Food is one way to save money. Another blog, the lazy vegan at blogspot tells of eating without being hungry on $1. a day. I hope to learn from her what works.
Another way I'm looking to cut back is my dish network account. Right now I'm paying for a $60 a month package but there are only a few stations I actually watch. More and more I'm hearing about watching tv and movies from your pc. A friend just let me know that she has a netflix account where she pays about $14.00 a month and can not only receive movies to watch but download movies and tv shows on her computer. I have also checked out some of the major networks and they have episodes you can download and watch from their websites.
I also watched an early morning show this week that showed a couple who had a large screen tv that they attached a little box to, that cost about $100., that let them watch tv on the tv screen from their computer. I am also told by another friend that some of the new tv's are computer ready. You can just hook your computer up to the tv screen and watch from your computer. That way you can sit in your living room or family room with your keyboard instead of remote and watch tv like you would normally do .
I'm feeling very inclined now to join up with netflix and see how this works. As time goes on I will put in more information about tv on the computer and let you know how it is working out. If anyone else has had success doing this I would love to hear more.
Yesterdays menu:
two slices pumpking bread with 1/2 banana and 1 TBS peanut butter . 25
1 pear with granola sprinkled on top ( free pear) . 05
chili verde burrito's . 75
chocolate pudding with free peach slices and granola .25
salmon patty with beet greens (free) .25
total for today: 1.55
Today's recipe: whole wheat flatbread or tortillas
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup warm water
2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp baking powder.
Mix water and oil into dry ingredients. kneed and form into a roll. You can keep this in the frig until you want a tortilla or two. Slice off in 1/6 portions, roll out on floured board and place on heated griddle. Let brown on bubble on one side and flip over. Eat hot with butter,refried beans or roll into burritos with favorite filling. .08 cents a serving.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Freebies/ Pumpkin Bread
There are people called Freegans. On Youtube you can find many videos on how to dumpster dive. Some of these people are professionals and others who don't need freebies but they do it
to keep perfectly good food from going into the dumpster/landfill. Some of these groups prepare meals and give them to those who have little or nothing to live on. I have not dumpster
dived except once or twice pulling something out of the dumpster when I was there to toss
something. Last summer I got a box of banana's and organic plums from a dumpster. I froze the bananas and made plum rice pudding with the plums. I have asked at local grocery stores
about the cast offs because I have chickens but the answer is always "no" .
In this small country community there is a little lady who has a second hand store and she has
organized drivers who will go to the nearby town and pick up the day old bread and produce
cast offs. She calls it a food bank because that is the only place these stores will give to. Every
day about 12:30 you can go behind her store and the truck unloads whatever they have gleaned and whoever is there can pick up whatever. The only rule is not to be greedy and let everyone there have their share. I think that is a good rule. Although I don't consider myself living in poverty, I do see this as an opportunity to pick up rejects that the store won't give me personally. I also wanted to subject myself to whatever is required to survive if you are below
the poverty line. They always have lots of bread which I use some and dry some for birds and chickens. I also give some to other families who have to watch their budget. Periodically I bag up some beans and rice from my supplies and take it in for whoever wants some. I also contribute to the gas money. I go about twice a week and the last two weeks I have been able
to pick up enough bananas not to have to buy any for my morning toast. I also get other tidbits. Like last week I picked up two green chili's and two tomatillo's. I put them in the crockpot with porkchops that had been marked down to half price. The porkchops were $4.00 for 4 very thick cut chops that had one very small bone in them. I kept one out for a baked porkchop and baked potato, the rest cooked in the chili verde sauce. I had one serving over rice and the rest I chopped up for burritos and packaged them for freezing. The left over gravy I used for green sauce in an enchilada casserole that had ground turkey, corn torteas, and cheese. I had some of that last night but have several servings left of the enchilada casserole that went into the freezer.
The last time I went they had some sweet potato's and some sad looking pears. I steamed the sweetpotato slices and they make a great snack whenever I get a little hungry. After peeling the pears they were beautiful. I sliced them and put them in a dish with a bit of my homemade granola on top. Yum.
Pumpkin bread:
I have adapted the recipe for pumpkin bread from the peterpumpkin squares listed on
http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/
Here is my recipe for the pumpkin bread I eat everymorning with half a banana and peanut butter.
In a bowl put 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats. I then add 1/2 cup of sour milk if I have it or milk mixed with cottage cheese. Let this sit while you mix the other dry ingredients.
In another bowl add 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour.
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBS cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup of wheat germ
4 1 serving packs of artificial sweetener
Stir well
Add 4 eggs in a small bowl and stir well
Add 1/4 cup of olive oil to eggs
Add 2 TBS molasses to egg mixture
Add 15 oz size pumpkin from can to egg mix
Stir well
Mix the egg mixture into the oats and then gradually add dry mix to wet mix. Mix very well till all dry mix is well dampened.
Preheat oven to 3.50 degrees . put mix in 8 x 8 pan that has been oiled and flour powdered. Bake 20-30 minutes until it tests done by feel in toothpick.
Remove from pan and let cool. Cut down the middle then slice. Package and freeze slices to prevent it from drying out and portion control. This loaf is under $3.00 to make. I have many dented cans of pumpkin that I got for .60 cents each. From the store shelf they run about $1.20
a can. I like this toasted for breakfast as it has oatmeal, eggs, pumpkin and is a very nourishing meal that stays with me till noon.
to keep perfectly good food from going into the dumpster/landfill. Some of these groups prepare meals and give them to those who have little or nothing to live on. I have not dumpster
dived except once or twice pulling something out of the dumpster when I was there to toss
something. Last summer I got a box of banana's and organic plums from a dumpster. I froze the bananas and made plum rice pudding with the plums. I have asked at local grocery stores
about the cast offs because I have chickens but the answer is always "no" .
In this small country community there is a little lady who has a second hand store and she has
organized drivers who will go to the nearby town and pick up the day old bread and produce
cast offs. She calls it a food bank because that is the only place these stores will give to. Every
day about 12:30 you can go behind her store and the truck unloads whatever they have gleaned and whoever is there can pick up whatever. The only rule is not to be greedy and let everyone there have their share. I think that is a good rule. Although I don't consider myself living in poverty, I do see this as an opportunity to pick up rejects that the store won't give me personally. I also wanted to subject myself to whatever is required to survive if you are below
the poverty line. They always have lots of bread which I use some and dry some for birds and chickens. I also give some to other families who have to watch their budget. Periodically I bag up some beans and rice from my supplies and take it in for whoever wants some. I also contribute to the gas money. I go about twice a week and the last two weeks I have been able
to pick up enough bananas not to have to buy any for my morning toast. I also get other tidbits. Like last week I picked up two green chili's and two tomatillo's. I put them in the crockpot with porkchops that had been marked down to half price. The porkchops were $4.00 for 4 very thick cut chops that had one very small bone in them. I kept one out for a baked porkchop and baked potato, the rest cooked in the chili verde sauce. I had one serving over rice and the rest I chopped up for burritos and packaged them for freezing. The left over gravy I used for green sauce in an enchilada casserole that had ground turkey, corn torteas, and cheese. I had some of that last night but have several servings left of the enchilada casserole that went into the freezer.
The last time I went they had some sweet potato's and some sad looking pears. I steamed the sweetpotato slices and they make a great snack whenever I get a little hungry. After peeling the pears they were beautiful. I sliced them and put them in a dish with a bit of my homemade granola on top. Yum.
Pumpkin bread:
I have adapted the recipe for pumpkin bread from the peterpumpkin squares listed on
http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/
Here is my recipe for the pumpkin bread I eat everymorning with half a banana and peanut butter.
In a bowl put 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats. I then add 1/2 cup of sour milk if I have it or milk mixed with cottage cheese. Let this sit while you mix the other dry ingredients.
In another bowl add 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour.
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBS cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup of wheat germ
4 1 serving packs of artificial sweetener
Stir well
Add 4 eggs in a small bowl and stir well
Add 1/4 cup of olive oil to eggs
Add 2 TBS molasses to egg mixture
Add 15 oz size pumpkin from can to egg mix
Stir well
Mix the egg mixture into the oats and then gradually add dry mix to wet mix. Mix very well till all dry mix is well dampened.
Preheat oven to 3.50 degrees . put mix in 8 x 8 pan that has been oiled and flour powdered. Bake 20-30 minutes until it tests done by feel in toothpick.
Remove from pan and let cool. Cut down the middle then slice. Package and freeze slices to prevent it from drying out and portion control. This loaf is under $3.00 to make. I have many dented cans of pumpkin that I got for .60 cents each. From the store shelf they run about $1.20
a can. I like this toasted for breakfast as it has oatmeal, eggs, pumpkin and is a very nourishing meal that stays with me till noon.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Dollar a Day?
I have been intriqued by a couple of blogs about eating on a dollar a day. Their motives are to save money but also to understand the meaning of poverty. They each have rules they have to live by on their 30 day challenge. You can access both of these blogs by going to
http://www.theresacooks.blogspot.com and going to her January 2 , 2009 post entitled , A dollars worth of food.
I don't think we can get the true meaning of poverty through this challenge but it gives a person an idea of what it's all about. I want to be more compassionate but I'm also interested in getting by on as little money as possible. I'm eying the dollar a day diet for the purpose of saving. Think! $365. a year for food. That's pretty thrifty. I'm thinking that if one has started out with food storage and then went into the dollar a day diet it would be much easier than starting from scratch. This is one dollar a day per person, not per family. I do remember reading about the Baskin Robbins heir who took his family to the woods to live and their yearly budget for food was about $350 - $450 for the year. They used a lot of grains and beans and hunted and gardened.
I always enjoyed The Tightwad Gazzette and the breakdown of costs she used. I enjoy reading about it but I don't know how good I am at it. I am going to try to break things down and give an account here of my food budget . What I'm spending and what I'm using each day and how much it costs.
I'm not making the same rules that the others have. I will use coupons and freebees when I can.
Last week I purchased 2 packages of Jenny-0 ground turkey breast. It was two packages for $7.00. I had a coupon for $5.00 off which made it $2.00. With one package I made porcupine meatballs. I cooked half in 1 can of tomatoes and 1 can of tomato sauce. They cost .50 cents each. That made that half $2.00. I got three meals out of half of the meatballs. With another helping of rice that is about .70 a meal. These porcupine meatballs were made from the same 1 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice that I added to the dinner with the gravy over. That's a little higher than I would like. My breakfast for the last two weeks has been my homemade pumpkin bread which I calculated at .25 cents a serving. I toast it and spread a TBS of peanut butter on it and have 1/2 banana on it. The bananas are free and the peanut butter was gotten for .68 cents on a coupon deal. There are 32 TBS per jar@ 12.1 cents per TBS. That makes me over the one dollar a day as I also have 1 or 2 cups of my homemade chicken vegie soup. Here is the breakdown on that. Ground turkey, .25 cents 1/2 head of cabbage @ .38 cents a # about .40 cents, 1 celery @ 1.00, chicken bouilion, .15 cents, other spices, .15 cents. 1 # mixed frozen vegies @.90 cents. = 2.85 for about 2 gal soup. I'll say .20 cents a cup as I also added some leftover cooked black beans and brown rice.
Breakfast: .37 cents
Lunch: . .40 cents
Dinner: .70 cents
Snack: .50 cents Total: 1.97
Not a dollar a day but decent.
http://www.theresacooks.blogspot.com and going to her January 2 , 2009 post entitled , A dollars worth of food.
I don't think we can get the true meaning of poverty through this challenge but it gives a person an idea of what it's all about. I want to be more compassionate but I'm also interested in getting by on as little money as possible. I'm eying the dollar a day diet for the purpose of saving. Think! $365. a year for food. That's pretty thrifty. I'm thinking that if one has started out with food storage and then went into the dollar a day diet it would be much easier than starting from scratch. This is one dollar a day per person, not per family. I do remember reading about the Baskin Robbins heir who took his family to the woods to live and their yearly budget for food was about $350 - $450 for the year. They used a lot of grains and beans and hunted and gardened.
I always enjoyed The Tightwad Gazzette and the breakdown of costs she used. I enjoy reading about it but I don't know how good I am at it. I am going to try to break things down and give an account here of my food budget . What I'm spending and what I'm using each day and how much it costs.
I'm not making the same rules that the others have. I will use coupons and freebees when I can.
Last week I purchased 2 packages of Jenny-0 ground turkey breast. It was two packages for $7.00. I had a coupon for $5.00 off which made it $2.00. With one package I made porcupine meatballs. I cooked half in 1 can of tomatoes and 1 can of tomato sauce. They cost .50 cents each. That made that half $2.00. I got three meals out of half of the meatballs. With another helping of rice that is about .70 a meal. These porcupine meatballs were made from the same 1 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice that I added to the dinner with the gravy over. That's a little higher than I would like. My breakfast for the last two weeks has been my homemade pumpkin bread which I calculated at .25 cents a serving. I toast it and spread a TBS of peanut butter on it and have 1/2 banana on it. The bananas are free and the peanut butter was gotten for .68 cents on a coupon deal. There are 32 TBS per jar@ 12.1 cents per TBS. That makes me over the one dollar a day as I also have 1 or 2 cups of my homemade chicken vegie soup. Here is the breakdown on that. Ground turkey, .25 cents 1/2 head of cabbage @ .38 cents a # about .40 cents, 1 celery @ 1.00, chicken bouilion, .15 cents, other spices, .15 cents. 1 # mixed frozen vegies @.90 cents. = 2.85 for about 2 gal soup. I'll say .20 cents a cup as I also added some leftover cooked black beans and brown rice.
Breakfast: .37 cents
Lunch: . .40 cents
Dinner: .70 cents
Snack: .50 cents Total: 1.97
Not a dollar a day but decent.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Coupon Deals
I just recently learned that I could buy coupons from ebay. I now have a strategy that I'm using.
On Wednesday morning I check http://www.dealcatcher.com by clicking on the Sunday Ads. There are many stores listed but I check the ones we have here locally. If there is something I need on sale I go to ebay and order coupons for the item. There are usually 10 or 20 coupons in a package. If I order Wednesday morning the coupons are usually in my mail by Saturday.
Last week I purchased a years supply of toothpaste for .35 cents each. and a years supply of shampoo for .35 cents per bottle. I also had a Jenny-0 turkey breast coupon for $5.00 off. One store had a special for two packs of ground turkey breast for $7.00. I purchased them for $2.00. I made turkey cabbage soup which I'm still eating and made porcupine meatballs. I still have enough to make a meatloaf and I have the extra porcupine meatballs in the freezer.
This week Safeway has Nabisco crackers and baked chips for $1.68 each. I went to ebay and purchased coupons that are $2.00 off for 2 boxes. I think they will be about .75 cents a box after all expenses. I plan on buying 10 boxes. Safeway also has Johnsville bratwurst for $1.99 a package. There are about 6 sausages per package. I went to ebay and found coupons for $5.00 off on 4 packages. I will pay $3. dollars for 4 packages of bratwurst. Another good freezer deal.
At Smith's they have Hormel turkey chili 98% fat free at .50 cents a can. I purchased from ebay a packet of 20 coupons for hormel chili products for .55 cents off on 2 . I plan on buying 20 cans at about .27 cents each. These will be a good emergency supply ready on the pantry shelf. They also have rotel tomatoes for .49 cents a can, I will purchase at least 10 of these .
I will also purchase 6# of apples for 2.50 and 2 bunches each of green onions and radishes for $2.00 and that will do it for this week. I am keeping my shelves well supplied and I have large amounts of brown rice, black beans and oatmeal.
On Wednesday morning I check http://www.dealcatcher.com by clicking on the Sunday Ads. There are many stores listed but I check the ones we have here locally. If there is something I need on sale I go to ebay and order coupons for the item. There are usually 10 or 20 coupons in a package. If I order Wednesday morning the coupons are usually in my mail by Saturday.
Last week I purchased a years supply of toothpaste for .35 cents each. and a years supply of shampoo for .35 cents per bottle. I also had a Jenny-0 turkey breast coupon for $5.00 off. One store had a special for two packs of ground turkey breast for $7.00. I purchased them for $2.00. I made turkey cabbage soup which I'm still eating and made porcupine meatballs. I still have enough to make a meatloaf and I have the extra porcupine meatballs in the freezer.
This week Safeway has Nabisco crackers and baked chips for $1.68 each. I went to ebay and purchased coupons that are $2.00 off for 2 boxes. I think they will be about .75 cents a box after all expenses. I plan on buying 10 boxes. Safeway also has Johnsville bratwurst for $1.99 a package. There are about 6 sausages per package. I went to ebay and found coupons for $5.00 off on 4 packages. I will pay $3. dollars for 4 packages of bratwurst. Another good freezer deal.
At Smith's they have Hormel turkey chili 98% fat free at .50 cents a can. I purchased from ebay a packet of 20 coupons for hormel chili products for .55 cents off on 2 . I plan on buying 20 cans at about .27 cents each. These will be a good emergency supply ready on the pantry shelf. They also have rotel tomatoes for .49 cents a can, I will purchase at least 10 of these .
I will also purchase 6# of apples for 2.50 and 2 bunches each of green onions and radishes for $2.00 and that will do it for this week. I am keeping my shelves well supplied and I have large amounts of brown rice, black beans and oatmeal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)