Wisdom from The Action Wisdom In Action

From Steadfast Finances. No, it wasn't me--but my parents did.

"During another weekend road trip to visit the family for Mother’s Day, I always make it a habit to drop in on Grandma and soak in a few hours worth of knowledge she’s accumulated over her near 75 years.

Gifts were exchanged, I overindulged in home cookin’, but in the end, I sat with a piece of paper scribbling notes on what it was like for her (and other family members) to live through the Great Depression.

I’m fortunate that I haven’t felt the effects of the recession, so I thought it would be interesting to get her point of view since she lived through one of the harshest periods of American history.

In the end, I wasn’t exactly surprised because I’ve heard many of these frugal living rules over and over again, but it’s finally nice to get them down on paper.

I hope you can learn as much from her wisdom as I have over the years.

1. Save a dollar for every dollar you spend. I’m a big believer in the Pay-As-You-Go rule, but if you allow more cash to go out of your door than goes under your mattress, you’re asking for trouble.

2. New doesn’t automatically mean better. New this and shiny that may get you a lot of attention and give you a feeling of importance, but new stuff usually costs more than old stuff. Slightly used, gently used, or just plain used will often to the job.

3. Be thankful for what you have. All of us have complained about eating leftovers when we didn’t want to or complained about eating the same thing three times a week, but there are quite a few people in this world that might not know where the next meal will come from. Just be thankful you have what you have … if you have it.

4. Learn how to fix/maintain what you have. Nothing can be more frustrating than having a piece of machinery, whether it be your car or your laptop, that you rely upon, paid good money for, and have to pay someone to repair it. Eliminating the need for the repairman will save you countless hours and dollars over the years.

5. Waste not, want not! If you’re discarding a substantial portion of what you bought (or made yourself), you’re essentially throwing money in the garbage can. Either cut back on what you’re making, or find ways to reuse it at a later date.

6. Make cheap food taste like a million bucks. I probably violate this suggestion most of all because I’m a wannabe chef, but during my college years, my food budget rarely exceeded $100 per month. Learning how to make good eats on the cheap will save you thousands per year if you can learn a few cooking basics.

7. Don’t pay for what you can do/make for yourself. It seems like an odd question to ask, but why would you pay someone to do something that you can do for yourself. I understand that we’re all super busy and we may not be an expert in everything that modern society pushes upon us, but thanks to the Internet (praise be Google!), you can find a DIY video for almost anything on your Honey Do List.

8. Preparation can keep you from being blown off course. Many times during your life you’ll face some type of adversity. The more prepared you are to handle it, the better off you’ll be at weathering the storm. As the old adage goes: you can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails!

9. Family time is fun time. I’m one of the least social members of my family, but nothing beats a classic game of Monopoly with the folks. This weekend happened to be catching up over baseball games on TV and lots of hanging out in the kitchen. Funny how positive social interactions work aren’t they?

10. Make your big purchases off season. One of my cardinal rules of shopping (which I loathe to do) is buy most of my winter clothing in April. This way, the retailers are desperate just to break even on their investment and clear the excess inventory to make way for Spring/Summer months. This works equally well when buying summer clothing in November.

11. Marry someone who complements your weak points. No this doesn’t mean someone who will say “good job” each time you do a good deed. Not that kind of compliment. In a complementary relationship, your strong suits will make up for your companion’s weaknesses and vice versa. In the end, the marriage is stronger than the two individuals!

12. Exchange time, skills or service as currency. If you know how to play the piano and your neighbors want their kid to learn to play piano, find something they have that you want.

13. Learn to preserve and store food. Even if you’re not into growing your own food, it never hurts to buy in bulk and keep it frozen for a few months.

14. Start a garden and pay yourself for growing your own food. Why pay a grocery store for food that you can grow yourself? Many people these days are under the false impression that gardening is too difficult to try and best left to the hippies and hillbillies. Hardly the case since Michelle Obama and started a victory garden on White House grounds.

15. Credit cards are the devil. If you tell my Grandma that you bought her Christmas present on credit, you better hope you got your fill of pumpkin pie prior to opening gifts. Chances are, she’ll cut you off and give you a 10 minute lecture from Proverbs. Most old school consumers won’t even think about buying something unless they pay in cash.

16. Patience is a virtue. Be patient, save your pennies, and wait until they turn to dollars. Paying cash is the only way to go. I admit, this doesn’t translate well to 2009, but if you can rely upon your debit card more than your credit card, you’re on the right path.

17. Work hard, and work often. My family wasn’t exactly the affluent type back in the day, so I’m glad to have some of that blue collar mentality rubbed off on me. I never really understood what it meant to say “I built that” or “I made that from scratch” when I was a kid, but I certainly learned what those phrases meant once I became a bit older.

18. At the end of the day, think how to make tomorrow a little better. This phrase is fairly common, but it’s been sitting on my grandfather’s antique desk for as long as I can remember. Probably longer than I’ve been alive. But to me, it’s a testament to how both of grandparents lived their lives. Over time, little improvements add up a lot quicker than you think.

19. Envy is still a sin. Even though I’m the blaspheming evolutionist of the family, it doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to sound advice. Believe it or not, the Bible has really good tips on debt avoidance and the “debt is slavery” principle.

20. Speak convincingly and be a leader. We all know a hierarchy exists in most families, and if that happens to be you, don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. Even if you hurt a few feelings here and there, they’re family and they’ll eventually forgive you."

From the L.A. Times.

"...a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America's ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension."

...

"Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases."

It's a confusing message. For years we've been fed the line that eating fat would make us fat and lead to chronic illnesses. "Dietary fat used to be public enemy No. 1," says Dr. Edward Saltzman, associate professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University. "Now a growing and convincing body of science is pointing the finger at carbs, especially those containing refined flour and sugar."

Americans, on average, eat 250 to 300 grams of carbs a day, accounting for about 55% of their caloric intake. The most conservative recommendations say they should eat half that amount. Consumption of carbohydrates has increased over the years with the help of a 30-year-old, government-mandated message to cut fat."

So why does the Food Guide Pyramid tell us to eat 6-11 servings a day of carbs in the form of whole grains? They break down into sugar just like simple carbs, only slower! I believe that 1-2 servings/day of whole grains would suffice, but I'm no doctor.

"To understand what's behind the upheaval takes some basic understanding of food and metabolism.

All carbohydrates (a category including sugars) convert to sugar in the blood, and the more refined the carbs are, the quicker the conversion goes. When you eat a glazed doughnut or a serving of mashed potatoes, it turns into blood sugar very quickly. To manage the blood sugar, the pancreas produces insulin, which moves sugar into cells, where it's stored as fuel in the form of glycogen.

If you have a perfectly healthy metabolism, the system works beautifully, says Dr. Stephen Phinney, a nutritional biochemist and an emeritus professor of UC Davis who has studied carbohydrates for 30 years. "However, over time, as our bodies get tired of processing high loads of carbs, which evolution didn't prepare us for … how the body responds to insulin can change," he says.

When cells become more resistant to those insulin instructions, the pancreas needs to make more insulin to push the same amount of glucose into cells. As people become insulin resistant, carbs become a bigger challenge for the body. When the pancreas gets exhausted and can't produce enough insulin to keep up with the glucose in the blood, diabetes develops.

The first sign of insulin resistance is a condition called metabolic syndrome — a red flag that diabetes, and possibly heart disease, is just around the corner. People are said to have the syndrome when they have three or more of the following: high blood triglycerides (more than 150 mg); high blood pressure (over 135/85); central obesity (a waist circumference in men of more than 40 inches and in women, more than 35 inches); low HDL cholesterol (under 40 in men, under 50 in women); or elevated fasting glucose.

About one-fourth of adults has three or more of these symptoms."

...

"The take-home message from this study and others like it is that — contrary to what many expect — dietary fat intake is not directly related to blood fat. Rather, the amount of carbohydrates in the diet appears to be a potent contributor.

"The good news," adds Willett, "is that based on what we know, almost everyone can avoid Type 2 diabetes. Avoiding unhealthy carbohydrates is an important part of that solution." For those who are newly diagnosed, he adds, a low-carb diet can take the load off the pancreas before it gets too damaged and improve the condition — reducing or averting the need for insulin or other diabetes meds."

...

""Carbohydrates are a metabolic bully," Phinney says. "They cut in front of fat as a fuel source and insist on being burned first. What isn't burned gets stored as fat, and doesn't come out of storage as long as carbs are available. And in the average American diet, they always are."

Here's how Phinney explains it: When you cut carbs, your body first uses available glycogen as fuel. When that's gone, the body turns to fat and the pancreas gets a break. Blood sugar stabilizes, insulin levels drop, fat burns. That's why the diet works for diabetics and for weight loss.

When the body switches to burning fat instead of glycogen, it goes into a process called nutritional ketosis. If a person eats 50 or fewer grams of carbs, his body will go there, Phinney says. (Nutritional ketosis isn't to be confused with ketoacidosis, a dangerous condition that can occur in diabetics.)

Beyond the fat-burning effects of ketosis, people lose weight on low-carb diets because fat and protein increase satisfaction and reduce appetite. On the flip side, simple carbs cause an insulin surge, which triggers a blood sugar drop, which makes you hungry again."

But when you counteract this with a high-protein diet, like the first stages of the Atkins diet, you put your kidneys at risk.

"Though the movement to cap carbs is growing, not all nutritional scientists have fully embraced it. Dr. Ronald Krauss, senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute and founder and past chair of the American Heart Assn.'s Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism, says that while he fundamentally agrees with those advocating fewer dietary carbs, he doesn't like to demonize one food group.

That said, he adds, those who eat too many calories tend to overconsume carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates and sugars. "It can be extremely valuable to limit carbohydrate intake and substitute protein and fat. I am glad to see so many people in the medical community getting on board. But in general I don't recommend extreme dietary measures for promoting health."

...

"As nutrition scientists try to find the ideal for the future, others look to history and evolution for answers. One way to put our diet in perspective is to imagine the face of a clock with 24 hours on it. Each hour represents 100,000 years that humans have been on the Earth.

On this clock, the advent of agriculture and refined grains would have appeared at about 11:54 p.m. (23 hours and 54 minutes into the day). Before that, humans were hunters and gatherers, eating animals and plants off the land. Agriculture allowed for the mass production of crops such as wheat and corn, and refineries transformed whole grains into refined flour and created processed sugar."

My answer to all this health advice topsy-turvy. I'm already battling diabetes, heart disease, and obesity in the family, and have already been to the best doctor around for this stuff: a nutritionist. Doctors receive only 8 hours of nutritional classroom study, and it's quickly forgotten in the race to specialize--otherwise, there's no money to be made for paying back exorbitant student loans. You want the TRUE nutritional dirt on what you should eat? Go see a nutritionist, even if you have to pay out of pocket for it. My health care reform page is a collection of what I learned while at the nutritionist office, so I tried to save you some time and money, and I just might end up saving your life in the process.

UPDATE: an article about sugar and cancer. Also, a cookbook from 1976 mentions the low use of sugar because it causes heart disease.

From CNN Opinion.

"Not long ago, I was very kindly invited to Buckingham Palace, as a member of Britain's food industry. Hundreds of very smart foodies turned up, having showered, shaved and left behind their stoves, whisks and knives.

It is a funny thing seeing many of your contemporaries in suits and dresses when you're used to seeing them in their whites and aprons. I spent most of the evening introducing myself or just observing the many groups of people that mingle at occasions like these.

One group caught my eye for most of the evening. It was made up of gentlemen all dressed in military uniform -- rather splendid military uniforms, obviously designed for just such a royal occasion. It was not the uniforms or even the rows of medals on their chests, but the fact that military members were there at all.

What would the military be doing at a food gig at Buckingham Palace? Well, the answer stopped me short, so short that I have been unable to think of much else since that rather uneventful night -- uneventful except for the firm handshake of Her Majesty the Queen.

The answer in its simplest form was that the uniforms were the catering corps, a corps that has catered all over the world for British soldiers on every battlefield ever since men needed to fight and eat at the same time.

The answer in its most shocking form was that these were the men who would be in control of the food in Britain should we face shortages. Shortages? Yes, shortages, of oil, water and their means of distribution. Shortages of flour, milk and eggs. Shortages of meat, fruit and vegetables.

In fact, should this country suffer from any number of potential problems with our oil-dependent food chain, our very lives could be in the hands of the small group of men standing in a corner in Buckingham Palace. All of Britain's superstar chefs had turned out for this event, but none was more important than the gentlemen who stood watching the rest of us, as we rather arrogantly walked around the room as if food would always be available to perform tricks with, to swear at and make jokes with. Well, food security is a serious issue and I better find out as much as I can about it.

In Britain the big supermarkets dominate our food chain. British supermarkets are some of the best in the world at controlling, manipulating and delivering cheap food. Controlling food and its distribution takes a huge amount of money and energy, but because the British food producer could not keep up with the supermarkets' demands for ever-lower prices, the supermarkets have moved to buying globally.

They turned to the products provided by cheap labor in northern and southern Africa, South America and Asia. But in shifting from Britain to the world, our supermarkets managed to destabilize Britain's food infrastructure. The supermarkets have left behind farmers, milk producers and fishermen. They all have knowledge they should be passing down, but there is no new blood wanting to pick up the rake, the fishing net or the gate latch at 4 a.m.

There is no money in food production in Britain: The supermarkets have taken the potential for a decent living away. The cost to produce milk is higher than the supermarkets are willing to pay. The cost of meat is too high, and the cost of fish is too high.

But the supermarkets reply that they are only trying to "give the customers what they want," so they must go abroad. In this statement is the manipulation. We as customers are led to believe that the low costs we pay are borne by the supermarkets. Well, think again.

It is the producers in this country who are paid such low prices by the supermarkets for their produce that they are going out of business by the hundreds every year, and with it goes their knowledge. The supermarkets are not delivering cheap food, it is the farmers and producers of Britain, and now the world -- and at a cost to the environment too. Increased yield means increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics in animals.

About 30% of fresh food is thrown away in supermarkets every day, although they will deny it. British households are throwing an estimated 30% of their food away too. Where are we going with this over-producing, over-consuming super-cheap food system? We are going global with a huge reliance on oil.

But when the oil stops flowing, and our systems fail, no safety procedures are in place to help us. No localized food networks, and no agricultural schools developing our next wave of farmers -- this in a country where the average age for a farmer is 64.

It feels to me as if we are becoming so overly reliant on our supermarket system, that when it breaks down, all we can turn to is military intervention.

Surely we should be striving to teach and educate people how to feed themselves. How to grow food and distribute it locally. How to barter for food items that can bring the essential vitamins and minerals for healthy life.

Be mindful of what supermarkets are doing and demand to see their business practices. Stop throwing away food. Compost as much as you can, eat as locally and as seasonally as you can. Share knowledge and information.

We are stronger as a group than an individual. Think in a cooperative and communal way, set up local food hubs and create growing communities. I have tried to create that type of idea in The People's Supermarket, and hope that it grows in popularity."

What do you think is happening here, or headed this way?

From Accredited Online Colleges. Question: why restrict it to only college students?

"Like many college students, you’re probably on a pretty tight budget. Sometimes that might mean that by the end of the month, you don’t have too much cash lying around to buy groceries with. Luckily, you can put your college education to work and use your smarts, and a little elbow grease to finagle a free meal. Here are 50 fun, sneaky and sometimes downright desperate ways to get free food while you’re a college student."

Too many to list--please see original article link above.

From Bankrate.com. Done in gallery format--you have to go there to see them.

From CNN Money. Yes, this is an article about grocery brand mergers and acquisitions. Why does this concern you? Two reasons: now you know why all the fuss is being made with coupons, and the slow whittling away of choice is happening, as I described here (last 2 paragraphs).

"With improved access to credit and mountains of capital ready to deploy, private-equity and strategic buyers are hot to snap up food companies. Thanks to their stable cash flows, food firms are generally safe bets, especially for highly leveraged private-equity deals where debt repayment is a priority.

There is one complicating factor, however: brands are fading, and the biggest consumer food companies are built on brands. So while there has been buzz about possible buyouts of, for example, Sara Lee (SLE), ConAgra (CAG), and J.M. Smucker (SJM), there has been no reported movement toward a deal for any of them.

Even before the recession, private-label (or store brand) products were ascending, taking market share away from branded products. The downturn has only made things better for private labels and worse for many brands as consumers have sought out cheaper fare.

In many cases, those consumers have discovered that private-label products are just as good as the branded ones, or at least close enough. For that reason, some analysts believe that private labels -- which according to the research firm Packaged Facts now make up nearly a fifth of the grocery market, up from just 14% in 2005 -- will continue to eat away at certain brands even after the economy picks up. Once viewed as commodities, private-label products are developing a "brand" of their own. They represent an $87 billion market, Packaged Facts says.

This raises several questions for both strategic and private-equity investors. Should would-be acquirers wait to see how the recovery might affect sales of private-label products? Which brands are most vulnerable to the rise of private labels? Not all brands are the same – many will remain strong for years to come."

And to make matters worse, who do you think owns a majority of the organic labels out there? Yup--the Big Food brands, like Kraft, Heinz, Dole, Del Monte, etc.

Now you begin to understand the method behind the Coupon Queens' madness--they are paid by the big brands to entice you into buying big brands by using coupons in hyper-fashion. Generics and lower price-per-unit foods have won out, and the big brands are flailing around trying to survive, even though they're the makers of the generics.

When a company gets sold to private equity firms, the company is usually a step away from bankruptcy, and private equity is the only thing to save it from default. Witness Burger King, Hardees, Kmart, and Sears--all fell by the wayside, only to be saved by private equity firms. If they don't make a profit for the private equity firms, they get spun back out into bankruptcy, or get merged with another private equity holding, or just dissolved altogether. Rarely do firms get sold back into public domains and return to the stock market.

"Just look at Bumble Bee, the once-venerable tuna brand that has lost its luster over the years. Last month, Centre Partners Management, the tuna company's private-equity owner, sold Bumble Bee to Lion Capital, another PE shop. The price was a reported $980 million, or only about 7.5 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. That's well below the valuation of 9 to 11 times earnings that food companies are commanding on average.

In one sense, Centre Partners did well – it got a 250% return on its investment. But Centre could have gotten a better return elsewhere. And just compare this deal to the last time Centre bought and sold Bumble Bee. It purchased the company from ConAgra in 2003 and sold of the last of its stake in 2005. That series of deals netted Centre an 850% return. But the brand has faded since then, and so has the valuation.

Consumers tend to be more brand-loyal to bigger names. And grocers, overwhelmed by the variety of products on their shelves, are more likely to trade out mid-tier brands for their own brands than to stop stocking the best-known products.

Those crowded shelves also have implications on the deal front. Expect more consolidation among makers of private-label products. For retailers, buying products from dozens of private-label suppliers is highly inefficient and costly. Buying from just a handful allows grocers to get the full benefit of making thin-margin private-label products available."

...

"Consolidation is also happening in private-equity deals. Fieldbrook Foods recently agreed to be acquired by Arbor Investments, which specializes in food and beverage companies. Terms weren't disclosed, but Fieldbrook is the largest supplier of private-label ice cream east of the Mississippi. It got that way by spending the past decade snapping up other companies.

Meanwhile, private equity and strategic buyers are wondering what to do with brands that are being hurt by the rise of private labels. In October, shares of Sara Lee spiked after reports that private-equity firms including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Apollo Global Management, perhaps smelling blood in the water, were eyeing the struggling company. But there has been no reported movement on a deal (and Sara Lee says it no longer wants to sell). The stock has continued to rise.

Last month, Sara Lee sold its North American bakery unit to Mexico's increasingly gargantuan Grupo Bimbo for a bargain-basement price of $959 million (it was reportedly hoping for something more like $1.5 billion), signaling that it no longer wanted to compete with private-label bakers.

Bimbo, which has snapped up brands such as Entenmann's and Thomas' English Muffins, is on a mission to get most of its sales from the United States. Through acquisitions, it's getting close.

Whether or not Sara Lee is bought out in whole, such spinoffs of particular units might become a trend if wholesale deals can't be struck. Analysts have said that companies like Sara Lee and ConAgra might not be attractive, but some of their parts surely are."

...

"Brands that are strong today might, like Bumble Bee, start fading tomorrow. On the other hand, the recovery might send shoppers flocking back to their favorite brands, making some private-label deals less valuable. It will likely be a few years before we know who is making the smartest bets in the grocery store."

Now you see the reason for all the coupon hype--the brands are trying to save themselves any way they can. All the coupon tricks in the world aren't going to get me to buy their overpriced stuff--what happens when the coupons go away, as well as the product choice? It's coming in the form of street markets just like Europe.

These companies HAVE to give away their food to compete with price-per-unit. Those coupons are an indicator of how much you're overpaying for the product. In-store sales are a magnifyer of that overpayment. Put them together, and you get a food company freebie because they can't sell it for a reasonable price--it isn't worth it! They're admitting they can't compete.

Witness all those little KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo stores--those are also a private equity conglomeration called Yum Brands. Each brand separately can't compete, but put the three together, and POW! Yum Brands is on the stock market, which means public domain, but each individual INSIDE Yum Brands is a private entity. In other words, they had to put three brands together to make a decent company. The same goes for Sears and Kmart--separately, they each suck on ice, but cobbled together, into Sears Holdings, they do better. I have the feeling that eventually the Kmart name will disappear, leaving only the Sears name in the future.

This is what you can expect to happen with grocery stores and grocery brands. Your choice of stores will dwindle, as will your choice of brands, so you may as well ditch the loyalty before it's taken away from you. Expect to see Kroger-Meier-ShopRite stores, or some mash-up of whatever's in your area in the next decade.

From the Dollar Stretcher.

"Grandma learned how to keep things from spoiling or how to "revive" foods that were older and losing their freshness. The results were perfectly edible, and these simple tricks sure helped to stretch an already strained food budget. Why not try a few of these time-honored and tested tips yourself?

* If you are one egg short when baking a cake, substitute one teaspoon of cornstarch instead.

* Do you want to prevent mold from growing on cheese? Wrap it tightly with a sugar cube and store it in the refrigerator.

* Are you out of oil and need to grease a skillet? Rub it with half a potato. Pans "greased" with potato don't smoke at high temperatures like oiled pans do.

* Does your brown sugar harden like a concrete block? To keep it soft, store it in a glass jar in your refrigerator or in a plastic bag with a piece of bread or apple inside.

* Don't let insects ruin your dry foods! Put a bay leaf into containers of pasta, flour, rice and dry mixes to keep them away.

* If your mayonnaise separates or curdles, mix 1 teaspoon mustard and 1 tablespoon curdled mayonnaise in a bowl. Beat it with a wire whisk until it is creamy. Add the rest of the mayonnaise slowly and blend well.

* To keep a fresh fruit salad from turning brown, sprinkle the sliced fruit with lemon juice.

* Is your granulated sugar lumpy? Place several saltine crackers in the container and cover it tightly.

* If you have a block of cheese that has dried out, don't throw it away? Store it in freezer. When you need to grate it for a recipe, slice it thinly, without thawing. Frozen cheese crumbles easily. It is perfect for making macaroni and cheese.

* Do you need to freshen dried out coconut? Place it in a strainer over a steaming pot of water for a few minutes.

* If you don't want to throw out a stale loaf of bread, sprinkle it with water or milk and wrap it in aluminum foil. Bake it at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes to soften it. Loaves of Italian or French bread need to be baked for 3-5 minutes more, with the foil open for the last few minutes.

* Sticky rice? Rinse it thoroughly with warm water to wash out the excess starch. This will cause the grains to easily separate.

* Sticky pasta? Add salt or oil to noodles while the water is boiling.

* Did you over-salt a recipe? Add a little vinegar and sugar and then taste. If it is a recipe for stew or soup, add a raw potato to absorb the excess salt.

* Does your recipe have too much sugar? Add a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar."

Many years ago, a magazine called A Taste of Home used to have a recipe section called Blue Plate Specials: Meals for $1.00 or Less per Serving. Well, I imagine all the food inflation we've had since then has done away with this concept, but the recipes are still in the archives, only are now separated by categories, rather than combined into meals. You could combine budget dishes yourself to come up with your own budget meals--they may no longer be $1.00 or less per serving, but still a relative bargain on today's economy.

Taste of Home Budget Recipe Index

From the Farmer's Almanac with a Wenchypoo GF twist.

GFers--Now before you see the words "graham crackers" and get bent out of shape, there are GF graham crackers on the market, or you can make your own. For those regular people not Celiac or allergic to wheat, use normal graham crackers.

One box of graham crackers
16 oz. heavy cream
8 oz. chocolate syrup

Place a mixing bowl in the freezer to chill for about 15 minutes. In the chilled mixing bowl, combine heavy cream and chocolate syrup and whisk them together until peaks form. Cover the bottom of a 9″ x 13″ baking pan with a flat layer of whole graham crackers. You may need to break off sections of a few graham crackers to match the size of the pan. Cover the graham cracker layer with about a half an inch of chocolate whipped cream. Place another flat layer of graham crackers over the whipped cream. Cover this layer with the rest of the whipped cream. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place it into the refrigerator overnight to allow the graham crackers to soften and expand.

I plan to do this with no-bake pumpkin pie filling rather than cream and chocolate syrup, making my own "pumpkin pie torte" if you will.

Either recipe can also be made in a loaf pan, allowing for cake "slices" like meat loaf slices. Spray or paper-line loaf pan before attempting to put anything in it.

From the BBC. Starts Monday at 9 (UK time), and is a cooking show about making meals on war rations. I don't know if it'll ever make it here, but if you can get British broadcasting, watch it.

A video here. Some recipes here.

From the IU Newsroom (Indiana State University). Here's another way to look at protein sources...like roadkill, bugs, or dumpster food.

"Designed on one hand to examine food preferences, delicacies and taboos tied to some of the world's most unusual sources of sustenance, the first-ever offering of the course was also crafted to connect the simple acts of eating, no matter how unusual the product or preparation, with the supper table's intricate links to culture, identity, politics and economics, Atalay said.

"From Indiana to India, the course has sought to explore ways people are working to preserve their food cultures," she said. "In doing so, students also receive training in core anthropology concepts and basic research skills that are cornerstones of anthropological thought and practice."

The 18 teams, each consisting of five students, will present their research findings through explanatory posters, informative video segments and through discussions about their experiments. One such experiment, Atalay mentioned, was conducted by a "road kill" team that videotaped the process of finding, skinning and preparing their discovery.

"I thought the students would learn better from presenting their research in a public format, rather than in a standard paper, so the content of their presentations is aimed to be informative and cover all aspects of the bizarre food they have chosen," she said. "The themes range through historical, economic, cultural, even scandals and schemes related to the food. The class also focused a great deal on "heritage foods" and the way that globalization is changing and homogenizing what people eat, while in other cases it is responsible for introducing new foods where they've never been eaten."

IU's Mathers Museum is located at 416 N. Indiana Ave., and students in the class will be on hand from noon until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 7, to discuss their projects. Entry to the museum and to the project discussion area is free."

Wow--it's a freebie entertainment option with a little global cultural lesson on what makes food all in one!

From WCSH-6, Portland, Maine. I have the feeling I might have this one beat before even reading the article...

"Shoppers took to the grocery aisles Wednesday night with a goal, they had to come up with a meal for four under ten dollars.

The program Cooking Matters to Maine put on the event, The program teaches low income families how to eat healthy on a budget. The program is split up into six classes, meeting once a week. Typical classes take place in a classroom type atmosphere where local nutritionists and volunteer chefs teach everything from how to cook healthy meals, to reading grocery labels."

...

"Later the participants had an hour to choose their meals, once approved from their instructors they were given ten dollar Hannaford gift cards to purchase their groceries."

More information about the classes here. It doesn't surprise me that ConAgra Foods sponsored the event--I bet the participants even got extra credit for using ConAgra products in their meal menus.

Oh well...at least it's a start in food education--something that's sorely needed in this country. I'd like to throw them a REAL challenge: feeding that same family of 4 on the same $10 budget FOR A WEEK instead of just a meal. Nowadays you can order a large pizza for $10 and have it delivered--so much for rummaging through a grocery store!

There are segments of the population that still find cheap, nutritious food unattainable for various reasons. These reasons can range from transportation to and from the food source to simply applying ineffective shopping skills. The population gamut runs from the unemployed high school dropout to some possessing a PhD.

The common denominator: the cupboards are bare, and the refrigerator’s empty.

I don’t know whether to chalk it up to poor shopping skills, poor food choices, under-education and under-employment, breeding beyond means, or a combination of all these things. Whatever the reasons, it’s a sad state to find one’s self in among one of the richest nations on earth.

Maybe it’s really a lack of reckoning with certain truths about the world we now live in. So much has changed, and so many can’t seem to keep up. For example:

Employment—businesses are in a constant scramble for profits, and will stop at almost nothing to preserve profit margins. Offshoring and outsourcing weren’t even in our vocabulary ten years ago, and now are tossed about every day in casual conversation. Since labor is the largest recurring cost for employers, they will find a way to do without labor or find cheaper sources. This means we must “recession-proof” our job skills through careful career choices and near-constant educational updates to stay current, useful, and in demand. We also have to stay current in the ways we FIND a job, and not fall victim to relying on methods that are no longer used.

Another priority we must fulfill is contribution to the boss’s bottom line. If you are a cost (liability) to him/her and not an asset, you won’t be employed long. Regular accomplishments that help bolster the bottom line at work (through sales increases, new customers/markets, cost-cutting, etc.) will help to ensure continued employability and can be used as bargaining chips for negotiating pay raises and bonuses. Those same accomplishments can also be applied to the resume’ for future employment and pay negotiations.

Choose a career that can’t be outsourced, sent offshore, or have software written to replace your presence. Achieve the maximum degree in it that will pay for itself, and this will require some research on your part (some Master’s and PhD’s don’t earn any more than a regular Bachelor’s, and turn out to be a waste of time and money). Fit the boss’s needs in with your regular job duties, and continue to job hunt while you’re already employed. Employers gain most of their new employees by poaching from other firms, so don’t be afraid to put your resume’ out or enlist the help of a headhunter (for discretion). The fact that you’re still employed means you are in demand, and demand attracts demand.

Spending—some people have a tendency to “reward” themselves for such hard work with short-lived and expensive trinkets. The want takes precedence over the need or even the consideration of options. The idea of having “something to show for all the hard work” is a fallacy that many people still seem to share.

Finding ways to save, even if it’s just a small amount, is imperative in today’s world. It’s also a tax benefit.

Shopping skills—as we all (or nearly all) know, judicious shelf label reading, coupon use, store selection, and product selection have maximum dollar savings. Too much focus is placed on the product price, and agencies that deal with food stamps ought to hold shopping and nutrition classes. It seems like so many people who use these programs don’t know how to shop correctly, and it’s no wonder—the schools no longer teach Home Economics like they did when Mom and Grandma went to school, nor is it explained at home. This “generational deficit” has led to buying salad in bags, vegetables in cans, and junk non-foods for lunchboxes. Familiar convenience items are now sought out at food banks and pantries, and they’re not going to be there.

Grandma had less money than we do now, so how did she get by? She had a garden and an oven, and she used them. As much as we may despise it, we need to get back into domesticity: cook from scratch, garden, learn portion control, and cost-per-unit shopping.

Breeding beyond our means—there just is no tactful way to say this, and I apologize to you readers. Choosing to have kids is a romantic reflex response to marriage, according to Dr. Phil. As we know, not all kids are planned, and we can’t send them back to where they came from. We can control their creation, however, with the myriad methods of birth control available.

Having children before getting a sufficient education to sustain employment is one big mistake lots of people make. The cart frequently gets put before the horse, and we hear, “it’ll all work out in the end,”—but mostly it doesn’t. This can lead to abuse, neglect, abandonment, and having to rely on agencies and organizations for mere subsistence rations of food with negligible nutrition. We cannot always rely on the support of a devoted spouse to carry us through, and he/she may have their own set of problems with staying employed, saving, shopping, etc.

The number of children can also be a detriment if sufficient income isn’t present or cannot be had to support all those bodies—it’s just like creating more bills that have no hope of being paid. This isn’t fair to the children at all. They didn’t ask to suffer.

There are benefits and consequences to both having kids while young and waiting awhile. One of the benefits of waiting is maturity of the brain—our frontal lobes aren’t fully mature until we’re 25, and this part of the brain is responsible for things like risk assessment and quick decision making. If we wait until the income is right, the marital and mental units are stable, and a savings/spending program is under control, we stand a much better chance for family success. We are also less likely to fall to levels where reliance on food stamps and food pantries become the norm for our households.

Kids are not a requirement of marriage or any other sort of relationship, and it’s perfectly okay if you don’t have any at all. Sometimes we can end up waiting until it’s biologically too late for conditions to be just right, and so far, about 30% of the “breeding age” population has. All the more reason to make education, career selection, savings, and shopping skills a priority on your life while you’re young. If you don’t make it and lose to the biological clock, don’t sweat it—you have plenty of company.

Individual personal responsibility has got to kick in at some point. Food banks, pantries, and agency programs cannot be expected to pick up the slack for what amounts to poor prevention planning. Articles and advocates cry out for increased access to more nutritious food through these “emergency” outlets, but there’s the rub—these outlets are not meant for providing first-line sustenance. Furthermore, these outlets are subject to regulations, donations and budgets, and seasonal/supplier availability. They are just not meant as a first-line defense for under-employment, bad shopping/spending skills, and over-breeding. Here is where nutrition and need collide, and it’s preventable.

From the U.K. Money Saving Blog. This correlates directly with my Meat Manifesto.

"Going vegetarian can save you a lot of money on your grocery shopping if you choose in-season local vegetables. However, there are a lot of people who don’t want to eat vegetarian food all of the time. And there are people who have favorite dishes that include meat as a main ingredient. So how do you keep your meal costs down when you’re a meat eater?"

1. Eat the whole animal (article advocates eating bony chicken parts--I disagree, because once you strip the meat off those bones, you find you actually paid whole carcass prices for very little usable meat. No matter how hard you try, you can't eat bones or empty space from hollow cavities--this is called a FALSE ECONOMY)

2. Choose cheaper cuts of meat

3. Replace meat with beans (or eggs, or nuts, or quinoa) in recipes (rethink your protein sources)

4. Make meat the side dish of your meal (or part of it, such as chicken salad, which allows you to use less meat)

5. Skip meat dishes when dining out (or dining in--have a designated "veggie night" or two a week)

6. Buy meat in bulk (or buy it from an agricultural college)

7. Purchase your meat at the end of the day

8. Barter for your meat

9. Mix hamburger with cheaper stuff to make it stretch further (like TVP, eggs, bread crumbs, finely chopped beans, etc.)

10. Learn to cut meat yourself (this requires learning which knives are worth keeping around, and how to care for them)

11. Get to know a hunter (and offer him/her ammo or some other useful goods/services in exchange for meat)

12. Look for post-holiday meat sales

13. Buy meat that is close to its expiration date

14. Use discount codes and look for sales (if any exist--rare in the U.S. without a further purchase, like 1 lb. of hamburger for a gallon milk purchase)

15. Always eat your leftovers (and learn to eliminate waste)

Remember: you don't always have to COOK to get proteins--you can BAKE them too.

I said I was going to post this as a stand-alone recipe from Elizabeth Van Horn, but it's difficult when you have no specific ingredient measurements. I went looking for a potato candy recipe, and found THOUSANDS! Here's the simplest one I could find.

Potato Candy
1/2 (or 1 small) boiled potato
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
About 2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

Mash potato, add butter, vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make a slightly stiff dough. Roll out dough (on a surface dusted with powdered sugar) and spread on the peanut butter. Roll dough up (as for jelly roll) to make a log. Cut into pieces, let air dry for about an hour. Store in air tight container. Makes about 2 dozen confections.

--Sue Broussard, Abbeville, Louisiana

There are scads of variations available--some add raisins, coconut, chocolate, different flavorings, crushed nuts, and even jam. One even says to roll each candy in crushed nuts before wrapping. I guess this can also be a What-Ya-Got candy recipe too!

If you have any unused packaged stuffing left over, use the food processor to turn them into bread crumbs. Use these crumbs as you would regular bread crumbs--just remember these may already be seasoned.

Make mind-blowing meat loaves, shake-n-bake turkey or chicken parts (remember Shake-n-Bake?), put into or on top of casseroles, whatever comes to mind.

From the Southern Oregon Mail-Tribune. Basically, prepare for them.

"I end up with Thanksgiving leftovers every year, only to find my enthusiasm for them faded after a couple of days. With food costs as high as they are, I want to be more thrifty this year. Do you have any tips for extending the life of leftovers?

— Barb M., Ashlan

Making the most of leftovers shouldn't mean a week of marathon eating. A freezer is the thrifty cook's friend and deserves a little pre-holiday TLC. Toss out any packaged foods that haven't been used up after a year or appear freezer-burned to make space for Thanksgiving's bounty.

Our favorite items to freeze are the turkey wings, drumsticks and the picked-over carcass for making soups and stews later. Store these pieces in freezer-safe bags and use within six months.

Cooked mashed potatoes can thicken cream soups and keep well in airtight containers in the freezer for up to a year. If reheating potatoes for a side dish, stir 1 to 2 tablespoons milk, broth or water into them and warm over medium-low. Mashed sweet potatoes can be frozen and reheated the same way.

Coincidentally, gravy is another good keeper in the freezer if used within six months and reheated gently. Cranberry sauce, too, with just thawing required.

After stuffing the freezer, look to ethnic cuisines for new flavor profiles. Use shredded turkey in tacos, enchiladas or chili. Toss turkey, as well as leftover green beans or carrots, with peanut sauce and rice noodles for pad Thai. Spice up sandwiches with a curry-flavored mayonnaise. Fill prepared wonton skins with mashed potatoes for pierogis.

Try the accompanying recipe for Turkey Spring Rolls."

Turkey Spring Rolls
2 ounces thin rice noodles or vermicelli
12 (8.5-inch) round rice-paper wrappers
1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked, shredded turkey
1 cup julienned cucumber
1/2 cup fresh mint or cilantro leaves
12 pieces fresh green-leaf lettuce leaves, ribs removed
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons fish sauce
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon Thai chilies, minced (optional)
3 tablespoons finely shredded carrot

Bring 6 cups water to boil. Add the rice noodles and cook until they are soft. Or cook vermicelli according to package instructions. Drain and rinse noodles with cold water to cool them.

Fill a pan with hot water. Dip 1 rice-paper wrapper into hot water to wet it. Set it on a damp towel. Rice paper should become soft and pliable immediately.

Arrange a portion of the turkey in a horizontal line at bottom third (2 1/2 inches from bottom and 1 inch from each side) of wrapper. Place a small portion of cooked rice noodles over turkey. Distribute some of the cucumber and 4 to 5 mint leaves over noodles. Place 1 of the lettuce leaves over mint leaves.

Fold bottom half of wrapper over filling while using your fingers to press down on ingredients. Fold both sides of rice paper over to enclose all ingredients.

Pressing gently on ingredients with your fingers, gently roll rice paper tightly upward to form a cylinder. Repeat these steps to make remaining rolls. Makes 12 rolls.

Rolls can be made up to 1 day before serving. Cover them tightly with plastic wrap or place in a container and refrigerate.

To make dipping sauce, in a bowl, whisk together the lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, garlic and chilies until sugar is dissolved. Add the carrot. Add warm water as needed to dilute concentration to desired taste. Let sauce stand 30 minutes before serving. Sauce can be made up to 1 day ahead. Store it, covered, in refrigerator.

— Recipe from Thai Kitchen Inc.

From the Ft. Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette. Bonus: hidden inside the article is a recipe for potato candy--no grains required!

"Elizabeth VanHorn of Fort Wayne thinks she makes good baking powder biscuits and sausage gravy.

“That and potato candy,” she says.

Potato candy?

“I made that during World War II to send to my brother. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. He was an instructor in field artillery,” she says.

Noting that she never had a recipe for the candy, VanHorn describes how she would make the treat.

“Take a small potato and cook it and mash it until there are no lumps in it,” she says. “Add powdered sugar until it becomes a consistency you can roll it without sticking. Add vanilla and roll it out into a rectangle shape. Spread it with peanut butter. Roll it up like a log. Slice it.”

She says that before mailing the candy, she would wrap it in waxed paper and foil. After her brother received the package, he would cut the candy into slices.

VanHorn, 97, says she was around during the Great Depression and thereby learned not to be wasteful – something taught to her by her mother, Mae Smith, and grandmother Caroline Evans.

“I use (leftovers) up. I came up during the first Depression. I’ll keep vegetables, and when I have enough I’ll make soup or combine them with a sauce. Whatever was left I would find a way to combine something,” she says, “My mother could take leftovers and make them taste as good as the first time.”

It wasn’t until she became a 4-H leader that VanHorn realized she needed to use recipes.

“When I learned to cook it was a handful of this or a pinch of that. But then I begun as a 4-H leader, and I started using recipes. I had to teach the children,” she says.

Asked to describe her cooking in one word, VanHorn replies, “Probably country.”

Her reasoning was because her husband was a meat-and-potatoes man.

“I remember my daughter when she was young. I asked her if she was ready to eat her vegetables, and she said, ‘I’ll wait until daddy eats his.’ He ate them,” she says."

Where's our 4-H now? Seemingly, it's restricted to the rural central states. Oh well--we still have county extension offices available online.

The potato candy recipe will be re-published later as a "Look Ma--No Grains!" stand-alone recipe (with full credits to Elizabeth Van Horn). This recipe is also a "cheap food" recipe (well, cheap if powdered sugar hasn't gone through the roof like other sugar has!).

Not a speck of flour used in these recipes!

Lentil Balls
2 c. cooked lentils
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
3 T. chopped parsley
1 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. ground coriander
1/2 t. baking powder
1 tomato, chopped
water as needed

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend. Add a little extra water if required. Roll into balls, and pan fry until heated through.

Split Pea Fritters (needs 24 hr. lead time to soak peas)
1 c. dried split peas, soaked overnight--drain, and add to:

2 onions, finely chopped
2 red chilies, finely chopped
1 t. ground turmeric
salt
oil for frying

Put all ingredients except oil into food processor and blend to paste consistency. Form into golf ball-sized balls and flatten slightly to 1/2" thickness. Heat oil to 350, the drop the fritters one at a time and fry until golden brown on all sides. Do this in batches. Drain, and serve as accompaniment to soups or main course dishes. Serves 4-6.

Both these recipes feature foods from the Food Stamp Challenge cheat sheet and the Cheap Eating With Cost Per Serving list.

Yep, this is a "pizza", alright, but it uses the meat as the crust. A Thanksgiving leftover option will be included at the bottom.

Meat Loaf Pizza
1 lb. ground beef
3/4 c. spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, or marinara
1/2 c. green peppers
1/4 c. onion, minced
1/4 c. mozzarella cheese

Lightly grease a 9" pie pan with oil. Press ground beef into pan. Place pan with meat in oven and bake at 350 until meat is no longer pink--about 17-20 minutes. Drain.

MICROWAVE METHOD: Press meat into greased glass pie plate. Cover meat with waxed paper, and cook on high, rotating plate every 3 minutes if oven doesn't rotate for you. cook until meat is no longer pink--about 8 mins. total. Drain.

To finish: top baked meat with sauce, cheese, peppers, and return to oven or microwave to melt cheese on top--about 1-2 mins. more.

Cut into quarters and serve. The meat becomes your crust. This cannot be eaten out of hand--a plate and fork must be used.

Thanksgiving Leftover version
1 lb. turkey leftovers
1 c. stuffing/rice/mashed potatoes, or combination
1 egg

Put all in a food processor and combine until ground-meat-like. This is the "bread and meat" combo normally used in meat loaf. Do not season--your turkey and stuffing are already seasoned. Use this to press into your greased pan.

Bake at 350 for about 10 mins. oven/4 mins. microwave (long enough to cook the egg in the crust). No draining necessary.

On top of it, add:
3/4 c. gravy
1/4 c. cheese, any flavor (what ya got?)
1/2 c. leftover green bean casserole--if you still have any french-fried onions, sprinkle them on top.

Return to heat and cook until cheese is melted on top. Cut and serve on plates with forks.