Can I buy a month's worth of groceries for $211?

[Pariah]

I am starting a new position at work on October 1st that comes with a good raise in pay. Until then, I have $211 in food stamps and my pitiful pay gets used up on bills and essentials before it even hits my bank account. I printed a handful of coupons at work but I can't print anymore. I have the sales fliers for the local stores and marked items that are on sale that we use. I cook just about everything from scratch already. I know the first thing to do is to cut out any frozen convenience type foods...not that we get much anyway, but my boyfriend likes a little here and there.

Some info...

~ There are four of us...two adults, my 17 year old sister, and our four year old son.
~ We don't eat much meat at all. When we do, it is seafood, or very occasionally chicken.
~ I can make our bread.
~ I buy generic/store brand whenever possible.
~ We have most baking/cooking staples on hand...a decent amount of herbs/spices, lots of WW flour, white flour, sugar, brown sugar, couple 1 pound bags of chickpeas, brown rice, a lot of oatmeal...basics like that.
~ I would love to cook a lot on the weekends and freeze some meals and things like muffins, breads, etc. I would like to continue to do this even when we have more money because I work outside of the house and I'm in school part time. Baked macaroni and cheese was requested this weekend, so I'm going to double or triple it and freeze the rest. Same with baking bread. I know there's at least one freezer meal thread around, so I'm going to look for that. There is a cheap meal thread too that I will try to find.

Is this possible to do? I would like to get produce weekly if possible but I'm not sure how much to set aside for that.

[confustication]

If you like a lot of beans and rice- it may be possible. Also, take a look at what is in your pantry already- sometimes you can shop from your pantry fin a tight month and stock up again when you have a little more cash- for this reason I try to keep a good stockpile around. Also- you may be eligible for help from a local church or food pantry- your situation is EXACTLY why they are there, make use of them if you need to.

I recently read a thread here about making a big batch of rice and a big batch of beans on the weekend to incorporate into meals throughout the week- healthy convenience food. I started doing this and it works SO well for us- it's also very inexpensive. I do about a pound of rice and a pound of beans- soaking the beans Saturday night and cooking both on Sunday so they are ready for meals throughout the week.

[lolar2]

If you do the Hillbilly Housewife-type menus, it is possible, but make sure all the adults are in agreement and aren't going to refuse to eat some of the foods or eat up all the treats or something.

[lolar2]

p.s. Congrats on your upcoming raise!

[Pariah]

Thanks lolar2! I'm really excited about it, not just because of the money...it is a much better position overall.

Yes, we do like beans and rice a lot so that's definitely doable. I forgot about the Hillbilly Housewife, I'll go back to those menus for ideas.

I would feel bad getting food from a pantry when we already get food stamps...but if it is just once, maybe I can donate to them after my raise to make up for what we receive. That would make me feel a bit better about it.

[PatienceAndLove]

Angel Food takes food stamps, and gives a nice amount of food.

[natural_mama89]

I'd say it's definately doable, especially if you have all those staples on hand. If I had what you said you do, I could probably get by with only buying produce and other baking supplies (milk,eggs, butter etc), maybe some cheese. And don't feel guilty about using a food pantry just once because you are tight this month. Like a pp said, thats what it's there for.

[nola79]

If you realllly stretch it, I think so. Especially knowing it's only for one month. I second looking into Angel Food. Congrats on the new job!

[happysmileylady]

Skip the seafood, it tends to be more expensive (unless you leave on/near the coast)

Check out some of these sites-
savingaddiction.com
couponmom.com
couponkatrina.com

They will help you match up the sales fliers with the coupons available and can direct you to other internet sites to print out coupons as well.

If you need more coupons of the same item, try printing from other computers as well-if you can get coworkers to print some for you etc.

This week's coupon inserts are supposed to be really good, there's supposed to be like three seperate inserts. Check with your Dollar Tree and other dollar stores, see if you can get your insert paper (usually Sunday's, sometimes Saturday's) cheaper than regular price. Also, Monday, check back with stores and see if any will let you dig through the leftover papers and take the inserts for free. My dollar tree lets me do this, it's like free money! Then see if you can match your coupons to those sales papers

Produce can be tough-I can easily spend $50 a week on produce...and we will eat it all and then some. There are 2 adults a teen and a 2 year old in my house. Try to bake your snacks rather than using produce for a snack and that should help keep down your produce costs. Also, if you have frozen veggies on sale, get those to use to cook with, that will keep your produce costs down too. A bag of mixed veggies for $1 (or less with coupons) can be used for 2 seperate meals, whereas you can easily use $5 or more in fresh veggies for the same results. And ultimately, the frozen probably is more nutritious anyway as frozen is usually frozen right after picking, fresh might be sitting out for several days...losing nutrients.

Keep your meals and recipes as simple as possible, that can keep costs down also-sprinkle some chicken with poultry seasoning and bake in the oven. That's basically a one ingrediant main dish. Heat up some corn, and you have a 1 ingrediant side dish. Throw some bread in there and there's dinner, used very little of your groceries. You can also do things like breakfast for dinner, or just straight sandwiches even.

[Pariah]

Those are great ideas, thank you!

I went grocery shopping this morning and I've been cooking quite a bit, things for the freezer. I feel better about our meal prospects and also the time this will save me during the week when I'm doing a million things and trying to keep my eyes open past 8pm to get them all done. I feel like I have the next week's major meals covered, and I have other items (yogurt, carrots on sale, etc) to fill in with.

[mnnice]

Other things that could help. Your sister should get free lunch if she attends school.Also look for apples or pears to pick from friends,off freecycle, or in the road ditch are a good source of free produce.

[Ianthe]

You can also see if you can get your 4yo on WIC.. that would save you a bit on your grocery budget, and you would get milk, eggs, fresh veggies, beans, juice, and whole grains like WW bread.

[BetsyS]

We eat a lot of tacos. We'll eat corn or flour, but corn are cheaper (regularly $1 for a pound of tortillas, which is around 36 corn tortillas. I've gotten them recently for $0.79. That makes a lot of tacos. Some things we put in them:

eggs, scrambled with a package of frozen spinach. You can do 4-5 eggs with a pack of frozen spinach (thaw and drain first). Top with 1 T cheese if you have it and hot sauce (not salsa, just hot sauce--cheaper, and you use less). My kids eat it without the hot sauce.

Lentils and rice. http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/tacolentilsrice.htm This is a really easy, cheap recipe that works well for us. I use this like I would hamburger meat taco meat--top with whatever you like. We use whatever we have, but some combo of cheese, onions, salsa, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Potatoes. It's a little starchy, but it's good. Just make home fries, then wrap them in a tortilla with hot sauce. You can add a little sausage if you have it (breakfast sausage or chorizo; you only need about 1/3 lb for a whole thing of home fries to feed 4 people). Potatoes are cheap around here right now, so this is a really cheap meal.

Refried beans. The classic.

Chicken. For this, we like dark meat, so leg quarters. Either grill or bake or boil, take off the bones, then season with a little bit of taco seasoning (I use cumin, chili powder, garlic, salt, and pepper). We like chicken with whole (not refried) beans, but do whatever you like.

Fish sticks. I know, I know, but it's good. We like this with a simple "tartar" sauce made of mayo, lemon or lime juice, and a chopped pickled jalapeno.

Any of these are good with cilantro, onion, nad a squeeze of lime, too, but if you don't have it, they are fine without.

Leftover corn tortillas (we like tacos best with fresh ones) become migas or enchilada casserole (cause I'm lazy on weeknights, and sometimes rolling enchiladas is too tedious, so I just layer it).

[Pariah]

Wow, thanks for all of the suggestions!

My sister just started college (at the same community college I'm going to), so free lunch at school isn't an option.

I don't think I'll qualify for WIC, and probably not even food stamps, after I start the new job on the 1st. On my food stamps information, they won't count my sister as a member of the household, and they're fighting like crazy to count my boyfriend. We were given an award letter back in APRIL that gave us additional FS money and counted him as a part of the household with my son and I, but they haven't actually given us the increase. We've gone back and forth with them since April about why they won't give us the increase that they said we would be give, and we've gotten all sorts of reasons...everything from that it needs to me sorted out in person, to someone saying that they never sent us such letter!

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by Pariah

Wow, thanks for all of the suggestions!

My sister just started college (at the same community college I'm going to), so free lunch at school isn't an option.

based on her age I assumed she was a high school senior

[KatWrangler]

Don't forget lentils. Soup, Chili would be another option to stretch your budget.

Can you pick up a few things at a food pantry?

How are you with coupons? Target has coupons you can print from their website. They are normally Target coupons, so you can stack them with mfg coupons at the store.

[KatWrangler]

Whole chicken. Then shred the meat. Make stock out of the carcass.

[Usually Curious]

Fish sticks. I know, I know, but it's good. We like this with a simple "tartar" sauce made of mayo, lemon or lime juice, and a chopped pickled jalapeno.

We have a large family and to make fish sticks stretch we've started eating fish stick sandwiches. Everyone loves them and we eat about half the fish we used to eat. Throw a slice of cheese on them for more protein.

Confustication, I'm glad your enjoying the healthy convenience food idea!

[PatienceAndLove]

Originally Posted by Pariah

We were given an award letter back in APRIL that gave us additional FS money and counted him as a part of the household with my son and I, but they haven't actually given us the increase. We've gone back and forth with them since April about why they won't give us the increase that they said we would be give, and we've gotten all sorts of reasons...everything from that it needs to me sorted out in person, to someone saying that they never sent us such letter!

Wow!
I went through something similar, and I ended up arriving at the office when they opened, letter in hand- along with bills, birth certificates, and pay stubs.
BF and I were named on all the bills, so they proved we lived at the same address. The birth certs and pay stubs were for identity and income verification.

If your sis has you listed as her residence at the CC, then she is a legal resident of your address, and has to be included in your FS income- especially since she is a minor. There is laws in place that require aid to be given to families with minors. I suggest you take a copy of her residence information from the CC with you when you go to sort out the FS mess. And don't forget her birth cert, and any financial aid award letters (which I am assuming will also have your address listed as her residential address). Also bring along a copy of her tuition bill, as education expenses are included in income/CoL.

[Pariah]

I'm making copies of everything except my sister's stuff right now, actually. I will get that info from my sister tonight and copy that stuff at work tomorrow...thanks for that info!

I'm checking out the Target coupons now...I can only print coupons from one site because I can't download "coupon printers" that most coupon sites require. Hopefully Target won't require any downloads...I can't do that here on my work computer, and I don't have ink at home and can't afford it at the moment.

based on her age I assumed she was a high school senior

Oh yeah, no problem!