Fulfilling Needs on a Budget

For two days, I’ve discussed about the need to help those around us who are in need. This might be the single mother, the widowed man down the street, the family with the father out of work, or it may even just be a family who is going through a difficult time right now. God calls the church to take care of the needs of its people and the people of the community.

Many people give the excuse that they don’t have enough money to take care of their own family let alone someone else, but that is a pretty poor excuse. I know of churches who say similar things when it is struggling to pay all of its bills. But if God calls us to do something, He will provide a way for us to do it.

While there are definitely more ways you can help, some ways our family has been able to help those in need around us even when we have to rely on God to help us pay our bills sometimes are:

Share We’ve had people come and pick green beans from our garden, or given a dozen eggs, or even given goat milk to a friend who needed some to feed her animals. We have also given canning jars to a friend who needed them. Even though I “might” have needed them later, we knew God would provide and He did—the very next day!

Barter You might think this is a way to get your needs met, but it can also be helpful to someone else. They might need their car fixed, but they don’t have the cash to pay a mechanic right now, but they do clean houses. You could have them clean your house in exchange for working on their vehicle. Be creative with this idea. Sometimes people don’t want “hand-outs” but they are willing to work for something. Even if you don’t necessarily need someone else to mow your lawn, barter with them so they feel good about working for whatever need you are filling for them.

Be a Go-Between You might not be able to fill the need, but you might now someone who can. I had a friend who didn’t have money to buy her son a Christmas gift. I didn’t have extra money to go and buy him one either, but I wanted to help. I contacted someone who I new had an extra of something this young man wanted and asked if they would be willing to give it so she could give him a Christmas present. Praise God, they not only filled the need, they gave him a brand new item instead of a used one (although he would have been happy with the used one!). I have often seen something for free or great prices that I know a friend needs and have either just gotten it myself or notified her of the great deal so she could take advantage of it.

Time Give of your time. There may be a young mother who would like to just take a nap. You could watch her children for her. You might do your elderly neighbor’s grocery shopping for her so she doesn’t have to try to manage the crowds. You might be able to fill a need for companionship just by sitting and visiting with a lonely neighbor. You may man a table at a craft show for a friend trying to sell items to raise money for an adoption. The possibilities are endless!

Pray Don’t neglect to pray for those needs you see arise around you. This is the most powerful tool we have. Through prayer, God might just show you a unique way you can help or answer it in a way no one thought imaginable.

Feeding Your Family on a Budget, Part 7

Meatless or Less Meat Meals

Scalloped Egg Casserole

10 hard boiled eggs

6 tbsp butter

6  tbsp flour

2 tbsp mustard (dry or prepared)

2 cups milk

1 tsp salt

2 slices of bread

Melt butter, whisk in flour and mustard and cook for about 1 minute. Whisk in milk until thickened. Grease a 9x13 casserole dish. Peel and slice the eggs. Put a small amount of sauce in the bottom of the pan, then a layer of sliced eggs, more sauce, and another layer of eggs, and keep going until gone. Butter bread slices and cut into cubes and put on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

This is a good side dish or double to use as a main dish.

Quinoa and Black Beans

2 teaspoon vegetable oil

2 onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 ½ cup uncooked quinoa

3 cups vegetable or chicken broth

2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

1 quart canned black beans

parsley

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and parsley.

Note: Other beans may be substituted or substitute rice for the quinoa (you’ll have to cook longer though).

 

Lentil Sloppy Joes

1 cup dried lentils
2 cups water
1/8 cup onion, minced
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. dry mustard powder
1/2 tsp. chili powder 
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 tsp. celery seeds
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste or ketchup
1-1/4 cups water (omit if using ketchup)
6 to 8 whole wheat buns or 2 cups cooked brown rice

Directions:
Rinse and pick through lentils.  Add two cups water to pan with lentils and bring to boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer about 40 minutes until tender, but not mushy.
For the sauce, combine the minced onion, salt, sugar, dry mustard, chili powder, minced garlic, and celery seeds. Combine well and set aside.
When lentils are done, add the tomato paste and water. Stir in the sauce seasoning. Combine well and heat through. Let simmer for 25 to 30 minutes on low heat to combine flavors.
Serve on whole wheat buns or over brown rice.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Herb Bean Spread

1 clove of garlic
1 can Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
1 Tablespoon lime juice
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon basil, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

With motor running, drop garlic into food processor or blender. Add beans, juice, water, and oil. Puree until smooth. Add basil, salt and pepper. Pulse until incorporated and herbs are coarsely chopped.
Spread the bean spread on the inside of the pita and layer in the veggies of your choice.

Feeding Your Family on a Budget, Part 6

Even more ways to save money:

• Cook from scratch! Buying convenience food costs money. I can just as quickly whip up pancakes from scratch as from a box and they taste better and are healthier, too. If you think you don’t have time, then you could prepare extras on weekends or when you do have time.

• Don’t buy convenience foods! You can buy a lot more rice in a bag than if you buy minute rice. It really isn’t hard to cook rice and it doesn’t add a whole much more time (especially if you have a rice cooker because then you can just set it and forget it!)

• Eat whole grains! Whole grains fill you up faster so you will eat less. For example, before we made the switch to whole grain pasta, we would go through two pounds of pasta at each meal (back when there were just 7 of us). Just the other night I made a meal with only one pound of pasta for all of us.

• Serve lots of side dishes! I learned this one by accident. If you have out more options for sides, people won’t eat as much meat which will save you money! I was raised that every meal needed a meat, starch and vegetable, but if I offer two vegetables and/or a fruit, then the amount of meat consumed is less.

• Raise your own food if possible! We started with a garden to help us save money. Even if you don’t preserve your abundance, you will still save money during the summer/fall when you are picking from your garden. We now have chickens for eggs (and meat) and goats for milk. It costs a lot less for feed for those animals than it would for us to buy the food. Even if you live in the city, you can still do container gardening, square foot gardening, etc.

• Let your friends and family know you will take their abundance! We have friends who know they can call us if their gardens produce more than what they want. We just head over and pick what is left. I have friends who receive food from others and they might not particularly care for what was given to them, so they call us. We have even had friends of friends call and offer food from their gardens, old hens for butchering, etc.

Feeding a Family on a Budget, Part 5

Bean soup made with a ham bone and the little meat left on the bone.

Stretching the Meat If you really like having meat in every meal or have a family member who does, then you could just stretch the meat. Some common ways of stretching meat is something like meatloaf where you add crushed crackers, bread crumbs, oatmeal, etc. to the meat. You do the same thing with meatballs. I also will make chicken or salmon patties from leftover shredded chicken (or salmon).

Another option is to make lots of casseroles and soups. You can easily cut the meat in ½ without most people noticing. I can get away with making a casserole with only one pound of meat for my family of 11 without anyone complaining. With some meals, I have to prepare 3-4 lbs of meat to feed all of us.

You could replace ½ the meat called for in a recipe with beans or lentils. For example, I have a recipe I call Sloppy Cornbread. It takes a minimum of two pounds of meat for my family (they LOVE it when I use 3 lbs!), but I found that I can use one pound of meat and an equal amount of lentils (even better if you cook the lentils in beef broth to give a beefy flavor) and my family doesn’t complain. You could do the same with chili (using black, pinto or kidney beans), Spanish/Mexican rice (lentils, black, pinto, or kidney beans), or even meatloaf (use a mashed bean or lentil).

Feeding Your Family on a Budget, Part 4

Lentils, black beans, and great northern beans

Meatless Meals There are a number of ways you can have a meatless meal. You could take one of your favorite recipes and just make it without the meat. For example, have spaghetti without meat in the sauce or a soup without meat, or even a casserole without the meat.

You could also replace the meat in the recipe with something like tofu (although I don’t use this so I am not sure how much you would be saving), beans, or more veggies. If you like sloppy joes, make it with lentils instead of ground beef. Burritos—make them with just refried beans and veggies instead of with meat. Stir-fry is great and just double the veggies and removing the meat to save money.

There are also lots of great vegetarian meals out there. I’ve experimented and continue to experiment and have come up with a few family favorites that are not only vegetarian, but also cost effective.

Feeding a Family on a Budget, Part 3

Preparing Food Ahead I know some people will cringe at this one as well because they have visions of the once-a-month freezer cooking they’ve heard about, but that isn’t the only way to prepare ahead.

Can food. I don’t mean buy canned food, but to actually can it yourself. Having canned food available makes it easy when you have surprise company or what you planned didn’t work out for some reason or for those nights you know you will just need a quick meal. Many of the things I can I get for free from my garden or others share in their abundance or I buy at a reduced rate because I am buying in bulk.

When you are making one meal, why not just double it and freeze one. I do this often when making meatloaf or casseroles. It will save you time in that you are only doing the prep work once (and it doesn’t really take much longer to chop one onion instead of two or brown up two pounds of meat instead of one), and it saves money because you are maximizing the use of your stove, oven, etc. and you will have a meal already prepared for the nights when you used to go to a fast food restaurant or order pizza.

Cook up meat and freeze. Sometimes I will just brown up a bunch of ground beef and freeze in quart bags and then I can grab one quick for a casserole or a soup later. You could pre-chop veggies or mix the dry ingredients for your favorite recipes (pancakes, biscuits, etc.).

Feeding Your Family on a Budget, Part 2

Menu Planning I know many people will cringe when I mention this, but it truly does help in saving money. Not only will you be organized enough to have something out of the freezer and thawed so you can cook, but you will eat out less often because you won’t have to think about what to make for dinner come 4 or 5 o’clock and then just grab something from a restaurant because you don’t have time or can’t think of something.

Menu planning can be done in a few different ways—weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, rotational, or themed.

I do a weekly menu. After I go grocery shopping, I sit down and make a weekly menu from what I was able to purchase. This allows me to take full advantage of what I could find on sale, pull out of the garden or what was given to me. I do have a few things that I usually keep in the same slots because they are family favorites and/or easy to make, but even those are not set in stone.

I know some people who create a bi-weekly menu because they go grocery shopping every two weeks. I am transitioning into this because of gas prices and switching to bi-weekly shopping to save the gas money. The same reason applies for a monthly menu.

Some people choose to create a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly menu and then just repeat that same menu over and over again. I have heard of people that have a summer menu and a winter menu as well. For example, if it is a weekly menu, then every Monday night might be tacos, Tuesdays—spaghetti, Wednesday—roast chicken, etc.

Another option is to make a themed menu. For example, Meatless Mondays, Mexican Tuesdays, Slow cooker Wednesday, Italian Thursdays, etc. You would then have your recipes in those same categories and it would give you a smaller repertoire to choose from. I use a form of this in my menu planning as well. For example, Wednesdays are one-pot meals because we eat at the church and then I only have to carry one thing and Sundays are slow cooker meals because then it is cooked and ready for us to eat when we arrive home from church.

Feeding Your Family on a Budget, Part 1

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been very busy (so busy in fact that I didn't finish my daughter's birthday dress until just hours before her party!). I will be posting the information I share at the class I taught a couple of weeks ago in probably six different parts. This is the shortest section, but I still wanted to share!

 

Some tips I have learned over the years that help with feeding a family on a budget are shopping sales, menu planning, preparing food ahead, meatless meals and stretching the meat.

Shopping sales I always look at sales ads before I go shopping. I have an approximate price in my head of what I will spend on an item; therefore, I know if a sale price is a good price or not. Some people will make price lists of items they purchase on a regular basis. I know this is a good idea, but I haven’t taken the time to do that yet. I will only buy what is on sale that week unless it is an absolute necessity. I have a few brand loyalties, but other than those few things, it is open to what is cheapest.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have been asked about the laundry detergent I make. I used the recipe from the Duggar's website and adapted it for our use. Because we don't have any convenient place to store a 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent, I use make 2 1/2 gallons of the concentrate. I don't like the smell of Fals Neptha and I wanted something more natural, so I use a bar of Dr. Bronner's soaps. When I make this recipe, it lasts us about 2 months and we average 15 loads a week. I can buy the washing soda, borax and 1 bar of soap for the same price as one jug of natural laundry detergent. I've used the washing soda three times to make this batch and have enough for a fourth if I don't use it at other times as I have already done for a homemade oxy clean I've been trying. If I didn't use it for that, I would get at least 5 batches out of one box of washing soda. My borax box is still 3/4 full after using it for three batches. Combine that with the fact that 1 jug of store bought only lasted me 2-3 weeks, it is a HUGE savings to make my own detergent.

2  Cups - hot tap water
1  Dr. Bronner's bar soap (any scent)
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

Grate bar of soap (I use my food processor) and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. 

After melting the soap into the water.

Fill two 1 gallon buckets and an empty laundry jug half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken. Shake laundry soap jug and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

I filled two 1 gallon pails and 1/2 a 1 gallon pail because the jug I had been using broke yesterday and I haven't gotten a replacement yet.

Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 5 gallons.

I use 2-3 tablespoons of detergent in my front loader depending on how dirty the load. I use 1 tablespoon for my cloth diapers.

Ways to Feed a Family of 5 on $5 a Meal

Below is the handouts I shared when I taught the class on how to feed a family on $5 a meal. Some of this information is elsewhere on this blog, some of it is new. I plan on sharing more recipes in days to come as well as more tips to save money and live a frugal lifestyle.

Ways to Feed a Family on $5 a meal or Less

I bought a chicken for $4.51/5 lbs. I cooked it in the crock pot all day with some potatoes & carrots and seasonings. We ate that for dinner one night as well as some applesauce. Figuring in the price if I had to buy the applesauce, it would have been $9.11 to feed my family of 10.

I put the carcass back in the crock pot with water and figured out how much for the carrots, onion, garlic, and celery that I added after taking the meat of the bones as well as the rice for chicken and rice soup and came up with only $1.60 (because I've already counted the chicken carcass).

I then figured out two options for the leftover meat--chicken tetrazinni and green beans (frozen) or chicken and dumpling casserole. Option one will add up to $4.33 and option two will add to $3.75.

All the figuring is buying hormone free chicken, farm fresh eggs, spelt flour, organic carrots, onions, celery, etc. as well as if I had to buy the goat milk. All these figures would go down if people didn't care about "organic" or "natural".

After figuring that all meals will feed 10 people, option 1 works out to 50 cents per person per meal and option 2 works out to 48 cents per person per meal ($5.01 or $4.82 average per meal). This is feeding a family of 10 on $5 a meal!

Chicken & Dumpling Casserole

1/2 cup chopped carrot           1/2 cup chopped onion              2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup chopped celery          1/4 cup butter                              1/2 cup flour

2 tsp sugar (optional)              1 tsp salt                                       1 tsp basil

1/2 tsp pepper                         4 cups chicken broth                   4 cups cooked chicken

2 cups flour                              1 1/2 tsp baking powder             1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp. basil                               2/3 cup milk

Sauté onion, carrot, celery and garlic in butter until tender. Add flour, sugar, salt, basil and pepper. Add broth. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 1 minute. Reduce heat. Cook for 5 minutes. Add chicken. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. For dumplings, combine flour, baking powder, salt & basil in a bowl. Stir in milk until moistened. Drop onto casserole. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover and bake for 10 minutes more. serves 6-8

Chicken Tetrazzini

4 eggs                                       4 cups flour                 1 lb cooked, cubed chicken

1 tbsp poultry seasoning         4 tbsp butter                ½ onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced             3 tbsp flour                   3 cups broth

1 cup milk                               ¼ tsp nutmeg                 1 tbsp parsley

Whisk eggs. Stir in flour. Roll out on counter and cut into strips. Cook in boiling water. While noodles are cooking, sauté onion and garlic in butter. Sprinkle with the flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in stock and milk. Add turkey, poultry seasoning and nutmeg. Drain noodles. Combine noodles and turkey mixture together. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.

Black Bean Soup

1 bag dry black beans             2 ½ quarts water                        1 jar salsa

1 tsp salt                                   2 tbsp lemon or lime juice         1 tbsp parsley or cilantro

Put dry black beans and water in a slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 hours. Stir in salsa. Use a hand blender to blend soup (if you don’t have a hand blender, cool soup and blend in batches in a regular blender and then reheat or just mash beans with a potato masher). Stir in salt, lemon juice, and parsley. Serve with tortilla chips. Sour cream and shredded cheese are optional.

Carmel Apple Breakfast Casserole

12 eggs                         2 cups milk                                                2 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg                8 med or 6 large apples, peeled and diced       ½ cup butter     

½ cup brown sugar       2 tsp cinnamon                                        12 slices of bread, torn

Whisk eggs, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Peel and dice apples. Combine melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Toss with apples. In greased 9x13 pan, tear 6 slices of bread. Then add a layer of the diced caramel apples. Tear remaining bread as next layer then put remaining apples. Pour egg/milk mixture into the baking dish. Cover with foil and let stand in refrigerator for at least an hour (overnight ideally). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake another 15-20 minutes or until eggs have cooked through.

Hamburger Rice-a-Roni

1 lb ground beef                       1 medium onion, chopped             1 cup rice

8 oz spaghetti, broken             4 tbsp butter or olive oil                  4 cups broth

Brown beef and onion in a large skillet. Drain. Brown rice and spaghetti in butter. Add in beef, onion, and broth. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until rice and spaghetti are fully cooked. Season with salt & pepper. Optional: add frozen peas or peas and carrots before simmering.

Pancake Syrup

4 cups sugar                  2 cups water                     2 tsp maple extract

Bring water and sugar to a boil, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken—approximately 4 minutes. Add flavoring as it cools. Store in refrigerator. Makes approximately 1 quart.

Homemade Biscuit Mix

9 cups flour                 ¼ cup baking powder                1 1/2 tbsp salt               2 cups shortening

Combine all ingredients well. Store in a sealed container. Use as you would any biscuit mix.

 

 

Crockpot Spanish Rice

1 lb ground beef              3 cups rice                              1-28 oz can crushed tomatoes & water

1 small onion, diced       2 tbsp Italian seasonings       2 cloves garlic, chopped

Brown meat with onions, garlic & seasoning. Mix meat mixture, rice, tomatoes & water (fill can with water) in crock. Cook on low for 2-4 hours. Serve with shredded cheese if desired.

Taco Style Lentils & Rice

½ bag lentils                           1 ¼ cups brown rice           6 cups water

3-4 tbsp beef broth powder      2 tbsp chili powder         1 ½ tsp cumin

3 tsp onion powder                 ¾ tsp garlic powder

Mix all. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover & simmer for 45-50 minutes. That water should be mostly absorbed. Serve topped with cheese or as a burrito filling.

Websites for low cost meals:

www.livingonadime.com

www.tightwad.com

www.hillbillyhousewife.com

www.5dollardinners.com

 

 Money Saving Tips

Purchase whole chickens (or turkeys) when they are on sale. Cook two (or more) at the same time to save on energy costs. Eat some of the chicken that night for dinner. Shred remaining chicken and use to make freezer meals or put into quart freezer bags and keep to use later when you want to make a casserole, soup or other recipe. Put the carcass in water and cook some more to get all little bits of meat off the bones. Use that water/broth and chicken to make a soup.

When making one meal that doubles easily (and will freeze nicely), make two at one time and freeze one. Then on a night that you just don’t feel like cooking, instead of getting a pizza or going to a restaurant, heat up your home-cooked meal!

Shop the sales! Look at the sale advertisements and only buy what is on sale. Plan your weekly menu around what you can buy on sale. If the price is really good and you have the extra money, then stock up. Buy to stock your freezer/pantry. Always keep one extra on hand. When you need to get that out, then you put it on your list and you have a little while to watch for a sale.

Eat what is in season. If you have a garden, you have a great supply without having to spend money weekly. Even if you don’t have a garden, in season fruits and vegetables are a lot cheaper.

Buy in bulk, but make sure you check price per unit. Shop around to find the best prices. It may be a lot cheaper to buy from local farmers and you can bet foods are fresher, and probably have less pesticides than food from big farms.

Make your own pancake syrup. If you use regular sugar, it costs about 11 cents for a bottle compared to about $1.79 to buy it. If you use organic sugar, then it will cost more (probably equivalent to store bought regular sugar), but it will be organic. Also, you don’t have to worry about running out to the store just because you ran out so you’ll save gas money too!

Get creative with what you have in the house! Don’t run to the store just because you need one or two items for a recipe. You will end up spending more than you planned. Start throwing stuff together and see what you get!

Buy cheap and preserve. When things are in season or on sale for a really good price, then buy lots and preserve it either through freezing, canning, or dehydrating. Even if you only have the freezer on top of your refrigerator, you can still freeze lots if you freeze in ziplock bags laid flat.

Hunt or, better yet, find someone to hunt for you! You can save even more money if you process the deer, turkey, etc. yourself.

Switch to whole grains. It might seem like it costs more, but it won’t. Whole grains fill you up so you won’t need to eat as much and what you do eat will be used more efficiently by your body. My family cut our pasta consumption in ½ by switching to whole grain pasta.

Health Tips

Don’t use canned cream soups as they are full of sodium and preservatives. Instead, make quick pan gravy to use in their place. Melt a couple tbsp. of butter, whisk in a couple tbsp. of flour. Cook for no more than one minute. Then whisk in a couple cups of broth. You can use a combination of broth and milk for creamier gravy. You can then add whatever spices you would like. To make more gravy, use more of each ingredient. It would only cost about 25 cents.

Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are better for us. Some people have been cured of cancer by going to an all raw fruit and vegetable diet (you can search the Internet to find stories. I am not professing to give actual medical advice.)

Honey—gels that contain honey are being used to treat drug resistant strains of MRSA and diabetic ulcers; honey is a poor environment for growth of microorganisms and bacteria;

it is being proven that antioxidants in honey reduce damage done to the colon in colitis; honey is great for sore throats and coughs—mix it with lemon juice, consume slowly and it will coat the throat which lessons discomfort as well as heals because of the antibacterial and antiseptic qualities of honey; honey may also reduce odors, swelling, and scarring; honey prevents a bandage from sticking to a wound; it has been shown to effectively treat conjunctivitis in rats; honey is sometimes used to alleviate allergies (if local honey is used)

Make your own mixes to control ingredients and tailor to your needs. By making your own pancake mix you can use whatever flour you need and control the salt. By making your own turkey sausage, you are leaving out the preservatives.

Most Americans don’t eat enough vegetables. When a casserole recipe calls for one vegetable, either double the amount you put in or add another. Not only will you increase your vegetable intake, you will stretch the meal!

Make sure you get your daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are full of fiber, vitamins, and nutrients. Add a salad to your meal. Use fruit in your meal. Whatever you need to do to up your intake, try to do it and your body will thank you!

Eat food that isn’t genetically modified (or at least as the closest you can get it to not being genetically modified) or with added hormones or antibiotics. Whatever is in the food is going to go into your system and could have dire consequences after years of build-up or even after one time. You can easily replace venison for beef in your recipes.

Use real butter or other healthy oils. It may be a major controversy of margarine vs. butter, but butter is closer to natural. Margarine may be a lot cheaper, but is your health (and the health of your family) worth it? The thing that sealed the deal for me is that cockroaches won’t even eat margarine! That tells you how bad it is. To make using butter even better, use unsalted butter. Coconut oil is also a great alternative to melted butter or shortening. Olive oil (extra virgin olive oil is best) is great not only for you, but helps with dry skin and makes your hair shiny.

Feeding a Family on a Tight Budget

I was asked by Love, INC (In the Name of Christ) to teach a 6 week class on feeding a family on a budget. Since it would run through mid-May, I had to decline. They found someone else, but she couldn't do the first class so I accepted to teach one class. As I've been thinking about what I would share, I thought that sharing how to stretch a chicken would be a good idea.

I bought a chicken last week for $4.51/5 lbs. I cooked it in the crock pot all day with some potatoes & carrots and seasonings. We ate that for dinner tonight as well as some applesauce. Figuring in the price if I had to buy the applesauce,... it would have been $9.11 to feed my family of 10 tonight.

I have put the carcass back in the crock pot with water and figured out how much for the carrots, onion, garlic, and celery that I'll add tomorrow after taking the meat of the bones as well as the rice for chicken and rice soup and came up with only $1.60 (because I've already counted the chicken carcass).

I then figured out two options for the leftover meat--chicken tetrazinni and green beans or chicken and dumpling casserole. Option one will add up to $4.33 and option two will add to $3.75.

All the figuring is buying hormone free chicken, farm fresh eggs, spelt flour, organic carrots, onions, celery, etc. as well as if I had to buy the goat milk. All these figures would go down if people didn't care about "organic" or "natural".

After figuring that all meals will feed 10 people, option 1 works out to 50 cents per person per meal and option 2 works out to 48 cents per person per meal. I have a feeling that people are going to be surprised they can feed their family on so little. I was asked to show how to feed a family of 5 for $5 a meal. This is feeding a family of 10 on $5 a meal!

I figured it might be helpful to those who follow my blog to also see what I come up with. This was my first "test" at what to present and I plan on making lots of handouts with other cheaper meals as well. If you have any ideas/suggestions for this class, I would love to hear them. I will be teaching the class on March 14th.