Monday, March 3, 2008

Back to Basics

Every time I go to the grocery lately, I freak out at the prices going up while the package sizes shrink. This reminds me of the late 1970s, when I was a newlywed. Being college students, we were on a very tight budget. Seeing food prices go up regularly back then made me realize that I had to learn to stretch a dollar.

Raising four kids on a single income in the intervening years helped me stay in good financial shape when it comes to stretching those dollars. So it's second nature to do what I can to keep the grocery bill from going over budget.

I saw soup on sale for $1.50 a can last week. That's crazy.....$1.50 for a couple bowls of oversalted soup with supposed meat in it. That put me in the mood to make homemade soup, and for a few dollars more than that one can of soup, I made a big batch that covered dinner for four plus lunch the next day.

Then there's baking mix. I don't buy the name brand because the company that makes it supports Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the U.S. I just cannot give them money and consider myself a good steward. Fortunately I have a lovely book full of recipes for name-brand products, and one of them is for baking mix. I made some over the weekend, and now I have a nice big plastic box of baking mix in the pantry: twice the quantity for half the price of the name brand. It makes me smile every time I walk past it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear hubby was surprised at the $$$ of groceries. I found my own baking mix too and I can use it for muffins, pancakes, & biscuits. I am trying to find a rice mix like rice a roni. I buy a gentric brand right now.

Bev in OR said...

Barbara, is there any chance you can share the name of your cookbook?...Always looking for help in the kitchen ºÜº

Courtney Lynn said...

Mrs. Frank,
Could you please share which name brand company supports PP? Thanks!

Amy said...

I didn't know that company supports PP. I guess I'll be looking to make my own baking mix too!

Barbara Frank said...

BarbaraLee, I buy the Aldi brand of rice mix. There are some recipes for it in the book (see next paragraph).

Bev in Or, that cookbook is old and I don't know if it's still in print. Got mine at a library used book sale several years back and I love it. It's got recipes for cleaning products, too. It's called "Cheaper & Better; Homemade Alternatives to Storebought Goods" by Nancy Birnes.

Courtney Lynn, the company is General Mills. You can find a fairly recent list of PP supporters at:

http://www.renegaderadio.org/content.asp?area=latestnews

(Scroll down to "Pro-Abortion Contributor List")

Amy, it supported PP for years, then it stopped, but it looks like it started up again.

Core said...

The price of food is only going to get worse. This is driven by two factors: lack of oil supplies, and growth of the economies in Asia. Just wait, we should see oil well over $200/bbl soon, and China is exploding in growth. Food and gas is cheap right now, just wait.

For these reasons, we have been doing pretty much everything homemade for years now - all soup, bread, meals. Almost zero processed foods.

Some things are more expensive (fruits/veg), but the savings on the rest are huge; we feed eight people for under $5,000/yr in a very expensive area. We are going to do a garden next summer, and hope to cut this down quite a bit. Of course, by then I expect food prices to have gone up 20%.

Barbara Frank said...

VC, you are confirming some of my fears about the future of our economy :0