Wal*Mart near me has 20lbs of rice for $8.92 or $8.94. Unlike Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice you have to use 2 cups of water for each cup of rice. Uncle Ben’s is 1:1.
I won’t say it’s great eating but I use the rice alongside hamburger, veggies (mostly), chicken in various forms, etc.
100 lbs of rice is $45 or so plus tax. Pretty much $50 with tax around here. It is the majority of my food prepper stock plus I buy canned vegetables when on sale. Big cans of Pork and Beans are NOT a good value - I DID however, get lucky at the local Wal*Mart. Got a dented can and then cleaned out the shelf at that price (only a few cans). It was cheaper than the small cans. Usually WM’s small cans of P&B are 58 cents for Van de Kamp’s. I haven’t priced the WM brand.
Once in a great while, the grocery stores around me had canned vegetables 3 and 4 for $1. I always try to stock up if I can that week. Last Thanksgiving one Wal*Mart, and only one near me (not the others) ran cans of vegetables for 25 cents. IOW 4 for $1. Corn, green beans (2 kinds) and peas. Don’t remember if carrots were on there or not. At the time I could only get about $5 but it helped restock the shelf.
I miss their Chef Boyardee for 68 cents a can. Now 88 cents on rollback. 2 year shelf life and I ate almost all of the cans about a year past “best buy” dates. Everything was just fine not one bad can in the lot.
No, I don’t eat like a king but compared to probably much of the world, I do eat like a king. I am grateful for what I have. I have seen the ugly side of the economy going back to 2007 and on. It totally changed my thinking.
I’m a little down in supplies right now but if all the grocery stores closed tomorrow (I pray not) I can survive for 6 months. Been building it for years and rotating the stock. I go after a good portion of loss-leaders at 2-3, sometimes 4-5 different places and stock up.
Last night I got the $5 Taco Bell Chalupa Cravings Box. That was my big night out at the drive-thru, LOL. Extra taco and big drink, $6.95 with tax. Usually my drive-thru night out is Jack in the Box tacos (now $1.19 for 2 - they were 99 cents for 2). Hey, gotta have my junk food!
Hey, somebody has to keep up the low end around here, LOL. Might as well be me I suppose.
Got a BOGO coupon for a buffet next week. So that will probably be $10 (think a neighbor is going to split it). Frankly I just can’t eat that much food in one sitting. Two small or less-than-medium plates and I’m already miserable.
(I hope this info is helpful to some who want to build a reasonably-cheap food prepper backup).
Ramen noodle 12 pack was $1.94 at Wal*Mart up north, a couple of nights ago. I go for beef or chicken. You can add frozen peas and carrots to them (cook them of course).
They’ll run good-sized bags of frozen veggies for 69 cents or so every few months.
Jars of strawberry preserves are $2.79 near me (cheapest). All have 2020 expiration dates. Grape Jelly, oddly enough, only good into 2019. But it’s super-cheap at the closest grocery store (little over a mile). $1.19. Now that’s cheap (medium-sized glass jar - not the small one).
“Jars of strawberry preserves”
Strawberries with about four types of sweeteners to enable strawberries to be listed as the main ingredient but only be about 25% of the product.
That’s Senator Warren’s consumer protection agency at Obama level work.
Hey, I’m sitting right next to you on the cheap end.
Best thing I ever did was to clear out a bunch of kitchen clutter to free up cabinet space for canned goods. We never have good sales since there’s just the one chain store and Walmart so I get all giddy over any .50 canned veggie and grab 12 or 18 at a time.
It’s probably been 20 years since the nearby grocery had pork and beans. They can go a couple of years between shipments of cauliflower. Want to throw a party? Don’t count on the cheese board having anything but cheddar. Their selection of olives are canned black olives and jarred green olives with the little pimentos in the hole. Don’t expect to find corn syrup for holiday baking. I’ve learned to keep the pantry and freezer stocked and cooking from scratch.
Doing the big all out shopping when I drive over to Walmart, even though their prices are higher, makes more sense since their produce is fresh and they have larger sizes. Walmart sometimes has reduced meats that find a home in the freezer. Sadly, they don’t reduce the price very much these days. It used to be 50% off. Today, you’re lucky if it’s 25% off.
Most baked goods are cheaper made at home but Walmart’s day old French loaves are cheaper than homemade. I can’t think of a single “prepared” food in the house. Ok, I’ll buy a small container of “prepared” yogurt and freeze it for starters. Cheap homemade yogurt can be substituted for sour cream, cream cheese in cheese cakes, etc. Homemade ricotta is a no brainer. No Stouffer’s lasagna. No prepared skillet meals. No pizza rolls. No corn dogs. No L’eggos. No sugary cereal. No frozen veggies in sauce. No mixed salads or cut fruit trays. Besides, we have to keep away from prepared stuff and watch the blood sugar.
Have you priced out potato chips? A bag of chips equals about one or two potatoes. Save $3+ and fry your own.
If you need a fast food fix, scroll down http://texascookin.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&max-results=20 . Haven’t tried his Taco Bell but if it’s as good as his Scholtsky’s recipe, it’s spot on. I can make about 5-6 of the Scholtsky sandwiches for what one costs at the drive thru window (without the genoa salami because it’s not sold here). Note - add 1/4 cup more flour to his recipe (no extra liquid) and it will make six 6” buns.
Here’s a Big Mac salad recipe that tastes all the world like a Big Mac without the bun - http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/big_mac_bowl.html . Note - I use her regular thousand island dressing at http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/thousand_island.html . Be careful, that dressing addictive.
Used to have a garden but can’t due to knee problems. Still have some peppers in the freezer and some home canned stuff but not for much longer. Down to mainly pear sauce and pear preserves from free drops. Finished off the last of the chutney last night. Will be needing to make more prickly pear jelly next summer since those are free. Have enough pecans from our trees in the freezer for baking and snacking. Geez, store bought pecans are $$$$$!