The incredible, edible oat

Growing up one of my favorite breakfast foods was Quaker Instant Oatmeal. I loved picking out my own individually-sized packet from the box of assorted flavors and "making it" myself (aka. adding hot water or milk). My favorite flavor was strawberries and cream, because the freeze-dried strawberry pieces (really, strawberry-flavored and sugar-infused milk sponges of questionable origin would be a more appropriate description) turned the milk pink. Those were the days when I thought pink milk was perfectly normal. Sweet tooth? Oh my, you betcha.

Fast forward thirty years. While my sweet tooth is still going strong, since moving to California eight years ago I've developed a passion for eating simple, whole foods. Foods with ingredients that, as Michael Pollan would say, your great-grandma would recognize (sorry, Instant Oatmeal - you don't qualify). Being a new mom has taken this interest to the next level as I'm now not only eating healthy for myself but want our kids to grow up loving wholesome, nutritious food. (Mom, if you're reading this, I want to let you know I place the blame for those Instant Oatmeal packages  - and the Pop Tarts, Toaster Streusel, and unlimited Entenmenn's Coffee Cake - on Dad and thank you for all of the nourishing, delicious food you cooked for us as kids. P.S. Dad, thank you for the sweet tooth.)

Enter the oat. I'm talking about the real deal, which comes in 32 ounce round cardboard containers (or the bulk bin) from the grocery store. It wasn't until our oldest son was born that I discovered these beauties sitting quietly on the bottom shelf of the cereal aisle. It started with baby steps - buying one container and making fresh oatmeal and a batch or two of granola - and now it's to the point where whenever we walk into Target my son tells me we need to get more oats. Last week we bought four containers because they were on sale. I'm now so familiar with purchasing oats that I can even tell you, down to the penny, the cost of 32 ounces of oats at Trader Joe's, Target, and Walmart.  The best deal? Target at $2.99 for 32 ounces (or $2.69 when on sale).

Oats are not only an inexpensive, healthy whole grain to feed your family, but are simple and fun to cook. It's easy to involve kids in making things like oatmeal or granola as the ingredients are straightforward, typically on-hand and easy to mix together. In our home we make oatmeal a few times a week (which is just about as instant as Instant Oatmeal), use leftovers to make oatmeal pancakes, and every Sunday my three-year-old helps me make a big batch of granola. He loves mixing (and eating) it so much that I think he wishes we made it every morning. Bonus? When baking in the oven it makes our house smell heavenly.

Below are our weekly go-to oat-inspired recipes. Have one of your own? Please share in the comments. I hope you enjoy!

Cheers,

Julie

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(Almost-instant) Oatmeal
Makes 2-3 servings.

1 cup regular (or quick) oats
2 1/4 cup milk
Extras: Pinch of cinnamon, handful of raisins or cranberries, honey or maple syrup to sweeten

Add the oats and milk together in a saucepan and place on a medium heat burner. Once the mixture begins to simmer turn down to low. The oatmeal will be ready to eat in approximately 5 minutes, once the oats soften. Add additional ingredients or sweeteners to taste.

Easy Granola
Makes 4-6 servings.

Solid Ingredients

3 cups whole oats
1/2 cup nuts
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup sunflower or pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Liquid Ingredients

1/4 cup butter or olive oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together the solid ingredients in a large bowl. Melt the butter if using. Add the other liquid ingredients to the butter or oil and blend well. You should have about 3/4 cup fat/liquid mix to every 3 cups oats. Mix the liquids into the solid ingredients.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the granola on top and pat into a single layer. The granola will bake for 20-30 minutes, depending upon if you used butter or olive oil as the fat. You can either stir the granola at about 15 minutes when it starts to brown on top, or leave it in the oven undisturbed the whole time (if you do,  keep a close eye on it so it does not burn). Remove from oven when the top of the granola has a golden brown color. The parchment paper on the bottom of the tray will have browned it from below.

When cool, mix in the dried fruit of your choice (cranberries, blueberries, raisins, etc.). Store in an air tight container.

This recipe doubles easily.

Oatmeal Pancakes
Makes about 20 3 inch pancakes.
From the Joy of Cooking.

Whisk together in a large bowl:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat in a separate bowl:
2 eggs

Stir in:
1 1/2 cup cooked oatmeal
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 mashed banana (our family's favorite addition)

Quickly stir this mixture into the dry ingredients. The batter may appear lumpy. Use 1/4 cup batter for each pancake.

Dad's $75 weekly meal plan

Last weekend my husband gifted me a Mom's afternoon out and took over meal planning and grocery shopping for the week. I got a mani/pedi (his treat!) while he combed my dinner diary for recipes and took our toddler shopping at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. 

Pinch me? I could get used to this.

Besides being pampered for a few hours, reading three back issues of Sunset Magazine, and returning home to find two happy boys, perhaps the best part of my day was seeing the delicious meal plan my husband put together while I was out. Not only that, but his shopping trip totaled only $48 which, when added to the $15 spent at the farmer's market/grocery the previous day, kept us below our $75 a week grocery budget. (Note: Our total $75 grocery budget does include breakfasts, lunches, snacks and kid-friendly staples. As far as planning goes, we focus on dinner as that is the main meal we prepare each day, and our lunches are nearly always leftovers.)

As with each of our weekly meal plans, he took into account what we already had in the fridge, garden and freezer, substituted (or omitted) ingredients in recipes, stayed away from processed foods, and stuck to his list when he went to the store. While your family may not be able to match our exact spending given what you already have on hand, the meal plan below is budget-friendly, reuses ingredients, and takes advantage of fruits/veggies that are in season (and thus less expensive). To help you see how we cut corners and saved money, I inserted notes on how we prepared each meal.

Have your own meal plan tips? Please share them in the comments!

Cheers,

Julie

Matt's Awesome Meal Plan

Saturday: Burgers with Kale Chips 

• The grass-fed ground beef for the burgers came from my husband's winery. Don't have your own free beef from work? (Really, who does?) Buy it on sale and stock your freezer. We get the kale from our garden, but you can find a bunch of it at the grocery store for $1.50 or less. If you have kids, I bet you can get them to try these delicious and crunchy kale chips. Our toddler loves them.

Sunday: Salmon Tacos with Carrot & Cabbage Slaw

• This recipe is for white fish tacos, but we like to spice it up with salmon. We buy 1/2 lb of fish for our family of three and make it work by having plenty of veggie toppings. Other ways we keep this recipe cheap: skip the jicima and red cabbage (just do green), and if you don't have all of the spices for the fish rub, no biggie. We often just do chili powder.

Monday: Grilled Whole Chicken w/Tomato Cucumber Salad

• We stock up on chickens when they are on sale (like this week) and put them in the freezer. Tomatoes and cucumbers are in season so if you don't have them in your garden like we do, you can find good deals at your grocer or farmer's market.

Tuesday: Chicken and Black Bean Tostadas

• Use leftover dark meat from the grilled chicken for these yummy toastadas. Also plan to reuse a lot of ingredients from the salmon tacos: tortillas, chilies in Adobo sauce, sour cream, limes, and cabbage. We also save by not including the radishes, and keeping our pantry stocked with black beans we bought on sale.

Wednesday: Chicken BLTs and Side Salad

• Use the leftover white meat for these yummy BLTs and whatever bread you have on hand. Save any remaining bacon for a leisurely weekend breakfast. For the side salad, be creative with whatever you have on hand. For us this week? Let me guess...tomatoes and cucumbers...

Thursday: Zucchini Baba Ganoush with Fresh Vegetables

• This has become our go-to recipe this summer - it's delicious, easy and healthy. You will need to invest in Tahini paste the first time you make this, but it keeps well and can be used to make other great frugal dishes like homemade hummus. I've also found that I can use half the amount of Tahini called for in this recipe and the result is even - if not more - delicious. Zucchini is in season and if you ask around, you may find a friend who would beg you to take some off their hands. We serve our Baba Ganoush with Mediterranean flatbread from Trader Joe's (or leftover tortillas), sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Notice a veggie theme this week?

Friday: Margarita Pizza with (shocker) Tomato Cucumber Salad

• I love pizza nights because I can almost do the cooking with my eyes closed. We buy pizza dough and a huge hunk of mozzerella (you always save when you buy ungrated cheese) from Trader Joe's, and use tomato sauce that we canned last year. If we have leftover veggies or meat from the week, onto the pizza they go.

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Meal Planning: How we eat well on a $75 weekly budget

As a total foodie and someone who loves planning (the word spontaneous is not in my vocabulary, much to my husband's chagrin) I'm not sure what took me so long to put two and two together, but suffice it to say that when I discovered the concept of meal planning my life was forever changed.

Yes, seriously. And whether or not you are also a type A personality, I bet it will change your life - or at least the way you eat - too.

It wasn't until our son was born and we slashed our grocery budget to $75 a week ($300 a month) that the thought of planning our family's meals even occurred to me. Until then I thought that it was normal to go to the grocery store and ask the aisles for inspiration. Or to find new tasty recipes and buy every "necessary" ingredient. Or to not have a monthly grocery budget at all (though that's a topic for another post).

In all honesty, this was not a lightning bolt idea that hit me one day. It was inspired by reading the cookbook Dinner: A love story (one of my all-time favorite books). The author writes of keeping a diary of her family's meals to get organized for each week and to remember favorite recipes. I immediately knew I had to start my own dinner diary and upped the ante - planning our meals to make the most of each ingredient and cut our expenses.

Let me tell you, it works. Not only are we able to stick to our grocery budget, but it's so nice to come home from work and know what I'm making for dinner that night. It also helps me maximize resources - our food, our money, and perhaps most importantly, our time together at dinner as a family.

Here are some tips on how to get started with your own meal planning.

1. Create a record: Buy a small notebook to keep track of your meals. On each line, write the date and what you had (or will have) for dinner that night. So simple to do and so nice to revisit to get inspiration for future meal plans.

2. Plan: Set aside 20 minutes each week (I do this on Saturdays) to brainstorm meals for the week. I pull out my favorite cookbooks, my binder of recipes from magazines, and my computer so that I can look up recipes online. Start by making note of any nights that you will not need to make dinner (going out, off to a friend's house, etc.), and then fill in the blanks based on the tips below.

3. Shop first from your pantry, fridge, garden and freezer: The first thing you want to know is what you already have on hand. I begin by going through the fridge to see what is leftover from the previous week - especially perishable items -  that can still be used. For example, left over sausage and spinach can be transformed into a delicious pizza. Do the same for your garden (what is fresh that needs to be picked?), freezer and pantry. I find this especially helpful when, sometimes at the end of the month, we need to stretch our budget and keep grocery shopping to a minimum.

4. Pick one protein: Meat is expensive and, though my husband and I are a far cry from vegetarians, we try to limit it in our diet from both a health and a cost-conscious perspective. On a typical week we pick one protein - for example, chicken - and cook with that ingredient throughout the week. Night one might be a roast chicken, night two is an Asian chicken salad (with leftovers), night three is chicken and arugula pitas (again with leftovers), and night four is a butternut squash soup made with chicken broth from the carcass. 

5. Pick recipes that reuse ingredients: As with protein, make the most of everything you buy by finding recipes that reuse leftover food throughout the week. If you're buying arugula for chicken pitas, plan an arugula salad the following night or make an arugula pesto pasta.

6. Substitute in recipes: Have a recipe that calls for parsley or basil but all you have is cilantro? Use the cilantro. Need sour cream for your tacos? How about the plain yogurt already in the fridge. You'd be surprised just how much you can chop your shopping list by thinking ahead and substituting ingredients and trust me - your dinner will be just as delicious.

7. Stay away from prepared/processed foods: We've all heard the old adage to shop the perimeter of the grocery store - produce, proteins, and dairy - and stay away from the aisles upon aisles of processed foods in the middle. This practice is good for your waistline and your pocketbook. The average number of items in a supermarket now tops 50,000 (90% of them, I bet, made from corn). Wow. Something tells me that the goal isn't to offer you more selection, but to get you to buy more stuff.

8. Make your shopping list: I start my shopping list as I begin the planning process so I can see what ingredients I'll need to work into multiple meals.  

9. Do a final check: Go through your list and double-check to make sure you don't already have ingredients on hand. 

10. Shop around: Especially when it comes to staples, it pays to find the stores in your town with the best deal. For example, we buy our oats from Target, almonds from Trader Joe's, and coconut oil from Whole Foods (yep, they have the best price). Though it takes extra time, check weekly sales flyers for specials - this is a great way to get inspiration for your weekly meal plan.

11. Stick to the list and don't shop mid-week: When you go to the store only buy items on your list. Obvious? Yes. Hard? Oh my, yes. But at this point you don't want to sabotage your hard work by putting that frozen pizza they're sampling at Trader Joe's in your cart. Also, if you find mid-week that you need to run to the store, first ask yourself if you really need that ingredient. Is your soup begging for bread or would a quesadilla made with items you already have suffice? More often that not, you'll find you can make due.

To get you started, below is one of our recent meal plans. When putting this together I took stock of what was already in our fridge/pantry/freezer, which allowed me to keep within our $75 a week grocery budget.

Saturday: Yogurt Marinated Grilled Chicken & Salad
Sunday: Chicken BLTs
Monday: Pesto (from the freezer) Pasta  & Salad
Tuesday: Chicken, Apple and Black Bean Salad
Wednesday: Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos
Thursday: Spiced Red Lentils with Onions and Spinach & Brussel Sprouts
Friday: Homemade Margarita Pizza & Brussel Sprouts

In the spirit of sharing meal plan inspiration with fellow frugal mamas (and dads), every few weeks I will post one up to the blog.

How do you organize your family's meals - do you have any favorite tips/meal plans/recipes? Please share in the comments!

Cheers,

Julie

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1. How my slow cooker got her groove back 
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How my slow cooker got her groove back

On our first Christmas together as Mr. & Mrs., my husband and I received a slow cooker from his parents. While some daughters-in-law might take this as a not-so-subtle 'hint,' being a bit of a geek in the kitchen I couldn't wait to take her for a test drive. I dreamed of tasty, tender beef falling off the bone, hearty stews that begged to curl up with crusty bread and soups and sauces to warm our hearts and bellies all winter long.

What I got on my first few tries were bland, watery excuses for dinner that bordered on inedible. Oh, and I cracked the crock insert within a few weeks of receiving it. Not exactly a winning start to my relationship with my slow cooker.

She went back into the box in the spring and collected dust while we turned our attention to cool, colorful salads and let our grill take center stage during the hot summer months. The following winter, armed with tips on how to make slow cooker dishes that are actually appetizing, I dug my no-longer-shiny-and-new appliance out from the garage and gave her another whirl. And wouldn't you know it? My slow cooker had gotten her groove back.

Especially now that we are mindful to make the most of every dollar, my slow cooker plays a prominent role in our weekly meal planning. Using this kitchen workhorse on a regular basis has not only allowed us to take advantage of inexpensive cuts of meat like roasts and ham hocks, but reduced our electricity bill as we use the oven less. (Our oven is electric, though we dream of gas. Each time we turn it on it costs us at least $1-2 in electricity.)

Should you have a slow cooker that smells more like moth balls than beef bourguignon, here are some bits of advice on how you too can rekindle your love for this trusty kitchen appliance.

• Brown your meats: Yes, it takes time, but you'll have better results if you do this step prior to placing meats in the slow cooker. Browning on the stove helps the cuts retain their juices and gives the dish more flavor. An exception is the recipe below, in which you basically throw a whole chicken into the slow cooker and let it work it's magic.
• Don't start with frozen foods: This is how we cracked our first crock. Learn from our mistake.
• Resist opening the slow cooker while it is cooking: Don't let the heat escape! Let your slow cooker do it's job and enjoy the mouthwatering aromas in the meantime.
• The liquid ratio is key: Because there is nowhere for steam to escape, your slow cooker retains all of the liquid from a recipe's ingredients. While this can be fantastic for meals like the chicken below, it can be disastrous if a recipe calls for too much broth/water/etc. I err on adding less at the start - you can always add more later if the dish needs it.

Below is what has become my favorite, go-to slow cooker recipe. It is easy, inexpensive and absolutely delicious. Enjoy!

Braised chicken with salsa verde
From The Italian Slow Cooker, by Michele Scicolone
Serves 4

4 large potatoes, thickly sliced
2 carrots, thickly sliced
2 cups 1-inch cubed butternut squash (I should mention that we use whatever veggies we have around - squash, carrots, onions, celery, parsnips, etc. The key is slicing/cubing them thickly.)
1 large onion, sliced
Salt and pepper
1 4-lb chicken
1/2 lemon
4 garlic cloves
1 sprig rosemary

Scatter the vegetables at the bottom of the slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the neck and giblets from the chicken along with any excess fat. Reserve giblets for stock.
Sprinkle the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper to taste. Place the chicken in the slow cooker and squeeze half a lemon over the top. Place the lemon half, garlic and rosemary inside the chicken. Salt and pepper the top of the chicken.

Cover and cook on low for 5 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender. Remove the chicken skin before serving.

Salsa Verde

2 1/2 inch thick slices of Italian or French Bread, crusts removed
2 cups packed fresh parsley
1 garlic clove
4 anchovy filets (we have never used these and I don't miss them in the slightest)
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
salt & pepper

Soak the bread in warm water for 5 minutes. Drain and squeeze out most of the liquid. In a food processor, combine the parsley, garlic and anchovies (if using) and process until finely chopped. Add the soaked bread. With the machine running, drizzle in the oil and lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the chicken and serve on top of the vegetables. Top with the salsa verde. Leftover salsa verde can be used throughout the week with fish, as a spread for bread, etc.

Eating Well on the Cheap: Keeping a stocked freezer

Growing up in DC, when it came to freezers all I knew was the tiny excuse for a thing that lives in the fridge and collects half-eaten ice cream cartons. That's what I thought freezers were for - well, for that, Eggos and Toaster Strudel.

Then we moved to Napa, went to our first Junior Livestock Auction and ended up with 25+ lbs of meat from the butcher a few weeks later. After trying to origami it into our fridge's freezer (*not easy to do with frozen goods, just saying*), it became very clear that we were going to have to seriously upgrade our freezer space.

Enter into the picture our 9-cubic-feet baby humming out in the garage. While she was a little bit of an initial investment up front ($199 from Home Depot, you can also find freezers on Craigslist), she's paid for herself many times over in the three years that we've had her.

The beauty of having a ton of freezer space is that you can load up on good deals - especially when it comes to protein. For example, if Whole Foods is having a sale on free-range chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound, go a little crazy and buy 10-15 lbs (or more!). Separate your take into meal-size portions, get out your Ziploc freezer bags and go to town. (Hint: Vacuum sealing is a huge help when it comes to freezer burn - Ziploc sells a cheap manual version at Target that has served us very well.)

One of the keys to getting the most out of your freezer is knowing what's in it and 'shopping' from your freezer when you make your weekly meal plan. Sounds pretty simple and obvious, but not when the bottom of your freezer is hiding under a ham, a sea of ground beef, a whole chicken or two, bags of tomato soup, etc. I've tried to make a habit of doing a freezer list update every quarter or so, and taping it to the wall next to the freezer so we can mark off things as we take them out. This works really well until we get lazy - hence the quarterly list.

I just did our 'State of the Freezer' inventory and found us to be pretty well stocked. Our list is below - you can see why our fridge freezer was simply not cutting it anymore.

Pork
Country style sausage - 3
Ground pork - 1
Ham - 1
Pork chops - 1
Pork country style ribs - 2

Beef
Ground beef - 4
Flank steak - 1
Tri tip - 1
Beef liver - 1

Venison
Venison sausage - 10 (50% pork - quite shockingly delicious!)
Blackstrap - 1

Chicken
Chicken breasts - 5 (the 99 cent deal at Whole Foods - what a steal!)
Whole chickens - 1

Lamb
Lamb steaks - 2
Lamb chops - 2

Fish
Salmon - 7 (my husband went on a deep sea fishing trip - SO WORTH IT)
Trout - 3 (from a long-ago fishing trip...looking pretty shady...)

Soups/Sauces
Tomato soup - 6 (4 from 2011 - must eat!)
Tomato sauce - 3 (from 2011 - ditto; FYI that I recommend canning sauce vs. freezing)
Bolongese sauce - 1
Fava bean pesto cubes
Pesto cubes
Pesto in Tupperware - 4
Chicken broth - 4

Other Protein
Meatballs - 1 bag
Wild ducks - 7 (these babies are collecting dust...)
Lamb bones for stock - 1

Other
Butternut squash risotto - 1
Rangpur lime juice cubes (we use these for our weekly iced tea)

Cutting Back - Part Two (aka. my ode to Mint.com)

You know, it's pretty amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it, and I have to admit I'm even surprised that we've been able to live so well on so little since adjusting our budgets. Below are a few things we've done to change our spending habits - both large and small.

1. Savings Goals: When you're paying down debts like our student loans, your savings accounts are going to suffer a bit. However, once you get rid of those payments you'll be able to direct all of those funds back into your savings accounts and build those nest-eggs. We've continued our 10% into retirement (which is typically viewed as a bare minimum), but have pared back our other savings accounts to the basics (see next point...).

2. Continue saving for big fixed expenses: Put away a little each month for property taxes, home insurance, life insurance, car insurance, holiday gifts, home maintenance, car maintenance, etc. so that you're prepared when those large expenses hit.

3. Keep your savings goals - just adjust them: Have a slush fund account? An emergency fund (you should! At least enough to cover your fixed expenses for three to six months)? A 529? Don't stop funding these accounts entirely - just figure out what you can afford to put into them right now. $25 or $50 a month? Even just a little bit will make you feel like you're still making progress towards these goals.

4. Reduce your fixed expenses: You'd be surprised how much you can save when you make a few phone calls and decide to change your lifestyle in small ways. For instance, we've made the following changes -

• We don't have cable. My husband put an antenna on the roof of the house for $25 a few years ago and that's all the TV we get. We've gotten to enjoy not having the TV on all the time. Yes, we do get Netflix, but if we needed to we would give that up and just get movies out of the library.
• Call your car/home insurance companies and see how much you can cut back. I did so recently and cut nearly $300 off of our annual car insurance costs.
• Line dry your clothes. Really. I cut nearly $30 off our power bill each month by not using the dryer.
• Clip coupons. Not for everything, but for those items that you're going to need to buy anyway.
• Cut your own hair. Or, at least, your husband's hair. Thank goodness I have a husband who's willing to let me experiment on his tresses (and who has one of the easiest haircuts ever)...and that saves us $15 a month.
• This is one of those times in your life when you may have more time than money. For example, learn how to sew to save money on alterations. I hem my husband's pants and that saves us $20 a pop.

5. Make a budget and track what you spend (and save!). With websites like Mint.com it's easier than ever - and, better yet, free! You're not going to know how much you're paying each month for, say, groceries, until you start tracking it - and I dare say you'll be surprised. On the flip side, you'll be able to watch your savings accounts grow (even though it might be slowly!) and it will feel good to get closer to those goals.

6. Food. Ah yes, despite my penchant for cutting back I'm not about to give up our passion for good eats. I'm not going to mention the basics about forgoing your lattes (that's pretty obvious), but here are some tips for eating well on a budget.

• What is a reasonable food budget? I could find just about nothing out there on specific numbers but for reference, we're spending about $300 a month, or $75 a week, to feed the three of us.
• Meal planning. Seriously, this was a life changer for me. It was like suddenly everything came into focus when I realized that, with a little pre-planning, I could use our leftovers with purpose. For example, grilling a chicken on Sunday? Make chicken tacos on Monday, chicken salad on Tuesday, and use the final bits for a pizza on Wednesday. Use the chilis in Adobo sauce you bought for your tacos on Monday to add a little heat to your pizza sauce on Wednesday. Oh, and use that cilantro for the tacos on Monday to season your salad on Tuesday. Yep, it's fantastic and yes, I have a type A personality.
• Dried beans. Learn to love them and learn to soak/cook them. In fact, learn to love everything in the bulk department at your grocer.
• You can still do organic/Whole Foods. We shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's every week and manage to keep our weekly food bills less than $75. It can be done. See meal planning above.
• Freeze. Buy things on sale (like chicken breasts) and freeze the extras. Make stock and freeze in batches. Make pesto and freeze in ice cube trays. Make a list of what you freeze so that you know what's in there. And, most importantly, use it.
• Use meats sparingly. We are definitely not vegetarian (my husbands hunts), but at least half of our meals each week are meatless. The savings are seen not only in our food bill, but in our waistlines.
• Garden. I'm lucky to have a husband that loves working with his hands and treats our garden like his man-cave. When we make up our dinner plans for the week I 'shop' in the garden first.

7. When you waver, remember why you're doing this. When I feel the need to go to World Market and purchase new curtains or pillows for the living room, I remember that I've given that up for the time being so that I can spend more time with my son. Talk about putting things in perspective. And, if I'm dead set on some project I want to do around the house, I head to Goodwill or a consignment shop to find inspiration at a fraction of the price.

These are just a few things that we've done to cut our spending by thousands every month - yes, thousands. It can be done and, honestly, I've found it to be quite enjoyable. I feel more in control of our spending then I ever have and I know that we're using our finances in a way that allows us to live the life we want to lead.

Real Food on a Budget - yes, even food from Whole Foods...

When I left work to go on maternity leave, we decided to cut back - way back - to see how it would be to live on one income. One of the budgets we slashed was our grocery budget, which we sliced by about a third to $300 a month, or $75 a week. At one point in my life $75 seemed like a lot of money. Now I know that $75 will buy you about one 8lb brisket at Whole Foods. Ouch.

Yes, we shop at Whole Foods and are not about to deprive ourselves by forgoing our addiction to good food. We've read too many books and watched too many movies (like Omnivore's Dilemma, Real Food, and Food, Inc., all of which I all highly recommend) about the state of the modern day food chain to go for the status quo when it comes to food - mainly in regards to CAFO meats and industrial produce. When we tell people we shop at Whole Foods I'm pretty sure they think that we're food snobs and spend a fortune...but that's definitely not the case (at least when it comes to the money part - as far as food snobs, well, call a spade a spade). It's all about planning out your purchases, limiting your protein and being able to say no to that delicious Gouda they are sampling at the cheese counter that is not on your list. But maybe next week it will be...

We now spend some time every Saturday morning planning our food for the week to make the most of our shopping trip and to make our food stretch as far as possible. A sample for this week -

Week of April 14

Sat - Salmon (from local fish monger) with wheat couscous and sautéed spinach from the garden
Sun - Lamb Steaks (from the freezer - a lamb we purchased at the local 4H auction) with mashed potatoes and salad
Mon - Asian chicken salad (minus the lo mein noddles to save some cash)
Tues - Chicken tostadas
Wed - Chicken Pasta (something thrown together with the final left over chicken and whatever we have left in the fridge, like cilantro, which we'd make into a pesto)
Thurs - Lentil Fritter Pitas
Fri - Freezer Meal (see what random Trader Joe's items are in the freezer, like fried rice or pot stickers)

As you'll notice, the key to many of these meals is chicken - we bought a chicken from Whole Foods and are grilling it up on Sunday night along with the lamb so that we can use the leftovers throughout the week. One of the main ways we cut back on spending was the fact that so many of the meals use similar ingredients, such as the chicken, or items that we already have at home left over from last week's meals like Greek yogurt or cilantro (we always take stock of what is in the fridge or freezer when getting inspiration for the week's meals). The grand total in spending for this week between Trader Joe's and Whole Foods was less than $60. Not too shabby!