Comments on: America’s Cheapest Family: Chapters 1 – 5

By: tonto

tonto — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:28:39 +0000

You cab save $ this way. My hubbie and I store canned and boxed goods that were on sale/clearance anywhere we have extra space; under the bed. We even added a pantry shelf in our bedroom closet to add more goods in the unused space! By the way, some say you should take that extra time and just work more in those hours spent budgeting/couponing. That may be true for some, but, these tips work for those who may be staying home with their children and they can do this around the time spent caring for them. That saves more money than paying for child care just to go to work(work expenses: child care, gas, clothing, lunches, etc.). I think this book works for those who don’t mind the extra time it takes to save some cash.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:42:50 +0000

Buy cheese on sale, grate it in a food processor, throw it in a ziplock back, freeze it. If you don’t mind a little extra work, you can freeze it on a cookie sheet before bagging it, which keeps it a little looser, but I don’t bother. It is fine for pretty much anything that calls for grated cheese (pizza, adding to sauces, etc). I don’t care for frozen cheese if I plan on slicing it up to eat — it gets all crumbly. But I love having bags of grated cheese ready to use, and I love taking advantage of when my preferred brand goes on sale.

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:01:19 +0000

I probably spend close to $700/month for groceries for our family of 6 (and baby). I do the majority of our shopping at Costco and supplement with grocery trips for produce and milk and misc. items that come up. I never used to watch what we spent and was very wasteful. This is all new to me and I am loving it! I am finding that buying in bulk and cooking from scratach and freezing a lot makes a huge difference. I’ve never frozen milk before, I’ll have to look into that!

By: Tristan

Tristan — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 04:26:39 +0000

$709 a month on groceries? OMG I raised three children and never spent anywhere near that. That’s crazy.

Alison, you can get perfectly healthy food for not much money. You shop sales, buy bulk and eat less meat. Veggies don’t cost that much. I buy, freeze and eat real cheese too.

By: Alison

Alison — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:54:01 +0000

It looks like a fraud. They don’t live on $35,000/yr. That was their income in 1985. With a NY Times Best Seller, the royalties alone are probably more than $35,000/yr.

Spending hours of time cutting coupons saves $1700 a year according to Trent, but if you simply got a better job, spent your time organizing for better pay, or worked a few extra hours you could make another $1700 in less than a year.

And after all that time and effort, the food you have to buy is disgusting. Out of date meat, bread with high fructose corn syrup and transfats, processed cheesefood rather than cheese. I tried freezing real cheese and it makes it almost inedible.

I’ll stick with my $700/month grocery bill.

By: barbara

barbara — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 16:19:44 +0000

Buying groceries once a month is nice if you have the room. Instead, never shop when you are hungry, always make a list, plan your meals on the sales ads for the stores closest to you and use coupons. By the way; none of this is new information.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:18:29 +0000

I myself can’t get into planning a month of meals or going to the store once a month. But our family of 5 averages $750-800 per month in groceries. I shop at several stores at different times of the month to get the bargains. Walmart has great prices. And discount food stores if you watch the dates are great bargains too. I also will travel to Lancaster, PA to get great deals on meats that will last me months with our upright freezer. I like to hit really good sales at Walmart of Kohl’s for clothes for the kids and I’m not at all too prideful to shop at a Goodwill store or a consignment shop. I love to find a bargain and this way of living is a rush for me. Have fun bargain shopping!

By: Aileen

Aileen — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:13:51 +0000

I buy the majority of my groceries once a month and unfortunately, because of the perishability of fresh goods, I end up buying a lot more canned veggies than I would like. The heartier the veggie though, I blanch and freeze. It also helps if you have an extra deep freezer. I buy family packs of beef, pork, chicken which I break down into dinner-sized packs and go to the international farmer’s market here in Decatur, GA where they have fresh (swimming) fish that I can get cut up for me and freeze when I get home. I also buy 4 gallons of milk (1 for each week) and freeze 3. I store the meat and milk in my deep freezer which leaves the refrigerator freezer open for the frozen entrees and vegetables. So far, this has worked for me. Luckily, I also have an extra closet/pantry where I store all of my dry/boxed goods. Some months are better than others, but we’ve made it work for a family of 6 for about 3 years now.

By: walter

walter — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:52:39 +0000

we use ingles to buy our beef–they put their sirlon tips on sell$1.74-$1.98 a pound–they weigh average of 11 lbs.—they will cut them into roasts–steaks–cube steak—hamburger–the meat is so lean there is very little grease in the pan and they taste better than that other stuff they call hamburger? put into freezer bags –we use a food saver and they will last a year or better—-

By: db

db — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:25:06 +0000

Debbie, of course you will, but your yearly outgo will be significantly diminished. So significantly that you could either save tons more money than you would otherwise, or opt to do work that pays less if you’d enjoy it more.

Owning a home outright would be a marvelous achievement. My parents are there and it’s made all the difference in their lives.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:37:55 +0000

Groceries – learn recipes that use cheaper ingredients.

Housing – I’m sorry to say that even after your house is paid off, you still have monthly payments: taxes, insurance, and utilities.

The best time to replace a roof is during a drought. I am going to hold off on remodeling until the next economic downturn.

By: plonkee

plonkee — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:21:40 +0000

I agree with the comment on the difficulty of storing fresh goods. In fact, I find it difficult to store anything much (think 3ft wide by 1ft deep in cupboard space for groceries).

I’d be interested in knowing whether they suggest any solutions or whether its aimed more at a larger sq. footage household.

By: Xtine

Xtine — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:08:07 +0000

That’s what the farmer’s market is for.

By: gp

gp — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:46:24 +0000

One visit a month to the grocery store just doesn’t seem realistic. I have no problem bulking up on dry goods and frozen items, but how do they store fresh fruit, veggies, and milk?

By: Xtine

Xtine — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:44:19 +0000

I don’t know when you might ever have a chance to address this…but making one’s own bread is nice.

I realize it’s not for everyone, but with bread machines, it’s definitely more of an option.
When I moved into my own place, my parents loaned me their breadmaker long-term. And oh, I used it. My bf and I buy only bagels, english muffins, and a luxury bread – hazelnut poppyseed bread.

It pains both of us to pay money for a loaf of bread vastly inferior to what we can make at home.

And it takes ~5-10 minutes to assemble the pan.