Frugal Meals with out the Meat

Grocery money is very limited this week so we will be eating foods for "our grocery store". Our meals will constist of alot of beans and sale priced cheese.

Kirk, who has been doing alot of the cooking, has recently discover meatless meals. The meatless aspect is great for those trying to save on the grocery bills.

For lunch, we had sandwiches on homemade bread with fresh veggies from the garden and cheese. No meat! The kids and I have been enjoying these types of sandwiches for years but Kirk has always added the meat. I guess, the unemployment line has created a healthier Kirk!

Using Buckets for Long Term Food Storage

Food grade 5 gallon buckets with sealing lids are excellent for storing dry goods. They keep out vermin, are hard to puncture and the seal is air tight. Bakeries will often have these types of buckets left over from large quantities of frosting or jelling filling. Delis may also have them from items like potato salad. Some stores will just give them away, others will charge you for the bucket. I know you can also find them on Ebay and food co-ops carry them but be prepared to pay more. From my experience, it is best to just be patient and shop local for this item.

I called around this am trying to locate some additional buckets for my dry goods. After six calls, I was able to locate six buckets. Five for free and one for $1.00! Also I added my name to the Walmart Bakery list for five buckets when they become available. One small Bakery was charging $2.50. I thought that might be a little much so I passed it up.

Why so many buckets?

I have been buying dry goods in large quantities and storing for later use. Some weeks cash is short therefore I need to keep food on hand. And other weeks, there just isn't much to my liking on sale so I don't shop. Dry beans, oatmeal, popcorn, sugar, rice and wheat varieties all store well in these buckets. Some food can be kept for a really long period of time. For example, dry beans stored in a dark cool places will last eight years or more! And with constant price increases it maybe better to invest money in food rather that the stock market! :)

Anyway in my quest for these buckets, I discovered that not all buckets are created equal. The five I picked up for free where more cloudy like an ice cream bucket not solid white like my previous buckets. That means more light will flow through into the buckets. For long term storage, there needs to be as little light as possible. So I plan on using the cloudy buckets for things like sugar, flour and probably soft white wheat since those items usually last for six months or less around here. I expect that the beans will last longer and will need to be stored in a solid bucket. It will just a little planning however I am still very thankful for the free buckets!

Gardening in small spaces

We spent the day revising our current raised flower garden bed. We built the plot last year for just ornamental flowers and a place to feed the birds. There was also enough space for a couple of tomato plants and some lettuce. Well this year, I have more time to spend gardening and caretaking for plants so we wanted more fresh garden vegetables. Gardening is also one of Kirk’s previous passions; he really enjoys spending the evenings in the garden. Our problem was the yard area or lack there of. It is not very large and we didn’t want to give up a lot of space because the child and hyper hounds need a place to move and run around.

First we expanded the existing bed by adding more to the east with some bricks that we still had from last year. The addition reduced some of the walking space between the bed and the clothes line pole. However, there is still plenty of room to walk through without getting clothes-lined!  The dirt in the bed was terribly hard, lumpy and difficult to work with so we mixed in sand, peat moss, and some new topsoil. The kids mixed, turned, pulled and pushed mixing the new additions with the existing dirt that Kirk had previously tilled. Once it was full, Kirk came back through and tilled again. The new mixture was a tremendous improvement to the quality of the soil.



Next, we mixed up equal parts of new topsoil, sand and peat moss in the yard wagon to fill large pots and other containers. We will be trying some container garden this year. Containers will help up utilize the limited space that we have. And since we got a late start at this, I am hoping we will be able to bring container pots in and keeping them going late into the fall.

We also planted green beans around the fence posts and peas in a small wasted space between the property line and the other clothes line pole. Urban gardening on small ground does create some challenges however I was amazed that amount of wasted space we did find once we started looking. Oh sure, I won’t have enough produce to do much canning or freezing but we will have some fresh organic vegetables and the kids are learning a new skill. And that absolute best part is…we did it together!

Thanks for all your help today, kids!

Buying food in bulk

The constant rising food costs and never ending gas price increases are whittling away at everyone’s food budget. Bulk buy is one of the ways, I have been able to somewhat maintain my family’s food costs. I buy food in bulk quanities and fill “our grocery” located in the basement. Our in home grocery store has saved me more than once from making that quick trip to the store which saves gas and reduced trips avoids impulse buying.

My two main sources are Azure Standard and Sam’s Club. Azure Standard is a food co-op that has a delivery route to this area. They offer a variety of healthy and organic items. I usually purchase items like beans, wheat berries, oats, essential oils and glycerin from them. Sam’s club is another source which is about 75 miles away so I don’t visit often. I buy a three month supplies of various items like #10 cans of tomato sauce, ketchup, spices, dog food, and toilet paper and bar soap. Like Costco and other warehouse stores, there are deals to be found in this store. The trick is to avoid all the impulses! Know your prices by keeping a price book and understand how to calculate the per unit price. These stores have impulse items lurking around every corner and especially the convenient frozen food isle as much as possible. These stores have a great selection of pre-packaged frozen food items like Buffalo wings, prepared breakfast sandwiches, frozen pizzas that taste really good but simply out of my budget. Not to mention the fact, many are not a health option.

Another source often forgot about is the local grocery store. I stock up on food items that are on good sale prices. Quite often store brand items will be on sale for less than Sam’s club leading brand prices. In that case, I buy up enough to get the family through to the next sale. Generally we see the same items rotate through about every six to eight weeks. It is not usual for best prices will have limit and of course, I pick up the limit. I will return later in the week to purchase another limit if I am already out for some other reason otherwise inflated gas prices may just eat up the savings.

Our grocery store consists of a large Rubbermaid 6 shelving unit. I keep everything from toilet paper to noodles to coffee to sugar here. If it is on sale and a regular item in my home, I usually pick it up to store here. I also have some food grade 5 gallon buckets with lids that house rice, wheat berries, dry beans and oats. The buckets were previously from our local store (bakery section) and they will give them away, if you ask. You could also check the Deli section since potato salad also comes in these 5 gallon buckets. A 25# bag of grain fits just about right and the tight sealing lid locks out bugs, dust and the occassional rodent! Even if you need to pay $1.00 or so, food grade 5 gallon buckets are a good storage idea for large quantity items.

Keeping staple ingredients on hand has many benefits. It saves on additional trips to the store and allows buying extra when prices are low. It also gives a stockpile for when there is not much on sale or when our grocery budget had been exhausted for the month. Although storage space maybe an issue for some be creative because stocking up on best prices is good defense against our times of rising costs.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

I made these great Blueberry Muffins for breakfast today. It is nice to have something different. The kids each had two muffins with some pears before going to school. I thought there might be some complaints since I used 50% whole wheat flour. However nothing was said about "tasting different". I love how easily my family is making the change over to whole wheat flour.

If my family can do it, any family can do it.
I explained the benefits of whole wheat to them before changing. Since my kids appear to be more health conscious these days, they had no objections to trying the healthier version. From there, I converged by recipes by using 50-50 mix of flour in everything from breads, cookies, bars, and now muffins.
This is easy change to a healthier life style.