Waste Log

So, as per usual, I have the best intentions about blogging regularly and then things get in the way. I've been meaning to post about waste logs, so here it is. I keep a waste log, sometimes just on my phone, in the notes section, but I eventually transfer it to my Excel spreadsheet.

If you'd like to download my version, you can do so here. Here are some examples from my log.

What you'll find in the document:

Date: the date you threw away the item(s), you could also add a column to show when you bought it/made it to see how long it was sitting around before you tossed it

Items: The item(s) in question that were thrown out

Quantity: Number or rough amount works, this will help determine how much money you wasted. Even better if you have some sense of how many you threw away in relation to how many you bought.

Cost: If you know the exact cost of that bag of rolls (for example), let's say that was $4.50, and there were originally 8 in the bag, and you threw away 3, then you can set up a pretty easy formula to calculate exactly how much money you wasted. If you got something for free, then of course the waste amount is $0. Or you can approximate the cost of an entire meal and then calculate roughly how much of that meal became leftovers and therefore how much money was wasted.

Why Thrown Out: Mine are generally mold related because it just sat around too long in the open, or dried out/withered would be another frequent one for me because it didn't get used. However this could also be because it was accidentally dropped on the floor or your kid mashed it into a goopy mess, etc. Or the expiration date has passed (not the best by date, those are just made up numbers to sell more groceries).

How to Improve: The idea here is to get you to think about why something was wasted and brainstorm ways to avoid that waste in the future. Not everything is going to have an easy answer. You can't be less clumsy (although you can probably try to take your time and grab something properly), you can't make your infant do... well really anything. However, you can try to freeze things when you buy it. For example, bread, I just throw in the freezer now as a whole loaf and then pull out pieces straight out of the bag to throw in the toaster. Or ginger, I like to grate up everything I buy all at once, and freeze the grated ginger by the tablespoon so I have it on hand when I need it. Leftover coconut milk or tomato paste, when I only use a portion of a can, gets frozen by the tablespoon as well. Taking things out of plastic bags so the moisture doesn't make them spoil faster, or not storing other fruit near your apples, which will ripen them more quickly, also helps.

So what's the point of a waste log?

Well, one is to save money. If you can quickly and easily see why you are wasting money and how much, then you can change your behavior. For example, instead of buying that net of 10 lemons for $4 because the by the each price is so much lower, when you really only needed one, which would have cost you $1, but then you threw out 9 of those lemons. It would have been far cheaper to just buy that one lemon. So then next time you just buy that single lemon, unless you know for sure you'll be able to process and freeze the other 9 before they go bad.

Another is to get you thinking about what and why you throw things away and get you thinking about how to improve that behavior in the future. Blah, blah, starving orphans in Africa (but really starving people everywhere). All of that waste has to go somewhere too and you're using up resources that could be better used elsewhere. By reducing your waste, you are lowering your environmental footprint.

Improving your health is another one (I'm not a medical professional, so take this with a grain of salt). Eating rotten/moldy stuff is bad for you, it leads to fun things like food poisoning. Sometimes it's really hard to tell if something has gone bad (or easy to miss a small spot of mold), so by reducing the chances of something going bad, you're decreasing the likelihood that you'll accidentally eat something that has started to rot or mold, thereby also decreasing the likelihood of getting food poisoning.

Monday Meal Planning - The Overview

Warning: this one is long!

Since we are on an even tighter budget than usual, now that my husband is working and I'm staying home with our two kids, I've started meal planning again. I've started what I hope is a weekly series called Monday Meal Planning. I started last week, and you'll only get this overview post where I talk about the why and how and such for this week, because I'm out of town until Tuesday.

As you could see from my last post, my plan is to do a recap of the week before (what we actually made and how much it actually ended up costing us), tell you what our plan is for the current week, share my grocery list and what I already have on hand, and give you an idea or even exact figures of what I spent on groceries.

In the interest of transparency, our grocery budget for the month is $600. It really should be less than that, but I'm budgeting $100 a week, plus $200 a month for stocking up at Sam's Club and/or Costco. Our parents each have a membership to one of those stores, so we got pretty lucky. You can always ask around if friends have a membership, so you don't have to get your own, or go in for a membership together. I generally go to one or the other once a month and primarily stock up on large portions of meat and other freezer fodder, potatoes and onions, and other things that will keep or that I know we'll eat quickly, such as bagged salads and mushrooms. It may not seem like you're saving money, but if you followed my ideas on comparison shopping, you'll see that that huge pack of chicken breasts may only cost you $1.99 per pound at Costco while at your normal grocery store it may be twice that. And it's always nice to have that meat stored up in your freezer for meal planning purposes.

When you meal plan, you can do several important things:

1) Reduce stress. I'm one of those people who freaks out at lunch and at dinner, if I don't know exactly what I'm feeding to my kids. At lunch this is sort of ok, because at most my daughter will go down for her nap a bit late. But at dinner, with looming bedtimes, it's just not.

2) Make things ahead. Whether that's making freezer meals or in my case prepping slow cooker meals the night before, it gives me a lot more flexibility to use the time I have available, when I'm not totally frazzled watching my kiddos. I'm a night owl, it works best for me to stay up late and get stuff done then, so that's what I do.

3) Shop your own pantry/freezer/fridge. You're saving money, because anything you have in your pantry/fridge/freezer should be something you bought when it was on sale (or at Costco/Sam's because it was cheaper) or because it's left over from another meal. This includes "leftovers" (i.e. prepared foods from a previous meals) and "raw" items that have already been used for at least one meal (e.g. I buy a value pack of 6 chicken breasts, I use 4. I've already paid for it, I've already gotten one meal out of it, but if I remember to use the other 2, then that's basically free money or at least two much cheaper meals than they would have been, if I'd bought just the 4 I needed at a higher price).

4) Avoid spoilage. Again this goes along with the previous point, but it's important. You've already spent the money, but if it ends up spoiling because you don't use it in time, that's money wasted. I'll talk about waste logs in a future episode, so stay tuned for that.

5) Don't spend money you don't need to on a meal plan someone else makes for you. I'm sure those meal plans other people make for you save time, but if you have half an hour to sit down and plan out your next week's meals and make a grocery list and an hour to shop (if your grocery store will let you pick up curbside so much the better), then you can definitely save yourself some money and just do it yourself.

6) Make fewer trips to the store. We usually only shop once a week because it saves us money, unless we run out of something vital mid-week like milk. Why does this save us money? Because magically, every time I go to the grocery store, it seems like I spend $100, even if I just had three things on my list. Some people might be more strong willed than I am about getting just what's on the list, but I swear, every time I get anywhere near the ice cream aisle, the ice cream calls my name. "Buy me, buy me! You know you want some waffle cone with caramel!" Or that beef jerky for $11 a bag just jumps in my cart and I only really notice it at check out. Or that quilting magazine, the washi tape, the pack of pens, that organizational tool that would make my life so much easier... big box stores are especially dangerous for that. Minimizing the temptation is key for me.

7) It creates variety in your diet. When you're frazzled trying to figure out what's for dinner today and then needing to pack up the kids and run to the grocery store, you're wasting time, but you're also missing an important opportunity to vary your diet and try something new. I've made it a goal to try at least one new recipe every week, because I might stumble on something simple and delicious that I can add to my list of family approved meals. You can also avoid having chicken four nights in a row, or at least have chicken four totally different ways (Italian - chicken Parmesan, Chinese - chicken stir fry, Indian - butter chicken, Moroccan - chicken tagine, etc.). Need to find new and interesting ways of eating ground beef, because that is the only type of meat you can afford right now? Or maybe the Ramen noodles? You now have time to think about slipping in some new recipes.

8) It gives you flexibility. Didn't quite manage to prep that slow cooker meal the night before and your kids are bouncing off the walls unless you take them to the park all day? Or your meat is still frozen solid. No problem, change to a meal that's better suited to the current situation. Leftovers on Wednesday when you had planned those for Friday, go for it! You have all your ingredients for the week on hand already, changing things up is not a problem.

So now to move on to how I meal plan:

1) Pick a day (or two). So why on Monday? Well, Monday works best for me, because my husband is a chef and generally has Monday and Tuesday off. We've also meal planned on a Sunday evening, since he generally doesn't have to work as long and my grocery store is open 24/7. I'm certainly not above leaving hubby home with our sleeping kids and running to the store at midnight. For your own meal planning, you need to choose the day that best works for you. You can even meal plan for a whole month at a time and go grocery shopping once a week or even every other week. Whatever works into your schedule and your life. If you need to meal plan one day and go grocery shopping another day, do what works for you.

2) Figure out what meals you want to plan out. You'll notice that I only plan out dinner. Why not the other meals (breakfast, lunch, and snack)? Well, because I have a basic sense in mind of what we'll eat for those other meals. Breakfast is almost always cereal. As long as we have cereal and milk on hand, we're golden. Sometimes hubby will make eggs or pancakes or whatever, but that's only when he feels like it. For lunch I've developed a mental list of things that are quick and easy to make so I can concentrate on dinner and I keep ingredients for those things on hand. I can go over that list in a future blog post. Same with snack time, I try to keep fruit, fruit snacks, and cereal bars on hand. So when I don't feel like cutting up an apple or an orange for my son, I can just hand him a fruit snack or cereal bar instead. I shop for all these items in bulk or when I see them on sale, so I like to stay flexible about the specific brand of cereal or whatever. For my daughter, I wrote a post already about what we feed her for now, although sometimes she'll get what we're having if it's something non-dairy and easily chewable.

3) Have a system that works for you. I really like using my carpe diem planner/bullet journal for meal planning coupled with an app on my phone for my grocery list. Other people might find it easier to use a white board on the fridge or do everything online/in an app. But here's what you'll need to have on hand: a list or easy access to what's in your fridge, freezer, and pantry. A list of family approved meals for when you get stuck. A list of recipes you want to try (AND WHERE THEY ARE LOCATED! - Favorites folder in Chrome, Pinterest, Cookbook and page number, etc.). A place to put your meal plan and a place for your grocery list. A mental or physical list of allergies for family members and anyone who might be invited over for dinner that week (one sibling can't eat capsicum or gluten, my son has a life-threatening tree nut allergy, etc.). If you like to shop deals that week and build your list around those, a weekly flyer for your favorite grocery store(s) and/or coupons. Your comparison lists if you need a sense of what all the ingredients will cost.

4) Quickly fill in what nights you won't need to cook. Saturdays are usual with his parents, Sundays with mine. Maybe everyone is out one night - kids at sleep overs, parents on a much needed date out, so scratch that off the list. Or you're traveling and know you'll just wing it, because that can actually be fun on vacation.

5) Plan in at least one leftovers night. I like to do this late in the week, when I'm burned out on cooking. And it means I use up something that's in my fridge or freezer. This can be a store-bought frozen meal too like pizza. Basically anything that's fast and easy to heat up.

6) Get your partner and/or kids involved. I'm lucky in that my husband cooks professionally. My dad is another guy in my life who loves to cook. Me, not so much. If all the meal planning and cooking fell only on my shoulders, I'd probably throw my hands up and say screw it, we're eating frozen foods and take out every night. Anyway, we look at the nights that are left over and divide them up among us. This way I know that hubby is in charge of dinner on the two nights he's off work. He tells me what he wants to make and what he'll need from the store. Then I'll decide what I want to make on my nights. I also plan to give each of the kids one day a week when they're older, and they'll be in charge of meal planning, cooking, and cleaning that night.

7) Double check your plan. Did those three chicken dishes end up back-to-back? Maybe move things around a bit. Do you have any green veggies on your list? Any allergens that you might have missed?

8) Pull up the recipes and make your grocery list. Find where you hid the recipes and take them out. Start listing everything on them with amounts. Add up ingredients that appear in multiple recipes. Now check your list or storage and see if you already have something stashed away, check or cross these off the list. We plan at the kitchen table so we can quickly run to the pantry and fridge to look and see if we have certain things and I have a running list on my phone of what's in our freezer. Only the things you truly need go into your final grocery list (I use scrap paper and then transfer the final onto my phone app). I will often skip the optional garnishes, because I don't ever remember to pull those out anyway. Unless it's chicken fajita soup or something, where the garnishes are truly key. Finish out the list by discussing with your family if there is anything else you might desperately need from that grocery store, like toilet paper because you'll run out before your next trip to Sam's Club, or toothpaste.

9) Go grocery shopping. I comparison shop brand name versus generic if I need something that's not already on my comparison list. Or I take a quick look to see if the pasta I usually buy is actually cheapest that week after sales on some other brand. Takes a little longer, but luckily grocery stores are good about putting like things together, so it shouldn't take much longer.

10) Put things away where you can find them easily. Break down/subdivide and freeze extra meats immediately, the meat you will use that week goes in a leak proof container on the bottom shelf. Have zones for like things. All of my pasta is in one spot in my pantry. All of the dry goods in another spot. Baking has its own shelf. Proteins (i.e. dairy and meat) has a side in my fridge (milk and cream on the top left, eggs and yogurt and sour cream below that, meats on the bottom shelf). If you know where things are, that means you're not having to rush out at the last minute for something you think you may have forgotten only to find it five days later.

11) Prep ahead as much as possible. If you can figure out a system where you can prep ahead as much as possible all in one day, go for it. I prefer to prep ahead the night before just in case something changes. Some recipes will call for marinating. I'm no food safety expert, but since your meat is in the fridge anyway, having it sitting in the fridge and marinading for longer shouldn't be a problem.

12) Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Finish those meals the day of and truly enjoy the experience of eating with your family, maybe even on time and while the meal is still hot, in the knowledge that you've saved yourself stress, money, and time by meal planning.

Any questions, need clarifications on anything, have anything you want me to go into more detail on in a future post? Leave me a comment!

Monday Meal Planning (A Day Late)

So I'm already a day late with this post, and the worst part is that this week we meal planned on Sunday and I went grocery shopping that night after hubby and the kids were in bed (the benefits of a grocery store that's open 24/7). Also, this is a weird week, because I will be gone Friday through Tuesday of next week (so next week will be late as well). In the future, I will try and price out everything, but I'm not sure I even have receipts going back that far for some of this stuff.

I was going to do an introductory post all about meal planning, but that may have to wait for week after next, when I can actually sit down and wrap my brain around how I meal plan, including how to shop deals, shop your pantry/freezer/fridge, and so on. I'm also planning a post about a waste log, so stay tuned for that as well.

So without further ado, here is my meal plan for the week and how much I spent on groceries.

Week of April 9:
Monday: Freezer meal (White Chicken Chili, bagged salad kit, baguette)
Tuesday: Fish, brussel sprouts
Wednesday: Leftovers or freezer meal (TBD)
Thursday: Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan Pasta (Recipe here)
Friday: Airport food/late dinner
Saturday: Dinner with friends
Sunday: Dinner with friends

Grocery Total for the Week: $17.61 (Savings: $8.56) at Meijer

Actual money spent per meal:
Monday: White Chicken Chili - free from hubby's parents, Bagged Salad Kit - $4.49 from Meijer, Baguette - price unknown from Costco

Tuesday: Fish - free minus fishing license if hubby catches anything, Lemon: $.79 from Meijer, Brussel Sprouts - price unknown from Costco

Wednesday: either pasta and pesto - price unknown from Costco, or frozen leftovers - price unknown from previous meal

Thursday: Boneless, skinless chicken breasts - $9.33 from Meijer for 6 (will freeze 2), Crushed Tomatoes - $2.00 (for 2 cans) from Meijer, Onion - price unknown from Meijer or Costco, Dried Herbs - price unknown, Penne - $1 from Meijer, Shredded Mozzarella Cheese - price unknown from Costco, Parmesan Cheese - price unknown from Costco

Of course, my total grocery bill was not $17.61, it was $56.78, of which $3.65 was for baby food (cereal and bananas), $13.28 was for adult snacks, $17.05 was for lunch items, and $5.19 was for drinks (milk and OJ).

Homemade Baby Food

We've been making most of our own baby food. Why? It's cheaper and we control what goes in it.

Think about costs. We really like the Beech-Nut baby food jars, which run about $0.95 per jar for a 4 oz. jar. We still buy them when we see them on sale, because they are convenient to take with on trips. However, for day-to-day use, we make our own and freeze it.

To do the math, our kiddo eats about 4 ounces (1 jar) per meal twice a day (sometimes more, she also get Cheerios, bread ends, and whatever other soft veggies and fruits we might be eating). Over the course of a week, that's about 14 jars of baby food (so about $13.30). A head of cauliflower is $3.69 at our local Meijer, and yields about 20 1.5 ounce cubes (or 30 ounces/about 7.5 jars), so for about $7 you can make the same amount of food that you would get for $13.30. And that's one of the more expensive types of produce. Sweet potatoes are about $1 per lb., so for $4 you can get about 56 ounces of food. Doesn't seem like a huge difference, but over the course of a year, that's about $700 in baby food jars versus about $370 on the high end or just over $200 on the low end.

When looking for produce that will puree up well, I prefer to find ones that aren't too acidic (so no mandarin oranges, rhubarb, pineapple, etc.) and don't have a huge water content (watermelon, oranges, etc.). I prefer to have several different types on hand so that I can mix and match 2-3 cubes per bowl. Some of our favorites include cauliflower, zucchini, sweet potato, acorn squash, butternut squash, carrots, apples (apple sauce), turnips, bananas, and parsnips.

Something to watch out for is the Dirty Dozen. They are foods that you really should buy organic, because the regular version uses a crazy amount of pesticides. And while those might be fine for most adults to eat (with some washing), you probably don't want to expose your 6+ month old to those levels. Here's the full list (anything over 20 or so, you can probably buy regular, but it's good to be informed, regardless. It's up to you to make choices for your child).

Once cooked and pureed, I like to freeze them in 1.5 ounce portions in my WeeSprout freezer trays (silicone, top rack dishwasher safe, with a clip-on lid). Once frozen, I transfer them to a freezer bag (although freezer safe containers would work too) and stash the freezer bags in a bin from IKEA. Make sure to label and date what's in the container/bag.

To reheat them, I put them in a glass bowl (usually 2-3 cubes of whatever combo strikes my fancy - but I like to put more watery things like zucchini with at least one cube of drier stuff like cauliflower or sweet potato), and heat them up in the microwave. For my microwave, I do 1:15 for two cubes and 1:25 for three cubes, but test your own. The goal is to melt enough of the food so you can stir the rest of the frozen stuff into it, which melts and cools down the nuclear hot food enough that it's edible (or almost edible with a bit of blowing). Always make sure you test the food before you feed it to your baby, because temperatures may vary even from batch to batch and bowl size to bowl size.

If you have a baby (like I do), who is a bit underweight, our pediatrician recommended adding some olive oil into pureed foods. Although we don't ever add salt to our purees, we are not shy about adding other spices, like nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon, and so on.

So, here is my first recipe:

Butternut Squash Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Butternut Squash (medium to large)
Olive Oil
Nutmeg (optional)
Rosemary (optional)
Ground black pepper (optional)

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2) Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds (I like using my metal ice cream scoop for this task).
3) Place the squash flesh side up on a baking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil (if you want additional olive oil for calorie loading, I like to pour a good amount in the middle of each squash and then use my hands to distribute the oil over the squash).

4) Sprinkle with any seasoning/spices you choose and bake for 45-50 minutes or until the flesh is tender.
5) Scoop out the flesh, being careful not to get any shell (I again used my ice cream scoop), and puree in a food processor or with an immersion blender. Add additional olive oil, if desired.
6) Feed some to your kiddo once it cools down and freeze the rest.

Yields about 20 1.5 ounce cubes, depending on the size of the squash. And actually tastes pretty decent even to me, although I would prefer a bit more salt and less olive oil.

Comparison Shopping

Since we are on an even tighter grocery budget, I want to make sure that I'm getting the best deals on food and other staples that we need. To that end, I made a comparison list (which you are welcome to download). I made the original list in my bullet journal, but you can type out some of the staples on the computer, print out the list and then fill in as you go. Or keep it on your phone (I like Excel documents that I can pull up from Dropbox on my phone - just remember to make it available offline before you leave wifi range).

Let's go through some things to look out for as you add to your list.

Stores: I compared prices at Meijer, Family Fare, Fresh Thyme, Sam's Club, Costco, and Aldi, since those stores are local to me. Aldi is a bit of a hike, as is Fresh Thyme, and Sam's Club and Costco are membership based (but each of our parents has access to one of those membership, so yay for us. If you're on a tight budget, you may want to find a friend with a membership or split one with someone). I also want to find a few local farmer's markets when the weather gets warmer, so I can compare prices there. Even if you think Whole Foods, Fresh Thyme, an organic market, or a farmer's market are out of your budget, you might want to go through and fill out your list there, since it may surprise you (for example, produce at Fresh Thyme is cheaper even than Meijer, I've found, and they often run specials).

Name: I am using this as the generic type (i.e. apples, rice, laundry detergent, beef, etc.).

Brand: This is the specific type. Fresh v. frozen, the fresh is the default for me, so I don't bother adding fresh behind produce, however I'll add it to mozarella because the default there is shredded/bagged (figure out what your defaults are and enter data accordingly). I buy most produce fresh, but I do buy frozen corn, so that would be Name: Corn, Brand: Frozen. Then also the sub-type, so Fuji, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp for Apples. Or the actual brand, i.e. the frozen juice we buy would be "Frozen, Old Orchard" or "Frozen, Minute Maid."

Quantity: the size it comes in, or the amount the price applies to. Some common ones - oz. (ounce), lb. (pound), ea. (each), 2L (2 Liter), can, 8 oz., etc. When it comes to cans and packages, I prefer to write down the amount in the can or package, because can and package sizes can vary. Often the signs will also tell you in very small print what the price per each or price per ounce is, so then I'll just do oz. and write down the per ounce price under the applicable store. Where quantities differ from store to store, this is especially important.

Under each store you chose: put down the dollar amount. If you are looking at by the pound ground beef, make sure you are comparing similar types of ground beef (85/15 versus 70/30 are going to be different), check the quantity on all packages so you're not comparing a 18 oz. bag at one store with a 22 oz. bag at another, also, check the value packs, those generally have the lowest prices. I write down whatever is lowest, knowing that if I do decide to buy something it will be the value pack and then I'll just break it up into smaller bags and throw the extra in the freezer for another meal.

Here is a portion of my list. I haven't filled out everything for every store. And as you can see, I am comparing pounds of lemons at Meijer and Family Fare to by the each at Fresh Thyme, so that's a little problematic.

To simplify your list: I like to go through and divide out differing amounts, so if Family Fare has 4 peppers for $5, I try to get it down to by the each. I also like to divide out by the size of the packs, so that I'm comparing ounces to ounces instead of a 18 oz. pack to a 32 oz. pack. If I look at two different sizes of the same cat food, and one is clearly cheaper, I remove the more expensive one from the list. Same with name brands, unless we greatly prefer one over the other, I'll remove the more expensive one. Don't forget to compare you favorite brand of toothpaste, deodorant, etc. although you may want to add some drug stores or a pet supply store into the mix for better comparison purposes.

How to use the list:

Knowing what to buy where. I'm not saying you need to go to every grocery store every week. That would negate your savings in gas and wear and tear on your car. I alternate going to Costco and Sam's Club once a month. After comparing prices between Family Fare and Meijer, I'll probably drop Family Fare from my list completely, because Meijer is cheaper across the board for my weekly shopping trip. And Aldi is only worth a trip if I know that several of the things I need that week are significantly cheaper than at Meijer, or if I want to stock up on fruit snacks, cereal bars, or pop tarts and other things that won't go bad very quickly.

Having a baseline idea of what things cost is helpful when you see a deal. Even if I go into Meijer for five things, I usually buzz by the meat section to see if they have any really good deals. Or you can read the online sales leaflets (or the paper ones, if you get those in the mail). We get most of our meat from Costco or Sam's Club, because it's just cheaper there and our chest freezer is rather large. However, sometimes the Meijer deals will blow the base prices at the other stores out of the water, and then I'll buy one or two to throw in the freezer. Spend a little money now to save a lot later on. Just make sure you're not buying something only because it's on sale. That's a waste of money if you're never going to eat/use it.

It's also good for comparing large amounts of things you know you'll use up, versus the smaller containers or by the each items. So if I know that Fuji apples are $1.99 per pound at Meijer for loose apples, and Sam's Club has a 3 pound bag of Fuji apples for $4, I know that it's cheaper to buy the bag (IF we are going to eat them all - i.e. I'm going to be making apple sauce or something). If you buy the bag and only eat 1 pound of apples before the rest goes bad, you've wasted money.

It lets you cost out your meals before you head to the grocery store. I meal plan and shop once a week (unless we run out of something important like milk halfway through the week). Knowing what my weekly budget is for groceries, plus what I already have on hand from shopping deals and Costco/Sam's Club, helps me when I sit down to make my meal plan. If we're really tight on money, I try to stick with the stuff we already have, plus what's cheap to buy at the store. I also try to keep a bit of wiggle room in that budget, in case I do see a really good deal while I'm out.

Buying name brand instead of generic. Sometimes I'll find a coupon or a deal so the usually more expensive name brand is cheaper or the same price as the generic. This matters mostly for things where you actually care about the taste, but maybe name brand just isn't in the budget. For me that's ice cream. I can always get generic for $2.99 a quart, but sometimes Hudsonville ice cream or Breyer's is marked down and then I like to get those instead, because I just like the taste better, but generic ice cream is better than no ice cream in my book. Also, ice cream is great freezer fodder if you have a large chest freezer like we do. Because it runs much more efficiently when it's full, we try to keep a bag of ice in there, and cheap stuff like ice cream and bread, so we're not filling it to the brim with expensive meats. The opposite may also be true. I don't like the generic Sam's Club diapers, so I buy Pampers when I go there. However, the Kirkland brand at Costco is just fine. So I like to be able to compare the lowest cost Pampers at Sam's Club with the generic (Kirkland) brand at Costco by the each by size (my kids are in Size 2 and 5 right now).

Shopping elsewhere. Maybe you stumbled across a new grocery store or a farmer's market/stand on a route you don't usually take. You've got your comparison list and your grocery list in your pocket or on your phone or in your planner. And because you're already here, it's not wasted gas because you weren't going to multiple stores.

Date Night on a Budget

My husband and I had our six year anniversary yesterday and decided to go to Olive Garden. We are currently living on one salary (mine, while he stays home with our kid), so it just wasn't in the budget to go somewhere fancy. In fact Olive Garden wasn't even in the budget, but I decided we needed a date night without our almost seven month old. So out we went.

Since we were on a budget, we skipped the alcohol. Restaurants upcharge that like you wouldn't believe (since they sell most wines and liquor by the pour, they generally make 70-80% profit on a bottle). Instead we agreed to pull out a bottle of wine at home.

Olive Garden gives you free bread sticks and salad, so I try to fill up on those and then take part of my entree home for lunch the next day (another money saver). We also skipped the appetizer, but since my husband really wanted the calamari appetizer, he got it as his entree instead, with a soup. Appetizers are generally much cheaper options than a main course, and we got a heaping plate of calamari when a pasta dish with a sprinkling of calamari might run you almost twice that and you end up getting a bunch of pasta which is extremely cheap for the restaurant to buy. Restaurants make their money on things like pizza, pasta, and various other dishes where they have a lot of cheap "filler" so they can skimp on the expensive stuff like meat and seafood.

Since we filled up on bread sticks and salad, we also skipped the dessert. However, and this is important, if you don't have a lot of money, skip an appetizer, but do NOT skimp on the tip. That waiter or waitress worked just as hard to please us on a $32 check as she would have if we'd also gotten drinks, appetizers, dessert, and coffee. And it's not her fault that the restaurant she works for gives away unlimited bread sticks and salad to the diners. It's not fair to punish the server just because you're trying to save some money. If I have a set budget for dinner, I prefer to cut down on a drink or dessert, rather than run out of money to leave a good tip.

After our dinner we walked home, both to burn off some of the heavy calories of the pasta and bread, and to save wear and tear and gas on the car (which is actually a lie that we were telling ourselves, because the real reason why we couldn't even really afford a trip to Olive Garden is because our car needs to go in to be repaired after my recent accident and we'll be paying a $250 deductible to get it fixed). But the walk did give us a bit more time away from our kid, who was safely ensconced with a friend who'd offered to watch him (for free, because he loves our kid, and potentially in the hopes of reciprocation once he has a kid of his own, which we will be happy to do). And it gave us time to talk and just generally catch up on our day and the past year of married life.

We got home and after putting our kid to bed and thanking our friend profusely (and politely shooing him out the door, after making plans with him later in the week, so we could have the rest of the evening to ourselves), we opened that bottle of wine ($12-$14 Gollywobbler Peach from St. Michael's Winery). This is way cheaper than drinking a bottle or 4-6 glasses at a restaurant any day, and amazing to boot! If you haven't had the Gollywobbler Peach, I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on it. It's made by a small winery in Maryland, and is sweet like a dessert wine but cheaper than most dessert wines, and even my husband who is not usually a sweet wine sort of guy, loves it.

We watched an episode of Leverage on the laptop, while snuggling together in bed and drinking our wine. This saved us a boatload instead of going to the movies, especially since my husband is one of those people who has to buy a drink at the concession stand when we go to a movie, and maybe some popcorn or candy too. And we were nice and cozy at home to boot. We also had access to ice cream, but since the wine was so sweet, it satisfied our cravings for dessert as well.

Recipe: German Bread Pudding

I have been trying to nail down my grandmother's bread pudding recipe for literally years. Unfortunately, asking her doesn't do much good as she never measures anything. Watching doesn't necessarily work because she makes it a little differently every time and doesn't stop to wait for you to measure what she's throwing into the mix, so here is the closest approximation I've found that results in a finished product close to what I'm used to eating. My grandmother always served this as the entrée with tomato soup as an appetizer.

 

The base for this recipe comes from this site on Traditional German Cookery, from the recipes for Bread Pudding (Old, old recipe) and Weissbrot Pudding (White Bread Pudding) by Selma Dalgety.

 

Ingredients:

3-4 cups dried bread cubes (or enough to fill your pan and then some)

6 small green apples, sliced into small chunks

2 cups whole milk, scalded

1/2 cup butter, melted

4 eggs, beaten so the yolks combine with the whites

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit.

Put bread cubes and sliced apples in a big bowl. Combine all of the other ingredients in another bowl and whisk for no more than one minute or until all ingredients have combined. Pour the liquid over the bread and apples as evenly as possible. Use your hands to mix the bread and apples until all the liquid has been absorbed into the bread. Let is sit in the fridge for at least one hour (3-4 hours is preferable) until the mixture has been absorbed partially or entirely into the bread. Grease a 9 by 13 inch pan and then fill it with the mixture and smash mixture down with your hands until it is level with the rim of the pan. Put on center rack and bake for 40-45 min. or until golden brown and crispy. Serve with canned fruit in syrup (family favorites include plums - which my grandmother used to can herself, mandarin oranges, or pears).