Anyone know any good ways to make money stretch?

[Eisa]

We're poor as. Like right now, we're really excited because we found enough money to get hot dogs and a few packs of ramen.

We're both really, really bad at making our food stamps stretch and part of that is not having the slightest what to cook and what will last and stuff. Rhay can cook, but she doesn't know what to make. We've tried looking up "things on a budget" online, but one that was really good that we found, the person was in the UK so all the things were entirely different, including wtf you can easily get in stores. And the other, the person claimed to be doing "organic living on a budget!", yet her budget was $125 per week. Gee, if we had that freaking much to spend a week, we wouldn't have a problem, now would we?

And it's further complicated by the fact I'm lactose intolerant. Lactaid pills make it possible to eat some things (like cheese, depending), but I try to make those stretch as long as possible. And I've got gastroparesis, which means my diet is supposed to be as low-fiber and low-fat as it can, so I can't eat a lot of vegetables or fruits easily, especially raw.

So yeah...I'm lost.

[corwin02]

In essence you can cook for relatively low amounts of money provided you can buy in bulk

1st rule is never buy preprocessed food it is a lot more expensive than the 'raw' materials

2nd rule is buy bulk , a 20 pound bag of rice is cheaper than 10 bags of 2 pounds

3rd rule is to only buy those veggies that are in season (they are cheaper)

4th rule is to cook in quantity and freeze it

Since you are predominantly interested in 2 things , being filled with enough energy to do your work and be healthy, use a lot of bulk foods like rice or potatoes for energy where you mix in veggies and a little bit of protein (meat/chicken/fish)

Go for so called 1 pan dishes

Example for quick filling healthy stuff

Kale Mash

Serves 4-6; add optional 3/4 lb sausage .

Ingredients

4 lbs potatoes, peeled and cubed (I use Yukon Gold)
salt
2-1/2 lbs kale, washed, stems removed, shredded (sold in bag)
1 Tbsp butter
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 Tbsp regular milk (or soy milk)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
black pepper, to taste

Trim, wash and chop the kale
Place the peeled and cubed potatoes in a pot with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and cover by 1 inch of water.
Add the Kale on top
Bring to the boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook 20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
When the potatoes are cooked through, drain the water,
Mash while still hot (a hand masher works best) with the butter and milk.
The potatoes should be very smooth.
Taste, and season with salt (if needed), nutmeg and black pepper. Serve hot.

Can be served with a kielbasa or you can fry up some chopped bacon and add to the mash

Fried Rice
Serves 3 to 4

1 Cup of Rice
1 teaspoon paprika powder
1 teaspoon cummin powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 chopped leek
1 chopped onion
any leftover veggies you have in the fridge

1 1/2 chickenbreast
1 egg
soy sauce


Boil the rice in plenty of water (usually 10/12 mins)
cut the chicken in small cubes
cut the leek and the onion in small pieces
mix the seasonings together with the soy sauce (mixture should stay fluid not thicken)

sautee the leek and onion an any veggies you like to add and set asside
fry the chicken in a little oil and set asside
tosse the egg in the pan and scramble it
add the chicken
add the veggies
add the now cooked and drained rice
add the seasoning mixture
mix
Serve

Hope these help

[Aislin]

If you are in the US look into ad-matching at the evil empire. I know here that is how most people stretch a dollar.

[Amayis]

If we had a budget of 125 a week, we wouldn't have any issues. I could be making really nice meals every single day :P

But yeah...Any help would be highly appreciated.

[Amayis]

Only issue with buying in bulk is that our food money is mainly from SNAP.

Places like Sams Club don't accept that. I could do a -lot- with being able to buy from there ((Because it's cheaper to buy in bulk and I know how to make it last.))

It is also a bit harder to freeze it, but we could do some. Just that our freezer is tiny and we aren't allowed to get new appliances like that. ((Not that we could -afford- it, but you know.))

I need to have J help with a budget... Maybe we could afford to put some towards buying some bulk purchases from sams that way.

[Amayis]

If you are in the US look into ad-matching at the evil empire. I know here that is how most people stretch a dollar.

We are in the US and I'm quite curious as to what you mean by the evil empire :P Walmart?

[Aislin]

Yes, and they have a bulk isle in the bigger walmarts. I saw a woman get a 4 pound box of pasta for 3.50 tonight and 7 cans of 99 sauce, hot dogs for 89 and clearance bread. Try buying day old bread or pastries. I had a friend who lived on day old or discounted food while saving. Some farmers markets have a deal with snap to pay more when paid with snap. Check out food banks and pantries, our local food bank sells food along with giving out food boxes. It is all below cost. We have discount grocers here that sell food that is about to expire. If you can eat it in a few days or freeze it it works well.

[mathnerd]

Look into the food pantries where you live. There are a lot that are kind of iffy, but many that are good. Even if you go to one that's not so good, a little bread and some pasta and maybe a few canned goods are just that much more that you don't have to buy.

Ramen noodles make a great "base" for quite a few meals. I like to toss them in boiling water just long enough to make them the tiniest bit tender, then stir fry them with a little meat and a few veggies. You can also make them as soup and add other stuff to make it a heartier meal.

Study the sales at the various grocery stores. Most stores have a 6-8 week cycle where the same types of items go on sale, with seasonal additions. Buy your staples only when they go on sale, and buy enough to last until they go on sale again.

Don't forget the smaller stores. There's a couple of small Cuban grocers in my neck of the woods that have fantastic sales on meat. I basically buy a quarter cow at a time and the butcher cuts/grinds it to my specifications. I buy it when they go on sale for $1.99-$2.50/lb. Then I go home and wrap it in meal sized quantities and freeze it. You said you have limited freezer space, but you can still take advantages of certain sales in smaller quantities.

[Jester]

Two questions, both somewhat important: what IS your weekly budget for food, and where in the U.S. are you?

[42_42_42]

As for the lactose-intolerant thing: just don't buy dairy that contains lactose. Hard aged cheese (i.e. Parmesan) and yogurt don't have lactose because the process of making them uses up all the lactose.

One of the best ways to make something that goes really far is to make soup. Fortunately, making soup from scratch is really easy. You can make a giant pot and eat on it all week or freeze part of it for later.

Even though you're on a tight budget and have certain dietary limitations, make sure you are getting the nutrients that you need. Make sure you eat at least 1 serving of some kind of protein each day. Not sure how they'd affect your health issue, but dried beans are cheap, easy to fix, and a great source of protein. Between rice & beans and soups, you can eat healthily and cheaply.

As the others have said, don't buy processed foods. Not only are they more expensive, but their nutritional value is low. Ramen's cheap, but it's terrible for you.

Not sure if Big Lots takes food stamps, but if they do, they're a great place to get things like cereal and canned goods. Dollar General also tends to have some good buys.

Check to see if there is a seconds grocery store. We have one in town that exclusively sells things where the packaging is damaged, but the product inside is still good. Things like dented cans, ripped box but the bag inside that contains the actual product is intact. They probably don't take food stamps, but what they sell is stupid cheap so they'd be a great place to go to spend whatever cash you can get together to supplement your food stamps.

[Sapphire Silk]

Don't forget Aldi. Basic cereals and pastas are cheap there, and you can sometimes get cheap meat or fruit there as well.

Look for the grocery store where all the poor people shop, and shop there. Learned that one in college. Food Lion is good for that.

Learn how to make your own bread and pasta. It's not as hard as you think, and flour is cheap. I used to make home made pizzas all the time this way, and sometimes you can refridgerate or freeze the dough and cook it without making a batch fresh every time.

For soups and stews, hang onto bones and scraps. When you make a roast or whatever, toss the leftovers into a soup or stew for the next day.

[Seshat]

Frozen vegetables are also a big help; at least here in Australia. Same quality (sometimes better) as fresh, and often cheaper, and out of season vegetables are available.

In Australia, frozen fruits are usually much more expensive than fresh. I don't know why.

Dried lentils, beans, peas, and other such dried items are a very good way to make money stretch.

For breads, many bakeries will sell day-old bread at cheap prices.

For meats/proteins, use a legume/grain mix to get full protein, or use eggs, or inexpensive cuts of meat, organ meats, minces and sausage.

Anything you can grow without needing to mess with fertilizer and expensive potting soils and such is an advantage. IE: if you're in a place where you can shove carrot tops and potato eyes in the ground and harvest them a couple of months later, BONUS.


So when you have these, what do you do with them?

Make dahl, stews and soups with the dried legumes and grains as a base.

Make stock and casserole-meat with the really crappy cuts of meat: knuckles and knees and tails and spines. Simmer it for hours, preferably with some herbs and spices, and then strain the whole thing through a sieve or a cloth. Pick the meat out and reserve for use later, and toss the bones and skin. Let the stock cool, pick off the fat, and you have a good stock to use for making soups and casseroles - or for cooking your dried things in.

You can also use carrot tops, celery tops, leek tops, and other edible-but-not-tasty bits of vegetable in making stock. Do your research, though: some parts of vegetables are toxic.


Seshat's cheap recipe book:

Dried-food based meals

Meal 1:
Soak dried lentils, grains, peas or beans overnight.
Put some stock in a pan, along with water and a generous handful of the dried stuff per person.
Simmer as stated on the packet, or longer if you like it really soft.
During cooking, add water as necessary. Less if you want it stew-ish, more if you want it soup-ish.
Add reserved casseroling meats (if you want meats), and chopped, non-frozen vegetables. Cook until vegetables are nearly ready.
Add any frozen vegetables. Cook until all veg are ready.
Serve with bread, if desired. Or mashed potato/sweet potato, if you've made it stew-ish.

Indian-inspired meal:
Look up recipes for Dahl, and for a vegetable curry, and/or a meat curry.
Plan to steam some rice, adding a little saffron if you feel it necessary.
(The lentils for the dahl, and the rice, are both dried, and cheap. The meat curry can be made with meat from making stock.)


Bah. I'm tired. Sorry.

[Seshat]

Check to see if there is a seconds grocery store. We have one in town that exclusively sells things where the packaging is damaged, but the product inside is still good. Things like dented cans, ripped box but the bag inside that contains the actual product is intact.

Study dented cans carefully. If there's rust, or if the dent has actually broken the integrity of the can, don't buy it. Canned goods only remain preserved while the interior is perfectly sealed.

That said, if it IS sealed, it's still fine.

[auntiem]

And it's further complicated by the fact I'm lactose intolerant. Lactaid pills make it possible to eat some things (like cheese, depending), but I try to make those stretch as long as possible. And I've got gastroparesis, which means my diet is supposed to be as low-fiber and low-fat as it can, so I can't eat a lot of vegetables or fruits easily, especially raw.

Is zuchinni high in fiber? People around here are at the point of leaving free bags of it on stranger's doorsteps.
The food bank here will work around food intolerances - have you tried your local food bank?
What I did when my food budget was minimal was:
Every week I'd buy a whole chicken and roast it - yummy hot chicken "fancy" dinner one night - shredded chicken to add to a few other dishes - then bones to make soup for a few more dishes. Whole chickens are cheap around here certain times of the year ($4) - but I don't know about where you live.
Ate lots of pasta dishes with "doctored" up cans of sauce.
Added potato to everything I could (good filler, yummy and cheap).
Ate a lot of tuna (but I don't think that is very cheap anymore).

When we had a "windfall" (a grocery card bonus from work for example) we would buy more spices and one or two "splerge" items such as the "good" horseradish, Tillamook sharp cheddar, or sherry for cooking (adding sherry to canned chowder makes it much more tolerable).

[Der Cute]

Can you buy whole turkeys when they're on sale? Whole chickens? Last year's turkey was legs, stirfry, cat treats (she loved it), ground up stuff, and carcass for broth making. (hint use ice trays for freezing the broth! Make rice with broth next time around)
Go to the meat section and find the "clearance" spot, you can find good stuff in there sometimes.
Spices for me are ways to 'doctor' up foods, so they don't all taste the same.
Lunch meats at the deli are sometimes cheaper than the packaged ones on the shelf. Really - price per pound. That, add some cheese and old bread, heated sammich. Bread needs to be from outlet store or day old bakery.
Could you use beans (refried stuff on sale) and make bean tacos? Bean glop for this, that those and thems..
Go to a food bank and see what you get. Normally it's oddball cans of stuff (I worked @ one for awhile and we didn't give out denty bulging cans.) but you can make a meal with it.
HTH