These days every time you turn around you see news about how bad the economy is, and everyone wants to be smart with their money. One way to make your dollar stretch farther is to let your freezer work for you. First, peruse the weekly grocery store flyer to see what's on sale. Let's say it's chuck roast that's on sale for $1 a pound and each roast is about three pounds. Here's the plan...
Buy three roasts while they're on sale, have the guy at the meat counter grind one of them up for hamburger, and take the other two home whole. When you get home, right away portion the ground chuck in half and and freeze it for hamburgers. Then, prepare one of the remaining chuck roasts in the slow cooker with onions, potatoes and carrots the next morning for dinner that night.
Cut the third roast into chunks, brown it with a chopped large onion and a green pepper, and put it into the slow cooker with two large cans of crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, a can of corn, and chili powder. Cook it on low overnight and in the morning you'll have a big delicious batch of chili. Use a third of the chili for dinner and freeze the other two-thirds for later.
By buying on sale, you got nine pounds of meat for nine dollars, plus the cost of vegetables and if you have a family of four, you've created between six and twelve dinners for your family for roughly $20. The only reason these savings were possible is because you capitalized on sale pricing and used your freezer to keep the additional meals for later. You can do the same thing to save money and fill your freezer with homemade soup.
When whole chickens are on sale, nab a few and make homemade chicken stock. When carrots are on sale, grab six or seven pounds and make carrot soup. If potatoes are on sale buy ten pounds and make potato soup. As long as you have space in your freezer, you'll be able to take advantage of all the best sales and still eat healthy!
Here's to eating well in 2010!
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