TheState.com: Stretching Your Paycheck: Food

Keep your wallet above water

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

After pinching and reorganizing their household budgets, people still often overpay for commercially bottled water.

The typical American con-sumer spends annually $1,400 on bottled water vs. 49 cents for the same amount of water from our kitchen faucet, according to the Center for a New American Dream, a nonprofit consumer group.

To help you calculate how much more you may be spending for bottled water, New American Dream provides a cost calculator at www.newdream.org/water.

Consider these numbers: -.002 of a cent � The average prices for a gallon of water from your kitchen sink. -$1 � The average price for a 20-ounce bottle of water.

What�s more, about 40 percent of the bottled water sold in stores is tap water, according to New American Dream. Columbia�s water supply is used by Aquafina.

Saving at a wicked clip: The art of maximizing coupons

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

Michelle Harrison recently paid 10 cents for $40 worth of groceries.

"And it would've been more, but the store had a 20-coupon per transaction limit," Harrison says, laughing.

She and fellow coupon diva Frances Bullock say it's not hard to get there.

The frugal friends say in a typical week they save about 70 percent off their grocery bills after a couple of hours of clipping and sorting.

And during a store's triple coupon promotion, they can get most of their groceries for free. So many items, in fact, they often have enough to donate to area food pantries.

How to save $ on food

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

These days, it's almost as scary to fill your grocery cart as your gas tank. A gallon of unleaded costs as much as 20 percent more than it did a year ago. Food costs have zoomed up 6 percent in that time, with double-digit increases for staples like milk and bread.

Retail analyst Howard Davidowitz framed it this way in a recent National Public Radio interview: "Americans used to spend 10 cents (of every dollar) on food and energy; they're now spending 17 cents.''

The good news is that most people can find ways to save money.

Just ask Martha Kenyon of the Redland, Fla., a mother of six who has always fed her family on one income.

"I basically buy what's on sale, and I buy a lot of it. I have my prices in mind - I know what I'm willing to pay for grapes, for example - and if it's not for sale at that price, I wait. My kids eat a lot of fruit, but they eat what's on sale. That's the way I've always purchased.''

Don't whine over wine prices, try to budget

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

Here's how to be a savvy shopper for budget wines:

_ Consider second labels. Many wineries make more than one wine. A portfolio can include pricey reserve wines and award-winning show stoppers as well as less expensive, downright decent everyday quaffing wines made under the same standards and supervision. In the $10 range, some of these extended families are more obvious than others. Beringer Vineyards, for example, produces Stone Cellars ($8) and Beringer Founders' Estate ($8.99), while the Beaulieu Vineyards umbrella includes BV Coastal Estates ($6.99), and the prestigious Robert Mondavi family of wines offers the Woodbridge line ($7.99).

_ It's OK to go biggie. Large bottles of Stimson Estate Cellars, which is part of the Ste. Michelle Wine Estates wines that include Chateau Ste. Michelle and Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, cost about 25 cents per ounce. A smaller 750 milliliter bottle of the same is about 31 cents per ounce. If you are looking for party wine, checking the unit prices will keep the budget in check. Also, many stores give case discounts.

_ Go global. The Italians, French and Australians produce inexpensive wines that hover in the $5.99-$7.99 range.

_ Build relationships. Talk to wine-shop owners about how to spot bargains. Once you start, it becomes a fun sport.

Grocery savings are all in your strategy

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

Milk, eggs, meat and produce prices have reached a 17-year high. Meanwhile, gas and heating oil are gobbling up more of our available cash, leaving us less to spend on food.

What's a home cook to do?

Planning, effort and a little restraint can help rein in the costs of providing family meals. Here are some tips:

GET SAVVY ABOUT CHICKEN � Buy a whole chicken, which is often as low as 69 cents per pound on sale, instead of boneless, skinless breasts at $3-plus per pound. Roast it whole (good for at least two meals) or trim off legs, wings and breast meat for another dish and use the rest to make chicken stock.

� If you're not keen on carcasses, try buying a cheaper cut than boneless breast meat. Choose bone-in breasts, boneless thighs or, cheapest of all, drumsticks.

Get creative with leftovers to cut costs

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

Smart shopping and cooking from scratch are important ways to save money on grocery bills. But that's only part of the story.

To make the most of your purchases, you need to avoid waste and stretch every bit of what you buy. Although this kind of thinking was automatic for our grandmothers, these days many people find it easier just to toss leftovers.

But if you're determined to cut your food budget, you need to get frugal and give those leftovers the respect they deserve. These tips can help:

� Unless it's moldy, stale bread is too versatile to toss: Freeze it and use in bread pudding, strata or french toast. Or process or grate it into bread crumbs. Use artisan bread in Italian bread salad, bread soup or as croutons: Cut into cubes, then saute with olive oil and garlic until golden.

� Turn scraps into stock: Whenever you cook, save the ends of onions, carrots and celery (or rubbery specimens past their prime), tomato skins, parsley and thyme stems, and meat scraps such as chicken wings, necks, backs and roasted chicken carcasses in a self-sealing bag in the freezer. When the bag gets full, dump it in a pot, add water to cover and simmer gently for a couple of hours. Strain and freeze in measured portions. Just make sure you have more meat than vegetables, and don't use anything strongly flavored such as broccoli, cabbage and asparagus.

Cheap eats: Grow your own

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:10 EST

Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach are battling back by growing their own food.

Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. Although the 2008 planting season is still largely in the planning stages, it appears vegetable seed sales will be up significantly from year-ago figures, said Barb Melera, president of D. Landreth Seed Co., in New Freedom, Pa.

"I just came back from the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta and we sold three- to four times the amount of seed packets we did the previous year," Melera said. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say �I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."

Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.

"We're closing in on mid-February and we still have several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread," he said.