Reader Story: How I Save Tons of Money by Grocery Shopping Once Every Three Months
Published on - August 8th, 2010 (by J.D. Roth) This guest post from Jenny Sandman is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes. Jenny blogs about frugal gourmet cooking at Broke Foodie.
When my husband and I got engaged, we knew we were going to foot most of the bill for the wedding ourselves. Fortunately, we didn’t want a big, fancy affair, but we still needed to save a few thousand dollars quickly. Our massive joint debt-load complicated matters. So, I combined our finances and slashed spending to the bone. He wasn’t particularly appreciative, since he had no real concept of financial planning or budgeting, meaning most of the slashed spending was his, but we were able to save the entire amount in five months and pay for the wedding in cash. (A shade over $10,000 — and that included the rings, photography, and cross-country airfare.)
During that time, we had no life. We didn’t go out, didn’t buy anything, dropped our cable plan, and put everything on power strips that we then kept turned off whenever possible. (Cutting our electric bill from $70-something a month to $20-something a month.) It wasn’t as draconian as it sounds — we went to the beach a lot (free), walked to the library every week (free), and watched a lot of Netflix movies. It also meant we didn’t buy groceries.
Fortunately, I cook. More fortunately, I had a very well-stocked pantry prior to The Saving Time. So until we got married, we ate solely out of the pantry. By the time we left for the wedding, I was sick to death of soup, and our pantry was almost completely bare. I think there may have been a tube of anchovy paste and some pickles left. (Let’s not even talk about the depleted state of the liquor cabinet.) But we ate well for those five months, and we didn’t spend a dime on food or alcohol.
When we returned, I decided to follow that template again. We had some money left over after the wedding, which I used to completely restock the pantry and liquor cabinet, in preparation for another three-month run without shopping. If this appeals to you, here’s how to do it:
- Shop in bulk wherever possible. I buy whatever I can at Sam’s Club and only then go to the grocery store. [J.D.'s note: If, like me, you live an area without Sam's Club, shop at Costco.]
- Forget convenience foods, frozen dinners, and brand-name loyalty. The plan worked because I cooked from scratch, with an eye toward using up leftovers and some sense of variety, in that order. We ate a lot of soup, a lot of variations on beans and rice, and a lot of pasta. But we also ate fresh-baked whole-grain bread, roasted beet pizza, butternut squash stuffed with Italian sausage and wild rice, and black bean and spinach enchiladas with cilantro pesto. I cooked enough so that every dinner yielded four portions, dinner plus lunch for the both of us the next day. I don’t buy canned soups or vegetables (other than tomatoes), bread or pancake mixes, breakfast cereals, soda, or anything processed.
- Join a CSA. We get a big box of fresh fruits and vegetables every two weeks, year-round (living in California is great for that). It costs $177 for six boxes (12 weeks), prepaid. Meaning our three-month supply of fresh fruits and vegetables is done, right there, with a new influx of fruits and vegetables every other Sunday. I don’t buy anything else — not bananas or grapes or whatever. I eat only what comes in the box. (Although I do buy onions, garlic and potatoes in bulk, as I consider those more cooking essentials than “vegetables.”)
- Become one with your freezer. Because I only use milk for cooking (our breakfast is usually steel-cut oatmeal or homemade muffins, no breakfast cereal), I buy a half-gallon and freeze it in small amounts, taking only what I’ll need out of the freezer. Same for butter, cheese, and meat in bulk. I can buy a three-month supply of parmesan cheese, freeze what I don’t need immediately, and shred only small amounts at a time.
- I grow my own herbs.
- I make my own vegetable stock from vegetable scraps. Occasionally I’ll roast a whole chicken; the scraps from that become chicken stock. What I’m not using immediately goes right into the freezer.
- I use meat more as flavoring and less as the centerpiece of a meal. The traditional “meat plus sides” meal format is expensive and fattening. Usually I make one thing for dinner, and we both eat that one thing until we’re full. Risotto, spaghetti, salad, pizza, whatever. One thing.
Obviously, this isn’t an approach that works for everyone. But I cut our food expenditures from $500+ a month to an average of $164 a month. For two people. For every meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day.
Like I said, it’s not for everyone. But we eat very well, and we have completely eliminated the need for a second car. If we don’t need to run errands all the time, we can use our one car exclusively for commuting and then relax on the weekends. No fear of impulse shopping, or walking into the grocery store to pick up one thing and coming out with twelve.
Because I either have to make do with what I have or do without, my recipes have become a lot more inventive and a lot more versatile. (Out of parsley? Can’t run down to the store to get more…what can I use instead?) I didn’t spend all my time in the kitchen, either. I spent an average of 30 minutes a night preparing dinner, and maybe an hour a day on the weekends to prepare breakfasts, bread, prep dried beans, cook in bulk, that sort of thing. Menu planning got much more precise, but I didn’t have to worry about tracking sales or clipping coupons, either.
Bonus points: We’ve both lost weight (especially him, since he quit drinking soda and going out to lunch with his coworkers every day), and we’re walking a lot more.
Best of all, our savings account is growing again by big leaps and bounds. Once we establish a good emergency fund, we’ll be able to tackle all that debt.
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I did not catch fresh fruit and veggies. Did you go without, buy canned?
Dee
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I use a Food Saver to freeze food. It’s amazing and I no longer get freezer burn on my food so it lasts a lot longer. It was well worth the price at Costco since I’ve saved so much money by not throwing food away.
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Hi, Jenny! I know everyone eats different foods, but would you please post your 3 month list of pantry items & amounts of each? How about your recipes too? This is something that all people used to have on hand back in 50′s esp. farm families. Thanks for the post. i plan to read your whole blog.
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In addition to Kay’s comment above – any more recommendations from commenters or the OP on good methods and containers for freezing?
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I would rather take a beating than have to go to the grocery store, so I would love to see a sample of your menu plan.
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I’m interested to know where Jenny stores those onions, garlic, and potatoes that she buys in bulk. Does she freeze them (is that possible?) or do they last in her pantry? Where I live, those items will last for a max of one month, due to the humidity. The potatoes end up sprouting and onions have some sort of black mold that grows between the layers.
I second the Food Save vacuum sealer. We buy meat in bulk at Costco, then freeze in inidividual portions.
Also, I’m confused as to how her grocery shopping schedule allows her husband and her to get by with one car. My hubby and I need two cars specifically because we both have jobs that require us to drive from office to office during the day (i.e. taking the bus is not an option). If we didn’t have those types of jobs (i.e. if one of us had a job where we stayed in one location all day), we could easily get by with one car if one of us dropped the other off at work and did a pick-up in the afternoon/evening. It seems to me that the reason they’re able to make it with one car has more to do with their work schedules/locations, than her grocery shopping schedule.
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After picking up groceries this morning I spent an hour processing items for the freezer. Extra lean ground beef was on sale so I bought 8 pounds. I fried it all completely (no seasoning) drained it well and once cool froze it in 8 one pound freezer bags (make sure to suck out all the air). Now they are ready for spaghetti sauce, tacos, and casseroles. On a busy day these precooked packages are a real time saver and you only have to deal with the frying and grease once, not 8 times.
Red peppers were also on sale so I bought 12. I now have 3 large freezer bags of them chopped, chunked and cut in strips. I freeze the pieces on wax paper on cookie sheets and then dump them into bags. Frozen separately like this means they remain loose in the bag and you can grab just a handful at a time for a recipe. Same process works well for chopped onions.
Then I moved on to chicken parts or pork chops which I also freeze individually on cookie sheets and then pile them into large freezer bags. Then I can pull our only the number I need later. Freezing packages directly from the store means all the pieces are welded together adn you have to defrost the entire package which may be way more than I need.
I generally do my shopping every two weeks as most things will last that long or can be frozen. For veggies we first eat all the ones that are best eaten fresh (greens, tomatoes, etc), then we eat the ones that last well (carrots, turnip, parsnips, squash, potatoes etc), and finally frozen/canned (corn, peas). Same routine for fruits – bananas and grapes immediately, apples, oranges, pineapple next, frozen berries and canned peaches and pears last.
I buy 2 loaves of bread – one for now, one goes in the freezer for the second week. Same with bagels and English muffins. If I bake muffins we keep out enough for a day or two and freeze the rest and pull them out as they are needed so they are always fresh.
The giant sealed blocks of cheese in my fridge have best before dates anywhere from October to March. When they go on sale I buy several since we are cheeseaholics. We go through one every couple of weeks so my stash of 5 will last 10 weeks, but if necessary they are good for 4 to 7 months. I have nothing against freezing cheese but I’ve never seen the need. Perhaps it’s a good idea for store wrapped pieces that won’t keep as long as the factory sealed packages. Cottage cheese can be frozen and later used in lasagnas if you find the texture has changed. Freeze sour cream for use in future enchiladas.
I do buy milk weekly as it takes up a lot of room and I hate freezing it as it separates and then I have to dump the defrosted milk into another container adn “whiz” it with the hand blender to remix it. We go through about 9L/wk so filling our fridge (or freezer) with 18L of milk just isn’t realistic.
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My two cents on the cheese -
Freezing works great if you plan to use it on something that you are going to melt – like a lasagna or casserole.
But if you are planning on putting it on sandwiches or crackers, thawed out frozen cheese just doesn’t come out quite the same.
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Ok for some strange reason lately my comments keep disappearing right after I post.
Anyhoo, I really like this idea but I am terrible at planning. I don’t know if it’s because I live so close to grocery stores that I can walk, or if it’s because there’s only one of me to feed. I’ve never had much success at meal planning. I think it’s the restocking that I find difficult. I don’t have a lot of space in my apartment, and only have the freezer on top of my fridge to store things. I don’t have a membership to Costco because where would I put all that food, or how would I get it home without a car? I did have a membership to a local produce delivery company which strives to deliver organic and local food, but found a lot of it went to waste. Maybe I am too lazy for this. I would love to do something like this though as I’m currently unemployed. Don’t know where I’d find money for the start-up costs though.
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This is a more dramatic version of the way that my little family of two works as well. I’d be more interested to hear about how the power strips shaved $50 off of the power bill. Were there cuts in heating and/or cooling during that time as well? If we could drop our power bill by $50, we’d be very happy campers!
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@Bonnie- It’s very humid here, and I find that you can store potatoes and so forth in white rice. Fill a large box or bag w/ white rice and bury the potatoes in it. The rice will absorb the moisture and the potatoes will stay fresh for several months. You can also use sand, and you can do carrots and other root vegetables this way as well. You can store onions in old clean stocking, tying a knot between each onion and hanging the stocking. The nylon allows them to breathe while the knot keeps them from touching. As long as the onions don’t touch each other, they will stay good for several months.
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When I first saw the headline my thought was “how do they eat anything fresh?” But the answer was the CSA. I have never heard of that before so I’ll have to check it out!
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Great Work!
I tried not going to the store in July because my farmer’s market does bread, dairy, meat, fruits & veggies. I made it to the 18th and my complete ineptitude with green beans was the final straw.
I was also impressed with how quickly you got to super-frugal. Contragulations.
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A note about freezing cheese: always shred it before you freeze it. Blocks of cheese form ice crystals inside that change the texture and flavor. Shredded cheese doesn’t do this and so it works much better. I freeze the bags or buy a block and shred it then freeze it. You can thaw it and use it, and if you can’t use it all, freeze it again. Cheese always goes moldy in the fridge before I can use it all.
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So interesting article. If I did not have three little kids maybe I could do this better. I do cook mostly from scratch but it does take time maybe because I am constantly interupted;) We do not eat any meat hardly any dairy so we do save tons of money this way and we are all very healthy. I have to have fresh fruit every week or I will die!! There is a web site I go to called pickyourown.org it has fantastic directions for freezing and canning and farms for picking in most states. I am a fanatic freezer. Green beans, blueberries, strawberries, sweet corn,tomato etc.. We go as a family and pick these then we come home and freeze and foodsaver all day. It is so worth it. Plus a great family or couple activity. Having frash tasting fruits and veges in the middle of winter! YUMMY!!
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Wow! THat is cheap living on steroids. I’m super impressed. I’ve been trying to cut our food budget down and those are some great ideas. TFS
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First of all Jenny, I’m very interested in your roasted beet pizza recipe! Thank you for sharing your experience. We need to make changes at our house and posts like this inspire and challenge me.
Also, THANK YOU J.D. for deleting rude and irrelevant posts! I wish everyone did this. There aren’t very many things I dislike more than reading an article and looking through the comments for additional, helpful ideas, only to have to wade through obscenities, angry rants and insulting remarks. Thank you for realizing our time is valuable and we don’t want to waste it by reading garbage.
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Obviously the key here is knowing how to cook. I’m curious how you learned. We’re still at the following recipes stage, although we will substitute ingredients that we don’t have or are too expensive. We try to plan ahead each week, but something always seems to pop up to derail our plans at least once.
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Thanks, everyone! I’ll try to answer all these questions this week on my blog, http://www.brokefoodie.com. Stay tuned!
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RE: Freezing cheese – I have never had a problem with frozen cheese. We buy 2-5 lb blocks of hard cheeses (cheddar, mozzarella, and pepper jack) in bulk when they go on sale and put them straight into the deep freezer. I have never had a problem with the texture after thawing any of them. I have read that the texture is supposed to change, but it doesn’t. We slice it just fine for sandwiches once it has had a few days to fully thaw in the fridge. You wouldn’t even know it had been frozen.
I’ve also frozen pre-shredded cheese and that works fine too, but it will get freezer burn eventually. Cheese in blocks is less susceptible to freezer burn, in fact I’ve kept it frozen for over a year with no ill effects.
I have never tried freezing soft cheeses, but I have frozen whole gallons of milk, again with no ill effects (none of the separating people mention). Maybe the trick is to let the dairy items fully thaw in your fridge before trying to use them. We do that and have never had any problems with it.
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Thanks Jenny for sharing your methods for keeping food costs down. I was very inspired by your post. I think we’re good shoppers, and we already eat a lot of healthy, fresh foods, but in an effort to get things on sale, sometimes we overstock and buy things we really don’t need. I would like to try to cut back to twice a month and then maybe cut back even further. The only thing I couldn’t live without is fresh salad fixings. Right now, our garage freezer is so full of stuff, our home could be used as a bomb shelter! Also, I buy the light, frozen meals (4 a week) on sale to bring to work when there are no leftovers, but after reading your post, I’m committed to cooking on Sundays to prepare for the week.
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This goes well with the mantra of live simply so others can simply live. We spend far too much time consumed with the idea of organics and healthier foods, not remembering the ripple effects of much we waste by marketing CONSTANTLY, the cost of transporting organics and the time all of this takes away from just living. Jenny gives clues to a pragmatic approach to using food as fuel instead of food as a centerpiece to life. Of course, have wonderful meals, enjoy company and do community building around them. One thing we should encourage is more community based gardens (or pea patches as they’re often called) in urban communities. If every urban “neighborhood” had their own plotted garden area, think about the community building that would do, but also how much energy it would save for shopping for onions or potatoes. Plan life simply: try to work in your own neighborhood, advocate for a community garden and if you can, follow Jenny’s example of bulk shopping and responsible meal planning.
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For those of us who consider meatless meals a form of punishment, I suggest buying an organic cow!
My wife and I spent ~$500 for a quarter cow and it lasts us a whole year.
We get great cuts of meat, steaks, ground beef, and a bunch of roasts!
We love it, it tastes great and it only costs roughly $2/lb – a pretty substantial savings from similar cuts of grocery store meat.
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This is a very inspiring article. I want to look more into freezing items – storing it properly, how long it will last, what can’t be frozen, etc. This is great for someone who is having trouble managing their grocery expenses.
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If you live in the tristate area around NYC, you might consider Urban Organics as a cost-effective CSA alternative. Their value boxes are $35 a week (or every other week, like frugalfoodie), and offer a great variety of fruits and veggies. They even let you “blacklist” 3 items, so they never send you food you dislike. They offer a smaller and less expensive option for singles and couples, too.
Ali
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WOW – as a bride-to-be confused with how to save that little extra needed for a honeymoon, this seriously caught my eye. My fiance and I are TERRIBLE at food expense – somewhere around $600/month at the grocery store. The only good thing is that we have cut back on going out.
I would also love a cookbook based on this experience. I have no idea how to make good, healthy meals without instructions.
No way we can go without a car – living in AZ, things are really far apart and I’m not walking anywhere past the mailbox in 115 heat. But we both traded in our cars for less expensive ones.
This is inspirational, to say the least. At least I know there is hope for us. I would give anything to even reduce our grocery spending in 1/2 to $300!
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Great article! I am a gardener and can, freeze, and dry a lot of food over the summer. When my pantry became too full, we (husband and I) tried not going to the store for two months to use up what we had. That was 2009. In 2010 we did it for three months. Next year we’ll shoot for four months (Jan.-April). I don’t have access to a year-round CSA, but it would certainly make the experience much easier. Rather than fresh food, we used bottled fruit and salsas, frozed tomatoes and tomato sauce, pasta, and some meat for our Pantry Challenge.
The best rule is to store what you eat (if you don’t like it, it’s going to sit on the shelf) then eat what you store.
I’m anxious to see what else you post on your blog.
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Wow, this is so inspiring! I can’t believe how much using those power strips lowered your electric bill. I wish I could get my husband on board with some of these ideas. I need to make more meals from scratch and use less processed food. And now that I’m home more often I have no excuse not to start. Thanks for sharing!
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Like others, I found CSA’s too expensive. They’re sort of “chic” now, and can have a chic price tag, too. But I found another solution, one that has me in the grocery store very rarely.
I contacted the national distribution company that brings organic produce to our local health food store and found that anyone can get an account, not just stores. I got together with 3 other (kind of large) families, and now a truck comes to my house once a week (or whenever we want, for us, with lots of kids to feed, it’s once a week), and delivers wholesale produce, dairy, and meat to my door, and it happens to be all organic. Then another guy joined, and he sells us his homemade bread and home-farmed eggs.
I used to coupon heavily, and got the grocery bill for our family of 5 to $400 a month (that was hard work). But we did eat more processed/carby stuff then. Now, with this delivery, everything is organic, the meat and dairy are grassfed, and I rarely go to the store at all any more. Our diet is squeaky clean now, almost decadent even, since it’s nearly all organic (we didn’t buy much organic before, honestly) and our bill went up just the tiniest bit. Now I spend around $400 on just this stuff, with an additional $30 or so per week at stores or drugstores. Our bill for 5 people is still smaller than many two-person young couples’ grocery spending, even as well as we eat. It’s all wholesale!
It does take effort to plan and organize each order. And between the four families we’re feeding over 20 people, so it does make more sense for larger families rather than pre- or no- child households. But it’s another option.
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This is really neat! My husband and I cut back on grocery trips by buying in bulk at Sam’s Club and buying Angel Food Ministry boxes. We use the grocery store to supplement. I still end up shopping every week or so, but we’ve cut our food budget in half. It would be even better, but we both like the traditional meat and two sides for dinner…
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Jenny, I am beyond impressed! Your approach requires a great amount of organization and willpower!
I have to say that groceries is one area that I haven’t budgeted well. Hubby and I could do a lot better in this area.
I do keep the pantry and freezer well stocked so we have lots of options available based on staple goods. I avoid recipes that require very unusual ingredients – although every now and then I do splurge on an expensive dish.
One of the best investments we ever made was a Food Saver. I like to cook up large casseroles, then freeze leftovers in individual portion Food Saver bags. I also do this for soup and other foods such as cooked rice, shredded cheese, batches of cooked beans, etc. The bags can be reused – just turn them inside out and run them in the top rack of the dishwasher. They’re great at preventing freezer burn.
With this method, we always have options available in the freezer, which means less impulse meals out.
It’s also helpful to have mason jars on hand. If you have milk or OJ or other beverages that are nearing their expiration date, it’s easy to freeze the goods in smaller portions in mason jars.
Having a spare freezer and a Food Saver has helped our grocery budget a lot. Buying in bulk and storing in reusable food grade mylar bags/food grade buckets is also useful. We do love cooking from scratch too.
I thought we were doing well at $350-$400 a month for two people. Crikey, now I feel embarrased about our monthly food expenditure!
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Last time my husband traveled for business, I challenged myself to eat only from what was currently in the house without spending any additional money. I was shocked by how easy it was.
I’m an average cook, but not a picky eater so I thought it might not be too hard. What amazed me was how well I ate. I had to work a little harder than usual to plan out what I might put together, but I was shocked that I didn’t have a bad meal all week. It challenged me to get a lot more creative and to make the most out of each item.
This was a great article. While a lot of people might not be able to manage such a drastic change, Jenny provides some really specific, concrete tips that readers can try. Great job!
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@14 – kaitlyn
I’ve tried just about every way of preparing eggplant that I’ve come across. I just don’t like it.
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I really enjoyed this post and found it inspirational. I think more posts like this and even a step by step how would be helpful. Great job saving so much money Jenny and being creative doing it.
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Eggplant….if all else fails, chop it up and throw it into the spagetti sauce. I like the Asian skinny eggplants best….stir-fry with any kind of meat….bit of soy sauce and vinegar for taste.
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Thanks Bree for an alternative to this article! If it were just my husband and I, we could do this with no problem. But with a family of seven (incl. 3 teen boys and 5 & 7 year old girls), it would be impossible. I will definately try your method.
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I would be curious to try something like this but the thought of creating the initial grocery list is mind boggling to me. Does anyone have explains of these pantry filling lists?
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This post has really resonated with me. I’ve always wondered how long I could go by just eating out of my pantry and only spending money on milk and fruit. I’m definitely going to try it.
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I think the message of this post is to think about what you have and work with it-instead of thinking “oh I could make that recipe if I only had X” we should start thinking “I’m going to make that recipe but because I’m missing X I’m going to get creative and find a replacement in my pantry”. There are some great websites out there to find recipes for stuff you have (allrecipes.com has a feature were you can put in the stuff you have and it finds a recipe with those things and cheaphealthygood did a post on how to stock a pantry and things you can make with those things- there are plenty of sites out there with this info, google it). I’ve been trying to see how long I can go without going to the store and so far it’s going well
Thanks for the inspiration to keep going. 
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Wow, that’s awesome. I can barely go two weeks between store trips (the milk and fresh produce trip me up – I have lotsa kids and we drink 5 gallons a week!)
I have been working on a 90 day food supply for disaster preparedness, but haven’t tested it out in too long. You’ve inspired me to revisit my storage and menu plans!
Are you vegetarians, or how do you go about getting 3 months supply of meat? Did you buy a side of beef and save that way?
Deb, The Prudent Homemaker has tons of info on her site about shopping very infrequently. Basically, just figure out what you eat in a week and multiply up.
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/default.aspx
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Okay, that was pretty awesome to read. I couldn’t do it. We are members of a CSA (weekly), and have been for 10 years. But we eat a LOT of fresh produce. Even with the CSA, the farmer’s market at my son’s school, and the occasional free fruit from my boss’s tree, I still have to buy many pounds of produce a week.
We eat probably 3-4 lbs of produce a day (3 people). We get about 10 lbs a week from the CSA, so that means for 12 weeks, we would need 18 lb/wk x 12 weeks = 216 lbs or so in the freezer for 90 days.
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Thanks, MileHiMama, for the link.
I have a family of 8. We’ve gone over a year without shopping. It’s pretty normal for us, now. This includes diapers and tolietries for 3 in diapers.
Can larger families do this? You bet! It just means buying more than smaller families.
We lived from our pantry and garden (and the first year the garden didn’t do well, so justhe pantry) for over 2 years. I had 9 months of shopping to restock, and then I stopped shopping again mid-December 2009. I went a few months without any shopping, and I have had very limited funds to go shopping since late February (only $125 a month for all 8 of us, including diapers, tolietries, cleaning suppies, everything). This year, our garden has done well, which has been a great blessing. We’ve had continual fresh fruits and vegetables: asparagus, artichokes, cherries, figs, apricots, peaches, figs, asian pears, grapes, tomatoes, lettuce, swiss chard, fresh herbs, and lots more.
Potatoes CAN be stored long-term, even in hot climates; a fridge is helpful. It’s hot here in Las Vegas, and potatoes will sprout in a week in the house. In the winter, I buy 300-400 lbs of potatoes and we eat those over a few months.
Katy, I can stock my pantry and feed my family and diaper my babies, and do so for a couple of years, for $600 a month the first year (and very little if anything the second year). You can definitely cut your expenses on food. And if you cut out eating out, you can save a TON. I feed my family for $1-$5 a meal. I’ve got lots of other ways that we save money; maybe some can help you save up for your honeymoon! And plenty of recipes, including menus for every season, to help you out!
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I’ve gone over a year without shopping; this is VERY doable. And it saves a ton of money! I’ve got a family of 8, including 2 in diapers.
We’ve lived just from our pantry and garden for a long time. Our garden has been a huge blessing; this year we’ve had asparagus, artichokes, apricots, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, herbs, tomatoes, figs, cherries, apples, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, peaches, plums, fresh herbs and more (and we live in Las Vegas).
Katy,
You can save the money for your honeymoon! I can feed my family of 8 for 2 months (including diapers for 2), for what you’re spending on two of you for one month. Plus, I’ll have food left in the pantry afterwards! I’ve got plenty of recipes to help you! All of us can eat for $1-$5 a meal. I also have lots of ways to save money that can help you save more as well.
For those who are concerned about potatoes, just remember, they are best stored at 45º. I buy 300-400 pounds of potatoes at .20 a pound in November every year.
And Marcia, we eat TONS of produce, too. My family can easily eat 5 pound of potatoes a day, plus 5 pounds of fruit, and then lots of vegetables, too.
My family has one car, and not shopping very often saves me a ton of time and plenty on gas.
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Here are two ways to cook eggplant that I absolutely looove and that I’ve never seen the mentioned before.
Recipe #1 – Ground beef with eggplant (one of my hubbies faves!)
-Saute about a pound of ground beef (or turkey) and then add in a lot of diced garlic and onions.
-cut eggplant into one inch chunks and add into the mix. cover with lid and simmer until the eggplant is cooked.
-add a sprinkle of soy sauce, sesame oil, and garlic salt and pepper to taste. YUM!
(sometimes I’ll half the amount of ground beef and add tofu instead).
Recipe #2 – Roasted Eggplant omelet (typical filipino recipe, mmm!)
-poke a few holes into the eggplant (I usually use the long skinny asian type for this) and roast in the oven until the skin gets all crinkly and the insides are fairly cooked.
-remove and wait til it cools. remove the skin. it’s fairly easy to peel off.
-beat a couple of eggs in a bowl. lift the whole eggplant (don’t cut the top end off) by the top and lay it into the bowl with the eggs.
- take a fork and mash the eggplant flat into the bottom of the bowl so it takes on a flattened circular-ish shape.
-heat up your pan and put some oil in it.
-one hand holding the bowl, the other hand holding the top of the eggplant, gently pour the whole mix into the pan (works best with a smaller pan so you basically get a personal size omelet with the top of the eggplant hanging out like a little handle.
-cook on both sides as you would a regular omelet.
-i like to add a little garlic salt cuz that’s how my mom always made it.
Then, try eating it with some ketchup on the side. super yummy!
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This is GREAT! Thank you for posting! We’ve started shopping a lot less now that we’ve joined a CSA, but this has really inspired me to try a week or month without doing any other shopping (except maybe milk). I think we could do it!
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Maybe I should say that “we can’t do that with two full time jobs and a child”. We have a very small city lot, but with creative use of pots and square foot gardening, I could probably grow a lot of veggies, and we do have two fruit trees (an orange and a tangerine).
Right now our garden is tiny, but we have unused space by the street, and space in front of the house.
I do love reading stories like these and by the Prudent Homemaker because they are inspiring. From time to time, I make the effort to shop only once/week, and even that is a HUGE time-saver and money saver.
I do buy grains and beans in bulk, and in 2009 ate from the pantry a LOT. Every other month our bill was $160.
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I’m very curious about the recipes for all of these things. I’m no cook, but if they really don’t take forever to prepare, I’m willing to give it a shot.
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I grew up in a large family (12 children) on a farm. My mother purchased almost nothing from the grocery story. What we couldn’t grow or raise ourselves, she would purchase. So, she purchased some fresh apples and oranges in winter. But she even made ketchup at home. None of my school friends had all that homemade stuff, and I felt deprived of the store-bought varieties until a few friends came by to spend an afternoon on the farm. When they saw what my mom was making for dinner, they called their parents and begged to be allowed to stay for dinner at my home because we would be eating ‘real’ food! It was a shock to me. I was prepared to be embarassed because we didn’t have ‘store-bought’ varieties.
At any rate, today I cannot raise all the food myself, but I cook ‘from scratch’, often using recipes from the Harrowsmith Cookbooks (There are about 5 books.) The recipes generally require basic ingredients that one is likely to have in the pantry. For people looking for practical recipes, I can recommend those books.
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JD suggests shopping at Costco if you have no Sam’s Club in your town. I’d recommend shopping at Costco if you DO have a Sam’s Club: Costco is famous for its ethical treatment of workers, and pinning its prices to the costs they pay to the manufacturers. Walmart and its affiliates are infamous for their underhanded practices, and causing many US manufacturers to move their plants out of the country to meet Walmart’s price requirements.
As cheap as their prices may appear, there’s a human cost that should be factored in.
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