Frugal Entertaining ... the Labor Day Edition

Cherry pie baked in a cast iron skillet.

Ah, Labor Day, the three day weekend that marks the end of summer (but not really for us in terms of the heat) and the return to lessons, practices, etc.

When I think of Labor Day I think of picnics and BBQs. Sometimes I stop and think of how my dad would spend a fortune making a big BBQ serving everyone huge steaks and giant baked potatoes; the cost of the meat alone might feed a small, very frugal family for a month. But it's his money and I don't begrudge him offering his hospitality in the way that brings him pleasure. (This tradition started well after I left home.)

Still, there has to be a way to have a Labor Day celebration without breaking the bank. Here are some of my ideas.

Have a potluck or picnic! I think a lot of people do this, but I think it bears repeating.

If you eat plant based, bake your own burger buns and either make your own veggie burgers or go ahead an splurge on the brand that your family likes. $1 for each veggie burger patty isn't going to blow the budget, and having occasions where you really do it up can make them feel special. (If we ate veggie burgers every week then it wouldn't feel special.)

Make baked beans from scratch.

Round out your meal with simple salads. If I haven't made beans I like to make a basic potato salad with the inexpensive reduced fat (plant based) mayonnaise from Trader Joe's, or even better, homemade mayonnaise. Potatoes, celery, and green onions are generally very low cost. (If I have made beans I find that having a substantial salad such as potato really isn't necessary unless I am feeding a lot of people).

Another option is a grain based salad. Quinoa is nice, but rice works as well. Add some chopped vegetables (carrots plus red and green onions are inexpensive) and some small cooked beans and perhaps sliced black olives. If I use red quinoa it is nice to add chickpeas. Dress with a homemade citrus and olive oil dressing.

Cabbage is the bang for you buck salad green. Slice it thinly and dress with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Watermelon is often on sale for Labor Day; that makes it the perfect frugal fruit to serve.

For dessert I like to make homemade brownies as they are very inexpensive to make whether you eat eggs or not. I adapt this low cost brownie recipe to be plant based (using flax seed) and leave off the chocolate chips on top as they aren't necessary and only add to the cost. I'll also admit that when making several pans of these for a crowd I will use white flour and sugar, to bring down the costs. For my immediate family I use freshly ground soft white wheat flour and sucanat.

Pie is another great Labor Day dessert -- bake it in individual pie tins if you are headed to the park or beach.

This year the guys participated in a bike ride to the beach on Saturday; it was about 80 miles and took around 5 hours to complete. I ran support and provided transportation back home. I packed a cooler for our meal at the beach, along with an Igloo full of ice water. The cost of this activity was the gas to and from the beach as well as the parking fee, but I think it was worth it to give my guys the opportunity to challenge themselves this way. Plus we got to spend a Labor Day weekend afternoon at the beach with friends!

Frugal Strategies ... Stay Home

Our dining / learning / making room.

I've found that one of the best ways for us to save money is to stay home. It isn't very popular in today's culture, but it works for us.

For instance, we don't sign up for many field trips and we don't take outside academic classes. We're home learners, not car learners (although that works for many families). Field trips and classes almost always cost money, even if it is just in gas to get there.

We do our best to eat at home, saving restaurants meals for special occasions or social gatherings where we have no other choice. Cooking our own meals is much less expensive than restaurant meals, and is healthier too.

Speaking of those social occasions, I do my best to suggest that we meet at our home (or someone else's) and have a potluck instead. (Unfortunately, I do get turned down most of the time unless people want to come here.) Even if I provide the entire meal I still spend less than I would to feed my family of four at a restaurant.

We try to hang out with friends at the park or at home. I have never found it enjoyable to try to visit with mamas and kids at a bookstore, toy store, coffee house, or pizza parlor, and I think habitually hanging out at places of business without making a purchase is unfair to the businesses.

We watch movies at home. Using Netflix or renting a Redbox movie is so much less expensive than going to the movies at the theater, even with discount tickets. (We do use the discount tickets to take the boys to one or two highly anticipated movies per year, and about once a year for a date night.)

We entertain ourselves at home. We can listen to records (or other music), play board games, watch a recorded TV program, or have a family music night, all for the money already spent on music, games, a TV system, and musical instruments.

Of course, being home results in savings so many other ways. If I am home I have time to cook and bake, to sew and mend, to make gifts, to grow food (I'm working on this), to clean my own home, to hang laundry, to do small repairs, and much, much more. If I worked outside the home then being home as much as possible other than work would be that much more important in order to live a frugal life.

I hope I have helped my boys to feel deeply connected to home and absolutely satisfied to be here. I don't want them thinking that everything good happens somewhere else. That is one reason we make a point of enjoying our evenings together by playing games, listening to or making music, and doing other active things together (versus only watching TV which is very passive).

Frugal Victories

Friday:

I went to bed thinking that I would make mujadara and Chapati for our main meal, but at 10:30 I realized that I hadn't made rice (I usually make a "cheater" mujadara with precooked rice and lentils).  Oops! I remembered that I had a bag of precooked quinoa out in the chest freezer and used that instead of rice. That actually helped me with my Friday goal of using pantry and freezer foods.

I baked a loaf of bread, made granola using piloncillo sugar, and made a batch of hummus. I also made quinoa pudding for T's race, along with his recovery drink.

I continued with Operation Declutter and Organize.

Saturday:

I packed a lunch for the all-day race (6 hours of racing split between T and and friend!), making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and packing fruit and muffins, along with T's chia pudding and recovery drink. They took a 3 gallon Igloo of ice water with them.

I baked muffins since we had bananas that were spotty and had started to break open.

I made homemade vegan broth powder, which I then used to make the lentil-rice casserole from the Tightwad Gazette. The recipe is an old favorite.

Sunday:

We had a low key day at home, cleaning the house and hanging out together.

I prepped my planned leftovers for Monday's main meal.

I baked bread.

Monday:

I baked bread.

The guys took J's bike to the shop and found out that his entire shifter will be replaced under the extended warranty since they can't just get the one piece that is broken.

Tuesday:

I went to the 99¢ store to buy a card and chocolate bar, along with a few other snacks. I found Ore Ida Grillers for 50¢ per 20 ounce bag and Earth Balance vegan crackers, plus portobello mushrooms and cucumbers. I bought a silicone pastry brush; I loved the one I had before but the Puppy Girl stole it from the dishwasher and ate it, and I had decided that they cost too much for me to replace it. I didn't expect to find one at the 99¢ store, but I did. I also bought a package of Scuncii No Slip Hold elastics, which have gotten harder and harder for me to find, and I never paid less than $3 before.

We went to the movies using ticket vouchers purchased from Papa's employer at discount last year.

Wednesday:

This wasn't an actively frugal day, but it wasn't frivolous, either. We did typical low key frugal activities for us, such as hanging out at the park and having a sing along.

Thursday:

I did a happy dance because our electric bill is $67 lower than the same period of time last year, despite our having added another refrigerator. We used 292 fewer kilowatt hours than last year! Even compared to last month, which had similar weather, we used 177 fewer kilowatt hours and the bill is $41 lower. I am so proud of my family for stepping up and helping me reduce our electricity usage.

I went back to the 99¢ store to buy more frozen potatoes, crackers, and chocolate. They were out of the crackers (sad) and almost out of the chocolate; I had to go searching for the last five bars by a checkout stand. However, they had soy chorizo, which they didn't have Tuesday, and Smart Balance Purely Better margarine tubs which are plant-based, non GMO, and non-hydrogenated.

15 Ways to Save When You Shop

1) Have a list. This one is a no-brainer, and yet how many times have we gone to the store "knowing" what we need and coming home with a lot more than that? Make lists for stores other than the grocery store.

2) Do not take your children with you if you can at all help it. When they are little they just don't like shopping, and that is okay. But their misery will spill over to you and you might buy things you didn't really want, or you may forget something and have to go back.

3) When you do take your children shopping with you DO NOT teach them that they can pick something out because they were good (or because they whined, which is worse). If you grocery shop with your children weekly this is 52 items per child that you have purchased. If you buy them candy then that is 52 candy bars or bags of candy, and they just don't need it. Likewise, don't buy them junk toys from the dollar store just because they are cheap (and the children whined). Don't buy them something every time you go to Target.

4) Do not shop recreationally, and don't teach your children that shopping is a form of entertainment.

5) Likewise, don't teach your children that shopping is such a chore that they deserve to be rewarded for it.

6) Do not take children into toy stores or toys sections of stores to browse. If you aren't there to buy something then don't take them! This really is just mean, and it sets you up for meltdowns that you deserve.

7) Likewise, don't take yourself into stores to browse, especially if it is a store full of items you have a hard time resisting, such as fabric, yarn, books, kitchen gear, etc.

8) Do not buy your child a toy just because you are picking out a gift for a friend or sibling. This teaches a bad lesson and takes away from their opportunity to learn how to give. The focus should be on the other person, not the child; how can their minds be on thoughtfully selecting the best possible gift for a friend when they are thinking about themselves?

9) Don't get fooled by marketing. If a supermarket is selling limes 5 for $1 and you only need one, then buy one for 20¢. Know that not all end cap items are priced on sale. Pay attention to price signs; some grocery stores will put green grapes at 99¢ per pound right next to red grapes for $2.99 per pound. They do this on purpose; you might grab the wrong one and not notice until you are home. Look high and low for lower priced products; marketers often put the most expensive items at eye level.

10) If you are shopping for clothing, wear good undergarments and an outfit that you really like. Smooth underwear and a supportive bra will help you see how the clothing looks on you. Wearing something you feel good in helps you not be tempted to buy something just because you feel frumpy.

11) Go to thrift stores first! Almost anything you need is probably available at second hand store.

12) Be flexible. If you have low heeled black dress shoes on your list and come across a great pair of black flats at a thrift store, ask yourself if black flats will serve the purpose you wanted the heels for.

13) Plan your shopping wisely. People often hear not to shop hungry, and that is good advice, but you should also time your shopping so that you don't run into meal time, thus keeping you away from home when you should be preparing your meal and instead tempting you to get food out. If you must be away from home all day for shopping be sure to pack a cooler with your meal. I like to pack snacks if we will be out longer than two hours.

14) Speaking of coolers, take one with you if you will be going to several grocery stores and the weather is warm. You can take along ice packs or sometimes ask the store for ice in a plastic bag (if they are a store that puts items on display over ice). You don't want to risk anything spoiling, as that would be a waste of your hard-earned money.

15) If you see something that you really want, take a picture of it (if you have a cell phone). I do this with books and then order them from the library if possible. I also use the photos to jog my memory at the thrift store; a photo of a mannequin with a cute red t-shirt and jeans reminds me to look for cute red t-shirts at the thrift.

While I Always Make a Meal Plan, and Why I Almost Never Follow It 100%

My meal planning style is pretty much pantry principle rather than plan a week and shop for what you need, but I still make a weekly meal plan. For me, waiting until the night before to decide what to make might work, but I am a planner so I like a little more organization than that.

What I don't do is shop weekly or base meals off of sales flyers; the basis of our meals is legumes and grains and those are purchased in bulk and stored in my pantry. We don't eat meat, fish, dairy, or eggs so I don't have to worry about sales on those food items. I cook from scratch; a loss leader sale on boxed macaroni and cheese or canned soup means nothing to me. Once a month I make sure I have all the pantry and freezer staples (oils, sweeteners, grains, legumes, seeds, yeast, baking powder, spices, herbs, frozen fruits and vegetables, dates, etc.) I will need for the month and order or buy what I am low on. I buy basic and loss leader produce every two weeks or so and use those to round out our meals

For planning, I make a master main meal menu and then I customize it for each week.  Right now the master plan looks like this:

Sundays:

Pinto Beans, Brown Basmati Rice, Vegetable

Mondays:

Legumes, Grain, Vegetable

Tuesdays:

Burritos (Homemade Tortillas)

Wednesdays:

Variety

Thursdays:

Pinto or Black Beans, Cornbread Muffins, Vegetable

Fridays:

Use It Up

Saturdays:

Pizza or French Toast

Sundays are my personal rest day; I do the basic tidying chores (bed making, etc.) but don't do laundry and don't cook a labor intensive meal. The beans are made in the pressure cooker, the rice in a rice maker, and the vegetables are a mashed avocado and either a cabbage salad or a seasonal vegetable that has been prepped ahead of time.

Mondays are the day I plan to use the various legumes I have in the pantry that are NOT pinto beans. I might make mujadara, split pea soup or a bean soup, baked beans, a legume based casserole, etc.

Tuesdays I plan on burritos because my family loves them and I am working my way through 25# of einkorn flour so I need to make tortillas regularly. I use planned over beans and rice from Sunday.

Wednesdays I reserve for making something that isn't part of our weekly repertoire; it might be a brand new recipe or a favorite meal that doesn't appear that often. For example, if potatoes were cheap at the last grocery shopping I might make Indian spiced potatoes served with rice and dal. I call this our Variety day.

Thursdays I make beans again, pinto or black, and cornmeal muffins so I can make sure I am getting through my bulk popcorn bucket.

Fridays are my Use It Up Day. I check for leftovers that might need to be used, refrigerator items nearing their expiration dates, and pantry items that have been languishing uneaten.

Saturdays we either make pizza as a family, or I make French toast with leftover bread from the week.

Here is an actual weekly menu:

Sunday:

Pinto Beans, Brown Basmati Rice, Cabbage Salad

Monday:

Mujadara, Sautéed Zucchini, Green Salad

Tuesday:

Bean Burritos with Mexican Rice and Sautéed Mexican Squash and Onions

Wednesday:

Scrambled Tofu, Field Roast Sausages, Breakfast Potatoes, Sautéed Zucchini

(The tofu and sausages were at their expiration dates)

Thursday:

Pinto Beans, Cornbread Muffins, Roasted Carrots

Friday:

Miso Soup, Soba Noodles, Cucumber Salad

(Using soba noodles that have been in the pantry and the sale cucumbers I bought)

Saturday:

PB&J

(The guys weren't home at main meal time, and we attended a party that evening)

It might look like the schedule is set in stone, but since it is pantry based I can be very flexible. If Thursday is a bean day but I see too many unused leftovers I can change the menu on the spot without worrying that anything will go bad. I still decide the night before what the vegetable will be for the next day's meal, checking the produce we have to see what might need to be eaten soonest; I might plan for sautéed cabbage but then see that the zucchini is getting soft, so we'll eat that instead.

I do change the master menu, usually seasonally. For example, in the cooler months there is always a soup night. If I notice the family fatiguing on a meal I will swap it out for something else; recently we all got tired of pasta every week so that has moved into my Variety category. I added the second bean night with cornbread muffins after I did the math to figure out how much popcorn to use weekly and realized I wasn't going to get it used up if I didn't bake a corn-based bread weekly.

I don't bother planning more than a week at a time (I have in the past) because there are too many variables involved and I would inevitably be changing the plan. A week at a time works best for me :)

Food Snobbery and Using the Food You Have

This year I decided to commit fully to making 100% of my family's bread. I had been buying bread for the boys, approximately 22 loaves per month, and I wanted to save money and increase the nutrition of my bread.

However, last spring we did a mostly gluten free challenge, and I ran out of einkorn, so I placed an order for 40# of einkorn berries and 40# of einkorn extraction flour. Of that I still have 25# of einkorn berries and 26# of einkorn flour.

I'm not going to lie; I find baking with modern wheat far easier than using ancient grains. Einkorn can be tricky in terms of how it absorbs water and it gets very sticky. It doesn't rise well, either. Given my choice I'd prefer to bake with modern wheat only. For instance, I've found that 100% soft white wheat makes a lighter muffin than 100% whole einkorn does.

And then there is the einkorn flour. I don't think it is unhealthy, per se, but it isn't a whole grain. Extraction flour has some of the bran sifted out.

However, that is 51# of einkorn in my house, food that I paid good money for, and it would be a shame to waste it. I could give it away to an einkorn using friend, but in monetary terms that is $153 worth of food. $153 is nothing to sneeze at.

I've decided that we will simply use the einkorn berries as we would soft white wheat berries; it should take about three months to use them up. I'll also use them in einkorn porridge once the weather cools; truly it is my favorite porridge.

As for the flour, I'm not going to waste it. I will use it for tortillas, biscuits, brownies, cookies, etc. as well as half and half in waffles. These aren't the healthiest foods anyway.

It is tempting to decide that you want to go in a new direction and to toss out everything that doesn't fit in with the new paradigm, but it is expensive too. If you are making the transition to whole grains and sugars I suggest you go ahead and use what you have. There is no way that I would put $153 in cash into the trash can, so why waste food?

Food is a precious thing! Even a bag of white flour, or white sugar, or a jug of plain vegetable oil is precious to someone. It is a gift to eat and we must always remember that. It is an even greater gift to be able to choose whole foods, but that doesn't mean we should become food snobs.

When someone offers me food I try to never make comments about the ingredients. A white flour tortilla offered in love or friendship is still a beautiful gift; to mention that you only eat whole grain tortillas would be a slap in the face, especially if you mention how having a white flour tortilla is such a treat. You are not "being bad" by eating refined foods, you are sharing a meal with someone. Don't judge what they serve you. Don't ask if they used white flour or if the produce is organic. Don't tell them you usually eat brown rice, or only use extra virgin olive oil, or that pasteurized vinegar is dead.

(If you have severe food allergies or celiac disease, by all means ask questions to make sure that the food being offered is safe for you. And if you follow a plant based diet for ethical or health reasons then feel free to let people know that ahead of time.)

This is also why I don't say no when someone offers me leftovers that aren't of the quality of ingredients that I would buy or use, or to accept canned foods that might have BPA in them (sometimes my SMIL will send us home with extra canned fruit that she has purchased, especially if she had the boys for a day or two and bought it for their visit). Food never belongs in trash cans if we can possibly help it.

The biggest thing that helped me really eliminate food waste was to visualize putting dollar bills into the trash can every time I found food in my fridge that had spoiled. Now I have this mental image that is repulsive and I do much better as using every bit of food we buy.

Use Your Bulk Foods!

I thought I would share how I plan and store my bulk foods.

My main storage containers are food safe 5 gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids (from Lowe's), 1 gallon glass jars with metal lids (from Azure), and 2 quart Ball jars, but I also use smaller glass jar repurposed from holding purchased foods.

Brown Rice:

Some bulk foods, such as wheat berries, can store for quite awhile, depending on how you store them and the temperature where they are stored. Some, however, like brown rice, don't store nearly as long. From what I have read, brown rice has a storage life of about six months before it goes rancid.

The best way to make sure you use brown rice if you buy it in bulk is to figure out how much you need to use monthly to use it up in six months.

We were going through a lot of brown basmati rice, so I went ahead an ordered 25#. However, right after that we started eating a lot more bread. I wanted to make sure we would use the rice in a timely manner, so I did some math.

25# of rice divided by 6 months is a little over 4# per month, so that is my target. One full batch of rice in my rice cooker uses 1.25# dry rice. If I make a full batch every week I should go through the rice on about 20 weeks, or five months.

So, I know that I need to make a full batch of rice each week. That is easy; I usually make pinto beans twice a week and we like to eat those with rice. I make a full batch of rice for one meal, then I sauté the leftover rice in a little oil with garlic powder, onion powder, New Mexico chili powder, salt, and pepper and put it away for a second meal. Any leftovers after that are free for the taking at supper time (not our main meal).

Wheat Berries:

As I mentioned, wheat berries have a long storage life, but that doesn't mean that I want to keep the same wheat berries in my house for years! I believe that quick turnover lessens the risk of developing pantry moths.

Most of what I have seen online says that there are 2 cups of wheat berries per pound. I weighed 2 cups of white wheat berries and they weighed just about 15 oz. so I suppose it will depend on moisture content from harvest to harvest (or maybe it is my measuring cup or scale). For the sake of keeping things easy I will use the 2 cups = 1 pound measurement.

Currently I use approximately 55# of wheat per month, mostly hard white wheat berries, then hard red wheat berries, then einkorn berries (I am using these until I run out and then I will buy soft white wheat berries as I think they perform better in baking). To figure out how to use my bulk grains and know when to order again I need to separate out what I am using and do the math that way.

I make sandwich bread 5 times a week; sometimes it is 6 times but it is never less than 5 times, so that is my safe number. I grind a 2:1 ratio of red wheat berries to white wheat berries for each loaf. That is 5# of hard red wheat berries and 2.5# of hard white wheat berries per week, or 20# of hard red and 10# of hard white per month.

I use hard wheat to make dough for pizza (3# per week), hamburger buns (1.5# every other week), and cinnamon rolls (1.5# every other week). I estimate that at about 18# per month.

In addition to that I make at least one double batch of muffins per week, using 1.5# of einkorn berries, which is 6# per month. I also use einkorn berries for waffles about once a month, using 2.5# of einkorn berries.

So I use approximately 20# of hard red wheat per month, 28# of hard white wheat per month, and 8.5# of einkorn berries. I just received 50# each of hard red and hard white and I have 25# of einkorn berries. I can shift things around a bit with the red and white and even that out to 25# of each per month. My einkorn should last about 3 months.

(Knowing these numbers is really important for determining my grocery budget as well. Now I know that I use about $50 in wheat berries per month.)

Oats:

Whole oat groats store longer than rolled or cracked oats., but quick oats and rolled oats still have a storage life of several years. I like to buy no more than I will use in six months.

Popcorn:

Popcorn also has a long storage life, but in my experience popcorn does go stale, so if you want to pop some of it (vs. only grinding it for cornmeal) then once again it is better to use it faster and not store it for years. I have read that it stores indefinitely but I have also read that it is best to use it within a year, so that is the number I am going for.

I have 25# of popcorn that I want to use within 12 months, so I need to use a little over 2# per month. I weighed my popcorn and 1 pound is definitely 2 cups. Right now I might pop 1/2 C. of popcorn per week, which would only be 1# per month. I also grind popcorn for cornmeal, but not very often. So now I know that I need to find a few more recipes that call for cornmeal. Cornbread muffins once a month would probably use the that other pound of popcorn.

Pinto Beans:

The same principle applies here, unless you use pinto beans often, as I do. Because I buy my pinto beans from Costco and don't have to order them, and because we eat them so often, I just add them to my list when we are running low.

All other beans:

I like to have a variety of beans and other legumes, so I don't buy these in significant bulk. I bought 25# of split peas once and we ate them for a long time. So now I generally buy between 2 - 5# of other beans and legumes.

Sucanat:

I bought 25# of sucanat recently. I've never had it go bad and I have stored it for over a year.

Piloncillo:

Piloncillo is an unrefined cane sugar product from Mexico. Sugar cane is pressed for the juice and the juice is then boiled and poured into cone molds; it isn't centrifugally spun as for granulated sugar. In terms of nutrition, all the minerals are intact in piloncillo. In that it is very similar to sucanat, but it isn't a dry, free-flowing sugar so it does require some labor to use.  For small amounts many people grate it. I buy it in cones, and store it that way until needed.

Honey:

Honey doesn't go bad; it might crystalize but you can heat it gently to dissolve the crystals. I have bought honey in 5 gallon buckets a few times before (because I was able to do so locally before the local honey processing plant was purchased and then they suspended retail sales), but I must admit that transferring it was so difficult that I no longer choose to buy it that way. As for types of honey, sage and orange blossom are my favorites :)

Oils:

I don't like to buy oils in bulk; I like them to be very fresh and will pay more for that. If you want to buy them in bulk be sure to do the math and make sure you will use them before they go rancid.

Salt, Baking Soda, Baking Powder:

Salt doesn't go bad, so go ahead and buy it in bulk to get the best price, especially if you like Redmond's Real Salt. I've read that baking soda does go bad as may be evidenced by a bitter taste, but have never experienced it myself. Most of what I have read says it stores indefinitely. Baking powder, on the other hand, does go bad, as evidenced by failing to work :( I buy it in the small cans so I can be sure that it is very fresh.

Yeast:

My favorite yeast is SAF Instant; I buy it in one pound pouches and always keep it frozen. To ensure that I don't run out I store my opened package in a glass jar and I have one unopened package. As soon as I transfer that unopened package to the jar I buy a new package and freeze it.

Odds and Ends:

I buy flax seed, hemp seed, and chia in bulk, but not more than a couple month's worth at a time. I keep most of it frozen.