Shopping Tips or "Hey, I'm pretty cheap and here's how I do it..."

As the tremendous need for jobs remains as high as ever and folks have to really watch their budgets, it can't hurt to have more tips on how to more economically shop for the things we use to create wonderful meals. Some of my pointers may be things you've heard before, some may not. Take from this list what will work for you and your family. Once you've done that please comment below to share with me your tips on how to most economically feed those you care about. 

• Evaluate your needs before purchasing kitchen hardware and invest in quality cooking hardware. When I say "hardware," I'm talking about knives, appliances large and small, gadgets, utensils, cookware, storage containers and anything else that goes in your kitchen that isn't food. Quality hardware doesn't always mean you spend the most money. Matter of fact, often the expense of an item has more to do with a fancy label or celebrity endorsement than the quality of the item. Use common sense: Do you have to have a $600 professional stand mixer if the extent of your mixing activity is a couple cake batters a year? Probably not. Would you be disappointed in an $8 hand mixer if you bake ten dozen cookies per week as a way to earn extra income? Yeah, I'd say so. Even if you weren't disappointed, the quality of your end product would suffer sooner rather than later. Plus the $8 mixer isn't going to last long with usage like that! Most of us who enjoy cooking as a hobby fall somewhere between those two extremes. When you need to purchase kitchen hardware, look for reviews. They're all over the Internet. Read reviews from several different places. My personal rule of thumb is this: If I'm spending more than $50 on a product, I get as much feedback from other users as I can find. I work hard for my $50 and I know you do too. Make it count.
• Look beyond the obvious places for your purchases. Sure, retail stores are fun. Everything there is nice, new and shiny. They have sales, gifts with purchase, free samples and sometimes demonstrations. Depending on where you shop, you may have a very knowledgeable sales staff to help you select the best product for your needs. (I'll not get into a rant about sales staff who have no clue how to do anything but make commission while checking their phones for texts while you wait. No, that's for another day!) I'm encouraging you to go off the beaten path for your kitchen finds. Flea markets, yard sales, estate sales, thrift stores, restaurant supply stores and even organizing a kitchen swap with friends are all good ways to find needed products on the cheap (or free!). Thrift stores are the absolute best places to pick up plates and platters to use as gifts or for transporting food to another location. When you see those three plates with a design you like for .25 each, go ahead and get them. Use one to wrap up a plate of fudge for a friend's birthday. Use another as a part of a gift set with a coordinating kitchen towel and serving spoon. The third one can be used to take those sandwiches you promised to the dinner party with friends. You don't have to stick around until everyone leaves to get your dish back if you only paid 25 cents for it. Or maybe you do want to take it back home because you really like it...your choice!
• Shop for food with sale prices and products in mind. This, too, means some off the beaten path shopping spots. Find a farmer's market, fruit stand, co-op or pick-your-own farm in your community. You'll be getting fresher food at prices that almost always beat any chain while supporting your local economy. You're reducing your carbon footprint and eating more healthful, more flavorful food at the same time. Plan your meals around what you already have on hand and/or what's on sale, not necessarily the meal that's being requested. 

Example:

The five people you're feeding want chicken fingers for dinner. You're capable and willing to do homemade but you don't have any tenders in the freezer because chicken hasn't been on sale in a couple weeks. To do chicken tenders, you can pay $4.59/lb for chicken tenderloins, $3.99 for boneless breast or $1.99/lb for split bone-in breast with skin. You opt for the $4.59 tenderloins. You estimate a serving of 6 ounces per person. You need 30 ounces total, or 1.875 lbs, for a cost of $8.60. This purchase will satisfy the entree portion of meal with no leftovers. 

..............or..............consider a less expensive alternative with pork picnic (roast) that's on sale for .99/lb: 

For the same $8.60, you walk out of the store with over eight and a half pounds of pork roast. You would be able to make four and a half meals out of that. (8.5 lbs x 16 ounces per pound = 136 ounces. 136/5 people = 27.2 ounces per person. 27.2/6 ounces per serving = 4.53 meals. I'm thinking pork roast with seasoned rice and veggies tonight. Pork burritos tomorrow night. BBQ pork sandwiches with coleslaw sometime next week with what I have leftover that I'll freeze after the first two meals. Some kind of Asian soup with pulled pork three weeks from now with the remaining portion of what I stuffed into the freezer. 

.....or even this if you just gotta do chicken....

Get the bone in breast with skin for $1.99/lb. Cut those breasts up yourself. Reserve the bones and skin for delicious, hearty soup stock. (Yes, some of the original weight is lost with this but it is still much more economical than tenderloin pieces!) At $1.99/lb, you leave the store with 4.3 lbs, or 68.8 ounces for $8.58. Still basing our meals on the same 6 ounce portion with five hungry tummies, we have enough for two and a third meals: 4.3 lbs x 16 ounces per pound = 68.8 ounces. 68.8/5 people = 13.76 ounces per person. 13.76/6 ounces per serving = 2.29 meals. Chicken tenders tonight. Chicken noodle soup with the rest of the chicken and the stock I made from the bones and skin.

Or you could have your one entree of about four chicken tenders per person for that same $8.60.

Or you could wait until that same bone-in breast is on sale for $.99/lb and cut these prices in half!

****The lesson here: stop buying convenience prepped items unless you find them at a price low enough to make up for the time you'd otherwise spend prepping it! It takes only a sharp knife, a cutting board and a few seconds to turn that split breast into chicken tenders! Stop paying the butcher to do what you can do at home!****

• Know when to splurge on higher quality food items. Does your dish have only a few ingredients or a couple key ingredients that really stand out? I prefer White Lily flour and Crisco vegetable shortening to make biscuits because the quality of those ingredients makes a big difference in the end product. Why? Well, because my biscuits are only comprised of self-rising flour (I know, I know. Real chefs use plain flour and add the other junk to it. For my purposes, it doesn't make a difference), shortening and buttermilk. When there are only three ingredients, each one counts a lot! Biscuits made with lower quality flour or shortening just aren't as good. I've tried it before. They don't rise as well and they even have a kind of sticky texture in the middle. Blek. NOT what I want to serve to my guests or eat myself! My guests are worth the extra cost for better quality food, as am I. Make bad food with poor ingredients and you throw more of it away than what you should. Spend the few extra cents in places where it matters. When you're adding those frozen corn kernels to a huge vat of soup that's comprised of 17 other ingredients, who cares if they're off brand? Each bowl will only have a few kernels anyway and no one will be any wiser if it's Green Giant Select or Southern Home brand. 
• While we're on the topic...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't serve margarine to yourself or your guests!!! Life's too short to eat fake plastic butter! And dear Gawd in heaven----don't even think of baking or sauteing with it!!! In addition to tasting horrible, margarine has a high water content. Your food won't brown properly when sauteing and baked goods will be all kind of screwed up and disgusting. Just don't buy margarine and everything in the world will be better, okay? 

I'm sure there will be more tips/semi-rants to come but I think this is enough to think about for the moment. Please share your thoughts/tips/rants on how you shop smart for your kitchen and food.