Category Archives: Cheap Eats

Mar 15 2 comments
Cheap Eats

Fast and Easy - Naan Bread Pizza

Naan bread pizza.  Personal sized pizzas that are affordable and easy to make and way better than ordering in!

Ingredients:

Naan Bread $3.18 for four

Pizza Sauce (can) $1.18

Ball of Mozzarella $5.56

Other toppings: We chose a green bell pepper and some mushrooms totaling around $4 but you can choose whatever toppings you want

Total cost for this whole recipe approx. $14

Makes 4 big personal pizzas

* Prices quoted are those displayed at the Real Canadian SuperStore in March 2010 (all in CDN dollars)

1. Spread pizza sauce on naan bread.

2. Shred mozzarella, and sprinkle on naan.  Chop pepper and mushrooms and place on naan.

3. Put pizzas on baking sheet and bake in 400 degree oven until cheese gets melty and bubbly.

Bon appetite.

Craving more Cheap Food Recipes?  Visit the Cheap Eats section of this website for more tasty meals.

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Jan 14 0 comments
Cheap Eats, Resources

FOOD INC

If you haven’t seen the film “Food Inc” yet, I suggest you go and see it.  It will outline the true cost of the foods you buy and consume on a daily basis.  It has been said by the author of book entitled “The Value of Nothing” that a fast food burger actually costs $200 USD if you factor in the damage it does to the environment as well as the impact that burger has on your health.  Food Inc outlines how and why organics and healthy food is priced way higher than fast food, chips and chemically altered foods.  And more importantly, the film gives suggestions on what we can do about it.

Other films of a similar topic include “King Corn” and “The Future of Food”.  These as well as Food Inc can probably be found at your local library (if they lend out DVDs) or at some video stores.

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Nov 01 0 comments
Cheap Eats, Money Stories, Money and Relationships, Saving Tips

A Bottle of Spaghetti Sauce

Last night my partner made dinner; spaghetti and meatballs. He used a bottle of Ragu Pasta sauce and added chopped green peppers, mushrooms and meatballs. But he also added water. It would have been an awesome meal except for the added water in the sauce. Instead of a lovely sauce that stuck to your noodles, the sauce instead was an almost tasteless soup that collected at the bottom of our plates.

When I asked my partner about it, he said he added the water because some of the thick sauce stuck to the bottom of the bottle and it was hard to get it out. The water made it soupy enough to get out. I was upset. The meal wasn’t appetizing so I felt we wasted money while trying to save a few pennies by getting the most sauce he could from the bottle.

Moral of the story? I guess my partner and I learned it’s not worth trying to save a few pennies at the risk of ruining a good deal (or meal in this case). This initial story might sound just a little bit silly but it reminds me of another. My relatives had an after-school tutor for their child to help her with Math. This tutor was wonderful, the kid liked him and her grades were improving, he got along with the parents and he came at a reasonable price. However, he was always 10 minutes late. Even when the family suggested that they bump the session times a bit later in the day, he still came 10 minutes late. After a few months, the parents fired him. They were not able to find another tutor that was as effective after that. They lost their good deal.

So, another moral might be, don’t be TOO anal about savings or getting your money’s worth. It might just bite you in the a$$.

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Oct 04 1 comments
Cheap Eats

Is Fast Food More Affordable Than Healthy Food?

McDonald’s, Arby’s, Jack in The Box and other fast food joints have some good deals.  $1.35 for a burger here, $6 for any four items on the menu there, super size your order for just 19 cents more…  Definitely way easier on your wallet than eating a $12-15 salad at a sit down restaurant.  Or is it?

What if we take a look at this from a different perspective?  What if we take into account the fact that fast food is a little less healthy than a salad or a slow-cooked meal; that it tends to make people who eat it regularly a little tubbier?  What about the fact that the fast food is severely processed and loaded with chemicals that does who-knows-what to your body?  This can result in either bigger doctor’s bills, lost days at work from a unhealthy diet, or if you’re concerned about your weight  and looks, payment to go on a crazy diet or for a membership at some fitness club to lose those pounds you packed on.  And not to mention the cash you may shell out on a new wardrobe because you can’t fit into your old clothes anymore.

So, is Fast Food really more affordable?  I think not.

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Sep 22 0 comments
Cheap Eats, Saving Tips

The Price of Being Lazy

Recently we had a our regular once-a-month poker game at my partner’s best friend’s house.  The poker group decided we wanted to have dinner together too and so it turned into a potluck event as well.  I think potlucks are a great money-saving idea (see Potluck), but this night it didn’t turn out so economical for me and my partner.

It was my boyfriend’s night to cook and so it was he who would be in charge of our contribution to the potluck - the salad.  He was feeling a bit lazy and decided to buy a ready-made salad at the local supermarket near his best friend’s house.  Never having bought a ready-made salad at the supermarket myself, I thought, it’s mostly just a bunch of veggies, how much could it cost to buy enough for 6 people?  The answer is: $30 CAD!  Ouch.

I was very angry at my partner for: 1. being too lazy to make his own salad, 2. being too lazy to estimate how much the ready made salad would cost before ordering it (the cost was determined by weight), 3. being too lazy to change his mind and just buy salad kit to assemble at the his friend’s house.  Needless to say, next time we buy anything by weight, I’m bringing a calculator.

We were lucky in that this was just a salad and were out only $30.  Imagine if you were too lazy to do your due diligence before buying a house?  If you did not do market research before starting up a business (as I understand it many start-up business owners do not - yikes)?  How about investing $20,000 on a stock tip your cab driver gave you without checking it out first?  Lazy can cost you!

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Sep 17 0 comments
Cheap Eats, Saving Tips

Pack a Lunch

When I first started working, I would buy my lunches.  Then I realized that $5 a day on lunch would add up to roughly $100 a month.  I was only earning $8 per hour then and after taxes, paying rent, sending my kid to daycare and shelling out cash for other monthly expenses, I really couldn’t afford to eat out, even if eating out meant eating at a fast food food joint or buying a soggy sandwich at the office cafeteria (yuck).

Needless to say, I started including bread and sandwich meats to my grocery list and started bringing sandwiches for lunch.  Then I found that if I cooked a bit more for dinner, I could bring the leftovers the next day to work.  I liked those a bit better than a cold sandwich.  Today I earn more than $8 per hour but I still believe that buying lunch daily is an extravagance.  Most offices now have refrigerators and microwave ovens so why not use them?

Got a sweet tooth?  Or do you like to snack on junk food from the vending machine?  Like your coffee in the afternoons?  You can bring all these with you, too.  Just like buying a lunch daily, these items, even if they cost only around a buck each, add up to roughly $60-70 per month.  So, buy your candy and chips in bulk if you can and include them in your lunch kit.  Bring our coffee in a thermos or if you have access to a coffee pot at work, use it!

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Sep 03 0 comments
Cheap Eats, Organize, Saving Tips

Spoiled Food, Wasted Money

Do you find that you regularly find spoiled food in your fridge and have to throw it out?  Spoiled leftovers, rotten veggies, mouldy cheese?  It’s either your fridge isn’t doing its job or you’re buying too much food.  Either way, that’s money down the drain. If you determine your fridge is fine, you’re gonna have to change your eating or shopping habits.  Whether you do your groceries regularly or order in frequently, you’re not consuming what you are buying.

A few things to try that may save you some cash and some time from cleaning out the ice box:

1. Bag a lunch.  Bring your leftovers from last night’s dinner to work.

2. Buy less veggies more often.  If you do your groceries once a week like I do, instead of buying all your veggies at once, buy half the veggies during your regular grocery day and the other half at some other day later that week.

3. Plan a Menu.  Do you know what you’ll be cooking before shopping?  Best to plan a menu for a few days and list all the ingredients you’ll need before shopping to avoid buying unneeded items.

4. Know roughly how much you or your family consumes.  I’m not suggesting measuring each and every serving, but if at all possible, know how much your partner puts on her plate or how much little Johnny loves his peas.  That will give you an idea about how many servings of a dish to cook.

5. Check your fridge’s contents and Pantry’s inventory regularly.  If you know what is in there, you’ll likely consume it before it spoils.

Looking for more tips to save some cash?  Then be sure to visit the Saving Tips section of this website.  Craving Cheap Food Recipes?  Visit the Cheap Eats section of this website for some tasty meals.  For more organizing tips and stories, visit the Organizing section of this website.

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Aug 23 4 comments
Cheap Eats, Money Stories, Money and Relationships

The Price of Being TOO Cheap

I know this blog is all for saving money, but sometimes one can be too cheap.  And when one is too cheap, she, or her boyfriend, often pays a high price for being so later on as the story below illustrates…

True story, I almost killed my boyfriend once.

This happened when I was around eight months pregnant with my now 17 year-old kid.  I was not the most pleasant pregnant lady.  In fact, I was a raging bee-atch most of the time.  Aside from the worry that I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep the baby, the hormones were making me cranky, and honestly, very stupid.  Sometimes my sense of judgement was waaay off, making me paranoid and irritable.  My boyfriend at the time was very supportive and patient.  He would shower me with gifts and drive around the city just to get me the food I wanted and despite all this, I wasn’t very nice to him.

One day, a couple of girlfriends witnessed me being mean to him.  ”You are very lucky to have this man.  He’s so good to you, why don’t you treat him better?” they said.  This opened my eyes.  I resolved to be nicer and decided to make him a home-cooked dinner.  But I didn’t know how to cook.  All I knew to do at this time in my life was microwave TV dinners.  I found an old recipe book and decided I could make grilled chicken and fried rice.  I started cooking.  No surprise that the dishes didn’t turn out well.  The rice was both mushy and crunchy and the chicken did not look like chicken.  ”I can’t throw this out, I spent all this time and money on it, it would be a waste,” I thought, so I served it to my boyfriend anyway.

Upon seeing the catastrophe that I brought to the dining table, my boyfriend said, “Ummm, I don’t think this fish is quite cooked, honey.”  ”So you don’t want to eat what I slaved all day making for you?  Here I am being so nice and you won’t eat my food!?!” said I.  ”Well, why don’t you have some first?”, he said.  ”Excuse me?  This is YOUR food, I can’t eat it!”  Anyway, I MADE him eat it and the next day, all day, he was in bed very sick.  Oops.

So, moral of the story?  Don’t ever eat bad food or feed it to someone else just because it would be wasteful to get rid of it.  And be nice to your boyfriends all the time.

Want more real-life Money and Life Experiences?  Visit the Money Stories section of this website.  Or how about reading on how money affects our relationships?  Read the Money and Relationships section.  Craving Cheap Food Recipes?  Visit the Cheap Eats section of this website for some tasty meals.

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Jul 19 3 comments
Cheap Eats, Money and Relationships, Organize, Saving Tips

POTLUCK

My friends are having a barbeque tonight. Instead of buying all the food themselves, they have asked each of the invited guests to bring a dish to share  and to bring their own booze.  It’s a great way to make sure there is enough food for everyone and that each guest likes to eat and enjoys at least one dish (the one that they brought, most likely).

I find potlucks are a great idea and an awesome money-saving trick for a party or get-together since both guests and hosts tend to spend too much at a conventional gathering: hosts spend a wad of cash on the food and drinks and the guests spend to bring a gift for the host (like wine or flowers).  With a potluck everyone contributes and takes the money pressure off, especially for the host.

Want to throw a party but are on a tight budget?  A potluck might be the perfect answer for you.  I’d go a step further…  Find out if your guests have allergies or diet needs/food restrictions then try to accommodate these by planning a menu with everyone invited.  Ask each guest to commit to a dish with the appropriate ingredients for everyone. This will also ensure the party won’t have 3 macaroni salads and 10 desserts and too little entrees.

Looking for more tips to save some cash?  Then be sure to visit the Saving Tips section of this website.  Craving Cheap Food Recipes?  Visit the Cheap Eats section of this website for some tasty meals.  For more organizing tips and stories, visit the Organizing section of this website.  Or how about reading on how money affects our relationships?  Read the Money and Relationships section.

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Jul 05 1 comments
Cheap Eats

Cheap Eats: Lemon Chicken

Here’s a very simple and tasty chicken recipe.  Best prepared overnight so plan ahead!

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts approx. $12

Onion $0.62

1 lemon $0.48

Spices like Rosemary, Thyme or Basil

Salt and pepper

Total cost for this whole recipe approx. $14

Makes 3-4 servings

* Prices quoted are those displayed at the Real Canadian SuperStore in June 2009 (all in CDN dollars)

1. Chop Onion and quarter lemon.

2. Place chicken into a large ziplock bag.  Add the onion and squeeze lemon juice into the ziplock bag.  Throw the lemon slices into the bag as well.

3. Sprinkle the spices into the bag with some salt and pepper.

4. Close bag and shake until all ingredients are mixed well.  Place in fridge overnight or for a minimum of two hours.

5. Pour chicken and marinate into a pan and bake at 425 degrees for around 20 minutes.

6. Serve with rice or potatoes.

Yummy!

Craving more Cheap Food Recipes?  Visit the Cheap Eats section of this website for more tasty meals.

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