Frugal SBD

[Magna]

By popular demand, a group/discussion focusing on frugality and SBD. Are you wondering whether SBD will cost money or save money, looking for tips on how to cut your food budget, looking for money-related reasons to lose weight, or generally interested in good use of your money? Then this thread is for you.

A couple of resources to help get us started. First, here's an older discussion of saving money on SBD:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=92722&p=1079041

And here's my SBD Budget Challenge journal:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=97061&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[Magna]

Some observations from my $21-a-week challenge:

The more frugal foods taste fine, but it's important to build variety and some type of treats into your diet. If I had tried to load up only on what was cheapest, my menu would have been terribly boring.

In most cases the more frugal foods have to be cooked in advance in batches. But once you do that and portion out the foods, it's a breeze to put together a meal. For example, I had seven individual servings of cooked steel cut oats in the refrigerator and all I did in the morning was microwave them and add milk. I also had individual plastic bags of split pea soup, beans, carrot sticks, and hard boiled eggs and could easily add those to my lunch or use as a snack or part of a meal any time. There are some ready-to-eat or quick-cooking foods, such as fresh fruit, eggs, NSA hot chocolate mix, nuts/seeds, and frozen vegetables.

The more frugal foods tend to be only minimally processed and packaged. For example, hot cereal and cooked barley were cheaper per serving for me than cold cereal or bread, and bulk popcorn popped on the stovetop was cheaper than microwave. In some cases, processing made for healthier eating without adding much to the cost. For example, skinless boneless chicken breasts were more expensive per pound than a whole chicken, but considering I wasn't buying bones, skin, and dark meat I didn't intend to use, the price (on sale) was reasonable.

[Chris55]

I tried to do a somewhat frugal shopping trip today. I got some dry split peas and black beans, a huge bouquet of kale for $2 - enough for at least 2 meals plus soup for the family. I also got 2 chickens for about $3 each - one for dinner tomorrow and one for the freezer. My family eats the dark meat and I eat the breast. We'll have enough for dinner for 3, some left for lunch, and the bones will turn into soup. Got some frozen squash and chopped broccoli for around $1 for a 1 lb. bag. That will turn into a pureed veggie soup over the weekend.

My supply of soup in my freezer is getting depleted. Generally I try to make at least one or two kinds a week and package it up in small portions for my lunches. Today I made a pot of split pea soup with a ham hock for flavoring ($1.25) - I did trim off the fat first and will skim it after it sits in the fridge. Sometimes I just use some liquid smoke for flavor, but I love the taste of smoked meats and legumes. A large link of lean smoked sausage gives flavor to a whole pot of bean soup.

I always try to have soup on hand now that it's cold. It takes five minutes to microwave, it's filling, and best of all, it's inexpensive. It's a great way to get those 2 cups of veggies in. So whenever I have bones I make stock or at least throw the bones in a plastic bag and pop them in the freezer so I can make stock later. My Thanksgiving turkey carcass was used in 3 pieces to make soups and stock. It's really almost free - those packages of stock in the supermarket are OK in a pinch, but it's just as convenient to have homemade stock in the freezer.

I did splurge on a few things on this shopping trip - a portabella mushroom and some wine.

[Magna]

BTW, some people seemed confused by "bulk" foods. Apparently it conjured up images of 50-pound bags of beans, etc. which I guess is one type of bulk food but not what I was buying. Some food stores, especially health food-type stores, will sell certain dry foods by the pound. A lot of stores that don't sell other bulk foods will also sell coffee by the pound. One store with a lot of bulk foods is Henry's Farmer's Market, a chain that's affiliated with Wild Oats and Whole Foods. Its stores sell staples (like flour, sugar, and powdered milk), seeds, nuts, pasta, cereals, grains, dried fruit, snacks, candy, spices, and tea by the pound (or ounce).

Bulk foods aren't necessarily cheaper - you have to compare the prices - but because they're sold by the pound (or sometimes the ounce) you have a good reference number. Often they are cheaper, though, and they often go on sale. Also, you can buy as little as you need, which helps eliminate spoilage and waste, especially if you aren't cooking for a big group. For example, if you need just a little of an unusual spice for one recipe and probably won't use a whole container, you can buy just as much as you need. Or if you'd like to try a new kind of beans or grain or some other food, you can buy just enough to test it out. One disadvantage is that the food isn't sealed as well, so it might spoil faster. Also I've seen bulk foods with quality problems so it's important to look it over before buying.

Some bins are designed to be big dispensers, so that you can only take food out, not put your hands or anything else into it. If the bins are open, people may reach into them, so the food also might not be clean. If you're buying from an open bin, I'd suggest either buying food you plan to cook, or buying only from a newly-filled bin. Or some stores will sell you pre-weighed bulk foods that employees have put into containers.

[Chris55]

My local health food co-op has a small aisle of bulk products, which I purchase often, but until recently it didn't occur to me to get spices. For Thanksgiving I really wanted to use some fresh nutmeg in my pumpkin pie - I really don't like the taste of the powdered stuff for some reason - and I was able to buy 2 "nuts" to grind fresh into my recipe. So thanks for reminding me that I should investigate that section of the store more carefully - they do keep the spices in glass jars so they should be fairly fresh. As long as the store has a large turnover in items most things in the bins will be pretty fresh.

[Chris55]

This was one of those weeks when shopping was very frustrating. Not much on sale so I've been dipping into my freezer for most dinners. The only inexpensive things I found at the grocery store were cabbage and a small package of lean ground beef that had a coupon attached - my store tends to stick coupons on meat packages on Monday. Brought that home and made stuffed cabbage with some leftover brown rice, used some of the beef for my son to have a burger and slaw since he's not fond of stuffed cabbage. I made enough so that I had leftovers for lunch one day. So I've had soup from my freezer stash for lunch most days, and today I found a piece of stewing beef in the bottom of the freezer that I made into a beef stew with carrots from a large bag I had bought a week or so ago. Normally in a week like this I would have resorted to having pasta twice and some fried rice once, but now that I'm following SB, that doesn't work any more. Soups and stews are my staples now. I really sympathize with people living on very fixed incomes or using those food stamps and trying to provide a balanced meal every day for a family.

[Magna]

Not sure why, but all types of chicken breast (including skinless, boneless) seem to be on sale now. I've noticed many of the sales in my area require big purchases (family packs, or purchases of a certain number of pounds) to get the best prices. I have been buying big amounts, poaching the chicken (with spices in the water, adding salt only near the end). I put one or two chicken breasts into small Ziploc bags and then put some in the refrigerator (to use soon) and the rest in the freezer. When the supply in the refrigerator is depleted, I move a package from the freezer to the fridge to defrost. It's pretty easy to use one or two cooked chicken breasts when preparing a meal, as opposed to taking one chicken breast out of a big package.

Because of all the precautions you have to take with raw chicken, I find it's a lot easier to package the chicken in smaller portions after it's cooked. Otherwise you'd have raw chicken juices all over your hands, the outside of the plastic bags, etc. potentially contaminating everything.

Also, after poaching, you have chicken stock that can be strained and used for soups or cooking other dishes. I made a good white bean, kale, and chicken soup with chunks of chicken breast that was something like Italian wedding soup. I also made a nice chicken soup with mushrooms, brown rice, chicken chunks, onions, and celery. Besides chicken, the only pricey ingredients were the kale and the mushrooms and even they were not bad (about $2 each). The kale was in a bunch and I chopped the leaves up before adding it when the soup was nearly done. For the chicken and rice soup I used a package of dehydrated wild mushrooms and crumbled them into smaller pieces before adding them to the soup. You could probably get some dried mushrooms from an Asian market for less. Both soups were very inexpensive, tasty, hearty, and very good on a chilly day.

Hint: a splash of olive oil to soup, to improve the texture and flavor. And a warning: I used navy beans and they take a long time to cook. If you want to make a navy bean soup, it's best to soak them overnight and even then to allow plenty of time for cooking. If you're in a hurry, you could use canned and the price would still be reasonable.

[Chris55]

I made my own greek-style yogurt yesterday. Went to my tiny local grocery store and they were all out of greek yogurt, which I've come to really enjoy. So I was going to buy some plain regular yogurt and looked at the prices, noticing that the store brand was very inexpensive for a large container. So I brought it home, took my colander and stuck it over a bowl, lined it with 2 coffee filters that I slit and overlapped to line the colander, dumped the yogurt in, covered with plastic, and put in the fridge. I drained off the liquid last night and again first thing this morning. I'm left with a lot less yogurt, probably 1/3 less, but it's thick and creamy and delicious and less expensive than the containers of greek-style are. Now if I can just figure out what to do with all my yogurt containers - we only recycle #2 plastics here and it kills me to be making so much trash for something that used to come in nice waxed cardboard containers.

[Magna]

I usually do my produce shopping on the weekend, and buy a week's worth all at once. That allows me to know whether I'm buying the right amount and the right balance of fruits and vegetables. It also helps me spot good values. For example, citrus fruit is in season right now and therefore very cheap and good, and I loaded up on those. But even when produce is cheap I have to avoid buying more than I can eat, freeze, or give away, because it will spoil.

[Chris55]

I had planned to make chili this week - some for dinner and some for my freezer stash. However, I live in the frigid northeast, and when I got to the store, green peppers were $2.49/lb. Geez!! The colored ones were $2.99 for a 1 lb. package of tiny ones. I decided to go with those until I got to the frozen food section where I discovered store brand frozen red and green pepper "stir fry" strips for 87 cents for an 8 ounce package. Bought two of those and put the fresh peppers back. The frozen ones won out - $1.74 and no waste. Since they were going to be cooking for a long time in the chili there was no point in paying so much for the fresh ones. For salad or a stir fry, yes, but not for soups and chilis. So I defrosted them, dumped them on my cutting board and ran across them a few times with a sharp knife to make them smaller, and into the chili they went.

The cost of my chili, for 8-9 servings 1 1/2 cups each was: $1.29 for dry beans, $4.00 for lean ground beef (1 1/2-3/4lb. on sale for $2.49/lb.), $1.74 for peppers, $1.00 for canned tomatoes (bought large can in the italian aisle and have some left for my next batch of soup), onion and misc spices - the batch comes in at around $8. Toppings will be extra, but I have some shredded cheddar that was on sale last week and some of my homemade greek yogurt which I'll substitute for sour cream.

So my lesson this week was to keep an open mind and take the time to wander around my grocery store. Yes, there's plenty of processed expensive stuff in the freezer section, but there are some surprises, too.

[Dylan]

Chris, I wanted to thank you for saving me a few $s and also giving me my head-slapping "Duh!" moment of the week! I use frozen pepper strips all the time in omelets and stir-frys, and I use fresh peppers for salads, roasted veggies, and for some reason, chili. Because I've always cooked chili with fresh peppers, it just never dawned on me that there was really no reason to spend money on fresh (when they aren't on sale) when it all simmers together in the pot! After reading your post yesterday I realized that's a great way to save money. Today at the grocery store I spent $2 on a 14 oz. bag of mixed peppers, when a pound of green peppers was $2.49 and red peppers were more than $4! Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me

[Chris55]

Thanks for posting! Let us know what other tips you have - we all need to save a buck wherever we can.

[Dylan]

The main things that I do are to cook in big batches and then freeze, shop the sales, and look around for good prices. For example, McCann's Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal is $8 or more at most stores (which is just absurd to me!), but only $4.99 at Trader Joe's. When I go visit my parents upstate I stop by their Wal-Mart to pick up Uncle Sam's cereal (about $2 versus $3.50 around here) and canned mushrooms ($.58 vs. $.99 at my store).

I also make cheap substitutions when possible and try to use everything I can. For example, I've been looking for a way to use a bag of frozen artichokes that I have in my freezer, so I found a recipe for Chicken Artichoke soup that I'm making this weekend. I bought a small whole chicken that I am going to cook for dinner tonight, then I am going to put the carcass in my crockpot overnight to make broth, and then use the leftover chicken in the soup (the original recipe called for 3 chicken breasts, but I can save a few dollars by using the leftover chicken and making my own broth). Then the recipe called for 1/4 cup cream. I planned on using light cream, but the smallest container at the store was nearly $4. The same sized container of half-and-half was only $2.50, so I bought that instead. Not super beachy, I know, but I prefer not to use the fat free half-and-half because of all the chemicals, and the recipe only calls for a small amount. I'm also more likely to use the remainder of the half-and-half than I would of the light cream.

Also, not sure if this was mentioned yet, but I was in the habit of buying the lowest fat ground turkey/beef I could find. Ground turkety is normally about $4.50/lb near me, but I'd buy it when it would be on sale around $3/lb. Last month when getting ready to make a huge batch of chili, I came across a manager's special of regular-fat ground turkey that worked out to be just over $1/lb and it was too good to pass up (I had enough meat for a HUGE batch of chili and a week's worth of stuffed peppers for about $3.50). I spent extra time browning and draining the fat from the meat (I was able to remove about a cup of grease) and I think the fat content wound up being close to the lower-fat turkey.
You can find more info on draining the fat here: http://healthy.hillbillyhousewife.com/groundbeef.htm

Hope this helps someone!

[Chris55]

My bargain of the week came from my freezer. Back around Thanksgiving, my local chain grocery store had frozen turkeys for 49 cents/lb. I bought two and put them in my chest freezer. Defrosted the last one this week and noticed that it was actually marked 40 cents/lb. - a 14 lb. turkey for under $6. Nice surprise! DS was home from college on a break, so 4 of us had it for dinner on Saturday, another meal for 4 on Monday, plus sandwiches for lunch, tiny pieces cut up and made into turkey salad, and so far one pot of stock that I made into veggie soup that we had one night with burgers. The rest of the carcass is in the freezer waiting to be made into another pot of soup.

We debated seriously about buying our freezer when we purchased it about 8 years ago. We were feeding 5 people, had a small fridge, so it made sense at the time. When 2 kids went off to college 2 years ago, I emptied and unplugged it thinking I would save a lot on electricity, but it didn't seem to be the case, so we're using it again. I can stock up on things like $6 turkeys and after spending so much time looking for decent vegetables this winter, I plan to freeze a lot of them this summer. I'm still eating blueberries from last summer with my yogurt.

[Magna]

Microwave popcorn is convenient for traveling or keeping at work, and fairly cheap as a snack. If you are staying in a hotel, you may be able to pop it in your room, or the hotel may have a breakfast room with a microwave they'll let you use. I buy Trader Joe's 94% fat-free single-serving packs (a pack makes about 3 cups, which is a serving), which come in a box 6 for $2. I think 33 cents is pretty reasonable for a snack on the road or at work.

But at home, I have been popping my own popcorn on the stovetop in a little canola oil. I buy bulk popcorn for under 80 cents a pound, so even though the microwave popcorn I buy is reasonably priced, bulk popcorn is a steal. Even if you buy supermarket brand bulk popcorn, you probably won't need to pay more than $1.50 a pound, which is still a great deal. Depending on how big the kernels pop up, I estimate that a generous handful of unpopped corn yields about 3 cups, and you need about a tablespoon of oil for that. (But a lot of the oil is just for coating the pot - you're not eating all of it). After popping, I salt it, shake it around to distribute the salt, and put it into a bowl. It's also good with a couple of packets of Splenda sprinkled on it - very much like kettle corn. As a snack, this is a real bargain - you could serve your whole family popcorn for under a dollar.

I was afraid the corn would burn, but I've found that if I shake the pot occasionally, and turn the heat off when the popping slows (one pop per 2 seconds or so), it doesn't. Also, I add the corn to a cold pot and shake the kernels so that each one gets some oil on it.

I've decided to get a microwave popper, though, to free up the big covered soup pot I always use. (It's cheaper than buying a second soup pot!) Here's a picture of the one I'm getting, which costs $13:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images ... &s=kitchen

These poppers were really in vogue 10 or 20 years ago, so you might be able to pick one up at a garage sale or thrift store.