Category: Market Basket

Frugal $50 Weekly Shopper Tips

The best way to take charge of a food budget is to buy all groceries with cash. The debit or credit card makes it easy to spend more than planned. It’s not hard to eat well yet stay on budget. Read on to discover different ways a frugal shopper can live well with a $50 weekly cash food budget.

Cash is King!

A useful activity is to track food expenses for a month or two. Save every receipt for purchases at the grocery and convenience store. The cup of coffee & purchased with a gas fill up is part of your weekly expense. Include all meals out as well. Use a notebook and pencil or a spreadsheet to chart every penny. After two full months, you’ll see trends and where you spend the most. Pick a week to start and either withdraw $50 in cash from the bank or $60 from the ATM. Save the $10 for a surprise expense fund we’ll talk about in a later article.

If part of your social life includes a cup of coffee and muffin at a local diner every morning, maybe that’s where the $10 will be spent. But, it’s all you have for the week. It’s important to live well, but keep an eye on costs. Consider one or two days a week instead of the daily visit. Locally, Brookfield Orchards has a $5 pancake breakfast once per month. I look forward to that and squirrel away the funds out of the cash weekly to go. Look for opportunities locally to do the same. It’s fun to socialize, just keep to cash.

Stock a Pantry

It’s important to plan the meals for the week and refer to the grocery store flyer for specials. Build meals around what is in the pantry and on sale. Start to build a pantry weekly. A pantry will have pasta, rice, herbs, spices, cereal, chicken stock, crushed tomato, flour, sugar and eggs.

Bargain Bins Bonanza!

Some grocery stores have a specific sale bin with mark downs at 50% to 75%. This would be a first stop for the frugal shopper and may create a shift in purchases. Or, be a way to start that pantry. The local Hannaford Market in North Brookfield sales bin routinely has wonderful surprises such as organic rice, cereal, cookies, vitamins and more. One day, there were premium organic taco shells for $2.00, a dozen to a box. My best day was finding jars of California Sun-Dried Tomatoes Julienne Cut With Herbs, 8.5 to 16 oz retail $5 to $12 per jar at $1.25 and $3, There’s a foodie inside of me that raves at moments like this. Yeah! We’re gonna have a great Italian dish with these for weeks to come 🙂

The local Big Y in Spencer and Ware have a mark down shelf. The Spencer Big Y routinely puts out a clearance table with deep discounts on premium products such as honey, soup beans, seasonings, cat food, cooking oils, etc. The bargains are there, it’s up to the savvy shopper to check, check and check again. Investigate local markets and find those patterns for savings.

Budget Meal Planning

An example of a planned budget meal recently was based on pork chops at $1.99 a pound. Buy a package of three for $3.89. The pork is nice and thick. The pantry will have rice, low sodium soy sauce and breadcrumbs (homemade). Purchase $1.00 bag of frozen peas or corn. Marinate the pork chops in soy sauce and canola oil. Dip in breadcrumbs and bake. Prepare the rice. Prepare the peas. Dice the cooked pork chops. Save the bones for soup recipes. Blend together the rice, peas and pork. This meal will most likely expand to four or five servings. Living on a frugal budget sometimes means eating the same thing a few days in a row. Or, brown bag three meals and freeze the rest.

Dollar Tree Stores

Bargains can be had for routine household items at Dollar Tree stores. Click on the link to find the store near you. Everything is a $1. Check them out for routine needs such as toilet paper, dish soap, nasal tissue, etc.. Personal care products such as shampoo and soap are available. A real find was Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Lip Balm, SPF 15 retail at $4. The grocery section often has name brand items such as Healthy Request® – Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. While I strongly advocate learning to make soup from scratch. This can be a pantry item and be a nice little meal when the dollars need to stretch a little more. I enjoy soy milk and have been delighted to find Eden Soy at $1 a carton. It normally retails for $3 to $4. Bring your own bags and enjoy a bonanza!

Coupons

A golden rule of frugal shopping is coupons. Always check for coupons. It’s so satisfying to watch the costs come down at the register. And, make sure you have a shopper’s store card for additional savings. Those $1, $.50 and $.30 cents off savings add up.

Frugal Choices

Several of my recipes on this blog are a combination of left overs and pantry items running low. I’ve learned to jazz up meals with herbs and spices included at the right moment. I always start soups with aromatics such as a shallot, carrot and garlic. This is the base and everything is added to it. While it would be wonderful to use a quality Olive Oil, and I only recommend Olive Oil directly from Italy or California, canola will be fine. It is tasteless and provides the cooking oil. Wesson brand sells for about $2 per bottle versus California Olive Ranch at $12. On a cash budget, it has to stay out of the cart. However, check that sales bin, you never know when the fancy oil will be there. I’ve picked up several bottles of quality toasted sesame oil for $2 per bottle.

Once you get into the pattern of $50 cash, the bargain hunter mode sets in.

I hope these ideas help you think outside the routine of one stop shopping. By knowing the pattern in the store, it can help make eating enjoyable but affordable. If you have ideas to share, leave a comment below.

Comfort Food on a Budget ~ Gemelli Pasta with Salame

So it happens, today is Sunday and the paycheck doesn’t arrive until Thursday. There’s a bit of this and that left over to expand into enough meals for five days. Winter has arrived in the Northeast and on this cold, sunny day, we make the best of it.

PREPARATION
Always, be sure the hands, surfaces, knives and kitchen ware are clean.
Always, allow the ingredients to come to room temperature prior to cooking

Recipe: 30 minutes to cook and serve

The leftovers include:
1/3 Columbus Chorizo salame
2 ounces BelGioioso Four Cheeses (Asiago, Fontina, Parmesan, Provolone)
1/2 bag frozen Hannaford brand peas
1/2 box Hannaford brand Gemelli macaroni
Herb Blend Salt Free Frontier All Purpose Seasoning

As the peas and pasta are cooking on the stovetop, mince the salame. In a bowl, combine salame, cooked peas and garlic (to taste).

The pasta is cooked al dente. It should be firm to the bite. Save some of the pasta water and drain into a collander. DO NOT RINSE. The secret to good pasta is to not rinse. While it is still hot, blend in cracked pepper, herbs and cheese. Stir until combined. Blend in the salame and peas mixture. Blend the two well.

Columbus Chorizo salame has a bit of heat to it with smoked paprika and garlic. The salame is fresh, gluten and msg free. BelGioioso Four Cheeses are lovely blended into any pasta or on pizza. The taste is smooth and melts beautifully on hot macaroni. No salt  is added to this recipe. There is no need. Frontier Salt Free Herb Blend provides excellent flavors to compensate.

This meal will have some heat to it and be flavorful on the tongue.

For a single person, it’s meals for several days. For a family, it’s one fantastic comfort food dish. What looked like a small amount of foods became an abundant one dish meal.

Serve on a warmed plate with a dry red Italian wine. At the last minute, squirt on some lemon juice. È delizioso!

Divine Tiramisu Mascarpone

Every once in a while, an accident happens with the best of consequences. The Hannaford Market weekly flyer advertised Bel Gioioso brand mascarpone cheese for sale at $3.69 per eight ounce container.  Several years ago when all things Italian became popular in my household, I gave this product a try. This soft cheese is spread on toast, bagels and mixed into dessert recipes. The flavor is light and creamy. The texture is silky smooth on the tongue. It’s never too sugary and has half the fat and calories of butter. It is truly soft in the container and can be easily spread with a butter knife. The taste is similar to half and half made into a cheese.

The specialty cheese section at the end of the produce aisle and near the deli counter is where the item is found. I picked up the container and went on with shopping. Later in the afternoon, tea time rolled around and a chance to enjoy a treat. A pistachio walnut muffin warm from the oven will be perfect with mascarpone. This is the moment I noticed the label was different, it’s not the plain variety. It’s called Bel Gioioso Tiramisu. Oh! The ingredients include coffee.

I am the odd American that never picked up the habit of drinking coffee. While on vacation in Italy, I had a few sips of espresso, but otherwise, don’t indulge.  I trust the brand so I opened the package and let my senses lead the way. The soft cheese is a beautiful shade of palest cafe au lait. The aroma is delicate and hinted at hazelnut. The texture is soft and light as expected. But, the flavor is not what I expect at all. It’s a light, light hint of coffee, almost cocoa in taste. This is yummy! Beyond yummy! It’s absolutely a divine combination of cream, milk, citric acid, coffee and sugar.

Mascarpone Bel Gioioso Tiramisu is perfect to spread on cookies, cakes and tiramisu. The majority of coffee flavored anything often tastes too strong and metallic. This tastes different. What a delightful mistake!  This recipe reminds me right away of Italy and the superb way flavors are blended together. No ingredient overpowers the other. The balance is well-crafted. I’d love to know what brand of coffee is used and how it is folded into the cheese. A query has been sent to the chefs. In response, “the coffee is a concentrated liquid coffee that is blended with the cheese during the cheese making process.” So, the brand stays a chefs secret. It’s got to be Italian coffee.

The label says it is made in Denmark, Wisconsin, but the cheese making technique is from Italy. Founder Enrico Auricchio from Naples came to America to start the cheese making business in 1979.  Two expert cheese makers from Italy, Mauro Rozzi and Gianni Toffolon, were brought into the business to put the craftsmanship into their product. Auricchio says, ” the art of the cheese makers is what makes the cheese different.” Agreed, the taste is clean, fresh and beautiful. As the name says, Bel Gioioso, or beautiful joy and it most certainly is.

The website for Bel Gioioso is user friendly and provides a display of their award-winning cheese products and recipes. Click on the link to explore the product selection. Every once in a while, an accident happens with the best of consequences.  È delizioso.