Frugal SBD

[Magna]

You might consider sunflower seeds instead of, or in addition to, peanuts. They're also inexpensive and very healthy.

[Magna]

I see a lot of people spending lots of money on coffee and coffee drinks from cafes. A good idea is to buy one of those "commuter" thermal mugs. Here are a couple of links to the kind of mug I'm talking about:
http://www.starbucksstore.com/products/ ... SKU=297148
http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless ... 655&sr=8-1

It's a really good idea to get one of those if you drink coffee, tea, or any other hot drink. A lot of cafes will give a small discount if you use your own mug, plus you'll be avoiding the use of a paper cup. Another advantage is that you can make your coffee, hot chocolate, etc. at home and take it to work, school, etc. At home I use a good quality coffee and make it the way I like it so it ends up being a better coffee than I could get in a cafe. Not to mention, it's quite a bit cheaper.

If you have an insulated lunch bag with a space for a water bottle, you may be able to slip the mug into the water bottle pocket, making it easy to carry. If you plan to do that, a mug without a handle is probably best. And it's a good idea to take your lunch bag with you when you go to buy your mug, so you can see if the mug fits. Here's an example of the kind of bag I'm talking about:
http://www.landsend.com/pp/ClassMateSma ... igin=index

You can buy these mugs directly from most cafes in all kinds of designs, in department stores or discount stores, or even in dollar stores. You might think the cheapie dollar mug would be a better deal than the expensive cafe mug, but in my experience a good quality mug is important. You'll want a durable, well-designed mug with a good-fitting lid, and you'll want one that can stand up to washing. Some of the dollar mugs have poor-fitting or leaky lids, or are damaged by washing (even hand-washing). Also, it's good if the barista can easily recognize what size your mug is, so they know what price to charge for your drink. Either the cafe's own mug or one with a clearly-marked standard size is a good idea.

A lot of cafes will be selling their holiday/Christmas mug designs on clearance, so now might be a good time to pick one or two of them up.

[Chris55]

Sunflower seeds are too messy! I like them on salad, but not by the handful. I usually either have peanut butter or smoked almonds for my nut allowance. The smoky almonds satisfy my crunchy/salty cravings, at least most of the time, but they're about $6/lb. Peanuts are much cheaper, at least at the discount stores where I shop. I'm also going to try and play with making a whole grain salty bar for snacks - like a granola bar without the sweetness. I was fooling around with them before the holidays but they need more work to make them a little more tasty and more portable - they came out kind of crumbly.

The best insulated mug I've ever had is from Target. QVC sells them, too. The brand is Contigo. It kept my drink cold all summer in the car while I was driving around doing census work. Even on our trip to Atlanta this summer, the ice stayed ice for over 7 hours in a hot car. It didn't melt, so much so that we carried a jug of Poland Spring water for refills and the ice would cool it off in a few minutes. They also keep hot drinks hot, and they seal very very well - ike no other thermal mug I've ever had - you can have it rolling around on the seat of the car and it doesn't leak. They're pricey at $20 unless you hit a sale, but they're fabulous. Got one for everyone in the family. No more cases of plastic water bottles.

Another way to save money on drinks is to just add a twist of lime or a tiny bit of grapefruit juice to your water for flavor. It's great with seltzer, too. I like having the flavored seltzers without any sweetener - very refreshing, especially at gatherings where everyone is carrying around a drink.

[Kimboroni]

I don't know if this has been discussed recently, but my daughter and I watched a show about extreme couponing. It was fascinating and, well, extreme. But they saved incredible amounts of money. I didn't even know it was possible to save that much.

http://press.discovery.com/us/tlc/progr ... couponing/

[Chris55]

I've seen programs like this before. I don't understand how they do it since my grocery store doesn't double coupons and most of the coupons I find are for things I don't want to buy, like processed foods. The write-up says that they bought things like 20 bottles of soda , 40 boxes of pasta, and candy bars. Not very SB friendly. My stores also limit how many of certain things you can buy when they're on sale. Did these people actually end up with a week's worth of meals or just a closet full of toilet paper and pasta? But the point is a good one - use those coupons for things like cheese, triscuits, etc.

Now if we only had coupons for meat and artichokes.......

[Magna]

It's not clear to me whether you have to do things on a huge scale to make it worthwhile. Is it feasible if you're not interested in buying huge quantities? In other words, if instead of trying to reduce my $5000 grocery bill to $240 I want to reduce my $50 grocery bill to $2.40 - do I have to spend hours, subscribe to a newspaper, etc. to do that?

Another thing, even if I could buy a 40-year supply of paper towels, a thousand boxes of cereal, or hundreds of toothbrushes for a pittance, I wouldn't (unless I was planning to donate it to charity or something). Transportation, housing, utilities, and storage aren't free, and it costs money to bring that stuff home, keep it in your house, light/heat/air condition the storage space, and take it with you if you ever move. Plus, what are the chances that it will get used? I know from experience that if I stock up too much, it pretty much guarantees things will spoil or get damaged, or will get old enough that I don't particularly want to use them. Buying things you don't need and that won't get used is a waste of money and resources no matter how low the price is. And lots of potentially usable things I wouldn't take even if they were free.

It sounds like an interesting show. My impression is that the people they feature will probably be extreme and obsessive examples, but maybe we could learn some things about using coupons without being so over-the-top.

[Kimboroni]

That's what I was thinking. They really spend hours on it and have rooms with shelves just for their stockpiles, which isn't feasible for most people. One lady in particular seemed to do it in a more reasonable way, and she worked on helping people shop better as well. She also donated a lot of the toothpaste and stuff like that to shelters.

There was a guy who got some incredible amount of cereal for free and donated it to the food bank associated with his church. And he mentioned how the produce and things like that would be the most expensive part of his trip.

There were parts and pieces that a "normal" person could take away from it.

[SpoonSockSpork12]

I thought this was the best place to post this link. Healthy food (not all SB) vs. junk food:

http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post ... upermarket

[Magna]

Thanks - that's a very interesting and motivating article!

Those photos reminded me a little of my $21 challenge. I had plenty of food for $3 per day (3 meals plus snacks and drinks). Most of what I bought was vegetables, fruit, beans, grains, and milk. Even comparing it against budget dollar-menu items, I had more food than I would have eating fast food.

[Chris55]

Thanks for posting that! It's an excellent article. I think the visual really helps bring home the point!

I think most people are in such a hurry to get dinner on the table that even if they go to the grocery store instead of the drive-thru, they don't look at the healthy stuff. They see the mountains of grocery store fast food instead. Most groceries have gotten on the bandwagon of having heat 'n serve meals available, which might save something over McD's, but many times they're just as unhealthy. The stores are raking in the money on this stuff. It's too easy to go in, grab a rotisserie chicken so you're having a healthy meal, and then head over to the frozen food section and grab oven fries and the ice cream, then grab a 2-liter soda that's at the end of the aisle next to the checkout.

We need to slow down, learn to shop,and learn to peel and chop vegetables. It ain't rocket surgery!

[SpoonSockSpork12]

I actually posted that link on my FB page at the same time I posted it here with nothing but the caption "Hey, America. FYI," and I am surprised by the reactions I've gotten. Lots of "why are you insulting poor people when they'd rather spend time with their children after working all week than cook food. This is easy for you to do but not for everyone." (Plus a handful of other personal attacks.)

The militant disbelief that this is a plausible and easy way of eating is very surprising to me; has anyone else run into similar minded people?

[Magna]

I actually posted that link on my FB page at the same time I posted it here with nothing but the caption "Hey, America. FYI," and I am surprised by the reactions I've gotten. Lots of "why are you insulting poor people when they'd rather spend time with their children after working all week than cook food. This is easy for you to do but not for everyone." (Plus a handful of other personal attacks.)

The militant disbelief that this is a plausible and easy way of eating is very surprising to me; has anyone else run into similar minded people?

I think people aren't looking at what the article says, or thinking about it, just reacting to what they think it will say and posting their own reactions to that.

I think the reactions you mentioned are just rationalizations - they just said (or posted) the first thing that entered their heads, without thinking it through. For example, lots of those foods (fresh fruit, bread, yogurt, milk, cereal, peanut butter, baby carrots, nuts) don't require any cooking. And It's obviously not hard to prepare tea, rice, steam-in-the-bag vegetables or frozen vegetable patties. Also, waiting in the line at a drive-thru window is obviously no better a way to spend time with your kids than fixing something at home. Even if the kids are in the car, you can't easily play or talk with them. I think deep down, the people posting those things suspect they're hurting their own health and their kids' health and would rather think there's no alternative.

On the other hand, the people posting those things probably have a really poor idea of how long things take. If there were an easy way of comparing how much time it takes to shop for groceries once or twice a week and prepare meals and snacks vs. how long it takes to buy fast food for each meal and shop for snack foods, they might have a different reaction. That seems mainly like material for a TV show, though.

[Chris55]

How about spending quality time with your kids teaching them to cook? Even little kids can snap the ends off green beans, measure a cup of brown rice, beat an egg with a fork, assemble a salad from bagged ingredients, etc. That's more fun than sitting in line at the drive thru.

[Magna]

Interesting article from Investopedia about "savings" that aren't worth it:
http://financialedge.investopedia.com/f ... Broke.aspx

All these may be helpful, but #5 is especially appropriate for SBDers.

[Magna]

A good option for a nice, affordable meal is pizza. It's popular with families and non-SBDers, and you can have the leftovers (if there are any) at later meals, even at breakfast. No, I'm not talking about that frozen junk or the cheap, inferior pizzas people have delivered (where you have to eat half the pizza to be satisfied). You can quickly and easily make a great and inexpensive pizza at home.

I think the crust is what scares most people off. You don't need to make it from scratch (though if you have a bread machine, that might be an easier and even cheaper option). I use Trader Joe's refrigerated whole wheat pizza dough - it's less than $2.00 and cooking directions are on the bag. Other people buy ready-made whole-wheat pizza crusts. You can also use various kinds of toasted breads (whole wheat English muffins, etc.) to make mini-pizzas. For example, if you used toasted whole wheat English muffins, the total cost for the crusts would probably be about $2 to $3.

You don't need to use a special pizza sauce - regular canned tomato sauce, or even leftover spaghetti sauce will do. I use a small amount of both tomato paste and tomato sauce.

Here's just one discussion of SBD pizzas:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19933

The biggest cost variable is the toppings. If you use cheap ones like onions and leftover meats, the cost would be pretty low. If you add more expensive ones like shrimp, anchovies, and sun-dried tomatoes, obviously the cost will go up. But even with a few pricey toppings, the cost is lower than many other dishes. And it's still cheaper than eating out. If you make a single pizza, you'll probably use less than half a package/can of many ingredients (like olives, mushrooms, and tomato sauce). You don't need much of any one topping. Here's an example of what a pizza I made might cost:

crust, under $2
tomato paste/sauce $1.50
mushrooms $1
anchovies $2
shrimp/lean meat $2
onions $.50
mozzarella $2.50
sliced olives $.50
olive oil, herbs, etc. - minimal
------------------------
Total, $12.00 for 6 to 8 servings (people may want more than one serving). You'd probably want to serve a salad or vegetables with this.

A cheaper but still very good version, with estimated prices:
crust, under $2.
tomato paste/sauce, $1.50
onions, $1
diced ham $1 (slice of ham that you dice yourself, not deli ham or pre-diced ham)
- or -
browned ground beef, drained, with seasonings $1 (you won't need to use much)
diced green bell peppers $.50
mozzarella, $2.50
olive oil, herbs, etc. - minimal
------------------
Total, $7.50