You must HAVE money to SAVE Money!

 

It really makes me angry when people complain that those who are food insecure just need to be more economical and wiser about what they spend money on.  That is absolutely not true.  The reason I can save a lot of money on food, is that I have enough to spend.  Today is a classic example of that privilege.  My plan was to buy a whole chicken for dinner tonight and I stopped into Save-a-Lot to do just that.  There was only one chicken, and I wasn't happy with it.  Today was its sell-by date and it was the only one, not frozen, with lots of liquid in the bag.  Fortunately, there was a tray of chicken breasts and they were a special price.  That would be fine for our dinner.  However, there were also six trays of marked down ground beef and two trays of marked down ground pork. 

 At $1.99 per pound, they all hit my sweet spot for making dog food.  I loaded up my cart and bought them all.  Fifty bucks and I didn't have to think twice.  I have enough money to jump on a deal like that, so it's easy for me to save $50.

 

Buying all that meat for dog food got me curious as to what else I could score to save on it.  I had purchased a bag of frozen hash browns but also wanted a deal on veggies.  One thing I do every day, is check Flashfood, and I knew there was Rainbow slaw to be had -- so I ordered it all.  There were a few packages of cheese that would be great for lasagna, so I bought them too.  Rainbow slaw is normally $3.49 a bag.  While I was in the store, I saw marked down animal scarves for kids.  I have two specific recipients for these. 75% was quite the deal! So again, I don't have a tight budget, so it was easy to buy the specials and save a lot.

 

Last week while we were away, I stopped into Dollar Tree because we needed poop bags.  Any time I am in one of their stores, I check for shampoos and beauty products that are not Greenbrier or cheap brands. While I could have (and probably should have) grabbed more of this stuff, my hunch was right.  These two pieces were a nice sale score. Again, another example of me just buying something because I found it.

 

Another reason I do well, is I have the funds to acquire tools and kitchen gadgets that make it possible for me to prepare and store what I buy.  Also, I have friends who give me stuff they don't want -- that is high quality.  The only reason I can easily cook up 25 plus pounds of dog food when I see a deal, is I could afford a Foodsaver and the bags.  That gadget also has a nice marinating feature.  That's what I did with the chicken breasts. I marinated them in mead and spices a friend gave me because she didn't like the flavors.

I ended up with ten bags of food, that I cooked in my new better-than-basic oven.  It has the souse vide feature that allows me to air cook these packages at 165 degrees.  And I have a chest freezer to store the finished product in.  It was so easy to dump the meat, potatoes, and veggies plus calcium into a pot, mix it all up, seal it in bags, then cook in a couple of batches.  If we used The Farmer's Dog, this would be hundreds of dollars' worth of food.

As for the chicken, the rotini on the side was a FF purchase.  I didn't finish all my chicken and saved the bones. We had rotini left too.  That will help me build a soup on Saturday.

So, I consider myself privileged. I like to share my money saving tips and I hope they help others. But I also realize that most of what I save, I can save because I can jump on a deal when I see it.

My original thought for the day (before I found all that beef), was that the 80's was gonna call me and ask for their leg warmers back.  For me, they are functional and therapeutic. My ankles need them (I had one reconstructed and the other gets stiff).  Frankie and I had a nice walk at the cemetery.  We know it's spring, when the trash bins are back out.  That means I don't have to carry around a bag of poop for the entire walk.

Oh, and my jeweler texted me.  The bezels they will be using for my necklace came in, and once they set them out, they thought three small beads between the stones would look better than just one. I agreed. Tomorrow is my birthday, and this is a birthday present -- which I will get in a few weeks.  I am a lucky girl -- I can both splurge and save.

It was a beautiful, sunny, and economical day! How was yours?