Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11
Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there! Today's post has to do with some things I learned from my Daddy...
The summer before my freshman year of high school, my sister and I moved to my dad's house. Throughout my high school years this single parent, one income household was full of life lessons, many of which I have only come to appreciate as I get older. During these years, one of the things Daddy and I did together was grocery shopping. It was an odd sort of thing, a teenager hanging out with her dad in the cereal aisle. But, I can't count the number of evenings I went along to Bi-Lo to get the food we needed.These trips, along with careful attention in the kitchen, gave me some wise insight into feeding a family on a budget.
Lesson #1:
There was an unofficial slogan in our house. It went something like this... Question: What's for dinner? Answer: What's on sale? Ours was a meat 'n' two kind of household, so when we were planning meals, it was usually based on whatever family pack of pork chops or stew beef was the deal of the week. I learned that it was more economical to buy the larger packs on sale. We would split the packs and freeze the meats in portions needed for one meal.
Lesson #2:
There is no shame in buying store brand products. Sometimes you actually like them better! We bought the store brand of just about everything...canned goods, cookies, cereal. Store brands can actually be a good value for the money. In most cases they are made almost the same as the name brands. What you aren't paying for? The name (and all the advertising that goes with it).
Lesson #3:
Make a big batch and freeze some for later (and, label it!). My dad was a cook when he served in the Navy, so we used to joke when he made massive amounts of something that he was still cooking for the Navy! But, when you make a pot of chili or spaghetti sauce, you may as well make a lot. Daddy did this frequently. Unfortunately, he didn't always mark the packages in the freezer, so occasionally there was some question about whether we were eating chili on our spaghetti noodles or spaghetti sauce on our hot dogs! Hey, it kept things interesting. It was also a wonderful time saver for a parent who worked all day (Daddy carried mail for the postal service).
Lesson #4:
We always had a garden every year with potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Those were the staples. What we couldn't eat immediately, Daddy canned. One year we even bought an enormous amount of peaches and canned those. I can remember peeling peaches until I couldn't stand the sight of them! But, they sure were good to have that winter. While I learned the value of growing your own food and preserving it, I also learned that too much of a good thing can be too much! I don't eat green beans to this day because Daddy canned so many one year, I thought I'd be sick from the smell of green beans on the stove. Regardless, having a garden is a good thing.
Lesson #5:
Daddy always did the cooking. My sister and I never had to make dinner. I would help sometimes, but mostly I watched. I observed. I asked questions. And, in this way, I learned to cook from scratch. I learned to make things without relying on a recipe. We went out to eat some of the time, but mostly dinner was eaten at home. We sat down at the same time and ate at our old rickety table with the plastic picnic table cloth in the well-worn kitchen of our 1920s era house. It was not glamorous, but it was home. The food was not gourmet, but it was some of the best food I've ever eaten.
When Kevin and I began our money-saving journey, one of the first places I knew we had look at in our budget was the amount of money we spend on food. We had gotten into the habit of going to the store as needed--often daily, buying more than we need, and eating out two to three times a week. I had to fall back on those lessons I learned as a teenage.
So, I devised a dinner schedule for a month, which included what we were having and who was cooking it (Kevin and share that responsibility). I went to three different stores to get the best deals on all the ingredients we would need. Yes, I bought the value packs of meat! They are neatly stored in the freezer, and we pull out what we need when we need it. It's working out nicely. When we ask "what's for dinner?" there are no discussions which tend to end with me: "I'll make us something" or him: "I'll get something at the store."
We've only gone out for dinner twice. I've planned one day a week for that. It's nice to have someone else to the cooking and just get out of the house for a little while. One of our favorite spots to eat takes us on a quiet drive away from the traffic of other congested areas. It's fun to get to do that, and we enjoy the conversation in the car. Cutting down on the number of times we eat dinner out should save us about $40-60 a week.
Leftovers become lunch for me. The first week we only had leftovers one day, so I ate cereal the other days. Not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but I survived. This past week, however, I was able to take something different everyday. Obviously, I'm saving money because I am not going out for lunch everyday. That's saving us about $30-40 a week. An added benefit I had not accounted for is the savings in gas for my car. Up until this point, I had to fill up my car once a week, which costs about $40-45. Since I wasn't driving my car to get lunch everyday, I was able to stretch one tank of gas over two weeks. At this pace, I should save another $80-90 a month!
I'm thankful for the lessons my Daddy taught me all those years ago. In future posts, I'll be expanding on how Kevin and I are using this wisdom as we continue to look for ways to save money and live more simply this year. Next week we'll look further into grocery shopping strategy...
Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there! Today's post has to do with some things I learned from my Daddy...
The summer before my freshman year of high school, my sister and I moved to my dad's house. Throughout my high school years this single parent, one income household was full of life lessons, many of which I have only come to appreciate as I get older. During these years, one of the things Daddy and I did together was grocery shopping. It was an odd sort of thing, a teenager hanging out with her dad in the cereal aisle. But, I can't count the number of evenings I went along to Bi-Lo to get the food we needed.These trips, along with careful attention in the kitchen, gave me some wise insight into feeding a family on a budget.
Lesson #1:
There was an unofficial slogan in our house. It went something like this... Question: What's for dinner? Answer: What's on sale? Ours was a meat 'n' two kind of household, so when we were planning meals, it was usually based on whatever family pack of pork chops or stew beef was the deal of the week. I learned that it was more economical to buy the larger packs on sale. We would split the packs and freeze the meats in portions needed for one meal.
Lesson #2:
There is no shame in buying store brand products. Sometimes you actually like them better! We bought the store brand of just about everything...canned goods, cookies, cereal. Store brands can actually be a good value for the money. In most cases they are made almost the same as the name brands. What you aren't paying for? The name (and all the advertising that goes with it).
Lesson #3:
Make a big batch and freeze some for later (and, label it!). My dad was a cook when he served in the Navy, so we used to joke when he made massive amounts of something that he was still cooking for the Navy! But, when you make a pot of chili or spaghetti sauce, you may as well make a lot. Daddy did this frequently. Unfortunately, he didn't always mark the packages in the freezer, so occasionally there was some question about whether we were eating chili on our spaghetti noodles or spaghetti sauce on our hot dogs! Hey, it kept things interesting. It was also a wonderful time saver for a parent who worked all day (Daddy carried mail for the postal service).
Lesson #4:
We always had a garden every year with potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Those were the staples. What we couldn't eat immediately, Daddy canned. One year we even bought an enormous amount of peaches and canned those. I can remember peeling peaches until I couldn't stand the sight of them! But, they sure were good to have that winter. While I learned the value of growing your own food and preserving it, I also learned that too much of a good thing can be too much! I don't eat green beans to this day because Daddy canned so many one year, I thought I'd be sick from the smell of green beans on the stove. Regardless, having a garden is a good thing.
Lesson #5:
Daddy always did the cooking. My sister and I never had to make dinner. I would help sometimes, but mostly I watched. I observed. I asked questions. And, in this way, I learned to cook from scratch. I learned to make things without relying on a recipe. We went out to eat some of the time, but mostly dinner was eaten at home. We sat down at the same time and ate at our old rickety table with the plastic picnic table cloth in the well-worn kitchen of our 1920s era house. It was not glamorous, but it was home. The food was not gourmet, but it was some of the best food I've ever eaten.
When Kevin and I began our money-saving journey, one of the first places I knew we had look at in our budget was the amount of money we spend on food. We had gotten into the habit of going to the store as needed--often daily, buying more than we need, and eating out two to three times a week. I had to fall back on those lessons I learned as a teenage.
So, I devised a dinner schedule for a month, which included what we were having and who was cooking it (Kevin and share that responsibility). I went to three different stores to get the best deals on all the ingredients we would need. Yes, I bought the value packs of meat! They are neatly stored in the freezer, and we pull out what we need when we need it. It's working out nicely. When we ask "what's for dinner?" there are no discussions which tend to end with me: "I'll make us something" or him: "I'll get something at the store."
We've only gone out for dinner twice. I've planned one day a week for that. It's nice to have someone else to the cooking and just get out of the house for a little while. One of our favorite spots to eat takes us on a quiet drive away from the traffic of other congested areas. It's fun to get to do that, and we enjoy the conversation in the car. Cutting down on the number of times we eat dinner out should save us about $40-60 a week.
Leftovers become lunch for me. The first week we only had leftovers one day, so I ate cereal the other days. Not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but I survived. This past week, however, I was able to take something different everyday. Obviously, I'm saving money because I am not going out for lunch everyday. That's saving us about $30-40 a week. An added benefit I had not accounted for is the savings in gas for my car. Up until this point, I had to fill up my car once a week, which costs about $40-45. Since I wasn't driving my car to get lunch everyday, I was able to stretch one tank of gas over two weeks. At this pace, I should save another $80-90 a month!
I'm thankful for the lessons my Daddy taught me all those years ago. In future posts, I'll be expanding on how Kevin and I are using this wisdom as we continue to look for ways to save money and live more simply this year. Next week we'll look further into grocery shopping strategy...