Recipe for Cooking on a Tight Budget

Instructions: I would recommend that you look at your nearest great big booksellers. There are very many good cookbooks out there that dont just have recipes, but teach ways in which to stretch food dollars. Depending on where they live, they can look into courses offered through the Extension Office of the local State University, I took and taught classes called EFNEP - Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. It is a great series
where you learn how to eat very well on very little. It has been years since my first class, but I still follow the cookbook and principals outlined in it, and manage to feed this crowd on about $80 a week for the 5 of us. Especially expecting a baby I would recommend it highly. Some programs are set up where they visit you at your home, others have classes set up that you attend.

ALSO - clue her in to mixes you make yourself for baking and pancakes etc.

There is a section on the following site: http://www.egroups.com/group/realfood and there are more out there. Once a month cooking is another good part of this site and really makes a difference in both time and money. I

"cook" twice a week, but make the whole weeks worth of food, so I have modified it to some extent to fit our family.

To find the extension office, look in the government pages section, or if you know the university its through in your area, they will have it listed in their listing in the directory. Theyre top flight, and the services are totally free.

They can even help to plan a garden for next year to cut out costs for all their veggies and many fruits. I fed all three of my sons from our garden as soon as they could have baby food - I pureed cooked veggies and fruits for them. (cost me only time and the cost of seeds the first season).

Bread machine is an invaluable device unless you live near a bakery outlet store. Making my own bread has saved me bundles, but now I live near by an outlet and get my bread 6 loaves for a dollar, and every tenth trip I get two free. Even I cant make it for less.

Another really beneficial idea is to go in on a membership to Costco or Sams or a place like it with you or a neighbor. The stores dont like people to share memberships, so you have to be somewhat sly, but buying in bulk for two households that are smaller is a big saver. I have a membership myself, but often get lists from my neighbors and we go in on many things that are just too much the way they package them, but find them to be much less costly by the bulk

(NOT all things mind you!)

Also, you should know about shopping by the unit price, not the total price posted. Most groceries on the shelves by the item will print out the price, and in (usually) the left upper corner) they post a unit price, thats the amount it costs either by the ounce, or by the piece or whatever. That reflects what you really are paying. For example, shopping for Christmas dinner green bean casserole, I needed green beans. The store brand (usually the better price) was a sale price of .79 for a 16 oz can, and then Del Monte was on sale 3 for a dollar, but they were the little cans 10 oz each. I would have had to stand there and calculate this, but in the unit price box, it does it for you. The store brand was 4.93 cents per ounce, and the Del Monte was 3.33 cents per ounce. This tells you immediately which is the more costly item.

Further, sales flyers from the stores rotate predictably, offering meats as the main focus one week, canned vegetables the next, produce the next, etc. If you can study it just a month or so, you will find the cycle, and be able to shop for what you need on a monthly
plan, and thereby get all you buy at a sale price. I get comments from the gals at my local grocery (Kroger) that "...everything you bought today was on sale!!" That was the whole idea! is my response. I very rarely, if ever, pay full price for grocery store items.