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.

Use It Up

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
That was the mantra of my grandmother's generation. My parents live by those words pretty well, too, but I, unfortunately, have more trouble with it. No matter how hard I try, I always seem to end up with more stuff than I need, want, or can even find room to store. I'm not a clothes horse (more like a fashion victim, truth be told), and I don't collect, well, collectibles. But I'm magnetically attracted to bookshops, and office supplies, and toys for my kids. Nothing big, mind you, but even the little things add up. Perhaps if I only got big things, I'd get 3, then my house would be full and I'd stop...

In any case, here I am, almost done with yet another military tour, facing another move and somehow I've got more stuff again. We'll be moving by the end of the year, so now is the time to downsize our stuff. I officially notified my family last week. No. More. Stuff. Let's start by "using it up".

I don't just mean "Don't buy more stuff," I also mean "Use the stuff we already have and no one bothers to look for before buying more stuff". For example, my dear husband, who is an intelligent man, is incapable of buying hair conditioner. If it's on my shopping list, he will invariably come back with shampoo. In fact, he's told me he read the bottle 47 times and duct-taped his hand to the correct one, only to find it's shampoo, not conditioner, when he gets home. Anyone with long hair knows that you go though buckets more conditioner than shampoo, so long story short, we have gallons of shampoo. Of course, movers won't move liquids, so the shampoo has got to go. No one in this house is to buy another drop of shampoo until every last bottle of the stuff is gone. Period.

I'm also trying the use it up approach in the kitchen. I'm not sure how much Worcestershire sauce I can go through a few tablespoons at a time, but I'll use up that bottle before I buy any more seasonings even close to it, gosh darn it! That jar of capers? My new favorite garnish. Jello molds every Sunday until Christmas. Maybe I can even find a use for that Cheese soup... ok, maybe not. Sorry - I love cheese, REAL cheese. I just can't handle cheese soup in a can. But the rest of it, I'm using. My family is in for some interesting meals in the next few months. Sometimes I even make a game of seeing how long I can put off grocery shopping, but that's another story...