Anyone know any good ways to make money stretch?

[Seshat]

Indian (from India) cuisine is also extremely inexpensive, as long as the raw ingredients are available where you are. These ingredients tend to be dried legumes, rice, vegetables, cheap meat pieces (cooked slowly), and spices, and a clarified butter called ghee. That last might be the most difficult, but you can substitute other things for it - check recipe substitution sites. (We use ghee - lots of Indian-from-India immigrants here.)

The spices you can collect slowly: any week or month when you manage to squirrel away three dollars, you can reward yourself by buying a new spice!

I learned to use herbs and spices by experimenting. I'd make one of my usual meals - say, scrambled eggs with mixed frozen veg - and add the new spice to it. If you use a meal that has a 'standard' taste to it, you can easily learn what flavours the spice or herb adds.

Once you're familiar with a new spice or herb in a 'standard' meal, you can start using multiple spices and herbs together, making layers of flavour. This sort of flavour blending can help you keep a series of similar dishes interesting.

[Teefies2]

You have gotten great advice here.

My family eats almost exclusively on food bank, because my 2 kids are full-time students and my dh is "self-employed" (read ...decided he didn't want to "work that hard any more"). I am the only one working at a steady job, so I do what I can to maximize food choices. Couponing is good, as long as it's something you would buy anyway.

Soup is a great way to eat cheap AND healthy. You can throw pretty much anything in there and it can go a long way. I do splurge on crackers to go with the soup, but they're pretty cheap as well (and often given out at the food bank).

I live in a rural area, and some of my neighbors have vegetable gardens. I offer my services to them (car washing, baby sitting, etc.) and they reciprocate by giving me veggies in season! Yay! another pot of soup! It's amazing what people are willing to trade .... "I don't like doing laundry, I'll give you 4 pounds of squash to do my laundry" ... a silly example, but you get the idea. It really IS possible to be meat-free - not that we do it by choice, but <shrugs> sometimes you have no choice.

As many others have stated, it's all about being intentional and looking for the good in what you have (well, maybe they didn't in so many words, but ...) Life is not about what happens to you, but about how you happen to it!!!!!! Good luck to you

[Der Cute]

Eggs are pretty basic and filling, make a lot of things with that. Who ever posted about the herb garden is right - easy food, fresh. Other veggies will be fine indoors too.
Someone said something about zucchini. Well, it's a squash with little flavor. Easy to cook/bake and eat (bake it, cheese pepper garlic butter, its good). But since it's so plentiful (if your area is giving them away) shred/grate them. They are good fillers for sauces/foods. Add Z to yoru spaghetti sauce, and less meat. You can put Z in almost anything. http://food.unl.edu/web/fnh/zucchini
Winter squash coming up too, acorn squash is huge and can feed me for 4 meals. Do you have an iPod or iPhone or Android? thre's an app called Weekly, and I use it to check the circulars for a bunch of stores I go to. Lets me see the sales for it.
Also, http://www.survivingthestores.com/ is something I go to often, retail coupons, printables, online codes.

Hugs to you both, this has got to suck.

[Barracuda]

Go old school. Have any relatives that lived through the Depression as kids? Ask them what their families did. My grandfather's family made a LOT of potato soup---all you need is milk or cream and potatoes, salt and pepper, and herbs. You can also add garlic or chopped onions to it for some extra flavor. (And when you can get it, bacon, Spam, ham or odd bits of pork or hot dogs.) I would recommend finding a bargain grocery store in your area like Grocery Outlet that buys overstock food and sells it cheap. You never know what you'll find, but they usually have staples for very cheap, and they have great prices on things like toiletries. Look into what is sometimes called "peasant dishes" because they used to be cooked (or still are) by peasants in different parts of the world. Ratatouille, for example, is a classic French peasant dish that uses peppers and other cheap vegetables with a tomato sauce--canned is cheap and available places like Dollar Tree. Rice and black or pinto beans is another peasant dish, cheap to make and filling (if you have the money, you can add some chicken or shrimp.) You can also make a vegetarian jambalaya with peppers and tomatoes. Soups are very cheap, and some grocery stores will give away soup bones at the butcher counter or, at the very least, sell them cheap. This will let you make your own broth. Throw in some vegetables and meat scraps and you have a soup. Eggs were mentioned, eggs are very good and can be stretched quite well. Make a fritatta (or Spanish omelet) for dinner by adding your favorite vegetables, bits of meat, cheese or other ingredients in a large greased pan that is oven safe with whisked eggs. (You can also add salt, pepper and herbs before you cook as well.) Mix the ingredients thoroughly, and cook until the bottom has set on the stove top, then transfer to the oven to finish from the top down. Slice like a pizza and serve when the eggs and other ingredients are cooked. Or make omelets or even just poached eggs on toast. When I've been poor I simply make a few poached eggs and place on buttered toast, then fry up a couple sliced up hot dogs in the same pan with a little oil or butter and serve them with a bit of fruit. It's quite good, and very cheap.

[Seshat]

Non-food poverty tricks:

MEND. Mend everything. You have internet access, so you have access to even more information about repairs than our ancestors did. You probably also have a local library, which has such information.
For clothing, all you need to start repairing things is a needle set and some good quality cotton in your family's favourite colours. For mine, that's a black, a white, a dark blue, a purple and a (blue-tone) red. And a pair of scissors.
Furniture can be mended, so can things like doors and windows and .. well, most things.

MODIFY. My husband's losing weight, so some of his clothes don't fit him as well. That's easily fixed: we simply pinned down some of his shirts along the side seams and made them narrower in the waist. As for his pants/slacks, some elastic in the waistband makes them wearable until we can replace them with ones that fit his new shape properly. Technically, I could re-sew them, but completely reshaping the waist/hip area of pants is tricky work.

SUBSTITUTE. A chair can be a side table. A sturdy side table can be a stool. A box can be a coffee table. A kitchen table can be a computer desk.
Heck, I've used a fishtank stand and a plank of wood as a computer desk!

[fireheart]

Not sure how well you go with coffee, but generally that can give you the caffeine buzz as well.

[CaptainJaneway]

If you have a Costco close by they make take snap/ebt. Here in New York we started taking it a coupe of years ago.

You can get a lot of food and good quality food from Costco. If you buy a lot of meats and poultry you can split them up into small packages and freeze them. Then use them as needed. The chicken is pretty good because they are already portioned out.

[Gravekeeper]

My emergency go to for when I was young and broke was starches. Potatoes, pasta, rice. All cheap as shit and last forever in the cupboard/fridge. All easy to flavour, versatile recipe wise and filling. I mean, a couple baked potatoes is a filling meal for under a buck. Corn on the cob is great too for another cheap one you can just toss in the oven and throw some salt on.

Proteins are a bit more difficult as protein prices seem to vary by region. Up here ground beef is the cheap one while chicken is more expensive. Never underestimate the power of tofu though ( Seriously ). Complete protein and you can basically add it to anything else for a meat like texture and it will just absorb the flavour. If you don't care for the flavour or texture of it, just dice it up smaller so you don't notice. You'll still get nice filling protein.

Hell, I use to make "chicken" nuggets out of it. Seriously. Just get extra firm and dice it into suitable sized rectangles and bread it. Throw it in the oven at 350 for a bit till it crisps ( Not too long or the tofu will dry out though ). Then just dip it in something.

Not sure about down there, but up here frozen meat is the reverse of fresh. Bulk frozen chicken is cheaper than any sort of beef. If you can get a bag of bulk frozen chicken breasts for example it'll be a pricey hit at first, but it'll last as you can just pop them in the oven. Then do whatever with them afterwards ( slice em for stir fry, slice em and stick them in the refrigerator for easy reheat for sandwiches or wraps or whatever ).

I'll second what Seshat was saying and add Asian cuisine. Indian and Asian flavours are cheap to work with because its a matter of spices or in the case of Asian flavours, thin, strong sauces like soy sauce. Which are cheaper than thick pasta sauces ( Especially dairy based ones or fancy tomato sauces ) and go a long way do to the strength of the flavour. Don't need much.

Don't be afraid to make your own sauce though. Prepared spaghetti sauces are stupid expensive. The ingredients to a spaghetti sauce are cheap. Tomatoes or even canned tomato sauce + some herbs and spices and a pot is cheap. Also a good long term cooking investment as you can just make it in bulk once a month. My mom would just make one giant pot at a time and jar it or freeze it. Would last a month or two. The internet is abound with home made spaghetti sauce recipes as well.

[ArcticChicken]

If you can afford the time, make your own bread. Tastier, better for you, much much cheaper.

If you ever eat bacon, make sure to cook it in a pan. Then pour off the grease into a glass jar. Make sure you strain it, though. If you strain it, it's lasts practically forever in the fridge, and is a great way to add flavor to a dish. Actually, you might not have to keep it in the fridge, but it makes me uncomfortable not to. If you're adding new grease to the jar, make sure you warm the jar up first. Thermal shock does bad things to glass.

[Gravekeeper]

If you can afford the time, make your own bread. Tastier, better for you, much much cheaper.

Depends on your proximity to a bakery. There use to be no point in me making it even when I had a bread machine because there's a bakery a block from me that sells it for 99 cents a loaf fresh out of the oven. >.>

[NecessaryCatharsis]

You've gotten lots of good advise on how to get and prepare cheap food, and I second most of that
Free food is better - I live in Ontario, modify to suit your area!
Fish - fishing limits (on your license) don't apply when you fish with your kid, and bring the fish home for your family. I don't like ice fishing, and like you have limited freezer space. You can build a completely workable - if totally ghetto - smoker from stuff you find at the dump (scrub, bleach and scorch everything before using) smoked meat and fish and jerky will last for months. **note smoked and jerky'd meats are just as high in protein but lose most vitamins in the process, eat your veggies or take a multi vitamin**
Let someone else eat it - the Chinese couple who own the convenience store in town trade me carp, at 1$/lb off anything in the store. I trade carp, a completely disgusting, bottom feeding, sludge wading fish, for overpriced non perishables, mostly spices, flour, consommé etc. What was I going to do with carp anyways?
Hunt - the amount of meat you get from your bag limit for the year is worth way more than the hunting license costs. Venison is expensive, and I don't like it much, I trade a deer to a local butcher every fall, for one roast a week + an extra large chicken for Christmas.
Can (jar actually) - mason jars can be bought dirt cheap at garage sales everywhere (bleach and boil before using) and paraffin is cheap. This time of year pumpkin, squash, etc is cheap, and it all cans well. Corn is excellent canned, stewed tomatoes aren't bad, cukes are good, carrots okay and peas. **do NOT can beans yourself**
Sweat equity - I look after a guys farm for two weeks every summer, and a week at Christmas, and do a complete clean of the pens every fall. He gives me 1/2 dozen eggs and a gallon of milk every week - (this milk is not pasteurized, which is illegal for sale here, but can be given away or traded, not recommended unless you are sure of the animals and collection procedures)
Indoor garden - get a grow light, I got mine 2nd hand for a pack of smokes from a home grow operation (about 10$ at the time) as he was upgrading. Tomatoes, bell peppers, and beans don't require much horizontal space (vertical is another matter, give them their own closet) and will yield about 4 crops/year if you time your lights right. If you pay your own electric this may not be cheaper in the long run.

Again, this is what I specifically do, but I hope it will give you some ideas. My current grocery budget is 40$/week for the two of us, but a few years ago it was about 20$/week, and we have never gone to bed hungry

[wolfie]

Can (jar actually) - mason jars can be bought dirt cheap at garage sales everywhere (bleach and boil before using) and paraffin is cheap. This time of year pumpkin, squash, etc is cheap, and it all cans well. Corn is excellent canned, stewed tomatoes aren't bad, cukes are good, carrots okay and peas. **do NOT can beans yourself**

If you're going to do home canning, get yourself a CURRENT canning guide book. All the stuff mentioned above (with the POSSIBLE exception of the tomatoes) requires a pressure canner, not a water bath canner. Paraffin is no longer recommended as a sealer for ANYTHING including jams and jellies - you need proper canning lids. Unlike the jars and rings (the thing you screw down to hold the lid in place), conventional canning lids CAN'T be re-used. "Tattler" (one-piece plastic lids - but read the directions, since when using them you need to tighten the rings at a different point in the process) lids can be re-used.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

If you're going to do home canning, get yourself a CURRENT canning guide book. All the stuff mentioned above (with the POSSIBLE exception of the tomatoes) requires a pressure canner, not a water bath canner. Paraffin is no longer recommended as a sealer for ANYTHING including jams and jellies - you need proper canning lids. Unlike the jars and rings (the thing you screw down to hold the lid in place), conventional canning lids CAN'T be re-used. "Tattler" (one-piece plastic lids - but read the directions, since when using them you need to tighten the rings at a different point in the process) lids can be re-used.

Didn't know that-still do it the way my grandmother taught me as a kid. Now I want to look it up too!

[Seshat]

"Sweat equity", grow-it-yourself and make-it-yourself are excellent ways to deal with poverty. There's also an old saying: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

My grandmother was a young mother during the depression (my two oldest aunts were babies and toddlers; my mother and my youngest aunt were born just after WWII).

She had two large 'rag rugs'. These are made by cutting worn-out clothes and other cloth into narrow strips, braiding the strips, and then wrapping the strips around each other to form a circular or oval shape. You then sew the strips together.
These were still in good condition, and active use, when she died in 2002.

She always grew food. Even when she no longer could garden, the gardener we hired to tend her yard kept her lemon tree and passionfruit vine for her. Back when I first knew her, she had more food in her garden.

Again, when I was 'young', she had more tricks. Sheets, blankets and towels that had become threadbare in the middle were cut and resewn so that the former edges (still good) were now the middle, and the former middle (now threadbare) was now the edges.

One that I made up when I was struggling: I took some quilt covers, turned them inside out, and pinned my stash of sewing fabrics to them, overlapping a lot and making multiple layers. I baste-sewed those to one side of the cover, turned it outside in, and then quilted the whole lot. Free blankets.

[Gravekeeper]

My grandparents on my dad's side had 10 kids.....thus my grandmother's garden was larger than the house. It was more like a crop farm. >.>