Classic Common Cents in the Kitchen

One of the greatest challenges for many families seems to be balancing the grocery budget. Of course, in the current economy, almost everyone is mindful of their spending (or counting every penny, more likely!). We all want to feed our families well, but that "well" can take on a whole range of meanings. It could mean providing a lot of food, which is certainly a priority for families with teenagers or athletes. It might mean offering a diverse, global sampling of menus as an ongoing cultural lesson. In an increasing number of families, feeding them "well" means that no one goes to bed hungry. (If you think that only kids in far-away lands are starving, think again. 17 million children in America are going hungry. Check out Share Our Strength to learn more about how you can help.)

For many families, however, being well-fed means something in the middle. For us, it means providing the healthiest meals I can while staying within a modest, sometimes meager, food budget. As the recession wears on, I see more and more people opening up about their own budgets and asking others for input and tips. I've added a poll to the site and I'd love for you to cast your vote about your own budget. In the meantime, I'd like to share some of my favorite grocery resources with you.




For me, the greatest savings is in making as much as possible from scratch. Not everyone has the time or skills to cook all the time, but home cooking does allow you to buy in bulk, save packaging, and save money. If it's not really your thing, I encourage you to check out Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook. Jamie has 4 kids of his own and has entirely revamped the English school lunch plan to incorporate healthier foods, but more importantly (for you & me at 5 pm), he's written this great cookbook with truly simple, healthy meals.I call them "throw together" food, because really, they are. There's very little cooking involved, and they're all fairly cheap to put together. In fact, I've found many of the recipes in this book to be great for using what's on hand, or on sale, or at the farmer's market that day. Even if you don't cook, check out the book. Jamie's just so darn cute!


For more mature audiences, try Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way and More Fast Food My Way books. They're companion books to his PBS series of the same name, and I reach for them all the time.
Yes, I love, love, LOVE Jacques, but the reason I recommend his work so often is because no one - and I mean No One - is a master of technique like he is. There are many great chefs, but the system of training culinary apprentices from childhood has all but vanished (not that I support child labor, but that's how it used to be done). If you really want to learn the basics of classic food preparation, and be able to consistently buy whatever is best for the least money and make something amazing with it, I encourage you to check out Jacques Pepin's books and DVDs. Many of them are showcased at the bottom of the page.

Ok, so you don't want to read books or learn how to cook right now. I understand. I personally don't use coupons too often, since they're rarely for bulk or generic items, but sometimes they do come in handy. Really savvy coupon users can do truly astounding things, like feed a family of four on $35 a week. Um, wow. That's just mind-blowing to me. If you want to join their ranks, here are some great sites to get you started.

Money Saving Mom From the $35 a week mom herself. Check out her whole series on grocery savings.
Hip2Save Heads up on coupons and tons of offers. Basically a online ground zero for sharing great savings news
Coupon Mom Couponing 101. Find all the weekly coupons rounded up here, and beginners will do well to check out her video tutorial.

Finally, here are some sites I like on simply living on the cheap. If you've ever considered making your own detergent, these are the site for frugal people like you.

Local Harvest Helps you find your local farmer's market and farms.
Simple Dollar Sound, common sense financial advice
Get Rich Slowly More good old-fashioned financial sense

There are billions of blogs and websites out there with great advice, and I hope you'll share some of your favorites. Some of the classic information may get repeated, but that's good - it reinforces our gut instincts and tells us we're on the right track. We're all in this together, and we'll get through it sticking together and helping each other.

Momnivore Meltdown

Have you ever fallen off the wagon? Been derailed by a some unforeseen force? Fallen flat on your face? Heck, forgotten the mission ("Squirrel!")? Yeah, that's me. The past, oh, month or so has been less than stellar, mission-wise. So it's confession time.

The greenest product I've bought was a pint of Ben & Jerry's. My son's 7th birthday party was an Alien/Outer Space theme, filled with glow in the dark toys and silly string, which can't possibly be natural. We used chemical warfare to rid Fido of fleas, and our favorite farm is on hiatus from the Farmer's Market until fall. My little container garden has all but died, for no reason I can discern, and Basil the Toad seems to have moved out. No, I haven't done well at all lately.

On the other hand, our A/C broke for almost a week, so we saved a lot of energy by not using it. We also saved a lot of personal energy by not moving much that week. We ate very little, mostly fruits and vegetables, since it was too hot to cook, or eat, and we didn't need the calories anyway since we'd given up moving. Since we were eating so much less, I could afford more organic, if not local, food. All in all, I guess we just about broke even. And the Ben & Jerry's was delicious.

I'd like to say I'm back on track now, but I'm not. I finally balanced my checkbook for the first time in several weeks, which only goes to show how far I'd fallen. In a few days we're off on a family vacation, and since it's not an eco-vacation, I doubt we'll conserve much of anything. We're staying in a commercial hotel, eating at restaurants and going to tourist attractions - generally being ugly, wasteful Americans. To be honest, I'm really looking forward to it. After that, it's time for back to school, and that mandatory supply list is always long and expensive. My children also insist on growing, so now I'll have to put them in bigger clothes, i.e. shop. I, personally, can't wedge myself into clothes I bought only a few months ago, but let's not go there.

So is there an end, or a new beginning in sight? Perhaps. At least I feel guilty for not living better, and that's a start. Eventually it may drive me to work harder again. Frankly, for a thick-blooded Yankee like me, summer heat is just like an "Off" switch. My brain fails, my will fails, all motivation is lost. Call me a big wuss, but I just can't take the heat in Florida in summer. I've been trying for years, but I just can't hack it. Even my kids are fantasizing about blizzards by now, and they're almost too little to remember snow. Even in Florida, though, this heat can't last forever. I'm hopeful that I'll get a second wind when it cools off a bit, maybe in October or November, at the latest. In the meantime, I hope the guilt kicks in for me, and that my shameful confession, if it sounds at all familiar to you, gives you permission to forgive yourself and start fresh.

Namaste'