Note: There are affiliate links which benefit me and with Instacart both of us.
We are a “shop local, think global” family and so always recommend shopping locally. However, our ‘regular’ grocery store may not have a particular ingredient and no one has time to drive all over the county to find it. Never speak with your favorite store manager. You would be amazed how often that works = particularly in today’s competitive environment.
Using one of my often hard to find ingredients: Bob’s Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten
If you would like to search without giving up too much personal details, your first step will be to look up the street address of your nearest Post Office. plug in your zip code and copy the address
The following links includes codes which may, if you buy something benefit us both. If it just makes your life easier by helping support local business without gallivanting all over – that is fine with me too.
next go to Instacart https://www.instacart.com/?code=WCARR1801EE
You will need to supply an address, so be ready to paste the Post Office address for privacy or use your own “if you don’t care” then just use your own.
Once you save the address, to Instacart will display a search bar (and a list of various stores served in your area.
Type in the ingredient – for example “Vital Wheat Gluten” hit return and poof, InstaCart will show you the stores in your area have be listed Vital Wheat Gluten in their on line offerings.
If you are lucky, you will see your regular store. If not, well where’s your spirit of adventure, expand your shopping horizons – visit a new to you location.
You can then click on each listing to compare pricing.
If all else fails, there is always using a search engine like https://duckduckgo.com/ Duck Duck Go or Amazon https://amzn.to/48Bvm6N Where I have a list that includes ingredients always likely to be in my pantry. Caveat: Amazon, but that is increasingly the most expensive option. and quite often you need to look at more than one – the most expensive option is usually listed first.
FRUGAL TIPLET: Instacart has added so many stores, and individual arrangements various quite a bit, for ingredients I always try to find those with “InStore Pricing” or, sometimes using the Retailer “dot com” may give you a better price.
Last but not least, I “threw this together” because of a question in our FB Bread machine group: KBS Bread Maker Tips, Tricks, and Recipes – still needs work, so in you are not fluent in “speaking in Wheat” – your comments and questions are welcome.
No matter your Middle Class Income bracket, Inflation is real. The Following is based on pricing “near me” from our actual expenditures (yes, one of my “hobbies” is Kitchen Table Economic Spreadsheets)
1
2020
2021
2022
%Inc
Aldi – House Brands
ct
ct
2
01.09
01.39
02.09
52.15%
Milk Whole Half Gallon
64
fl oz
3
02.02
03.59
04.29
47.09%
Butter Sweet
16
oz
4
02.10
01.79
02.79
75.27%
Creamer Coffee
32
fl oz
5
02.75
03.85
04.29
64.10%
Cheese American
15
oz
6
01.99
03.59
04.99
39.88%
Beef Carna Asada
16
oz
7
02.09
02.65
04.79
43.63%
Sourdough Loaf
24
oz
8
9
12.04
16.86
23.24
51.81%
Subtotal
10
11
45.41
50.22
10.59%
BGE
343
kWh
12
02.20
03.49
03.95
55.70%
Auto Gas Regular
128
fl oz
13
14
*ALDI prices often vary from area to area – Although ALDI has the lowest “mark up” among stores that do not offer “In-Store Pricing” – the above is based on delivery by Instacart I compared these with the same items in other states. Prices were similar
P.S. The Beef for Carne Asada or Carne Picada is excellent for use in Taco, Fajitas, Italian Beef, Chili, and pretty much anyplace you would use either ground or sliced beef – just change up the seasoning blends. AND… For someone with hand grip/arthritis issues, it is worth the extra few cents per pound
Although I have posted this link and comment to my small Aldi Aficionado group on Gab, I think I should start sharing some of those short posts here.
I know many people are not ALDI fan, but as a “reader of ingredient labels” My choices are more about nutrition than price (although that helps)
Still the title of this article is also an example of “headlines that annoy me” Spoiler: You Do No Pay To Use The Cart – You pay for the cost of having an employee return it for you.
February 15th, 2020 at 11:58 am » Comments (0)
Frugal Beginner’s Tiplet: Meal Planning McCormick Spice has always been a decent brand and
has a pretty good newsletter. This week , their topic is Meal Prepping
The kind that helps you eat healthier and less expensively with home cooked meals inside of picking up Drive thru on the way home. This article is very basic but may help those new to “Frugal Living” get started. This is a recipe from their website that could easily be prepped ready to slide into my Ninja Foodie Oven – It was not needed to make any significant changes, to take advantage of the Ninja Foodi Digital Oven’s capabilities.I tend to follow the concept presented by Janet Zimmerman to leave temperatures the same but start checking for “desired degree of doneness” at about 3/4 the time suggested by the recipe.
Speaking of Janet Zimmerman concepts, another of my favorites is that the “rule of thumb of reducing temp by 25 degrees F should be replaced by using a percentage. It has been my experience that 15% works for me and still following the check for doneness beginning at 3/4 the suggested time. Sheet Pan Chili Chicken Tacos | French’s
It seems at least once a month someone in one of the Frugal groups asks: How Much Do You Spend?
And less frequently, someone will say “I am a single…” Most recently living in Brooklyn without any option for even a few herbs. Since I have lived there (West Village and Prospect Park long ago) I know what she is up against. And frankly well meaning as some of the few responses she got were, they did not really apply to her situation. Well except for one that stands out in my memory “Space is Space” So yeah, boxes under the bed can hold canned goods if the buy is good enough to warrant the purchase and then hauling it up to that 5th floor walkup.
There are no easy answers to these questions and it can be quite daunting to someone just starting to learn to live a more frugal life.
Obviously this has been on my mind for awhile and so I finally sat down and wrote out my thoughts. If you are interested, the rest of the story is on my blog.
First, I do not look at one month, but average over a year because some things I buy in bulk have a longer shelf life and so I might buy something on sale that wont get used for several months –
Second, depending on where you live prices vary – sometimes greatly and especially if you are “Delivery Dependent”.
In the Aldi Nerd group for several weeks people were posting images of prices of milk and eggs – mind boggling the differences (and yes I do understand many if not all the factors involved) “Dairy” is almost always a loss leader in ALDI – they will lower/raise the price of milk, eggs, etc based on local competition in those and other items. Good marketing on their part – requires Caveat Emptor on yours.
Third, Some have dietary considerations that mean they likely have to spend more to get the same amount of nutrition even if comparing themselves to a neighbor.
Fourth, some (like me) are willing to spend a bit more when the difference in quality and/or flavor warrants the higher cost – like buying seasonal produce from a local farmer during the summer.
Sit down, do you basic budget ( listing all expenses that are even vaguely contractual necessities from rent/mortgage, vehicle payments, utilities, etc) And because I keep good records of actual usage – I have twice negotiated a better budget billing amount with BGE – better than any of the other resellers could offer.
Other necessities like monthly medical insurance and insurance co-pays. Again not a lot of room to play around with those.
Then contractual items where you do have some control, like seriously do you really need to upgrade that smart phone – or have all those extra cable channels, or whatever else has a monthly cost where you have some choices.
So add up all the expenses you do not control, subtract it from your likely income (and do include any benefits you qualify for such as WIC or SNAP) – decide what to set aside for an emergency fund each month and that is what you have left for food & entertainment and any other non-necessity.
That is what you have to work with. Now the hard work begins. take EVERY receipt and look at what you buy “all the time” and what your paying.
Determine what resources are available to you and use the Internet to comparison shop at least prices and specials. Savvy shoppers know that if you use the current “leader” for Delivery InstaCart – IF you look at the various store listings, you will see some have “In-Store Pricing”. Others, depending on their agreement with InstaCart – have varying markups. Further, the markup and other details may vary depending on how you order – (I.E. ALDI order placed thru Instacart vs. ALDI.com – different payment arrangements, same percentage of markup)
Start looking at alternatives and be open. I know that JUST using my Ninja Foodi (I am cooking for two, 6 dinners, (he does one because that is our deal) and we have both Breakfast & Lunch at home – About once a month (usually his night to do dinner) we get Delivery Chinese or a Pizza. Long story short, the efficiency of the Foodi reduced our electric bill an additional average of 20%. ($21.75 less than past normal of $104)
On top of that it came down during my “experiment” year with a countertop convection oven and a 2 Cosori electric pressure cooker was good for another reduction of about $5 per month.
When the original oven quit, and it was clear the two quart was insufficient, I added the 6.5qt Ninja Foodi after extensive research and realizing that the IP and others looked less expensive but I would need TWO Appliances and a lot of extras that were already part of the Ninja products. It paid for it self in less than 6 months so after doing without a working oven for 6 months, added the Foodi Oven. Both are now paid for by savings and my electric bills continue to be an average of 40 to 50% lower. It does what I wanted, but it remains to be seen if it will be replaced with the same unit if it dies (both are now out of warranty, so I am starting thinking about what might be best next time)
We are in an apartment – and no windows suitable for even a small herb garden, so I tracked what we used for herbs and spices, learned how to buy and properly store bulk for locally grown fresh was not an option. And yes I did the math on dehydrating when they were in season, but this area’s electric is second only to the kind of rates we paid in NY to ConEd. So yes, to the lady in Brooklyn, I know what you have to contend with.
That made a 17% difference over buying even BOGO or similar specials in that category. With a bit of planning and my 20 year old immersion blender I knocked another 5% off this past two years by developing my own version of basic blends and then add what “suits the moment” if say, more marjoram is needed for the Italian salad blend.
By preparing condiments suitable to dietary restrictions, another 4-8% annually off the food budget.
There are no easy answers to these questions and it can be quite daunting to someone just starting to learn to live a more frugal life.
The good news once you get your records keeping set up, it usually requires less than an hour a week and I find that hour is often work at least $30 or more in savings. This allows us to choose better ingredients or to apply to other debts or to entertainment.
I tend to follow the concept presented by Janet Zimmerman to leave temperatures the same but start checking for “desired degree of doneness” at about 3/4 the time suggested by the recipe.