Okay, so money is pretty tight right now. Let some things get in the red, and I'm needing to figure out how to tighten the bootstraps until they get back on track.
Any ideas? I always find it very hard to buy healthy ingredients and keep things cheap, and I'd love to try and figure something out for now. Dh is needing to spend a lot on gas this week for obligations and interviews, and I'm really worried.
If you use the search key at the top of the page and search on Aldi or budget, you will find several threads that have discussed ways to save money on groceries while dieting (Aldi usually comes up because it's a discount chain).
You don't have to answer these here, but give the questions some consideration:
Is this going to be a rather long-term problem (more than a week or two)
Are you following on WW on your own, or are you going to meetings? If you're going to meetings, I know it's going to be tempting to drop your WW membership and go it on your own. And that's a legitimate option for some people, but if you're getting something out of the weekly weigh-ins and meetings, this should be a last resort. When my husband lost his job when his company was in the process of moving to Mexico (of course they didn't use that as a reason for his job disappearing or they would have had to pay him significantly more unemployment benefits) we had to quit our WW group. Very bad idea, especially with the stress of the financial issues.
For me, the group support and weigh-in is key. I prefer TOPS to WW (I'm coleader of our group, so I'm obviously biased), in large part, because it is much cheaper, but I hesitate to suggest that WW members quit WW to join TOPS just to save money. If things are desperate, that's a good choice, but if they're not - you've already built up relationships with the leader and members of your group, and that is priceless.
When I told my mom about TOPS and how much I loved it and how much cheaper it was than WW, she quit her WW group to join TOPS (she and Dad are retired and are facing some financial challenges on the fixed-income), but then never joined TOPS. She had a bit of a backslide before getting back on track. So now I'm more cautious about recommending TOPS to current WW members.
If you've got a little time, I'd suggest browsing the threads here on saving money and on the internet in general (google frugle or tightwad or similar terms). Searching amazon.com for frugle meals or looking up the book Miserly Moms and it will bring up a list of "people who looked at this item also bought...." Good Cheap Food is a great cookbook (the very last chapter is on "desperate" times menus, but they're very desperate eggs, potatoes and cabbage recipes).
One thing I do is substitute tvp for some of my ground beef (the recipe is in many of those threads I mentioned searching earlier). I make the ground beef mixture (browned and ready to use) and put it in the freezer. Every ten to fifteen minutes I go and shake or smoosh the bag so the mixture freezes in a way that I can just scoop out what I need instead of trying to saw off part of a block. I do this with beans too. Dry beans are a lot cheaper than canned, but take an hour or so to cook (after the beans have soaked overnight). Freezing them "scoopably" makes it easy to make a big batch.
The freeze and scoop method not only allows me to save money, but makes it easy to make quick meals that seem like I had time to fuss.
Minnestrone soup (using the frozen tvp mixture, the beans, some V-8 and chicken broth as a base) and some frozen mixed vegetables (keep a lot of different mixes on hand. love Walmart's asparagus stir fry blend) and some very small pasta shells or other small shapes (they cook faster).
Chili (also using the frozen tvp/beef mixture and the beans. Tomato paste and spicy V-8 and a small can of green chilis).
Spaghetti (the tvp added to jarred sauce, sometimes the beans go in there too).
tacos (I just add taco seasoning to some of the tvp and yep beans too).
Omelettes and scrambled eggs aren't just for breakfast when money's tight.
A crockpot comes in handy when you want to save money. If you don't have one, check out the thrift stores. You can often get one still in the box for under $10 (Walgreens and usually Big Lots even sell one for $10).
Chicken legs and thighs are a lot cheaper, though a little higher in calorie than white meat.
Google crockpot recipes and you'll find alot of ideas, most of them cheaper than the average meal.
Once you get the hang of it, you'll think of tons of ideas on your own, but for now browse here and elsewhere on the internet for ideas.
Have you heard of angelfoodministries.com? Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing food relief and contributing to benevolent outreaches in communities throughout the United States.
There are no restrictions, conditions or forms to fill out to purchase Angel Food. The food relief program is open to anyone. You may purchase an unlimited number of boxes of Angel Food by placing an order with a local Angel Food host site. Joe and Linda Wingo founded Angel Food Ministries in 1994 to provide food for friends and neighbors who were struggling financially.
I know families that have used them in tough times. My dad's church is a host site.
Something that I do when the food budget is tight is to check circulars as well as online grocery coupons sites for local deals. My sil, who is also on WW, is a genius at workin' the food budget.
Have you tried price matching at wal-mart? I'm not sure if this is helpful to you, but I wish you lots of luck.
Is there a Costco near you? If it is close enough for you to use it on a regular basis, it might be worth the $50 membership fee. They have great bulk produce, frozen items, meat, poultry, etc.
I do much of my shopping at our Wal-Mart Supercenter. I have a basic idea in my head of what Wal-Mart charges for most things I buy, so I do a quick mental comparison between them and the two regional grocery stores near us. Interestingly enough, the smaller places have better sales on some things than the prices at Wal-Mart, so I try to pick items (like cereals & produce) up when I see them on the good sales.
We did have a Costco membership, and we love Costco. Unfortunately, we have to drive about 45-50 minutes to get there, and we have to drive 45-50 minutes to get to Sam's Club as well. We haven't renewed the Costco membership yet because my husband no longer works down in that area, and it would be a trip out of our way. We'll get around to it sometime, because there are multiple Costcos near where his parents live and we visit frequently. Just haven't done it yet.
One big thing I need to do is shop the ads and clip coupons again, as I did when we were first married. I was much better with the budget then. Just the other day, we were in one of our smaller stores and I saw they have the Curves cereal on sale for 2/$5 this week. I had just paid $3-something at the other store for a box. I think I could have saved myself $.75 on one box if I had checked out the sale papers...and if there was a coupon anywhere in the newspaper, that would have been even better.
Have you heard of angelfoodministries.com? Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing food relief and contributing to benevolent outreaches in communities throughout the United States.
There are no restrictions, conditions or forms to fill out to purchase Angel Food. The food relief program is open to anyone. You may purchase an unlimited number of boxes of Angel Food by placing an order with a local Angel Food host site. Joe and Linda Wingo founded Angel Food Ministries in 1994 to provide food for friends and neighbors who were struggling financially.
I know families that have used them in tough times. My dad's church is a host site.
I have heard of Angel Food Ministries before and have considered using them. A church about 25-30 mins away is the closest host site.
Only thing I wonder about is how diet-friendly their meats and such are. I'd have to look at my points companion and what meats are on their list for each month I'm considering it.
That's my difficulty. I CAN stretch a food budget and have done it before. Problem is, it seems in order to stretch a food budget around here, I need to switch to much less healthy food items. The highest-fat ground meats, cheap processed foods (I like Zatarain's & Hamburger Helper, but try not to use them all the time because of the sodium content), white bread, cereals that have next to no real nutritional value, like a generic Rice Crispies or Corn Flakes, etc. Produce isn't especially cheap around here. I'd like to check out the Farmer's Market that comes to a location about 15 minutes from here each week. Just need to be armed with cash enough to buy what I need.
So that's where I'm having a hard time. Meshing the two. I can shop healthy, and I can shop cheap. Just trying to figure out how to shop healthy AND cheap, together.
If you're going to meetings, I know it's going to be tempting to drop your WW membership and go it on your own.
Hey, Kaplods,
Already doing it on my own, with support here and the at-home materials I bought. So thankfully I'm not in the position to have to think about dropping the WW meetings.
Kaplods had some great practical advice for cheap + healthy. If you're really tight, forget the fresh produce - it is far too expensive to justify when you are really worried about just subsisting for a month until things get better. Frozen veggies are often on sale and are cheap even without sales and are perfectly viable nutrition-wise. Dry beans are far cheaper than canned, and if you're pressed for time do as kaplods suggested and make ahead/freeze. (Did you know canned beans were the first convenience food? )
Crock pots can do wonders with cheap discount cuts of meat - things that would usually be tough and unpleasant become delicious. Easy to toss together a dinner if you have a crockpot, it can also do dry beans.
Oatmeal is dirt-cheap and generally better for you than boxed cereals. Plus you can customize it every morning to keep it different so you don't get tired of it. Boxed cereals are never going to be as good of a deal as plain rolled oats bought in large quantities.
Have you visited Hillbilly Housewife? Her website is full of very frugal, easy meal ideas and has "emergency" menus to feed a family on very little for a month. She does try to keep an eye on health content as well, though I admit a lot of her stuff tends to include boxed/white flour items because they are just plain cheaper. She does a pretty good job at finding a balance, though.
Have you thought about gardening? I pick our salads out of my backyard. Even if you have an apartment deck, you can plant some hanging tomatoes and some bibb lettuce.
Ever have tight-budget weeks? What to do?
)
