Shopping them sales and making dinner!!!

Every week you get those weekly grocery store adds in your mailbox. You know its Wed. because your mailbox is full of them. Possibly in your town a different day. In my town its Wed. Either way you get em. These little grocery store pamphlets are awesome for several reasons. First of all if your a grocery dork like me they are fun to look at. Secondly they are your map for how you are going to plan your grocery store trips. (Yes I said trips) Plural. I start with the three closest stores to me and browse these papers methodically. If you only want to do one store at first go for it. I know there are some items that i will always use. Peanut butter, bread, jelly, eggs, on sale meat, toothpaste, soap, etc... next when you see a kick ass deal like three cans of corn for $1, write down on a piece of paper the store name at the top then the sales you are finding for that particular store.

Note: Shopping for sales takes concentration if your an idiot like me. It is not fun going grocery shopping with children. If you can do it alone that is awesome. If not then I guess you will have to put up with the "Daddy look, look, look, can we get this, how about this, daddy, daddy, daddy" If your a mom substitute the word Mommy of course. Kids will get you to buy things that are not good deals. Yogurt with some disney channel person on the label twice the price for half the yogurt.

-Fry's grocery-

Canned corn 3 for $1, Frozen burritos 4 for $1, hot dogs 75cents, milk $1.79 gallon, cereal 1.50 box, apples 4lbs. for $1, Mac n cheese 4 for $1, Butter 99cents , corn Tortillas 99 cents, eggs 99cent dozen, Potatoes $149 ten lb. bag, Bacon $2.00, Tomatoes 2lbs. for $1.00, Romain greens 99cents., 5lbs. onions 1.50, salad dressing 99cents, carrots 2.5lb bag $1.29.

Lets say thats all the good deals you found at that store. Next store.

-Safeway-

Chicken leg quarters 49 cents lb. (ten lb. bag), Tooth paste 99cents ea. (aim), Shampoo and conditioner 99cents ea. (white rain), (my daughters refuse to use this crap, but its fine for us dads)., Pace salsa $1.00, sour cream 97cents, avocados 2 for $1.00, white rice 5lb.'s $2.50, enchilada sauce 99cents , Mexican blend cheese shredded 5lb. bag $11.99., refried beans 2 for $1.00, frozen french fries 99cents 2lb bag, Barilla pasta 99cents box.

Lets say thats all the good deals we found at that store. Next store.

-Albersons-

Blue Bunny ice cream $2.50 a gallon. thats all this store has because Albertsons always sucks. I always check though just in case they have that one item that is worth making the extra trip for. About twice a year they have a kick ass deal like spaghetti sauce for 75 cents a can. so i will buy $10 bucks worth and throw it in the pantry. but mostly they suck.

Ok so this list is just an example. their will be other stores, and other products. But now that we have our basic lists. We go buy the items as per the add prices. Things that wont go bad get a few of each. 3 boxes of pasta, 2 corn tortillas(they freeze well), 6 cans of corn, etc. depending on your budget. The more things you have in your pantry the more meal options you will have.

So your in the grocery store popping things into your cart and marking them off your list. You happen to walk past the back of the store and you see this cart that says 75% off. Dont pass this cart by. You can find some kick ass deals in here. alot of times they will have spices real cheap, or other items they either bought to much of or cant get rid of. Vanilla extract here, cake sprinkles there, a cake mix for 25 cents. Not great food for the body, but in moderation its fun to bake a cake with your daughter and have all the stuff you need to do it. Train yourself to do a quick sweep of any grocery store your in, if you have the time to look for those on sale carts. Also cruise by the discount meat area in the grocery store meat section. They have 30 to 50% off items that are going to have to be gotten rid of because of due dates. Bring em home and freeze them and plan meals around them. Bring all your items home and ones you bought that were not on your list and put them into your pantry for dry goods, fridge duh for spoilable items. The ten lb. bag of chicken leg thigh quarters goes right into the sink with cold water before you do anything that way the lil bird pieces can start thawing. While that is thawing you can start packaging the 5lbs. of shredded cheese you bought into 1/2 lb. zip lock bags and put two in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. Once the chicken is thawed you can part it into drumsticks and thighs or just leave it in leg/thigh quarters if you want. I find kids like drumsticks for some unknown reason.

Ok ya got everything put away and repackaged. Does not take as long as you would think. You dont have to watch the chicken thaw. It can be thawing for a couple hours while your doing laundry, working on dinner or what ever. Oviously your not having chicken tonight because it aint thawed yet. Chicken is for tomorrow and when ever you want it, but atleast you will have it.

So now call your daughters into the kitchen because kids love to cook especially when you say how good the stuff they made is. Will keep em comming back to the kitchen to help over and over. Hand each one some vegis and a knife (hopefully you have tought them basic knife skills, if not do so. fingers hurt when steel goes through them.) give each a cutting board (the floppy plastic ones are cheap and good for kids) Start them to chopping vegis. Separate the kids to different sides of the kitchen if possible so they are not temped to fight or argue about who gets to cutt more items or how one is doing it wrong etc.... Pop a huge salad bowl down and let them use the plastic cutting boards to dump what they cutt into the bowl.
While they are doing that you can take the can of enchilada sauce (will teach you how to make your own easily another time for alot cheaper. Mona Bonilla's recipe) spread a ladle of it on the bottom of a cascerole dish lay down 4 frozen burritos, then the rest of the enchilada sauce, top with cheese pop in the oven on 350 for 30 min. ovens varry in temps so check to make sure they are cooked through. Kids set the table, you dish up the salad and "Enchiladas" which are not enchiladas, duh. and salad. You pray and give thanks for your meal with your children, talk, eat, laugh, then dad gets stuck with the clean up. All for about $2.50 to feed three people dinner. you still have alot of items left for other meals. You could have also opened a can of refried beans to go with this meal. Or cooked some rice and dumped the can of pace salsa in it while it was cooking and made "spanish rice". Use your imagination. I will put some recipes together at a later date. You get the point though. $2.50 for three people to eat dinner is pretty damn cheap. In the morning its Breakfast burritos with the eggs, potatoes, cheese, bacon and tortillas, avocado, sour cream.!!!!!!!!!!

This is my first blog so please bare with me people. My intent is to share alot of the things I have learned over the years being a frugal foody. If you happen to spend alot of time at restaurants eating out and that is your style, than all the more power to you. If you would like to know how to cook for literally almost nothing comparativly than stay tuned during the next week while i tweek this site and try to understand about blogging and how it works. I am going to give you a list of some of the basic items you will need here. These items will be a one time purchase for the most part, items such as cook ware etc... Others such as spices and herbs dried for the most part will have to be replenished periodically at a minimal price as these items tend to be used sparingly. Some spices are pricey but go along way, others may be lower quality and that is fine, they do add alot of flavor to dishes. If you have no experience cooking than dont be affraid to experiment. You might ruin a couple dishes here and there, but thats ok. Ok a few items you will need to start.

1.) Frying pan 10" is fine.
2.) Large stock pot (any brand for now is fine)
3.)quart stock pot
4.)basic cooking utensils (spatula, whisk, one good knife is really all you need, I prefer a chef knife for everything., tongs, others you will figure out along the way.)

I assume most folks have such items. If you have more, then all the better. A good source of usable cookware (not awesome, but usable) are Swap meets, Yard sales, second hand stores, Dollar stores for utensils, tjmax, Target, Big Lotts, etc. the point is to keep your eyes open for things on sale you dont have that you can pick up one at a time, eventually you will have quite the collection and over time you will be discarding things you used, for better items. Give the old ones to college students just starting out or somthing. You can also pick up a whole set of pans and utensils if you dont have any at stores like walmart in one big box. Not the best quality, but great for the beginner.

I want to take a min. here to say somthing about shopping. Alot of folks say "Dont buy things you would normally not buy". I tend to disagree with this statement. We are trying to save money correct? We want Meals that are healthy and different every night correct? So in the beginning here is what i suggest you do. Buy what ever you can on sale when you can. If you typically go out to eat all the time and spend 40 bucks for a family of four once a week, cut one night a month out of that schedule in the beginning and use that 40 bucks for all onsale items you can find. Such as Peanut butter. sometimes you can find it for 99cents per one Lb. jar. Dont buy one jar, buy five jars. It aint going to go bad, that stuff is chalk full of preservatives., all canned foods eventually go on sale. Vegis can go for 3 cans for a dollar sometimes, when they do, but ten to twenty of them, mix it up a little. Put them cans in the pantry and pretty soon you will have pretty much everything you need for what ever recipe you need. saves time on gas to be able to walk right to the pantry, check your recipe and see you already have all you need. No wasted trips to the store. This wont happen all at once, you will have to slowly, or quickly your choice stocking up, on whats on sale. Buy what you can when you can. make coffee at home and spend that extra two bucks ya saved not buying a starbucks coffee on possibly two jars of Peanut butter, or eight cans of tomato sauce or four cans of vegis, or two boxes of pasta. you get the point. stuff that will last for awhile , pantry safe stuff you can pull from when ya need it. Even if you cut your eating out time to half of normal, you will save hundreds a month.
Again bare with me on this blog. It will get better. Next time I want to talk about shopping the grocery adds. Its a good way to figure out whats on sale and when and schedule one day a week to do it. You can use the evening that you would spend out eating to go to the grocery store. I want to walk you through the grocery store and take you on a virtual trip to saving money.

God bless; sean