Eating well on a tight budget

Don't you just love when you click on a blog post to read a recipe and you get a novel explaining how the blogger got to the recipe in the first place?  Ha ha!  Me neither, and I apologize, but I do have to preface the how I achieved these delicious meals with a bit of info.  So please, bear with me...we WILL get to the meat and potatoes in due time.  (See what I did there?)

I posted some recent photos on Facebook of our long weekend meals.

We are currently on an extremely tight budget, surviving on one income, of which is small due to work being sparse.  (And its summer, so I have no money coming in...I did bank my summer salary in June, so we have some money, but I'm trying very hard to make it stretch until the end of August!)

Sticking to a tight budget is a challenge in itself, but where we live food is expensive.  (I am sure this is the case for most people as well)  When we go to the grocery store, most single items are already $10, making $100 pocket change when trying to feed a family a healthy balanced diet.  Thank the Lord, our garden is beginning to produce food for us.

Tomatoes from our front porch "garden"

I am trying to stretch things, and cut things, and seek out more affordable options.  Until our garden started producing, I had been purchasing as much produce as I can at the Mennonite stands.  It is amazing how long the produce lasts too...you thought things were fresh at the store, but at the Mennonite farms, they pick most things that day, and if you wash and store it properly, it will last much longer than anything bought at the store and trucked there first.  I had lettuce from the Mennonites last in the fridge for over 2 weeks! (From the store, I'm lucky if I make it to the best before date printed on the list). 

Seeking out local markets is a great way to save and get FRESH produce, if you don't grow it yourself.  Obviously, growing food yourself is going to make your grocery budget stretch further as well.

Next thing I do, and I'm sure it is not a surprise, is shop the sales.  I buy items that are on special.  I look at flyers and build meal plans around those items. 

Meal planning!  Ok.  TBH.  I don't do this enough.  Honestly.  And I hate doing it.  But it is so helpful when you are trying to cut costs and stretch the dollar out...if only they were made of stretchy material...

Plan out your meals.  If you need to buy ingredients, plan meals that are on sale.  Planning ensures you get all of your ingredients and that you won't have to make frequent trips. 

Learn to bake your own bread.  I had to throw that one in there.  Baking your own bread will likely cause an increase in bread consumption, because it is oh so delicious, but a container of yeast and a bag of flour will go a long way...and at $2.50-4.00 per loaf, its worth it.  Baking your own bread also cuts down on the midweek trips to the grocery store. 

Buy in bulk.  Check for the per unit prices as well.  Most of the time if you buy in larger quantities, you save.  If you can make it work, buy in bulk or in larger quantities.  If you don't think you can swing it, sometimes you can find a fellow friend stretching the dollar that would be willing to split a bulk order. 

Alright, so you made it through the long winded typing (it wasn't too bad, and I truly hope you got something useful out of it...)

Just because we are living on a budget does not mean we have to dine on ramen noodles and Zoodles (although I do occasionally eat Zoodles).  On Sunday night we had BBQ steak, zucchini and potatoes (These potatoes are one of my favourite ways to cook potatoes).

The steaks were on sale for around $2 a steak.  There is no way you could go to a restaurant and buy a steak dinner for less than around $20...could be more...I don't usually eat out and I don't ever order the steak...I bought a 10 lb bag of potatoes for $5 and use 4 of them.  I paid $1 for two zucchini at the Mennonite farm.  So for our family of 4, it likely cost $11 for 4 steak dinners...the beans were from my garden.

How? 

Zucchini:  I love barbecuing zucchini.  OH it's SOOO GOOD!!  After I chopped the zucchini, I tossed in a bowl with olive oil and soya sauce and salt and pepper. 

Beans were boiled on the stove.

The Steak:  About an hour before dinner, I started marinating the steaks in soya sauce, worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper and "Dad's Grub Rub" (Father's Day Gift from Buddy - the recipe can be found here )

The potatoes:  This is my favourite way to prepare potatoes...oh wait!  I love mashed with gravy...it's one of my favourites!  Slice potatoes and an onion (You can add garlic too if you like).  Make a foil pouch, sprinkle with salt and pepper and add a generous amount of butter.

The potatoes will take the longest to cook.  I put them on the top rack (or low heat on low rack if you don't have a top rack) of the BBQ and let them cook for about 10 minutes.  Next I put the zucchini in a roasting basket.  If you don't have a basket for the BBQ you could skewer them.  Or cut in half length-wise and set right on rack.  After zucchini was cooking away, we set the Steaks on the grill (or rack...can you tell I use an oven mostly?) Mr. Diva did the cooking from here on out.  ***We like our steak medium so you may have to adjust accordingly.

Chilli: Two meals in one!

On Monday, I finally made the pot of chilli that Lu has been waiting for! In the crockpot I assembled 1 small can of tomato paste, 1 large can of diced tomatoes (with liquid), drained and rinsed red kidney beans (1 can), black beans (1 can), mixed beans (2 cans) and one can of niblets corn (not drained).  I then added 1 lb fried hamburger, 1 chopped onion, one green pepper, a handful of chopped scapes (could be garlic), 1 tablespoon (ish - I'm terrible at measuring) each smoked paprika and chilli powder and lastly a handful and half of brown sugar.  I left it cook on low for 6 hours and we at with nacho chips or buns. 

Look at all that colour

This meal cost us very little. 

I buy my tomatoes when they are on sale for $1 a can.  Each can of beans was less than $1.  The priciest ingredient would be the buns or the nacho chips.  You could make your own buns once you learn to bake bread...and you could buy the nacho chips ahead of time whenever on sale. 

The best part is that this meal does us for two days.  On day two we eat the chilli on buns as Sloppy Joes.  (My kids don't like Sloppy Joes unless there are beans in it!).  All we do to it is add some ketchup and shredded cheese.  YUMMY!



So now you have three meal options for that meal plan that won't break the bank.  If you have a larger family (We have 4 in ours), you would likely have to adjust the quantities and thus the total cost would be more, but the tips I share can help any size family. 

 Happy Cooking!
Keep Smiling!