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Beans: Stretching the Food Budget

My mother used to go to a hairdresser that constantly complained about how broke she was. But then Mom would see her bringing breakfast tacos for everyone in the shop, or see her eating out at McDonald's with a passel of kids. Mom listened patiently to her whining each week, but then the last straw came the day the woman complained about standing in the grocery store line behind another lady buying steaks and all sorts of food, when the woman only had $16 at that time to spend on groceries.  "It just isn't fair," she said.

My mother simply told the woman, "You're looking at it from the wrong direction. You shouldn't be looking over at what someone else has and comparing it with what you don't have. You need to be grateful that you have $16.00 to spend on groceries. That's what you need to focus on." 

My mother knew what she was talking about feeding a family of six on a one-income budget. The "Beans" part of this blog involves tips I've learned from her to stretch that food budget.

• Eating out is not an option for broke people. It's often one of the reasons people aren't living within their means. It's easy to fall back on take-out when we're tired from working and can't even think about what to fix for supper, but there are ways to remedy that. As for our household, we keep easy breakfast and lunch foods on hand. The evening meal is the meal I cook, and I basically only plan the main dish for each day of the week and use a variety of easy side dishes I keep on hand. I use a simple calendar form to help me plan the main dish. Feel free to modify the following chart to fit your lifestyle. I do the main dish meal planning in the 3rd column:

          Weekly Calendar Template

• Use a crock pot to cook your main dish. This is a great time-saver whether you work outside of the home or in the home. If you have access to the Internet, there are hundreds of easy main dish ideas and recipes for crock pot cooking. Pot roast, pork roast, chicken, casseroles-- you name it, and there are crock pot instructions for it. If you have limited time in the mornings, throw it together the night before and put it in the refridge. Just don't forget to take it out and plug it in before you leave. 

• Use meat-stretching recipes. One of our favorite dishes is goulash, and we fix it in a variety of ways to keep from getting tired of it. Ground meat is the foundation, and we almost always brown it with onion, salt and pepper, then add anything you like to it. Here are some of our favorite combinations:

          --Ground meat, macaroni, tomato sauce, & cheese

          --Ground meat, macaroni or any pasta, mushroom soup, & cheese (add chili powder if you like it spicy)

          --Ground meat, bell pepper, & Ranch Style Beans (this is good w/or w/o the cheese)

          --Ground meat, mixed vegetables (usually leftovers), penne pasta

          --Ground meat, pinto beans, chili seasoning

          --Ground meat, potato chunks, mushroom soup, cheese

          --Ground meat, spaghetti pasta & sauce, & mushrooms 

          Other popular protein-stretching recipes are casseroles. Check out the following recipes online:

         --King Ranch Chicken

         --Chicken Spaghetti

         --Meat loaf (uses crackers, bread crumbs, & egg to stretch it)

         --Tuna casserole (with mac n cheese n green peas) 

         Other favorite meat stretching ideas include:

         --Salmon patties (my son always asks my mother to fix these when he comes home - email me at          donna@donnavancleve.com if you'd like the recipe)

         --Stuffed Baked Potatoes 

         --Enchiladas & Tostados

• Meal-stretching Ideas. A roast is ideal for making multiple meals. My mother can make a roast go further than anyone I know.

          Roast meal 1: roast cooked with potatoes and carrots; good with green beans on the side, or make mashed potatoes and gravy

          Roast meal 2: roast beef sandwiches

          Roast meal 3: roast beef hash (cut up the leftover roast, brown cut up potatoes with onions, add the meat and a can of mushroom soup and some water, and let it simmer on low. 

          A friend of mine also made the best green chili burritos with leftover roast. 

          A ham is another great starter for multiple meals. After the initial meal of roasted ham, you can use it in breakfast casseroles or breakfast sandwiches, sandwiches for lunch, grate it up to make ham salad (you can add boiled egg, diced pickles, celery-- whatever you like in it), ham and scalloped potato casserole.There are so many possibilities. 

• Write out a meal plan for the week. Sometimes when we make things too hard or complex, we don't stick with it. Keep it simple-- I write down a main dish for each evening, and I keep vegetables and starchy foods on hand for the side dishes. 

• Keep a grocery list and try to stick to it when you shop. I tend to buy out the store if I grocery shop without a list. And then I'd let food go to waste when I'd forget that I bought it. 

• Grocery shop no more than once a week. My family used to live 90 miles from a decent sized grocery store, so we usually shopped twice a month. If we ran out of something that Mom couldn't pick up at a small convenience store, we made do with what we had. 

• Don't shop when you're hungry. Stick to that grocery list as much as possible. EVERYTHING looks good when you're hungry and you will ALWAYS buy much more than you need.

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This post is the "Beans" part of the title of this blog. It's learning to live within one's budget. It's learning to discipline oneself to saying no when we need to. It's learning to work hard and finish what we've started. It's reaching goals and making dreams come true. And it's attempting to help others along our way because others have helped us.