No responses? What did everybody go out to their garden?

Christy, you are so right about younger (than I, anyway) not knowing the first thing about cooking. It’s amazing how often I would mention, around a 20-something, having baked or cooked something the night before, or having brought leftovers towork — and they would say, “Oh, you cook?” “I don’t cook” is a common thing to hear. I guess my generation of mothers let their kids down – they were so busy breaking down the gender barriers at work and doing their second shift, they negleced to teach the kids how to cook.
With the rise of take-out at grocery stores and pre-prepared foods, mothers got out of the habit themselves.

That said, I’ve used the prepped foods myself when work was heavy.
Now, being broke, I do a lot of cooking from scratch, trying to get back to baking bread (another thing I once did often, got out of the habit). My mom’s mom, a good Pennsylvania Dutch cook, shooed my mom out of the kitchen when she was cookinng, so Mom didn’t learn until she married my dad, either. She never got into the pleasures of cooking, so I learned from cookbooks when I got married.
Oh, wait, I took a (hilarious in retrospect) colleege Home Ec cooking class just before dropping out to get married–me, my “lab” partner who was also getting married, one guy who was moving to Paris to live poor, and a class full of Home Ec majors.
Needless to say, the 3 of us outsiders stuck together, and our dishes, displayed alongside those of the majors, were easily identifiable. But we had fun, and learned the basics.
Now I’m also buying generic and store brand t.p. and paper towels, kitty litter, etc. Re-learning to use coupons (not the ones for stuff I never use otherwise), and tamp down the cravings. Generic ice cream sandwiches — and occasional treat of the 99 cent size Ben & Jerry’s.
Shop at the farmers market judiciously – no garden. Mostly have bought just tomatoes and zucchini and onions this summer. I’d eat beans for a month to be able to afford tomatoes in season. Wanting to try a tomato tart recipe from King Arthur Flour.
Which reminds me, if I’m going to make the market before early pm closing, I’d better get off the ‘puter and run. Sorry for the long post! Saving money! favorite topic!

I’ve discovered a whole new world of more frugal shopping in my return to small town living. I now frequent the local Dollar Tree and Dollar General stores.

Am amazed that I ever purchased cards, gift wrap and innumerable other items anywhere else. For example, took my sis in last weekend (her first visit) and she picked up an Anna Quindlen book for $1.

They have great kids sections, school supplies etc. Discover more every time I go in and am hooked. Also, it’s terrific to be able to avoid the satanic Wal-Mart.

After retiring Iwas use to cooking fast stuff, (frozen etc.) Now I have the time but haven’t enjoyed cooking too much, HOWEVER I am growing tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans and chives. I made my own garden salsa last week and yummy. Took it to a get together and all enjoyed it. So much better than that store bought stuff. Good with chip, baked potato, scrambled eggs even sandwiches, just about anything. I must agree all thing made from scratch taste much better. Hi to peanut and Mr. Smith. Hugs to all

We only do restaurants for special occasions now. I only use cold water in the washer and have a clothesline that I use as often as possible. (My kid calls it the passive solar clothes dryer,lol). My husband takes his lunch to work,that alone saves us nearly 200 dollars a month.

Food wise,I have a few low cost dishes that work for us. My son loves mac and cheese,so I make cheesburger mac cassarole often. I add a side salad or green veggie,lately we’ve been having cantelope too.

I have a garden which helps alot. Fortunately,summertime produce prices are fairly good,it seems like there’s always something on sale.

Portion sizes. I now eat much smaller portions then I used to and I’m doing fine. It really hasn’t resulted in any noticeable weight loss but it has helped to stretch the food dollar.

I also started shopping at a different grocery store called Aldi. I had never gone to one but they have great prices, and a double your money back gurantee. They carry mostly their own brand, and have no frills but hey it’s fine for me. A lot of the products do have high fructose corn syrup but reading the labels helps avoid that.

And nature has cooperated with a rather pleasant summer so I’ve been able to go without air conditioning.

And since I’m single, if I have to forgo meals it’s no big deal for now I’m still current on everything.

I was having this exact conversation with my visiting mother in law yesterday evening. Talking about canning and preserving, and how it is a lost art

We started trimming back on 2007, when my husband was laid off from his job and went back to school. We had stopped using the clothes dryer a couple of years earlier, so the passive solar dryer in the back yard was already in place. That helps tremendously. Luckily, we have gorgeous mature trees in both our front and back yards, so the shade helps to cool the house – we only run the AC when outside temp gets over 90. Otherwise, we use an electric fan to cool the house overnight – set it to pull all the warm out of the house, and replace it with the cooler overnight air. Once we’ve cooled it off, the shade usually takes care of it for the rest of the day.

Generics are my new friend – but I’m discovering that there are some differences. For some reason, generic cherrios cause my husband to have stomach problems that the name brand don’t. Odd. I’ve gotten much more conscious of comparison shopping – which one has the best per unit price?

I tried my hand at growing some tomatoes last year, which didn’t succeed because my lovely shade trees that keep my electric bill low means I don’t have sunny enough areas to grow a garden, even in the space I thought might work.

The biggest difference for us, though, which allowed us to have him go back to school, is that we have a budget, and we live by it. If there isn’t any funds in the clothing account, then you put off buying whatever until there are. We got out of credit card debt a couple of years before he lost his job by doing that, and we don’t charge things. The credit cards are there for an emergency, and we haven’t had one of those yet (fingers crossed.)

On the cooking front, I try to cook from scratch, as much as possible. My mother gave me a gift subscription to a magazine, Taste of Home’s Simple and Easy, that has given me a variety of really good recipes so we have some variety in what we eat. The recipes are mostly reader submitted. (No, I’m not a paid spokesperson for Taste of Home.) Some of them can be expensive, or use convenience things, but some of them are very economically, and they have the advantage of not being complex or overwhelming to make.

Christy – I read Pollan’s article as well and how struck he is that Americans are very very comfortable WATCHING people do this thing in the kitchen called cooking (which now seems to encompass putting packaged goods together and zapping frozen pizzas – that is not cooking..that is ‘reheating’) but can’t be bothered to do it themselves. It also hit me how he related research that shows that the less time people spend actually cooking from scratch and sitting down and eating, the greater the chance of obesity. He also related that the amount of time spent in the kitchen actually cooking has been going down since the early 50s – waaaay before a lot of women were in the workforce, thereby debunking the meme that obesity got started when women went into the workforce in great numbers in the 1970s. My answer to ‘cooking takes time and I don’t have time’ is to make a big something on the weekend (living with a husband and son who also like to cook also helps immensely) and use that in the week’s rotation. Another thing that saves huge amounts of money is cooking stuff like chicken or a hunk of meat or fish that can be saved and used in salads and sandwiches during the week so that family members don’t end up having to buy lunches out. Locally, a nice salad with protein in it costs – with tax – $7.00 (ka-ching!). Another thing I do is make things that people can do a ‘grab-n-go’ for breakfast. I can zap an egg+egg white with a little cheese (1 min. 30 sec.), put on toast, a bagel, or an English muffin and have something pretty decent in my stomach to keep me going early in the day. A little preparation can save a LOT. Eating out for anything just eats up soooo much money and you usually can eat much better if you do it yourself.

Toby, I was coming back to comment on having read the article and finding it very interesting – many of the same points that you were making, about the fascination with taking time to watch what we now won’t take the time to do, and that the focus in the cooking shows is shifting from the preparation to the consuming. The research to the increase in obesity correlating to the decrease in prep time was also eye opening.

Thanks, Christy, for the link – I don’t think I would have read it otherwise, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

My parents were children of the depression. Many of their frugal/common sense lessons have stayed with me. Pay your bills on time. Try to save for an actual rainy day. They really will come some time. Stories of Depression life were abstract to this baby boomer, but they rung true.

My 18 year old daughter has also taught me alot; about thinking small, buying local, and being careful with one’s resources to make them last. I think this generation has taught a lesson to the next–of profligacy, waste, and lack of foresight.

Cooking is a pleasure and activity that my husband and I enjoy immensly. We have always cooked for ourselves and have a terrific stock of meals in the freezer. We’ve cut back on some of the expense – fish from the supermarket instead of from the fishmonger, cheaper cuts of meat, veggie meals, etc. I’ve always tried to keep market visits to no more than once a week, but I’m doing even better than that. I’m also trying generics, although my husband does not approve until I tell him how much cheaper it is. I’m just starting to bake my own bread and I always bring lunch to work (my husband doesn’t, but he gets a great subsidized meal where he works, usually under $5.00). We also love to go out to eat, but have cut that down by about 75% and when we do, we go to cheaper restaurants and order cheaper things. Instead of eating out, we’ll stop by for a drink and then go home and make dinner. It lets us get out, with much less expense. I don’t have a veggie garden, we go to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings. It is more expensive, but the quality is so much better. It is just the two of us and we try to be very judicious in our purchases. We do have a wonderful flower garden that the previous owners of our house had put in, so I get lots of fresh cut flowers – a luxury, I know, but one that makes me happy. I also used to have a weekly manicure and monthly pedicure, but have cut that back to maybe a mani/pedi every few months, no extras. I try to see how long I can last with $100.00 cash – usually a few weeks.

On the larger front, we are trying to rent our house and plan to move to a small cottage in another state. It was my husband’s mother’s house and there is no mortgage. We will make a permanent downsizing decision once we can sell our house here for enough to get our downpayment out of it.

It’s actually become a challenge that I enjoy.

I love you Christy-the combination of home and left wing politics has been my way of life but not until I found you in FDL did I wake up to the fffaaact that this is reality. Okay enough of the hugs and love.
My sister and I always remark on how creative we get when funds are very low. Seems our best meals come when there is no money left to go shopping and we turn to our own pantry/freezer and create meals from what we have on hand and what the years of training enable us to produce. I am even grateful at this point that we never had a lot and almost always had to make do.
Yeah!! for the Dollar Stores. Everyone is going there and yes it is shocking to realize how much we used to pay for gift wrap,etc and for dish soap for that matter. I love the way they are popping up right next to the grocery stores and the pharmacies-easy to go there for the paper and chemical stuff and save some bucks for the farmer’s markets.

I love to cook. I make almost everything from scratch. My partner Frank loves to garden and this year we have the largest garden yet. He loves my cooking and I love using his fresh vegetables. Win/win!

I also have two hives of honeybees.

I make tons of tomato basil sauce that we bag, freeze and use all winter. I also make what I call AP or all purpose sauce without the herbs. We freeze lots of sweet corn and bags of chopped fresh onions and peppers.

My fall back of late is a recipe from King Arthur for pizza. I make the dough and let it sit in the refrigerator for a day, then cook the crusts briefly and either refrigerate or freeze them. I use whatever sauce I have on hand and load them up with whatever fresh veggies Frank has brought me that day. Tonight we will have fresh spinach pizza with white garlic sauce.

Also, lots of rice and beans and homemade bread help us to keep down food costs.