How to save money on food

Never buy boneless skinless chicken breasts. Buy whole chickens and a with practice and a good knife you can break the bird down and save alot of money.

Beans are your friend.

Agreed. Get a pressure cooker and they become your best friend. Beans that take 2+ hrs in boiling water can be ready in 20 mins in a pressure cooker. No need to remember to soak them the night before.

Don't try opening it until the pressure is released. I made a nasty mess a few months ago by being hasty ):

1. Frozen vegetables (no butter or sauce) are your friend, esp. if you live in Wisconsin. Don't buy the broccoli pieces, though; very poor quality, lots of stems.
2. To save time, I cook meat and freeze it in small packages. For example, I will buy a turkey (or two) in November and keep them in the freezer till I have time (and a cold house). You cook one, eat from it from a couple days, make soup with the carcass, and cut up and freeze the rest in two cup packages for later use in casseroles, sandwiches, soup, etc. This technique (cook, eat, freeze for later) also works with whole chickens as well as large pork or beef roasts. I will also sometimes cook five pounds of ground beef and divide it into six bags for freezing and later use. A bag of frozen, cooked meat means I can make a meal in 15 minutes by adding a starch and sauce.
3. It's not high quality cheese, but I do like to buy the large bags (five pounds) of already shredded cheddar or mozzarella. Keep it frozen and use as needed. It's a huge time saver, and it won't mold; maybe it's not a money saver. (My kids love to make nachos using frozen cheese.)

More later.

For both beans and steel-cut oats, the crock-pot is your friend.

Also for tough, inexpensive cuts of meat.

Plant a garden, of course. Even a small herb garden or just a tomato plant or two on the patio makes a difference. If you have a garden or fruit trees, trade with neighbors/friends/coworkers who have them as well for more variety.

Go to the market more often and plan your menus to some extent. Much of the expense of fresh produce is in people's having to throw so much of it away because it's not consumed quickly enough.

Eat in season. If you're not starting to get sick of peaches by September or Oranges by February you haven't been eating enough of them.

Soup is a meal. Cook more of it, especially when you have masses of leftovers or uncooked veg nearing the end of its freshness. Very versatile and quick and/or easy. Buy a crockpot.

More rice (or potatoes or bread). Part of eating less meat is eating more starch. In the rest of the world meat is an accent or flavoring, not the centerpiece of the meal.

Amen to the bulk section (Henry's Markets' are fantastic). Amen to beans. And amen to less meat.

Stores are doing a lot to encourage shopping, including some incredible sales from time to time. Stock up when you can and store it for future use. Holidays are particularly good opportunities. If you do eat meat and have a large enough household, consider buying a freezer.

And remember, most stores will give you rainchecks for items that are out of stock, even if your bulk purchase is what made them run out.

Hild,
You say, "Waking up to overnight slow-cooked oats feels like a luxury not an economy." Wd you give instructions?
Thanks.
MMH

Got nostalgic, walk to work, and pack a lunch to take with you. You can control your portions, quality, AND expenditures.

I'm a kitchen gear-do (rhymes with weirdo) so I got one of these cool compartmentalized Japanese lunch boxes from Obentec.com. Your friends will be super jealous when they see you eating out of a collection of cool little square dishes while they eat fast food.

The bread machine is our friend at our house -- we can make all sorts of bread, even wholegrain and other artisan-y kinds, for pennies, with minimal effort. The initial investment in bulk yeast, flours, etc. will pay off in the long run.

And a tip for making vegetarian/vegan foods more "meaty" tasting -- tamari has a rich flavor totally unlike salty, cheap supermarket soy sauce, and can add depth to a lot of vegetable soups/sauces, beans and grains, especially with some savory veggies (onions, garlic, celery, carrots, parsley) thrown in. Mushroom powder serves a similar purpose.

When a store has something at a great price but "limit one per per customer," give each of your kids one plus the money to buy it. My MIL taught me that. Likewise with coupons.

Sue

Simplest one of all: skip the snack stuff. Not only does it cost more per pound, but there's less nutritional content per serving. Doritos are more expensive than steak.

And when it comes to meat: soups and stews get the most out of a pound of meat. Take a whole chicken, for example, and boil it up. Now you've got chicken stock and chicken meat that's falling off the bone. Take 1/2 of the meat and shred it...goes on salads or in burritos or in sandwiches. Take the other half with the stock and you've got the makings of a few days of soup along with the other meals.

One other tip: herbs and spices are your friend. You can take something relatively bland and with the proper touch turn it into something grand, in less time than it takes to heat up a frozen enchilada.

And I second brown-bagging lunch. Better quality food at home-cooked prices! Also just a step from "dumpster diving" is the "bargain" rack that most stores have. If you're buying veggies for tonight instead of next week this is the biggest bang for the buck around.

Not an answer to the question, but one of the reasons that diet is poor in some inner-city neighborhoods is that landlords aren't required to provide adequate cooking facilities. In some cases this is because apartments don't have kitchens at all. In other cases this is because the kitchens are in disrepair.

Cook big meals on Sundays, set aside leftovers for Tuesdays or Weds. and freeze the rest for later use. With proper timing and rotation, you cook once a week and yet have 4 or 5 home-cooked meals a week, and don't get sick of the leftovers unless eating the same thing twice in one week is too often for you, in which case you don't like what you're eating.

In restaurants, eat half of what you're served and take the rest home for a free meal later in the week. Most places serve at least twice what you really need.

At the grocery, standard advice is to shop the healthy and cheap perimeter of the store -- fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, bread. Maybe go down an aisle for wine or rice/beans, but know that the aisles are where the profits are.

One medium-size whitetail deer will give me and my wife all the red meat we'll need for a year. I have a lifetime hunting license, so my current cost is the price of one bullet. Not for the squeamish, admittedly.

make soup and stews - good thing about both is less meat lots of veggies and tastes a lot better than the canned stuff.

make soda bread - takes ten minutes to make - then into the oven - very low in fat - use raisins, currents or carraway seeds to dress it up - wonderful with a cup of tea - great for sandwiches

make your own jams and jellies - I planted a peach tree 5 years ago - it now gives us enough peaches to happily eat on at the end of the summer and to make enough peach preserve for the whole winter. Same with currents - one little bush - takes little space - you will have enough current jelly - which is really good - for the winter. I go to pick your own farms and get all the berries for half what the supermarket charges, freeze some and make jams and jellies with the rest. The taste of homemade jams and jellies is so much better than even the fancy stuff from the store. You can buy a decent sized blueberry bush for 15 dollars and it will give you up to ten quarts ( at full size and depending on variety) every summer for years.

And the joy of looking in your cabinet and see all those lovely jars that cost you no more than the pectin ( get the low sugar stuff) and the sugar!

Your Name above is really me. Sorry. Capcha expired and I forgot to retype the name.

One more:

7) Ride a bike, walk, or take public transit, if you can. Much cheaper than automobile ownership in the vast majority of cases. Bicycling is about four times as efficient as walking, so if you can walk one mile, you can bike four for the same energy expended.

Zach, thanks for the crock-pot steel cut oats. I look forward to serving hot oatmeal on a weekday morning.

And thank you, Frank, for the tip on adding olive oil to take the place of meat. I'm always too stingy on the oil because I want to cut calories, and my dishes never taste as good as my Greek friend's, because she's lavish with it. I'll take note.

A few more tips:

Double or triple your pasta sauce recipe and freeze the sauce in quart batches. A sauce made w/ fresh basil, garlic, and good olive oil does not need meat.

Pasta dishes are inexpensive and relatively quick: can do greens and beans, puttanesca, roasted peppers w/ feta added, etc. Or even just pasta tossed w/ good olive oil and fresh grated pecorino.

Burritos--a nice quick and healthy dinner I learned from my brother, who's the real cook. I try to keep the fat free refried beans on hand (if you're vegan, it takes care of the lard question), and cook along w/ sauteed onion and garlic, cumin. Make the burritos w/ a bed of brown rice, refried beans, chopped tomatoes, avocado, grated cheddar (inexpensive block sharp cheddar is fine here), a dab of sour cream. In Lent we omit cheese and sour cream and just use salsa and avocado, and they're still satisfying.

Wines: go for Chilean (e.g., Frontera Carmenere), which seem to be better quality for the money. Also, inexpensive reds generally seem better than inexpensive whites.

I just taught myself how to make whole-wheat pie crust. You get used to the taste, which is nuttier than the standard white variety, and it's fairly inexpensive. One crust takes 1 cup of whole wheat flour, a 1/2 tsp of salt, 6 tbsp of very cold butter, and about 1/4 c of ice water. I give it a few quick kneads, then roll it out on a floured surface.

You can use it for the bottom crust in a quiche, custard, or pumpkin pie, or as the top crust for a pot pie. (I generally don't bother using a bottom crust with my pot pies; they just turn to mush.)

Pot pies are another good use for leftovers - pretty much any combo of meat and vegetables can be mixed with about 2 cups of gravy or cream sauce, covered with your homemade pie crust, and baked about 40 min. With a salad and some fresh fruit, voila, instant dinner.

OK, CAPTCHA says do it again. I agree.

#1 - Learn to bake (this is a second from above). If you know what you're doing, you can make a tray of biscuits in 20 minutes. If you can learn how to raise breads, you are home free.

#2 - Pinto beans. Cheap, soak for a few hours, boil for an hour and a half, throwing in half an onion, and you have the perfect complement to the biscuits you just made.

#3 - Peanut butter.

#4 - Never buy more than 80/20 hamburger. It's cheaper (by half) than the higher lean versions, and has more flavor.

#5 - Have breakfast for dinner.

#6 - Cereal is not just for kids. Bran, Oats, etc. -- lots of "adult" cereals out there that are good for you, too.

#7 - Buy whole chickens; you can do a lot of things with it, including creaming it, which, over rice, can last for days.

#8 - Meat, fish, tuna fish casseroles: Any use of pasta is going to be cheap, and can be _flavored_ with meat (rather than over-loaded with it), is filling, and will last. (Also any Italian dish, and like these, improves with age.) -- Use fresh ingredients. It's not that hard!

#9 - Once a week on the weekend make a dish that takes a long time and supervision. This could be any of the abovementioned, or a stew, goulash, or roast. For these you can use expensive cuts but you can also use cheap cuts: for example, never use lean stew meat (twice the price!) for stew. That's just idiotic. Go cheap, and get flavor. A good stew with potatoes, carrots, etc. will last. So will a good roast or goulash. (This is a variation of the soup advocacy.)

#10 - Perfect the art of making cream gravy. Any drippings from any meat will make an excellent cream gravy that can be used to extend any meal. Takes five minutes, all you need is: fat, a spoon of flour, and some milk. (S & P to taste.)

#11 - Rice, noodles, any flavoring. (Cheap noodles with cream gravy leftover from when you fried up some hamburger = instant Fetuccini Alfredo.)

More rice (or potatoes or bread). Part of eating less meat is eating more starch. Most of the ideas here are great, but this one was not such a hot idea for me. Back in my religious fanatic phase, when I was living communally on a very tiny grocery budget, we tried this. It was a great way for me to gain weight, feel tired, bloated, and hungry all the time. Not good if you're pregnant, not good if you have any tendencies toward diabetes. If you're going to eat a lot of carbs, they must be whole grains and not too much pasta and bread.

Soy also doesn't work for everyone. Some of us can't digest it, or are even allergic to it. My sister in law replaced meat with soy because she thought it would be better for her, and got really sick. Canned fish and low-fat dairy are great, though. Greek yogurt--mmmm! Goes with everything!

I suggest making your own Boston brown bread. I used to steam it in a coffee can. It's great with beans. And you can corn your own beef, if you find a brisket on sale. Put it in a big pot with brine and pickling spices. It isn't a pretty pink like what you get at the store, but it doesn't have all those colors and nitrates, and it's also less fatty.

I have to say . . . this whole discussion is making my mouth water for a big, thick steak, with the crispy fat around the edges. All for me--no nonsense about cutting it up for leftovers later. Nom nom nom! ; )

Excellent article! Just one tip to add - for busy folks, invest in a slow-cooker or pressure cooker and learn to use them! Both are huge time savers and make eating homemade and healthy a lot less onerous. Pressure cooker is scary at first, but get a good one and read directions well, then be amazed at stew or beans or whatever you can think of being ready in a fraction of the time. Both are great for summer cooking too.

I would plug the humble spud as another economic and versatile vegetable. And for goodness sake leave the skin on.
Whether boiling or baking, do more than you need for the meal at hand. There are several wonderful Indian recipes for these leftover whole potatoes, my favorite being potatoes and spinach (aka saag aloo). The frozen spinach isn't that expensive either! I like red potatoes for these kinds of dishes, their waxiness allows them to hold up a bit better.

Ditto for acorn squash. Split 'em, roast 'em, serve with a dollop of butter, a little brown sugar and and herb of choice. (We usually alternate choose one of thyme, nutmeg, curry powder or garam masala.)

If I am roasting/grilling/baking any particular vegetable, I do more than the recipe calls for so I have ingredients ready to toss into a quick mid-week meal. Ditto for pasta and rice.

And you can corn your own beef, if you find a brisket on sale. Put it in a big pot with brine and pickling spices.

sig, you should also check out a book called "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing". It covers making everything from corned beef to lox to pepperoni. It even has good directions for kosher pickles and sauerkraut. Definitely one of my top five favorite cookbooks. (Now that's a thread Rod should start too).

Real bacon does not shrink much when it's cooked, but I never would have known that if I had stuck with supermarket sludge.

If you cook it at a low enough temp, you can then render the fat and make homemade lard too.

Thanks, Rich! I'm making a note of that one! ; )

1. Wash fruit as soon as you get it home from the store. Then it's always ready to grab for a snack or to pack in your lunch. (Don't wash berries in advance, though).
2. You can add mashed, cooked beans to lots of foods to stretch them and add nutrition: refried beans to sloppy joes; mashed black beans to meatloaf; lentils (esp. the white ones) to chicken noodle soup. But don't go overboard with this idea.
3. Make the chocolate cookie recipe on the back of the chip package, but use half the fat, half the salt, and use one cup of whole wheat flour in place of one cup of white.
4. Don't ever buy bottled marinades for meat or vegetables. They are water, oil, and an acid. Make your own using vinegar, wine, or lemon juice for the acid.
5. If you must buy jars of baby food, don't if the first ingredient is water.
6. Add vanilla to your pancake recipe. Yumm.
7. If you take your lunch to work or school, pack it the night before. If you leave it till morning, it's too easy to let it slide.
8. Learn to make a roux (cooked flour & fat). Add milk, and you'll never have to open a can of cream-of-whatever soup. Add broth, and you'll have great gravy.
9. My family isn't too fond of healthful brown rice, but I can serve it if I cook 1/2 cup white rice and 1/2 cup brown rice in 2 1/2 cups of water (or broth).

Thanks for all the tasty advice, troops. If I may add a tip or two of my own ?

1) Learn how to stir-fry. One of my favorite lunch/dinner things is frozen Oriental vegetables, stir-fried with a little bit of chicken or beef. Substitute/mix in broccoli or peas if you like. It’s colorful (a selling point with kids) and relatively low-carb, particularly if you use wheat bread instead of white rice as an accompaniment. Soy sauce or stir-fry sauce optional;

2) Cheese, cheese, cheese. It’s oftentimes much more filling than meat, and if you pick the right variety, it lasts roughly forever. It’s cheap, even if you go for the imported stuff, as long as you keep an eye on your portions. Believe me, you won’t need much. I’ve made a 7-ounce slab of Wensleydale and a loaf of wheat or whole-grain bread last for a week-plus-change of breakfasts;

3) Repeat after me: Frozen Fruit Is Your Friend. Go and find a strawberry/raspberry/blueberry farm in the vicinity (they’re around, even near large cities, trust me !), go picking and bring home a ton to freeze. The kids love it, even the older ones, and you save a ton.

4) One more thing: don’t eat in your car if you can possibly avoid it. You tend to gobble your food down (and believe me, there is a special circle in Hell reserved for those who waste good stir-fry or garlic-and-herb goat cheese like that), and you also run the risk of making a mess on your good dress shirt. Get out of the car, go into the building and sit at a table like a civilized person. Even if you’re going to a McDonalds. (Note to self: practice what you preach, particularly the next time you're at a seminar in Cortland County !)

Your servant,

Lord Karth

I've learned through the years that keeping a deep pantry helps cut grocery costs quite a bit.

I stock up when prices are low and usually when an item is on sale.

I also have a medium size freezer. This helps me buy meat and frozen vegetables when they are on sale.

This is what I do to save money on food:

1. I buy organic where it makes sense, but if it doesn't, I don't. Google 'what to buy organic and what not to buy', and you can get a reasonable idea of which is which.
2. I buy only organic, mostly local, dairy and meat. Expensive, but I also rarely make meat or dairy the main event in any meal.
3. DIY: I bake my own bread, and I make and freeze soups or beans and rice for my workday lunches.
4. Portion size. Seriously. You'd be amazed at how much money you can save if you just pay attention to portions.
5. Eggs, tofu, or beans make for a good, cheap protein replacement. A couple of eggs and some veggies that need to be used up make a cheap, tasty frittata for dinner. A container of organic tofu costs me $1.79 and has 5 servings. Beans are just crazy cheap, especially if you buy them dried and cook them yourself.
6. Simplicity: Unless I'm cooking for a special occasion, I don't make meals that require more than a few ingredients, especially not specialty ingredients in little jars with big price tags.
7. I shop at ethnic markets and the halal butcher shops for spices, etc. And I keep an eye out for clearances - the supermarket near me, for instance, discontinued an organic spice brand that wasn't selling well. I bought 7-8 bottles of various dried herbs and spices for 75 cents each, instead of the original price of $6/bottle.
8. I swap baked goods for fresh produce, with my friends who have gardens. I get cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers all summer long from a few friends, and bake them bread in return. I have a black thumb, and they can't bake. Perfect match.

Also, I cannot overemphasize the cost effectiveness of cooking for myself. I spend a lot less money on food than my friends who 'can't' cook or who hate to cook. A LOT less.

Create a food budget, and take that money out in cash. Segregate it from the rest of your cash. Spending down cash makes you think more carefully about the choices you make.

We also do a round of several nearby grocery stores, including a small neighborhood market that generally has good meat cheap. Each store has different loss leaders. Sometimes milk is cheaper one place than the other, but eggs are more expensive where milk is cheaper. Follow the ads and plan in advance.

Stock up when something goes on sale. We have a freezer full of $1.50 and $2 a pound butter. Pasta goes on sale frequently, so there is no excuse for not having it stocked.

Use coupons, but only for things you were already going to buy.

Bring a cooler. This will help keep milk, meat and eggs fresh for longer during the week. Hot cars and fresh milk don't mix well.

Buy simple ingredients from the edges of the store and cook. Frozen veggies are pretty much the only frozen stuff we buy.

Eat a big, healthy breakfast that you have cooked from scratch. It will decrease snacking, and it will also be cheaper than snacks you can get at or near work.

Bananas are a great, cheap, healthy, snack.

As to steel cut oats, they are what you get when you take whole oat groats and cut them up a little. Rolled oats are steamed and flattened (and maybe a little more). Steel cut oats taste nuttier and have a fuller flavor. You can probably bake cookies with them, but you'd need a recipe designed for them. They are not easily substitute for rolled oats.

Here's a fancy recipe. Personally, I prefer to heat up a little butter (anywhere from a 1/4 teaspoon to a couple of tablespoons, depending on taster) and saute some oats until they start to smell good. Then I add boiling water, 4 parts water to one part oats. Simmer low for 30 minutes. Add cinnamon and brown sugar (or maple syrup) to taste. You can also add raisins or other dried fruit. The earlier you add the dried fruit, the plumper it becomes. I'd use 1/4 to 1/2 cup of raw oats depending on how hungry you are.

You can skip the butter part if you want to keep it real simple. The key is one part oats to four parts boiling water and 30 minutes of a low simmer.

Buyers of bread that comes in fancy wrappers, take note:

I worked in a bread factory a few years back. When I was working the Bread line, I noticed that the fancy stuff and the regular store-brand bread were made in the same way by the same factory line. The wrappers were the only thing different.

Except for the prices. The prices were different (higher), too.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Coupons + Store Circulars = Free or almost free food

You can buy newspapers cheaply after Sunday and save $10 or more. You don't have to traipse all around town either. Just find out the store with the best deals for the week. Also, I haven't had to buy cleaning products for more than a year; I've gotten so many free products through samples and rebates (just don't lose them).

Choyster Cash gives a good overview of couponing

Once you have the store circulars, visit her site or Deal Seeking Mom (http://www.dealseekingmom.com/ ) or Money Saving Mom (http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ ).

You can also get great freebies on Wal-Mart's site:
http://walmart.triaddigital.com/In-Stores-Now-Free-Samples-And-Trials.aspx

*None of these are my Web sites. I just love saving money and have found these the best.

Even simpler crock-pot overnight oatmeal:
1 cup whole oat groats or steel-cut oats, washed several times
3 cups water
1 cinnamon stick and/or 6 whole allspice and/or cardamom pods
1.5 quart crockpot
Plug in, cover, go to bed. In morning, unplug, let it sit covered 10 minutes and then scrape the stuff from the bottom and sides - it's really good. Pick out the allspice and cinnamon stick.

Meat idea: Go in on a half or a quarter side of beef with friends. We paid $2.49/pound for 1/8 of a beef last fall - just $225 dollars. You need a chest freezer. Buying directly from a farmer or a meat market that buys directly from a farm cuts costs for you while putting much more money in the farmer's pocket than if they sold it on the commodity market. Better quality, too. Same for pigs and lamb. Split a whole pig with another family two or three times a year. $1.99/pound for pork, $4.99/pound for lamb.

Veggies: join a CSA. If you are empty nesters like we are, find another pair of geezers to split the share. The internet is your friend - Google recipes for the ingredients you are left with a few days before the next box arrives. There are recipes for nearly every combination!

Baby lettuce can be grown in 2"-3" deep plastic or terra cotta containers. Use good quality potting soil and seed it with a mixture of lettuces. Cut the leaves for salads when they are the size you like. The plants should keep growing for a few months. Reseed periodically and keep it going all year. Take it outdoors in summer or bring in when it's too hot or if you have bug problems. Grow a few mixes in different containers. It works for baby cooking greens like kale and spinach.

for the pesto lovers - make a bunch of it - fill it into ice cube trays - once it freezes crack it out and put in a freezer bag. You'll have cubes for flavoring sauces ready all the time. Do the same with chicken stock.

Amen, Brother! I have found all of those tips to be useful in my own life. When I had a roommate from Madras, we shopped at a tiny Indian Market, and some things were less expensive. It was also much more exciting. I would just add, choose your battles. I choose to buy milk (only one gallon per week for a family of four) from a local dairy that uses no hormones. It's a bit more expensive, but we are more careful about how much we drink. We also make our own waffles and tortillas from bulk whole wheat pastry flour - more filling, better tasting, and better for us!

I'm a bit late to this post and low on time, but I want to give a hearty second to the "More with Less" cookbook that was mentioned above. Especially if you are cooking for a family with children, it is invaluable. All the other tips are great too.

One thing I would add that I didn't see mentioned explicitly(unless I missed it) is this:
Don't get too fancy unless that's really what you want to do. Yes, you need to cook, but you don't need to be a gourmet cook. For example, the steel cut oat recipe that someone linked to looks yummy, but it has dried cranberries and figs in it. ($$$$!) Of course cookbooks and chefs do this -- they are trying to put their own twist on things. Great for them, and wonderful for times when we really want something different, but not necessary for every day. Keep it simple. You can stew a chicken in a pot with water, onion and a few herbs (yes to bulk herbs!) and it will taste fine, especially if you bought the chicken fresh from a local source. You don't need 15 ingredients.

Another tip: If you make your own stock (easy and highly recommended), toss old veggies that are wilty but not yet spoiled into a bag in the freezer. Use those to make your stock before you dig into your fresh vegetables that are still good for raw eating or lighter cooking. Same with bones/carcasses if you can't make the stock right away.

In my part of the world, there are at least 6 pecan trees on every block. Every year, I fill a large decorative wooden bowl I have with Pecans, then, on those days when I'm down to a cup or so of de-boned chicken pieces, I can add freshly shelled pecans to them and make chicken salad. Depending on how many you feel like shelling, they can literally stretch one cup of chicken remnants into 2-3 meals. tip: I have a pecan sheller, but I found the best way to shell them is to hit them lightly with a large framing hammer on the "flatter" side (over a towel to contain the mess).

Eat the meat part of dinner last. Then it can be much less, and if it's less, it can be better-quality without it breaking the bank.

Vegetables, prepared carefully and imaginatively with flavor, can be an actual course, so don't picture random piles of steamed limp veggies.

Fun thread. Lots more fun that the conservative-enemy-of-the-week pile-on.

It's worth bookmarking to pass on to friends or relatives who haven't figured these money-saving ideas out yet. The theme throughout seems to be that with a little planning, you can save a lot of money, and the resulkting food is better for you and tastier too.

Thanks everybody.

Oh - and the best thing I've learned this week: paper bag popcorn: http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/microwave-popcorn-minus-the-ripoff/

Microwave popcorn is pretty expensive. The single serving Orville Redenbacher at my supermarket is currently on sale, 2 boxes for $4. That's 8 servings total, 50 cents per serving.

I bought a bag of popcorn kernels for $2.69. There are 14 servings to a bag. That's 19 cents a serving (and you can find less expensive popcorn, just not at that particular store). And in the roughly 1.4 cents each bag costs (I got a pack of 100 for under $1.50 awhile back), and that's still less than 1/2 of the cost of store-bought microwave popcorn, PLUS you don't have that nasty neon yellow fake butter stuff. And I notice the popcorn doesn't burn nearly so easily this was as it does with store-bought microwave popcorn.

Yes Jen! I was just going to post the microwave popcorn thing. I read about it just this week, but from a different source -- news must be getting around! (FWIW, we fold the top twice and use tape to close the bag instead of a staple. Works great.)

This will change my children's snacking habits for sure, and in favor of my pocketbook! They *love* popcorn, but since we don't have a popper, and I refuse to buy the microwave junk, we've been using a pan on the stove. It's inconvenient and messy, which means until now, popcorn has been a once-in-a-while treat. Now they can make their own whenever they want, which means they'll eat fewer pricier snacks such as crackers. Yea! I'll still use the pan for "movie night" and other whole-family occasions (for the superior flavor and texture), but for every-day, the bag is perfect!

I save substantially by cooking and baking from scratch, buying in bulk (often from a co-op), and shopping at generic brand stores like Aldi's.

Occasionally a store-bought item is cheaper than homemade, but not very often. Even then, I usually go the homemade route because it is so much healthier!

I enjoy serving homemade, economical soups-often vegetarian. (For one such recipe, check out this link for lentil rice soup: http://songinmyheart-rachele.blogspot.com/search?q=lentil+rice+soup )
It really is amazing how much flavor good spices add!

Rich, Public Defender, and Stefanie, thank you for your feedback. It is much appreciated.

Ann, I agree with you that the tone of the comments on this particular post was very affirming, nothing negative or nasty. That made for a really refreshing change. It was indeed a fun experience; anyone suppose we can keep up our positive tone?