http://www.littlestomaks.com/2.....-a-budget/

One tip – watch the ingredients. I’m on a Kellogg’s boycott. Grew up with their cereals but I noticed that every one of them has high fructose corn syrup. I try to stay away from that stuff as much as possible.

A recent find for us is quinua. It’s a pasta like grain that has great protein content. You cook it up with some roasted veggies and it’s great!

We got a deep freezer free from Freecycle and purchased a half-cow this year. I think we saved about $200 this year just by buying the beef in bulk.

Organic chicken, on the other hand, is super expensive in our area. I’m still looking!

Yes, buying organic is more $. I have compromised for years by buying juice oranges (taste better) & cooking apples (no waxing) – and bananas, which you can peel – to avoid pesticides. It’s only since organic peaches, nectarines and so on are available at the local Farmer’s Mkt. that I can eat them without whatever they put on them irritating my lips/mouth!!

There have always been problems with the food supply. We just have to do the best we can and avoid fatty foods (carcinogens) as much as we can.
The only thing I get at fast food joints is ice tea to go and at McD’s their yogurt and ice cream!!Altho occasionally I go to Carl’s Jr. or Arby’s…

I was raised up on “real” food – no chips or that sort of stuff – & avoidance of overly processed food. It’s appalling what people eat nowadays. All those empty calories & it doesn’t even taste GOOD. The real stuff tastes much BETTER. I can’t eat industrial donuts & pastries, because they leave a funny chemical taste in my mouth.

But with picking & choosing you can do all right even in a large chain grocery. Just get the old-fashioned unprocessed stuff – real cheese & bread & fruit & vegies & nuts and so on! Real juice instead of sugar water & tea & coffee you make yourself. Cut back on the soda (I do like diet cola!) – Read labels! I read somewhere that you just go around the OUTSIDE aisles of the grocery store & avoud the inside ones where are the industrial food ends up. Bag of frozen veggies are a good deal & not expensive, and are easy to cook up. You can get bags of potatoes & make them all sorts of different ways. I like backed potatoes, cut in half, with the centers scooped out and a raw egg put it with soy bacon bits. Then broiled until the egg sets. Yummy & very easy.

We fully use our large freezer, buy things on sale & have them later. Use the leftovers to make soups or stews & not let much go to waste. (Sometimes the bananas do get overripe.) Certain things keep, like heads of cabbage (more economical and healthy for salads than just lettuce), and apples and oranges. I remember a writer who said that his idea of prosperity was to be able to have fancy fruits like peaches more often instead of the old stand-bys like apples (& for me, prunes.) Dried fruit – like the prunes and raisins lasts a long time, too.

You can look for deals in canned goods and bottled goods, which again which last a long time. REAl Chinese soy sauce (from the 99 Cent Store) is a bargain. And they also have teriyaki sauces, salad dressings, and all sorts of things to spice up your meals. I stock up on the pickled red peppers when they have jars of them!
And the crackers are a good deal, too.

Having the fixings on the shelf makes it easy to whip up an emergency meal – like spaghetti salad and avoid the fast food outlets. Soups are great for combining leftovers, especially in colder weather.

I learned from my mother never to just serve food as is – but to add spices to bottled spaghetti sauce, and fresh onions, and garlic, for ex. The bottled version is only the base on which you build your own meal. You can also add wine to sauces and soups and stews to beef up the flavor. Sweet & sour sauce is made up with tomato sauce, with added sugar & cider vinegar for the sour!

This will give you a brief idea of how I stretched my food budget for YEARS. Now that I am married, we have a little leeway (in the old days having a meal delivered was a real TREAT). Luckily for us, where we are there are all sorts of good places that deliver & are not too expensive. And you can recycle the noodles/rice and so on from an Asian meal, too!

It’s not salads with argula or anything fancy most of the time – but it is good, basic & nutritious food! And we even add vitamins for further insurance, as you never know the real vitamin content of the food you eat.

1. Keep it simple nothing wrong with shepherds pie

2. Be realistic I love cooking but will probably never bake bread

3. Freeze it for later.

This is really what made all the difference in the world. It’s just my wife and I so we tend to eat at different times so I now freeze everything into individual portions. Takes up more freezer room but I haven’t bought a prepared Lasagna in like forever, as well my wife rarely eats in the cafeteria at work as she always brings meal with her.

Unfortunately over here in Spain organic food is almost unheard of so we’re pretty limited to regular store produce.