Search results for Groceries
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Posted
Sep 26 2007, 02:42 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
I had a Desperation Dish the other night. It saved me from going out to eat, which is why I recommend the practice. It also helped me clean out the fridge – another point in its favor.
The expression comes from the 1942 memoir "We Took to the Woods,” a delightful tale of living in the Maine backcountry. Author Louise Dickinson Rich described Desperation Dishes as "things we eat when we run out of food."
Rich and her family weren’t completely out of food, but rather down to things like dried beans and cornmeal. But they must have been desperate if they were excited by DDs like "Mock Tripe," made with fish skin and seasoned leftover oatmeal. Yum.
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Posted
Sep 26 2007, 04:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Do we really need prepackaged 100-calorie portions of snacks, let alone entire supermarket aisles dedicated to this craze? Think of the money saved if you simply bought the large size and used some willpower to limit your consumption, or divided it up into baggies at home.
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Posted
Sep 26 2007, 06:14 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Organic food costs more in the supermarket. But if organic is your goal, buy in bulk and make your own. Organic co-ops and farmer's markets can be good sources of chemical-free food. Save even more and plant a garden.
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Posted
Oct 02 2007, 09:57 PM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
One family with savings in mind accomplished what it didn't think it could: Mom and Dad and the kids ate every meal at home for a month. (They did pick up a rotisserie chicken one night after Mom forgot to put a roast in the crock pot.) The trick, she says, is getting the kids to agree and not giving in to temptation.
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Posted
Oct 09 2007, 08:52 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
I had a $1 steak for lunch, but it was no one-buck chuck. It was certified Angus beef sirloin, with no hormones or antibiotics, and “minimally processed,” according to the label. In addition, this steer apparently ate only vegetarians: The label also said “100 percent vegetarian diet.”
How’d it get to be a dollar? First it went on sale, then it got old.
Meat department managers keep a constant vigil against meat that’s close to its sell-by date. They need to sell that flesh pronto, so they discount it deeply.
That’s how people like me end up with steaks whose original per-pound cost was one and a half times the federal minimum wage. That same shopping trip netted me a two-pack of sirloins that initially cost $8.99 a pound; I paid $4.07 total. Another pair of steaks cost just $1.24 and $1.52.
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Posted
Oct 09 2007, 05:35 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Nine-year-old Liz is so disinterested in money that her mom has taken to direct-depositing her allowance because Liz never needs it. Ask her what she wants for Christmas and this angelic child replies, "I'll like whatever you get me." Not so younger brother Sam, a nearly 5-year-old NASCAR fan with finely developed tastes in fashion and toys. Being Frugal asks a fundamental question about our attitude toward money: Is it nature or nurture? (Make sure you also read her funny and insightful post about a trip to the supermarket with Sam.)
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Posted
Oct 10 2007, 09:23 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Seattle is loaded with blackberry vines. The sight of all that free fruit makes me want to forage each summer. My arms get so thorn-raked it looks like I’ve tried to exorcise a cat, but I fill the freezer, make jam, and eat blackberries almost every day for weeks.
On my way to pick berries one end-of-summer day, I saw a dark-purple blob in the dust. A plum had fallen from a tree in a nearby yard. I broke open the windfall and took a tentative nibble from its golden interior. Sweet as the memory of first love.
Peeking through the fence, I could see the tree was loaded. I asked the homeowners if I could trade them a jar of jam for the fruit I’d need to make some. They told me to help myself: “We’re glad someone wants it.”
Two batches of jam later, I posted a thread on the Smart Spending message board: Who else out there “puts food by” each year? Do you grow it? Buy it from a farm? Scrounge and scavenge like me?
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Posted
Oct 10 2007, 07:59 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Gary Foreman started The Dollar Stretcher in 1996 when the company he worked for started laying people off. Twenty months later, he too lost his job but his groundbreaking Web site dedicated to frugality was already well off the ground. In an interview at Wise Bread , Foreman shares his favorite tips to save money (use a grocery price book ), make money (let compound interest work for you), as well as the times his efforts at extreme frugality didn't work out the way he'd planned.
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Posted
Oct 11 2007, 11:15 AM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
There's a certain collegiate flair to the frugal law student's list of 27 ways to save money on food , compiled after he asked readers for suggestions. Emily eats for free at campus organization meetings (she's a member, not a moocher), and keeps a spreadsheet of her food expenses. "And of course, I do save those ketchup packets," she writes. Chitown picks up extra napkins at fast-food joints, and likes to spice up ramen noodles with a few frozen shrimp. Another writer has a CSA (community-supported agriculture) membership, and another recommends off-brand grocery stores. Another suggestion: Drink only tap water at home and in restaurants. Then you'll have money for weekend beer.
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Posted
Oct 17 2007, 11:02 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Those of you who read “Extreme savings: washed baggies and unflushed toilets” know that some people take thriftiness to a galaxy far, far away.
I’ll admit I’m one of those Ziploc recidivists. The bags are sturdy, so why not reuse them? (And yes, I know there are other brands besides Ziploc. But the word has entered the common parlance, a la “Band-Aid” or “Xerox.”)
However, it’s relatively rare that I actually use a Ziploc. To my way of thinking, there’s no reason to throw away a perfectly good tortilla bag once the last burrito has been folded.
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