Making Do Without Missing a Thing---Eating like a King on a Shoestring Budget

Welcome back! We are about ready to finish up our second week of a six week installment in the series Making Do Without Missing a Thing---a basic step by step plan on how to save money in unexpected and basic ways in today's financially stressful economy. These two weeks so far have started to teach you to make your own Master mixes for cheaper than you can purchase pre-made boxes, covered how much money and time you can save by making a meal plan and sticking to it, and then finally the  last couple posts have been about how to build up a pantry you will use, and WHY you should do it.I know for a lot of you this is a lot of information and you will be coming back time and again to read the next installment after you have implemented them one at a time.
   I have had a couple people ask me why I am choosing to blog about this rather than some of the things I have blogged about in the past. It is because I have a passion for teaching, and more than anything, it is difficult for me to see so many people struggling for lack of information and a path to follow in saving money in the kitchen and home. I cant tell you how hard it is for me to go grocery shopping and see the prices rising each time I am in there (my husband actually is a manager at a grocery store), and see people shaking their heads at the prices, knowing that they will be choosing one thing over another because they cant afford both. Or another thing that really gets to me are watching people like my  mother, who is on a now-fixed income at 67, literally skimping by on the last week of the month because the budget only goes so far, and when you take a multiple hit in different areas such as heating costs, taxes, and the rising food costs, you have to decide where to cut. For most people that place to cut is not in the heating or gas area. It is in the food and household needs area.
   I promise you, because I live it every day, you can make things work if you are willing to spend a little effort and time, investing yourself, into following the steps I am continuing to show you over the next four weeks as we finish this series out. I am excited about the comments that I have received so far as I know people are not only reading this, but seeing the sense and honesty in the process. I just want to encourage you today, no matter where you are starting out, that first step is the most important, because you are on the move to a healthier family and a bigger budget through following this. :)
   Ok, Well today we are going to cover two separate topics that are linked in a way as they both deal with building up your food storage/pantry.

   When I first started this path about 8 years ago, I had no idea that groceries (and pretty much anything household, such as sheets, and appliances etc) all go through sales cycles at approximately the same time each year. While my mother's generation grew up with this knowledge and used it to their advantage, it is just one more thing that has gotten lost in the midst of a culture that contains a lot of broken families and family members who are scattered all across the states from one another. Generations ago, you would most likely be born in the same house or hospital as your family was, you would grow up on the same street, your grandparents were a short walk away (or lived in the same house as you as they grew older), and when you married or grew up, you would live a short distance away. This is how families lived and passed knowledge down from one generation to another. I have been blessed to have my mom near me now for almost 7 years, and I cant tell you how much things have changed and the things I have learned from her.
   Sales cycles are common and predictable, which is great news for those of us who live on a budget and choose to make meals plans that use a lot of ingredients from our pantries as the bulk of what we eat. It means that we can know, within reasonable doubt, when a product that we use often throughout the year, or a portion of the year, will go on sale so that we can stock up on it. I like to call it "Long-term Stocking". Let's go back to the idea of the Rotel Tomatoes that my family loves to eat. Those tomatoes, unfailingly for the last year, have gone on sale right around New years, and then again around the Superbowl. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why if you have ever been to a party around either one of those dates. :) See the manufacturers are willing to make a little less profit if it means that they will sell more of the same product and so they end up making more in the end off of you and I doing our basic grocery shopping.
   So what I am challenging you to do is to consider, again,those basic items that you wrote down that are the basis for many meals in your pantry. And I want you to look at the two links I am providing and write down when those items are going to go on sale. And how often they go on sale throughout the year (*hint*--most items it is at least twice, and sometimes as often as every other month). There is only one drawback...you will find there are some items, mostly  very basic ones such as flour, that rarely go on sale more than once a year (which happens to be around Christmas as so many people are baking). That is ok, as you will be saving so much money on getting the other items on sale that when you need to replace what you have, even if you are paying full price or close, you are still saving money in your budget because you are purchasing in larger amounts. Here is the main link I wanted to share with you:
http://www.printfriendly.com/print/v2?url=http://www.livingrichlyonabudget.com/grocery-sale-cycles-when-do-things-go-on-sale 
   By the way, the blog above is an excellent one for learning to use coupons and matching them with your sales to achieve even greater savings. I believe there are more than enough blogs out there who will teach you to do that if you would like to learn more. One that I often receive information from is here.

I am hoping in the near future (once this series is done) to have a guest blogger come on and explain the ins and outs of coupon-ing for those of you who are interested. Right now, however, I think we need to keep focused on the basics. One step at a time!  If this information whets your whistle for learning about more household items going on sale and when, I would encourage you to just to a little research on your own. Honestly, there is no reason why anyone should have to pay full price for anything, because everything, at one time or another each year, goes on sale. If you know you are going to need a new appliance, or furniture, things that require a large investment, then I would encourage you to Google that information and start saving the money each grocery cycle that you are saving until you can plunk cash down for that item thanks to the intentional spending decisions you have been making with what you are learning here. It is possible, trust me! :)

  The second area I would like to talk to you about in building your pantry has everything to do with the discussion on sales cycles above. I want to encourage you to break the average American cycle of going to the grocery store each and every week, and begin to plan ahead on your grocery spending. If you have set up a meal plan a couple weeks ahead, I want to encourage you to double it this week. Plan out for a month. Or six weeks as I do. Look at the amount of groceries that will be needed for that time. Seems overwhelming, doesn't it? But just like one of my favorite sayings points out;;"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."...and when it comes to living the way my family does, that is the crystal clear truth. Taking intentional steps to build a pantry that I can pull from for any meal for six weeks leaves us where I was about a month ago--taking $100 into the grocery store and leaving with $70...and a cart full of items that were mostly to replace what we had eaten off of at home. I want you to start thinking about storing enough of one item to get from one sales cycle to another, and being determined not to pay full price for anything unless you can help it.

   In a lot of circles, this is called buying in bulk. You choose to intentionally purchase more of an item with the purpose of it lasting longer and using it more before you need to purchase it again. Doesn't it make sense that if you can buy a three month supply of one item, at 39 cents a can less, and keep it on a shelf until it goes on sale again, that you will save money in the process? It works!
    One of the easiest things to store for a period of longer than a few weeks are canned goods. Is your family like mine and they love canned peaches? Then find out the sales cycle on that item and purchase enough to get you through until the next time you will buy them on sale. Maybe that is 8 cans---maybe it is 24. Build you grocery shopping trips around those sales and go into the store planning on picking up what you need for your meal plan (which, hint hint, can use meals that will use those items that you are picking up on sale) and invest in the items that will stretch you through a couple months.
   Now I can hear some of you saying: "I don't have enough storage space for that!" Or, "Egads, three months worth of canned peaches? What would I do with them?" (IN a British accent, of course)
    Folks, it is up to you whether you begin to stretch your monthly budget or your mindset on how to save your family money. I'll tell you the truth---I have been one of those women who checked out at Walmart with a load of canned fruit, 2- 25 lb bags of flour on the bottom of the cart, and three cans of full-fat dried milk. I have gotten the looks and the smiles, and I have even been asked if I am LDS or have a huge family at home. But for me, as much as it amuses me, it also saddens me that some people choose not to do this because they are so used to making excuses for not doing things, that they cant think beyond those excuses to find a way to do it. The other thing that makes me so sad, and I hear often, are those people who are not doing it because they are worried about the reaction from other people--the checkout person, the neighbor, the friend or even family member. Frankly, if any of those people want to buy groceries for my family and be responsible for that area, then and only then, am I going to care a whit for their opinion. I know my family is well fed, healthy and happy...and with twin toddlers,I am thrilled that I don't have to drag everyone through the grocery store. :)
   Bulk items are easy to store, and I have two favorite ways. The first is in using plastic food-grade buckets that can easily be obtained from groceries, delis, or bakeries for little to nothing. Some places (actually most now) have to pay to have them recycled and are happy to have you take them off their hands. Some dont, and will charge you a small fee, such as $1 or $2 for a 5 gallon pail. I, of course, always check a few places trying to find the free ones before I will pay anything for a storage bucket. DO NOT use anything such as a drywall paste bucket or anything that is not food grade. It will have chemicals that will leach into the stored food and your family will be eating food tainted with chemicals that could make them very sick. And it doesn't matter how many times you wash that bucket, it will still have those chemicals in the compound makeup of the plastic in the bucket. SO choose wisely and go the safe route--look for and ONLY use food grade.
   My second favorite way to store food is in using glass canning jars or popcorn tins. The simple reason is that I live in farm country, and do not desire to give any of the cute scampering creatures that live in the fields (such as field mice) any reason whatsoever to decide my home is a pleasanter place to be that outside. They are destructive creatures and besides the grossness of knowing those filthy animals have romped across my hard earned pantry stuffs, they can destroy and entire years worth of pantry items that are improperly boxed in less than a night. (remember me telling you to learn from my mistakes? This is a biggie). My canning jars are reused throughout the year, and now because we buy mostly 9 months to a year ahead, I most often use the gallon (aka Pickle) or half gallon jars that are available at most hardware stores. Not only are they rodent safe, and non tempting for such creatures, they can be lovely stored in a cupboard with the colors of the food showing through, such as beans, or popcorn. :) Two birds with one stone is totally awesome to me.
 Popcorn tins can be found at every single thrift store I have ever been in (unless you have some very smart patrons who are scalping them to use for food storage), and they will cost you pennies. They are awesome for anything from flours to bag of nuts or chocolate chips, and can be stacked easily. :)
   You can purchase bulk foods from places like Sam's Club, Costco, or even Amazon.com. Once you start this mindset, you will be looking at the bulk packages of meat or cheese, in the grocery store and wondering if it is really worth your money to purchase 5 lbs of burger rather than the 1-2 lb package you normally do. Is it on sale? Then I would go for it, buy some freezer baggies and split it up when you get home. Store the cheese in your fridge or freezer until you need it. A sale is money in your pocket, and once you get on this bandwagon of seeing things in a different way, you will be looking for deals everywhere.
      Quickly--if you are looking for some good resources for making up meal plans and how to turn it into grocery shopping lists, this is the site that started me on a lot of learning and googling journeys over the last two years. Just put Meal planning into the search on her site and you will be amazed at the ideas. She also talks about this concept of buying and planning in bulk and tells her story...worth your time to grab a cup of coffee and read.
   Finally, this place is one of my favorites to purchase healthy foods in bulk from---it is a co-op with drops all over the US. Check into it--their service is great and the food is top notch.
http://www.azurestandard.com/

                                                                     Ready, set, GO!


Good luck to you on your shopping trips! Keep that printout handy when you make up your meal lists and your shopping lists. You are well on your way to shaving money off your budget and eating more like a King while living on a shoestring!

Many Blessings to you and yours,

Heather

** Note: while we have not covered in depth or in direct numbers the amounts you can save using this way of buying and building a pantry, I will be posting on this in exact numbers it takes to buy something or make it at home. Since sales are relative to where you live, I may be able to buy all my rice on sale for 30% off, and you may get it for 40% off. I want you to simply get in the mindset that you are not willing to fill your pantry on items that are not discounted, not trying to give you specific numbers. Once we get to the post that I am sharing my meal plans and writing those items and numbers down (week six) you will be seeing how all of the tips and tricks I am trying to show you can come together to save you some significant savings. Thank you so much to the reader who had this question and was confused by my beginning statement in this post. I was simply referring to the amount you would save by stocking up in sales as we talked about in the last post. :)