This weekend's New York Times featured an Opinion piece on feeding a family for $10 a day. In Brooklyn, New York where high-end grocery stores seem to be popping up on every neighborhood block.
In her op-ed piece, Susan Gregory Thomas describes how she was struggling as a freelance writer and realizing she was spending an astronomical amount of money on food that she could feasibly produce, grow, and make at home. She notes, "when I couldn't afford fancy food — never mind paraben-free shampoo — for my babies, I figured, if peasants in 11th-century Sicily did all this, how hard could it be?"
What did she discover? She could make a single cut of meat stretch for a whole week, granola was a cinch to bake in the oven, bread can become a new routine, and homemade yogurt and cheese taste pretty darn good. Most of all, she learned how to really stretch leftovers into new meals so her family wouldn't become bored with the same old thing, but also ensuring that they didn't waste anything that they'd spent so much time and effort growing.
The first example she gives is making your beans last for three days. Gregory Thomas details how on Day 1 her family will eat cannellini beans with pesto and kale; on Day 2, they'll add that mixture to a frittata; On Day 3, she'll blend the beans into a paste to spread atop crusty bread.
• Read the whole piece: Back to the Land, Reluctantly at The New York Times
• For other frugal tips such as "What to Keep in Your Pantry" or her recipe for "Infinite Pesto," see the sidebar, Tips for Frugal Living.
Related: Book Recommendation: The Frugal Foodie Cookbook
(Image: Megan Gordon)
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Judith Jones' THE PLEASURES OF COOKING FOR ONE is actually designed with this kind of "stretching leftovers" cooking in mind.
Is the Rancho Gordo picture a joke? Still more frugal than meat, I suppose.
seriously the Rancho Gordo picture? I'd bet a dollar (since I'm broke too) that Susan Thomas wasn't shelling out $5.50 for a pound of Christmas Lima beans. She's a New Yorker and totally buys Goya!
In college I stretched my food budget by making do without a whole lot of meat. Learned how to cook beans and vegetables and more unusual cheap cuts of meat. I became so used to only eating meat a couple times a week that I still do it.
When I was young I remember most Sundays my mother making a big batch of...whatever but it was always in her huge stock pot. We would eat some that night and she would divide it up into tupperware and freeze the massive amount of leftovers. We had a freezer full of homemade leftover soups, stews, casseroles and even raw marinated chicken. It made it very easy for me to heat something up for my sister and I when mom was working late. We could have a different delicious leftover every night of the week. Once I get a standalone freezer I plan on continuing this method.
I feel like the reason that my food expenditures are so high is because my supply of time away from work is so low. Sure, growing vegetables and making my own bread could be a part of my normal routine if I were ever home.
As a grad student, I'm all about the beans and eating less meat. It's so much cheaper and (bonus!) I feel much healthier.
I feed a family of four for about $50 a week - BUT I live in California and have a garden that we eat out of during summer and can the surplus for winter. My biggest money saver is planning menus for the month ahead of time. Once I have the basics I can mix and match all month.