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What's For Dinner? v.19.50: Penny Pinching [1]

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Date: 2025-06-14

It’s going to be a rough summer, kids. The shortages are coming. As prices go up, it more than ever becomes meet to spend your food money wisely.

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Other diaries have talked about this subject, and of course it’s been discussed in the comments section, but it’s always a good idea to talk about and share how to pinch pennies, eat for less, and get the same bang for the buck. Whatever idiom you prefer. These are some of the things that I do.

For instance, I was checking the sales papers for my local stores, as you do, and one store had packages of frozen shrimp buy one, get two free. That’s three pounds of shrimp for $12-17 depending on the size. Some of the recipes I’ve diaried here using boneless skinless chicken breasts were bought when the store had a buy one get two free sale. As a matter of fact, TODAY one of my stores has buy one baby back rib or boneless skinless chicken breast and get two free. I wish I had room in my freezer for that, but alas. I’ll keep me eyes open for more deals.

Now as I cook to make meals for a week—a typical week for me specifically is about 18-22 6oz meals per week—I often buy like my mother did, as she cooked for seven people so everything was a huge batch.

What does that mean? When pantry items are on sale, buy WAY more than you need. Somewhere several weeks down the line you’ll need them and you’ll already have them in your pantry and not need to shop for them. Same with frozen goods. We had an extra freezer cause as young 20 something Gen-Xers, we bought our folks a freezer for Christmas one year and stocked it with a quarter side of beef. My mom worshipped that freezer and it was ALWAYS full of meats gotten on sale, veggies on sale, and whatever else she wanted to store for later. Which is how I try to do.

And this thinking is not only for using a huge package of stuff all at once. When these big things go on sale, Mom would also divide a package. Which is a boon if you’re alone or with one other. Many here have done just that. So they have individual things ready to go for a meal.

Right now my freezer is pretty full. Mostly chicken and seafood. I’ve gone through the sales, and digital coupons—join a store’s reward program, by the way. You get some great coupons. Like $2 a pound off meat products. Deeper sales on chicken—how I get thighs for $0.99 cents a pound. Even frozen shrimp sometimes is buy 1, get 2 free. You can even get butter for $2.49 for a pound on special occasions, although the coupons have it usually at $3.49 or even $2.99 and there’s always a limit on how much you can buy. *Extra Pro tip: Always buy butter if it’s on sale. It freezes excellently. I certainly have enough protein to last most of the summer. This way, all I need to get is produce. Most weeks I spend between $20 and $30 for the upcoming week’s meals.

And speaking of produce, never turn up your nose at frozen veggies. Store brands often have sales where a bag is between a dollar and a dollar and a quarter. Just as good as fresh, and for things like peas, even better than fresh unless you harvest your own.

I also keep certain things always on hand. Rice first and foremost, of course. That’s my go to starch. I’ll also pick up various kinds of noodles if varieties I prefer are on sale. A Kroger affiliate often sells pasta for $1 a box. I also always have canned tuna and cream of celery on hand. And of course, dried legumes. And I always have a box of barley in the house. Come to think about it, I hardly use canned things anymore. Tuna and the soup, yes, and maybe canned chicken because casserole, but not much other processed stuff. There’s stuff in my pantry I bought long ago thinking “hey, this looks good to use in something” and I never did. C’est la vie. But the miracle of canning is that even a few years down the line stuff will still be “good”. Meaning I won’t get sick. Flavor may have paled, but unless a can shows signs it’s gone bad, it will still taste OK.

So here’s how my process works. A couple weeks ago, I had a coupon for 99 cents a pound chicken thighs. That screamed chicken rice. Yeah, I got a BIG package. Like six pounds. But still not over 7 bucks. All I needed to buy was ginger, scallion, and garlic. Less than $10 total. I even splurged and got pre peeled garlic cloves. I used that, plus some of the garlic I already had in the house, and made a lovely Hainanese chicken rice. This past Wednesday, I made chowder. A couple of months ago, a couple of stores had bags of peeled, deveined, tail off shrimp for like 12-13 dollars for 2 pounds in the frozen section so I bought two bags—one from each store—at the different times they had it on sale. All I needed to buy was some onion, a few carrots, some potatoes, a celery, some heads of garlic, some shredded cheese, and some milk.

Here’s what I did. First, four pounds of shrimp, cost $25

Next, mirepoix. Yes, there are carrots under the celery and onion. But carrots, 80 cents, celery $1.89, and onion $1.40. Garlic was 2 heads for a buck and I used pretty much all of it. Notice the celery leaves. Don’t throw them away. They, along with carrot tops, make the BEST herbs for soups and such.

Standard chowder (by me) procedure: Get butter sizzling, add the veg, salt, sweat for a minute, then add garlic and dried herbs (dill and tarragon), and spices (white pepper and Old Bay). After a minute or two, add flour (also always on hand). Cook flour for a roux, then add chicken stock (left over from that last batch of chicken rice I just mentioned. Waste Not) and milk. The milk was $1.99 for a quart. Meanwhile, I diced and boiled some white potatoes—loose at $1.29 a pound (I used a pound-ish)—in some Knorr’s and added them when the broth was at temp. I then added the shrimp, turned off the heat, and then added some shredded cheese at $2.19 a bag. I finished at the very end with the chopped celery leaves, and here’s what it looked like.

That means that nutritious and delicious and yummy meals for a week for me cost like $36.

So next week, I’m not sure. I have a bunch of stuff in my freezer I got on sale (meaning like a cost of not much more than $20), which means that I’d only need to spend between $10 and $20 to have meals for the upcoming week. I mean, while the chowder I made is one of the best I’ve ever done (and I know I always say that), sometimes you want something a little less “liquid”. I know beef and barley stew is coming up, but like I said, I want something solid and not a soup or stew for next time.

In short, I hope that, while all of this is general knowledge, there were some ideas you may not have considered that popped in your heads while reading. It’s hard times coming, and you can’t resist on an empty stomach, so with wisdom and perspicacity, we will eat well as we fight.

What are some of your money saving tricks to eat well and frugally as well?

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