Chickens are Shrinking

True confession: I sometimes buy rotisserie chicken from the grocery deli. They have been on sale, off and on, for $5, so that's not too bad. I have noticed that they are smaller than they used to be, but I thought that it was because they were trying to fill the gap caused by COVID by butchering them younger. 

The one I got last time might have been 6 weeks old, or it might have been younger. I still got several meals from it because I am single, frugal and don't eat a lot of meat due to health restrictions. But still.... it was small.

I nearly always boil the carcass and pick off all the meat to get my money's worth so when I started to get the pan to boil this one, I realized it would fit into my 2 quart pan. With room to spare. 

Ok, let's look at the frugal silver lining to this cloud. It took less water and less time (energy paid for) to boil it. That's about it.

I know that chicken, rotisserie or not, is not the only thing that's been shrinking. What was a 16 ounce package is now 14 or even 12. What was a twelve count is now a 10 count. Did you ever pay attention to how much detergent is (or rather, isn't) in those pods? 

We went through this a few years back, when a pound of coffee became 14 ounces and 5 pounds of sugar became 4 pounds. Chocolate bars shrank, gas prices soared.... it's sounding familiar, isn't it? 

I don't know if it's the same old merry go round or if this is something new, but the way forward is the same. Read the labels, do the math, pay closer attention now more than ever and get your money's worth. Well, as much as you can. 

That rotisserie chicken is going to go farther than ever as I use it in soup, salads, sandwiches and casseroles into the future. It has to because either the days of $5 chicken or the days of rotisserie chickens old enough to not be called chicks have to be coming to an end. 

You Can Eat Organic on a Budget

We probably all know that organic food is better for us, but being frugal, it's hard to let go of the money it takes to buy it. There are other ways to get healthy and organic food than paying full price at the grocery store, though.

One way is to look for coupons online. Coupons can usually be found for organic milk and other dairy products, and sometimes you will find a coupon for fresh produce at a particular store. Use a search engine to look for coupons for specific brand names and you'll surely find some.

Another way to save on any food is to buy meat and produce as close to the source as you can, but find a farmer or producer who grows things organically by looking on Local Harvest (http://www.localharvest.org) then go and talk to them. Organic eggs, meat, fresh vegetables and fruits can often be found this way that will cost less than what you will find in the grocery store.

Grow your own as much as you can. If you live in an apartment, you can still grow food organically by using grow lights or simply growing sprouts from organic seeds. Sprouts are superfoods and a little goes a long way. Although a pound of sprouting seed may seem expensive, it will produce far more than a pound of healthy, tasty food.

If you have room for a garden, you can grow a lot of your own food, of course. You might have a hard time finding plants ready to put into your garden, but if you need to, look for a plant nursery that advertises organic plants and avoid places like Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe's that all sell the same "conventional" (nonorganic) plants.

Unless you know someone who will share organic seed, you will have to buy it the first time, but if you buy heirloom or open pollinated produce, you can save the seed from your harvest and never have to buy it again.

Different types of vegetables take different methods of seed saving, so do some research before you try. A good book like Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth can be invaluable and save you the price many times over.

There are seeds that are food that you can buy from an organic grocer or farmer to eat, then grow some of your own. Dry beans of various kinds, peas and whole grains (not polished or processed in any way), will grow in your garden. Garlic tends to diminish unless it's of good stock, but you can try planting the grocery store variety.

If you want to grow potatoes, you can try the grocery store variety as long as they're organic. Otherwise, they may not grow because they might have been irradiated to stop sprouting. Also, nonorganic potatoes may carry fungi which can infect your garden soil. Choose organic potatoes that are already trying to grow for the best results.

You can also regrow plants from much of the produce you buy. Celery, onions, lettuce and more will often grow again from the roots. When you buy, look for produce that still has some root left and don't cut all the way to the root when you use it. For celery, leave an inch or so, for onions, a half inch. You will soon know what to do if you try a few times. Put the root in a little water until it starts to grow, then carefully plant it and there you have another whatever you started with.

You can trade your own skills and products for organic food more easily than you can for "conventional" food because organic farmers are generally a little more "alternative" and willing to listen to your proposal. If you can provide a service or goods they can use, it's worth a try.

It's a good thing to eat organic! It might take a little work, but you can do it.

The Imagination Challenges

These challenges that I posted were written several years ago and prices have changed quite a bit since then. At the time, you could buy a pound of beans, a pound of rice, two cans of tuna and a loaf of bread for five dollars. You might be able to do that today if you find a good salvage store or double coupons or work at it pretty hard otherwise, but not on a regular basis.

The point I was trying to get across is that we can learn by imagining how we would survive in extreme situations. As you imagine the situtation you will come up with solutions you might not think of otherwise. Remember those solutions and apply them whenever possible to your daily life.

Think "out of the box" when it comes to getting the food in the first place. Foraging, bartering and growing your own are only three ways of doing it. In some places, you can glean fields after the harvest. Some farmers and grain elevators will sell way below price if you buy in bulk. A 50 pound bag of beans can cost as low as half the price of that in the store. If you devide it with friends or family, your cost can be as low as 50 cents a pound, a far cry from the $1.30 I saw recently.

Foraging is a viable alternative to grocery store buying if you have a safe place to forage. For some, that can be your own back yard. Leave a small area for a year or two. Don't mow it, don't fertilize it, don't weed it and don't poison it with weed killer. You will soon have food growing on its own, without cultivation. You might want to throw a little water on it if you have a long period of hot and dry weather, but otherwise, leave it alone except to harvest. If you want to jump start the process, dig up the area and leave it. Some grass will grow back, but there will be more room for wild food.

What will grow there? Different things in different areas, but look for dandelions, lambsquarter, plantain, mallow, wild salsify, wild lettuce, dock and purslane. From these crops you can get greens, seeds and roots. Dandelions are the most versatile and common. You can eat the young leaves as greens or make tea from them. You can fritter the blossoms, cook the buds and eat with butter. You can eat the roots, boiled, or you can roast them for "coffee." The entire plant is edible, but the latex- like white liquid in the stem is bitter. It's best used to treat warts and other skin problems.

If you live in farming country, gleaning can stock your pantry amazingly. Here we have sugar beets, potatoes, carrots, onions and beans, besides feed corn. We once fed out three turkeys pretty much on gleaned corn and watermeion that would otherwise have been wasted. Think of what you can do. I made sugar beet molasses for fun and to eat. Onions can be dehydrated so even the split ones are useable. I have picked up cabbage, both red and green, from a corner where a farm truck made a turn and they rolled off.

If you can't grow, forage or glean, try bartering for some of your food. It won't  hurt to ask and to offer whatever you can do. If you do crafts that people want, if you can bake a special cake, if you can clean house or mow yards or watch someone's kids while Mom  goes shopping - whatever you can do can barter you a few dollars' worth of food.

If you do have a garden, make the most of it. Read up on what you plant to see how to put it up for winter, what parts other than the traditional ones can be used, etc. For instance, you can eat the whole radish plant, from root to seed. Chop radish leaves for salad or cook as greens. The flowers can go in a salad, too. When the seed pods are young and tender, pick them for salads or to eat just out of hand. Some are a little hot, some are very mild. If some seed pods get too mature to eat, let them finish setting seed for next year and/or sprout them for salads and sandwiches.

See how much of the food you need you can get for free or half price. It's probably a lot more than you think.

Image by photoAC from Pixabay

Prepare for Higher Prices

I hope you have a garden. If not a garden in the ground, a container garden. If neither of those, a few plants on a windowsill. Whatever you have, increase it.

Why?

Because the cost of all kinds of food is going to go higher and higher. Some of it may unavailable at any price, due to the extreme weather the entire globe is having. Between floods, drought, fires and heat waves, fewer crops have been planted and part of what has been planted, has given minimal yields.

Watch out for an influx of beef and pork, especially, as farmers sell off butcher animals because they can't feed them. After that, the prices will skyrocket because of a shortage of animals as well as higher cost of feeding out what they have due to higher grain prices. Keep your eye on prices and buy while there is still a glut.

Vegetables may go high, too, due to tariffs as well as weather. Even home gardens are behind planting this year and truck farmers are having it just as hard as grain farmers.

I keep wanting to say "Be prepared!" but that's what frugal living is all about. This is just a heads up that you may want to be more focused than ever.

Keeping the Food Bill Down, #1

I've been eating out of the freezer. A small container of rice, a stash of bits of vegetables and a piece of leftover chicken from... I don't know when. Added together with a bit of salt and a little water, it made a filling and tasty soup!

For supper there will be potato soup made with leftover tuna bits and liquid that I have saved over the summer's worth of tuna salad sandwiches and some leftover cornbread.

I went to the store yesterday and I don't know how much I spent. Bad? Yeah... what happened was that two six packs of Zevia Cola rang up as two cans, so I have to go back and pay them and for the life of me, I can't remember what the six packs cost. I went to Natural Grocers, a store limited to Colorado, where the Cola is cheaper than anywhere else and I used a coupon, in case you were wondering.

Other than that, I spent a little over $12 on potatoes, flour and graham crackers, etc. The graham crackers are for my granddaughter who thinks that's why she comes to Grandma's (to eat graham crackers).

Tightening the Grocery Budget

I used to buy groceries for around a hundred dollars a month, but as prices crept up and up, that rose to $110 to $125 and lately, it's been more than that! As a frugal person, and one who shoots off her mouth now and then, it's kind of embarrassing.

So I'm going to go on a fiscal diet and not spend more than $100 each month on groceries for the rest of the year. I will NOT include extras for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, but I will try to hold it to a minimum. Also, I don't eat out very often, but if I should, that will be a part of the food budget.

Okay. Hold me to it. It starts this Wednesday, when I get paid and start my month over, for practicality's sake.

I have food in the house that I have avoided using. Don't we all do that? Things stuffed away in the freezer that I will use "sometime." That sometime is now, so I might have some strange meals. Then again, maybe not. I have canned food and dry food and a good variety, too.

I'll try to remember and report, although I may not be too specific about it (crunching numbers and listing prices doesn't sound like fun). I'll try to post at least the totals of my food expenditures and maybe a few interesting recipes!

Wish me luck.

Up and Up and Up

Food prices, I mean. And gas prices. And clothing prices.

It may be time to start putting some of that extreme frugality into practice. Things are not going to get better in the near future, so don't put off finding ways to get through this. The longer you wait, the more it's going to hurt.

Be diligent in watching out for sales and cooking from scratch. Stock up on basics when you see them begin to inch up in price because the next time you need them, they may have leaped up in prices.

And how many times have I said this: Grow as much of your own food as you can. Even if that means a tin can of dirt on your windowsill. You might be very glad to have some free lettuce when the price doubles again.

Don't think things will always be the same. There are rumors of global food shortages due to the weather, and pathogens growing in GM crops. GM has permeated almost every part of our food system. 

I'm not trying to frighten anyone into a panic, but I'm trying to wake us all up. We need to be very alert to what is going on around us.

High and low in the grocery store

Did you ever have to stand on your tippy toes to reach your favorite brand on the top shelf? There's a reason for that. Grocery stores (and other stores; I won't just pick on grocery stores) display the most expensive items, and the ones with the most impulse appeal, at what is eye level for most people.

Surprising? It shouldn't be. We need to be aware that all stores do everything they can to get us to buy as much as possible every time. That's the name of the (marketing) game and we play it whether we know the rules or not.

Products on the lower shelves often appeal to children, which is a good incentive for keeping children in the shopping cart! Generic products are often down there, too, so they don't compete directly with brand name products which are, of course, at eye level.

The next time you go into a grocery store, compare the prices of the items on the lower shelves with those on the middle to upper middle shelves, then compare those with the prices of items on the very top shelf. Do it in several different areas of the store and see what you come up with.

The future of food... is it here?

Ok, I'm worried. Or beginning to worry. Food prices are still going up and there are many reasons for them to continue to rise. One is the weather. You don't have to look very far to see extreme weather. Snow measured in feet instead of inches, droughts that hang on and on, floods, tornadoes in places that don't get tornadoes.

And then there is the threat of diseases. Blights, fungi and bacterial problems are beginning to plague monoculture megafarms. Loss of seed variety, encouraged by Monsanto and GMO practices, add to the threat. It's becoming more and more difficult to maintain heritage seeds - seeds that are needed to ensure the continuation of food crops.

Crop failure, no matter what its cause, can be disastrous now more than ever, because we live in a global world.  Preferring local food can be seen as backwards and nonproductive.

What product prices should we be most concerned with? Start reading the labels on your shelves because those products very probably contain some of these.

Wheat  - bread, rolls, cookies, cake... pizza dough, cabbage rolls and the hundreds of items that use wheat and/or gluten.

Corn  - popcorn, sweet corn, corn meal, corn flour, corn starch, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup... this affects the cost of literally thousands of products.Corn has almost doubled in the last 6 months or so.

Soy is another one that has seen rising prices. Not just in soy sauce or soy milk, soy is found in many, many products.

But maybe you've heard this before? In 2007, there was great concern (although much of it behind closed doors, they tell us) about rising food prices and possible shortages. Food prices did rise, but not so much that we didn't adjust and go on. Will it be that way this time?

I don't know, but I'm hearing rumbles that I never heard before. Rumbles of crucial food shortages, of hunger increasing, of government programs not being able to keep up, of food banks having to turn away people. Do you think our government will tell us if there was a serious food shortage? No way... people panic. People act stupid when they fear anything, and the government knows it.

Hunger and food riots have always happened somewhere else... not here in the USA. We have lots of cheap food... don't we? I believe the near future may tell us a different story.

Pay attention to the overall picture and watch your food budget closely.

More about saving on food, again

Haven't seen the price of food coming down yet, have you? Even with summertime coming on and produce being more available, those prices just keep creeping up.

I don't know about you, but summertime means more activity around here. Working outside, doing things and going places that are reserved for warm weather wears me out sometimes. Cooking is the last thing I want to do when I'm tired, and I'm tempted to run to the closest hamburger joint, but with the price of food going up even there, staying home is a frugal (and cool!) option.

So, thinking about that, I wrote an article for Associated Content about making your own fast food:

Beat the High Cost of Food: Do it Yourself Fast Food

When I started researching, it was surprising to me how simple their tricks are. Maybe you knew that (and I feel as if I should have known it!) or maybe you know more about the tricks they use, but it was enough to make me stay home.

Other articles in the series are

Beat the High Cost of Food: Shop the Sales

Beat the High Cost of Food: Get it Free

Beat the High Cost of Food: Eat the Leftovers!

More about saving on food

I just published an article titled "Beat the High Cost of Food: Get it Free" on Associated Content.

There are some things I didn't mention there, though... one is that it takes planning and work to get free food, so that it isn't really free. We have to work at anything, whether we work for money and turn that money into goods, or work directly for goods (or food).

It's often more fun or more satisfying to work directly for goods or food, especially if the method is a little out of the ordinary for you. For instance, it might not seem to be much fun for a farmer to glean a field by hand, but for those who sit at a desk all week, an hour or so in the sun and dirt can be might satisfying.

That's just one way of getting "free" food. Pick and choose yours, or use all methods possible.

Just another way to beat the ever increasing cost of food.

Of Supply and Rice

When Costco and Sam's Club "rationed" rice, there came upon some of us a vague sense of panic. Food was being rationed! We were going to have to do without! Buy it now, while you can, there isn't any more!

No, no, and no again. How many 20 pound bags of rice do you need? We've been told that the reason rice sales have been limited is that restaurants were buying against future prices, as the rice crop has failed in parts of the world. That make sense. If I were a restaurant owner, I'd be doing the same thing. But I'm not a restaurant owner, and neither are most of you. So what's the problem?

The problem is that if we all begin to hoard food - buying more than we need at regular prices - we're causing a problem. What might have been a normal week in rice sales went whacko because some large buyers increased their purchases, thus leaving the remaining suppplies low. We, collectively, can cause the same thing.

Hoarding is not nice. It leaves your neighbors and your friends without or paying even higher prices.

So how does this fit with the stocking up I'm always preaching? This way: When we stock up, we buy sales items - food at a lower price than usual, not food at the normal price. Food that's on sale is abundant, otherwise it wouldn't be on sale. It might not be abundant in the future; we can't know that and that's not the point. The only reason to stock up is to take advantage of sales and below normal prices.

In other words, let this be a lesson. Don't hoard. It only hurts us all in the long run.

Beat the high cost of food

These soaring grocery prices are enough to make any frugalite nervous and finding every way we can to cut costs there is important - BUT... just buying food at the lowest cost is only half the battle. No matter how much you coupon, shop the sales, grow your own, barter, etc., if you waste the food once you have it in your kitchen, you've lost the war.

There are so many ways we waste food without even thinking about it. I challenge you. Next time you prepare a meal, think of what you would do if the food you were preparing was the only food you would have for the next three days. Don't go adding more food... just use what you would normally for a meal. Could you find ways to stretch it or to use more of it?

How about chopping up those celery leaves into the salad or soup? Cooking beet and radish greens? Scrubbing potatoes before you peel them so you can use the skins in another dish?

Or how about those leftovers? They can make another appearance in an entirely different costume. Example: Leftover turkey from the freezer (Thanksgiving!), plus a cup or so of vegetables leftover from Easter and a few tablespoons of Ham gravy that I made from the pan drippings from the Easter ham (didn't have it for Easter dinner), and I made a turkey pot pie. Good, too, I must say. All leftovers except for the flour and salt. The fat was saved and rendered from the said ham.

Don't throw out perfectly good food because you've never saved it before. Get creative and use everything you have and your grocery costs will go down. Guaranteed.

The price of food

Ack! Arghh... oh, my... and all that. I've been trying to get a new laptop with a new to me operating system in shape so I can actually use it! And I'm getting behind on everything else!

Anyway, today I used the last of a Christmas gift card and bought a few things at the grocer's... my goodness, the prices are still going up. That means we have to be even wiser about the way we spend our money on food.

A few quick tips that have helped me:
Don't go hungry
Don't go without a list
Don't go with someone else

Do watch closely for sales and be ready to adjust your list when you find them.
Keep an eye out for mark downs - ready to expire, dented cans or just tired products. Only grab them if you'll use them, though.

It could be the single most money saving move of all: Don't waste food. Make use of all leftovers one way or another. Don't serve more than your family will eat. If you make the plates, cut back on serving size. They can always come back for more, but if they have too much and leave it on their plate, it's wasted food.

Hang tight... I don't think this thing is over yet.

The Cost of Healthy Eating

I've heard it over and over: "I can't afford to eat (or feed my family) healthy meals!"

Well... why not? Here's a challenge:

Add up the cost of all the junk food you bought the last time you bought groceries. Include "necessities" like chips for lunches, and include cake mixes and cookie dough and canned sweet rolls. If you bake from scratch, add in the cost of ingredients as best you can.

Take your total to the store and just look. Look at the apples and the cabbage and the broccoli and the carrots. Estimate how much fresh produce you could have bought for what you spent on junk food and be as honest about it as you can.

Compare how long the produce would last with how long the junk food lasts.

I'm going to make yet another confession: I did this. For some reason, I bought more junk food than I usually do, so I added it all up and went and looked. I'm embarrassed to tell you how much healthy produce I could have bought for that amount, so I won't.

I know that not all of you even buy junk food, but for the ones who do... take the challenge.