Living more Cheaply
Mar. 12th, 2008 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWas reading someone else's LJ about how even 6-figure incomes aren't going as far as they used to, and here L and I are, in a smaller space but having the 'luxury' of being able to put money aside. When we had the house that was hard to do, although at least we were still able to pay down on bills/loans. And the funny thing is, we did better on that once I stopped working full-time. I think it's easier when there's two of you (assuming cooperation), to be mindful of expenses. But I know single people who do it as well. Usually it seems to involve spending a little time sometime during the week sitting down and planning out the week. That way, you can know for instance which meals you need something quick and which ones you can spend a bit more time on.
Another time-saver is to make twice or more of what you need for a meal, then portion some of it off into containers and put those portions in the fridge/freezer -- preferably _before_ you sit down to eat -- cuts down on going for seconds. Then you have some extra meals that just need re-heating!
Of course growing some of our food helps with the bills, as well as ensuring that we get to eat some high quality foods. But we also buy some cheap stuff, so we can afford some of the other things we're getting. I find the frozen Tina's burritos to be relatively healthy and definitely inexpensive. The ramen we don't eat as often, but when we do I throw in some frozen peas and maybe stir in an egg for some extra protein (and only use one flavor packet per two things of noodles because of the sodium -- or half a packet for one).
These are meals that are under $1. I also make my own spaghetti sauce, because veggie-only is about 50 cents per serving, and with meat is around $1 - $1.50. Add a little more for the pasta, and you still come in below the cost of most frozen dinners, many fast food restaurants, and way below everything else. And of course, healthier and more tasty :)
One of the reasons for making the sauce from scratch though isn't the money (although that helps) -- it's that I got tired of checking the labels to see if there was high fructose corn syrup in it. Bad for people in general, and esp. for L in high quantities.
Oatmeal is an inexpensive and healthy breakfast. We throw in some ground flax (a little pricey but very good for your health and you only need one tablespoon per person), a bit of cinnamon, a sprinkling of sliced almonds on top. Oh, and a bit of butter, milk, or soymilk, and just a bit of sugar (not nearly what's in pre-mixed stuff).
Yogurt's another easy breakfast. We actually go for organic, and local when it's in season (a place down the road). Usually low-fat vanilla, or plain if we can't get that. Add flax and a bit of cinnamon, and a sprinkling of sliced almonds. A bit of sugar if it's the plain yogurt.
Soups are another good meal, at least in cooler weather -- and there are some cold soups for summer=time (strawberry soup!). Easy to make, but they take time, so you want to plan ahead. But this is one of those meals that's good to make in large quantities, and then put some of it aside. Or just decide that you'll double what you need, and have it twice that week, a couple days apart. Split pea soup is not bad when fresh, but is actually tastier after sitting aging in the fridge for a few days.
Soup making is a good idea if you're home for the day or early evening. Pea soup is about 1-1/2 hours from prep to eating, but you don't have to mind it all the time. So, you can cut things up, throw them in and get it started, then wash some dishes, start the laundry, wash the floor, remember to stir the soup once in a while, and before you know it, it's supper time! Or if your house chores are all done, it's always a good time to sit and read or do a bit of embroidery or weaving, or maybe play a few games of cribbage or backgammon with a housemate.
I also make a pretty decent potato and cheddar soup, and am thinking about some others.... anything that involves veggies and potatoes is pretty easy. If you want to add meat you can, and a little bit goes a long way in soup, which is another cost-saver. You can throw in rice too/instead of potatoes, but it's a good question which is going to cost more as the price of food goes up.... for me, rice will be more expensive because I can grow potatoes. I'll be growing onions too this year (or at least trying to!). Another healthy staple that goes with lots of things.
Oh, homemade mac-and-cheese is another tasty and easy to make meal. At least it is the way I do it.... I combined a couple of recipes and made it work. I haven't priced it, and it might be a little more difficult to do that since you have to buy a block of cheddar cheese, which isn't cheap to buy. But you don't need to use it all at once, so it works out over time.
Mind you, you _can_ get mac-and-cheese in a box, probably for less than my homemade (at least on sale), but it won't be nearly as satisfying or filling. Oh, and for homemade, you only need the cheese, you don't need to have milk on-hand.
***
Now, besides the facts that most of these homemade meals aren't hard to make, can be portioned out for future meals (which helps when you're on the run), and save money, there's what you can do with the money you saved. You could put it in the bank, pay a bill, buy something else you've been wanting, maybe buy some luxury food items. For us, it's probably all of the above. One food item we'll be spending money on is grass-fed beef. Just around 25 lbs., but that should do us for beef for most of the year. I'm also hoping to switch over on pork and chicken to local farmers this year, so I expect that means we'll be eating less meat from now on. Not a bad thing, healthwise or environmentally, but it'll definitely be a change.
And yet, I think we'll still be having some of those burritos and ramen for a little while yet... although we'll have to be watchful on that. Some of the noodles coming into the country are tainted now. A friend of mine open a package and when they tried preparing it, it smelled like sewage. Had to dump it of course, and not on the compost pile.
There are more and more reports of things like canned beans that have botulism in them, etc. these days... There was the beef that had to be recalled to CA just a few weeks ago.... with problems going back a few _years_. So, maybe our convenience foods will go away too...
****
Sometime later this year, I'll be teaching pie crust making to those in my area who are interested. Pies are great -- you can eat many of them hot or cold. You can freeze them for the future, take them camping, fry them up if the ice in the cooler decides to make them soggy....(those were some of the best pasties I'd ever had, too. Yum!)
I'm used to doing a wheat crust, but maybe I'll have to see if I can make one with rice flour... hm....
Another time-saver is to make twice or more of what you need for a meal, then portion some of it off into containers and put those portions in the fridge/freezer -- preferably _before_ you sit down to eat -- cuts down on going for seconds. Then you have some extra meals that just need re-heating!
Of course growing some of our food helps with the bills, as well as ensuring that we get to eat some high quality foods. But we also buy some cheap stuff, so we can afford some of the other things we're getting. I find the frozen Tina's burritos to be relatively healthy and definitely inexpensive. The ramen we don't eat as often, but when we do I throw in some frozen peas and maybe stir in an egg for some extra protein (and only use one flavor packet per two things of noodles because of the sodium -- or half a packet for one).
These are meals that are under $1. I also make my own spaghetti sauce, because veggie-only is about 50 cents per serving, and with meat is around $1 - $1.50. Add a little more for the pasta, and you still come in below the cost of most frozen dinners, many fast food restaurants, and way below everything else. And of course, healthier and more tasty :)
One of the reasons for making the sauce from scratch though isn't the money (although that helps) -- it's that I got tired of checking the labels to see if there was high fructose corn syrup in it. Bad for people in general, and esp. for L in high quantities.
Oatmeal is an inexpensive and healthy breakfast. We throw in some ground flax (a little pricey but very good for your health and you only need one tablespoon per person), a bit of cinnamon, a sprinkling of sliced almonds on top. Oh, and a bit of butter, milk, or soymilk, and just a bit of sugar (not nearly what's in pre-mixed stuff).
Yogurt's another easy breakfast. We actually go for organic, and local when it's in season (a place down the road). Usually low-fat vanilla, or plain if we can't get that. Add flax and a bit of cinnamon, and a sprinkling of sliced almonds. A bit of sugar if it's the plain yogurt.
Soups are another good meal, at least in cooler weather -- and there are some cold soups for summer=time (strawberry soup!). Easy to make, but they take time, so you want to plan ahead. But this is one of those meals that's good to make in large quantities, and then put some of it aside. Or just decide that you'll double what you need, and have it twice that week, a couple days apart. Split pea soup is not bad when fresh, but is actually tastier after sitting aging in the fridge for a few days.
Soup making is a good idea if you're home for the day or early evening. Pea soup is about 1-1/2 hours from prep to eating, but you don't have to mind it all the time. So, you can cut things up, throw them in and get it started, then wash some dishes, start the laundry, wash the floor, remember to stir the soup once in a while, and before you know it, it's supper time! Or if your house chores are all done, it's always a good time to sit and read or do a bit of embroidery or weaving, or maybe play a few games of cribbage or backgammon with a housemate.
I also make a pretty decent potato and cheddar soup, and am thinking about some others.... anything that involves veggies and potatoes is pretty easy. If you want to add meat you can, and a little bit goes a long way in soup, which is another cost-saver. You can throw in rice too/instead of potatoes, but it's a good question which is going to cost more as the price of food goes up.... for me, rice will be more expensive because I can grow potatoes. I'll be growing onions too this year (or at least trying to!). Another healthy staple that goes with lots of things.
Oh, homemade mac-and-cheese is another tasty and easy to make meal. At least it is the way I do it.... I combined a couple of recipes and made it work. I haven't priced it, and it might be a little more difficult to do that since you have to buy a block of cheddar cheese, which isn't cheap to buy. But you don't need to use it all at once, so it works out over time.
Mind you, you _can_ get mac-and-cheese in a box, probably for less than my homemade (at least on sale), but it won't be nearly as satisfying or filling. Oh, and for homemade, you only need the cheese, you don't need to have milk on-hand.
***
Now, besides the facts that most of these homemade meals aren't hard to make, can be portioned out for future meals (which helps when you're on the run), and save money, there's what you can do with the money you saved. You could put it in the bank, pay a bill, buy something else you've been wanting, maybe buy some luxury food items. For us, it's probably all of the above. One food item we'll be spending money on is grass-fed beef. Just around 25 lbs., but that should do us for beef for most of the year. I'm also hoping to switch over on pork and chicken to local farmers this year, so I expect that means we'll be eating less meat from now on. Not a bad thing, healthwise or environmentally, but it'll definitely be a change.
And yet, I think we'll still be having some of those burritos and ramen for a little while yet... although we'll have to be watchful on that. Some of the noodles coming into the country are tainted now. A friend of mine open a package and when they tried preparing it, it smelled like sewage. Had to dump it of course, and not on the compost pile.
There are more and more reports of things like canned beans that have botulism in them, etc. these days... There was the beef that had to be recalled to CA just a few weeks ago.... with problems going back a few _years_. So, maybe our convenience foods will go away too...
****
Sometime later this year, I'll be teaching pie crust making to those in my area who are interested. Pies are great -- you can eat many of them hot or cold. You can freeze them for the future, take them camping, fry them up if the ice in the cooler decides to make them soggy....(those were some of the best pasties I'd ever had, too. Yum!)
I'm used to doing a wheat crust, but maybe I'll have to see if I can make one with rice flour... hm....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:19 am (UTC)I don't eat corn syrup, white flours or breads, nor most sugars- except I fail in chocolate.
Though I usually stick to the dark kind.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:19 pm (UTC)Avoiding corn syrup is something we're doing more and more of (me more than L, as he likes Coke and hasn't broken that habit yet). White flour doesn't seem to bother me as much as whatever people in restaurants put with it... or maybe it's the type of cheeses they use. I don't know why, but having Alfredo pasta dishes at most restaurants gives me problems of one sort or another, but mac-and-cheese at home doesn't. Also, I can have the pizza at the restaurant in town -- they don't use anything besides the most basic ingredients, all from scratch.
There's one restaurant L and I really can't eat much of anything at, that unfortunately a number of our friends like, because most of it gives us gastric distress for at least a day. In their case, it may be whatever they're using for cooking oil?
On sugar, we've cut back but not eliminated it. I do sometimes use maple sugar or honey as a substitute, but those don't work in all recipes.
Dark chocolate is good :)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 06:54 pm (UTC)What'll be interesting is when we start playing with grinding our own grain... hm....
Oh, and some other folks just posted some gluten-free sites, so I'm going to check those out later.
Have to go back out to deal with sugaring now..
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:17 am (UTC)You keep a starter alive (like you do when you do sour dough bread)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 11:16 am (UTC)Ramen noodles are terrible for you; they are chock full of MSG. I haven't eaten anything prepared for years because of MSG, and that turns out to be a great way to avoid everything else added in that's bad for a person. Cooking from scratch is both cheaper and better for you.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:28 pm (UTC)I agree that homemade noodles are better - it's a mostly a matter of long-term storage, and a little bit about convenience. Homemade noodles don't generally keep for more than a few weeks, and flour is good for about a year. Stored wheat that needs to be ground can last a couple of year, but of course needs to be ground into flour, then made into noodles... it's a process we're working toward. In the meantime though, if we had a local flood disaster or something and ended up with half a dozen people staying with us for a week, having one of those meals be something I don't have to work too hard on would be nice.
On the other side of things, we're also eventually planning on making a haybox cooker, so that cooking real food with reduced availability of fuel will be easier.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 03:12 pm (UTC)Btw, they also have raw milk, should you have a need for that sometime, when we have a friend-in-common visiting here :)
But, I'm not ruling out making it ourselves at some point in the future. Hm, I could always save some of the last yogurt we get from the farmers in the fall to start milk from other local farmers (western MA but not in our town), and make yogurt during the few months we can't get it from Sidehill. (Currently our winter backup is Stonyfield, since it's from just the next state over.)
Hm....
Flax
Date: 2008-03-13 01:06 pm (UTC)Re: Flax
Date: 2008-03-13 03:06 pm (UTC)We got a rather high quality mill, but it depends on what you want to do with it. Since we want to be able to make flour out of various types of grain, we got the Country Living grain mill (stainless steel grinding heads, no tiny bits of rock to deal with). However, Country Living tests each of their mills by grinding a little bit of wheat first, and that isn't good for the extremely sensitive people with wheat allergies.
A friend of mine who can't have the slightest bit of wheat or even spelt has a Corona, with both steel and stone burrs as options, and she's quite satisfied with that one.
If you only want to grind a few things once in a while though, I'd look for something with lower capacity than the mill L and I have. See, one of the reasons we like ours is that it has a groove in the turning wheel so that if you wanted to, you can hook it up to a bike with a drive belt and then really fly in your production, which is a future plan we have, when we have more space :)