Stretching Your Food Dollars
One of our readers sent a long letter telling of her family’s efforts to save grocery money. She stated that her food bills were totally out of control, so something had to be done.

The couple, along with their four children, tracked every penny they spent on something to eat or drink for a month. This included purchases at work, school, sports practices, and out with friends. She said it was a lot of work, but a real eye-opener for the whole family as they discovered they were spending more on bottled water, soft drinks, snacks, and pick-up meals than the real food eaten at home!!

She said, “The kids figured out they could eat steak twice a week if we cut out the junk!” So, she said they went out on a limb and let the four kids do the grocery shopping (one week at a time) for a whole month.

She said the kids did really well as they stayed on their budget or under budget. They figured out a grocery list and stuck to it and gave up the snacks and sodas at the convenience stores. They said they could live without junk food, although they did miss it some. The kids planned two evening meals a week and that included cooking and cleanup.

The outcome of her letter was that the kids also figured out how to use the left-over food for other meals and shaved even more off of the grocery spending, as well as continuing to cook and clean up twice a week long after the experiment was over.

With the money they saved on food, the family purchased new bicycles for everyone and the kids are now racking up the saved gas dollars for something else they want!

More Money-Saving Grocery Hints From The Mailbag
No picky eating allowed. Nix on the short order cook bit! Fix one meal and call it good. If the kids won’t eat it, they don’t get anything else until the next meal is served.

My sister would fix a different meal for each of her kids and tossed out a lot of food. She went to the hospital and the kids had to stay with me. It didn’t take them long to figure out I wasn’t running a restaurant. A couple of the kids got pretty hungry between lunch and supper, but then they really chowed down and never balked at a meal after that!

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Scrape out the peanut butter jar before you toss it, a tablespoon at a time may not seem like much but it does add up and you’ve already paid for it.

When the ketchup bottle is close to empty, I put some water in it, shake it up real good and then use the thin ketchup in place of tomato sauce in a meatloaf. It works the same way and I don’t have to buy something extra.

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We had followed your advice to buy a few cans of food ahead in case of storms, etc. and I had a couple of weeks worth stored in the box in the closet.

Well, my husband lost his job and we couldn’t pay rent and eat at the same time so we paid the rent and ate from the food boxes until he could get another job. It might not have been what we would eat every day, but it sure kept us fed.

We are currently refilling our food boxes again, just in case.

I do rotate things in and out, putting the date of purchase on the top of the can with black marker and using the oldest first.

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Serve the food from the stove instead of putting bowls on the table saves me from throwing out a lot of food. My kids would help themselves to a huge portion of something they liked, couldn’t eat all of it and it had to be dumped.
By me putting the food on the plates like they do in a restaurant, my kids eat the portion sizes they need and the food is not wasted.

I think my kids are healthier because they do not over-eat and gain excess weight.

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Stretch your meat dollars by “snidging” a little when you make a meal. Instead of using a full pound of ground beef to make goulash, try using just a tad over a half pound. You can then use the other portion of the meat in spaghetti or pizza sauce and get two meals from that one pound of meat.

Sheet To Rugs
I was given a stack of old sheets by an elderly neighbor who thought I could make use of them. They weren’t good enough to use on beds because they were worn through in spots.
I put them in the washing machine with a bottle of liquid dye, washed and dried them and tore into strips about 2” wide. My daughter then crocheted and sewed the strips into a beautiful round rug to go on our floors. They cost almost nothing, look beautiful and wash like a dream.

Crispy Lettuce
If you put a head of tired lettuce under warm water until it’s soaked up real good (take a few minutes), then hold it up and drain it well, put in a recycled plastic bag in the refrigerator - you will have crispy lettuce for days. (I do it all the time.)

Desserts - A Special Treat
Desserts can be one of the most costly parts of a meal if you serve cakes, pies or cookies on a daily basis. The last time I looked at a cheesecake, it was $12.00!
One way to cut food costs is to use dessert as a special treat instead of part of the everyday meal. I use popcorn as a snack later on in the evening if the family decides they need something to much on.

Using ‘Just Enough’
All families use certain hygiene items every day, most are very expensive when you do the math.
Take toothpaste - you only get a few ounces for over $3. It makes me furious to go in he bathroom and find gobs of toothpaste stuck to the sink, mirror and floor. Like I said, the stuff is expensive and then you have to use expensive cleaners to get rid of the mess and germs.
I finally taught my two daughters to use just a tiny bit on their toothbrushes. They measure it for several days until they could eyeball the right amount. I am finding that the tube of toothpaste last at least twice as long now, and that saves me money!

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My friend who is a hairdresser told me that the new shampoos are very concentrated and you only need a dab to do the job. but, she said most husbands and kids don’t use a dab so her solution is to mix water with shampoo and conditioner when she gets home. She puts half of the shampoo or conditioner in a glass jar and adds water to the remaining half in the bottle which goes in the bathroom. She figures she gets twice as much mileage from her products this way.

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Only run the washing machine when you a have a full load to wash, you will use almost as much soap and water to wash a small load of clothes as a regular load. I know people that will wash just one blouse at a time - a terrible waste of water.

Heart Songs
As we scrimp and save to keep our families out of the deepest holes in the economy, we need to remember to share the good times too.

The folks who lived through the Depression took the time to visit their neighbors, share a cup of coffee and maybe even a skill.

Many a trunk held ‘fancy work’ such as embroidered towels, made from flour sacks, to hang over the cupboard door.

Take those pretty things out and use them. They will lift your spirits in these things and bring joy to your heart. They are not intended to spend their lives in a box or a drawer...use them.

If you have hints or ideas to share, please send them to PennyWise, Box 518, Kadoka, SD 57543 or e-mail me at pennywise@gwtc.net and be sure to mention this publication when you write.