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Posted by on Sep 15, 2012 in Cutting Costs, Food | 0 comments

5 Grocery Items You Can Make at Home For Less

5 Grocery Items You Can Make at Home For Less

 

5 Grocery Items You Can Make at Home For LessIn case you had not notices the price of everything in the grocery store is going up, and it is only supposed to get worse. In our home that has meant that many of the products and foods that we like are on the no buy list, nuts for instance, and most prepackaged foods.

But for as many things that are on the no buy list, there are many more goodies and extras that can stay in our home, provided we make them ourselves.

It is become more and more the norm that it is cheaper to make rather than buy many of the extras and staples that your family eats. Below is a list of just 6 items that you can make yourself and save at the register, there are many more that are not on this list, in fact most of the items you buy in the store can be made at home.

Sundried tomatoes – Ever priced these in the stores? You don’t want to, and it would not be so bad but these are so easy to make. If you make them in the summer when you can grow your own tomatoes or buy them cheap in the store, you can enjoy the amazing flavor of sundried tomatoes all year long.

To make sun dried tomatoes, simply wash and core your tomatoes, and slice 3/8 of an inch thick. Try to make sure all of your tomatoes are the same thickness so they dry evenly.

Place tomatoes on a dehydrator or on a cookie sheet in your oven. In my dehydrator I set the temperature at 155 degrees and run for 18 to 24 hours, if you are using an oven, you will want to set it for 200 degrees and bake for 6 to 12 hours.  The actual length of time will depend on the thickness of the tomato and the humidity and temperature in your house. Check them frequently and when they are leathery but not quite brittle they are done.

I pack mine in a food saver bag and then freeze them, they last forever this way.

Energy Bars – Energy bars are a very popular snack to pack in lunch boxes or to tuck in pockets, purses or the glove boxes on our cars to give us a pick up when we most need it.

Unfortunately this is another item that has skyrocketed in price, simply because of its popularity, and they are so cheap to make. Add a bit of fruit, grains and nuts and you have a perfect balance of carbs and protein that will give you the boost you need.

There are hundreds of different energy bar recipes across the Internet, so it is easy to find one that will suit your tastes. The following energy bars are cheap to make and will give you the energy you need.

Homemade Energy Bars

2 cups cereal coarsely chopped ( we use old fashioned oatmeal or granola, or if we have cereal in the cupboard that needs using up we will sometimes use that.)

3/4 of a cup of nuts chopped (use whatever is cheap here, most often we just use peanuts but sometimes we will use walnuts if we happen to have any in the house.
3/4 of a cup of chopped dried fruit
2 Tbs of Flour
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup of Chocolate chips
1/3 of a cup of honey ( can substitute this for any sweetener)
1/2 tsp salt
2 large egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees, grease and flour a square pan that has been lined with foil. Add the first 6 ingredients to a large bowl and mix to combine. In a smaller bowl mix honey, salt, egg and vanilla, stir until combined and then add to the large bowl. Mix together just until combined. Press the mixture into a pan and bake 45 min to an hour until bars are set up and dry to touch. Cool then cut into bar size pieces.

Spice Mixes – Spices mixes can also be a big drain on money, taco, spaghetti and chili seasons may not seem expensive by the packet, but they can really add up, and these are all ingredients that you likely already have on your spice shelf, so there is no reason to buy them. The same goes for rubs, and seasoning mixes. Make your own and pay 1/10th of the price of the mixes you have bought instead.

These links will get you started on a wide range of different spice blends, you will be surprised at how easy these are to make and how much less money it will cost you to make your own. A bonus is that if you do not use a lot of a certain blend you can make only enough for the recipe or occasion you need it for, saving you even more money.

http://simplemom.net/seasoning-blend-recipes/

http://www.thespicehouse.com/recipes-by-course/spice-blend-recipes

Cream soups – Cream soups may not seem that expensive, but I remember a time not that long ago I could get 2 cans for a dollar,  and if I want to go way back I could get 4 cans for the same price. Now it can be tough just to get one can for a dollar and if you use a lot of cream soups in your recipes this adds up super-fast.

This recipe lets you make your own cream soup base then you can add whatever you want to it to get the flavors you want. Best thing about this recipe is you control what is going into your soups. This soup base is made ahead of time, stored in a container to be used whenever you need cream soup for a recipe or meal.

Cream Soup Base

1 cup of powdered Milk
1 Tbs. dried Onion flakes
2 Tbsps. Corn Starch
2 Tbsps. chicken Bouillon powdered
1/2 tsp. dry basil
1/2 tsp. dry Thyme
1/2 tsp. dry Parsley
1/2 tsp black Pepper
1 tsp salt

Thoroughly whisk all ingredients together and store in Ziploc baggie with all the air pushed out.

To Make Your Soup

Add 2 cups of water to the mix and heat in a pan over medium heat, stirring constantly until your soup begins to thicken. Add 1/2 cup of sautéed mushrooms or celery, mixed vegetables, onion, chicken or other ingredients depending on what type of soup you want. Add more water if the soup is too thick and add seasonings to taste. You can also use this as a base for casseroles and other soups.

 

Condiments

There is not a single condiment that you cannot make, and the beauty of this is not only can you make them cheaper but you can make them healthier avoiding all of the additives and most of the sugars that commercial condiments have. You can make catsup, mustard, barbeque sauce, tartar sauce and the list just goes on and on. Don’t be afraid to experiment as well, you can make sandwich dressings, dips and a wide range of sauces and condiments that will cost you far less than buying any of them in the store.

Simply do a search for the recipe for the sauce or condiment you want on the Internet, I have included a ketchup recipe below that can be made with your home grown tomatoes.

Catsup

3 pound of tomatoes
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup sugar or honey
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup of onion finely chopped
1 Tbs. black pepper
1 Tbs. salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Instructions:

Clean core and cut your tomatoes and put them in a pan with half of the vinegar and just a bit of salt, boil for about 5 minutes, stirring to keep your tomatoes from scorching and mashing them a bit.

Strain out all the additional liquid into a pan then run the tomatoes through a food mill to remove seeds and skins. I like to add the step of running the tomatoes through a blender before putting them in the food mill because it makes using the food mill a bit faster and easier.

Add sugar to your solid tomatoes you ran through the food mill.

To the pan with the liquids in it, add the rest of your ingredients, and cook over low heat, stirring when necessary, for approximately 15 minutes or until you notice that your ingredients are beginning to thicken a bit.

Strain this into your other pan with the tomatoes you ran through the blender and cook for a while longer until the sauce is as thick as you want it. Be sure to taste your catsup and adjust seasons as needed until it suites your taste buds. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

 

Dressings

Dressings are also very simple to make and can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge for when they are needed. A simple search on the Internet will bring up thousands of different dressing recipes for you to try from oil and vinegar type dressings to ranch Thousand Island and more.

I like to make a simply thousand Island dressing that is mayo, a bit of catsup, finely minced onion, relish, garlic powder and salt and pepper. I don’t measure ingredients because it is so simply to make. The mayonnaise is the base and then simply add the other ingredients in small amounts until you have the taste and texture you want, about a quarter cup of catsup to a cup of mayonnaise will give you a nice blend.

 

Making your own condiments, dressings and other food items will take you only a few extra moments of your day and can be a huge money saver. Buy ingredients you will use a lot such as mayonnaise in bulk at your wholesale clubs, I buy a large container of Mayonnaise for less than $4 and use it for all of my mayonnaise based dressings.

Save containers from the condiments you have now to store them in and use a dry canning method to store herbs and dehydrated items from your garden or your spice mixes in. It will allow you to make things ahead of time when the items are in season then store them for winter use.

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Posted by on Sep 10, 2012 in Daily Living | 0 comments

10 Top Tips For Eating Healthy On a Budget

10 Top Tips For Eating Healthy On a Budget

10 Top Tips For Eating Healthy on a Budget

 

 

When most people envision eating on a budget, they think about cheap ingredients and fillers such as white bread, hot dogs, top ramen and a wide range of processed foods that remain cheaper than buying whole foods. The problem with that is that most of us know that it is not healthy to eat that way, and yet we despair because it seems to be the only way that many of us can afford to eat.

As someone that has been on a very limited income and not had a lot of money to spend on food, I can definitely say that there is a better way. You can eat healthy, feed your family wholesome foods and do so without going over your budgeted amounts. It simply takes a bit of ingenuity and planning to make it all happen.

These tips have helped me to feed my family in the past, and continue to ensure that we not only have enough to eat but that we always eat healthy.

1) Keep it Simple - One of the biggest traps that families get into when it comes to trying to eat healthy while on a budget is finding recipes that are loaded with complicated ingredients or ingredients that are expensive and unnecessary. The Internet is filled with recipes like this that have cheeses, spices, and a wide range of other ingredients that you would never buy if not for a recipe and may never use again after you make the recipe you bought them for.

Don’t let yourself get caught in this trap, look for recipes that have affordable ingredients or ingredients that you can either make or substitute out. Keep your recipes simple and avoid recipes that rely on processed foods to prepare. If you need quick meals, cook simply or use your crock pot.

I tend to avoid recipes that have a lot of cheese for instance (or choose recipes that do not use a lot of cheese), cheese is expensive ( low fat cheeses even more so), high in fat, and can be substituted out in the diet for other dairy products or foods high in calcium. If you just cannot live without your cheese, cut the stated amount in your recipe in half.

Substitute expensive spices or other ingredients with similar items or just omit entirely. Food tastes just as good if you use less expensive ingredients and your budget will thank you for it. If you find a recipes that uses processed food, substitute your own homemade versions instead.

Finally there is something very satisfying about a simply meal made from simple ingredients, fresh foods can provide most of the flavor you want and need without adding expensive extras.

2) Buy and Eat Whole Foods – This is another big one in our family, processed foods are not good for you, and while you may already know this, it may seem way too easy to pick up those easy to fix meals rather than buying the ingredients you need to make it yourself. And while some processed foods are cheaper, if you are trying to eat healthy the processed foods you are likely to buy are going to be more expensive than just eating a simple whole foods diet.

Visit the produce, dairy and meat sections and avoid all the canned and boxed foods in the middle of the store, and you will likely spend less and eat better.

3) Make Menus - This suggestion is all about planning, making menus allows you to utilize the foods you do buy, using them up, eating leftovers and leaving nothing to waste. In our home, we work very hard not to waste any food, but to ensure that everything gets used for another meal.

4) Grow Your Own Food - This is so important, a dollar pack of seeds can produce a harvest worth 10 to 50 times the value of the seeds. Even if you think you do not have a green thumb or that you do not have enough room or sun, there is a garden solution for you that can save you big money every single week on your grocery bill.

A tomato plant can be planted in a bucket, lettuce can be tucked into a flower garden and even potatoes and carrots can be grown in containers. There are dozens of vegetables that can be planted in gardens in the shade, and even full sun crops will produce in non-full sun areas given enough time. Be creative and you will surprise yourself how much food you can pack into a tiny little yard.

Another tip: Buy last year’s seeds when they are being cleared out, they will cost you half of what they cost at the beginning of the year and they can be vacuum sealed and froze for next year’s garden.

5) Make Your Own Ingredients - If there are certain expensive ingredients you just cannot do without, make your own. While you might not be able to reasonably do this with everything you buy, there are a lot of things you can make and the bonus? They taste far better than what you would buy in the store. You can make your own sun dried tomatoes for instance, by growing your own tomatoes and dehydrating them. The end result will be full of flavor but will cost you a very small fraction of what it costs to buy the same tomatoes in the store. Catsup, mustard, barbeque sauce, soups and much, much more can be made at home. The Bonus? Avoid ingredients you don’t want in your family’s diets such as high fructose corn syrup, MSG and a host of other additives.

For every ingredient you buy, you can find a recipe online for it, some of them are quite easy to make and can take a big bite out of your food bill.

6) Learn to can and Freeze - One of the big pluses of growing your own food is putting it up for use during the winter. Canning and freezing what you grow allows you to make a big dent in your grocery budget. What is even better is if you buy fresh produce in the summer, you can preserve this as well, providing you with an affordable source of wholesome foods for the winter. Canned and frozen fruits purchased in season can save you big on the cost of fruit in the middle of the winter, and it will be healthier since it is local rather than imported.

7) Shop for Local Produce in Season - Shopping local is also an important consideration, if you cannot grow a lot of your own food, then local markets can often offer rock bottom prices on local produce. Because the food is not being transported thousands of miles it is going to cost less, but even better than that it is going to taste better and be healthier than produce that was picked early to make sure it does not spoil before it gets to market.

8) Shop the Sales and Stock up on staples - Since most Americans will never be able to grow most of their own food, you still need to know how to navigate the market.  If you keep a pantry of any kind, you can stock up during the sales and gets meats when they are in season and on sale. The same goes for a lot of other foods including produce.

Take the time to identify the best time to buy any food you must buy from the market and then make it a point to stock up when that time comes around.

9) Don’t be Afraid to Use Coupons - I often wondered how much of an effect shows like Extreme Couponers had on the average shopper. I am sure for some people it motivated them to use more coupons, but for some I am equally sure that it left them ready to give up on couponing before they even tried.

Never be afraid to look at and clip the coupons that you get, it does not take a lot of time, and sure you will not be able to get your food free, but you can certainly save a bit of money. It all adds up in the end, so don’t hesitate to use the resources you have.

IMPORTANT: Don’t get caught up in using coupons just for the challenge or thrill, use some common sense and avoid buying foods that you know are not healthy or you will not eat. That is defeating the purpose; choose only coupons that serve the purpose of eating healthy on a budget.

10) Eat Meatless Meals - Meatless meals can sometimes be a sore spot with a lot of families, but the simple truth is that we all eat far more meat than we really need. Even government agencies recommend adding a few meatless meals to our menus and there are good reasons to take that advice.

Protein is present in most foods, to one degree or another, you will do no harm to your family to avoid meat for a couple of days a week and by doing so you can slash their saturated fat and cholesterol intake considerably.

Meat is also expensive, so avoiding it a couple days a week can make a significant dent in your budget.

The biggest mistake that families make when making meatless meals is attempting to replace or cover up the fact that the meat is missing. Instead of trying to put something else in your recipes that will not taste as good to your family no matter what you do in its place, try to look for meatless recipes that can stand on their own as good dishes. Or make a meal out of meatless entrees that you already enjoy such as mashed potatoes or fried rice.

In Conclusion

It is entirely possible for you to cut your grocery bills down dramatically and still eat healthier, in fact it is much easier to do this with a healthy whole food diet than it is with processed foods and it is just a matter of a change in your approach. Rather than spending all day looking for freebies, coupons and discounts, spend your day tending a few tomato plants or planting your own lettuce and radishes. You will feel healthier for it, and your budget will thank you.

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Posted by on Aug 29, 2012 in Daily Living | 0 comments

Returning to the Blog and My Apologies

Returning to the Blog and My Apologies

It has been close to three years since I have posted a blog on this forum and there is a lot that has happened in those three years. I am fairly certain that the small amount of readership that this blog collected has long since gone their own way, but I am ready to start rebuilding the blog and its readership in hopes that we can start again.

For the past 4 years I have been working in my husband home based business, this business has left me little or no time for many of my past times, blogging included. It was easy to let that fall to the wayside, and even easier to let much of my frugality fall off as well. It takes time to be frugal and extra work and I had little time for it. So began the slide back into complacency.

It was not until last year when we got our property that I began to look back on my frugal ways, not only as a way to save money but also in an effort towards a simpler life. When my husband’s business busted this last summer, leaving us with little or no income, it was painful to see how quickly we ended back up in financial situation we could not get out of.

Somehow we hung on, but now what was once a hobby and pursuit of a simpler life has become a dire necessity for us. Not only must I be as frugal as possible but I have to find ways to bring more money into the house while reducing our outgo.

I am grateful for what I have accomplished thus far in our life, but we and specifically I need to much more.

I won’t hold anything back here; we have been on the brink of disaster all summer and are likely going to be starting from ground zero. We have yet to decide what we are going to do, but the one thing I have decided to do, is to move forward, with all the faith in my heart that we can not only overcome but learn from this situation.

So I am returning to my blog, if for no other reason but to share our struggle, share what we will do to overcome them and hopeful help someone else with everything I have learned over the years.

I plan to get us back out of debt this time for permanent, pay for our home and be debt free, I do not have a solid plan to do this yet, but I know in my heart that not only can I do it, but that I will.

Not every post here will be about our journey, I have learned a lot over the years about frugality, I have learned how to cook from scratch, how to save money on electricity, how to save on groceries, growing my own food and a lot of other things, I hope to share everything with you as we keep super low grocery bills, eat healthy and get out of debt for good, while living a full life. I hope you will follow along with me and learn that living with less can be fulfilling and fun.

 

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Posted by on Nov 28, 2009 in Daily Living | 0 comments

Give the Gift of Love- Treat your Kids to a Pajama Party

Give the Gift of Love- Treat your Kids to a Pajama Party

In a time and season where giving gifts is all to often the theme, finding a way to get past the materialism and realize what really matters can be just the thing your family needs.

What is better than finding a way to reconnect with family and give a gift that does not have to cost anything? For the ultimate in frugality a pajama party is a gift that your family will ask for again and again.

We came up with this idea this past fall when we found we were spending too much time working on building our business and not enough time spending time with our nine year old daughter. Since we came up with this idea she has asked for us to repeat it several times.

You can spend as little or as much on your pajama party as you want, while this gift can be completely frugal you can spend a bit of money on it, to give you something to wrap up under the tree.

A pajama party is very flexible, for us it lasted the night and part of the morning, you can also choose to get up in the morning and spend the entire day playing with your kids in your pajamas. While you may think this sounds like a lot of time if you are very busy, this time is well invested and your kids will not soon forget it.

Here is what we did: We purchased new sets of pajamas, something we needed anyway, and when our daughter came home from school Friday night we met her in our pajamas and announced that we were having a pajama party. We filled the coffee cups with hot cocoa and sat down to play board games. We ate a snack dinner of cheese, meat, crackers and dip veggies.

We rented several movies and sat on the bed with popcorn, and watched movies late into the night. Then we got up when we felt like it, had a special breakfast and played more games. There were no distractions, we turned off our cell phones, turned off our computers, and focused on nothing but our family for the entire time.

You can do a pajama party without spending any money at all, you simply adapt your party to your budget, use the pajamas you already have (we needed pajamas anyway and it was the perfect time to get them) make up a special feast of what you already have in the house, and get movies from the library.

Add a few board games, some coloring pages and a deck of cards and your child will have an evening they will not soon forget.

This makes a perfect gift to give your child for Christmas and I am more than certain they will appreciate it just as much as the new video game or Barbie doll. What’s is even more important is they will remember it long after the Barbie and video game have been forgotten.

I know we plan to do this again during Christmas break with our daughter, she has asked for it, and we are going to make sure we fit it in. We are often very busy, and this gives us a special way to reconnect and let our child know how much we love her. The message is not lost, she very much understands and appreciates the time we take to do this for her and for that matter for ourselves.

Yes you see something unintended came out of our Pajama party, we went back to our work feeling refreshed and happier ourselves. The pajama weekend was it seemed not just for our daughter but for ourselves as well. Re-energized we felt like we had spent a weekend getting away, we laughed, we played, we acted like kids, and it left us relaxed and clear headed by the end of our party and ready to face the world again.

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Posted by on Sep 24, 2009 in Make Money to Stretch Your Budget | 0 comments

A SAHMs Honest Guide to Getting Started with Making Extra Money Online

A SAHMs Honest Guide to Getting Started with Making Extra Money Online

This is part one in a series about getting started on making money on the Internet. Stay tuned in the next few days for Part 2!

desk Making money online is a topic many People ponder on. It has been an increasingly important question faced by stay at home moms as the desire to stay home with their children wars with the need to bring extra income into the home. Rising prices at the grocery store and skyrocketing energy costs are making it harder than ever for mom to make that decision.

So instead of going out and looking for a job, many moms are heading to the internet in the effort to find ways to earn the extra cash needed to make ends meet.

The problem is that most of these people have no idea how to do this or when they find something that interests them they try it for a bit of time and when it does not work they quit, thinking that they just do not have what it takes.

The other problem that faces many moms searching for a way to make money is that there are too many people that are either out there to rip them off or the programs cost money with no way of knowing whether the cost is worth the product you get.

You do not need to spend money to get started with making money, there are a number of resources out there that are free that will show you how to do this. As time goes on you may decided you do need to spend money to increase your knowledge, that is ok though because by this time you will have the knowledge and resources you need to know what products will answer the questions you most need answered.

OK So How Do I Do It?

Making money online can really be broken down into two categories:

Building – both your own websites and helping others build theirs. You can bet that if you are looking to build websites to make money there are lots of people out there trying to do the same.  This can included writing, graphics, web design, blogging and much much more. More about this later.

Marketing – This is a wide category that involves many different things, you can market your own product which can be anything from crafts to an eBook. You can market other people’s products this is called affiliate marketing and it is a huge multi million dollar business that is still not even close to saturated. Or you can sell, either through drop shipping or eBaying your own things or those you find in your community.

This is only just the beginning

I did a post some months back about different ways to make extra money, but I think I am going make this into a series of articles that goes more into depth about many of the different ways to make money and some of the free resources available to learn about them. There is just too much information to put in one blog post. So stay tuned as we explore the basics of earning money on the Internet.

Before I finish this post however there is one more important thing you should know.

The Only Things you Need to Succeed

By now I imagine many of you are saying that you do not know how to do any of that and that you do not have the talents and skills to accomplish the things I have mentioned.

My response is that if you knew the number of moms, dads and kids that are out there making a full time income or more that had no skills or special talents to bring into their business you would be asking instead “why am I not out there doing this?”.

Then of course you would cite the grim statistics about how many people fail trying to start an Internet business. Guess what? Those people that fail at their business did not read the above!! when things did not go their way they quit thinking that somehow they did not have what it took to succeed.

Here is What you Need -

Persistence – Never never give up, if something is not working for you there are three approaches you should take.

1) Keep Trying – while you keep reading trying to figure out what more you may need to do or what you might be doing wrong. Most times you may just lack the knowledge that you need to be effective, keep at it and keep learning you will figure it out.

2) Be Flexible – If things are not working right – be willing to change your approach multiple times till you find what does work. Try a new product or makes tweaks to the old one, you will eventually find the approach that works for you. Do not mistake this for not staying focused though, if you are trying a certain discipline for marketing for instance stick with the discipline until you have very good reason to change. Learn all you can about it, and make your tweaks with in that focus. If you bounce your focus all over the place you will never learn enough about anything to make it work.

3) Be Open to Opportunity – While staying focused is a good thing, you should always keep yourself open to opportunity. It may come in the form of a niche product that ends up selling extremely well, or in an entirely different way to make money that you stumble across by accident. For many people this is how their fortunes are made by inadvertently stumbling across an opportunity and being savvy enough to snap up on it and make it work for them.

Above all do not give up, be persistent and stay committed, if you do these three things it will not be a matter  if you are lucky enough or if you are talented enough, it will only be a matter of when things all fall into place in the right order for you. It may take 2 weeks or it may take 2 years, but it will happen if you work hard and stay focused on the goal.

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Posted by on Sep 21, 2009 in Daily Living, Debt Reduction | 0 comments

Taking a Fall Pantry Inventory

Taking a Fall Pantry Inventory

pantry With Fall upon us and winter quickly approaching it is time to take stock of our pantry’s. This year promises to be a rough year for some, and with that in mind it is time to make sure that we have an adequate pantry to suit our needs.

Make a List

Start by making a list of what you would like to have in your pantry if you do not already have one. If you are not sure what to put on your list there are several sites around the internet that keep excellent pantry lists that you can simply personalize for your needs.

A couple of excellent sites with lists to check out are

Teri’s Kitchen

Menu’s for Moms

These should give you an excellent idea of how to start your list and what you might want to put on it. Be sure to think of items your family uses a lot as well as items you can use to make meals in a pinch.

The objective here is to make sure that you have enough food to last you through any difficult times and at the same time allow you the luxury of only buying items on sale. By shopping this way you can save money but you can also have a stockpile that can see you through if energy costs become to high, or someone ends up without a job.

Stocking Your Pantry

Once you have your list, set aside money each payday that can be used to complete your pantry. If you do not have much to spend that is ok, you can buy a lot of staples for not very much money.

Make sure to buy the essentials first, coffee may seem important at first, but making sure you have staples such as rice, beans, flour and vegetables can make sure that your family stays fed even in the leanest of times.

Shop the Sales

If you have more money to spend, then look for items as they go on sale, try to find coupons for these items to further reduce their price. By buying items for your pantry only when they are on sales you maximize your food dollars.

Because it is fall concentrate on the types of foods you will eat in the winter, stock up on beans,canned vegetables and other things you will use to make soups. Purchase oatmeal which is both economical and filling for breakfasts on cold winter mornings.

Planning for Emergencies

Planning for emergencies, power outages, storms, and the unexpected can take a lot of the stress out of your world.

Aim to have between one to three months worth of food stockpiled. This can take care of most emergencies, tide you over when bills get high and allow you to be careful about what you spend on food in the winter.

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