Being Frugal, not Cheap with Meals.

Being short on $ really is not much fun! I just want to get our debt paid off quickly and that will be the end of that.

One thing in which is a bonus however is being creative with our groceries.It helps that even when one is leaving no extra $ while putting most of it towards debt we still have plenty of food lol. The way things are going I am wondering really if I could feed a family of 5 plus 2 cats for about $250 a month Canadian $ and with no coupons to speak of. I am going to see if I can actually do that for next month. It might be difficult however as I already had a lot of my meats on hand for suppers but we shall see.

One thing in which I have noticed however, I have been using 1/2 of the meat in which I normally would use. Hamburger for example. I always used say, 1 lb for macaroni. I made this the other night for supper and used 1/2 a pound of meat but as I fried up the meat I did use a fork to mash up the meat so that it crumbled opposed to having bigger pieces. It worked out perfectly for us :).

I had cooked up a roast tenderloin a few weeks ago and put 1/2 aside for another meal. The roast cost $6 Canadian but it feed the 5 of us and, tonight I will be heating up the other half to have hot pork sandwhiches with homefries and veggies :)

I like keeping a salad made up in the fridge as an appetizer. I actually keep the lettuce seperate from the other veggies though,for example, I like to keep cucumber in a seperate dish so that the lettuce won't go soggy. By doing this the lettuce etc will stay good for at least 5 or 6 days, Plus an added bonus is that I already have lettuce cleaned and sepertated for when I make sandwhiches for lunches.If I find that the cucumber is starting to dry out a bit I will pour a bit of vinegar in the dish.

Another thing I did which I hadn't in a long time was buy some noname brand jello packages. I can get a package which makes double of the name brand jello and tastes just as good, for just about the same price.It felt good last night when I made up a batch of jello for lunches today, along with sugar cookies :).

I find what is helping to keep the grocery bill down and not feeling deprived or hungry is to have a big batch of salad made up for the week, homemade soup in 1 cup servings in the freezer,homemade bread (or store bought) on the table all as an appetizer or to go with your meal.

Whipping up homemade cakes,cookies,pudding etc is always nice too as a sweet after supper.....

So really, opposed to eating up all of the meat at once durring dinner and being so full you can hardly move away from the table lol, we have done ourselves a favour by frugally having a 3 course meal durring dinner time. :). For some reason we are eating better now opposed to when I didn't have to cut back on those $. :)