Tuesday, August 4, 2009

stroganoff

I love stroganoff, unfortunately my husband hates it, he asked for it too many time when we were first married.
1 can of cream of chicken (or mushroom) soup ($0.60)
1 lb of hamburger ($2.50)
1 c. sour cream ($0.30)
1/2 package of egg noodles ($0.45)
onion and garlic of your choice (powdered, minced, or fresh)
salt and pepper to taste
Brown hamburger, add cream soup and spices. Prepare noodles. Add sour cream and mix. Put stroganoff over noodles.
I like corn ($0.60) with this and cottage cheese.
So, once again we come up with supper under $5.00 (yeah!)

supper-spaghetti

One of the great cheap dinners is spaghetti. You can use 1/2 lb of hamburger ($1.25), a jar a spaghetti sauce ($2.00) and 1/2 package of noodles ($0.40). Throw in a can of vegetable ($0.60) and some bread and butter and you have the entire meal for under $5.00.
A great side for this (that you could use for more than one meal) is pasta salad. There are many variations of pasta salad but the one I like is rainbow rotini ($1.25) mixed with cheap Italian dressing ($1.25) and I cut up a few black olives and sometimes some onion.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Breakfast

Another big expense is breakfast cereal. For about $8 you can get a large bag of pancake mix that is good for 80 servings. You can make both pancakes and waffles with this mix. If you don't have a waffle iron you can pick up a cheap one that would pay for itself shortly in the difference between frozen waffles and the homemade type. (I got mine at Wal-greens for under $10, on sale). You can mix up the toppings so no one gets too bored. You can put syrup, jellies and jams, or even apple sauce, let you imagination do the walking.
Eggs are also getting more expensive but they're still not that bad. You can get a dozen eggs for under $1.50. You can fry eggs, scramble eggs, poach eggs, and boil eggs. You can also make breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches, and french toast with them. Breakfast burritos are good with scrambled eggs some shredded potato. You can even add a little left over meat to them if you have some. I make french toast with eggs mixed with cinamon then put on the griddle, my kids like them cut into strips with powdered sugar on them then diped in syrup. They are also good with butter and syrup.

The first rule

The first rule in lowering your grocery bill "pop is not a necessity". Water is great with meals, but if you must have something to drink besides water, brew some tea or make some kool-aid. To brew tea, put 5 tea bags in a microwavable safe measuring cup (or whatever you have) with water and microwave for about 5 minutes then add to a 2 qt. pitcher and fill to the top with water, add sugar to taste. You can get the cheap brand of teas for about $2.00 for a box of 200. Kool-aid is about $0.20 plus the sugar.
Pop is getting more expensive by the day it seems (about $1.65 for a 2 liter), so do your body and you wallet good and ditch the pop.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Starting out

I started thinking about this subject really hard about a year ago when news articles started coming out about people who were receiving food stamps were standing in line at midnight on the day that their food stamps became activated again because they were out of food in their cabinets and their children were going hungry. They only had $350/ month for groceries for a family of 3. So I started thinking about that and obsessing to be truthful, could I do it? That's a whopping $11.65 / day. I used to be thrilled that I could feed my family of 5 supper for under $5. So here I am seeing if I can help you do the same.