Since starting the blog a plethora of ideas have been popping into my head. Then I think...Really? Does anyone want to read about that (insert H.A.C.C.P. for food safety or when to prune your fig tree in SW Florida here)? Then I come crashing down to earth and realize I could write about them but it might be better to write about a topic closer to everyone's hearts and/or checkbooks. Thus today's topic of coupons!
Yes, coupons. The t.v. is covered with Extreme Couponing shows and people are rolling in cart after cart of free groceries. It looks awesome! Makes you want to run out and clip every coupon you see. In fact I did and then I realized we don't use most of the products that had coupons available. Additionally, you need a coupon stockpile to be an effective coupon officianado. Where in the blazes am I going to find space for a food stockpile and a coupon stockpile? There is a boat in the garage - no room for a food stockpile let alone stacks of newspaper inserts. And where am I going to get all of these inserts? I work 40 hours a a week. Staying up and going dumpster diving for coupons is not going to happen. And do I really want to spend hours cutting them out- NOPE! I would like to fit in some yoga classes and other projects like curtains for the kids house or a new doll for Maddy.
I wanted to title this "Why Coupons Suck." but I do use them and that would be false advertising. But they do suck. They suck you in to purchasing items that you really do not need or would not normally buy because it is perceived as a good deal. Have you looked at the carts on theses t.v. shows? Ramen noodles. Sorry, ate a lot of those in college, not going to happen again. Candy, yes, candy. Only going to happen over the holidays here in this house. Name brand highly processed foods. We don't eat a lot of highly processed foods..except for ice cream. Lots of ice cream and the husband eats cold cereal. Laundry detergent- allergic to most of it thus make my own HE soap at pennies per use.
How do I save money with coupons? I only use them to purchase items we will eat. If we don't eat it it may be a great deal but it is not going in the cart. Maybe I won't save as much money but why waste my time on items we hate or will not use. It will then sit on the shelf to taunt me for having purchased it and I don't need guilt on top of wasted time.
Target has some great coupon deals online and one can combine them with insert coupons to save 25 to 30% with minimal effort. Again only on items that are used on a regular basis. If you print Target coupons and the item does not have a matching coupon in the following Sunday insert wait a week or two and it will show up. When that happens and the item is on sale you can get bargains. If it is a clearance item then the bargain is greater.
Sadly, no stores in SW Florida double coupons. So what is a girl to do? Screw coupons. Yes- I said it. Screw coupons. Focus on fresh, wholesome foods and minimally processed items. It is hard to find coupons for those anyway. Your best bets are produce, grains, dried or canned beans, meats when they are on sale and dairy. Produce can come from Kroger, Sweetbay, Harris Teeter or even your local farm stand or farmers market. Grains can be rolled oats, rice, millet, barley and even flours for breads and biscuits. Home made cornbread is fast and easy-after you have made it a couple of times. Canned beans make a quick and flavorful white bean chili or black bean soup. Meats are the ones you like ON SALE and ONLY purchased on sale. You know your budget yet what we do is purchase a lot of tougher cuts of beef or the less desirable chicken thighs and throw them in the crockpot. Google crock pot recipes and you will be good to go! We make crock pot Italian Beef and Southern Pork BBQ. Yum!
Lastly, one can save at the store by shopping circular sales and looking at the price per ounce or price per unit on the shelf tag. Many times store brands are ounce for ounce half as much as name brands for the same item. Use the calculator on your phone if the math is not obvious. If you are uncertain if your family will like it purchase one of whatever it is and try it without telling them it is store brand. Most of the time there is little distinguishable difference. So if you can get the store brand on sale you may just have a bargain as good as a coupon deal. Without the hassle of clipping coupons.
If you come across a truly great deal on say meat- buy a little more than normal and build a supply in your freezer or pantry. You don't need a great deal of space and you can actually shop less once the pantry is stocked.
In a nutshell. Buy only what you will eat. If you use coupons use them on sale items. Buy minimally processed foods and cook them yourself. Don't be brand loyal and watch price per unit. Build a pantry and I forgot to mention eat before shopping and use a list
Remember coupons can suck you into more than you wanted under the guise of a good deal.
Happy Shopping!!!!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Lowly Tomato
Before I write about the lowly tomato I want to express my appreciation to Ilene over at "The Rock Whisperer" (see the Blogroll) for being a good friend when I needed one and now mentioning my blog on her blog. I would not be doing this if I had not started following her blog. And another word of thanks needs to go to my old high school buddy and still another great friend Shelly for supporting my blog. Many thanks to both of you!! On to the tomato.....
It is tomato season in most of the country!!! I love tomatoes, my husband loves tomatoes.Red, full of juice, juice, tart and tangy-perfect for salads or plain with a bit of sea salt and cracked black pepper. So simple and yet so full of amazing flavor. Thus I try to grow some every year. I say try as I live in SW Florida and tomatoes do not exactly thrive in our soil conditions. Our soil is a veritable hothouse of pathogens that can easily destroy a tomato plant. Everything from the dreaded tomatoes mosaic virus to several different kinds of blight.
My first year gardening, blissfully unaware I planted tomato and pepper seeds and watched eagerly as the plants grew larger and larger. Soon they were large, vibrant green and I was dreaming of salsa and canning my first crop of red deliciousness. Then the dark hand of fate stepped in and cruelly introduced me to blossom end rot and a whole slew of evil insects. I staunchly stuck to organic techniques and forbid the use of the dreaded pesticides and fungicides. Topped with my lack of knowledge on soil conditions, nematodes and fertilization my poor little plants were doomed.
I have garnered a bit more knowledge and this year had a respectable crop of Amish Paste tomatoes and Thai Egg tomatoes. Both are heirloom and can handle tricky weather and soil. That and fertilizer, mulch and proper planting times have helped my crops tremendously. I have had very little luck with the tomatoes bred for Florida. Many gardeners on Garden Web (a great resource no matter where you live) have had much better luck.
Now is the time for me to have seeds started for my next crop. In fact it is a little past time and I need to get on the stick. Luckily, I have a few volunteers in a pot on the patio so there are 2 tomato plants already.
Eventually, I will get them started and ready to go into the soil in September. Then I will be having tomatoes while the snow flies and the frost hardens the North. In fact I live about 30 minutes away from where most of the tomatoes are grown for the nation for winter sales.
Immokalee, FL grows much of the produce the rest of the country eats in the winter. Well, if that is the case then it should be easy to grow produce in S. Florida , you say? Nope! The growers use a host of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers to grow the tomatoes you eat. Not to mention they use migrant labor composed of mainly illegals, working 12 to 20 hours a day in poor conditions. I have seen this first hand in the packing houses. Workers there labor 12 hours a day in season with no A.C. in 80 to 90 degree weather, 2 -15 minute breaks and 1- 30 minute break. Did I mention water is no allowed on the packing line due to the possibility of contamination of the product? That in itself is ironic as the buildings are open to the exterior with lizards and critters carrying salmonella and all kinds of diseases able to run in and out at will.
Did I mention these tomatoes that they are slaving over don't really taste like anything?? They are bred for color and keeping qualities like a thick non bruise-able skin.
What can you do that is cost effective so you may have fresh luscious tomatoes to eat?
1) Grow your own. This can be a small container on a patio or a shared plot with a friend with more space. Cherry tomatoes pack a lot of flavor in a little plant.
2) Eat them only in season.
3) Preserve them yourself in season. This year I made freezer tomato sauce and dried some and preserved them in olive oil. Again of you don't have equipment to preserve them maybe you can share with a friend.
4) Buy from local sources that you know and then either eat only in season or preserve them. This can be organic or not. At least if it is local a large amount of fossil fuels have not been expended on the shipping of the item.
5) Buy organic at a grocery store out of season - this is the most expensive option and I would not suggest preserving them as it is definitely cost prohibitive.
6) Buy canned tomatoes for cooking out of season.
7) Eat the crappy, mushy no taste store bought out of season tomato.
Below is a link to a book review for "Tomatoland" and brief overview of the tomato on the NPR website. *****Notice the female on the sorting line is scratching her head in the accompanying photo . Another reason to wash your produce!
Also notice the tomatoes are green. They pick them green, gas them and the tomatoes ripen in the shipping process. These are not sun ripened on the vine. Just because the vine is attached also does not mean they were ripened on the vine. They just picked them that way as it is a great sales ploy.
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/09/137623954/the-troubled-history-of-the-supermarket-tomato
If you don't want to read the article you can listen to it as they recorded in during the initial broadcast of the story.
Enjoy your tomatoes and relish the flavor whenever your season my be!
.
It is tomato season in most of the country!!! I love tomatoes, my husband loves tomatoes.Red, full of juice, juice, tart and tangy-perfect for salads or plain with a bit of sea salt and cracked black pepper. So simple and yet so full of amazing flavor. Thus I try to grow some every year. I say try as I live in SW Florida and tomatoes do not exactly thrive in our soil conditions. Our soil is a veritable hothouse of pathogens that can easily destroy a tomato plant. Everything from the dreaded tomatoes mosaic virus to several different kinds of blight.
My first year gardening, blissfully unaware I planted tomato and pepper seeds and watched eagerly as the plants grew larger and larger. Soon they were large, vibrant green and I was dreaming of salsa and canning my first crop of red deliciousness. Then the dark hand of fate stepped in and cruelly introduced me to blossom end rot and a whole slew of evil insects. I staunchly stuck to organic techniques and forbid the use of the dreaded pesticides and fungicides. Topped with my lack of knowledge on soil conditions, nematodes and fertilization my poor little plants were doomed.
I have garnered a bit more knowledge and this year had a respectable crop of Amish Paste tomatoes and Thai Egg tomatoes. Both are heirloom and can handle tricky weather and soil. That and fertilizer, mulch and proper planting times have helped my crops tremendously. I have had very little luck with the tomatoes bred for Florida. Many gardeners on Garden Web (a great resource no matter where you live) have had much better luck.
Now is the time for me to have seeds started for my next crop. In fact it is a little past time and I need to get on the stick. Luckily, I have a few volunteers in a pot on the patio so there are 2 tomato plants already.
Eventually, I will get them started and ready to go into the soil in September. Then I will be having tomatoes while the snow flies and the frost hardens the North. In fact I live about 30 minutes away from where most of the tomatoes are grown for the nation for winter sales.
Immokalee, FL grows much of the produce the rest of the country eats in the winter. Well, if that is the case then it should be easy to grow produce in S. Florida , you say? Nope! The growers use a host of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers to grow the tomatoes you eat. Not to mention they use migrant labor composed of mainly illegals, working 12 to 20 hours a day in poor conditions. I have seen this first hand in the packing houses. Workers there labor 12 hours a day in season with no A.C. in 80 to 90 degree weather, 2 -15 minute breaks and 1- 30 minute break. Did I mention water is no allowed on the packing line due to the possibility of contamination of the product? That in itself is ironic as the buildings are open to the exterior with lizards and critters carrying salmonella and all kinds of diseases able to run in and out at will.
Did I mention these tomatoes that they are slaving over don't really taste like anything?? They are bred for color and keeping qualities like a thick non bruise-able skin.
What can you do that is cost effective so you may have fresh luscious tomatoes to eat?
1) Grow your own. This can be a small container on a patio or a shared plot with a friend with more space. Cherry tomatoes pack a lot of flavor in a little plant.
2) Eat them only in season.
3) Preserve them yourself in season. This year I made freezer tomato sauce and dried some and preserved them in olive oil. Again of you don't have equipment to preserve them maybe you can share with a friend.
4) Buy from local sources that you know and then either eat only in season or preserve them. This can be organic or not. At least if it is local a large amount of fossil fuels have not been expended on the shipping of the item.
5) Buy organic at a grocery store out of season - this is the most expensive option and I would not suggest preserving them as it is definitely cost prohibitive.
6) Buy canned tomatoes for cooking out of season.
7) Eat the crappy, mushy no taste store bought out of season tomato.
Below is a link to a book review for "Tomatoland" and brief overview of the tomato on the NPR website. *****Notice the female on the sorting line is scratching her head in the accompanying photo . Another reason to wash your produce!
Also notice the tomatoes are green. They pick them green, gas them and the tomatoes ripen in the shipping process. These are not sun ripened on the vine. Just because the vine is attached also does not mean they were ripened on the vine. They just picked them that way as it is a great sales ploy.
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/09/137623954/the-troubled-history-of-the-supermarket-tomato
If you don't want to read the article you can listen to it as they recorded in during the initial broadcast of the story.
Enjoy your tomatoes and relish the flavor whenever your season my be!
.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Changing Perspectives
The United States is engaged in conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. This is not a discussion of right and wrong this is just a short post on having friends and family serving in the combat zone.
After high school I joined the Marine Corps and did my time in the United States. I joined knowing we were not at war and that if we did engage in war that as a female my chances to go into a combat arena were slim at best. (I was a Reagan Era Marine). My younger brother joined the Army and spent roughly 13 years in Special Forces. He got out after he was involved in the initial incursion into Afghanistan and I was grateful to know he was finally safe. From that point my only contact with the war has been when PBS shows the photos of the soldiers who have been killed serving in the Middle East or stories on the news.
Recently, we have had several soldiers from the area where we live killed in combat. Their pictures have been in the papers and on the news so it is closer to home. So here is the deal - It is so easy for us to forget people are dying every day on foreign soil. Politically, I honestly don't care which political party started the war. Someone needs to put on the big boy pants and take a long hard look at the number of people dying, say we are responsible and figure out how to bring it to it's conclusion. As in end it.
Why do I care enough to write now? My brother left yesterday to fly helicopters on a government contract. Right about now he is in the Middle East and heading to Afghanistan. He had a choice in his deployment- our soldiers do not. Many of them serve as a way out of poverty and high unemployment, some from a sense of duty tho their country and many because college is simply not an option. They are not the ones making the decisions on where to go and who to fight. People in suits in D.C. who are not in the war theater are determining the fate of the American Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen. We can sit in our comfortable homes, not making any sacrifices while they are sacrificing the comforts of home for at best a cot in a sandy tent, family time for the loneliness of a desolate foreign country and our very little thought about peace of mind for incoming bullets and i.e.d.'s.
I debated if this post should go up as the blog is just starting up and alienating people is not my goal. I decided to post because people need to remember. Politically, we do not have to agree on who to blame or why. As a country we are divided on so many levels. From time to time everyone needs to stop and think about something from a different perspective. Mine has definitely changed from the time when the conflicts began.
So forget the who and why and think about the men and women serving overseas and their families at home. If you know someone with a family member reach out to them. If they have very little funds ( and low ranking soldiers families have very little) offer help through prepaid phone cards or gift cards to grocery stores. You can offer to babysit for a weary wife on her own or ask about sending care packages. The U.S.O. works hard to give soldiers in combat a taste of home and they are always accepting donations. If finances hold you back from any of the above then simply tell them you appreciate their service. If you see a soldier in an airport thank them for serving.
Simple acts reach a long way.
After high school I joined the Marine Corps and did my time in the United States. I joined knowing we were not at war and that if we did engage in war that as a female my chances to go into a combat arena were slim at best. (I was a Reagan Era Marine). My younger brother joined the Army and spent roughly 13 years in Special Forces. He got out after he was involved in the initial incursion into Afghanistan and I was grateful to know he was finally safe. From that point my only contact with the war has been when PBS shows the photos of the soldiers who have been killed serving in the Middle East or stories on the news.
Recently, we have had several soldiers from the area where we live killed in combat. Their pictures have been in the papers and on the news so it is closer to home. So here is the deal - It is so easy for us to forget people are dying every day on foreign soil. Politically, I honestly don't care which political party started the war. Someone needs to put on the big boy pants and take a long hard look at the number of people dying, say we are responsible and figure out how to bring it to it's conclusion. As in end it.
Why do I care enough to write now? My brother left yesterday to fly helicopters on a government contract. Right about now he is in the Middle East and heading to Afghanistan. He had a choice in his deployment- our soldiers do not. Many of them serve as a way out of poverty and high unemployment, some from a sense of duty tho their country and many because college is simply not an option. They are not the ones making the decisions on where to go and who to fight. People in suits in D.C. who are not in the war theater are determining the fate of the American Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen. We can sit in our comfortable homes, not making any sacrifices while they are sacrificing the comforts of home for at best a cot in a sandy tent, family time for the loneliness of a desolate foreign country and our very little thought about peace of mind for incoming bullets and i.e.d.'s.
I debated if this post should go up as the blog is just starting up and alienating people is not my goal. I decided to post because people need to remember. Politically, we do not have to agree on who to blame or why. As a country we are divided on so many levels. From time to time everyone needs to stop and think about something from a different perspective. Mine has definitely changed from the time when the conflicts began.
So forget the who and why and think about the men and women serving overseas and their families at home. If you know someone with a family member reach out to them. If they have very little funds ( and low ranking soldiers families have very little) offer help through prepaid phone cards or gift cards to grocery stores. You can offer to babysit for a weary wife on her own or ask about sending care packages. The U.S.O. works hard to give soldiers in combat a taste of home and they are always accepting donations. If finances hold you back from any of the above then simply tell them you appreciate their service. If you see a soldier in an airport thank them for serving.
Simple acts reach a long way.
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