TODAY ONLY! Get a free serving of honey walnut shrimp at Panda Express.
Get a free turkey product from Jennie-O with this $5 mail-in rebate.
Restaurant discounts are happening at Restaurant.com right now with a coupon code that expires Thursday, March 11, 2010.
If you live on the East Coast, check out this Filene’s Basement coupon for an extra 10% off their designer sale.
Here’s a Coldwater Creek coupon for 20-25% off when you spend $100 or more, now through Saturday, March 13, 2010.
Snag a Kenneth Cole coupon for 20% off when you donate gently-used shoes for Haiti. Ends March 31, 2010!
Buying books, DVDs or Blu-Rays? Check out these two Borders coupons for 25-40% off.
Plus, did you hear that Disneyland gave away all its free passes for 2010? The volunteer-for-a-day-and-get-a-free-pass proved more popular than Mickey Mouse.
Is it possible to feed one person on $27 a week? That’s what reader Christiane asked me after I wrote about trimming my grocery bill on this blog and for my Friday column in the N.J. Star-Ledger. Christiane was flabbergasted.
I read your column at Star-Ledger every week with the greatest of interest. It is fantastic to see that there are people in this country conscious about their spending. But, I am amazed: $27 per week for groceries???!!!?? What do you eat and how many people do you feed for $27 per week?
And my next question would be – do you honestly like the food you buy for such little money? And does the $27 include warm dishes every day? I really cannot believe it.
I would consider myself very conscious about spending, but when it comes to groceries, unfortunately I only like the expensive stuff and I am not willing to substitute anything I like with something I don’t like. I also would never substitute fresh and healthy food with canned or otherwise prepared stuff and may face the bill later in health care costs because of unhealthy nutrition. And when you drive around to get the weekly offer in each grocery store in your area, did you consider your time and the fuel you spend on this?
I am really, really interested in what your secret is! Thank you so much for revealing it (I bet a lot of people are asking the same question)!
Best regards,
Christiane
I’m happy to share more details about my grocery habits if it helps other save!
1. I aim to feed one person (myself) on $27 a week. Some weeks I go over.
2. I eat mostly fresh food and a lot of home-cooked meals. I almost never get take out but I do occasionally graze for dinner if I don’t feel like cooking.
3. I love the food I eat! In fact, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what I am going to have for my next meal. I really like food.
4. Yes, my meal plan includes warm dishes everyday, though sometimes that means re-heating leftovers.
5. I eat canned food, but usually only for tomatoes, beans, and occasionally corn. I also save and clip coupons for groceries.
6. In terms of cheap v. expensive food, I seek out value. In other words, I don’t equate expensive food with quality food. There are a lot of great values at off-the-beaten path grocers, Trader Joe’s, and mainstream chains.
Tip 1: The main thing I do to keep my grocery tab down is to shop by price and quality, not by a pre-set list. For instance, instead of putting down “brocolli and asparagus,” I’ll put “vegetables-2″ on my list. Buying in season produce is usually the best bet. When I get to the store I’ll see what looks like the best values. I do the same thing for fruit and meat. Then I put together meals and snacks based on what I purchase.
Tip 2: I shop at different stores. I stock up on nuts, wine, and butter at Trader Joe’s one week, then buy fresh produce at my favorite local grocer. I try to only buy groceries one day a week, but if I run out of produce I’ll make a food run with a pre-determined spending limit of $5 or $10.
Tip 3: I try to only buy 1 or 2 bread products each week so that I eat everything before it goes bad. Instead of buying pre-made snacks I buy healthy food that makes great snacks, like nuts, fruit, or veggies and hummus.
Tip 4: I don’t buy junk food because if it’s in the house, I’ll eat it. That means no soda or pre-packaged cookies. When I break down it is to buy candy or ice cream.
Tip 5: I follow my mother’s rule on sweets: if you want cookies, make them.
Tip 6: I eat from the garden. Instead of buying orange juice I eat fresh oranges off my tree. Same with lemons, limes, herbs, and lettuces.
Tip 7: I have pantry where I can stash bargain-priced canned goods, onions, potatoes, and yams.
Tip 8: I eat starches that cost almost nothing, including potatoes, yams, and rice.
Tip 9: I get a lot of my protein from non-meat sources like beans (hummus), eggs (boiled ones make a great snack), and nuts.
That’s all I can think of for now. I hope this helps you trim your grocery list. If you have another way you cut your food bill, please leave a comment.
UPDATE: Pam shared her secret for low-cost breakfasts:
I have a cheap, healthy breakfast every day at work. I purchased big containers of oatmeal, frozen blueberries, and raisins from Costco, and a 2 lb. bag of brown sugar and wheat germ from a grocery story. Then I make my own oatmeal (it is healthier, tastier, and has less sugar) in the microwave at work. One day it is a raisin oatmeal, one day blueberries, and sometimes I’ll put in mixed oats from Trader Joe’s or a bit of cinnamon for a twist. I’ve been doing this for years, and it saves a lot of money and calories!
FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.org
Here is an updated list of in-season fruits and vegetables, which are almost always cheaper than buying out-of-season produce. Greater supply…lower prices. The price of items on the winter fruits and vegetable list will be rising.
This list comes from FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.org. Almost all of these spring fruits and vegetables are familiar to me, unlike many of the items on the winter fruits and veggies list.
In-season produce for March, April, and May
Apricots
Artichokes
Asparagus
Belgian Endive * this is good fresh or lightly sauteed with olive oil, salt, and pepper
Broccoli
Butter Lettuce
Chayote Squash
Cherimoya
Chives
Collard Greens
Corn
English Peas
Fava Beans
Fennel
Fiddlehead Ferns * no idea what this is – any recipe suggestions?
Green Beans
Honeydew
Mango
Morel Mushrooms
Mustard Greens
Oranges
Limes
Lychee
Pea Pods
Pineapple
Ramps * again, I have no clue what this is – any ideas?
Rhubarb * pictured above
Snow Peas
Sorrel
Spinach
Spring Baby Lettuce
Strawberries
Sugar Snap Peas
Swiss Chard
Vidalia Onions
Watercress
Click on the items that are underlined in blue for recipe suggestions and fun facts about the fruit or vegetable. Did you know Chayote Squash is a good source of vitamin C and will keep for up to a month if refrigerated in a plastic bag? Or that you should never eat Rhubarb leaves? Deep red Rhubarb stalks are sweet and rich. Unlike some produce, size does not indicate tenderness.
This post is brought to you by CouponCactus.com, a great source of online coupon codes for taxes, groceries, and more.
My spending has gone crazy over the past few months. A new set of gears for my bike ($90), yards of brown suede for new curtains ($88), two new outfits for a trip to NYC ($152), and a pricey sushi lunch ($34).
Sure, I have reasons behind each purchase (I’m doing a race in May that requires additional gears, buying fabric is cheaper than buying curtains, I had a gift card and a rare coupon for the clothing store, and I hadn’t seen my friend in months), but this kind of spending is not sustainable.
My credit card bill, which I pay off in full each month, has risen on average by a few hundred dollars. Not good. Here are two things I’m doing to shift my habits downward.
1. I only buy groceries on Wednesday. I started this two weeks ago and it has made me more aware of how much money I’m spending on food because it is easier to remember my total purchases from one day. Two weeks ago I spent $92 at Trader Joe’s, which included many staple items, beer, and wine. Last week I spent $27 on groceries. My target weekly grocery spending is $25.
Toward the end of the cycle I challenge myself to create tasty meals with what is left and finish off the last vegetables before they go bad. There is a lot you can do with beans, onions, and garlic!
2. I single out an item on my credit card statement that I didn’t have to buy. This month the dubious honor goes to an $8.10 purchase at Stamps.com. I got sucked into their $100 offer for newbies: sign up and get a $5 supplies kit, $45 in free postage (which is strung out over four months), and a free $50 postage scale (which actually sells for about $20 and is useless after my 30-day trial period unless I join Stamps.com for $16 a month).
I don’t buy enough business postage to make it worthwhile to join Stamps.com for $16 a month. So when I read the fine print the $100 sign-up package evaporated into nothing. At that point, I had already spent $8.10 to get the “free” scale mailed to me. Blerg!
I wish I had been more skeptical of the $100 intro offer, which really was too good to be true. Being greedy cost me $8.10.
What do you wish you hadn’t bought in the past month? Leave a comment and the reader with the best story wins a hot pink BargainBabe.com T-shirt, above. There are only about a dozen left!
This week’s winner of the $10 Starbucks card is EvieK, who won by sharing great Los Angeles deals on BargainBabeLA.com. Congrats!
Kids eat free every Wednesday at El Torrito. Luuuv their chips and salsa. (Bargain Babe shared this deal.)
Still hungry? All you can eat BBQ is just $12 Monday and Tuesday at Willy’s Smokehouse. I am so there! (Shared by EvieK)
Dodgers tickets are half off for many of their early season games. Great prices for the Anaheim Angels, too!
Put this one on your calender for next weekend. The United Methodist Church in Northridge is holding a massive yard sale going on March 6.
The DLM clothing warehouse is opening its doors again to the public for a massive sale with prices at 80-90 percent below retail. Last time I blogged about DLM there was a huge response.
I was putting together a new tab on BargainBabe.com that features long-term strategies for coupon clipping (as opposed to coupons that expire in a few days) when I realized I had never written a basic how to clip coupons post. Shocking!
There are five steps to coupon clipping for grocery products, toiletries, and drugstore items.
1. Subscribe to the Sunday newspaper, which is when coupons are distributed. If you don’t want to subscribe, you may live in an area that the three major coupon inserts – RedPlum.com, SmartSource.com, and PGeSaver.com – want to reach. You can inquire directly by signing up on their sites. Online coupons are becoming more prevalent and may replace newspaper coupons someday.
2. Quickly flip through the inserts and clip any coupons that you are absolutely sure you will use no matter if the item is on sale this week. (I used to recommend clipping every single coupon and filing by category but that is not as efficient as this method).
3. File the rest of the inserts in one folder, noting the publication date. (i.e. Feb. 28, 2010).
4. Look for sales in the store circulars that arrive by mail or in your inbox if you have signed up for store email lists. Match sale items with what there are coupons for. There are two main “matching” databases that tell you when coupons were published so you don’t have to sort through each insert by hand. They are AFullCup.com and HotCouponWorld.com. To help find matches, read some of my favorite coupon match blogs, including CommonSenseWithMoney.com, CouponCravings.com, and KouponKaren.com. These blogs often do much of the work for you!
To get an idea of how much you can save by coupon matching, check out my extreme couponing adventure.
5. Take your coupons to the store and buy when the item is on sale! It always helps to be especially nice to the cashier when you are using a lot of coupons. Sometimes their cooperation can make a big difference in your total bill.
Bonus Tip: If you want more coupons than you can clip in your newspaper, check out these websites to buy and trade coupons.
Free food alert! Free pancake day is tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2010 at IHOP.
Is it your birthday? Get a free birthday dessert from Jack in the Box.
Nursing scrubs are on sale at Dickies. Get 20 percent off when you spend $50 or more.
Gift certificates for restaurants so you can get out of your kitchen are 80 percent off until Feb. 28, 2010.
Check out all the deals on my WalletPop blog.
Zeetz Jones/Flickr
This post is brought to you by Network Solutions, offering great deals on web hosting packages.
As a follow up to my earlier post about saving money by buying in-season vegetables, here is a list of in season fruits that should be cheaper than the usual offerings.
Apples
Cherimoya (pictured above)
Dates
Grapefruit
Kiwifruit
Oranges
Passion Fruit
Pear
Persimmons
Pummelo
Red Currants
Tangerines
I don’t know what some of this stuff is, but if you click on each fruit it’ll take you to a page with fun facts about the fruit and ways to eat/cook it.
Get a free medium fries and a free medium drink or tea at McDonald’s when you buy their Angus Third Pounder. Print the coupon here. One per person. Expires Aug. 31, 2009.
UPDATE: The Wendy’s deal is a fake. Due to technical difficulties I was not able to update the post until now. Thanks for your patience.
Thanks, Stacy and Tina!
Get a free Tea Freddo at Peet’s Coffee this Friday, July 10 from 2-3 p.m. only. Print the coupon here. Tea Freddo is a new drink that combines iced tea with fruit juice and ice. It comes in two flavors, mango and berry pomegranate. Sounds tasty!
Caveats: the freebie is an 8 ounce serving. One per customer. Must show up with the coupon at the appointed time.
Find a Peet’s near you.
Don't Panic.
This is a post by Alex, BargainBabe.com’s intern. In addition to being a fantastic intern, he knows things about microwaves that only a college student would know.
To anyone like me who cooks at home or eats Chinese food, leftovers are your best friend. A well-cooked meal never quite reaches its previous glory after being refrigerated, but with the help of a microwave and a few nifty tricks, we can come close. No need to waste food – and money – ever again.
1. Rotate That Meal. Microwave ovens are basically all the same: they use a certain kind of wave to heat your food. Certainly you’ve heard of radio waves and shock waves (think ripples in the water), well microwaves aren’t much different.
The thing about waves is that they aren’t consistent. Your microwave oven has certain areas that heat faster than others. To help combat this, we have to rotate our food so that the whole plate of food gets hot, not just certain spots. If you don’t have a turntable built-in, manually rotate your food at least every minute.
Pro Tip: When placing your food on a turntable, make it as off-center as possible so that it has an oblong rotation in the waves. Placing it in the middle creates an axis of rotation where the food stays in one place. Think about how the center of a wheel doesn’t do much moving around despite a lot of spinning. You want your food to do as much traveling as possible.
2. Beware of Ice. Microwaves are designed to heat water, plain and simple. Try putting potato chips in the microwave for ten minutes, they’ll be quite cool and edible when you take them out because they are totally void of water.
The cool thing about that is if you have anything that’s cheese-filled like jalapeno poppers or stuffed crust pizza, the inside will get warmer faster because there’s more moisture, leaving the outside crust or breading dry.
On the down side, if there’s ice or other moisture on the outside of your food (this often happens with frozen foods left in the freezer for too long) then you want to do your best to remove it before microwaving. If there’s still ice stuck to it, wrap it in a paper towel or dry cloth beforehand so the ice doesn’t make the food soggy when it melts.
Pro Tip: Use a sauce or marinade like BBQ sauce on any freezer-burned meat to help with moisture issues. A regular oven, stove-top, or grill will also help by toasting the dried-out areas.
3. Slow Cook.
Ever tried microwaving mashed potatoes? They come out lava hot on the outside and ice cold in the middle. There are microwave settings to help deal with that and any other dense or moist foods, especially ones you can’t mix (like pie!).
Most microwaves have more buttons than any sane human needs. Some of these might make you think the microwave is doing something special to heat the food. Believe me, it’s nothing special.
The one button you should really familiarize yourself with (and I’m sorry if you don’t have one) is the Power Level button. This button allows you to essentially slow cook your food.
Most microwaves have power levels 1-10. The only power levels I use are power 10 (which is the default), and power 5 which acts like half-power. When you microwave those mashed potatoes on half power (5) for two minutes, you should be able to listen and hear your microwave click on and off throughout the process. What it’s doing is cooking for a while, and then stopping for a little while to let the heat transfer to the inside of the food.
Pro Tip: The lower the power level, the longer you’ll want to set the cook timer, but this will allow you to walk away and let the microwave do its thing.
With a little practice you can become a microwave pro. Your belly and your wallet will thank you.
Reader Suzanne is quite the freezer diva, but she shares none of my problems with frozen foodstuffs taking up residence in her freezer. She described her system in a useful comment this week:
I label and rotate my stock. I have a top freezer with my refrigerator in the kitchen. This is where I keep items I will be likely to use within the next 2-3 weeks. I have a chest freezer that stores items bought in bulk and on sale at good prices. These are dated/labeled. This is where the stock for the kitchen freezer comes from. I have learned to only purchase the items we use on a regular basis so that I do not have “tenants.”
This is a great idea that I’d like to implement. But Suzanne, what do you do with leftovers? Do you immediately incorporate them into future meals or make yourself use them before you can replenish from your chest freezer? Do tell!
PS. This picture is not of Suzanne’s freezer, but I imagine hers is just as well organized!
One of life’s annoyances is that freezers are always three-quarters full when really, they are empty. Don’t know what I mean?
Last night I was looking for freezer space for my groceries, and saw pizza sauce, mashed potatoes, cubes of chicken broth…I think. I can’t really tell!
Rather than admit defeat I close the door to think. I need to make room, but I can’t toss these indecipherable packages and containers because I have been paying to freeze them all this time. They must be valuable – and edible – if I put them in there!
Which brings us to the first law of freezers. The longer an item remains in the freezer the less likely you are to throw it away OR EAT IT.
I call this the grandfather rule. In practice, ancient items have grandfathered rights to remain in the freezer.
The problem is these inedible edibles are taking up valuable real estate. How am I supposed to be a freezer diva when all I can stash in my icebox is one measly pizza pocket? It’s embarrassing, I tell you.
Worst of all, my frozen foodstuffs mock me.
Have you ever tried to put a carton of ice cream on top of a grandfathered tenant? Immediately slides off and jams the door before you can slam it shut. It’s as if all the old tenants pass around a bottle of olive oil and lather up so nobody can cozy up to them.
This is the second law of freezers. Old = oily.
If you are lucky, you will close the freezer completely on the seventh try. (Yes, I leave the freezer bursting precariously and yes, I make sure not to be the next person who opens it.)
Yesterday, after a late-night run to Albertons, which is having a massive sale through Tuesday, I came face to face with my grumpy old tenants. Oh, I’ll outsmart you this time, I thought when I returned with three whole chickens, two cartons of ice cream and one pint of sorbet. (Not to mention 11 boxes of cereal, all on super sale.)
The sorbet popped into the door on top of a bag of chili peppers (I’m testing how long they freeze. Three years and counting!) I jammed one ice cream container into a bag of frozen peas, and I rearranged two packages of hot togs to make room for a chicken. I shoved the second ice cream carton into a bag of hamburger buns and stuffed another chicken on top. That leaves one more chicken. Into the fridge with you!
The door stayed shut, but 
I know my tenants will get the better of me soon. So this morning I decided to confront them once and for all.
I opened my freezer and evicted every last edible and inedible package, above. Get moving, granny!
Here are the shady characters I have been renting to this entire time. Items in italics are bound for the trash.
4 D, 2 C and 2 AA batteries
1 small bag of breadcrumbs
1 tupperware of breadcrumbs
8 frozen strawberries
Full loaf of bread
1 bag of chili peppers
2 frozen cheese and chili tamales
Small bottle of Jeager with one shot left
2 containers of Hubby’s chili dated 1/9/08 and 9/22/07
Tube of limeade syrup
7 containers of chicken broth
1 freezer-burned chicken carcass (for making broth – as if I needed more!)
7 half-full containers of pizza sauce
1 serving of mashed potatoes
4 veggie burgers (unopened)
1 baggie of gray, freezer-burned chicken meat
1 small, 1 large bag chopped peppers
7 hot dog buns
8 hamburger buns
4 mini pita rounds
2 empty plastic bags
3 slices of bread
2 1/4 chunks of unsliced bread
4 slices of bread
1 unopened package of vegetables
2 cracked containers of beef gravy
1 bag edamame
1/2 bag pork wontons
2 whole chickens
1 lb ground turkey
2 packages of hot dogs
4 chicken thighs (in two bags)
5 completely unidentifiable packages
3 cold sports packs for icing joints
1 blue eye mask
1 bag peas
2 bags chopped green and red peppers
6 potato rolls
1/2 bag petite onions
1 rolling cloth (for dough)
1/2 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequilla
2 mini empanadas
1 bag french toast
1 container sorbet, two boxes of ice cream
6 otter pops
4 cubes of potatoes
1/2 package green beans
2 tiny balls of dough
1/2 lb sliced turkey breast
I wiped down the freezer, re-arranged the items by category (from the bottom up, bread/veggies; meat; anything in tupperware; misc.), and snapped a picture for you all to see evidence of the third freezer law. Sometimes you have to throw stuff out. Notice the top shelf is half-empty. Success!
Here’s the update about what’s happened to my recession garden in the past month.
- My zucchini and green bean seeds, above, have taken off! The growth is visible each day, which makes it very fun to inspect them every morning. I’ve already had to pick off a few small yellow eggs clustering underneath the leaves, however.
- This weekend I hope to hang twine from the top of the fence for the green beans to attach to and begin climbing!
- Caterpillars are still pillaging my mint, below. The plant’s growth has slowed and many, many leaves have holes. I fixed a solution of water and cayenne pepper,
as reader Jennifer suggested, and prepared to spray it all over the leaves. Except that hardly any came out because the cayenne clogged the sprayer! So I ended up pouring the reddish solution over all the visible caterpillar eggs. A lot ended up in the dirt. I’m crossing my fingers that this will do the caterpillars in while not killing the plant. If the mint survives and I harvest the leaves for mojitos, I can just imagine my guests saying, “This is the spiciest mint I’ve ever tasted!” - My sage and rosemary are growing fine. The new sage leaves are not bug-eaten, which makes me hope the caterpillars are leaving them alone. The rosemary is big enough to harvest a sprig.
Related:
My recession garden: attack of the caterpillars
Growing food instead of grass: recession garden
All hopes resting on…vegetables
A recession garden may NOT save you money
Reader tips on recession gardens
One month after planting my recession garden
Here are two clever posts from my friends at WiseBread. The first lays out five signs that indicate if you’ve gone too far and failed at frugality. It’s a good reminder that forcing yourself to be frugal is not a winning solution. The second post that I wanted to highlight lists 5 respectable ways to get a free meal. Who doesn’t love free food?
If you’d like more tips from WiseBread, buy their book, “10,001 ways to live large on a small budget.” I’ve got a copy myself, which I reviewed here.
