I'm sure you've noticed the price of food, gas, clothing, shipping, everything, has gone up in the past couple years, and pretty steeply in the past few months. It doesn't look like it is going to stop anytime soon, so I thought it was time to revisit how we approach grocery shopping and menu planning as a way to keep our budgets down. In our area, they are predicting gas prices to double in the next few weeks, which is a huge hardship on people who are struggling the most, and those who don't live in places where there is good transit or stores and services within walking distance. What can we do about it in our own homes?

Some of this I've discussed before here, such as combining trips, meal planning, having a plan for all you buy, gleaning, and so on, but some prices and services are different now than they were when I first wrote about them, and some things just need a refresher. Since most of my readers are wives and mothers, I will address this to you, but that doesn't mean that this doesn't apply to men. Mostly, I will talk about food, clothing, entertainment, electric and gas costs. It isn't because there aren't ways to cut back in other areas, but these tend to be the places where we have the most influence in what our costs are. Your rent or mortgage is largely going to stay the same, likewise your phone bill, internet, insurance, and so on, and while there are ways to shop around or reduce them, most of our big costs are in food, clothing, and extras.

My first bit of advice is to get your husband (or wife) on board. If he is on your team, you will be unbeatable. He will help with morale, with implementation, with being a good example. My husband is a relatively picky eater (he is much better than he used to be), but you would never know it from how he behaves. He eats whatever I serve, or whatever we have, without complaint. He, like all of us, is allowed to have food preferences and dislikes, so please don't misunderstand what I am saying, but if it is something that isn't his favorite, he eats it cheerfully and willingly. Now, notice that I didn't say that I am serving things he hates. I don't try to make everyone's favorite foods each meal, but I do try to take into account people's preferences and dislikes. Obviously, religious and medical dietary requirements are of most importance. While I do not promise that everyone will love every meal I make or serve, I do promise I will not make them eat something they hate. If we were in a life or death situation, we also would drop that, but glory to God we are not in those circumstances. We do have one child who really doesn't like shrimp, so I try to scoop it out of her servings when we have it or give her an alternate (which generally goes against how I like to cook and serve), just because the rest of us don't want to give up shrimp while she is home.

So, one thing that is often recommended to families trying to keep to a budget is to menu plan and then go shopping. This will certainly help if you are haphazardly trying to find food for meals while you are shopping. However, I do the opposite. I shop for what is on special or marked down, what is in season and abundant at a better cost, as well as for filling in the staples like flour, sugar, yeast, oil, etc, and then plan what to cook after assessing what I find and what is already in our pantry, freezers, and fridge. I set a budget and, mostly, stick to it while shopping.

The first thing you need to do to shop and plan like this is to know what you have in your home. Two years ago, Rich and I and the kids went through every shelf, every drawer, every cabinet, every freezer, all of it to inventory what we had of food and drink in our home. We were quite surprised by how much was actually here. This was something that took a significant time, because we are a family of 10 (now nine at home with our tenth, his wife, and their baby, who will be born in October) and there is a lot we have to keep on hand to feed these ravenous people. We also eat more than normal people, live in a rural area and have gotten used to shopping in huge amounts because we sometimes can only get to certain things out of town or through delivery. We are used to thinking ahead. We try to keep our inventory up to date, and that isn't always perfect, but it gives us a better picture of what is available to us.

Planning this way might sound like you are stuck with whatever is there, but I assure you that it isn't. We do stock up on things that are inexpensive when we find them and fill our freezers and pantry, but we don't get it just because it is cheap. If it is something we don't use or don't like, we don't buy it. That seems obvious, but I wanted to say it just the same. So, if bologna is in the used meat bin, I don't get it, but if uncured ham or turkey are, I do. Our inventory is on paper, but we have sometimes used wet erase markers on our fridge and freezer and adjusted as things went in or out of them. I do try to have us make the inventory adjustments as soon as I get home from the store or when we take items out for meals. One day, I will go digital and we won't have to have the stacks of paper to keep track. So, while I can't necessarily decide that I want to make a specific dish the following week, if we don't have the major ingredients or if I didn't find them at a decent price at the store that week, I keep a good stock of items in the freezers that we like and around which we can build meals we enjoy. So, say organic chicken thighs are marked down, I buy only one package, and squirrel that away in our freezer until I have enough to make a meal or more for the family. When we see something that is really rarely marked down that we like, or something we love at an excellent price, we grab as much of it as we can afford on that week's (now every two weeks, actually) food budget and make sure that the next time we serve it, it is for a better price.

In the past, I have mentioned that I don't do a lot of couponing. That is still true, however, a lot of grocery stores now have apps or websites on which you can find coupons and rebates that are loaded directly to your shopper's card. I will use those, and check for freebies that are found there. We still don't cut coupons, really, and I will admit that it isn't so often that we use even the digital ones, simply because most of what we buy is meat and seafood, produce, dairy, and non-branded ingredients. However, for cleaning supplies, and some canned goods and other food products, we still find some that are useful for us. Another thing I utilize is an app called Ibotta (if you sign up using my referral, I do get a bonus) which gives rebates in exchange for spying on your shopping habits. Again, I don't usually get a huge amount from this, and we don't get a branded product, even with the rebate, if it is cheaper to get it without a rebate in a different way or from a different brand. Since June of 2020, though, we have received $245.61 in rebates on products we already buy and use. That is no poke in the eye with a sharp stick. You do have to wait until you have at least $20 in rebates before cashing it out, but they will send it to your PayPal or to a gift card of your choice. In our area, the stores that cooperate with Ibotta are Fred Meyer, Safeway, Winco, WalMart, RiteAid, Walgreens, DollarTree and the local liquor store. There are others, though, like Costco and Albertsons and online stores which work with them, as well. Often there are free offers or BOGO offers that allow you to get the amount of the item or more back, and we have ended up getting paid more than the cost to take home a few items, since we have been using the app.

Anyway, now that I have mentioned that, I will go on to planning and some strategies for building your own inventory of foods your family loves and for stretching the food you have the farthest it will go. Understand that a lot of what we think we need is often just a matter of our preferences. While that is fine, it is good to be aware of that, so we can overlook it a little bit when we need to for our budget. I start planning with what we have at home in mind. I take a look at our freezer and pantry inventory sheets and determine what should be the backbone of our meals, and check which produce we have that needs to be used so it doesn't go to waste. After I do our shopping, I do my planning with those meal backbones and the produce that needs to be used in mind. In our house, at least, breakfasts always need to be either something we can prepare ahead of time or which can be made quickly. I try to automate that a bit, and kind of cycle through about 10 to 15 breakfast ideas. Usually, Rich makes pancakes or waffles for breakfast sometime over the weekend. Whenever I see a recipe or think of a meal that we would like to make, I add it somewhere to our family calendar, and I just move it around to work with what we have and what I get at the store. Speaking of which, we have a shared family calendar on our Apple devices, but it would work with Google or other calendars as well. We put all of our activities and our breakfasts and dinners there. If there is a specific recipe needed, we can link to it on the calendar, and it helps everyone at home to be able to help get things from the freezer, or to start meal preparations.

Our week is shaped by the Church year and patterns of fasting and feasting. It is also shaped by ballet and homeschool co-op, evening meetings and activities, much like your lives are, I am sure. Most weeks of the year, Wednesdays and Fridays are meatless for us. Twice a year, we also eat that way for a roughly 40 day period each. Once a week, we make the evening meal for our small church group and once a week I collaborate with a couple few other women who are part of a Bible study group with me, as well. We accomodate dietary needs for all of these. Since Jerome is still eating many fewer food categories than normal, this is the big, overarching rule that shapes our meals and plans. If you follow our menu plans here, you will know that as our children have gotten older and more able, we have tried to follow the abstinent rules more closely. We still aren't perfect about that, but have found that doing so is better for us both spiritually and financially, and are planning to follow it more closely still, as our markets and highways have more and more instances of emptiness and higher prices. It has been a blessing to us to see how following this rule helps us to make the most of what we buy and have at home. We are so glad to see how God has been training us through this practice, and how it has prepared us for this difficult time through it, which we didn't expect at all. If this is something that you believe in, it may be a way to help your spiritual, physical, as well as your financial health. If you don't believe in it, it might still help.

If you are going to eat meatless for part of your week, make friends with beans and legumes, soups, frittatas, soufflés and quiches. Beans can have a bad reputation, but when prepared well, they are not only nutritious (providing protein, fiber, and calcium, especially), but they are tasty. The broth left from cooking the beans or legumes can also be used as a base for soups or stews, or to cook grains. Soups use up little bits and leftovers and scraps, the tiny bits of rice or pasta left from other meals, small amounts of vegetables. Frittatas, soufflés and quiches elevate eggs and also use small amounts of vegetable, milk or cream, little bits of meat, to become something unctious and delicious, and with a small salad or a little bread, make fantastic meals. I have recommended using your library as much as possible before, and I stand by that. However, if you can afford it, please get ahold of Fasting as a Family or see if your library can purchase it to help you with this effort.

Another thing that shapes our meals is that we belong to a gleaning club and are known for being a large family that cooks everything. We often get a large quantity of produce to use and process for freezer, canning, or drying, and eat fresh or cooked so as not to waste any of it. People offer us their excess produce and we even have gotten the "weird" bits from the friends or the butcher that people don't want to keep like tongue, heart, liver, cheek meat, and, recently, beef lips. We have made an effort to learn how to cook the unusual parts and have enjoyed them, so people know we will eat them. Since we live in a rural area, we buy a lot of our meat on the hoof, and take much more of it from the butcher than many families, even here, and then the butcher will offer us the parts that others discard. We never turn down free food. If we can't use it, we find people who can. If it is truly something that we cannot or won't eat, we have animals we raise for food which can eat it, cats who appreciate the scraps from meat we can give them, and compost for the absolute last bits of produce, that helps us grow our own fruits and vegetables. My recommendation to you is to always say yes to free food. Unless you are allergic or have a religious reason to avoid it, it can help stretch your budget and feed your family.

Another recommendation is to find out when your local grocery store marks down its produce, meat, breads, and other products. We have found excellent deals on the gluten free products Jerome needs and on meat and dairy, treats like orange juice (though juice is one of the things we buy almost none of, preferring water or milk as a less expensive and more healthful option), produce, fish and shrimp and other seafood, sourdough breads and specialty breads. I never go to a store without checking the used foods. If you walk in without a plan in mind, but only a price limit, you can fill your cart with many foods that will be delicious as well as inexpensive. Those mark down stickers are like little gifts from God to us. When I pick them up, though, I still think of all I can make with them. Meat and fish with bones will be the meal and the bones and scraps saved for stock, likewise the shells from shrimp are saved for stock. The very last stop in our house is either to go to the animals or our compost (not meat items). We save bones, skin, shells and scraps for stock, but we also save the stems and hard bits and trimmings from herbs, onions, leeks, garlic, carrots, celery and so on for that purpose. This way, when we make the stock, we are truly only using water, a little salt and some peppercorns to have something delicious and nutritious, and basically free. If you don't know how to make stock, please let me know, and I will write up a lesson. It is so vital, and puts more protein and collagen into your diet which is necessary both for general nutrition and for your immune system.

If you can, dedicate yourself to making most of your foods, you will be rewarded plenteously. Pasta sauces, salad dressings, mayonnaise and things like tartar and cocktail sauce, breads, cookies and cakes, snacks, all of these are easily made at home, for much less money, fewer weird ingredients, and usually better tasting, too. If you already have the skills to can, you are ahead of the game, but it isn't too hard to learn, and you can make jams, jellies, chutneys, fruit preserves, canned tomatoes, pickles and relishes without getting special equipment or worrying about things like botulism. Baking things like bagels, pretzels, and pastries like croissants and puff pastry, which take a little more effort, can be made at home with much less expense. Even candy can be made at home, starting with things like brittles and marshmallows and fudge. Drying food can be done outdoors in the spring and summer in a protected manner, or in the oven, over low heat, even if you do not have a food dryer. Popcorn is also an inexpensive and delicious treat. We cook ours on the stove, in a little oil with salt and it is only about $0.64 a pound in our area. I tend not to include specific prices, because that can vary so much around the country and the world, so take that price with a grain of salt. It is still exponentially cheaper than buying bags of popcorn or microwaveable popcorn, and will use better ingredients and taste better.

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing what foods we focus on for sturdiness, flavor, and frugality, I will talk about how I proportion my shopping budget, what tools I think to be absolutely necessary, and those which are just handy, and how I use the kitchen tools I have to serve me, rather than organizing my cooking around them. Since these past few years have been so hard, I will not neglect things like how to find entertainment on a budget, or how to vacation and enjoy yourself on much less. It has been a while since I was regularly making these posts, and I hope you will enjoy what I share that has worked for us, and find ways to make my experience fit your life, diet and family.

Previous Posts:
Make it at Home
Grocery Shopping
Waste Not, Want Not
Soup
The Celery Stalks at Midnight
Use What You Have
Combining Trips
Storing Bulk Purchases
Turn It Off
Grow Your Own
Buying in Bulk
Gleaning
Entertainment on the Down Low
Finding Fun Locally
Holiday Shopping
Reconsidering Convenience
More Bang for Your Grocery Buck
Preserving the Harvest

Labels: Church Year, Family, Fasting as a Family, Frugality, Homemaking, Keeping the Feast, Special Diet, Tales from the Kitchen