Making Do Without Missing a Thing--Six Kitchen Appliances that will put CASH back in your Pocket--Week Three

 image credit: http://www.dreamstime.com/counting-money-image2785331

       Howdy folks! It's time for the third installment in our third week of a six week series on Making Do Without Missing a Thing! Again, if you are just starting out with us and want to learn more about Master mixes, anticipating the grocery sales cycles, building up a pantry, buying in bulk, meal planning or the last four appliances listed that will save you money, it is best if you start out right at the BEGINNING. Intentional spending, planning ahead---all those great things we know we should do but most of us have no idea where to even start.
   Neither did I eight years ago. I did what everyone else did--went to the store down the street up to three times a week, forgot to make a list, would call my husband who worked there to pick up this and that because I had forgotten it....you know the drill.
   Until our circumstances changed, and financially I had to make the very most with what I had and was given so I could continue to stay home with my children and help my husband with the income he was bringing in. SO, in essence, you are reading about the tips and tricks and ways that took me eight years to understand, all in six weeks. I wish I had something like this when I first started out! Instead, God blessed me on my journey with determination to seek out the answers, and then brought different people alongside to show me how they did things, partner with me in teaching me how, and who still cheer me on today. I hope I can be that for you too!

   ha ha!--couldn't resist--this is somewhere in Canada.

I think I need a sign like this to carry in my purse. That way I can warn people. :)

   But enough rambling again....we have covered the use of our freezers, stand mixers, and grain mills....each intentional purchases that have added up to serious savings. I know it seems strange to think of having to spend some money to save some money, but we all know it is a principle that is relatively true. We intentionally choose the right car for our family and look at the gas mileage it gets....perhaps a very large portion of us would choose one car over the other if it got better gas mileage, right? I know I would, especially with my husband working at a town 20 minutes away and us on a tight budget. These items I am sharing with you this week are a true investment into saving time and money for our family. They have, each one, enabled me to shave more money off of our grocery budget and replace convenience items with homemade that cost me pennies compared to what I would spend at the store. Either that, or they save me so much time that they are worth the investment.

   The  fourth appliance I use just as much as the other four listed is my Crockpot.

   Such a humble appliance, and yet, it does so much for me. I have tried to be without it, and found it almost impossible. As I shared with you back in week two, when we talked about meal planning and how it works in my family, one night a week is crock pot night. Now that changes during the summer and early fall months so that we are more often eating salads and choosing to grill out, but it is pretty constant throughout the year. I also make our homemade yogurt with the crockpot, and lots of stock that I can up and put away on the shelf for the many recipes we use throughout the year that use stock. However, more about that tomorrow.
   Cost-wise, crock pots are the frugal fashionista's way of Making Do Without Missing a Thing. You can make some seriously fabulous meals in a crock pot. You can have breakfast ready for you and the kids when you get up in the morning before that rush out the door. You can make a killer dessert for those days you just dont have the gumption to go into the kitchen and pull out a bunch of pots and bowls, or even want to break out your stand mixer. You can make applesauce while you sleep from apples that the kids wouldn't touch, thanks to them being a little mushy. Or one of our favorites around here--you can slice up a bunch of onions, top with a couple pats of butter and let them cook down all night for some absolutely amazing carmelized onions on top of your burgers the next day.
   Oh crock pot---how we love thee! :)
   But still, my very favorite thing to use my crockpot for are those days when I am so so busy teaching piano that it does all my work for me. A little of this, a little of that and by the time my last piano kid walks out the door and my husband walks in, I can't get away from that smell and my stomach is growling so loud you can hear it.



   Crockpots are not that expensive--we got a great deal on a Hamilton Beach one at a Kmart for right around $20. If you look around, they are found pretty often at garage sales and thrift stores, just like those bread machines we have already discussed. The difference is, people use their crock pots, so if you get one of them at either of those places, be sure to have them check that it is working and the heating element is not broken, or the ceramic insert cracked.
   I have had four crock pots since Kurt and I married over 14 years ago. The first one made it until a fire we had when our oldest was 2 1/2 pretty much took all our household items. The second one was a metal insert that was coated with teflon, and once I began looking into information about health issues with teflon, the fact it was starting to peel off (after about 8 years) really brought me to the point of tossing it. Oh and then of trying really hard not to make my family eat raw lentils  and dandelion greens in an effort to overcome all the nasty crud that had been leaking out of the pot into our food for that time. (I'm just kidding, I mean, who eats those...*ahem*)
   And then...well then there was the best crockpot I have ever had or hope to have. It was beautiful. Hamilton Beach. Snazzy Black. Locking Lid (awesome invention by the way---makes trips to potlucks SO much better for the car and the person who has to drive it from home to wherever with a full crockpot slopping over every. single. turn.) I had it for just about a month, and it was sitting on the counter with a full insert of amazing smelling soup. I remember the day so clearly. It had been a horrible spring  and early summer with water, water everywhere. For the first time anyone could remember, EVERYONE had wet basements, because there was just no place for anything to go. There were no outlets in the basement for the shop vac, so we had unplugged my crockpot and it was attached to a power strip on an extension cord. You can imagine what happened next. The basement door opens right into the kitchen. Dear Kurt comes up from the basement with a load of wet stuff, can't see the cord, and into the air goes the boxes of wet stuff, the crock pot, and an entire line of cookbooks that we had run the cord behind. Thank God Kurt was all right. The crockpot got the worst of it with the ceramic insert split into quite a few pieces, soup and ceramic shards littering the floor, the family standing around in awe at the tremendous mess, and me running around trying to get my cookbooks before the flood of soup claimed them. All we really needed was the dog in the middle of it. I can laugh now as I cried then.
   Then came the fourth crockpot, my dear mother's, that was loaned to us to replace the broken one. We are waiting for the next good sale and she will get it back. It does the job, has taken a beating over the few months we have had it, but still cranks out meals for us once or twice a week.
   And that is the end of my Crockpot Saga.

                                           You laughed, you cried......it moved you, right? :)


   Let's quickly talk about the cost of running your crock pot. Face it folks, its cheap. If you ran a crock pot, round the clock, every day for a full week, it would cost you right around $5. We use ours once a week, and I figure it costs me about .75 to run it for the meal each time. Maybe a little less, but somewhere around there. It costs a lot more for me to turn on the oven, heat it up, bake whatever and then finally turn it off. So that humble crock pot is economical as well.

   One of my favorite things to make in my crockpot is yogurt, because I can (and do) make it a gallon of milk at a time. My family loves yogurt, and if you come back tomorrow for my next post, you are going to read about how to make yogurt into fruit taffy roll-ups for your kids (and you, of course). Forget those scary colored fruit roll-ups at the store---this is healthy, and just as attractive to your kids! Meanwhile, I can make yogurt here at home using my crock pot and we have yogurt for fresh eating, baking, and in substitution for sour cream, etc. I can even make greek yogurt for pennies, or turn it into a simple spreadable cheese just by draining it and then refrigerating it.
   If you are interested in learning more about that, I will be doing a post eventually on how I do it, but I can also ship you over to someone who can show you right now. Her link is great because she shows you clearly how to take it from yogurt to cream cheese. For Greek yogurt you would only drain it in a colander for an hour or a little more until it is the thickness you are looking for. She uses a pan for the yogurt and then moves it to a storage container of water to make it--I just start and end with my crockpot, discussed here, which is one of the places I learned it from a couple years ago. I also like that the second link breaks the numbers down for you. I do not use a powdered starter, just a good brand of plain yogurt. Greek yogurt tends to have really good healthy bacteria in it, so that works well...and once you have yogurt made you will not need a starter again (unless you cant keep the kids out of it and they eat up every last drop) because you will just reserve a little bit from the batch you made before.

   If you want to get serious about making crock pot meals, I would encourage you to purchase the book: Fix It And Forget It----because it contains a million and one meals you can make with that appliance, from appetizers to dessert. Between that book and the many websites on crock pot cooking, that is all I use.  Just like yesterday, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you are going to find lots of recipes from me that I like to use my crock pot for. I am hoping by slowly giving you some of my recipes that on the last week of our series when I pull everything together for you, you can see how easy it is to plan meals for six weeks.

And love it.

   Today is just a short blurb compared to some of the other posts I have made recently. Crockpot cooking is probably the most talked about "way to go" when it comes to saving money on food, groceries, and time.  If you want to read more about crock pot cooking, I would encourage you to check out a few of these links:
1.Crockpot Cooking
2.Southern Crockpot Cooking
3.A Crock- Cook (this one makes me laugh, but its a good site)
4. Moms Who Think (nice title, right?)

   So my next post we are going to be talking about the two best appliances I ever invested in or learned how to use. They are serious appliances for the person who is serious about saving, and I have been waiting all week to share them with you. Not only am I going to tell you what they are, but all next week I am going to be teaching you the basics on using them, and showing you how significant the savings are when you learn to use them. Are you curious yet? You should be! This is definitely a week of saving the best for last---hope you check back for our last post on week three of Making Do Without Missing A Thing!!

Many Blessings to You and Yours, 

Heather

 

1. Elizabeth's Cheesy Rice Dish (a big thank you to my friend Liz Hoff for sharing this recipe years ago--it is a huge favorite with my family and is the ultimate in comfort food)

1 small bag frozen mixed vegetables

2 cups chicken stock

1 tsp salt

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 cups minute rice (check back tomorrow for MY recipe on this)

1/2 cup oil (we use coconut oil)

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2-3/4 (1-1 1/2 cups) jar cheesy sauce (she uses cheese whiz--I make my own from my Magic Mix)

1 cup shredded chicken

   * layer rice, chicken, vegetables, pour stock and oil over, mix well. Add cheesy sauce and garlic. Cook on low, stirring a couple times an hour for 3-4 hours.

2. CrockPot Hobo Stew (this is another family favorite. We serve it with homemade cornbread)

 3/4 llb ground beef, browned in bottom of crockpot on high

1 bag frozen green beans, or 2 1/2 cups of green beans drained (2 cans)

1 bag frozen tater tots or hashbrowns

2 cups of magic mix and 2 cans of mushrooms--make the magic mix with the juice added from the can

shredded cheese to taste

salt, pepper and garlic powder, all to taste

  *layer ingredients in crockpot: beef, beans, tatertots. Season each layer with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Layer twice. Top with cheese. Mix up Magic Mix Cream of Mushroom soup, pour over the ingredients in the crockpot. Stir 2-3 times while it is cooking 8 hours on low. Add more cheese right before you serve, it will melt on top in about 5-10 minutes. Cheesy goodness.

3. Heather's First-Prize Chili (yes, I toot my own horn occasionally, LOL)

3/4 lb ground beef or venison

1 onion, diced, olive oil

1 tsp garlic powder, chili powder, and cinnamon

(put these in the bottom of your crockpot and saute until beef/venison is no longer pink.

add one can dark red chili beans and one can black beans

Add in one can chili tomatoes, one jar chunky spaghetti sauce, and one jar salsa

then add one large jar's worth of beef stock.

   *cover and let this simmer for 8 hours on low. If you like your chili thick, make sure your crockpot lid is tilted the last hour for it to thicken up, or you can use cornstarch by taking one cup of the juice out, adding 1 TBS of cornstarch and stirring it in, then adding it back into the pot. 

4. Heather's Venison Stew (works just fine with beef, but is a great way to eat venison if you arent too fond of the taste)

1 lb stew meat

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 onion minced or 1/3 cup dried onion

6 cubed potatoes

5 sliced carrots

one small diced rutabega

1/4 cup worchestershire sauce

4 cups beef stock

1/4 cup barley, dry

   * I season the stew with the following herbs: thyme, oregano and basil, about 1 tsp each. On this meal, I just throw everything in the morning we are going to eat it for dinner, make sure there is enough liquid to simmer everything for the day. I leave the crockpot on low for 10-12 hours, and it is great stew.

Now if my brother would just post his seriously amazing chicken soup, this list would be complete. :) How about it, Michael?

 

Making Do Without Missing A Thing---Six Kitchen Appliances that Can put CASH back in your pocket

Welcome back to day two of the third week in our series "Making Do Without Missing A Thing". If you would like to start back at the beginning of this whole series, please click here. If you missed yesterday's installment on using your freezer to save you big money at the cash register when grocery shopping, then click right here.
   I am glad to see that so many people are interested in learning more about tips and tricks on saving money in the kitchen. This week we are focusing on covering six kitchen appliances that I have used continually to bring my family to the position of eating well, and best of all, eating healthy foods, all for under $200 a month. We actually only spend about $150 a month and the remainder goes right back into replacing things we have used from our pantry, freezer, or cupboards...or on fresh foods we can not grow for ourselves here in the wintertime in  Minnesota. :)

   As with the other posts, I wanted to share with you that when I am focusing on spending our family's hard earned money, it is intentional and I plan ahead. We have three beautiful children, two through adoption and one that we were blessed with three months early. My husband works really really hard, and we made the choice, long before we had children, that we would find a way for me to stay home. Little did we know at the time that God was going to give us our first child for only a moment before taking him back home....or that our second would come into this world three months early and very very fragile. I was thankful to have my aching arms filled with her 1 pound,  4 ounce frame, I just didn't know that would mean for the next three years her immune system would be so fragile that any idea of leaving her in daycare would be an impossibility.
   Perhaps you too, today, find yourself between a rock and a hard place. Maybe none of the choices you are confronted with today are easy, and there is not a good, clear path to walk. Perhaps one of the breadwinners in your family has lost a job and you came to the Welcoming House today looking for anything that can help you squeak through until another job provides. Maybe you are a family who has decided to make the transition and bring one of you home to be with the children God is blessing you with. Or maybe you are someone who is doing their best to be prepared against some of the rougher times in life by setting money and food aside to weather the increasing costs. Please know, if you are reading this, and you are here, then I am praying for you. I may never know your name, but I dont believe in coincidences. You are supposed to be learning this stuff for the same reason that I am supposed to be writing it--we need one another.

   I just wanted to preface today's post: The appliances we are going to talk about today were ones that I slowly set money aside to purchase. They are not as commonly found in a home as say an oven or a freezer, but many people have one or both, and they are becoming more and more popular.
   I use one of mine every single day, and I love the convenience of it. As I also have fibromyalgia, and have days where I simply can not knead the bread I make for my family, or even turn a top on a bottle, it is such a blessing to throw a bunch of ingredients into it and let it go.
  I am referring to my stand mixer, and that is one of the appliances that today's post is all about. The other appliance is my grain mill, purchased just over a year ago, that paid for itself within six weeks of getting it. The grain mill provides all of my family's flours for pennies on the table, and the mixer provides us with every kind of baked good, with butter, and with a thousand other things that it gets used for each year.

  I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer that my dear mother purchased for me about six years ago for Christmas. I had been doing my best to save for one, but with a sickly child, and then a cross-state move that took almost all of our savings, my little pile of cash was growing very slowly. One of the best days of my life was when I opened that box, and I mean it, because I knew I would be able to make fresher and healthier things for my family without using my hands as much.
   If you dont have one, that is ok. Most of the recipes I am listing at the end of today's post you can make by hand...even the pasta one. I just find using my mixer quicker and easier that doing that. I do, however, find that it is one of those things that I can use all the time to replace items I would otherwise buy. It saves me significant money when it comes to our grocery budget, and so is completely worth the money to add it into my kitchen.
   My grain mill is used to make flour from wheat berries (what they call the wheat grains), corn meal from the popcorn that we purchase in bulk (yes, popcorn. It makes the sweetest corn meal.). It has been used to grind beans for different types of bread, and I am sure in the next year I will find more and more ideas to use it on. I actually decided to buy one about two years ago when I saw how inexpensive wheat grains were in comparison to buying wheat flour.

   I knew that the flour you get at the store has most often sat in a warehouse for weeks or even months before getting to you, and had opened too many bags of flour that was quickly going rancid. I knew there had to be a better way. Add into that the fact that flour normally only stores for a year (with the exception of all purpose flour--but that will end up in your body looking like paper mache since it is stripped of all nutritional value to be shelf stable), and wheat flour begins to go rancid within a couple of weeks due to the high oil content. Wheat and popcorn, properly stored (again, we use food grade buckets or small metal trashcans) will last for upwards of 30 years with no change. You read that right. 30 years. So by purchasing that one little appliance I can watch the wheat market and buy a month, six months, or even a year's worth (if I have the storage capacity) for pennies, and my family will have all the bread, cookies, buns, pasta, etc, that I can make in my mixer for a fraction of the cost.
   For example....a good loaf of bread at the store will cost you somewhere between $3 and $4. If you were to make that same bread from scratch, using your hands, a bread machine (which most people purchase and which most thrift stores have by the dozen because people don't know how to use it), or a mixer......even if you were buying the flour to make it rather than grinding your own, you are making each loaf for right around 30 cents. Seriously. Want to get to that number? Here are a couple tips. Go to your local bakery, or food co-op (such as Azure standard), favorite mom and pop restaurant, whatever, and ask to buy a block of yeast. I pay just around $4.00 for an entire pound of yeast. I get it from the bakery of my husband's work (he works at a grocery store), I bring it home, package it, and store it in the freezer. It will keep up to a year or more and still be potent. Second, if your bread recipe calls for milk, and quite a few do, invest in dry powdered milk. I have found the best tasting milk in powder form is the NIDO brand milk made by Nestle. I have found it every single time in the Hispanic section of Walmart with all the other foods I love to drool over. Get it. Those are two big costs in making bread, and you will cut your cost well in half by choosing to do that.
   I make four to six loaves a week and have found significant savings in doing that. I also make all our pasta, pizza crusts, quick breads, muffins, tortillas,and cookies, and they are healthy with no additions or preservatives. I know what goes in them, and I am paying pennies on the dollar to have as much or as little as we want. How much do you pay for any of those items?

  I was in the grocery store the other day and priced a couple of them out: For a dozen chocolate chip cookies from the bakery (which are the kind my kids like) it was just under $7.00. I about died. Perhaps I should go into business making everyone else's cookies for them! :) A lot of people cant afford that, so they are buying the standard cookies right off the shelf in the bread and baked goods aisles. Have you ever turned that package over to look at the ingredients? Not only are a lot of those ingredients absolutely impossible to pronounce, they are chemicals that are put into the batter to make it last longer and stay shelf-stable, not for the health of your kids. And even at $3.50 a package, that is still so much more than I am paying to make a couple dozen cookies from my Master Cookie Mix.
   Or how about tortillas? A single package of Enchilada Size tortillas will cost you anywhere from $2 to $4 for 10 tortillas. With my home recipe, and my mixer, even without grinding the flour myself, I am only spending less than a dollar for about 20 of them. That is money back in my pocket, every single time I make enchiladas.
   I am , instead, trading money for time and deliberate attention to figuring out how I can cut a little here, and a little there, until we are well within our means and not breaking the bank each time we go grocery shopping. And even if you are a full time working parent with kids, you can do this. Kids love to help cook, and many small kids can even make tortillas or dump in ingredients in a mixer for cookies or bread.
   Finally, lets talk about how using my grain mill has saved on that end as well. I can get 25 lbs of wheat berries from lots of places for anywhere from $12 to $17. It gets even cheaper per pound if I buy them in 50 lb bags. Each cup of wheat berries I grind is going to yield me just over 1 1/4 cups of flour. The only kind of flour I can get for about $12 for 25 lbs is all-purpose flour, which is completely devoid of any nutrition, and yet most baked goods you purchase on the shelf are made from it. Wheat flour, often up to three months old, sells for about $7 for a 5 lb bag in most groceries. Mine is fresh, can store forever almost, and I can make just as much as I need in a very short time. All in all, my cost per cup of flour is well under half what I would pay in the grocery store. For those of you who are trying more and more to be gluten free, then please realize that a grain mill will save you SO MUCH MONEY when it comes to making any baked goods. You can purchase the grain for a huge discount through health food co-ops and stores and use it without paying the high price of gluten-free mixes or goods in the store.
  I also make cornbread, corn tortillas, Masa for tamales, etc. I can buy popcorn in bulk (and so can you) and it will store for quite a while if the seal is tight. It costs me much less to use this than to buy the prepared masa in stores, corn tortillas that are treated to stay fresh, or the Jiffy corn bread mixes. I blogged about that here if you are looking for a great master mix to have on hand to make things easier. All I did was ask around at the local grocery stores, chat up the managers, and have a short talk with the one who heads up the dry goods department. They can order in larger amounts most times, but don't do it unless they know it is a guaranteed sale. He was happy to sell me a case of 5 lb bags of popcorn at the sale price just a couple months ago. It took a little effort on my part to find the best price, and now we are enjoying our popcorn in many different ways.
   The Best price I could find stand mixers for was here, which is an Amazon link. I would encourage you to look around and check for the best price. I see them go on sale a couple times a year, and I think you could beat that price if you tried. Also check your Craigslist connections, and even pass the word around to family. You might be pleasantly surprised and get one passed to you from someone who just has it sitting on the counter un-used.
   For my grain mill I did a lot of shopping around, and I ended up buying it from Melanie at Back to the Basics, a page on Facebook that always has great information. She is a dealer, and if you have a FaceBook account, her page is here. I know they are in the process of setting up a new store and website, so if her information changes, I will change the link. The grain mill I purchased is the Nutrimill, which looks like this:

image from http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill
Otherwise you can copy and paste the above link, because they have the next best prices on the Web for grain mills.

   So as we conclude today, I just wanted to pass on the basic recipes (and one kid-voted recipe) that I use my mixer and grain mill for. I hope you get as much use out of them as we do!! Check back for the next post as we talk about appliance four for your kitchen that will put Cash back in your pocket!

Many blessings to You and Yours, 

Heather

Pizza Crust (use this recipe to make homemade pizzas to add to your freezer)
2 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 TBS olive oil
1 tsp sugar
2 3/4 cup flour (whole wheat or 1/2 wheat and 1/2 AP Flour)
   *I make about 10 of these up at a time and place them in my cupboard so all I have to do is grab, add water and oil and within a few minutes I have pizza crust ready to roll out. It also freezes amazingly well, so you can make two pizzas at a time and freeze one for the next week. For thin crust, this will make 2 round pizzas. For regular crust, this will make one, or a 9x13 cookie sheet pan. 
 

EZ Whole Wheat Bread (credit goes to Crystal at www.everdayfoodstorage.net for this recipe. My husband owes her his life because he no longer needs to eat bricks and pretend he likes it)
(makes one loaf of bread)
1 1/4 cup warm water
1 Tblsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup honey or 1/3 cup sugar
2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (or whatever combination white/wheat you like..I use 100% hard white wheat.)
1/4 cup wheat gluten (I do not use this, but it makes the bread even loftier)
1 tsp salt
2 Tblsp nonfat non instant dry milk
1 Tblsp butter/margarine/oil
1 Tblsp vinegar
1/4 cup potato flakes (NOT potato pearls)
Mix ingredients in order listed in mixing bowl of mixer with dough hook attachment (like kitchen-aid) for 12-15 minutes. Let rise until double, 1- 1 1/2 hours. Punch down, and shape into loaf or rolls. Let rise again until double and bake 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes until golden brown and sounds hollow when lightly tapped.

Whole Wheat Pasta (I make this using my Kitchen Aid attachment--it can be frozen or air dried as well)
 2 cups flour
4 eggs
2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup water
   * mix dry ingredients in mixer, turn off and add eggs. turn on and let mix. add water 1/4 cup at a time until dough  holds together. Let the mixer knead it for you for about 3-4 minutes until smooth and elastic. Let dough rest, covered with a wet towel for 10 minutes. Either roll out thin and cut into strips for egg noodles, or let your pasta attachment roll it thin and cut it into noodles for you.

Flour Tortillas
2 cups bread flour

 1 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening or lard
3/4 cup warm water
   Mix and knead until smooth and elastic. Divide dough into 10 balls and cover with a wet towel. Allow to rest for 20 minutes, then roll into rounds. Bake on a hot stone or baking sheet in a 450* oven for 3 minutes. When the tortilla puffs up like a balloon, it is done, remove it and move it to a rack to cool. You can also cook these in a hot skillet, flipping over to achieve the dark spots you are used to on store-bought. I put into an oven-safe container lined with wax paper that has a lid, and they stay moist and ready to roll until I am done making the batch.

Corn tortillas are made with 2 cups of masa harina (which is 2 cups of corn meal and 1 tsp baking powder), and one cup of water. It dries out very quickly, so you must keep the dough covered with a wet towel while you are working with it. It rolls out very easily, and you can even purchase tortilla presses at Hispanic groceries for very cheaply. I pan fry my corn tortillas and use the method I describe above to keep them fresh for our table.



Pie Crust recipe (freezes really well so make a big batch)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbs sugar (less if making for a non-sweet pie)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 stick lard or crisco (1/2 cup)
1 beaten egg
2 tsp vinegar 
   *makes a two crust deep dish pie 

Toffee Bars (easiest cookie bars in the world)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter or 1/2 cup butter and shortening , each
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 Hershey chocolate bar or large handful of chocolate chips

   *Combine everything but the chocolate. Pat into a 9x13 pan and bake at 350* for 20 minutes. Break candy into pieces, or scatter chocolate chips across top of pan when ir first comes out of oven. Let melt then spread across top of bars. Let cool completely and then cut into bars. 

Making Do Without Missing A Thing--Six Kitchen Appliances That Will Put Cash Back in Your Pocket--Week Three

   Welcome back! I cant tell you how excited I am about today's post---SO excited in fact, that I could barely sleep for all the things running through my mind that I wanted to share on here in the next week.
                It's true. If I weren't typing I would be rubbing my hands together gleefully.
   You see, TODAY is the day you begin to take another step forward in putting more of your money back in your pocket and starting  to see significant savings in your grocery budget, family's health, and all over ability to Making Do Without Missing a Thing.
   If you are just joining us today, and have not been able to be with us since the beginning, I would encourage you to check out our week one of the six week series--Master Mixes, which dealt with immediately putting cash back in your pocket through the use of Master Mixes---replacing things such as Bisquick, bagged cookie mixes or even Hamburger helper and Cream of Mushroom soup...by recognizing they are convenience items that take very little time and effort to make at home from scratch for a short time investment.
   Or, you can check out last week's posts on week two--Eating Like a King on a Shoestring Budget, which dealt with learning to anticipate the grocery sales, squashing the habit of running to the grocery every week by using meal planning, and building a pantry that you can pull from at any time, no matter your circumstances.
   This week is the start of week three, Six Kitchen Appliances That Will Put Cash Back in Your Pocket.
   As with anything else I have shared with you, this week's post is about how making intentional spending your main focus when shopping, will, in return, help you really reap the benefits of  putting more money back into your pocket every time that grocery shopping comes around.
   Each day this week I am going to cover one appliance that is either common in most kitchens, or I have chosen carefully to add to my kitchen, to add to my savings and ability to plan ahead for my family food-wise.
Today's post is going to start with an appliance that most people already have in their homes: the humble kitchen freezer.
   Now, while you are reading this, you have one of two models of a freezer in your house right now.
      This                                                                                  

  

     or This:

   And that will determine how much you will need to rely on this post, or one of the other appliance options to make the best use of your time and intentional spending while you are grocery shopping. I want to start right out by saying that I have both, and use them all the time. But neither of them would have a fish standing up in them like that. Stock photos, what do you do? :P
   Using your freezer to work for you is something most people do in some shape or form without even realizing they are doing it.
   However, most people also have no idea how possible it is to use your freezer to its best advantage to really put more money in your pocket and avoid the yearly clean-out we all dread. No more throwing away months of food waste: things that have just moved to the bottom over the year as new items have been placed on top of them. I want you to understand how food waste can really be a cause of a lot of wasted money in your food budget. Think of it as working for free, for hours, just to be able to fill your trash can every week and have the garbage man come and take it away. I don't know about you, but that is a painful vision in my life, and I frankly don't like my garbage guy enough to want to give him all that money.. I want my hard-earned money to pay for dance lessons, or the treat of eating out, or something that is worthwhile in my life, not to fill a trash can. And most of us do it because we are trained to think of everything in a very disposable way.......even when it comes to our detriment, or our financial ruin (can you say going into debt just to buy Christmas presents and not paying the rent in January?). We are trained to think we  need to use the grocery store every single week, even if we have food at home in our freezers, cupboards or fridges. We are trained to throw away odds and ends of food, produce being the number one item, rather than finish it off, all because we are wealthy enough (yep, you heard me say it) to consider that food item as no longer necessary to your meals that week. Perhaps if each time we threw something away that was half eaten, or has gone to waste, we were to picture the 97% of the world to whom hunger a very real and daily struggle we would think twice. Or perhaps not.
   Did you know that even at a 30% mark up from cost that most grocery produce managers know they are still going to make a good profit off of that bag of lettuce you purchased yesterday? Know why? Because 70% of people will not eat that food before they determine that it has reached a point that they no longer want to eat it. And funny thing--those same people will throw it out, and come back in the next week, or two weeks later (or even days later) to purchase the same thing. Ouch, right? Have you been there? I have, many times. Or just ask my husband, who used to be the main go-to guy who would clean out the fridge. Poor poor man.

   So, lets talk about some simple ways to use your freezer to work for you.

1. Buying items on sale and stocking up on them. This is a no-brainer right? At least for most Americans. We buy four pizzas at a time when it is a good deal, and fill up the freezer for game night. We buy three cartons of juice because its on sale and our family tends to get hit with the flu during the winter, so we know OJ is a good thing to stock up. We buy frozen veggies, and frozen lasagna, and over the year, a funny thing happens. Those same things we bought on sale sink slowly to the bottom as we see new things we "need", and eventually, from a few weeks to a few months, those things become freezer-burned, tasteless, and un-appetizing.
   And then we hire the garbage man to come and haul it away with our hard-earned paychecks.
   Yep, thats the American way. Not a very lovely picture.
   That is why I consider the freezer on my short-term storage list. Why? because if I am going to put a bunch of money into food, and plan on shopping grocery sales, and building my pantry, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket...and then have the power go out. I don't know about you, but eating an entire chest freezer full of food in 48 hours because the power has gone out and I am going to lose my entire investment just makes me break into a cold sweat. I know. I have been there. Have you?
   Instead, there are very few things I use my freezer for that is longer than a four month cycle. Most foods begin to deteriorate in that time (with the exception of properly wrapped meat products--and I am not talking about when you take that roast home that you got on sale and chuck it in the freezer. That is NOT properly wrapped and you might as well throw a $10 bill in the trash. Seriously.), and become more unappetizing as the weeks go by beyond that. :)
   Invest in good quality freezer bags, and freezer paper. Only put into that freezer what you can reasonably eat as a family within the next four months, excluding properly wrapped meat. If that leaves you with extra space, to make your freezer more efficient and keep your costs of running it low, place milk jugs 3/4 full of water in the empty spaces to maximize its efficiency. If you have a chest freezer, I would recommend making a layer of these on the bottom to keep things from slipping into freezer-burn oblivion. It works, its cheap, and it sure saves you money in the end.
   Did you know milk can be frozen for a short period of time and still taste just supermarket fresh? So next time you see a deal on milk (which is, of course, upwards of $3-$4 a gallon anymore), jump on that deal and let your freezer work for you. Sour cream, yogurt, butter, creamer, half and half, cheese...many dairy items can be frozen for anywhere from a few weeks to four months without it really affecting their texture or taste. Cheese that has been frozen tends to be more crumbly, but if you use shredded cheese a lot in dishes or on top of things, that is just a new form of cheese to get used to. One exception---don't try to freeze eggs in the shell. Serious mess. However, if you see a great deal on eggs pull out an ice cube tray, break them into each spot and mix with a fork. They freeze just fine and will come right back like a fresh egg when you need them.

2. Changing food from waste to culinary gold: Next time you have odds and ends of things leftover from making dinner, instead of heading for the trash can, consider if anything you have left over can be used to make another meal. I know, sounds bizarre, right? Let me give you an example. In my freezer part of my fridge combo I have a bucket, and a bag that are labeled "soup". When I have leftover veggies from dinner that didnt get eaten (and no, I am not talking about my toddler's chocolate-pudding covered carrots she mashed into her plate and I threw away), or the water they cooked in (if you steamed it or cooked on a pan on the stove) I add it to the small container in the freezer. If I have odds and ends leftover from the cutting board after making supper, quite a few of those go into the gallon freezer bag in the freezer, things like, ends and skins of onions for example. I am quite serious here. I paid for that produce, no matter whether fresh or frozen, and I would rather see if I can make another meal for my family from the bits and pieces, a good meal, than feed my trash can. This is another glaring fault for us as Americans. We need to start thinking beyond the now to the tomorrow (or a couple weeks from now) to start putting more of that money back in our pockets.
I am telling you, that little container and freezer bag have made some amazing soups over the last couple of years, and each time we eat it, it is like eating a meal for free. Add in some homemade bread, biscuts, or cornbread, and you will walk away from that meal feeling pretty proud of yourself. And when I said onion skins, I meant it. Years ago housewives used to save their onion skins to make soup stock because it gave it a lovely rich golden brown color, and infused the soup with a subtle onion flavor. Carrot ends, potato eyes, celery ends, tomato tops, cucumber peels, outer cabbage leaves,...those all do the same thing. Use it to simply flavor the soup base before you add in your leftover veggie container, and then throw it out--and pat yourself on the back that you just made "stone soup". Do you eat deli chicken ever? Don't throw that carcass out, either. Put it in a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer for a week or so, and boil that with your bag full of veggie ends. Make sure to strain your stock well to avoid any small bones that fall off to keep anyone from choking at your dinner table. Actually, next time you have a roast chicken of any kind, a meat bone from a bone-in ham or beef roast, don't throw it away. Put it in a freezer baggie and use it to make stone soup.Oh, and if you have any stock leftover that just wont fit into a large freezer space, freeze it in an ice cube tray. For small families, or when you just need a little bit of stock to make a meal, those freezer cubes are perfect. This works best if you let the stock cook down just a little more than you normally would to concentrate the flavors. You will be glad you did.

3. Getting a jump start on meal preparation:  I use my freezer mainly for meal preparation and planning in meals I can make ahead and pull from the freezer one day a week. I never never never make a casserole without doubling it. Seriously. Of course, I have a chest freezer downstairs for my more long-term items, and the small freezer that is a part of my fridge in the kitchen. However, a homemade casserole, wrapped well in foil and plastic wrap, can easily weather a couple months in the freezer before starting to have any deterioration. So I use that to my best advantage. When I make enchiladas, I make two or even three pans. We love our Mexican food around here. :) So why not take the same amount of time and make enough for three meals when I am already working for one? I put Tatertot casserole and Tuna noodle casserole into the freezer, ready to go in an hour, to an hour and a half. And instead of paying $13 for a "Stouffer's" lasagna, I can make my own (or two or three) for well under half that by shopping the sales and taking the time to make it from scratch. The very best part is knowing if I have a crazy busy day and don't feel like making a dinner, I dont have to pick up the phone and blow $18 (or more) of our grocery budget on a pizza to feed my family. With meal planning that is a rare thing anyhow, but it happens. I can also buy the family packs of meat on sale, and repackage it at home, or take it one step further and fry it all up with a little onion and garlic and voila~instant meal in the amount of time I have to throw it into the microwave while getting out the taco shells, tortillas, noodles and cream of mushroom Magic Mix,...or a million other combinations. I love to make up muffin batter and freeze it in muffin tins for a quick breakfast or snacks, and it is rare I don't have cookie "pucks" sitting in a bag in the freezer for a quick dessert or snack for my family (or a late night Mommy-chocolate-attack) Another example: I can buy pumpkins in October for $1 a pumpkin and cook it down, pack it in 2 cup amounts in freezer bags and have an entire year's worth of pumpkin puree for cookies, bread and pies just sitting there begging to be used (again----some things can last longer than others, and pumpkin is one of the things I put into the freezer). When pumpkin is averaging around $3 a can (which also is only 1 1/2 cups worth at best) and I paid $1 for a pumpkin that gave me 9 2-cup bags, how much better can my family eat and how much money did I just put in my pocket for that intentional investment?You can do the same thing with carrots fresh from the grocery store when they go on sale. Buy the big bag if it is a good deal, bring them home, peel and slice them and stick them in the freezer. Forget buying the bags of frozen veggies--you just made your own! :)

   To end this post today I wanted to give you a couple of my turn-to-every-day recipes that will utilize this appliance right away for you. I want to encourage you to start thinking outside the box here, and begin to realize you probably have the ability to start saving right here at your fingertips by using as much or as little of the advice I am giving you. None of these things are brilliant epiphanies that I am the only human being on the planet to think of. They are, instead, tried and true ways that generations of families have used to save money on their food budget, and that have slowly slipped into the past. I will be sharing more of those patterns and appliances this coming week, and I hope you stay tuned in. Please continue to scroll down for the recipes. God bless you, folks!

Many Blessings to You and Yours,

Heather

Tater Tot Casserole (makes one pan so double or triple for freezer meals)
1 cup rice, cooked (we use brown and white mixed for nutritional reasons)
3/4 lb of ground beef, cooked with diced onion and garlic salt (you can also use turkey if you want)
2 cans green beans or corn (or one good sized bag of frozen)
2 cups Magic mix made with chicken stock (or 2 cans cream of chicken soup)
one bag frozen tater tots or potato rounds
1/4 cup shredded cheese
   *in a greased 9x13 pan (or two 8x8), layer the following ingredients: Mixing the rice with the meat, place this in the bottom of the pan. If you want, put a little ground pepper over the top of the mix. Next place the frozen veggies, spreading evenly. Top with the 2 cups of cream of chicken, poking the end of a knife evenly around the pan so that you are sure the soup gets to the bottom of the layers. Finally top off the soup with an even layer of tater tots and sprinkle with the cheese. This bakes for 45 minutes in a 350* oven if made fresh, an hour and a half if coming from the freezer and covered with foil. For a twist on this recipe, mix the meat with frozen hash browns and press into the bottom of the pan, top with corn mixed with tomatoes and green chilies, pour 2 cups of cheese sauce from the magic mix recipes (or 2 cans of nacho cheese soup) over the top and bake. Great variation if you get tired of the same thing over and over.

Tuna Noodle Casserole  (makes one pan)
 (you can substitute shredded chicken or turkey--Tuna is shelf stable so it comes right out of my panty and into the dish--yippee!)
1/2 large bag egg noodles cooked (or watch tomorrow for my easy-peasy homemade version)
1 bag frozen peas and carrots
1/2 onion, diced
1 large can tuna, drained and flaked
3 cups of cream soup mix made with a base of chicken stock and chopped celery/cheese added
a pinch of dried basil and tarragon
salt and pepper to tast (season the soup and use that)
   *in a large pan, mix the noodles, meat, veggies and soup. Add seasonings. Pour into a greased 9x13 dish (or two 8x8 pans)  and bake for 45 minutes at 350* if fresh or if coming from the freezer, bake for one and one-half hours in over at the same temp. This dish is limited only by your imagination and what is available in your fridge, or freezer. Toss in chicken, substitute the veggie for another...whatever works for your family.


Heather's Enchiladas (this is a doubled recipe so if you want less, cut it in half)

4 cups Spanish rice (I cook rice in a large pot with a splash of lime juice and beef stock, as well as a can of Ro*tel tomatoes or salsa, plus my own homemade seasoning--you can use my links on the first week of this series to find your own seasoning mix to save off those ridiculously expensive packets they sell in the grocery store)
1 lb ground beef (you read that right--and if you want meatless, skip this ingredient)
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
diced onion
cilantro, dried or fresh to taste
two packages tortillas (or check back tomorrow for my homemade tortilla recipe)
2 cans enchilada sauce plus one can water(again, check the links, this mix is out there for pennies compared to what you pay at the store)
shredded cheese
   * make your filling by combining the rice mix, beef, beans and onion. Lay out your tortillas. Using a 1/3 measuring cup, fill each tortilla, tuck the sides into the middle and roll up.Place into a greased 9x13 pan. One pan holds about 10 enchiladas or so unless you make huge ones. Pour the sauce over the top of each pan, being careful to get all the edges of enchiladas sticking up so nothing burns in the oven. Top with shredded cheese. Bake in a 350* over for 45 minutes or 1 1/2 hours if frozen.

Chicken Pot Pie
2 pie crusts, thawed and placed in a pie pan (check back tomorrow for this recipe)
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1 cup cubed chicken or shredded chicken, already cooked
1/4 cup onion diced really small
one bag frozen peas and carrots or mixed veggies
2 cups plain white sauce made with your magic mix, and seasoned with oregano, thyme and basil
   *I make a lot of these at a time and normally have at least two types of pot pie in the freezer. It is quick, convenient, and holds together well for longer than most recipes. Be careful to package them well, though, because there is nothing worse than pulling out a pot pie and finding it un-edible thanks to freezer burn. For mini-pies if you have kids, use a muffin tin. Kids love kid-size food!
   *In a bowl, mix the chicken, onion, frozen veggies and sauce. Sprinkle the cheese on the bottom of the pie crust. Pour the contents of the bowl over the top, top with the second crust, seal the edges and don't forget to cut slits in the top!(or you will have one heck of a mess to clean up). Bake for one hour at 350*. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.
   * Ingredient variation: use beef chunks instead of chicken and for veggies use carrots, celery, potatoes cubed really small, and a parsnip cubed. Make the cream sauce with beef stock and for seasoning use thyme and tarragon.
  
   **********just a couple tips on "freezer smarts". If you package them for the freezer by topping with foil, write on the foil with a sharpie marker what it is, how long to cook it, etc. Then wrap with plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer. If you want to learn how to wrap your meat appropriately, look HERE and HERE. If you are looking for a good tutorial on how to organize your freezer, bop over HERE. Thanks to my big brother on pointing this last one out to me! Excellent material!

If you want to start at the beginning.......

   Hi everyone--just a short post this morning as I get ready for a fun and relaxing day with my three beautiful daughters at home.

   One of the things I have heard a couple of times from people who are reading this is: "Where in the world do I go if I want to start this series from the beginning?" Sorry I didn't think about that before. I just naturally assumed you would search down on the right hand side and find the first entry and start there. But after the redesigning of the blog, it seems they are much more difficult to find, and so I have put it all in one place just for you, and for the others who will come after you looking for something like this to help.

   So if you are just perusing The Welcoming House for the first time and have missed out on our six week series: "Making Do Without Missing a Thing", the beginning of our journey is right here.                                               

       Here is the entire Series, in order from week to week. I hope this helps many of you who are looking for ideas:

*Week One-Master Mixes/ Making DO Without Missing A Thing

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three
• Day Four

*Week Two--Eating Like a King On a Shoestring Budget

• Day One
• Day Two
• Day Three

*Week Three--Six Kitchen Appliances that put Cash Back In Your Pocket

• Day One 
• Day Two 
• Day Three 
• Day Four 

*Week Four--Jars of Pure Gold--Preserving

• Day One 
• Day Two 
• Day Three 
• Day Four 

* Week Five--6 Simple Weekly Meals Plans in 6 posts

• Meal Plan One 
• Meal Plan Two 
• Meal Plan Three 
• Meal Plan Four 
• Meal Plan Five 
• Meal Plan Six 

*Week Six--Putting It All Together

• Day One 
• Day Two 
• Day Three 
• Day Four 
• Day Five 
• The Very Last Post 

                                                          Many Blessings to You and Yours,
                                                                            Heather

Making Do Without Missing a Thing---Eating like a King on a Shoestring Budget

Welcome back! We are about ready to finish up our second week of a six week installment in the series Making Do Without Missing a Thing---a basic step by step plan on how to save money in unexpected and basic ways in today's financially stressful economy. These two weeks so far have started to teach you to make your own Master mixes for cheaper than you can purchase pre-made boxes, covered how much money and time you can save by making a meal plan and sticking to it, and then finally the  last couple posts have been about how to build up a pantry you will use, and WHY you should do it.I know for a lot of you this is a lot of information and you will be coming back time and again to read the next installment after you have implemented them one at a time.
   I have had a couple people ask me why I am choosing to blog about this rather than some of the things I have blogged about in the past. It is because I have a passion for teaching, and more than anything, it is difficult for me to see so many people struggling for lack of information and a path to follow in saving money in the kitchen and home. I cant tell you how hard it is for me to go grocery shopping and see the prices rising each time I am in there (my husband actually is a manager at a grocery store), and see people shaking their heads at the prices, knowing that they will be choosing one thing over another because they cant afford both. Or another thing that really gets to me are watching people like my  mother, who is on a now-fixed income at 67, literally skimping by on the last week of the month because the budget only goes so far, and when you take a multiple hit in different areas such as heating costs, taxes, and the rising food costs, you have to decide where to cut. For most people that place to cut is not in the heating or gas area. It is in the food and household needs area.
   I promise you, because I live it every day, you can make things work if you are willing to spend a little effort and time, investing yourself, into following the steps I am continuing to show you over the next four weeks as we finish this series out. I am excited about the comments that I have received so far as I know people are not only reading this, but seeing the sense and honesty in the process. I just want to encourage you today, no matter where you are starting out, that first step is the most important, because you are on the move to a healthier family and a bigger budget through following this. :)
   Ok, Well today we are going to cover two separate topics that are linked in a way as they both deal with building up your food storage/pantry.

   When I first started this path about 8 years ago, I had no idea that groceries (and pretty much anything household, such as sheets, and appliances etc) all go through sales cycles at approximately the same time each year. While my mother's generation grew up with this knowledge and used it to their advantage, it is just one more thing that has gotten lost in the midst of a culture that contains a lot of broken families and family members who are scattered all across the states from one another. Generations ago, you would most likely be born in the same house or hospital as your family was, you would grow up on the same street, your grandparents were a short walk away (or lived in the same house as you as they grew older), and when you married or grew up, you would live a short distance away. This is how families lived and passed knowledge down from one generation to another. I have been blessed to have my mom near me now for almost 7 years, and I cant tell you how much things have changed and the things I have learned from her.
   Sales cycles are common and predictable, which is great news for those of us who live on a budget and choose to make meals plans that use a lot of ingredients from our pantries as the bulk of what we eat. It means that we can know, within reasonable doubt, when a product that we use often throughout the year, or a portion of the year, will go on sale so that we can stock up on it. I like to call it "Long-term Stocking". Let's go back to the idea of the Rotel Tomatoes that my family loves to eat. Those tomatoes, unfailingly for the last year, have gone on sale right around New years, and then again around the Superbowl. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why if you have ever been to a party around either one of those dates. :) See the manufacturers are willing to make a little less profit if it means that they will sell more of the same product and so they end up making more in the end off of you and I doing our basic grocery shopping.
   So what I am challenging you to do is to consider, again,those basic items that you wrote down that are the basis for many meals in your pantry. And I want you to look at the two links I am providing and write down when those items are going to go on sale. And how often they go on sale throughout the year (*hint*--most items it is at least twice, and sometimes as often as every other month). There is only one drawback...you will find there are some items, mostly  very basic ones such as flour, that rarely go on sale more than once a year (which happens to be around Christmas as so many people are baking). That is ok, as you will be saving so much money on getting the other items on sale that when you need to replace what you have, even if you are paying full price or close, you are still saving money in your budget because you are purchasing in larger amounts. Here is the main link I wanted to share with you:
http://www.printfriendly.com/print/v2?url=http://www.livingrichlyonabudget.com/grocery-sale-cycles-when-do-things-go-on-sale 
   By the way, the blog above is an excellent one for learning to use coupons and matching them with your sales to achieve even greater savings. I believe there are more than enough blogs out there who will teach you to do that if you would like to learn more. One that I often receive information from is here.

I am hoping in the near future (once this series is done) to have a guest blogger come on and explain the ins and outs of coupon-ing for those of you who are interested. Right now, however, I think we need to keep focused on the basics. One step at a time!  If this information whets your whistle for learning about more household items going on sale and when, I would encourage you to just to a little research on your own. Honestly, there is no reason why anyone should have to pay full price for anything, because everything, at one time or another each year, goes on sale. If you know you are going to need a new appliance, or furniture, things that require a large investment, then I would encourage you to Google that information and start saving the money each grocery cycle that you are saving until you can plunk cash down for that item thanks to the intentional spending decisions you have been making with what you are learning here. It is possible, trust me! :)

  The second area I would like to talk to you about in building your pantry has everything to do with the discussion on sales cycles above. I want to encourage you to break the average American cycle of going to the grocery store each and every week, and begin to plan ahead on your grocery spending. If you have set up a meal plan a couple weeks ahead, I want to encourage you to double it this week. Plan out for a month. Or six weeks as I do. Look at the amount of groceries that will be needed for that time. Seems overwhelming, doesn't it? But just like one of my favorite sayings points out;;"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."...and when it comes to living the way my family does, that is the crystal clear truth. Taking intentional steps to build a pantry that I can pull from for any meal for six weeks leaves us where I was about a month ago--taking $100 into the grocery store and leaving with $70...and a cart full of items that were mostly to replace what we had eaten off of at home. I want you to start thinking about storing enough of one item to get from one sales cycle to another, and being determined not to pay full price for anything unless you can help it.

   In a lot of circles, this is called buying in bulk. You choose to intentionally purchase more of an item with the purpose of it lasting longer and using it more before you need to purchase it again. Doesn't it make sense that if you can buy a three month supply of one item, at 39 cents a can less, and keep it on a shelf until it goes on sale again, that you will save money in the process? It works!
    One of the easiest things to store for a period of longer than a few weeks are canned goods. Is your family like mine and they love canned peaches? Then find out the sales cycle on that item and purchase enough to get you through until the next time you will buy them on sale. Maybe that is 8 cans---maybe it is 24. Build you grocery shopping trips around those sales and go into the store planning on picking up what you need for your meal plan (which, hint hint, can use meals that will use those items that you are picking up on sale) and invest in the items that will stretch you through a couple months.
   Now I can hear some of you saying: "I don't have enough storage space for that!" Or, "Egads, three months worth of canned peaches? What would I do with them?" (IN a British accent, of course)
    Folks, it is up to you whether you begin to stretch your monthly budget or your mindset on how to save your family money. I'll tell you the truth---I have been one of those women who checked out at Walmart with a load of canned fruit, 2- 25 lb bags of flour on the bottom of the cart, and three cans of full-fat dried milk. I have gotten the looks and the smiles, and I have even been asked if I am LDS or have a huge family at home. But for me, as much as it amuses me, it also saddens me that some people choose not to do this because they are so used to making excuses for not doing things, that they cant think beyond those excuses to find a way to do it. The other thing that makes me so sad, and I hear often, are those people who are not doing it because they are worried about the reaction from other people--the checkout person, the neighbor, the friend or even family member. Frankly, if any of those people want to buy groceries for my family and be responsible for that area, then and only then, am I going to care a whit for their opinion. I know my family is well fed, healthy and happy...and with twin toddlers,I am thrilled that I don't have to drag everyone through the grocery store. :)
   Bulk items are easy to store, and I have two favorite ways. The first is in using plastic food-grade buckets that can easily be obtained from groceries, delis, or bakeries for little to nothing. Some places (actually most now) have to pay to have them recycled and are happy to have you take them off their hands. Some dont, and will charge you a small fee, such as $1 or $2 for a 5 gallon pail. I, of course, always check a few places trying to find the free ones before I will pay anything for a storage bucket. DO NOT use anything such as a drywall paste bucket or anything that is not food grade. It will have chemicals that will leach into the stored food and your family will be eating food tainted with chemicals that could make them very sick. And it doesn't matter how many times you wash that bucket, it will still have those chemicals in the compound makeup of the plastic in the bucket. SO choose wisely and go the safe route--look for and ONLY use food grade.
   My second favorite way to store food is in using glass canning jars or popcorn tins. The simple reason is that I live in farm country, and do not desire to give any of the cute scampering creatures that live in the fields (such as field mice) any reason whatsoever to decide my home is a pleasanter place to be that outside. They are destructive creatures and besides the grossness of knowing those filthy animals have romped across my hard earned pantry stuffs, they can destroy and entire years worth of pantry items that are improperly boxed in less than a night. (remember me telling you to learn from my mistakes? This is a biggie). My canning jars are reused throughout the year, and now because we buy mostly 9 months to a year ahead, I most often use the gallon (aka Pickle) or half gallon jars that are available at most hardware stores. Not only are they rodent safe, and non tempting for such creatures, they can be lovely stored in a cupboard with the colors of the food showing through, such as beans, or popcorn. :) Two birds with one stone is totally awesome to me.
 Popcorn tins can be found at every single thrift store I have ever been in (unless you have some very smart patrons who are scalping them to use for food storage), and they will cost you pennies. They are awesome for anything from flours to bag of nuts or chocolate chips, and can be stacked easily. :)
   You can purchase bulk foods from places like Sam's Club, Costco, or even Amazon.com. Once you start this mindset, you will be looking at the bulk packages of meat or cheese, in the grocery store and wondering if it is really worth your money to purchase 5 lbs of burger rather than the 1-2 lb package you normally do. Is it on sale? Then I would go for it, buy some freezer baggies and split it up when you get home. Store the cheese in your fridge or freezer until you need it. A sale is money in your pocket, and once you get on this bandwagon of seeing things in a different way, you will be looking for deals everywhere.
      Quickly--if you are looking for some good resources for making up meal plans and how to turn it into grocery shopping lists, this is the site that started me on a lot of learning and googling journeys over the last two years. Just put Meal planning into the search on her site and you will be amazed at the ideas. She also talks about this concept of buying and planning in bulk and tells her story...worth your time to grab a cup of coffee and read.
   Finally, this place is one of my favorites to purchase healthy foods in bulk from---it is a co-op with drops all over the US. Check into it--their service is great and the food is top notch.
http://www.azurestandard.com/

                                                                     Ready, set, GO!


Good luck to you on your shopping trips! Keep that printout handy when you make up your meal lists and your shopping lists. You are well on your way to shaving money off your budget and eating more like a King while living on a shoestring!

Many Blessings to you and yours,

Heather

** Note: while we have not covered in depth or in direct numbers the amounts you can save using this way of buying and building a pantry, I will be posting on this in exact numbers it takes to buy something or make it at home. Since sales are relative to where you live, I may be able to buy all my rice on sale for 30% off, and you may get it for 40% off. I want you to simply get in the mindset that you are not willing to fill your pantry on items that are not discounted, not trying to give you specific numbers. Once we get to the post that I am sharing my meal plans and writing those items and numbers down (week six) you will be seeing how all of the tips and tricks I am trying to show you can come together to save you some significant savings. Thank you so much to the reader who had this question and was confused by my beginning statement in this post. I was simply referring to the amount you would save by stocking up in sales as we talked about in the last post. :)