Posted on 02/11/2010 10:06:15 AM PST by hennie pennie
Recently I picked up several hundred bottles of vitamins and health supplements free with the coupons. I kept a big supply for myself and the rest my wife is sending down to her family in Venezuela where the country is reduced to a sort of barter economy thanx to Hugo.
Also every couple of months, I stockpile on TP and paper towels with my Marcal coupons. I get those items FREE when Albertson's puts them on sale. Only costs me 6 cents each for the sales tax.
Annnnd right now, with my pockets loaded with envelops full of coupons, I am headed for the store.
I’ve typically seen bars of Fels Naptha stacked up on the BOTTOM SHELF in the laundry aisle of the grocery store.
On a similar note, instead of relying on the inventory I keep of the storage food . . . . I actually dug out all the Latest Expiration Dated foods - for 2012/2013, and separated them from everything else -- and this pile of everything else is what we're working on consuming.
It's been interesting to look at everything from anew.
One other thing that I occasionally do at a grocery store is limit myself to spending $25 for an entire week -- THAT is very interesting to do, particularly if there aren't any great loss leaders. And even if we also eat food from the pantry that specific week, simply limiting the grocery purchase to an utter poverty level keeps one on one's toes, and keeps one culinary skills in practice making black bean soup, LOL.
It is a bar soap found in the laundry soap aisle. I get it at Walmart. It is an old-fashioned product, and it works great! It is only 1.12 at Walmart. You can also disolve a bar, or just a piece of it, in a jar of water. Use the paste as a pre-treat stain remover. I can tell you from experience that the laundry soap from it takes out baby spit-up, vomit, and diarrhea.
A ceiling fan set to a slow speed can circulate the warm air down.
I started buying large bags of white sugar, brown and powdered sugar as well as flour, over the course of several months, from Sams club. I do tons of Christmas cookie baking, so it really helped cut down the cost. I started buying ahead for the rest of the year too. It’s just nice to have the extra put back. I bought 5 gallon buckets from the local grocery bakery and store the dry goods in them. They are food-grade, cost me $1.00, and they have tight-fitting lids. Oh, and I made sauerkraut in one of those five-gallon buckets! YUM!
I make a lot of food from scratch - like spaghetti sauce from my own canned tomatoes and zucchini relish from my home-grown zucchinis. It saves money and I know there’s no preservatives. I made raspberry syrup from raspberries in my freezer from last summer. Makes great pancake syrup.
Anything you can freeze or can yourself is one less thing you have to buy at the store.
Could you share a recipe or website? Sounds like something I would like to learn.
Thanks
Cable/satellite Tv is hurting - as more people find they can get everything FREE on the net - and at their own time schedule and - for the most part - without the commercials.
Saves BIG bcks and lots of time. I had my satellite TV turned off over a year ago - they were creeping up to $100 a month. I like that money in MY pocket. (They keep calling - I keep saying no thanks...
Plus, you can slow cook stews and soups, heat water for hand/face/dish washing/coffee, etc - without using electric. You can also set a drying rack by it and dry clothes.
And wood heat is so friendly and constant.
I’d love to, and I know all the advantages, but I don’t have any money at all, even for a second-hand stove. And in my with my house, I’d have to do some serious carpentry to accommodate a stove and its flu and comply with local code. Trust me when I tell you I’ve agonized over ways to do this for YEARS.
if you go to different fast food places such as mcdonalds, taco bell, wendys, etc., you can quickly amass a stockpile of salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, mayo, crackers, lemon juice, pickle relish, taco sauce, salsa, horseradish, etc.
then you have free spices when cooking @ home.
the napkins are great for their intended use or for emergency toilet paper. :)
I use a lap top - and have it in the south corner of the living room = warmest spot in the house - with sunshine too.
I wear wool socks to bed - and snuggle down in a cocoon of feathers: mattress/pillows/comforter.
The above was started in December after the snow and ice covered my wood pile...and it was too dangerous for this old great gramma to struggle with it. It has been a mighty cold winter up here in Maine - but in 2 1/2 months I've only burned a bit about 125 gals of oil. But we've had 3 above freezing days this week - so there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
However, I'm thinking maybe I should rethink the saiving on oil. If obummer gets his super grid in so's he can ration/reduce our consumption, he may look at what I'm using and reduce it regardless. government formulas are 'one size fits all'
Never, in the history of man, have we been so vulnerable - so dependent on others - and most don't even know it. Without that thin wire from the house to the road - we're plunged into chaos.
I grew up on a farm deep in the Maine woods with my g'parents. No electricity, No phone.
We always had a years food on hand: in the garden, in gleaming canning jars, in barrels - chicken and eggs in the coop; butter, milk, beef and pork in the barn; berries on the vine; apples on the trees; meat in the woods and fish in the waters.
We cut our own wood for heat and cooking, had a water pump on the side of the sink, hot water tank on the side of the stove - etc etc
Never had to worry about a "power outage".
Now I wouldn't want to live without my hot water spigot and bath tub or computer, but I could survive.
More people need to learn to old ways and stock up on food staples.
You betcha. I’ve gotten totally out of the habit of buying a lot of food. One area that you CAN control in your budget is what you spend on food. It’s the first and easiest place to cut for lots of folks. I’m well stocked for quite some time, so I’ve been making a lot of meals from the freezer and the pantry.
We love beans and rice...any Hispanic dishes are yummy. But, it’s gotta have some cheese on it, too. Luckily, a little shredded cheese goes a long way. :)
Another idea: Learn to grow a few veggies for yourself, or even sprouts or fresh herbs on the kitchen counter. Many are very easy to grow.
YUmmie! Now earting pulled pork sandwiches. Curley’s pulled pork which I bought yesterday along with the bread I also purchased yesterday. And this morning I ate some Cheerios which I also bought in the same shopping trip. Total out of pocket cost for everything AFTER coupons-—65 cents.
How much would be a small amount, say, for a full (but not super) laundry load?
Part of why you have to experiment, say with a load of towels or a load jeans, is that if your water is super soft you may require less than if your water is hard.
DAWN also works super well for hand washing delicate items.
If you have a front loader, first try ONE tablespoon, and if you aren't satisfied with the results, then try two. With a top loader, I think I'd experiment with sheets, and start out with 3 tablespoons.
IF that is too much, it would be pretty easy to rinse out sheets -- as opposed to towels or blue jeans which are so bulky.
But the online author I'm thinking of didn't mean those little bulk containers at the grocery store -- he meant like ordering a hundred pounds of white rice at a place like Waltons, to look at all the online resources for the cheapest cost in bulk staples likes cornmeal, beans, rice, etc.
One thing the same author mentioned was that one to slash your grocery bill was to add at least one-half cup of white rice to all your meals, to make certain you eat at least one cup of plain white rice everyday.
It seems that all the skinny Asians eat many cups of rice a day, so it must be pretty easy to simply add one a day to the conventional American diet.
Last week I heard that coupon redemption in the USA soared by 40 percent last year. I was amazed.
Yeah. I plan on buying lots of meats and after cooking them, nibbling on them throughout the month. I’m not interested in cooking entirely from scratch, but I plan on buying the fundamentals in bulk.
Amaazing how simple life is once you realize that if you avoid the labels and rat race, you end up saving more and living happier.
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