Austerity, coupons, and budgeting

It all starts in September and ramps into high gear at the end of October when I leave my job.

Phase One:  Look at all expenditures for validity, reduce grocery shopping to items for immediate use or stockpile if on sale.  Limit unnecessary expenditures.  Start using coupons where possible.  One "meatless" meal each week.  Proactive use of leftovers and meal stretching.

I've already started focusing on coupons and have used a few so far including my fantastic buy of mustard for 24 cents - twice.  I'm looking for some really good bargains on canned green beans,  tomatoes, corn and kidney beans.  Next, I'll stock up on some canned fruit. (The few cans I have are well past their date.)

Phase Two:  Focus on ensuring limited food waste.  I created a whole meal this week from left over items.  I even stretched a single Zaycon chicken breast into two different meals for each of us.  Stockpile from Zaycon (ground beef and chicken):  I'm seriously considering purchasing a single box of chicken for late October delivery and maybe another box of beef.  Medication pre-purchases:  I found out that the price of my naratriptin decreased from $60+ to just $10.  I've filled it once and will fill it at least once again.

More on this as we go along.

30 Days of Chicken - #8 Chicken and Dumplins'

This is one of our family favorites and I thought I would share the backstory.  My grandmother, a great cook in her own right, fixed chicken and dumplings in just its purest form - chicken, broth and dumplings.  She taught me how to make it including her signature dumplin secret - canned biscuit dough.  She would separate the biscuits into two or three layers and then roll out thin.

In my effort to get more vegetables into our kids, I added some chopped onions, carrots and celery to the pot.  I still use her dumplin technique although I don't roll them quite as thin.  Everyone seems to like this and I've included my recipe, complete with my penciled in comments, below.

Tonight I made this with only two Zaycon Fresh chicken breasts to server three adults and two children.  We'll get at least two lunches as well.  This is a great money stretcher.  Leftovers can be fashioned into a chicken pot pie by adding some peas or green beans and thickening the broth.  A truly flexible recipe.

A steal of a Deal

My daughter in law and I were talking about Aldi this week and she mentioned that Aldi had some specialty hot dogs on sale.  She had purchased several and was thinking about getting some more.

I just happened to go by Aldi the next day and picked up four packages for me.  Later that same evening, I had to run by Publix and decided to price check the hot dogs while I was there.

Those hot dogs that were on sale for $3.69 at Aldi were $5.99 at Publix.  We saved a bundle!

Beef pot pie

We've had the before but tonight was the first time that I've used leftovers for a full blown meal.  I had a large piece of roast beef left over from my most recent crock pot roast.  I vacuum sealed it and stuck it in the freezer.

Tonight, I chopped this up into large pieces, added some cubed potatoes I cooked last night and a can of carrots and green beans.  Top with about a cup to a cup and a half of gravy in a two crust pie.

I baked this for about one hour and fifteen minutes on 350 with a 10 minute blast with the confection oven to brown it at the end.

I served with a mixed green salad and a generous amount of gravy.

30 Days of Chicken - #7 Sweet and Sour Stir Fry

I took two Zaycon breasts and cut into bite size pieces.  Sprinkle with garlic powder, ground ginger and a few tablespoons of soy sauce.  Sit while the vegetables are prepared.

Cut one red and one green bell pepper into bite sized pieces.  Add half an onion cut into vertical slices.  Sauté in a tablespoon of oil in the wok until just barely done.  Remove and add chicken.  Cook over high heat, stirring frequently until the chicken is opaque and is browned.

Mix together the juice of a large can of pineapple tidbits.  1/4 cup of vinegar, 3 Tablespoons of soy sauce and one Tablespoon of corn starch.  For a spicy sauce, add two Tablespoons of Thai Chili sauce and an equal amount of sweet and sour sauce.  Adjust to individual taste.

Add sauce I've chicken and cook until thickened.  Add peppers and onions and half the can of pineapple.  Serve with white rice, fried rice or lo mein.  These are pretty or pictures but you get the idea.

Quick menu plan

Saturday - hamburgers, three bean salad

Sunday - turkey and dressing, fresh green beans

Monday - Chinese chicken (stir fry) with vegetable fried rice

Tuesday - beef pot pie, salad

Wednesday - leftover turkey

Thursday - leftover or chef salad

Friday - TBD 

My grocery budget went bust this weekend.  I did pick up some random things at Walmart and that did me in.  Still have not bought the Publix weekly specials.

30 Days of Chicken - #6 Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Here's a recipe we haven't had in a while and it was time to see it again.  This is my take on chicken enchiladas for a crowd.  Shredded chicken, corn tortillas, cheese and peppers.  Hot and bubbly.

I start by simmering 3-4 small to medium chicken breasts in a pot of water.  Season with salt and pepper, a bit of dried onions and a dash of garlic powder.  You can also add a drop or two Orr yellow color so your chicken has a bit of color.

Once the chicken is tender, shred it with two forks or your fingers.  Mix with one can of Rotel and Set aside  (this can also be done the day before.)  Simply leave the chicken in the broth and refrigerate until you're ready to assemble.

Slice one red and green bell pepper along without half an onion.  Sauté in just a small amount of olive oil until the vegetables begin to soften.

Layer your ingredients as follows: enchilada sauce then tortillas.  Next chicken with Rotel then tortillas.  Next row is cheese and peppers.  Repeat, ending with cheese over tortillas.  Pour a small amount of enchilada sauce over each layer to moisten the tortillas.

Bake at 350 for about on hour to heat throughout.

Adjust the ingredients to suit your family's taste.

Another week is starting soon...

and I'm already thinking about a menu.  Why?  Because I'm starting back to a planning grocery shopping experience with sales and menus as the priority.

I already noticed that quite a few items we routinely use are on sale at Publix this week including Kraft salad dressings.  There's probably a good two months of summer salads left and I am woefully low on salad dressings.  They are bogo this week so I will pick up at least two, maybe four.  We both really like the tomato bacon dressing and I think they also have a sesame dressing we like.

The deli turkey we like (low sodium) is also on sale so I'll pick up some of that, too.  I want to make a quick run to my local produce shop to pick up some local and heirloom tomatoes along with some jalapeño peppers, zucchini and some fresh green beans.  The nice thing about this place is you can buy one or a bushel.  I think I'll also look for some peaches or pears.  I'd really like to can some more pickled pears this fall.

I'm working on a budget for groceries.  I'm thinking $80-100 is a good place to start.  I have a few things I need to stock up on and while I'm working, I need to do a better job of packing lunch and having breakfast and snack items available.

I'm going to be adding more fresh vegetables to our lunches at least once a week:  baby carrots and low fat ranch dip or cucumbers and dip.  I also bought a flat of baked snack bags to have with lunches.  My goal for next week is to take a lunch at least two to three days.  I really failed this week.  I think I took a lunch once.

Even though lunch is cheap at my work, under $5, it's frankly not that good and there is very little variety.  It takes very little time to pull together two lunches compared to the on going brown bag savings.  

Here's my first run at a menu this week:

Sunday - hamburger steak, baked potato, steamed veggies

Monday - spaghetti with sausage, salad, bread maybe green beans

Tuesday - chicken enchilada casserole with shredded lettuce and tomato salad

Wednesday - Chef salad

Thursday - grilled chicken, side and salad

Friday - tbd - out?

Here's. Little update.  I never got to the local produce mart.  I picked up tomatoes at the grocery store.  I also found the Kraft dressing sale confusing.  It really looked like only certain kinds were included in the sale and they did not have the one we like.  I passed on that but picked up four jars of spaghetti sauce that was on sale.

After two trips to the store, I spent just at $100.  I thought I had $70 to spend on my second trip and (with coupons!) I only spent $65.  I need to get back to a single trip each week.  Next week, I'll shoot for a $90 budget and see if I can come in under that.

We have plenty of items for lunch and dinners and a little stocking up as well.  Lots of fresh veggies and some bananas.

Menu

Saturday - meatloaf and mashed potatoes

Sunday - chef salad

Monday - leftover meatloaf

Tuesday - roast beef (crockpot)

Wednesday - Mexican

Thursday - leftover roast

Friday - out

Saturday - pot luck?

Cook once, eat twice!

Stocking the freezer and finding a great deal

My Zaycon ground beef came yesterday.  Pick up was as easy as always.  It was scheduled from 4 to 4:30 on a Friday afternoon and I was a little concerned that would not make it in time with all the traffic on 75 but it worked out ok.

I was very pleased with the way the beef looked once I opened it.  It did have just the faintest of smells but not unlike other ground beef from the store.  It was still a rich red color.  Of course, I noticed that once it was vacuum sealed, some of the liquid is removed from the beef and it does become more brown and less red.

There's 40 pounds in the box, four 10 pound tubes.  I packaged it up into portions: between 8-12 ounce packages, 16-18 ounce packages and a couple that were 20-22 ounces.  Most were vacuum sealed but some of the earlier packages were put into ziploc freezer bags.  This will be the first ones we use because it is impossible to get and keep the air out of those bags.  They already have frost after one night.

I made a batch of 30 Italian meatballs and froze in two portioned packages.  I also mixed up one meatloaf (about a pound and a half) that we will eat tonight.  (A quick update, we ate the meatloaf tonight and it was exactly as expected.  A little fat but no more than the extra lean ground beef at Publix.). It's much faster and cleaner to pack than the chicken.

Another good buy

I was picking up op some prescriptions at Walgreens today and noticed that they had two packages of Dunkin Donuts coffee at half price.  The "expiration date" is four weeks out.  It was only $4.50 for a 12 ounce package of ground coffee in our favorite flavor.  I bought both bags.

When I got home, I put each bag into a quart canning jar and vacuum sealed each bag.  This will keep the coffee fresh for quite some time.  Once I am no longer working outside the home (later this fall), we will be using our reusable Keurig cups instead of the disposable cups to save us a little more money.

How eating at home stretches the budget

FLast night we had a delicious meal at home.  Nothing fancy but DH really liked it and commented several times.

Here's what we ate and the breakdown in costs.

I took about a half pound of ground beef from the freezer that had been leftover from hamburger steaks the previous week.  I usually use at least 3/4 to one pound.  After the beef had browned, I chopped up one small green pepper and about a third of a green pepper and added it to the meat.  It browned and steamed a little but didn't really cook down. 

I added one jar of spaghetti sauce, a little water, about a tablespoon of olive oil and some dried basil and oregano. 

I summered this while I cooked three quarters of a box of linguini.

Served with a small salad made entirely from what was already in the fridge.

Here's the math:

Beef    About $3.50

Sauce.           $1.15 bogo sale

Peppers.        $1.00 Aldi special

Pasta.                .50

Total $6.15 and we got two dinners and two lunches.

Getting back to my main project...

I took the plunge tonight with my Dresden plate quilt.  As I've mentioned earlier, when I got to the top of the quilt I realized that the batting was a few inches short.  The best solution I could come up with was to add a strip of batting at the top. 

Once the quilt came off the frame, I realized that while I was short on the top, I was long on batting at the bottom.  Tonight I trimmed that extra batting off and reattached it to the top.  I carefully laid out the quilt and layered the new and existing batting on top of each other.  My hope was that by cutting through both layers, I would get a clean cut.  It didn't really work out quite that well.

At first, I tried to sew the two pieces by hand but I could tell that that would not work so I went to the sewing machine.  Using my widest, longest zigzag stitch, I joined the two pieces.  I got a little bit of a ruffled effect.  Not sure if this was because the batting had been stretched or just a result of joining the batting.  I used ten billion pins to ease in as much of the fullness as possible.

Now, I have the quilt back on the quilt frame with the are needing to be quilted just on the edge and the rest of the quilt stretched over the frame.  It shouldn't take long to finish up the quilting because I have a long straight line and then the infinity stitch at the end.

Here s a picture of the joining process.

Grocery Budget

Beginning next week, I will be starting on a $100 weekly grocery budget.  For two weeks, I will track my spending and then for the following two weeks, we will be on a struck $100 a week budget.  After that, I would like to go on a $75 per week budget.

I'm not sure exactly how this will go.  I want to start eating some of the older meat products in the freezer and some of the older pantry items.  I have forty pounds of ground beef coming Friday that will need to be portioned and frozen.  I'm going to portion these into 3/4 pound (12 ounce portions).  This is just about right for the two of us and two package will be just about right if we have guests.

I don't need chicken right now but I'm considering ordering another box for the fall just as some extra insurance for our reduced income.

I'm also considering subscribing to the local newspaper for Sunday coupons.  Generally, I don't like this idea but I need a source for coupons.  I may try it for three months and see just how many coupons I can use and if it is enough to to cover the cost of the paper.

I think I will also buy a couple of Publix gift cards and stow them away.  I have a small collection of gifts cards now.  I use these so sort of like a pm emergency fund.  I have. A couple of gas cards, a few small target cards and a couple of rite aid cards.

A beautiful and frugal project completed

Today, I completed a project I have been working on for about six weeks - off and on.  I used this as a travel project during vacation.  I found a set of preprinted pillow cases at Joann's a while back done all in shades of blue and in the clearance bin.  $3.50 for the pillow cases.  I needed five skeins of embroidery thread and they were also on sale that day for 5/$1.  I have exactly $4.50 in this project.

Unfortunately, the edging on the pillow case was a cheap rolled serger edge which didn't seem to be appropriate with all the hours of embroidery work.  I used a couple of 2 inch strips of fabric I had used on the Dresden plate quilt and created a small border much the same way a quilt would be bordered.

Above the strip is folded in half and stitched down about 1/4" from the edge.  Then I ironed the strip over and hand stitched it down on the back side.

The next step made me the most nervous.  Per the instructions, I washed the pillow cases in the washer and dried in the dryer.  I used a couple of color catchers just in case the thread or fabric wanted to bleed.  None!  I gave them a quick iron and now I have a set of pillow cases and two throw pillows that will coordinate with the Dresden plate quilt when it is finished.  I still need to make a bed skirt but I would really like a vertical stripe and I've not been able to find one that coordinates.