Ebony's Pearls

First Harvest
Originally uploaded by nodigio

1. Buy in bulk. It seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? When you buy in bulk, you often pay less per serving than if you bought smaller containers. This is not always true, so compare prices carefully if you choose to buy in bulk. A hidden cost of buying in bulk is the re-packaging of the item into smaller amounts. There’s also a hidden savings in buying in bulk: less disposable packaging means less in the landfill and less energy and pollution in creating the packaging. If you calculate the per serving price and factor in the hidden costs and savings, and it costs less, certainly buy in bulk! If it evens out, go ahead and buy in bulk so you can feel virtuous. If it costs more to buy in bulk – write the company and demand to know why.

2. Shop the sales, but only for items you are really going to use. It makes no sense to buy something on sale that you would never eat or use and never would have bought except that it was on sale. Save yourself money by not buying it at all if you don’t have immediate plans to use it. Check the prices at other stores through their sales fliers and use their frequent shopper cards.

3. Shop with friends – each of you goes to a different store with a pool of grocery money and a list from each of you on what to buy. Communicate via texting or cell phone on what’s on sale the cheapest and purchase for everyone in the group. Bulk buying rocks this way. Gather afterwards to divvy up the groceries and balance accounts with one another. Have a nutritious snack and coordinating session before you each head off to different grocery stores/markets so you don’t shop hungry.

4. Use coupons wisely. Your biggest savings will come from cleaning supplies and toiletries. Only use coupons for those food items you actually will eat. If you don’t eat Count Chocula cereal, don’t buy it just because you have a coupon. Instead of saving 50¢, you could be saving $3.00 by not buying it at all. Consider a coupon swap (maybe with your shopping buddies?) and use the various coupon printing websites such as thecouponclippers.com, thecouponmaster.com, couponmom.com, coupons.com, or smartsource.com (for more, just put “coupon clipping” in your search engine).

5. Buy store brands unless you know a specific brand is better and prefer it. Store brands are often made by name brand food manufacturers under labels for bulk purchasing stores. It’s the same food packaged differently. Store brands are often less expensive because the store pays for the packaging and marketing, not the food manufacturer. There are, however, some brands that are worth the extra, so splurge on them if you can afford it and want to. If you’re needing to save money, the store brands are good enough.

6. Ditch convenience foods. Most of them really aren’t convenient and few of them are healthy. Buy the ingredients instead and use those ingredients to make a variety of your own “convenience foods” that you make yourself. You can make them up fresh (a salad dressing comes together in just a few shakes) , make them in advance and can or freeze them (home made pesto freezes in ice cube trays wonderfully for pennies). Swap out the individual juice and milk cartons for a thermos and buy your beverages in bulk. Buy yogurt, dried fruit, apple sauce, canned fruits, pudding, and other individually packaged items in bulk and re-package them yourself in re-usable containers. Make your own popsicles, granola, cookies, salad dressings, sauces, and more. Do your own prep work – buy whole chickens and cut them up, buy whole vegetables and fruits and peel and chop them yourself. Buy roasts and cut them into steaks, stew meats, shish kabob cuts, and even grind your own ground meats. Buy bones and make your own soup stocks.

7. Shop the ethnic markets for staples. Chinese and Middle-eastern grocery stores often sell rice for far less than chain grocery stores (including Wal-Mart!). You can get fresh produce at them, too. Bulk herbs and spices are cheaper at ethnic grocery stores. Mexican grocery stores sell beans and rice for less, too as well as juices. Apricot, mango, pear, and strawberry juices can be as little as 18¢ a 12 ounce can.

8. Use less meat. Instead of making meat the star of the meal use it as a side dish or even as a flavoring or condiment in your meal. Add more vegetables or grains to fill the empty spot. Use beans to replace the bulk of the meat protein. A puddle of pasta topped with a chunky vegetable sauce that has shreds of meat in it will be tastier than a serving of spaghetti topped with a couple of meat balls and a drizzle of marinara sauce – and healthier. A bed of rice can soak up the sauce of a meat-flavored veggie “stew”. A quarter pound of meat can feed a family of 4 easily this way. Consider serving 1 or 2 meatless meals a week or a day (for the hardcore carnivores). We eat far too much meat, but there’s no reason to give it up entirely.

9. Doctor up cheap cuts of meat with marinades, brines, and sauces. Slow cook tougher cuts of meat. Drain the fat off cheap ground beef and use it in place of butter when sautéing a mire poix ( a mix of vegetables such as onions, peppers, and carrots to use in sauces, stews, stocks, or as the base for other dishes – it adds a taste of meat without the need to add meat to the dish) or making a roux or sauce. Bulk up ground beef patties, meatballs, or meatloaf with mashed beans, shredded zucchini, cooked rice, or oats.

10. Consider canned meats for pasta salads, rice salads, casseroles, sandwiches, and soups. Canned clams are as tasty as fresh in a clam chowder. Canned chicken, tuna, and salmon do well in other dishes. If fresh meat gets too pricey, a single can of meat can feed up to 8 people in a soup or casserole, and it’s often cheaper than fresh cut meats.

11. Use frozen fruits and vegetables. Frozen is often less expensive than canned and just as tasty as fresh. On the plus side, you can measure out how much you will use and return the rest to the freezer instead of opening an entire can of vegetables for a quarter cups’ worth. You can mix and match vegetables in casseroles, soups, and salads in ways canned vegetables would never let you. Ditto for frozen fruits – you can use them for smoothies, slushies, cake and yogurt toppings, or to puree into sauces or as the base for a cold summer soup.

12. Eat more soups – home made, not store-bought cans. Soup fills you up better than the individual components served separately. Soups keep you full and satisfied longer so you eat less. If you judiciously use a small amount of meat to add body and flavor to the vegetables, you’ll save money and eat well. Soups come in an astonishing variety both hot and cold. You could eat soup every day and not sample every kind there is.

13. Reinvent leftovers. You don’t have to merely reheat last night’s dinner. You can use it to create an entirely new dish. We all know about using left-over boiled or steamed potatoes as mashed potatoes, but you can also make those left over potatoes into potato pancakes served with applesauce, or slice and layer the potatoes with a cheese sauce and top with crushed potato chips and crumbled bacon, or turn them into a creamy potato soup, or tossing them in a vinaigrette for a salad. Left over sauces can be added to soups to boost the flavor and give them depth and complexity. Steamed vegetable medley takes on new life as a stir fry, then as soup, then as a pot pie or a quiche. Each time you use up left-overs, add some new ingredients to refresh it. A pie crust does amazing things to make left-overs seem completely different and fresh.

14. Avoid “eatertainment” - don’t make eating out your night’s entertainment. Plan other activities and eat at home or bring the meal with you. There are times when food is an important part of an event – family re-unions, rites-of-passage celebrations, religious rituals or ceremonies – all the rest of the time, it’s a side-liner in entertainment. When you plan a night out, have it be something other than a meal – consider a movie, a performance, a sporting event (where you’re a player), a gaming event, a crafts night, a class, or something that focuses on doing instead of eating. Let the food be in a supporting role and not the main event.

15. Grow your own. Food you grow yourself is often tastier. It’s not always cheaper. That depends entirely upon what you grow. If you can get it inexpensively at the farmer’s market or an ethnic market, don’t spend your time, money, and effort growing it at home. There are a few exceptions to this: cut-and-come again lettuces, leaf lettuces, radishes, and cherry tomatoes are exceptionally easy to grow and the cost parses out about the same as what you’d spend at the store. What makes these worth growing is the convenience of having them right there, growing indoors under a grow-light year round, or on your patio, or in a door-side garden so you can harvest them at need. A bit of water, some fertilizer or compost, and a re-seeding every 2 weeks will keep you in a steady supply of salad. Otherwise, grow things you consider luxuries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, herbs, heirloom vegetable varieties you love, and varieties not available locally – if you love German butter potatoes but can never find them in the market, they’re easy enough to grow.

16. Shop less often. Don’t go to the store just to pick up one item, and don’t add things to pick up to justify going. Have a set shopping day and only shop on that day. If you’re short an ingredient, eat something else and add that ingredient to your shopping list for next time. If it’s for a party, ask a guest (who already has it or will be passing the market) to bring it. Return the favor when you visit. Before leaving to a party, call the host/ess and ask if they’re short anything or if you can bring anything or pick something up along the way.

17. Brown bag it. Bring your own breakfasts, lunches, and/or dinners to work (depending on your shift). Don’t always use left-overs for your “brown-bags” and make them fun. Take a hint from the Japanese and play with your food. Add interesting containers, shape or cut your food decoratively, use “grass” –ornamental and useful plastic dividers in your containers to pack in several dishes together. Use the scrapbooking punches to punch interesting shapes from nori, cheese (well chilled and firm!), peppers, and carrot slices to decorate your food. Keep a box of containers, scrapbooking punches, cutting tools, tiny sauce bottles, decorative “grass” and food picks, food dyes, and food molds so you can transform new ingredients and left-overs into enticing take-away meals.

18. Plan. Spend a couple of hours while watching a DVD to plan out your meals for a month. Make a list of ingredients you’ll need and when you’ll need them (this is critical for fresh ingredients). Compare that list to what you already have on hand. Use it to replace depleted food stocks and to buy what you’ll need for your meals. Shop for non-perishable items once a month, or things you can freeze or can. Perishables can be purchased weekly, and if you plan your meals right, you may only need to food shop twice a month – saving you lots of time and money on food. As part of the planning, consider the “once a month cooking” method, where you spend one day a month cooking a variety of your monthly meals and freezing them to reheat later. A stash of these can be very useful for busy nights, when you’re sick, or when you have unexpected guests.