Search results matching tag 'groceries'

A year of food for $800

Karen Datko — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:59:00 GMT

A whole year's worth of food for one person for only $799.99? And that's after a $200 discount. Is this too good to be true, or should we order?

Well, there is one small catch. The offer is for 78 one-gallon cans of dehydrated and freeze-dried food, plus a wheat grinder. Now, that's an emergency fund you can eat.

Actually, the ad exposed us to a movement we weren't very familiar with. Called "food storage," it's about amassing enough food on hand to survive common disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes, or "economic crisis" or for "religious reasons," according to a Web site called Food Storage Made Easy.

While most people would consider enough food for a few days or a few weeks to be a sufficient emergency supply, these folks think in terms of a complete year.

And no worries about this stuff going bad. The online ad at Costco for the Shelf Reliance THRIVE $799.99 offer says, "With over 4,700 servings and many foods with a shelf life of up to 20 years, this package will give you variety, nutrition, and peace of mind." Shelf Reliance is not the only company that sells packages like this.

Bing: More about food-storage supplies

We're not going to run out and buy a year's supply of food with a 10- to 20-year shelf life. But being prepared for a short-term emergency is always a good idea. So we've learned a few things from the food-storage advocates:

Don't forget water. Plus, food-storage cookbook author Vicki Tate writes at Backwoods Home Magazine, "Make sure you add cooking oil, shortening, baking powder, soda, yeast, and powdered eggs. You can't cook even the most basic recipes without these items." Spices help prevent food boredom.
Keep some fun foods like pudding or candy, Vicki says. Grains and beans can get really old.
If you don't buy the No. 10 cans, store your supplies in food-storage containers. "If you are using plastic buckets, make sure they are lined with a food-grade plastic liner available from companies that carry packaging supplies," Vicki advises.
Learn how to cook what you've stored. You don't want to wait until after the tornado hits to familiarize yourself with the wheat grinder.

Does having a year's worth of food sound a bit alarmist to you? Another company that sells large supplies of freeze-dried and dehydrated food warns at its Web site, YourFoodStorage.com, that up to 2 billion people might get swine flu worldwide.

It also says, "We will NEVER sell you food storage that is left over from the Y2K days!"

Related reading:

The emergency fund you can eat

10 bulk-buying bargains

Becoming a savvy shopper

Why we love coupons

Karen Datko — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Americans are crazy for coupons again -- clipping at rates not seen in years, and the attraction is not just the 30 cents off the canned corn, The New York Times reports. It's a psychological boost, a feeling that we're proactive and therefore better than those who pay full price.

As the Times puts it, "Because it takes more work to acquire them, the people who do so feel they have outsmarted other shoppers." It's kind of like that "delicious feeling of self-denial" inherent in frugality that our pal Frank Curmudgeon likes to write about at Bad Money Advice. We're saving money and feeling good in a way that's kind of creepy.

Our collective renewed love of the coupon is also good timing. Food prices have fallen by 2.5% since an ugly high point last November, with the biggest single decline between July and August.

Bing: Which grocery stores are cutting prices?

Here are some interesting coupon factoids from the Times and other locations:

(As an aside, we found the Times story quaint, discussing how shoppers match coupons with sales, file them away by food category, and paper clip them to their shopping lists -- as though regular Times readers would be unfamiliar with standard coupon operating procedures.)

Paper coupon redemption -- still the most popular form -- was up 23% in the first half of 2009 and may reach 3 billion for the year. It's a big increase but nothing near the 7.9 billion in 1992, another recession year.
Everyone's doing it. The numbers are up among all kinds of people, like young single folks, and families with incomes of $70,000 or more.
Redemption of printable coupons has really caught on in the last year.
Digital coupons, while growing in popularity, amounted to only 10 million in the first six months of 2009.

Other good news is that the face value of coupons increased last year by 9% and is just a bit lower so far this year. Actual coupon distribution was up 29% in the first half of 2009.

Not only that, The Washington Post says chains like Safeway are cutting prices to appeal to newly frugal customers. That chain reduced prices on thousands of products by as much as 25%, and Giant Food has doubled the number of items on sale and is heavily promoting sales within the store, the Post says.

Prices have fallen for everything from milk and cheese to Costco's rotisserie chicken, The Associated Press reports.

Stores can afford to cut prices in part because commodity prices are down. Corn -- which seems to be the cornerstone of the food chain (think high-fructose corn syrup and animal feed) -- has dropped 26% since July of last year. Supermarkets are also cutting profit margins in order to get penny-pinching consumers to spend.

Related reading:

5 favorite sites for online coupons

Be a bargain-shopping champ

Click your way to lower food bills

Secrets of superstar grocery shoppers

Dannon settles Activia lawsuit

Karen Datko — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:14:00 GMT

This post comes from Jon Hood at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.

Dannon has settled a consumer class-action lawsuit alleging that ads for certain brands of its yogurt overstate their claimed health benefits. The settlement will shell out $35 million to affected consumers.

The suit alleged that ads for both Activia and DanActive yogurt exaggerated their beneficial effects on human health. The ads promote the yogurt as improving digestion and have become well known for their goofiness; a recent Activia iteration features actress Jamie Lee Curtis, seated on a couch, noting that "our busy lives sometimes force us to eat the wrong things at the wrong times," and promoting Activia as the solution to "digestive issues."

A voiceover in the ad claims that Activia is "clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system in two weeks" if eaten every day.

The ads credit Bifidus Regularis, a Dannon-created name for bacteria found in mammals' large intestines, with Activia's positive effects on digestion.

According to the official Activia Web site, Dannon "selected Bifidus Regularis for Activia because it survives passage through the digestive tract, arriving in the colon as a living culture," where "it plays a beneficial role in your intestinal ecosystem." Whether this appetizing section of the Activia campaign will stay or go remains to be seen.

Dannon, a subsidiary of the French company Groupe Danone whose U.S. headquarters is in White Plains, N.Y., agreed to create a fund to reimburse qualified consumers, for amounts reaching up to $100 each.

(The settlement (.pdf form) says: "Forms may recover up to $15 by submitting a Claim Form either by mail or electronically. Claimants may recover more than $15 and up to $30 by submitting a Claim Form signed under penalty of perjury attesting to the amount of Product purchased. Claimants may seek more than $30 and up to $100 by submitting a Claim Form signed under penalty of perjury and providing a register receipt or other sufficient proof of purchase for the amount of Product for which payment is sought." To obtain a claim form once they become available, click here.)

As part of the settlement, Dannon agreed to make changes to its ad campaign to bring it in line with the products' actual benefits (or lack thereof). The company also promised to make changes to the yogurts' labels and packaging.

In the settlement, which still requires final approval from an Ohio federal court, Dannon denied wrongdoing and said it was agreeing to settle only to "avoid the uncertainty and expense of further litigation."

It's unclear how much of the ad content will change, or if Curtis will stay on board. As with most commercials, certain claims might be misleading but technically true; at one point, Curtis says that "87% of this country suffers from digestive issues," although this figure may include those who experience occasional heartburn or stomach aches.

The agreement is a significant victory for Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, the San Diego-based class-action firm that once won a $7 billion lawsuit against Enron. The $35 million Activia settlement is the largest ever for a suit alleging false advertising of a food product.

The firm is apparently confident in its legal strategy; it's now pushing forward with a similar suit targeting General Mills' Yoplait Yo-Plus yogurt. That item is similarly advertised as promoting good health by regulating digestive pathways. In its complaint against General Mills, Coughlin Stoia says that the company falsely claims to have "clinical proof" to back up its claims. That suit is being heard in Florida.

Related reading at ConsumerAffairs.com:

Bull's-eye on bank overdraft charges

Facebook turns off Beacon

6 in 10 workers live paycheck to paycheck, survey finds

In some parts, the Great Pumpkin will be late

Karen Datko — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:13:00 GMT

The jack-o'-lantern outlook in New England and parts of the Midwest looks a fright. A combination of wet and cold ruined a bunch of the pumpkin crop, and what's left in some fields is taking its own sweet time to ripen.

Not to worry, Halloween fans. The crop in most of the country's pumpkin patch looks fine, The Associated Press reports.

What's aggravating people is a shortage of canned pumpkin on store shelves.

"Holy smokes. Our stores have big empty shelves where the canned pumpkin should be. What's going on?" "CarolynF" wrote at lowcarbfriends.com.

Uncooperative weather last growing season led to this year's shortage at some stores. "Pumpkin is harvested once a year beginning late August and into September, so for the last couple of months, there have been empty shelves in most retailers across the nation," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Caren Epstein told NBCActionNews.com in Kansas City, Mo.

And this year's poor crop in waterlogged New England and some other locations may spell another shortage of the canned version next year. "Due to poor weather conditions once again this year, it's looking as if the crop is going to be the same as last year," Epstein said. "Not great news for pumpkin pie lovers."

Word to the wise: Buy a few extra cans if pumpkin pie is not just a seasonal treat in your home or you use it to help your dog's digestion.

Meanwhile jack-o'-lanterns should be available in adequate supply, even if they're not as big or as bright orange as you're used to.

"Every year something happens with the pumpkin crop, someplace," Gary Lucier, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told the AP. "The problems crop up in the crop and people start saying we're going to be short of pumpkins and no one is going to get their pumpkins. In fact, everyone gets a pumpkin, but sometimes they pay more."

One Massachusetts farmer expects the price to reach 55 cents a pound where he lives, but others say they're reluctant to charge more. If prices go up, the economy means "nobody can afford them," Indiana grower Mark Kamman told USA Today.

How does the pumpkin crop fare where you live?

A pumpkin grower near Monroeville, N.J., told 6abc.com that his crop is a total loss because of excessive rainfall. The consolation is that the sweet potatoes and sweet corn are exceptional.
Pumpkin crops are healthy in places as far flung as California, Texas and Michigan, The Packer reports. Other states in the Midwest also will have good results unless a freeze comes early.

Can't wait for pumpkin pie and not inclined to make pumpkin pulp from scratch? "You can also substitute sweet potatoes, or yams, using a bit more sweetener in place of the pumpkin. Works out just as good, and you really cannot tell the difference with the added spices in it," "bethjoyce55" said at lowcarbfriends. Another reader said she just ordered a large supply of canned pumpkin online.

Related reading:

High food prices? Here's how to save

Shopping at the farmers market

5 foods it's cheaper to grow

Frustrated smokers grow their own

Slash your grocery bill with store brands

Karen Datko — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:48:00 GMT

This post comes from J.D. Roth at partner blog Get Rich Slowly.

The October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports contains an article extolling the virtues of generic store-brand products. While shoppers used to sacrifice quality when choosing generic, that's no longer the case. From the article:

If concern about taste has kept you from trying store-brand foods, hesitate no more. In blind tests, our trained tasters compared a big national brand with a store brand in 29 food categories. Store and national brands tasted about equally good 19 times. Four times, the store brand won; six times, the national brand won.

In other words, store brands offer roughly the same quality as national brands, but at a much-reduced cost. How much reduced? Consumer Reports says the store brands they tested cost on average 27% less than the name-brand equivalents.

How much can you save?
Sometimes theory is one thing and reality another. It's nice that Consumer Reports can score great deals on store brands. But could I? Last week, I walked to two local grocery stores to do my own research. First I looked at Safeway, where Kris and I shop most often. Next, I walked across the street to Fred Meyer, a store we usually try to avoid. (The store is huge and its layout makes little sense to me.)

I spent an hour in each store, roaming the aisles, looking for representative prices on a variety of items. I tried to pick one item at random from every section of the store. When I'd finished, I had a list of 25 products for which each store carried the same name brand and their own store-brand equivalent.

The results actually surprised me. You can save a lot of money with store-brand products -- far more than I suspected. Here's the raw data from my research:

The first column lists the name-brand item I used as a basis for comparison. I've given each store two columns, one for the price of the name-brand item, and one for the generic item. On each line, red text indicates the highest-priced option and green text indicates the least expensive option.

Here's a closer look at some of these comparisons:

I'm out of my Head & Shoulders shampoo. I just threw away the bottle this morning. Normally I buy actual Head & Shoulders at Safeway, which costs me $5.99 if it's not on sale. If I were to instead buy the Fred Meyer store brand, I'd pay only $2.49 -- a savings of nearly 60%.
At Safeway, standard Charmin two-ply toilet paper costs $10.99 for 12 rolls. At $9.49, the store brand isn't much cheaper. But if I were to go across the street to Fred Meyer, I'd pay just $4.89 for the store brand. (Actually, Kris and I get our toilet paper at Costco, and I have no idea what we pay.)
Hungry? For $2.17, you could buy a can of generic chicken noodle soup, a box of generic saltine crackers, and a bottle of generic root beer at Fred Meyer. Buying name-brand equivalents at Safeway would cost you $6.18. (You could eat three of those meals using generic Fred Meyer food for the price of one meal from Safeway.)

You get the idea. Buying store brands at Safeway would save nearly 22% for the items on this list. At Fred Meyer, I could save more than 36%. And Fred Meyer store brands cost 44% less than name brands at Safeway -- without the need for a "loyalty card."

A note on methodology: While conducting this survey, I faced a tough choice. Which price should I list? The non-sale price for each item? Or the sale price? Of the 25 name-brand items listed, 15 were on sale at Safeway and 14 were on sale at Fred Meyer. (There was a lot of overlap on the sales, too.) At Safeway, 20 of the generics were on sale; 10 were on sale at Fred Meyer. I chose to list non-sale prices because it's impossible to know which items are on sale when.

Running the numbers
I learned a number of things from this project. First off, we're shopping at the wrong grocery store. Buying name-brand products at Safeway is the most expensive way to go. Based on this list, shopping at Fred Meyer instead would save us nearly 12%, even without moving to generics.

Second, generics are not always a bargain. On 10 out of the 25 items, the Safeway generic cost as much (or more) than the name-brand equivalent at Fred Meyer. On the other hand, Fred Meyer store-brand items offer fantastic savings, especially when compared with Safeway's name-brand selections. (The items on this list were 44% less expensive.)

Another factor to consider is that some stores have a better selection of store brands than others. Subjectively speaking, Fred Meyer seemed to have about double the number of generic items that Safeway had -- and often had multiple sizes or varieties. They carried several types of store-brand salsa, for example, while Safeway's selection was more limited. At both stores, the generics were generally staple items: rice, toilet paper, tomato sauce, etc.

Conclusions
"We should buy more generics," I told Kris after collating my data.

"We do buy generics," she said.

"We do? Like what?"

"...," she said (proving for once that Kris is not always right).

Though Kris and I do a lot of things to save money, we don't actually buy a lot of store brands. We're not opposed to them -- we just stick to brands we trust. This brand loyalty costs us money. Here's how Consumer Reports put it in the article that inspired my research: "Switching to store brands can be a painless way to cut your grocery bill." They're right.

After conducting this experiment, I realize there are four key steps to saving big bucks on groceries. More than anything else, these actions can help struggling families cut costs:

Grow whatever produce you are able. The more you grow, the more you save.
Buy store brands whenever possible.
For everything else, do your best to purchase items only when they're on sale. (This may mean developing a grocery price book.)
Learn to clip coupons, especially for processed foods.

This exercise was eye-opening in another way. I discovered that shopping at Safeway costs us money. If the data here is representative, then switching to Fred Meyer could save us more than 10% on our grocery bill. That's enough to let us dine out one extra time per month. Or it's more money we can save for our trip to France next year.

Kris and I are both wary of switching from Safeway to Fred Meyer -- as I mentioned, there's more to this decision than price -- but I suspect that if we give it a chance, we'll find ways to deal with Fred Meyer's annoyances and save money in the process.

Related reading at Get Rich Slowly:

How to save $100 (or more) at the grocery store this month

Saving at the supermarket: 15 great grocery shopping tips

Unit pricing: Get more food for less money

9 ways a food dehydrator can save you money

Karen Datko — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:15:00 GMT

This post comes from Alex Wayne at partner blog Wise Bread.

Looking for more money-saving ideas during these tough economic times? Dig that food dehydrator out of storage. This is a frugal living tip that almost everyone can act on. Just by reducing or eliminating food waste, you can save quite a bit of money.

Don't have a dehydrator? These days, you can buy a brand new one for less than the cost of a PlayStation game. Or, visit the flea market or yard sales around the neighborhood. Still can't find one? Try Craigslist. Don't have any money for another kitchen appliance? Alton Brown will show you how to make one.

Bing: Choosing a food dehydrator

Here are nine ways a dehydrator can help you stretch your budget:

Cut down on wasted food. Americans waste $30 billion worth of food every year. With an electric or solar dehydrator at home, you can preserve the excess and prevent it from going into the garbage. Before I started drying food regularly, I must have lost at least 10% of my fruits and vegetable to spoilage every month. Are you keeping track of how much food you don't get to use?

Buy groceries in bulk. It's often cheaper to buy groceries in bulk, but it's counterproductive if you can't use all the food. With a dehydrator, you don't have to worry about that because you can dehydrate leftovers and store them for several months.

Go vegetarian or vegan for a short time or forever. One of the healthiest things you can do for yourself is reduce the amount of animal products in your diet. And, if you do that, you'll have a less expensive grocery bill too because meats are often the priciest item in the shopping cart. The health benefits and supermarket savings have an even greater effect if you're feeding a large family.

Start an organic herb and/or vegetable garden in your backyard. If you can grow some of your own food, you'll realize a big savings at the market. Besides lowering your bill, you'll actually be producing tastier and more nutritious herbs and vegetables because you can avoid the nasty, poisonous chemicals used in mass farming. Obviously, you don't need a dehydrator to start a garden, but if you know your efforts won't go to waste, you'll be more likely to do it. Having dried herbs, fruits or vegetables in stock encourages healthy cooking and eating.

Freshen up the house with homemade potpourri. Another fantastic way to use up your excess harvest is to make potpourri. By combining fruits, flowers and essential oils, you can add a pleasant fragrance to your home.

Stop buying candy. Since getting my dehydrator, I've cut my candy budget down to almost zero. Instead of munching on unhealthy, sugary candies like Red Vines and jelly beans, I snack on fruit leathers and dried fruit. Removing the water concentrates the natural sugar in the homemade "candies" so they'll satisfy even your strongest cravings for sweets.

It's a jerky machine. If you like to buy your jerky at the market, you know it's pretty expensive. It's just meat without the water. You can do that at home, and I think it's the main reason people buy food dehydrators. Of all the dehydrator recipes online, the most common are the jerky varieties. With a dehydrator at home, you can experiment. Instead of beef, how about trying venison, turkey, fish, or even tofu jerky?

You can make homemade treats and present them as gifts. My favorite gifts during the holidays are usually the handmade/homemade food and crafts. I like to make bags of banana chips and berries to give away. You can make beef jerky or other goodies and save money by not having to buy things. Just about every dehydrator recipe is a frugal recipe. This is truly budget cooking. Create personalized gift baskets or bags of dried fruit or meat with your dehydrator.

Save money on medical expenses and overall spending. It's easier to eat healthy if you have healthy food around. With a dehydrator, you can make snacks and main dishes without added fat and sugar. If you have a bag of wholesome apple chips, you're more likely to choose that over a bag of unhealthy potato chips. And, with a healthier body, you'll require fewer doctor visits and hospital trips. In turn, you'll get healthier and spend less.

So much of our budget goes toward the food we eat and don't eat. Having a food dehydrator in the kitchen will help you bring that expense down. Americans waste 40% of the food made for consumption. How much are you contributing to that figure? Considering you can get a decent dehydrator for less than $50, I'm certain it'll pay for itself in a matter of months, if not weeks. Add the heath benefits of eating well, and your food dehydrator can save your life.

Cooking with cabbage: 10 cheap meal ideas

Cost of meat: Too high to pay

Are you ready for paperless coupons?

Teresa Mears — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:41:00 GMT

We've all done it: stopped by a store or restaurant unexpectedly and then realized we had a coupon at home. Now there's an app for that.

More retailers are making coupons available via cell phone. Mobile coupons -- usually text messages with discount codes -- are becoming the blue-light specials for the digital age, promoting last-minute clothing sales, two-for-one entrees and cheap tickets to the theater, The New York Times reported. The mobile deals particularly appeal to young people, many of whom have never used paper coupons.

We've written about several food deals with a mobile phone version of the coupon. T.G.I. Friday's coupons nearly always have a way to get the coupon via text message. Then you show the message to your server. Cheap Stingy Bargains has some tips on how to get coupons on your mobile phone.

Use of electronic discounts and coupons more than doubled in the first half of 2009, compared with the same period last year, as overall coupon use rose 23 percent, according to the coupon-processing company Inmar. Electronic coupons now account for more than 3 percent of all coupons used, up from roughly 2 percent in 2008, The Associated Press reported.

A number of mobile coupon aggregators have sprung up, including 8coupons, Cellfire, Yowza and Zavers. There are also some smartphone applications. We looked at Cellfire, but it only had a few offers in our area, from Sears, Payless and 1-800-Flowers. Valpak coupons are available on smartphones, and we found some of those for our neighborhood -- though they come with a disclaimer that not all merchants will honor the mobile version of the coupon.

The other major growth in electronic coupons has been coupons tied to grocery store loyalty cards. You choose the coupons you want on your home computer, type in your loyalty card number, and the savings are rung up when you swipe the card at the register. This week, A&P and affiliated chains in the Northeast became the latest group of grocery stores to begin using digital coupons. Starting Friday, Sept. 11, the chains are giving free reusable Elizabeth Haub Foundation shopping bags to customers who register for the Red Tag Online Savings program.

Those chains join Safeway (and related chains such as Von's and Pavilion), which rolled out the CouponLink program in June, and Kroger, which began experimenting with paperless coupons in late 2007.

We think the loyalty card programs sound intriguing but our grocery chain doesn't have a loyalty card, so we'll have to find another way to get digital coupons. Have you tried digital coupons, either via your mobile phone or store loyalty cards? Do you think the programs will someday overtake paper coupons? Or is paper here to stay?

Related reading:

The death of the coupon

Grocery stores testing digital ‘coupons'

Coupons over cell phone get a test

5 favorite sites for online coupons

Homemade healthy food can be fast

Karen Datko — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:43:00 GMT

This post comes from Trent Hamm at partner blog The Simple Dollar.

As I've discussed many times before, eating at home is a huge money saver. Even if you use expensive ingredients all the time (like saffron or morel mushrooms), it's still cheaper to cook at home than it is to consistently eat out (assuming you're eating better than the McDonald's Dollar Menu).

Similarly, it's cheaper to make a meal out of basic ingredients than it is to use prepared and processed ingredients. The closer to the raw ingredients you are, the cheaper the meal is (usually).

Along the same lines, I've come to realize that I tend to snack on and eat whatever's convenient. For lunch, I'll usually eat leftovers because it's easy -- it's sitting in the fridge and usually requires only a bit of pepper and a trip to the microwave. At snack time, I'll look at the fruit bowl and open the refrigerator door and grab whatever's quick and at hand.

So why not combine the two -- basic ingredients and convenience -- to really crunch your food budget?

I was inspired to try some of these things by Mark Bittman's interesting "Food Matters." He suggests a similar idea: If you make good, healthy food as convenient as possible, you won't be as tempted to eat processed, unhealthy foods.

By a lucky coincidence, many of the healthiest foods are also cheap in their raw form.

What I decided to do is start cooking some healthy and very inexpensive staple foods once a week in bulk, store them in containers in the fridge, and utilize them throughout the week in various dishes.

Here's the game plan:

Cook a big batch of beans/rice/whole grains once a week. You can get these ingredients at the store incredibly cheaply and they're very easy to cook up in bulk. Just cook a whole bag of beans, a small bag of wild or brown rice, and some amount of a whole grain that you like.

Store them in large containers in the fridge. A large Rubbermaid container or Gladware works really well because you can see what's inside at a glance.

Eat simple stuff that uses them for ingredients throughout the week. Here are five examples:

Burritos: Put some beans and rice on a tortilla, heat it up, and pour some salsa on it. Enjoy.
Omelets: Stir up two eggs, toss 'em in a pan with some beans, spice with lots of pepper. Enjoy.
Stir fry: Toss whatever vegetables and meats you have on hand in a pan with a bit of vegetable oil until cooked, and put them on the rice. Enjoy.
Swiss breakfast: Mix the cooked whole grains with some milk and whatever fruit you have on hand. Enjoy.
Bean burgers: If you have black beans, this works great. Just mash them together; add a bit of flour, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce; make some patties; and cook them with some oil. Enjoy.

With the huge amount of variations in these recipes -- and the many, many more simple things you can toss together -- it's easy to make tons of very simple snacks and meals from these cooked staples in your fridge.

You can take this idea even further by doing the same thing with whatever fruits and vegetables are on sale at the store. Just chop the vegetable up, and cook it in some appropriate fashion (or just leave it raw). Just get it to the point where it's really convenient for you to grab it and eat it or add it to a simple dish.

The benefits here are tremendous. Suddenly, your snacks and many of your meals become really simple to prepare, really cheap, and pretty healthy, too (regardless of what you add, if most of the meal consists of beans and wild rice and vegetables, it'll be good for you on the whole). Plus, because you can add whatever you want to the ingredients that are already on hand, it's versatile and will be quite tasty to pretty much any palate.

Give it a shot and see how it works for you.

Related reading at The Simple Dollar:

That's just the way it is?

The valuable art of media swapping

Good debt, bad debt, no debt

Frugal or dishonest? You decide

Karen Datko — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:55:00 GMT

What's the line between being frugal and doing something that's unethical or downright illegal to save money?

That question surfaces from time to time at personal-finance blogs. Here's an oldie but goodie example from Penelope Pince at Pecuniarities:

In a forum Penelope reads, a woman wrote that she'd neglected to use half of the jars of pasta sauce she purchased at a buy-one-get-one sale, and the date stamped on the jars was quickly approaching. She returned them to the store, said she'd lost the receipt, and got a $10 store credit.

"She knew that what she had done was dishonest but said that she thought it had been worth it," Penelope wrote.

What do you think about that? And while you're mulling it over, here are a few more examples:

"FMF" at Free Money Finance got this story from a neighbor: The neighbor ordered premium cable for a month so the family could watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game (a huge deal in Michigan, where they live). The neighbor called to cancel the premium cable several times and the cable company each time said it would. That was five years ago, and the guy is still getting premium cable for the price of basic.
"Smithee" at Consumerism Commentary shared his thoughts on "when it's OK to steal" entertainment, like music, TV shows and movie DVDs. For instance, once he's paid for music, he won't pay for the same music again, even if it comes out in another format. "I'll just acquire it somewhere," he wrote. (It's a complicated topic, so we suggest you read the entire post and the discussion that follows in the comments.)

What do you think about each situation? Frugal or unethical?

Verdict one: The pasta sauce returner was unethical. Penelope said the woman got the pasta sauce for "free" (or at least at a discounted price), got another $10 from the store, and also made sure that the sauce would be wasted. She surely could have found a way to use it.

"This person had herself neglected to use a product she had received for free and taken it back to the store under false pretenses and made a financial gain," Penelope said.

Unbelievably, one of her readers who used to work at a grocery store said the BOGO return scheme is common. She offered other bizarre stories: "One woman brought back $50 worth of perishable salads, dips, and deli items after New Year's because she didn't use them for her party. One man brought one grape and a seed with a receipt, and demanded his money back because he said he found this seed in the ‘seedless' grapes."

Verdict two: What's a person to do? How many times should you tell the cable company you're getting premium service for the price of basic before giving up? (Remarkably, numerous readers reported a similar experience, although a few said it couldn't happen with the newest technology.) Reader Jim said, "If someone knowingly steals cable, then that's unethical. If the guy told the cable company that he has free service and they don't fix it, ... I don't see anything unethical there since he's being honest with them."

Verdict three: Busted. Most of Smithee's readers didn't condone his techniques. "I gotta side with the other commenters here," wrote Liz. "It does sound like you're just trying to justify unethical -- even illegal -- behavior."

Sneaking candy into the theater: Frugal or cheap?

Her brother is a cheap opportunist

This economy presents new ethical questions

Too much lettuce? Here’s what to do

Karen Datko — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:47:00 GMT

We wish that Jenn at Frugal Upstate lived next door to us. We grew enough lettuce for one modest salad a day, but she has an abundance. Lettuce overkill.

If you planted a victory garden to help survive the recession or routinely grow your own vegetables each year, you'll appreciate her tips for extending the life of loose-leaf lettuce in the fridge, as well as the many ways you can cook it.

"Yes, I know. Heresy," Jenn writes. "But what do you have to lose? It's just going to wind up in the compost pile at this rate, right?" (Who knows. Maybe your family won't realize they're eating lettuce yet again if it's cooked in heavy cream.)

But let's back up a bit. The first way to protect your lettuce crop from summer heat is to plant types that are slow to bolt. (And she prefers loose leaf, which is better for you than iceberg.)

Once you pick it, wash the individual leaves in lukewarm water and lift them out. Dry in a salad spinner or in a towel you whirl over your head. "For storage, wrap the leaves in paper or regular towels (to absorb moisture) and place in a plastic bag in the fridge," she says.

Now for the cooking options: She says that stiff, bitter leaves are best.

Sauteed. We normally do this with escarole or endive in olive oil with garlic. But one recipe she links to reminds us of the wilted lettuce an uncle of ours used to make, with a dressing of bacon grease, vinegar, sugar and water. That stuff is good.
Blanched. This process removes bitterness, she says.
Braised. Lettuce cooked in broth in the oven? That's a new one for us.
Steamed. Enough said.

Do you have lettuce tips? And how's that garden growing? We're pretty tickled that our eggplant are plentiful.

Related reading:

5 foods it's cheaper to grow

20 healthy foods that cost less than a buck

Frugal gardening vs. spendthrift gardening

Can you save with a veggie garden?