Insanely Frugal Shopping Guru- Interview with Penny's Dad

Hello there everyone. Today I decided to do something a little bit different. I've talked about my parents before, and how I grew up, and shared various things my dad and mom have taught me about saving money and cooking... Recently, though, my dad has been talking to me about his monthly grocery budget and I'll tell you something- if you think I'm nuts and crazy frugal, he outshines me by a mile.
My dad cooks mainly for himself, 3 meals a day, seven days a week, and has guests (2-4 at a time) over for about 7 or 8 meals a month.
His grocery bills on average are about $43 dollars a month for all that.
Yes, you read that right. This is not a typo. 4. 3. dollars.
And I thought my 428 dollars-575 dollars a month (ok, for a family of 6, granted) was frugal. The biggest difference is that my dad is cooking for one (mainly) and I'm cooking for 6, and my dad and I have very different diets. My diet is very vegetable heavy, gluten free, processed food free, pretty much paleo, and my kids eat gluten free. My dad on the other hand doesn't avoid processed foods in theory, but overall does simply to save money, and he eats a lot of gluten and refined carbohydrates and white sugar, etc... I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone follow my dad's shopping and dietary habits, but since I know there are many out there that don't see the need to eat the way I do, gluten free and practically paleo and a "traditional foods diet" but just want to eat decent meals on a low budget, I figured that it would be a nice idea to share how he shops and cooks. Maybe it'll inspire those of you who eat a diet more similarly to his than mine.

Here's the thing. I wanted to tell you about how he shops and how he keeps his grocery bills so low, but I knew many people wouldn't be likely to believe me, so for a month I asked him to keep tally to the nearest dollar, and for the month of May he spent $75.50. With half of that being food that he stocked up for a few months in the future. He predicts that he'll probably spend under $30 this month, but I'll follow up with him next month to see.

My dad is here right now, visiting, and I decided to write this post interview style, so he can tell you about how he shops the way he does, where he shops, what he eats, why he does it, and all that.

Meet my dad, Cardiologist Colonel Edward of the US Army, currently on inactive duty and living abroad not so far from where I do.

Marinated Artichoke Hearts Recipe- Canning Option Included

I love artichokes in so many ways. Marinated artichokes have got to be some of the most delicious methods of artichoke preparation, but they cost a ridiculous amount where I live- roughly $7 for a small jar. Making it yourself, though, especially when artichokes are bought frugally in season, or even more so, when bought from the reduced rack, they are a fraction of the cost. I made each jar for under $1, probably under 50 cents. I use pint sized jars for my recipe.

The other day I posted how to prepare whole artichokes for stuffing or marinating, and you can see the whole post with explanations here. Here's the video again, though, for your ease.

Once you have your artichokes prepared, it is very simple to marinate them. You can marinate them and then keep them in the refrigerator, or you can water bath can them, and then not need to store them in the fridge. 

Just note that when I water bath canned my artichokes, they ended up turning a brownish/purplish color, so if you want your artichoke to stay a pretty light green color, it's best to make them into refrigerator pickles. (Perhaps there is a way to make it maintain its color even when water bath canned, I just haven't managed to figure it out yet.)

You can do this with as many artichokes as you want, as my recipe is per jar. Double, triple, or increase as desired.

On top of being a low cost recipe, these marinated artichokes are delicious and suitable for a variety of special diets, whether gluten free and paleo to vegan and allergy friendly. If you love artichokes, give it a try- you won't regret it.

While I used oregano and thyme in my marinated artichoke hearts, feel free to mix up the herbs, using whatever flavors you like best paired with your artichoke hearts.

Marinated Artichoke Hearts Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, Allergy Friendly

Making Realistic Recipes from Cookbooks

A cookbook suitable for any kitchen

When you open a cookbook, sometimes the perfectly styled dishes there can seem very intimidating, something that people without time, money, or energy can’t recreate precisely with their cooking.

However, cooking doesn’t have to be a stressful experience- you can take recipes from cookbooks and make them your own, in a way that suits your lifestyle. Reading a cookbook doesn’t have hard and fast rules- you can use the pictures and recipes there as inspiration (who doesn’t enjoy flipping through cookbooks with beautiful pictures, and then get inspired to want to make similar?) and then adapt them as needed. Don’t like a certain ingredient? One of the items listed in a recipe is unaffordable? Substitute! Consider using frugal ingredient substitutions, as I listed here.

How to Clean and Prepare Artichokes for Pickling and Stuffing

I absolutely adore artichokes. Growing up, we had them on special occasions with my family, and because of that, I have really positive associations with that vegetable. I love artichoke any way I can get it, baked, boiled, stuffed, marinated, in soups, salads, you name it...
I felt like I hit the jackpot when I got 30 lbs of artichoke for 25 cents a pound, but I will admit, I was just a little bit overwhelmed. Much as I love artichoke, the only way I'd ever made it before was boiled or baked, whole; when I'd had it other ways, I'd always started with frozen or canned. I didn't want to just boil or bake all my 30 lbs of artichoke whole, but didn't even begin to know where to start if I wanted to turn my whole artichokes into hearts or to be able to can them.

I did a lot of googling to try to figure that out, and I'll admit, even that wasn't so helpful, since most of the instructions were vague or called for baby artichokes, which I didn't have.

However, I managed to figure it out and turn my artichokes into artichoke hearts for stuffing, canned them, made them into soup, and it's a game changer. I feel worlds of options opening up for me in the kitchen now because of this.

To help explain how to clean and prepare artichokes for pickling and stuffing, I made a video of my sister Lizzy, demonstrating how to do this. If it looks hard, I literally showed Lizzy how to do this only one minute before making this video- it's easy to learn. As that was her first time doing so, note that the more often you do this, the more practice you get, the faster you can get it done.

Tuna Tartare with Capers on Beet Carpaccio Recipe- Paleo and Delicious

The other day I was looking for a fancy dish to make for a nice meal, but didn't want to spend too much money on it, saw some beets in my fridge and capers I'd just foraged, and got inspired to make this dish, tuna tartare with foraged capers and sow thistle capers on beet carpaccio. I first saw my friend Ben make a dish similar to this; his plating was an inspiration for mine.
Carpaccio is a dish invented in the 1950s and originally made with paper thin slices of beef topped with olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar, and salt, and more recently people have started making meatless versions of it out of beets.
Tartare is typically made from raw meat or fish, onions, capers, and seasonings, and is similar to the raw fish ceviche.

When I made this dish, my entire family was in love, and the dish itself, despite its fancy appearance, was relatively easy to make and quite frugal. Tuna steaks, I'm sure you're thinking, are not remotely frugal, but if you compare the price per pound with canned tuna, tuna steaks typically work out to be significantly cheaper. I used just one tuna steak for this recipe and stretched it with lots of capers and onions and it was enough to serve as an appetizer for our entire family. The fish in this recipe cost me about a dollar, the beets about 35 cents, the onion was free, and the rest of the ingredients were so insignificant in terms of cost- a fancy appetizer like this for under $1.50, approximately the price of a can of chunk light tuna locally, definitely a frugal dish, even factoring in the tuna steak.
If you want to do a more fish heavy dish, and not have such a high onion to tuna ratio, you're welcome to do so, it will just increase the cost, and it tasted fishy and delicious enough like this, so I wouldn't change anything.

In terms of safety and raw fish, I'd suggest you do your own research about what types of tuna that you can locally buy are safe to eat raw. Sushi grade tuna would work, for example.

I used a combination of homemade foraged pickled capers and sow thistle capers (recipe in my book Penniless Foodie in the Wild, now available in Kindle version as well as print, on Amazon) in my recipe, but you can use store bought pickled capers or any mock capers, or a combination thereof in this recipe.

If you want to keep this vegan and/or lower the costs, you can simply make the beet carpaccio, thinly slice a raw onion and scatter it on the beets along with capers, before adding the rest of the toppings, and it tastes delicious and looks beautiful, albeit a little less so, that way as well.

Tuna Tartare with Capers on Beet Carpaccio Recipe- Paleo and Delicious

The Tale of Our Bedroom Vanity

Our new house, while nearly double the amount of living space of our old place, is still quite small for our family of six. Other than the bathrooms, the smallest room in the house is my bedroom. We did design the layout of the apartment, putting the walls and doors where we wanted, more or less, since we bought the place before internal walls were built, and we could have possibly made our bedroom bigger. However, any additional space we added to our bedroom would either make our kitchen/living room/dining room smaller, which we didn't want to do, or getting rid of our second bathroom, not either something we were keen to do. We made the choice to sacrifice bedroom space for the sake of the rest of the house.

Out bedroom is 8.5 feet by 10.3 feet, or 2.6 meters by 3.1 meters. 87.5 square feet or 8 square meters to be exact. Add to this the fact that there are two doors in the room (one from the hallway, and one to the bathroom) and no built in closet space, we needed to figure out how to store everything two people need in the bedroom. This was not an easy thing to do by a long shot.

But we figured it out, by building our own beds and night stands, used some Ikea "hacks" and repurposed some furniture from our old apartment, and we mostly figured it out...

Other than a place to store my makeup, jewelry, hair things, etc... I needed a vanity...

Getting Fit Doesn’t Require An Expensive Fitness Club

This post was written by Sandra Adams, a reader who loves staying fit on a budget.

Being fit has several different aspects. For one, it makes us more healthy. Bodies that are fit and strong have better immune systems, develop diseases less frequently, and are often healthier later in life than. Another aspect is the way being healthy makes us feel. When our bodies are healthy, it means they are working in good order, which has the result of a feeling of stability and well-being. Finally, being fit has a good outcome for our appearances as well. Looking our best has positive benefits for our social lives, and we also feel better about ourselves when we look and feel our best.

However, many people think that to get fit you must pay. Whether through expensive gym memberships, personal training, pricey fitness clothing and gear, or a handful of hot yoga classes, the industry of fitness certainly makes it appear than fitness goes to only those who can afford it. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Whether you’re trying to lose a little extra weight or attempting to get rid of male breast tissue, the tools you need are already at hand. Here are the best ways to get fit, without spending a lot of money.

Paleo Fish Cakes Recipe- Egg Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free

I recently got my hands on a large amount of free fish (in the form of fish heads and fish bones that I cooked and then separated the meat from the bones), and have been looking for different ways to use it. My dad used to make tuna croquettes when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed them, and I thought to make similar with my fish. 

This recipe for fish cakes is flavorful enough that it doesn't even need any dipping sauce or topping, but feel free to use whatever types of toppings you enjoy on fish croquettes, from tahini dressing as I used to aioli to Russian dressing to tartar sauce. They also would work well as burgers in a bun with fixings.

This fish cake recipe can with with any cooked flaked deboned or boneless fish, or even canned fish, such as tuna or salmon. 

Mine are completely paleo and egg free, and manage to hold together nicely even without using any flour. If you don't eat a paleo diet, feel free to replace both the chestnuts and almond flour with either gluten free flour or gluten flour of choice, adding enough so that it has a decent texture that holds together into patty form.

As these don't have flour or egg, these are softer fish cakes and need to be handled gently.

I used fennel and carrots in my fish cakes, but feel free to replace them with whatever other vegetables are cheap where you live.

Paleo Fish Cakes Recipe- Egg Free, Gluten Free, Flour Free

Cheater Fast Sushi and Paleo Sushi Techniques

I've been a fan of sushi since I was a kid and have passed on that love of sushi to my kids.

The first time I ever had sushi was on a trip to New York when I was in elementary school. We stopped at a restaurant just as we were about to come home, had a variety of different types of sushi, and quickly became hooked.

Once home, we saw that it wasn't so easy to find sushi in my home town, and what there was cost a lot of money, so my parents, do-it-yourself-type people decided to learn how to make their own. Because we couldn't get sushi grade fish easily, our sushi was always made either with only vegetables or with the addition of lox or surimi (fake crab) strips.

I quickly mastered the art of rolling sushi (it's really not difficult, and becomes much easier and faster with practice), including the more complex inside out rolls. Sushi making, overall, was no big deal for me....

...Alright. Other than the rice.

Making sushi rice was always the most annoying part of making sushi for me. 

Tips to Staying on a Tight Budget Without Driving Yourself Crazy

This blog post was written by James Daniels, a freelance writer, tech geek, and avid reader. I especially find it useful because these are tips that take very little time to implement and can pay off quickly.

If you feel like you are constantly stretching your pennies until they scream, take heed: with a few adjustments and tricks, you can make living on a tight budget less of a burden. Check out the following ideas that should give you more money left at the end of the month: