Anyone know any good ways to make money stretch?

[Seshat]

There's a house not far from us with a beautifully planned and tended garden, aesthetically pleasing, and every plant is edible.

[wolfie]

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

A lot has been learned about the germs that cause food poisoning in the time since your grandmother's day. That's why the canning books keep getting updated - water bath canning used to be the standard way for low-acid vegetables, but now it's known to be unsafe (pressure canner reaches a higher temperature).

[Der Cute]

A couple of really good herbs that live outside and don't complain: rosemary. Huge fluffy bush when mature. Sage. A desert plant, and I've had it in Seattle for a few years. It likes cold and doesn't give a shit. Chives. They are perennials, but you can harvest what's here now and dry it or make loootttssss of omelets/casseroles. Oregano. Perennial, harvest, cut, dry = food. Dill. Perennials, again, but in summer time get what you can and dry it.
Right now you can get apples that are blemished, icky looking, and use it for apple butter (freezable kind!) for jam etc. Just slice the parts off.
Lavender. Some kinds are edible, but mine is not. I harvest the flowers and use that for smiles.

Honestly I don't know if you're doing this with containers or land or what. My shit - alllll in containers. All of it. This spring I replanted Chives and Sage with new dirt and fertilizer and they went WOOOHOOOO straight up. All of my stuff is in containers. Even the carrots and peas that I grow, and I've got pepper plants too.
In the winter, you can grow your own herbs, I swear! And have them fresh all year round. With those eggs you keep having to eat lol. Or toss them in the top ramen soup stuff.
Plus, last winter, I got a compost box started (totally rednecked it). Food crud (no dairy no meat) and newspaper shreds, toss and done. Kept it warm ish by using black plastic bags over the top to create heat with the light outside. Honestly it didn't do much change during the winter but in spring it went to town (I also kidnapped worms from the lawn).
Home gardening/food growing is kind of rewarding, I like it. And you'll deffo get your fiber intake in the summer!

For now, it's root veggies, stews, large chunks of meat in crock pot and freezers.
Breakfast burritos: Tortillas, eggs, sausage crumbly. Cook eggs and sausage, add spices if you want etc. put it in the tortillas, wrap singularly in plastic, then put it in a freezer bag as tight as you can. Take out as needed.

Hugs. Big squishy hugs.

[Miss Fatale]

Plan out your meals ahead of time. I wasted a lot of food because I would open a jar of something (like pasta sauce or salsa) and then not use after one meal. A few weeks later, I'd have to toss it.

If you buy meat, portion it out ahead of time. I didn't realize just how small a serving actually is (3-4 oz of meat). I cut it up, or divide up the links if I've bought sausage, first and then freeze it. make it much easier and now I'm getting more meals out of my purchases.

Get a crock pot. You can buy cheaper cuts of meat and cook them for a longer period of time. If you get a big one, you can then save some for lunches/freeze some/etc. You can often find these at Goodwill, but a lot of stores are having sales on little ones right now for back to school. I've also found that older family members tend to have several, so ask around.

I agree with others about spices. For example, a basic crock pot recipe is meat + water. Adding different spices changes the outcome. Places like Whole Foods (and big grocery stores -- Winco out here, Super Saver in the midwest) have bulk spices where you can buy just a little bit to try it out.

If you're just cooking for two people, look up "recipes for two" specifically, either online or look for cookbooks at your library. (Our tiny library has a huge cookbook selection! Take a look at what yours has. Our library also has subscriptions to cooking magazines.) Many recipes are geared for 4 or 6 people, which means lots of leftovers and potentially lots of waste/expenses.

Some recipes:

Chicken and Dumplings and Rice [I like dumplings, my husband likes rice]

Ingredients
3-8 oz bonless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken broth [enough to cover chicken; can use water or water + bouillon]
1 can cream of chicken soup
more water to your preference
salt and pepper, other spices to taste [such as onion, chives, garlic, paprika]

--place ingredients in slow cooker.
--cook on Low for 8 hours, or High 4-6

--half hour before you want to eat, add the dumplings, turn temp to High, cover and cook about 30 minutes. Or serve over rice.

Dumplings
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1 tablespoon shortening or butter
3/4 c milk (water works, too)

Sift dry ingredients, blend in butter with a fork
You can add spices to taste, too, like pepper, onion, cheese, etc

[I also sometimes make "ghetto chicken and dumplings": chicken broth plus dumplings.]


Madras Beef Curry
3-8 oz pound of beef
2 tbl coriander
1 tbl cumin
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp pepper
2 crushed gloves of garlic
2 tsp grated ginger
2 1/2 tbl lemon juice
2 tbl olive oil
1 cup beef broth

Add to slow cooker. Cook on Low 8 hours, or High 4-6 (I cook most things on Low)

Sonoran Style Beef for Tacos
3-8 oz pound beef
1/2 white onion
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
2 c beef broth
1/2 tsp oregano
1 1/4 tsp paprika
2 medium tomatoes (or about a can of diced)
salt to taste

Add to slow cooker and cook on Low for 8 hours, High for 4-6. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Beef with Gravy
3-8 oz pound beef
2 cups beef broth
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp parsley
1 tbl worcestshire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

3 tbl cornstarch (flour would probably work)
3 tbl water

Add to slow cooker and cook on Low for 8 hours, High for 4-6. Dissolve cornstarch in water, stir into the stew, and cook on high 15-20 minutes until thick

Basic Slow Cooker Chicken
3-8 oz chicken
1 cup liquid (water, chicken broth or a mix)
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
4 1/2 tbl olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves (I usually used minced garlic in a jar, I rarely use actual garlic. 1 tsp = 1 clove)
1/2 tsp paprika
other spices to taste

Add to slow cooker and cook on Low for 8 hours, High for 4-6.

Beef Stroganoff
1 pound beef
2 tbl butter
4 cups beef broth
2 cups water
1 cube beef bouillon (can omit)
onion, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper to taste

1-2 cups sour cream

Add beef --> spices to slow cooker. Add to slow cooker and cook on Low for 8 hours, High for 4-6. Add sour cream during last 30 minutes of cooking time.



It's really hard to mess up food in the slow cooker. Some things to keep in mind: don't open the lid too much, that reduces the temp and increases the cooking time. Add lots of spices, go overboard, because they cook away over the 8 hours. Usually at the half way point, I stir the meat and add more spices.

Basically, every recipe comes down to: liquid + meat + spices, cook.

[Seshat]

I didn't realize just how small a serving actually is (3-4 oz of meat).

That's another thing. Your body doesn't need much meat to get all the protein it needs. If you're getting your protein through a legume+grain combo, it needs a larger volume of it to get the protein it needs, but still not a heck of a lot.

According to my doctor, your stomach is the size of your two hands held together as if in prayer. If you have five meals of that size, your stomach should never be empty enough to be hungry.
(Noting that you can still get low-blood-sugar hunger, mind-hunger, or faulty-gastric-wiring hunger. And that if your stomach is stretched when you start shifting to that portion size, it might complain until it readjusts.)
If you're doing heavy work, of course, you do need more food than someone whose body is using less energy over the course of the day.

When I started teaching myself to eat those smaller portions; our food bill dropped. A and I are both eating that way; and it's making a financial difference. (as well as making a difference to my waistline.)

[Yfandes]

Easiest crockpot recipe in the world:

Place a whole chicken in the crockpot.
Dump a small tin of salsa (I like the Herdez 7 oz tins, but anything will work, or a cup of diced tomatoes with a little water & seasonings)
Cook on low for 8-10 hours

Use chicken in tacos, burritos, soups, chicken & biscuits, make chicken sammiches.

My price target for whole chickens is $5 per chicken. So if the roasted chickens are less than this, I will buy one of those instead.

[dalesys]

Place a whole chicken in the crockpot.

"What did you use for the stuffing?" -- Franklin
"Huh?" -- Freddie
"The stuffing. What did you stuff it with? -- Franklin
"Oh! I didn't have to. It wasn't empty." -- Freddie
[/FFB]

[Sapphire Silk]

This all helps a lot, thank you. We're really leery of getting anything meat that's on clearance--because every time we've tried, we keep getting stuff that's gone really bad. Especially with anything red meat. Even if Rhay goes by what you're supposed to, it still ends up rotten somehow.

Try Food Lion; my sister does that and has pretty good luck. But yeah, you're taking a chance.

I adore lactose-free milk, especially chocolate, but it's a lot more expensive, so we rarely ever get milk at all. For soda pop, I get the cheap-ass brand, which is like $2.50 per 12-pack and lasts a lot longer than a couple of 2-liters would. I've cut down on it, too, but I'm not willing/ready to give up my caffeine addiction when it also helps my migraines.

Wean off gradually. No only will you save money, it will help you lose weight if you've been trying. Try sun brewing tea and sweeten to taste. Fewer calories, has caffeine.

I'm not sure if we could buy whole turkeys and stuff. I haven't ever seen them, tbh. I think we could at least attempt to fit one somewhere, though!

They may be seasonal in your area. They tend to be more common around the holidays, though in my area I can get them year round. Ask the butcher. Whole chickens should be easily available at any grocery story.

We almost always get the store brand on everything, the only thing I can think of that Rhay really won't unless we absolutely have to is kroger-brand cheese because it tastes like plastic to her, even if it's melted. I can't blame her there. We've both got a lot of autistic-related texture/sensory problems that don't help with getting food ((like I can't have kiwis because of that...not that we get kiwis anyway... ))

I hear you on the sensory issues. However, store brands on many things taste just as good, and are far cheaper. Experiment.

Non-food poverty tricks:

Good point! We got so focused on food, this got overlooked.

Evil Empryss buys almost ALL her clothing, and clothes for the kids, at Good Will and the Salvation Army. It takes patience, but you can usually find stuff in most sizes that is not either grandma clothing or too small. I do have issues with that, but I'm a big girl (220 lbs, 5' 11"), plus most of what is in my size is too frilly for my tastes (I'm very picky). But her daughter gets stylish clothing, expensive name brand jeans, new or nearly new, and pays next to nothing for them. She brags about how little money she spends on clothing. So it might be worth a try.

Check out Habitat for Humanity's Restores. You can get cheap furniture there, just about anything. Some of it is clearly old people furniture, but a sofa cover works wonders, and most stuff is in good condition or easily painted or refurbished to look new. You can even get the paint or stain to refinish it there. I've gotten some great deals over the years, and I still use quite a few of the pieces I've gotten over the years.

I also haven't had too much price to reuse stuff my parents were getting rid of when they down sized, and I still have my bedroom set from when I was a kid (it's in great shape), though that's in the guest room now.

If you need tools, check out Harbor Freight. They have just about everything, and the prices are very reasonable. Its not high quality but for a DIYer or someone who uses tools occasionally, it's an affordable option.

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.

While Costco takes EBT/Snap, you still have to pay the membership fee. Find a friend willing to go with you and get you in on their card.

Their meat is top quality. I usually buy 4 ribeye steaks for about $32-35. They're big and very thick. I cut each in half (they end up weighing around 6 oz), freeze them, and have steak once a week. They also sell chicken parts in packs that you can thaw a bit at a time to get the right portions; good quality and inexpensive. I buy rice and pasta there in bulk as well, TP, paper towels, anything that keeps well that is sold in bulk is a great bargain there.

Their Kirkland brands are great quality and consistently well rated by Consumer Reports.

[Seshat]

Style your house "eclectic". This lets you get away with a wide variety of different furniture styles, while still looking good.

(Note: we're not yet at the financial stage of caring much about it 'looking good'. We're styled eclectic and worried about 'functional'. 'Looking good' comes later: below is what we plan to do when we can afford it.)

Have a unifying colour scheme. You can get a paint card from any paint store or hardware store that has a painting section, which you can keep with you and use when buying cushion covers and soft furnishings.

Learn to do your own painting or staining, simple furnishing repairs, and simple things like replacing handles. Buy a tin of a stain that was returned as being the 'wrong colour' (but is a colour you like); and have the staff write down how to get that same stain mixed on the back of your paint card.

Every piece of furniture you buy that's wooden and looks good wooden, sand back and stain with your stain. Anything that can be repainted, paint with the colour scheme on your card. If it's laminate or something else that can't be easily re-coloured, and doesn't look the right colour, cover it with a soft furnishing in the colour scheme on your card.

This way, your eclectic-styled furnishings will be tied together by colour, and will look good together.

When buying soft furnishings: it's surprising how much you can get at charity shops. Especially if you're willing to use something that was intended as a sheet, as curtaining. Or a blanket becomes a throw rug, tablecloth, or even floor rug. Teatowels can be wall hangings; particularly the most artistic ones.

Home-made art can be fantastic, too. Right at the moment, we have a whole bunch of pieces I've done blue-tacked to our walls. Just bits of colouring in, taken from a site on the web and coloured by me.

[Eisa]

Oh my goodness, so many replies. -must prod Rhay to look at all this too-

On the hunting and fishing thing--even if we knew/could afford the licenses or whatever, I...could not do that. That's just...against my morals and my squick factor and just...everything.

We live in an apartment building so we can't really grow anything although the growing herbs in containers instead might work! We do have a really big window in the living room at least for like sunlight and stuff.

Thank you for the non-food things. Our furniture is um...well, we have a chair. Supposedly, we're getting a sofa for free at some point soon, but I dunno if that's actually happening or if it fell through. Believe me, I don't care if it matches or looks fancy.

Rhay said before meat is always bad at our local Food Lion, but maybe I misheard it. I do know our nearest Food Lion is too far away to walk to, and since the moped's decided to epically die...again, who knows when we'll get to go there, we're stuck with whatever we can walk to, and since we're both badly disabled, that's...not very far. ((Which is why exchange of service-things probably will not work very well. Neither of us are capable of much.)) Then again, Rhay should get a free bus pass soon because hey, student. So that might work, if the bus goes out there.

Also, randomly, I don't dare try to lose weight, because that kicks my eating disorder into hyper-drive. It's been bad enough the past several months losing weight because of not being able to afford food--even when we can, I end up restricting for a while, because fuck ED voice.

Also, yay, thank you for more recipes! We don't have a crock pot, though. Want one.

[Seshat]

Yes - my sweat equity is very limited due to my disability, too.

At least in Australia, some of the council 'tips' (landfills? rubbish dumps?) have sorters who come along, see what you're planning to dump, and cherry-pick the still useful/repairable things.

Those things are then sold to the community. It's a very good way to get extremely inexpensive furnishings; though I would strongly recommend giving such furnishings a thorough clean. (And I'd probably resist buying upholstered things from there, unless I could afford to steam clean them.)

Charity shops are another way to obtain furnishings; and so is a network of friends. It's entirely possible that a friend-of-a-friend is replacing their old bed, but the old one still has a few years left in it.

[Aethian]

I'm late on this and I appologize for that. For a easy dough recipe I had to go searching for my no-salt cookbook. They use it for pizza but I've used it for bread, cinnamon rolls, pasties (I know someone in my family is shaking their head at me...), pastries, and a few other places where a bread type of dough is called for.

4 1/2 tsp dry yeast
2 C lukewarm water
2 TBSP of olive oil
1 TBSP honey
4 - plus C all-purpose flour

Proof the yeast in the water, add honey, add olive oil, add in flour a 1/2 cup at a time. The cookbook says to let it rise overnight and it should make 4 medium sized pizza pies. It's made four loaves of bread for me too. What's nice is you can make the dough taste like anything you want since while your mixing it you are open to add almost anything to give it a accompanying taste.

And whats good is if you get the ideal 24 slices out of it (pizza wise) your only getting about 3mg of sodium a slice.

[fireheart]

A couple more:

-Join your local library system. seriously. You can get hold of most items free and from time to time, they might even hold booksales where you can score items for a couple of bucks.

-Have a hunt through your local op-shop or Value Village for items-the Savers (Value Village) near my place has EVERYTHING possible....except crochet hooks. Seriously, they have a ton of wool and needles, but no crochet hooks...>.>
But they will also sell "new" things from time to time...my savers currently has a Halloween display set up.

[Miss Fatale]

A couple more:

-Join your local library system. seriously. You can get hold of most items free and from time to time, they might even hold booksales where you can score items for a couple of bucks.

-Have a hunt through your local op-shop or Value Village for items-the Savers (Value Village) near my place has EVERYTHING possible....except crochet hooks. Seriously, they have a ton of wool and needles, but no crochet hooks...>.>
But they will also sell "new" things from time to time...my savers currently has a Halloween display set up.

Totally second. You can get music, DVDs, books at the library....My library has magazines, jigsaw puzzles, and video games, as well.

Likewise, check out the Dollar Store, if you haven't. A lot is junk, but there's some useful stuff too, like wooden spoons, hand towels, canned goods.

For furniture: Target just put a bunch of dorm furniture on clearance. Other stores probably have, too. Maybe get a few small things.

[Brandy]

There are some other non-food ways to make your dollars stretch too. Baking soda can be used in place of toothpaste, just add enough water to make a paste, or add food flavoring if you want. I like cinnamon extract personally. Some websites say to add salt as well, I don't find that to be necessary personally. You can also use baking soda in place of soap in the shower, it will get you just as clean and has the benefit of being a mild exfoliant. You can even use baking soda in place of shampoo, just look up "no poo" on a search engine and there are lots of websites about it.

I also use baking soda and white vinegar for most cleaning. Cheaper and a lot less toxic. Its also possible to make your own body lotion. You just need an emulsifier like beeswax and an oil like almond oil. You melt and mix them together with enough water to get the consistency you want. You can add essential oils for scent if you like. You can find a recipe on ehow for homemade lotions. After the initial cost its a lot cheaper than buying lotion and its lasts quite a while.

You can also make laundry detergent with borax, super washing powder, and a bar of soap. You just need a 5 gal. bucket to mix it all in with the water. The recipe is online as well. The one I use says to grate the soap but I just throw it in the blender as grating a whole bar of soap aggravates my tendonitis. I use the homemade laundry detergent and white vinegar, no dryer sheets or other softeners, and my laundry turns out the same as it did when I was using commercial products.

There is an amazing amount of stuff you can make at home with very little effort. It may cost a little bit to initially buy the supplies/equipment but after that its a lot cheaper than buying commercial versions. I've found most of my recipes/instructions on ehow, but even a general search on google will get you good results.