Lazy Man and Money

Feed Your Freezer First

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I’m always trying to be more productive, efficient, and simplify my life. For some reason, I’ve had difficulty with meal preparation. I am usually very good with planning ahead and saving money, but for some reason this doesn’t translate to making meals in advance.

I’m good with a slow cooker and can set up something in the morning, which usually has a couple of days of left-overs. My wife loves her Instant Pot (see review), which is perfect for when I don’t plan 7-8 hours ahead.

We have a chest freezer full of uncooked food. I buy in bulk when the grocery store has deals on meat. It saves us money… if I actually plan ahead and defrost something… or have enough time to cook it.

Feed Your Freezer First

The other day, I had an epiphany. If I use my Foodsaver with this wide-mouth jar sealer attachment and these wide-mouth mason jars, I can freeze meals for later. It only takes a couple of minutes to defrost under some hot water and microwave it.

That’s not the real epiphany. The epiphany is that I can use the personal finance axiom of “Pay Yourself First” to ensure that I build up a “savings” of meals.

So the first meal of everything that I make in the slow cooker is going in the freezer as my food emergency fund. This can save us money because we won’t be tempted to go to the restaurant simply because “There’s nothing to eat.”

What do you think? Do you have a food emergency fund?

Budget Hack: Shredded Chicken

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A few weeks ago, I noticed a sale at the local grocery store… boneless, skinless chicken breast for $1.77 a pound. Usually a good sale is $1.99/lb.

This article isn’t about capitalizing on that 10% difference between the sale prices. It is about the sale price of chicken in general. For years now I’ve seen that $1.99/lb. price. Who knew that chicken had an immunity to inflation?

Beef, on the other hand, has lost its battle to inflation. It’s gotten so pricey that I resorted to mixing ground turkey and beef. By the way, that was a winning experiment… no one could tell the difference, it was healthier, and it saved money.

Chicken seems to be a big win. Most health advocates seem to agree it is a healthier alternative to beef. I rarely see the healthier food priced at a discount.

At the $1.77 sale, I bought a lot of chicken…. maybe 10 pounds. I separated a large amount of it an put it in individual bags in our chest freezer.

The question became what to do with the rest of the chicken? I had a good 3-4 pounds. I thought getting a recipe book, but I’m not much of a recipe kind of person. Instead I took out my slow cooker. I added a little water and the chicken and left it on low for a few hours.

I came back to something that looked like boiled chicken. If there’s anything that lacks taste more than boiled chicken, it is called “water.”

As I hoped, the chicken shredded very easily in a bowl. I now had shredded chicken to eat throughout the week. I added it to nachos to make them more of a lunch. I had it in a sandwich with cheese and guacamole. I had it in a burrito with salsa, pinto beans, and rice (super cheap meal!). Can you tell that I’m currently on a Mexican food kick?

I also added it to our dog’s food and he ate right away for the first time in a long time.

My sense of taste is not very strong, so this may not be for everyone. However, I’ve found that when it is combined with other ingredients, it isn’t like eating boiled chicken by itself.

I may just be over-excited about all the different uses I found for it, but it feels like it will become a staple in our house. Cheap staples are important, because they can curb the “I’ll just grab a meal while I’m out” urges. Saving $5 here and there really adds up.

Next time I buy chicken, I’m thinking of shredding more of it to start and using my FoodSaver (Review) to freeze it for awhile. I use this FoodSaver Wide-Mouth Jar Sealer with mason jars so that I don’t have to pay for special bags over and over again.

I’ll just pull them out of the freezer, thaw them in the fridge (or in warm water), and enjoy the shredded chicken.

Do you have any budget food hacks? Let me know in the comments.

FoodSaver Revisited

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Can Foodsaver Save You Money
Can Foodsaver Save You Money?

Another look to see if FoodSaver saves you money

I was reading this months Costco Connection and found a piece about preserving food. It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that Costco would want to promote it’s products for sealing and saving food. With this kind of natural bias, I thought that I’d take everything I see with a grain of salt. Still I thought it was worth a look…

In particular I’d like to look at what they said about the FoodSaver. Costco mentioned this study from University of Arizona. It’s a shame that the study doesn’t seem to be in a text I could easily scan. You have to listen to the podcast. (Note to Publishers: Podcasts should always be accompanied with a text version when they are made for the web). The article also mentioned that Foodsaver preserves food up to 5 times longer citing a study by the University of California at Davis’ Department of Food Science and Technology. Having preserved romaine lettuce for more than a month, I can believe it.

But is Foodsaver a good value?

If you are like the people who throw away $600 worth of food a year from the Costco study, you may think it is immediately worth it. I found that it’s not quite that simple. You have to actually use the Foodsaver. It sounds easy, but a lot of the time I tell myself that I will eat the leftovers tomorrow. More often than I like, I lie to myself. When I use it, it does a good job.

The other issue to consider is the packaging materials. When we got the Foodsaver we bought bags – a good amount of bags on Ebay. I tried to save money and got generic bags. The ones I got don’t seal as well as the real thing. Finally, I realized that the best solution is simply to get a Foodsaver jar sealer and head to Michael’s (or other craft store) and some wide mouth mason jars. Now once a week, I cook up some chicken, steak, and hamburger, cut it into small pieces and jar it. During the week, it’s really easy to make burritos, tacos, chicken Caesar salads, spaghetti with meat sauce… and I’m sure a slew of other things that I haven’t thought of. I like that the jars are a one-time cost and keep our carbon footprint small (vs. using and throwing out the bags).

In the end, I think the Foodsaver can save you money, but like most anything you have to have discipline. It doesn’t always help just to have the tool available. Actually using the tool correctly is the key.

Photo Credit: webg33k

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