http://www.mygrocerydeals.com/

It provides me with an online “flyer” from local grocery stores, and you can monitor the sales for multiple stores as well. They are developing a feature that will tie in your shopping list taken from the flyer cross-referenced to coupons available and I’m really looking forward to that feature. But just as it is, it has become a very useful site for me to determine in advance what I’m going to buy. I then take that list and put it into sites such as epicurious.com or the one recommended here to determine our menus.

This is the best cooking source I have ever known. I have implemented it into our household, the savings in time & money has triple extending panty as well as providing addition recipes.

Trent, about your considering buying a quarter-beef, my advice is do it!! My husband and I bought a quarter last summer and loved it so much we bought a half this winter. We bought a small freezer (7 cubic foot) to store it. With the money we saved on the quarter beef, we broke even with buying the freezer. FYI, a quarter will fit in your freezer in the kitchen, but for a half you’ll need more space.

This is the best tasting beef I’ve ever had. And the smell is delicious–it actually smells fresh. The color is brilliant, more so than I’ve ever seen in a grocery store. The cattle we bought are not injected with antibiotics or growth hormones, nor are they confined to small stalls to fatten them up, which leads to stress and the nasty hormone cortisone building up in their bodies. They roam through a pasture freely and are housed in barns with generous “accommodations.”

Regarding Veronica’s comment on the tough steaks, I wonder if this is a result of the cortisone in cattle that aren’t cared for well. The steaks we have had basically melt in the mouth. They are delicious. We can cut them with a butter knife instead of a steak knife. The smell, the texture, the taste, all are superior. The beef my husband and I purchased is better than the top-notch grocery stores in my area, which charge 3-5 times more than what we paid. It seems that the thing to learn from this is to ask questions: ask what the animal eats (grain, grass) and how it feeds (from a trough in a stall, roams a pasture freely), ask if it gets growth hormones or antibiotics, ask how the animal is housed (confined to individual stalls or has a large shelter to share with other cattle). Maybe you can even see pictures of how the cattle live. I did. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t put animals above humans (although a properly cared for animal is better than one treated like, well, an animal), but I know good meat, and I’m trying to eat like royalty on a pauper’s budget.

And here’s a big bonus that I’ve enjoyed: I have an abundance to give to others. I’m a new subscriber to your column, and I love your frugality insight. I haven’t seen you mention giving to others, but maybe that’s because I’m new. I have had a couple occasions to give to others, and I love being able to go to my freezer and give them a whole roast, top-quality steaks, or a 10# pack of hamburger patties. I’m not the richest person in the world, but I’m not the poorest either, and giving to others not only makes me feel rich but also gives me an inside satisfaction that can’t be measured with the dollar, the euro, gold, or any other monetary substance.

Thanks for your column. I’ve enjoyed it every day.

Try savingdinner.com. They have an inexpensive subscription service called Menu Mailer where they email you, every week, six recipes and a shopping list. The ingredients are more or less consolidated as you describe. They have several different options, including vegetarian and frugal. It’s worth checking out.