Some Just Don't Get It

People are all about "saving money", you've got Clark Howard on TV and all sorts of folks in all sorts of ways repeating the same old "here's how to save money!" garbage from 10, 20, even 50 years before, recycled from books they've read and magazine stories they've ingested from the supermarket checkout counters.

Coupons? Worthless pieces of paper. I remember the "Coupon Lady" who spent hours salvaging coupons from magazines, newspapers, mailouts, etc. She was touted as "saving" hundreds of dollars a year. Here's a hint, genius - when you spend money on newspapers and magazines to get the coupons, you aren't saving a damned thing. When you buy the overpriced name brands with a 15 cent off coupon for 30 cents more than the store brand, you are wasting 15 cents a can/package. Store brands come from the same places as name brand products - they just have different labels.

Buy in bulk, carve out a closet space with shelves, and rotate your purchases so that the cans you bought 3 years ago don't explode, and you'll save money - especially since prices are inching up weekly. Better yet, buy another freezer and start buying the BIG cans and bags and freezing portions; or learn to can, and buy farmer's market produce and can it yourself. A dented can that is not leaking can be bought at warehouse and big box sales; buy them. If you are uncomfortable with particularly deep dents, open the cans and freeze or recan them.

Many of the 'cheap' imported produce "specials" have rotted or green produce in the mix - not to mention that anything grown outside of the US isn't regulated as to fertilizer and pesticides. That poor Brazilian is just as likely to use human feces to fertilize or American-banned DDT to de-bug his produce as you are to drop by the Home Depot and pick up a can of bug spray on your way out.

Meat is a common staple where I live now; I can buy 1/4 of a grassfed free-range cow and have it cut to order - 300 lbs of beef for $400. That includes everything from ribs to ribeyes, burger to brisket. There are still meat processors in every major town, though, and they usually have good deals on bulk meat purchases, and will cut/grind it for you too. My cow in the freezer shares space with the remnants of last year's deer hunt of 2 big 60-lb-after-butchering mulies, and until recently the carcasses of several hunted turkeys. (I LOOVE turkey and it doesn't last long at my house). If you can't or don't hunt, most hunters only want the cape and head of the deer, if you ask them for the meat they will often give it to you.

Learn how to do things. Learn how to bake bread - and buy 50 lb bags of flour instead of the 5 or 10 lb sacks. You'd be surprised how much cheaper it is than buying 1-3 loaves of bread once or twice a week at the store - and it is better for you; no preservatives and you can put in REAL whole wheat flour, make French baguette bread for garlic bread, etc. Learn how to make pasta - pasta is soooo simple; one egg, a cup of flour, a dash of salt, a little water and a sharp knife and a rolling pin, and you can make a bunch of pasta, enough for 2 meals for 4-6 people. Better yet, you can add spices and flavorings and make everything from garlic/basil pasta to almond-flavored dessert pasta. Once you really get into it, a Kitchen-Aid mixer with attachments will make ravioli, lasagna, and all types of pasta shapes easily. Another thing I use my Kitchen-Aid mixer for is not just kneading bread but (with other attachments) grinding meat into hamburger, slicing it for jerky, juicing fruit, and even finely grinding fruit for rollups and other desserts. Yes I can do all these things by hand - but since I buy in bulk and make things in bulk, the Kitchen-Aid makes the process faster and more uniform. Learn how to grow vegies, and learn how to treat them so that they are bigger and better than last year. Raspberries will keep those bratty kids down the block out of your yard. Fruit trees are not only decorative, but will produce for years - as long as you can keep said brats down the street away from them.

The 4 must-have implements in my kitchen for bulk buying and processing are: A BIG pressure-cooker canner (to water-bath low acid fruits and vegies is dangerous, and you can even can meats, soups, and whole dinners under pressure!), a dehydrator (sundried tomatoes without the flies, dehydrated onions, dehydrated cabbage for soups and stews, banana chips for snacking or preservation - the opportunities are endless), my trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer - or you can use a blender, a grinder/chopper, and/or a knife - and a freezer. I have two of the latter - a big standup that we use for 'now' stuff like the homemade bread, butter (bought in bulk) milk, opened bags of vegies that we are using, etc. The big chest freezer in the basement is for the big meats and big veggie and fruit bags.

Don't tell me, "ooh, that's a lot of work!" or "I don't have TIME" or "I have KIDS!" - I have been doing this for 40 years. Yes, 40 years, usually holding down 2 jobs; and my kids not only learned how to cook but how to shuck corn, how to can, how to dehydrate, how to garden, how to do every and anything for themselves - and they learned how to butcher and process chickens and larger meat as well. Clark Howard and the Coupon Lady be damned - they don't have a CLUE how to save real money over time. Let them natter on about credit cards and things that most people don't have or can't afford any more - it's time to get back to basics. The basics I've lived for 40 years, through good times and bad.