If you’ve been following the news, you know that Big Food successfully lobbied this week to have pizza sauce considered a vegetable under school lunch rules. The industry also managed to block most of the nutritional changes that to school lunches that doctors and dieticians had been recommending for years, virtually guaranteeing that America’s schools will continue to serve processed, unhealthy garbage to our children. If you didn’t know that Big Food wields disproportionate influence in America today, reading this infographic will be a great wakeup call.

Oh, and don’t blame me if your Turkey doesn’t taste quite as good on Thursday…

Home beer making is undergoing a surge in popularity. I believe a combination of factors, including a rising interest in craft beer, more DIY attitudes, and the locavore movement, account for the upwards trend.

I’ve been homebrewing for 6 years, making everything from standard pale ales to beers with ingredients like chocolate, tea, and lime. Throughout this brewing journey, I’ve discovered a few ways to save money that I hope can help out other brewers or potential brewers.

I’ll say upfront that I never advocate getting into homebrewing just for the cost savings. You do it for the creativity, the love of good beer, and because it’s a ton of fun. Think of it more like golf. You do it for the enjoyment and thrill of achievement. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to save money, however.

Here are some of the best ways to save money on homebrewing:

1. Go all-grain

Almost all brewers start out brewing with malt extract, a syrupy substance that is easy to use and requires very little equipment. A step up from that is all-grain brewing, the way the pros do it. Whether or not all-grain saves you money depends on the brewer you talk to.

It will be cheaper for you to brew each batch because grains are cheaper than malt extract. Where those savings get erased, however, is when you start to geek out with equipment.

There are some all-grain systems that look like they were built by NASA. They are automated, pump-driven, and very expensive. It is difficult to pay back the cost of these systems.

On the other end of the spectrum you have the MacGyver systems, pieced together from old pots and coolers and requiring lots of manual labor. Don’t be fooled by these ragtag set-ups though, these brewers often make the best beer. They also pay back the cost of their equipment much quicker than the NASA brewers.

It’s also worth checking out the brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) technique, a newer method of all-grain brewing popularized by Australian homebrewers. The cost of entry into BIAB is dirt cheap as all you need is a pot and a large bag.

2. Buy ingredients in bulk

This is the Sam’s Club method of brewing, and mainly applies to buying grains and hops. Go to the homebrew store and you’ll pay around $1.60/lb for malted barley. You can save on that by buying malt in bulk, and can easily get your cost down to $0.70/lb.

Most homebrew stores will sell you grain in bulk. Here’s a directory to help you find a local shop. Prices can vary dramatically between stores, so shop around if you have that luxury. Another great place it look is a local brewery or brewpub. Go down there, order a pint, and ask if they will add an extra grain sack to their order.

As an example of the cost savings, if you brew 5 gallon all-grain batches that average 5% alcohol (riiiight) and brew once per month, you could save approximately $100/year by buying grain in bulk.

Hops can be bought in bulk as well. Buy them retail and you’ll pay in the range of $1.50-$3.00 per ounce. A place like Hops Direct will let you buy them by the pound for around $0.60 per ounce. Hop-head brewers who are fond of pale ales and IPAs will see some big savings here. You could easily keep another $75-$150/year in your pocket by buying hops in bulk.

You could even take things a step further and grow hops yourself. Growing wheat or barley is much more difficult, but there are the adventurous homebrewers who do it.

3. Reuse your yeast

Yeast isn’t cheap. Current prices are about $8 for a vial of liquid yeast from one of the main suppliers. Take a tip from the pros and reuse your yeast.

By reusing, you can turn one pack into dozens. If you brew once per month, you could save another $96/year on yeast alone.

From one yeast vial I typically get 4 fresh containers after harvesting. Each one of those containers can be used for another batch of beer, where the yeast can be harvested into four more containers. You can see how it adds up – you could easily have a fridge jammed packed with yeast!

If you need help with this technique, I have an instructional video on yeast washing.

4. Focus on less expensive beer styles

If you’re a hop-head like me, sometimes it’s good to take a hop detox. Hoppy beers like IPAs are hugely popular with homebrewers, but they can be expensive to brew. Buying hops in bulk is one option to save money, but you could also explore the many fantastic minimally-hopped beer styles.

Try a brown ale, porter, or German hefeweizen. The first two highlight the malt, while the last highlights the yeast. Here are some of my favorites from those styles:

• Brown ales: Avery Ellie’s Brown, Surly Bender, Sierra Nevada Tumbler
• Porters: Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter, Dechutes Black Butte, Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
• German Hefeweizens: Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, Ayinger Brauweiss, Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse

I’m convinced that someday we’ll see a malt-head revolution. Maybe you’ll help lead it?

5. Embrace DIY

If you’re the handy type, you can save a ton of money by building equipment yourself. While you don’t need to know how to weld to homebrew, it’s a huge asset. Not so good with tools? I’m sure you have a beer drinking friend who is. Catch my drift?

Here are a few project you can do yourself to save some money:

• Mash tun
• Brew stand
• Kegerator
• Kettle accessories (valves, sight glasses, etc)
• Hop filter

Besides saving some dough, there’s something really rewarding about making something that makes beer.

6. Brew smaller batches

The typical size batch of homebrew is 5 gallons, or about 50 12 oz. bottles. Sometimes that is just too much. I’ve made a few batches that didn’t turn out so hot and was stuck with 2 cases of crappy beer.

There’s no law that says you need to make 5 gallon batches, so try brewing 1-3 gallon batches. You’ll save money and if the beer stinks, you’re not stuck with a lot of it. This advice is especially useful for those “test batches” of some crazy beer idea you had at the bar.

7. Brew lower alcohol beers

There is a big cost difference in brewing a 12% abv barleywine and a 4% abv English brown ale. I usually brew on the lower end of the abv scale to save money and because I don’t want that much super strong beer. Try brewing session beers, a term used to describe beers that are lower in alcohol and are more quaffable. My favorite choices are the British ales like milds and bitters.

Homebrewing is a fun hobby I encourage all beer fans to give it a shot. Sure you could spend a fortune on it if you want to, but the cost of entry is low and anyone can make great beer without breaking the bank. Cheers!

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI), the U.S. city average price of lean ground beef has risen 43% in the interval between Feb. 2001 and Feb. 2011. If your paycheck has not risen at a similar rate, you are probably feeling the pinch in the check-out line at the supermarket too.

There are many reasons to restrict consumption of meat products, including environmental and health concerns. But for me, the pivotal moment was brought on by pure sticker shock.

A quick rundown of some common grocery list items (Feb 2011 figures from the CPI) makes the price disparity abundantly clear:

• Bacon, sliced, per lb. (453.6 gm) $4.37
• All Pork Chops, per lb. (453.6 gm) $3.48
• Chicken breast, bone-in, per lb. (453.6 gm) $2.29
• All Uncooked Beef Roasts, per lb. (453.6 gm) $4.33
• Bananas, per lb. (453.6 gm) $0.63
• Potatoes, white, per lb. (453.6 gm) $0.61
• Broccoli, per lb. (453.6 gm) $1.89
• Beans, dried, any type, all sizes, per lb. (453.6 gm) $1.34

These items are just a tiny sampling of the products we consume, but they are indicative of the overall price pattern. Sure, there are plenty of expensive fruits and vegetables (imported, organic, and out-of-season items especially), but if you can live without pomegranates and white asparagus you will come out way ahead by loading up on fruits and vegetables and minimizing your meat purchases.

To reap immediate financial benefits, you don’t have to go totally vegetarian—simply reduce the percentage of meat in your diet. Americans tend to eat about twice as much meat as is necessary; the recommended amount is about 50 g/day for an adult female and 65/g day for an adult male—less than the amount in one chicken breast or pork chop. With adult and childhood obesity on the rise, practicing moderation as a family and instilling healthy eating habits is vitally important.

Here are some ways to cut back:

Reduce Portion Size: Instead of cooking a meal with a chicken breast for each person at the table, prepare a large stir-fry with using one chicken breast and loaded up with vegetables. Prepare a large pot of chili with protein-rich beans and a small amount of ground beef, instead of inch-thick hamburgers for the whole family. Cutting back on meat consumption in this way is economical and your family will barely notice.

Use Meat for Flavor: Try a bean soup with a few slices of cooked minced bacon, or a pasta dish with a small amount of crumbled Italian sausage. These types of dishes are very flavorful but only use a few tablespoons of meat in the whole dish.

Skip Lunch Meats: Lunch meats and other highly processed meats like hot dogs are high in nitrates and other preservatives. Studies have shown that high intake of processed meats increases mortality risk. This fact, coupled with the often hefty price tag, makes this choice a non-starter.

Bye-Bye Filet Mignon: Substitute less expensive cuts of meat. Purchase stew meat instead of a pot roast for a satisfying slow-cooker meal, or opt for pork chops instead of t-bones for your next barbecue. Watch out for grocer’s specials so you can stock up on (and freeze) your favorite cuts when they are on sale.

Once a Day, Max: Think of meat as a once-a-day menu item. There is no nutritional need to eat meat as often as many of us do. Having meat with breakfast, lunch, and dinner is an unhealthy and outmoded way of eating.

Meat free Mondays: We can all take a note from Sir Paul and get on board with Meat-Free Mondays, a campaign launched by former Beatle Paul McCartney in an effort to reduce the impact of the meat industry on the environment. The MFM website provides recipes and encouragement to those interested in exploring the environmental, health, and financial benefits of reduced meat intake.

Triple Benefits

There are not many choices we can make that have the huge triple-whammy benefits that lowering meat consumption has.

Environmental—Eating less meat reduces your family’s carbon footprint and helps curb the meat industry’s ever-increasing demand for grains. The insatiable demand for grains leads to pollution, greenhouse gas production and deforestation, and also leaves insufficient grain reserves for human consumption.

Health—Reducing meat consumption lowers your family’s risk of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, stomach ulcers and an host of other medical complaints, according to a U.S. National Cancer Institute study.

Financial—You can realize significant savings over the course of the year by making substitutions and changes in your carnivorous habits. The savings in future health care costs, while unknowable, may be the most important benefit of all.

This article was written by contributing author Laurel Gray.

The fruit trees we planted last fall seemed to have survived as all have sprung leaves. The peach tree appears to be the only one attempting to bear fruit, but I hold out hope that the plum trees may produce later in the season. I didn’t expect much this first year from the fruit trees, so any production is a welcomed surprise.

Here’s a picture to whet your appetite (I’ve posted several more over at the Frugal Dad Facebook Page).

Left to right: head lettuce, cabbage and sweet onions. Corn stalks in the back row.

The Frugal Roundup

75 Things Worth Watching on Netflix Streaming. Well, there goes the weekend! Time to update my queue. Like Trent, I consider Netflix to be one of the best entertainment bargains around.

Use a Financial Fire Drill to Prepare for the Worst BEFORE It Happens. How long do you think you could survive without a paycheck? Pretend you don’t receive teh next one (or two) and play out the scenario in your budget.

10 Stupid Financial Decisions Even Intelligent People Make. I’m ashamed to admit I’m 10 for 10 on this one. I’d like to think I’ve grown smarter, financially, but I sure wish I had avoided these in the first place.

Why Student Loans Suck. This one includes a great infographic, and comes on the heels of news that for the first time ever, new graduates owe more on their student loans than credit cards.

An Introduction to Financial Fasting. Quite often, we do more a financial “cleanse.” When we get off track, start using the credit card too much, etc, we just go cold turkey back to the basics. All cash. Written budgets.

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I have a confession to make. I am a food hoarder. I love to cook, and I try out new recipes almost every day. In the process, I accumulate a lot of food.

To give you an idea of what my pantry looks like, right now I have three kinds of tapioca pearls, six types of dried beans, four kinds of flour, and various partly used bags of barley, quinoa, red lentils, mung beans, dried shitakes, bulgur wheat, and so on. I have stockpiles of canned goods, and over 50 spices.

Taking Back the Pantry

I think it’s time for a shopping hiatus. I recently read an article about a couple trying to go one month without shopping—and I am inspired to give it a shot myself.

According to ConsumerReports.org, the average family of four spends $500 a month on groceries. I don’t know if I can last a whole month, but I intend to whittle down my stores significantly, and lower (or eliminate!) my monthly grocery bill in the process.

There are many good reasons to skip the grocery store run for a while:

• To free up money in your monthly budget to pay down debt or to handle an unexpected expense such as a car repair.
• To survive a period of unemployment or underemployment
• To reduce pantry clutter and use up supplies before they expire
• To combat food inflation

Take the Challenge

Starting today, I am going on my own shopping hiatus to see how long I can last without going to the supermarket. Frugal Dad has decided to take up the gauntlet starting March 1.

If you are considering and attack on your own pantry, here are some ground rules to follow:

• Take Inventory—Take a moment to sort through your food stores, unearth buried items in cupboards, and identify the contents of those mystery packages in the freezer. Discard any items that are unusable or spoiled.
• Research—Using a list of the items you have on hand, hit the internet or scan your cookbook indices for recipes that call for the items you have available.
• Plan ahead—Make a list of dishes that you can prepare using ingredients on hand. Prepare food on weekends so you won’t be tempted to stop by the store after work when you lack motivation.
• Improvise—Make creative substitutions in recipes to use up the supplies you have on hand.
• Shun Dominos—Don’t succumb to expensive delivery or take-out meals in order to supplement your restricted diet. This will defeat your thrifty goals, and thwart your efforts at de-cluttering.
• If All Else Fails—Make Soup! Soup is a great way to use of a hodgepodge of ingredients such as pasta, dried beans, canned vegetables, and dried legumes and grains.

I’ll be reporting back with details of my effort to use up my languishing pantry products. I hope you will be inspired to join me in the shopping hiatus challenge and share your stories. So…Tapioca Soup, anyone?

Whatever the reason, increased food prices are putting a major dent in our household budget. Since we can’t do much about the prices, we have to look for other ways to reduce (or at least keep even) our overall food expense.

Food is a unique budget category in that normally when you are struggling with less income and/or increased costs, the natural inclination is to turn to cheaper alternatives. Unfortunately, as many people are discovering, when it comes to food this means an unhealthy diet.

Think of the cheapest foods at your local grocer – they are likely cheap pastas and boxed processed foods (Ramen noodles, mac and cheese, packages of potato flakes sold as “instant mashed potatoes,” etc). While these foods will do in a pinch, they aren’t exactly healthy staples to build the basis of a clean diet.

Nine Ways to Reduce Your Grocery Budget

1. Plan to shop every two weeks. Make room in your pantry (and your budget) to shop for enough food to last two weeks. The more often you see the inside of a store, the more likely you will give into temptation and deviate from your list.

2. Buy in-season produce. The simple laws of supply and demand tell us that things that are plentiful should be a little cheaper. Of course, the opposite is true if a particular produce item is not plentiful in your area, because it has to be shipped in from another part of the country (or world), and those increased costs to transport are passed along to you, the consumer.

3. Eat less. This one seems obvious, but to someone like me raised on three squares (big squares) a day, the idea of skipping a meal or two seems foreign. However, here lately I’ve been trying to eat only when hungry, not when the clock says 8:00, 12:00 and 6:00.

4. Grow your own vegetables. The last couple years we’ve experimented with square foot gardening. This year, we plan to expand on the idea and grow a variety of vegetables in garden boxes in our backyard. We also planted fruit trees last fall that will hopefully yield fresh fruits in the years to come.

5. Compare unit costs, not product packaging and creative pricing. Remember bigger isn’t always cheaper, and neither are the 10/$10 deals. I recently stocked up on a few items included in a 10/$10 sale and the next week the store returned the item to their normal price…$0.88.

6. Consider swapping beans or eggs for meats when looking for a protein source. Like any good carnivore, I like to build a meal around a good meat. Unfortunately, this can get expensive. Here lately, we’ve been enjoying eating “breakfast” for dinner – with scrambled eggs as the main course.  Beans also provide a nice source of protein and can augment a smaller amount of meat in dishes like tacos and chili to bulk up the recipe with out increasing the cost per meal.

7. Avoid the “junk food” aisle. Nothing good comes from this aisle. Soft drinks, chips, snack cakes, and cookies are simply empty calories. And they are expensive when you consider you can’t plan a meal around them. Your waistline won’t miss this aisle, either. Now, this is an area where I need to take my own advice!

8. Eat leftovers. One of the most effective ways to lower your cost per meal is to simply stretch your prepared foods across more meals. In fact, I have found that meals like spaghetti, soups, and meatloaf actually taste better the next night.

9. Freeze the extras. If you are short on freezer space, consider a second freezer to stock up on meats and vegetables when on sale, or to freeze leftovers of your favorite meals. My wife makes a huge batch of soup and freezes the portions we don’t eat the first two days for later consumption. Weeks later, on a particularly hectic day, we’ll toss the frozen soup in  a crock pot to thoroughly reheat and enjoy an easy meal.

These tips probably make sense in any environment, but are particularly important in the face of rising food costs, high unemployment and a time of high economic uncertainty. I highly recommend taking the time now to streamline your food budget and use some of the savings to build a pantry of stockpiled food.

Best case scenario, your pantry will provide cheaper food than is currently available in the store. Worst case scenario, your pantry will provide food if there isn’t any in the store. It’s my hope that we never face the latter scenario, but I’d rather be prepared just in case.

How are you dealing with increased food costs?

Last week we discussed the importance of having enough potable water storage on hand for each person in your family in the event an emergency disrupts the flow of public water systems. Moving right up the order of importance, next we’ll discuss food storage – something that can be costly in terms of dollars and storage space.

The 72-Hour Emergency Food Pantry

The initial phase of any good emergency plan is one that covers your family in the event you are cut off from facilities and rescue for 72 hours. In most localized, regional emergencies (floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.) help should arrive within three days. That is not always the case, but in terms of survival preparations, you can usually count on some relief within 72 hours of a disaster.

So first things first. Most people should have enough food on hand to survive three days without a trip to the store. However, if you are the type that shops every evening on the way home from work, you might want to put a little money aside and start your own food pantry at home.

When preparing a 72-hour emergency cache of food, the easiest thing to do is pick up a few extra non-perishables on your next grocery trip. Canned vegetables, dried beans, rice, peanut butter, and canned tuna are a good start. You can add in other snacks to build complete meals if you wish, but remember, chances are you’ll be operating without power and could be heating foods and water on a grill or over an outdoor flame.

Don’t forget to toss in a manual can opener to easily open canned goods. We picked up an extra one and tossed in our pantry next to our emergency food storage because in an emergency we didn’t want to have to be digging through the kitchen drawers looking for our can opener.

The Two Week Plan and Beyond

Scaling up a bit in scope of disaster scenarios, now imagine a regional disaster has occurred and basic services have been disrupted. Foods disappear from grocers’ shelves within three days, and resupply is impossible thanks to impassable roads. Now what?

The answer is a larger, two-week emergency supply of foods. Planning two weeks of meals for each person in your household seems daunting. Remember, when calculating water needs we used the rule of thumb one gallon of water per person per day. Similarly, you might estimate each family member’s basic caloric requirement, and then multiply by 1.5, considering in a survival situation you may be moving, rebuilding, scavenging, etc. and burning more calories than usual.

In our case, I’ve planned using 2,000 calories per person per day. That number is probably a little high, but accounts for tougher conditions than we are used to living with, when we might be able to lounge around and get by on 1,200 – 1,500 calories.

All Calories Are Not Created Equal

It might seem easy to come up with 1,500 calories worth of food by eating rice, pancakes and canned veggies and fruit. The problem is, that type of diet is severely lacking in two main types of foods essential to survival: fats and protein.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I’d suggest checking out The 5-Gallon Bucket Food Storage Project created by Jack Spirko (creator of one of my favorite sites/podcasts, The Survival Podcast). Even if you don’t follow his storage methods, his ideas on planning for proper carbohydrates, fats and proteins in survival food stockpiles are important.

Prepackaged Long-Term Storage Food

If you aren’t up for creating your own food buckets you might want to check out long-term food storage vendors. I have personally tasted (and stocked) Mountain House foods. In fact, our pantry now includes a number of #10 cans from Mountain House, including foods like rice, green beans, beef stroganoff, spaghetti, chili mac with beef, granola cereal, etc.

The #10 cans have a 25-year shelf life if stored according to the directions (basically kept in a cool, dry location). I’ve also heard good things about companies such as Food Insurance and Shelf Reliance, but I have yet to try their products.

Here’s a look at our emergency food pantry – still in the early stages:

The Frugal Pantry Project (long-term storage) – a few #10 food cans, a lantern, flashlights, spare batteries and a few packs of beans and rice

Buying foods in this form is expensive, but the nice thing about such a long shelf-life is that you don’t have to focus on expiration dates and rotating stock as much. With a 25-year shelf life, we can basically buy a few #10 cans each paycheck, store them and forget about them until we need them. I suppose in 15 years or so I might crack one open and make sure it is still edible.

The bottom line when it comes to food storage is to start small. Consider the various disaster scenarios for which you’d like to be prepared, and their likelihood of occurring. For instance, a local natural disaster such as a tornado or a flood is more likely than a large scale, apocalyptic nuclear attack. Not saying we shouldn’t be prepared for both. However, I like to prioritize emergencies and plan accordingly.

With monetary emergency funds we try to get that first $1,000 stashed in case of a car repair, or busted pipe in our home. Will this prepare us for unemployment or a serious medical event? No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get started. Similarly, I think it is prudent to have a few backup food and water supplies at home to get you through that likeliest, 72-hour emergency.

Once that first-level emergency food plan is in place, build from there until you have a level of emergency stockpile that makes you feel comfortable. How will you know when that point has arrived? When you can envision practically any type of emergency and sleep comfortably knowing you have done all you can do to prepare.

Why Are You Stockpiling Food?

Stockpiling food can vary dramatically in scope and size, depending on your purpose. Some families choose to store enough food to last a year, including drinking water, while others may target a shorter disaster recovery period, such as 7 to 30 days.

Others may choose to just have a few extras of common staples around, helping prevent last-minute trips to the store or in case of short-term financial shortfalls.

Using Coupons to Build an Inexpensive Stockpile

One of the more interesting stockpiling tips I’ve run across is buying staple foods with coupons. Most families don’t buy a year’s worth of food in one trip, mostly because it’s expensive. But if you learn to combine sales and coupons, you can easily and inexpensively build your store. For example, if you have coupons for canned tuna and your store runs a great sale, buy as many cans as you have coupons for.

I’ve even heard of people paying others to clip coupons for them and mail them. A simple query of eBay for “tuna coupons” revealed some promising leads. For about $1.00, I can bid on a lot of 10 coupons for $0.55 off a pouch of Bumble Bee premium tuna (I like the pouches for survival scenarios because they can be easily opened with a knife. In fact, we keep several packs in our bug out bag).

If my local Kroger store had a sale on Bumble Bee tuna pouches, it would be a great time to get some additional coupons and stock up. It’s important to note that coupons themselves are not for sale – that is a violation of most manufacturer’s terms. You are merely paying someone else for their time to clip from various sources and mail.

Rotating Stockpiles Based on Expiration Dates

Stockpiling food over time is also a good idea for food safety and freshness. By buying products over a varying time period, you will get different expiration dates. When you buy new food, rotate your stock like grocery stores do–always put the new food in the back, so the oldest food is in front. That way, you don’t run the risk of having a forgotten item expire in a back corner of your store room. Keep an eye on the expiration dates–it’s no good to stockpile expired food, so you’ll want to use items from the front of your stockpile periodically.

Another consideration for learning how to stockpile food is your storage space. Ideally, a cool, dark area such as a basement will help preserve the food, and it also protects the items in case of a natural disaster such as a tornado. However, you will want to make sure it is also a dry basement, as seepage can cause cans to rust, which will make the food unsafe.

If you live in a warm climate, avoid storing items in your garage, unless it is climate controlled. For packaged dry goods such as flour, cereal, or sugar, store them in a plastic crate that will prevent bug infestation. I’ve opened up more than one box of cereal or crackers to find ants or mice have made their way into our stockpile.

Canning and Preserves

Other food stockpiling tips include canning and preserving your own food, as well as growing your own produce for canning. Growing and canning your own food for stockpiling is considerably less expensive than buying canned goods. You can also control the sugar, sodium, and preservatives by canning your own food. If you have a pressure cooker, you can also preserve meats. Be sure to read your pressure cooker’s instructions carefully to ensure proper food safety.

When it comes to deciding what to stockpile, consider your family’s tastes, length of expiration dates, and nutrition. The more variety you can store, the better. Good items to stockpile include:

• Canned fruits and vegetables
• Dry goods such as granola and cereal
• Peanut butter
• Baby food and formula ( if appropriate)
• Powdered milk and potatoes
• Canned soup (look for low sodium varieties)
• Tuna (excellent protein source)
• Bottled water (cheaper by the gallon)
• White rice (lasts longer than brown rice)
• Freeze dried foods (lightweight and last for years – look for these at your local sporting goods store or at a military surplus store.

For natural disasters, you should also store a cooking source and fuel, such as a propane camp stove. Don’t forget a manual can opener as well. If there are any special health considerations in your family, such as medications, try to create a stockpile of medications as well. A good multivitamin may not be a bad idea to toss in your stockpile as you will probably not be receiving adequate nourishment in a survival scenario.

*This was the popular free Grand Slam breakfast at Dennys, but it represents one of my favorite, cheap meals to cook at home – breakfast!

Menu Planning

Better menu planning will result in cheaper meals. If you plan out your menu for a month, or just a week, then you will avoid an expensive grocery bill by reducing the number of trips you have to make to the store to pick up supplies.

Making a shopping list for all the ingredients you will need while planning your meals will also help save money.

Once you have your grocery list completed, make sure you go through your pantry, cabinets, refrigerator, or freezer to see if you already have some of the ingredients on the list. If you do, mark them off your grocery list. This step alone will save you from buying items you don’t need when you go shopping.

Consider using alternate sources of protein, such as beans, or Portobello mushrooms, for cheap meals, or make meals that will stretch the amount of meat used for a cheap meal plan. Look for a family pack of meat.

Family packs often help lower costs when you are coming up with cheap dinner ideas. One large family pack of chicken breasts can often stretch to make up to three different dinners.

Never Shop on an Empty Stomach

Before grocery shopping the best thing you can do is eat a little something at home. Few things cause us to spend more on groceries than shopping while hungry. When I’m hungry, everything looks good, and everything winds up in my shopping cart!

Buying generic items, particularly when shopping for canned goods, can save money. Generic items and store brands are generally just as good as the name brands.

Clip coupons for the items that you need, not for the junk food that you wouldn’t normally buy.

Fruits and Veggies

Knowing what fruits and vegetables are in season will help you fill out a cheap meal plan. When produce supplies are higher, the costs are generally a little lower, so the best deals can be found on in-season fruits and vegetables.

Buying your fruits, vegetables, and meats in bulk will save money, and may just help you come up with cheap dinner ideas. You can pair up items that you may have never thought to go together and come up with a new recipe.

Buying frozen fruits and vegetables can save you money on groceries, particularly for things that are not in season, and they are often just as nutritious as their fresh counterparts.

Now for the fun part. After the planning and shopping have been done, it is important that you remember to cook at home every night instead of eating out. My wife and I often have to resist the temptation to leave the grocery store and pick up something for dinner because we’re too wiped out from shopping to cook.

How to Learn How to Cook

Picking up a cookbook, or searching for recipes on the internet, is the simplest way of learning, and it can help you to come up with cheap dinner ideas, cheap meals, or cheap meal plans. I highly recommend picking up the book, How to Cook Without a Book, which is an excellent for learning to put together healthy, inexpensive meals with ingredients you have on hand.

If you are like me, and need a little extra instruction, I’d recommend taking a cooking class hosted at local community colleges or culinary schools. Even if you don’t plan to become a chef, an introduction to cooking can provide some excellent tips to take back to your own kitchen.

*This post was included in the Festival of Frugality #233

Since I’ve always been a big guy, I’m familiar with all sorts of diet plans, training regimens-even the gimmicks. When I was younger, spending lots of money on gym memberships, bikes, creatine and other supplements, and high-quality food was pretty easy. Now that I have a family, and other mouths to feed, spending a lot of money on those same things seems like an expensive hobby more than an effort to improve my health. But, it seems the years of eating cheap and working (and sleeping) through planned workouts is catching up with me.

The Costs of Commercial Diet Plans

Looking at the various available diet plans through a frugal filter leaves few options. Most plans require you buy the plan’s food, or pay for a subscription to a website, or pay for group meetings, or counselors, or all of the above. This can add up quickly. For instance, take a look at the program fees for three of the more popular diet plans(as listed in the January 2010 edition of Smart Money magazine):

NutriSystem ($349/month)

I tried NutriSystem for a couple months, but found it to be very expensive. Not only did I have to pay for the food, I also had to buy additional food to eat along with the NutriSystem meals (salads, vegetables, etc.). A few of the meals were pretty good, but I found all the canned, “red” sauce foods to taste like they had nail shavings in them (very metallic). I became convinced Dan Marino was full of crap.

Weight Watchers ($69/month)

If I had to pick a commercial diet plan it would probably be Weight Watchers. I’ve attended a few meetings out of curiosity, and found their points system to be more tolerable than counting carbs or calories. I also like that they have a “do-it-yourself” web-based plan for those like me who would rather not attend weekly weigh-ins.

Jenny Craig ($380-$770/month)

I don’t know much about Jenny Craig, but from what I’ve read it is one of the more costly diet plans around. The plan costs include enrollment fees, one-on-one counseling, and of course, Jenny Craig branded food and other supplies.

*Medifast is offering $50 off any purchase of $275 or more now thru 1-31-10. Use Coupon Code: Jan31C when ordering.

The Frugal Diet Plan

Instead of shelling out over $6,000 on a diet plan next year, I started thinking about putting together my own plan by taking  some of the better ideas I’ve come across in the last couple years of blogging. These ideas cost very little, and in some cases actually save money.

Eat less to be lighter. Here’s a novel idea: eat less food to lose weight. It’s a concept that is simple when said out loud, but very difficult when parked in front of a buffet. This concept focuses less on what you eat, and instead how much you eat. This will definitely be an important element of the frugal diet plan I develop in 2010.

Eliminate “liquid calories.” Americans consume more than 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, and soft drinks make up about 1/3 of that amount (Bottom Line Personal Magazine December, 2009). Considering one 12-oz can of Coca Cola has about 8 teaspoons of sugar, I could eliminate significant calories and carbs simply by avoiding soft drinks. And considering we pay $1.25-$1.50 for each 2-liter bottle (plus my daily, 3:00pm trip to the vending machine at work) we could save a good bit of money over the next year.

Grow more of our own food. Last year we skipped the square foot garden and I really missed it, not only for the fresh vegetables right out of our backyard, but gardening is also therapeutic for me. I enjoy getting out of the house for a few minutes of peace and quiet. And when I am not interested in peace and quiet, I love letting the kids help!

Eat like a kid. No, not ice cream and gummy worms for breakfast, but in kid-sized portions. Eat off smaller plates.  Use smaller cups for juices and other drinks. The other day my son and I were finishing some Christmas shopping and had to grab a bite to eat on the run. I ordered him a fast food kids meal with fruit instead of fries. Instead of ordering the usual super-sized gut burger I always get, I decided just to double the kids meal order. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, fruit cup and water, all for many less calories (and a couple dollars) than I would have spent on an adult-sized meal.

Think like a caveman. My wife accuses me of this already, so perhaps I’m on the right track! Actually, what I’m referring to is making food choices based on the types of foods our ancestors ate. When humans first began roaming the earth, Oreo cookies and Mountain Dew were not staples of their diet. They eat things that came from the earth, not hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. In the coming months, I plan to eat more vegetables, fruits and nuts, just like the hunter/gatherers of the past. With the major exception being I’ll hunt and gather inside Kroger rather than a frozen tundra.

To review the highlights of my frugal diet plan, in 2010 I will eat less food, cut out soft drinks, and grow my own fruits and vegetables while eating like a kid and thinking like a caveman. Simple enough.

Photo by PicsmaKer