Healthy Cheap Food

I was just thinking, this site is becoming more and more relevent as the finacial crisis deepens. Anyway, thats all I have to say.

I came up with a brand new interesting recipe that it is easily made from foods that store well in the kitchen cupboard. It’s a quick and easy to prepare and best of all, it tastes great. It’s called Ramaghetti. It’s instant ramen noodles made into a spaghetti. Trust me, it tastes fabulous, it’s cheap, and it’s easy to make.

Ingredients:
Instant ramen noodles
canned corned beef
1 can of tomato sauce

First boil 6 or 7 packages of instant ramen noodles. The number of noodle packs is up to you. Make sure you don’t put in the seasoning just yet. After the noodles are finished cooking, drain off the excess water and then add the seasoning packets and mix it up. Next add in 1/2 can of corned beef and 1 can of tomato sauce. You’ll want to simmer for your Ramaghetti for a minute or two just so everything gets nice and warm and tasty.

This is very tasty and if you make it up in bulk, you can put it in a lunch for the kids. They’ll love it.

Don’t you just love going to garage sales on the weekend? I just love it. It’s a chance to get some real treasures for cheap prices. So many people just want to toss out their old stuff. Well, it might be old to them, but it’s new to me and my family.

I especially love going out with my mother in law and and sister in law. They are real experts on garage sales and they can spot the duds and the good ones even before we get out of the car. It’s great learning from such garage sale experts.

I am trying to find new ways to cut down on our family’s monthly expenses. It’s tough to find the ways to cut expenses and it seems like I have hit a brick wall lately. Inflation is really hitting the family budget and instead of making cuts, the budget is ballooning.

At least I know other families are experiencing the same thing. I know that we are not alone in this quest to make life even more enjoyable on less money. It’s what Frugal Living and Cheap Healthy Food is all about.

Have you got any ideas to offer?

I am kind of dismayed at the high cost of printer ink lately. It seems like it is just way too expensive. Maybe that’s why I am looking at alternatives. Anything that can save us a few dollars is a good thing…as long as it doesn’t reduce the quality of the printing.

I am impressed with the quality of printing that we are getting from our refilled cartridges. The quality is just as good as the original cartridges when you print black and white. With color, it isn’t quite as good, but it is still very functional.

If you are looking to save money on printer ink cartridges, think about doing your own refills.

I have recently started taking more interest in inexpensive foods and grits is something that really caught my eye. I am not talking about the quick cooking grits you find in the cereal aisle. They are just too expensive. I am talking about the cheaper, more traditional grits.

Grits are ground up corn kernels. They are bit more coarse than cornmeal and they can be eaten in a number of ways. One of the most traditional ways is to cook them up as a porridge. Just put the grits in hot water and boil them for 20 or 30 minutes. You can also cook them up like rice and some people actually eat them as a way to save money over rice.

I like to prepare mine up as a porridge mixed with rice and some eggs. I find it is a cheap and nutritious food for me and my family.

A friend of mine has been having a hard time making ends meet recently. I really feel for her. It’s been a tough year so far for her family and it doesn’t look like it will be getting better anytime soon. It’s even gotten to the point of her family not having enough food to eat.

She finally took my advice to go in and apply for food stamps. Hopefully she will get them very soon. I also suggested that she go to the Food Bank for help, but she has been too shy to do that. Yesterday, I went with her to the food bank for moral support. She was very happy with the food help she got.

I really suggest that if you need help with food, check out your local food bank.

I talked a month or so about storing up food as a good hedge against food inflation. It still is. Food prices are up several percent over the last month and any investment in food storage would have fared better than just about any other investment, just think about it.

Now, is definitely the time to put even more money into your food budget in an effort to save money. Just make sure you buy the foods that you enjoy eating or that you eat on a regular basis. The more you buy, the less you will have to buy later when the cost is higher. You are really only limited by the size of your cupboards, as long as you buy wisely.

I was just thinking about what a neighbor of ours is doing to earn extra money. He has a few paper routes and he and his son deliver newspapers every morning. For a few hours of work every morning, they make several hundred extra dollars a month. It’s not the best sideline, but it does pay the lot rent and utilities here in the trailer park.

Another neighbor donates plasma for extra money. She makes $150 a month just selling her blood. That’s not too bad, between her and her boyfriend, they have enough to pay for their lot rent just from selling plasma.

Still another neighbor is a canner. He goes out every day and he collects recyclable stuff for extra money.

Lots of ways to earn money. What do you do?

My boys just love to eat Mac and Cheese. It’s a cheap food to make up generally, but just the other day I found a way to make up Mac and Cheese more cheaply.

We buy elbow macaroni in bulk. It’s cheap, it stores well and it’s very versatile. I make up my cheap mac and cheese by making up the macaroni noodles and then frying up some beef. I mix the two together and put them in a bowl. At this stage, I add cheese sauce. You can use cheese whiz or whatever. The cheese goes far so the cheese portion of the recipe is in fact the cheapest.

All you need to do is serve it up. Tasty and yummy.