produced by Del-Monte.
  • Know how much it costs you to make certain items.  For example, calculate how much it costs to make a loaf of bread or a pan of cornbread.  Then, when you run into sales for items, you know if purchasing it saves you anything over what you can make it for.  Occasionally, I can catch the Bob’s Red Mill cornbread mixes for cheaper at the salvage than I can make it for at home.  These are convenience items, but they’re good to have in a pinch when you need a quick meal on the table, which avoids having to eat out and spending even more money for even lesser quality food.
  • Only purchase fruits and vegetables in season, as these tend to be the cheapest. Check your state’s agricultural extension website to see if they publish a list of wholesale prices at the local markets to help you know what and how to buy.  Here’s the listing for North Carolina.  Watch this list daily to know when to purchase for the lowest prices.
  • With winter coming, it’s difficult right now to find fresh produce.  Look at going to the Farmer’s Market in your area and bargain with the farmer directly.  I recently purchased a 65-pound bag of cabbage at the farmer’s market for $12 in the wholesale area.  This gave me enough cabbage to make a ton of sauerkraut, and at 18 cents a pound, even if half of it goes to waste, I have saved over half of what I’d normally pay at the grocery store for cabbage.  So if I threw half of it out, I’d still be breaking even.  If you can find someone to split the bulk purchases with you, so much the better.
  • Also consider going to the Farmer’s Market and purchasing a bulk box or bag of apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, carrot and onions for winter.  These will take you through the winter if stored properly, and if you know your prices you can possibly save half or more over what you would pay at a grocery store.
  • If you personally know a farmer, offer to barter in exchange for meat or produce.
  • Call your local butcher, and see if they have any abandoned meat available for the price of processing.  Sometimes a hunter will drop off a deer and not come back to claim the meat.  My local butcher charges 45 cents a pound for processing and packaging.  Even if they charge a little extra for the deep-frozen storage of the meat, even 75 cents a pound is cheap for frozen meat.
  • Grow what you can.  Now that we are into winter, that is difficult, but if you have space in your dining room, you can cultivate some lettuces and radishes and other items to help economize on your budget.
  • If you are given damaged fruit, water bath can it quickly to preserve it.  Living in apple country, we are regularly given hail-damaged apples.  We make it into applesauce and water bath can it, to preserve it long-term.

 

 

Other ideas to save money

  • Call your car insurance and tell them your car is no longer being used for commuting.  This can drop what you are paying for car insurance.  Also, now is a good time to look at your coverage and deductible, to see if they need adjusting.
  • Cook in your toaster oven instead of your oven when the pan will fit.  I can do cornbread and coffee cakes and other items that normally fit into an 8x8 pan in my toaster oven.
  • Plan a garden now for the Spring.  If your city allows it, get a couple of chickens for your back yard.
  • Join your local Freecycle e-mail list to try to obtain used items you might need for free.  We have received canning jars, clothing, furniture, wood shavings for the chicken coop and building supplies from our local Freecycle list recently.  Craigslist can also have used items for very cheap.
  • Do batch cooking sessions to save money on electricity, and to free up more time for other money-saving activities.
  • If you have a fireplace, heat your home with wood and cook on your stove-top insert.
  • Make your own cleaners, personal care items, and the like.  Go to using reusable items wherever possible.  For example, instead of purchasing a dozen rolls of paper towels, use that money to purchase a dishcloth and dishtowel.  Each time you would normally purchase the disposable item, put your funds into a reusable item instead, and slowly build up the number you have until you have as many as you need.  I have 20 dishcloths and 20 dishtowels plus a few cleaning towels that I use instead of disposable items, and I wash them about once a week.  I go through about one roll of paper towels every 6-8 months.
  • Turn your thermostat down and put on more clothes or a jacket while you’re in the house.
  • Line-dry your clothing.
  • Give your children sleeping bags for Christmas, to help make sure they stay warm at night at a lower temperature on the thermostat.
  • Call your local power company for a free energy audit.  They will come out to your house and suggest things you can do, some of them quite cheaply, to drop your power bill.
  • Put your water heater on a timer with an insulating blanket.  This will pay for itself quickly.
  • Make homemade draft stoppers by sewing a tube of fabric and filling it with cheap kitty litter.