Might I add "buy real food"...skip the canned soups, chop your own onions, wash and cut up the lettuce yourself and eat oatmeal rather that some sort of expensive dry cereal.
Linda C

Another sure fire money saver is eat less meat & more whole grain breads, pasta, beans, and/or brown rice.

/tricia

Along with "Buy a Bread Machine", I'd also add - buy a good grain mill and mill your own flour for bread and all your baked goods, from whole grains/seeds/beans -- improved nutrition AND lower cost.

I use these same whole grains/seeds/beans to make cereal (hot and cold), snacks/crackers, sprouts, cracked wheat, bulgur, "fake meat" from the gluten, noodles/pasta etc.

You guys are so right... The only way I keep food costs to $150/month (2 adults) is by buying INGREDIENTS with which to make those 3 meals, plus snacks, a day. I use "ingredients" to make my own "convenience foods". As an example, my neighbor was telling me about frozen biscuits she buys at the store and how convenient they are. I agree with the convenience!!! I've made freezer biscuits from whole wheat flour for EVER at a fraction of the price she buys them for.

I rely of whole foods because I really don't enjoy meal preparation and so many whole foods are ready-to-eat or only take minimal preparation. The original "fast foods" were whole foods (LOL) as far as I'm concerned.

-Grainlady

This post and all your suggestions/answers is the exact same reason I love this forum!

"Posted by grainlady -------------
Along with "Buy a Bread Machine", I'd also add - buy a good grain mill and mill your own flour for bread and all your baked goods, from whole grains/seeds/beans -- improved nutrition AND lower cost. ---------------- The only way I keep food costs to $150/month (2 adults) "

You didn't tell the whole story to keep food costs down.

Your solar ovens. :-)

dcarch

I guess I should break down and buy a bread machine. When I was doing free-lance work, it was very easy to make bread often using the KA mixer (I don't have a large or powerful enough FP), and I even kept sourdough starter going, but now I think I would appreciate the convenience of a bread machine. Which one do you recommend? I've never shopped for them before. I'll use it only for kneading and rising, as I prefer to bake the bread in a regular oven. I don't think I would use it for pizza dough either, but that is easy enough to make in the mixer.

We spend quite a bit on bread, I think. The loaves we get from La Brea Bakery are about $5 each, but they're worth it! However, they appear to have stopped making whole wheat sourdough, and the whole grain bread is a bit crunchy, although we did use it for grilled garlic toast last week-end.

I feel lucky to keep food costs at $150 a week for two people.

Lars

Lars, mine is a Zojirushi, that's what Grainlady has too. It's a magnificent machine, a workhorse that can handle a hiuge batch of whole grain dough without a hiccup. I can't recommend it highly enough.

However.....they are around $200, pretty pricey for a bread machine. I have it because Momto4kids gave it to me, she never used it, she said. So, a smaller and cheaper one might very well do the job you need it for, if you don't want to spend that much money.

Annie

dcarch -

Sorta... ;-) Solar ovens help reduce my energy costs for food preparation, along with other low-energy cooking methods such as the convection/microwave oven (bakes two loaves of bread in 25 minutes and no pre-heating), Thermos cooking, and an induction hot plate. But food is a separate budget item from energy (gas/electricity). I only use food dollars for food, not energy or non-food items (TP, health and beauty aids, etc.).

I just made a large purchase of wheat, barley and a year's worth of powdered milk, and I've spent $1228.57 out of $1275.00 for the year-to-date. I don't spend a lot of money at the grocery store when the garden is producing (best bargains ONLY), so those unspent dollars get used for those large purchases and I "shop" from home food storage.

I just read an article at the Dollar Stretcher today where a working couple with 4 children spent over $1800 in groceries in ONE month at one grocery store. YIKES!!!

-(frugal) Grainlady

The sad part about those expensive groceries is they are all processed food, the worst kind of groceries you can buy.

grainlady you would not want to know what I spend on groceries for just the two of us. Sometimes I think it's nuts but I really am not at all extravagant in any other way...except maybe my hair colour! LOL

I even shop the sales and cruise the meat counter for deals but I love to cook and we love to eat. Most of my dollars go to things like fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, fish and seafood. I never by prepared foods or baked goods, pickles, tomato sauce and relishes but my grocery bilss are still outlandish.

I use my bread machine to kneed many of my breads, others I make by hand. There is no doubt that it saves me money as does my mixer as I never buy premade desserts, biscuits, cookies etc. which can be very expensive.

Well, I guess I should be kicking myself. I came across one of those Zojirushi at an estate sale for $50, (or $25, I don't remember if the $50 was the half price price or if it was before the discount). I almost bought it, but I just don't have room for a bread machine, so I passed on it.

I haven't been baking bread lately as it's just been too darn hot. I hate spending money on ready made bread, but I hate turning my oven on when it's 105 degrees outside even more. We've had a break the last few days, as it's only been in the low '90's. Maybe I should get my oven going again.

Sally

chase -

I live in a small Kansas town that has a composite cost of living index of 87.7%, well below the national average, and one of the lowest in the state. Food prices are some of the lowest in the state, well-below national average, so that helps.

Meat is the budget buster, so I keep meat purchases to no more than $10/week and try to keep meat to $2/pound or less. I mix all ground meat 50/50 with homemade ground gluten. Gluten has almost exactly the same amount of protein as ground beef, but is about one-fourth the cost. I use ground gluten to make a high-protein "cereal" type product.

It's common for me to reduce the amount of meat in recipes and add beans (or other non-meat protein foods) so I can use less meat and still have a serving of protein.

We purchase grass-fed beef from a friend in the late fall, so much of my food dollars from now until then will be used for that. We'll shop-at-home from home storage and use garden produce in order to save the money. Grass-fed beef is my expensive meat purchase for the year. I just make sure I keep within my food budget for all food purchases.

Other things that help:

-Make it myself, when possible.

-I'm a stickler for serving sizes and the number of servings we consume per day.

-Snacks are home-dehydrated apple slices, dehydrated zucchini (we use them instead of potato chips), nuts and popcorn (grow our own). Homemade whole wheat or multi-grain tortillas are baked into tortilla chips.

-Friday is a meatless day, and many meals during the week are low-meat or meatless, choosing lower-costing meat alternatives like gluten, beans, eggs, cheese...

-Tomato powder is used to make tomato sauce, tomato paste, ketchup, bbq sauce, taco sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato juice, tomato soup... It saves a great amount of storage space by using tomato powder. It's also a great way to control ingredients and reduce sodium and "sugars" in these products. Tomato powder, dehydrated tomatoes, and fresh/frozen homegrown tomatoes are the only tomato products I use.

-Take advantage of FREE food.

I dehydrate or freeze garden produce friends/family give us. We even use dehydrated cucumber crumbled on our salads.

It's nearly apple and pear picking time. I pick a lot of free fruit - enough to last a year. Most of it is dehydrated. Dried apple slices are made into applesauce as well as pies/crisps, added to homemade granola and other baked goods....

A friend usually gives us sweet potatoes from his garden. What we don't use fresh I dehydrate and make into sweet potato powder. Add hot water for "instant" mashed sweet potatoes.

The neighbor gave us some deer meat and fish for taking care of their yard while they were on vacation.

-Make my own convenience foods: pudding mixes, baking mixes, cocoa mix, soup mixes, etc... Gifts-in-a-Jar type recipes look just as good in my pantry as they do as a gift.

-Buy locally when possible, and plant something - even if it's only some planters filled with leaf lettuce or spinach. Two years ago I reaped enough amaranth from 12 plants to last us two years. I use amaranth as a cooked cereal, milled into flour, and I add it anywhere poppy seeds are called for.

~Grainlady

Billionaire Mark Cuban did a blog post recently that said, basically, that being smart about discounts on what you have to spend will save you more than you can eke out of your investments in the same time period. This was geared for us common folk, and not billionaires like him.

Thanks, Annie! I will look into getting one of those in the near future. First I'll have to find a place for it to live in my kitchen. I have space for it, I just have to rearrange it.

I guess I should also invest in a food dehydrator. I've bought dehydrated foods that were made in Japan and really liked them. The good thing about dehydrated foods is that they take up much less space. If I dehydrate tomatoes, they will have to be from the farmers' market, as I have never grown them in abundance.

I would like to reduce our food bill, and I think there is plenty of room to do that, but I will continue to buy Bombay Gin, although I have switched from Sapphire to the plain version. I don't buy it that often.

Lars

Lars, we all have our little "indulgences"..LOL

I need to replace my dead bread machine...I've been using the KA..but....almost time to go back to work..and it would be so nice to set the machine for delay mix..and have the dough ready to go when I come home..
Oh and bread machines are a lot less noisy than my KA..

I was never that fond of my bread machine but it was a cheap BreadMan from Target. I never just used it to knead though. Seems like too much trouble to make the dough and then pry it out of the weird shaped pan. I like the mixing and kneading process and have always done it by hand with a wooden spoon to mix the dough and then turned out on a floured board to knead. But I don't have any arthritis problems or carpel tunnel to impede me.

I was just given a Hitachi HB-B-201 Bread Maker plus. It doesn't not have a manual or recipe book. I've searched the web for 45 minutes and can't seem to find one. Does anyone have an idea as to where I can get a manual?

I have never had a Bread Maker so I'm excited to try Annie's Onion/Dill bread that she gave me the recipe for.

Help! Karen

Karen--Is this the manual you need?

Hitachi

I love my bread machine but don't use it to make all my bread. I don't think the bread machine actually saves me money. Normally, we buy 1, perhaps 2 loaves of bread a week, & I'll make some bread over the weekend. The problem with homemade bread, we like it too much. We'd be eating at least a loaf every day.

Thanks Ci lantro, That is exactly the manual I need. I don't know how you found it but I sure appreciate it. I looked on line for over an hour and could never find it.

Now I just have to figure out how to print it off, it doesn't want to print correctly.

This forum is so GREAT!

Thanks again. Karen

Karen, I put 'Hitachi HB-B-201', copy & pasted what you wrote, into Google & the link to the manual was the first thing that popped up. (I didn't put 'Bread Maker plus' into the search because I've found that Google seems to like just model #'s better. Quite often, just a model number works w/o even needing a manufacturer's name.)

Anyway, I'm so glad that is the manual you needed and that I could help.

My big food question at the store is "will I eat it". Food thrown out is pure waste (unless the dog is hungry).

For me a bread machine will probably never happen. Why? Bakery bread is available to me for $1-$3 a loaf depending on what I'm hungry for. Being single a loaf lasts me 1-3 weeks. A grainy "honey wheat" is one of my favorites and rye I eat for snack food. Most of my bread is toast because I have to keep it in the fridge or it molds.

Last bread I made was squash bread. The vanilla and almonds I used were the most expensive items in it. One stupid squash plant has put out 30-40 summer squash and it is still going! I have to grate it into baggies and freeze it because I've given it to everyone and ate all I can eat.

I love my bread pans but have to be in the mood to make bread. I often keep frozen store bought dough in the freezer because my real cost is driving to town to buy a loaf of bread.

I can make homemade wine for about $1 a bottle! Hand squeeze the grapes and it is better quality then anything I've ever purchased. Even lazy way with store bought apple juice is inexpensive and very fine drinking.

Hard to beat road kill for value!
: )
lyra

Lyra, send wine.

Hi Lyra, I'm with barnmom....send wine. Ha

I too have had so many summer squash to contend with, that when my DH said the last of the squash plants died, I smiled secretly for hours. I have 18 loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer. Maybe next year he will plant less than 10 plants. LOL

I'm going to make Annie's onion/dill bread this morning. Ci lantro was able to find the manual for me for my bread machine that was given to me. I can't wait to try it.

Happy Saturday everyone - Karen

I used to be really good about shopping loss leaders, but have fallen out of the practice. The problem is that most loss leaders and coupon type stuff is for processed foods, and as I cut out processed foods, those types of cost cutters became irrelevant. It's very frustrating to me, though, that whole, fresh foods are so much more expensive than some of the processed foods or take out foods. When you can get a hamburger or a burrito for 99 and it costs that much just for one bell pepper, on sale, it's hard to compete. Not that I buy take out food all that often, but they pointed that out in that movie, Food Inc., and my DS has pointed that out, too. Of course, the medical bills one gets from eating take out and processed foods more than makes up for the cost of whole foods.

Sally

"I too have had so many summer squash to contend with, that when my DH said the last of the squash plants died, I smiled secretly for hours. I have 18 loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer. Maybe next year he will plant less than 10 plants. LOL"

TEN zucchini plants! Karen, send zucchini bread. I love the stuff!

"I used to be really good about shopping loss leaders, but have fallen out of the practice. The problem is that most loss leaders and coupon type stuff is for processed foods, and as I cut out processed foods, those types of cost cutters became irrelevant."

I agree and don't bother with the ads. I buy what I find in-store that is on sale and shop for seasonal produce. We eat little in the way of prepared foods. Alice will sometimes toss in a frozen meal but those often get shuffled around in the freezer for so long that I stumble on them eventually and toss some beat up package. Or she makes it and finds it tastes nasty and chucks most of it.

barnmom, I wish I could send you some zucchini bread. However, I don't think it would survice the travel. My kids love it too, so the 18 loaves go quickly.

I have a Panasonic SD-YD250.

After reading all the negative owner reviews for both the Panasonic and Zojirushi, it appeared to me that both machines are not that different in terms of reliability and features.

The z is about $500.00 and the P is about $130.

I bought the Panasonic. I bought it for $50.00. A brand new unit that has a tiny dent on the case which is not that noticeable.

I bought it also because it occupies a lot less counter space (P=13" x 9", Z = 19" x 14").

Other reasons why you really should consider getting a bread maker:

Make pizza dough, pasta dough, make jam, make soup, make rice, ----etc. Yes, it can be a rice cooker. All kinds of things not in the owners manual.

Annie and Lyra, go get a bread machine.

dcarch

dcarch, I already have a bread machine, a Zojirushi, and I love it. the model I have doesn't cost anywhere near $500, though, it's about $200. I use it to knead the dough, I seldom bake in it, but I bake all my own bread, sandwich buns, crust for pizza for the grandkids, sweet rolls for breakfast.

I'm so darned spoiled by the Zo that I don't even like store bought bread, I just stick up my nose. (grin)

Well, except bagels and English Muffins. I've tried making both of those and neither were worth the time and effort for me. Others like them better, so they make their own!

Lars is the one that needs a bread machine...

Annie

LOL... wonder how many years in prison I'd get for sending wine to people?

: )
lyra