Thursday, May 6, 2010

Thrifty Thursday......

Part of being a thrifty person is about a mind set. Now, I am not talking about a poverty spirit where one hoards things because we think that God will not provide our needs when they arise. I am talking about active thrift, through deliberate actions.  These are easily changed behaviors. The small changes that reduce our monthly expenses.

Take the job of feeding 5 male carnivores a nutritious dinner each night. This crowd will not be sustained on beans, eggs and other protein forms. They are looking for meat. Moo, oink, cluck. Now this budget buster never goes away. Thankfully, some of our grocery stores have a way of clearing our their meats the day before the new sale starts. On Thursday morning, my local Stop and Shop puts coupons on many of their meats. These are not rotting old meat. They are just close to the sell by date. 


An example from this morning is boneless pork loin sirloin chops. $3.49 a lb. on sale for 2.99 a lb. Then additional coupon of $1.00 off. This makes the final cost for $2.32. for 1.12 lbs. of pork. This savings is not substantial but some days it is phenomenal. It depends on who is putting the coupon stickers on the meats.


Now for the mommy/daddy only treat. I purchase sirloin steaks in this manner. I don't mind paying more per pound as it is such a pleasure for us to eat a quality steak. Now, the undiscerning teens and little guy are perfectly content with chuck marinated or London broil. Montreal Seasoning can make any steak delicious.


When I was a kid, my mom bought butter for herself and we kids were happy with margarine. Feeding the adults differently is o.k. in my book. Hence my nickname for any chocolate that is not the waxy candy bar found in most stores. I call my chocolate Adult Chocolate and no child, you cannot have some. Unless Mommy is in an especially cheerful mood. How about you? Do you have your special foods that you don't share with the children undiscerning devourers? 


Do you have any great ideas for saving on meats? I do have friends that drive closer to the big city for all of their grocery shopping and save huge amounts. The thought of a long car ride for a grocery trip doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't enjoy all day shopping trips anyways. When it was just Statueman and I, I could get away with grocery shopping every two weeks, but not so anymore. Gman is great at picking out meats this way. That reduces my time in the store. O.k. I admit it. I hate grocery shopping, there I said it.


I welcome reader comments with open arms. I also understand if you aren't the commenting or hugging type of person, you can drop me an email at accidentallyhomeschooling@gmail.com.

2 comments:

Linds said...

I don't know where you live, but you might try to find a local farmer who sells cows and will handle the processing for you. We purchase 1/2 a cow each year and stick in it in the deep freeze. For the meat and processing the total comes to about $2.30 a pound. The ground meat is ground sirloin or round and is very lean compared to most ground meats at the store, plus we get a good share of roasts, steaks (sirloin, t-bone, etc) that would easily cost us $10+ a pound for similar cuts at a grocery. AND we know where it came from, it's not pumped with antibiotics or hormones, etc. My DH has told me you can do this with pigs too, but I am not a big pork eater, so we just stick with beef and Sam's club chicken :)

Lori Watson said...

I hate grocery shopping and I love Montreal seasoning too. And we sometimes have "Adult Food". So there you have it.

We are blessed to get our meat through a ministry to pastors in New Hampshire. Twice a year, my husband makes the drive up there and loads up on meat that they get from grocery stores rotating their stock. We fill our chest freezer and always have leftovers to share with friends from church who need the blessing as well. I'm not sure how I would feed everyone without this ministry!