I was doing my "catching-up-from-the-weekend" blog reading and came across Jammie's Blog where she was talking about forced frugality. 

First of all, everyone needs to pray for Jammie.  I've been there (actually, I'm sorta still there), so I know how tough this can be for everyone involved.  Go ahead, pray now.  I'll wait.

All done?  Okay, the next thing I thought is that, since my family has been going through this for a couple years, we've figured out some things that can help in cutting costs.  There are a lot of 'em, so I thought I'd start with something that can help everyone: Groceries.

NO, I DON'T MEAN STOP EATING!

Frankly, I've been rather amazed at the money we've saved on groceries just by paying attention and knowing what everything costs. 

I know every single one of you will say the same thing I said: "Yeah, I could probably cut a couple bucks out of my grocery shopping, but that's about it.  It's not like I'm buying escargot for dinner or anything!"

I've got one thing to say to that: Poppycock!  Balderdash!  Fooey!  Okay, maybe that was three things, but you get the idea.

THE BASIC RULES FOR GROCERY CHEAPSKATERISM

Consider the following tips to be "Saving Money on Groceries 101":

1) Chances are, if it says, "mix", "pre-prepared", "pre-cooked", "pre-seasoned", or "Heat-n-Eat!", you don't need to buy it.  You're paying 3-4 times the cost of the individual ingredients to save anywhere from 5-15 minutes.  That's what we call "expensive".

2) Know your grocery store's cycles.  They almost always discount certain categories of foods on a regular basis.  For instance, around here, one store has milk, 2 gallons for $5, every 2-3 weeks.  The rest of the time, it's about $3.70 a gallon.  This makes it worthwhile to buy enough milk to last until the next sale.

3) Speaking of milk, get a large (Warehouse-store-size) box of powdered milk.  Use it for all recipes that call for milk.  Nobody can tell the difference and the cost difference is huge (translated into gallons, powdered milk costs $1.25 - $1.75 a gallon and takes forever to go bad).

4) Always cook multiples of recipes.  It costs a very small percentage, energy-wise, to cook a double, triple, quadruple, etc. batch than it does a single.  The leftovers can be frozen, which makes really quick and easy meals when you're tempted to get fast food (and it's a lot better for you).

5) Make sure you have an extra garage / basement freezer.  You will be doing stocking up and freezing of leftovers a bunch.  Since I'm talking about milk a lot, yes, you can freeze milk, too.

6) If you have the option in your area of multiple grocery stores, give up your grocery store loyalty.  It costs you money, guaranteed.

GROCERIES, THE INTERMEDIATE COURSE

This is the 201-level course.  Not introductory, but not graduate-level, either.

7) Learn to think about cooking with what you have, not buying special ingredients for what you want to cook.  Especially one-time ingredients.  There are a number of ways to do this.

     A reverse cookbook:  www.leftoverchef.com

     Cookin' with Google:  http://www.researchbuzz.org/tools/cookin-with-google.shtml

8) Think generically.  Most good cooks do this naturally, but you can do recipe ingredient replacements if you think generically.  For instance, lard = butter = oil.  They're all oils and all more or less interchangeable.

9) Get "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" by Amy Dacyczyn.  There's a lot of good advice (cooking and otherwise) in this book.  It's 10 years of a great newsletter that was compiled into a book.  Very little of it is outdated.  Remember, libraries are free!

GROCERIES, THE ADVANCED CALCULUS COURSE

Okay, maybe it's not that serious, but it does involve math.  This is the stage where you very scientifically record what you spend for everything you buy at the grocery store.  This "PriceBook" philosophy is one that is covered in The Complete Tightwad Gazette.

10) Yes, it takes a lot of work to put together a Price Book.  That's why I bought one that was basically pre-made and then updated it as we shopped.  It made for much less effort and original creative thought on our part.

11) Think in ounces!  While this will probably require a calculator strapped to you every time you go to the grocery store, you should be bringing your price book with you every time, anyway. 

This way, you can compare the real price of any item, sale or otherwise, to the best price you've paid for that item before.  You'll be amazed at how many sale prices aren't good at all.

12) If it works for your area, The Grocery Game is a good source for pricing data that includes coupons.  It'll even tell you how you can get some free stuff when you combine sales and multiple coupons.  You can try it out for 4 weeks for $1.

13) Join a Co-Op.  Sometimes it's tough to find these near you, but, on the other hand, that just means you need to link arms with a few HomeSchoolBloggers in your area and form your own. 

The idea is that you buy in some bulk fruits and vegetables (and anything else, really, but that's the most common) and pay the same rates as grocery stores.  Which is significantly cheaper than what you pay.

A lot of these co-ops and directories are run by some pretty "crunchy" types, but don't be put off.  You're working toward the same goal.  A co-op directory listing:

     Natural Foods Co-Op Directory and Distributor Listing

     GreenPeople Grocery Co-Op Search

     LocalHarvest Co-Op List

     National Cooperative Business Association

14) Grow Your Own - Face it, this is the cheapest, best-for-you, most vitamins option out there.  Not everybody has a green thumb, but anybody can learn to grow vegetables!

Whew!  How's that for a little something to "chew on"?

YOUR TURN

What are some tips and tricks that you guys have found to save money on groceries.  Let's get the CheapSkateNation activated here!

So, I've already revealed to you that I'm a cheap guy.  I notice that I'm also not the only one that finds it painful to spend money on excesses. 

Just for the record, I didn't always used to be that way.  At one point in our lives, my wife and I were high income, high-credit-card-debt-having, spend-at-the-drop-of-a-hat types.  If anyone was helping out the US economy, it was us!

After a few years' of God's special attention to that area of our life, we have become inveterate cheapskates.  I'll gladly give money to God, but anyone else is going to get the third degree.

WHICH BRINGS US TO CHRISTMAS - 47 DAYS AND COUNTING

Note that I don't say "shopping days". 

We used to spend on Christmas like a drunken sailer in his first port of call after a 8 month tour of duty.  In a submarine.  Who just got paid.

In any case, as you may have guessed, that has come to a halt for us.  Our extended family is still in port, spending away, but we're cut back.  That, as many of your are probably painfully aware, creates it's own kind of stress.

DEATH IS REALLY UNDERRATED

However, the good news is that, my friends call me, to quote an episode of Friends, "dead inside".  That is, I'm rather uninterested in what "everybody else" is doing, never been very responsive to peer pressure, and mostly "steer my own course".

However, my wife isn't quite there yet, so we repeatedly have this discussion of what to get particularly our families for Christmas.  Not spending great, pocket-bulging wads of money limits our options.

As a result, we've done a lot of hand-making presents in the last few years.  I like this solution except that we have a little difficulty coming up with unique, personalized hand-made presents.  I may still be infected with the "It's Got To Be The Greatest Gift Ever!"-itis, but I'm looking for something really nice that we can hand-make.

USING THE ANCIENT INTERNET

However, it occurred to me recently that there is a network of God-infused brains working overtime at good 'ol HomeSchoolBlogger, so I thought I'd put these Christmas-gifty questions to all of you and let my brain rest:

1) What are some of the more unique and neat home-made / hand-made gifts that you've given or received (for both adults and young children under 7)?

2) What are some sources for inexpensive non-handmade gifts that you've found?  The thrift store and liquidation stores like Big Lots are places I'm already headed to.  What else have you found (that works for us citified folks)?

3) Somewhat unrelated to the above, but always interesting to me:  What was your best Christmas gift ever?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I went ahead and added a new category today: The Cheapskate Life.

You see, after my family went through a long period of unemployment and the inability to find a job, I've become just plain cheap. 

The other day, my family went to donate some stuff to the thrift store and looked around to see if they could find anything worthwhile.  What they found were dressy shoes that, with a little polish, you couldn't tell they weren't brand new.

There was literally no wear on the tread and it was, apparently (like I would know these things) a famous brand.  We looked 'em up.  $56 shoes.  Would I ever spend $56 on children's shoes?  Not on your life.

How much were they at the thrift store?  $1.  (To be fair, it was $1 a pair and we got 2 pairs...)

Will I ever be able to spend $40 or so on children's shoes again?  I'm thinking no.

REUSE THOSE LEFTOVERS

All of that brings me to why I'm posting today: leftovers.

If you've got leftovers sitting in the fridge and don't know what to do with them, now there's help!

Go to this site.  Pick the main ingredient that you want to use.  Pick any other things that you might have around the house.  Then tell it to find a recipe.

How easy is that!?!

Let me know your Cheapskate Living tricks, too.  I can't get enough of 'em.  I have a sickness, I know...