Say what? "Pay Attention?" How is that a tip on making your food budget stretch?
Well, do this little test for me:
Go to your fridge. Open the door, reach waaaaayyyy into the back (or into that veggie or fruit drawer you haven't opened recently), and tell me what you find. Is it green and fuzzy? Black and slimy? Unrecognizable but definitely inedible?
Now, I only ask you to do this because I myself did it recently and yes, I found some pretty nasty looking items that used to be food. Items that I forgot about and didn't use before they were well on their way to 'from dust to dust', as in, ready for burial. Items that I couldn't even feed to the chickens for fear of poisoning them. Yes, it was that bad.
I hate it when I waste perfectly good food like that. Not only did I waste electricity keeping that mess cold, I wasted either my money when I purchased it at the store, or my time when I grew it in the garden. I don't know about you, but money and time are two things I never seem to have enough of. I certainly don't want to be wasting them.
Such waste can easily be avoided by simply paying attention to what's in the fridge. It's not like I go days without opening my great electric ice chest. On the contrary, I probably open it a minimum of five times a day (packing DH's lunch, making breakfast, getting lunch, making dinner, putting away leftovers after dinner. . .) How much more effort would it be, once each day while I'm rummaging in the fridge anyway, to take a quick inventory of what's heading toward expiration? To make those shriveling apples into a nice snack of homemade chunky applesauce? To spread that little bit of pizza sauce onto a slice of bread, add some shredded cheese and heat it up for a single slice pizza for lunch? To thinly slice that 1.5" thick chunk of grilled venison loin and either make it into a sandwich for DH's lunch box or top my salad with it at lunch time? To grab that 1/2 empty container of ricotta and throw it into the freezer, where it will patiently (and without growing mold) await the next time I make lasagna?
Paying attention doesn't just stop at the fridge. Nope. It's important when shopping too. Do you know that certain items go on sale at certain times of the year? If you like to eat turkey more than just at Thanksgiving time, buy several this fall and stick the extra ones in your freezer. They'll be cheaper at holiday time than in February when perhaps you get the hankering for one. Baking supplies are cheaper around the holidays too. Stock up. Eggs are always cheaper around Easter time. Grilling and picnic supplies and foods go on sale near Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Get enough ketchup and mustard then to last you until the next sale.
This also works on non-food items. I only use one particular brand of toilet paper. And I only buy it when it's on sale. Which seems to be about every six weeks or so. Same with facial tissues. Another example is school supplies. I only buy paper, notebooks, markers, pens, pencils, glue, index cards, etc in August when every store is practically giving them away. I buy enough to last until the next August.
This past June my work socks (nice thick cushy soled ones I wear with my barn boots) were getting pretty threadbare. In fact, three out of the six pair had holes worn in the heels. But, I knew that socks are also something that go on sale at back-to-school time, so instead of picking up a package the next time I was near a store, I waited until socks went on sale around mid-July. My kids thought it was a bit excessive, to save $1.50 or so on six pair of socks, but I knew I wasn't going to go sockless because socks would soon be on sale, so why pay more than necessary? Now I'm good to go until next late July, when I'll buy another package even if I'm not quite in need yet. Currently I have a package of socks set aside for DH, because his are looking like they'll need replacement sometime this winter.
Another thing to pay attention to when shopping for food is price per ounce. Yeah, that big package of crackers is on sale for 20 cents off it's normal price. And the normal price on that package is 2 cents an ounce cheaper than the normal price on the small package of the same crackers. But look, the smaller package is on sale 2 for $4.00, and two small packages give you 10 more ounces of crackers than the big package for the same price as the sale price of the big package. In this case, two little is way better deal than one big.
Family sized packages of meat are usually 10 cents or more cheaper per pound than the same meat in smaller packages. If you don't need that much meat for one meal, repackage it when you get home into smaller portions and stick them in the freezer. I never buy hamburger in one pound packages. When we run out of homegrown beef or home-harvested venison burger, I buy freshly ground burger in a 10 pound bag from the butcher shop, take it home, wrap it in 1 pound packages, and stick it in the freezer. It's about 30 cents a pound cheaper that way, is great quality meat, and 10 pounds for us is going to be gone within a month or so.
Sometimes buying in bulk is a good thing, like when you go through a lot of an item. Sometimes, though, it's not so good. Like when you buy the bulk size package and end up throwing out half of it. Or maybe it's not even a bulk size package, just a normal size one but it's something you use very rarely, like marjoram. If there is a 'health food' store anywhere near you, they possibly have spices they will sell in any quantity you want (priced per ounce). Instead of buying that whole jar of marjoram at the grocery store, paying for 1 cup of spices when all you'll ever need in the next several years is 1 tsp, buy just a tsp or so from the health food store. They will weigh it and charge you however many cents that works out to.
On the flip side, if you use a lot of a spice, buy it by the cupful or even a pound at a time instead of in tiny jars. Same with yeast. For years, I used those little packets of yeast. They cost, at that time, something like $1.49 for a strip of three packets. Then I discovered jars of yeast, about a dozen packets worth, for $5. Obviously the jars were a better deal. Well, a few years later I found, at the health food store, yeast for 49 cents an ounce. Which made my $5 six-ounce jar seem like not such a great deal. I bought yeast by the ounce then, usually 6-8 ounces at time. Last year, I found that my local Gordon's (GFS Marketplace) sells 2- pound packages of yeast for $4.99. That's 32 ounces of yeast!! Since yeast keeps just about forever in the freezer and takes up very little room, I would be foolish to continue to pay 49 cents an ounce for it (49 cents x 32 ounces = $15.68).
So, I'll say it again: Pay Attention!
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