I'm fed up with all the articles that suggest how to trim your expenses to save money. They suggest:

I cook meats from scratch. In fact, the Internet and my best friend Inviat are my favorite cooking sources. I haven't had a T.V. dinner or a pot pie in years; they're too expensive compared to the meals I can serve with a pot roast.

I don't drink coffee, much less latte or cappuchino or other specialty coffee at a coffee house. My tea is cheap Lipton teabags.
I might allow myself to spend the outrageous price of $0.50 for a colored, flavored, sparkling sugar water (read: Coke), but I am more likely to come home with a gallon of milk or a gallon of orange juice than a gallon of empty calories. You can't cook much with a Coke. (but why gild the lily?)

I do have a splurge once in a blue moon: I will get a chocolate-dipped waffle cone of gourmet toffee chip ice cream from Graeter's, but for almost the same price, I can get a gallon of cheap chocolate chip ice cream that will last about 2 weeks--and it is fine with me, too.

I don't eat candy bars, chips, and junk food about 90% of the time.
The junk food I eat is mostly stuff I make myself, like cookies, Bundt cakes (with the real cake flour, Swan's Down), brownies, Rice Crispy Treats (with the cheaper of either Rice Crispies or the store brand), cheese straws, sausage and cheese balls, and other baked goodies. Some of my favorite goodies are traditional peasant food: Yorkshire pudding, for one. French toast, pancakes, waffles, and more. And with the same ingredients you use for pancakes and waffles, you can make a very tasty funnel cake for less than a dollar that is just like the $4-$5 one at the Kentucky State Fair. Just add powdered sugar and your favorite gooey topping.

When I have to buy a fist full of parsley for a few sprigs in my recipe, I dry the rest and crumble it up in a glass jar I have saved from pickles

I don't eat out unless someone offers to take me out.
No McDonald's, no La Bamba (Burritos as big as your head), no sushi bar, no Empress of China, no Papa John's pizza. (However, many fast-food dollar menus have a bit of appeal to me: I could splurge on one item every now and again.)

I don't go to movie theaters--matinees cost more now than I paid for for a premium movie when I was a teen. As for renting, that's expensive, too. I am very picky about what I get, and what I get better be worth watching over and over again. I do get the genuine article as much as I can, because I believe that those who made the movies really deserve to get the money they've rightfully earned. This is why I'm so picky.

I haven't gotten the paper in years.
I don't have cable T.V. on my T.V. set.
I live on store brands and generics.

I have one exception to store brands and generics: there are a few items in which brand does make a difference:

and there have been others. However, for the most part, I will pick up the store brand if it's cheaper.

Buying in bulk. Hmmm...

Living like a peasant takes ingenuity and practice. The best way to do it is to get a few staple ingredients, and see how many different dishes you can make with them.

One site I think is fun is Cooking By Numbers. Sometimes we have the weirdest combinations of foods in our pantry and fridge. Eggs, onions, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, shredded cheese and the like. When we're down to it, we really have to be creative. Cooking By Numbers is a search engine where you check off the ingredients you have, and it will give you a list of recipes to choose from, and it will indicate how many of the ingredients you have for them.

That is only one of many good sites where you can search for recipes. I also avoid recipes that use fifteen different herbs and spices that are unique to that recipe. The ingredients I get must do double and triple duty, and more than that.

I recommend that you find 101 + ways to eat a potato. You'd be surprised how you can do it!

If you have  a food you absolutely hate but feel like you can't waste, the Internet can point you to a recipe that can hide the taste.  Inviat has done that with eggplant (or aubergine), and I have done that with Swiss chard and black-eyed peas. The only way I will eat butter beans and lima beans is to have them in 15-bean soup. And I always have ketchup near my bowl of beans.

I have found ways to disguise diet cola (put lime juice in it), black-eyed peas (make bean burgers out of them), and chard (put it in egg foo young).


Really, the way I found out I can actually put some money back was when I was forced to pay a lot of money in a little time with dire financial consequences if I didn't. Once the expense was paid off, I realized I could take that amount of money out of my account each month and still survive. If you want to find out how little you can live off of, that's one good (but hard!) way to find out.

Another way is to say, "Hm. How many meals can I make on twenty dollars this week?" (Most times I can get under $30 per week.)

Make no mistake: you will have to make trade-offs: the family pack of pork chops that you wrap individually for the freezer that serve as eight meals, or one flat-iron steak that might make 2 or 3 meals? Red, yellow, or russett potatoes? Fried chicken or yorkshire pudding? 3 lbs of onions in a bag for $4 or 1.5 lb loose onions at $1.69 per lb.? Do you really need that jar of pickled weenies?

This is what peasants must do.