Eco Car

How do I feed two additional people in my household?

I need any cheap and creatative ways to feed two extra people that will be living with me. My sisters 2 kids(7 year old girl and 11 year old boy) will be staying with me for 1 year until my sister gets her act together. I'm a 20 year old college student and work a full time and part time job, but I'm always low on cash. I live in my own apartment which I pay $650 for rent and another $200 for electric, phone, cable,etc. I also have a car which I bought used, but it's not the most fuel efficent, but I can't even consider making monthly payments for three years on a new car. Well, I would like some advise on any frugal recipes? Thanks

You don't need a new car anyway. The interest would be ridiculous in comparison to what extra savings you'd get in fuel. Just keep your current car reasonably well serviced, change the oil regularly yourself, change the water regularly yourself, check the spark plugs and filters, and keep your tyres at the highest safe inflation. That makes for a rougher ride, but it saves fuel. You can borrow a book from the library on car servicing, or get a knowlegeable friend to help. My partner services my car and I only pay for new oil, new filters, and other bits and pieces. My car is an ancient Mitsubishi Sigma that cost $2000 and eats petrol like a starving man at a hamburger eating competition. I drive it only when I need to, because I live a few hundred metres from a post office where I can pay my bills and run errands. The previous owner WAS actually a little old lady who got it serviced regularly, so it was actually worth the 2 grand we paid. I suggest, if you possibly can, car pool with someone to work or school. That will save petrol money in the long run if they are paying their way.

Okay, onto feeding extra people. Have you ever considered growing a pot of spinach? I do, but I have a house in sunny Australia. I grow most of my own vegies and it saves me a bundle, but it might not work so well for you. Spinach is easy to grow in a pot though, as long as it's near a window. It'll bulk out pasta sauce, stews, and is nice wilted with butter and onions. And if you grow it yourself, it's free.

I go to factory outlets and get food there cheaply. I live near a few outlets, and I buy tinned food and packaged foods in bulk, cutting my regular food bill. If there are some nearby, check them out. A can of tomatoes where I shop costs less than half what I'd pay for generic canned tomatoes at the supermarket.

I go to Kmart when they have 15% off storewide and get all the washing powder and toilet paper I can pack into my car at heavy discounts. This often saves me a dollar per unit on what I'd pay at the supermarket, and makes my weekly shop easier to manage and cheaper as well. I buy washing powder in 12 kilo packs, which will last me about 12 months or more. I only use energy saver light globes, and I get big cans of the brand of coffee I like at a much lower price than I'd pay at the supermarket for jars, so I decant it into jars and screw the lids on very tightly when I get home. This saves me weekly as well.

I always take my own lunch with me. I never buy lunch at work. I make a huge batch of sandwiches with fillings that freeze well, and store them in the freezer. Hummous, cheese and mustard, ham, peanut butter, tuna, and pickles with cheese are all great frozen. I also make extra pasta, curry, fried rice, stew, and soup, and freeze them in small serves in microwave containers. This I then take to work and reheat for lunch, or use for a cheap dinner when I'm too tired to cook. Pasta sauce is easy to freeze like this, and all you need to do is cook up some pasta when you're too tired to do a huge meal. It stops you resorting to take away food.

Always buy generic products at the supermarket. This saves you big dollars over the year, and I can't pick the difference in quality, because they're often made by the same companies that make all the flash name brands.

These kids will mean extra washing, extra expenditure on clothing, and extra electricity costs, so you'll have to be pretty frugal. If they need clothes, go to a charity secondhand store and get clothes there. That'll save you big dollars. Also, don't use a clothes dryer if you can help it. Plan your washing and dry it on a clothes horse or on a broom handle over two chairs. Clothes dryers are incredibly wasteful appliances.

Now, for some cheap recipes. On a low budget, you can cut out a few meat meals and save big dollars. I suggest the only meat you buy is a small amount of budget mince (buy a big bulk pack, put it in portions to freeze, and save a few dollars per kilo) a few rashers of bacon, which you can freeze in portions also, and cheap sausages.

You can stretch most meals with legumes. If you make a mince based tomato pasta sauce, cook some red lentils and add them. They're high in energy, cost very little, and are very filling. They will stretch the mince a long way. Just make your regular pasta sauce. Fry an onion and some garlic in oil, add some mince about the size of your fist or smaller, add a couple of tins of tomato, some oregano and basil, and then some cooked lentils. You can also add a few chopped carrots, or a zucchini, or some celery, or whatever other vegetable is cheap that week, and add that. That will stretch out the pasta sauce also.

Most people eat way too much meat. I make lots of vegetarian curries. If you buy a small jar of curry paste, (Thai red or Thai green for instance) it lasts ages. You just fry a teaspoon of paste in some oil, add a chopped onion and some garlic, and then a can of chick peas (or even cheaper, a cupful of dried chickpeas you've soaked overnight in the fridge in some water) and then some chopped vegetables, you can make a very cheap curry and stretch it with rice. Chickpeas are full of protein and are high in energy. Tinned or dry, they store for years and need no refrigeration.

My family has one of those special 'family' dishes that they make when camping. You fry an onion, add a tin of tomatoes, and then poach a couple of eggs in it. It looks horrible, but it tastes fantastic, and it's good on toast. It's a nice alternative to baked beans, and it's filling. You can add a few chopped vegies to the mix if you want to stretch it. I recommend a big handful of grated cheese as well.

I make soup in winter. If you buy some cheap cut of meat, like bacon bones or old chicken carcasses, and boil them down with an onion and some salt and pepper, a few cloves, and a few bay leaves, you can make a basic stock. You then discard the bones after picking off the extra meat, then add 'soup mix' which is just split peas, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, all dried. They cook in the stock and soak it up. Then, when they're soft, you add lots of chopped vegies -- whatever you can get cheap at that time of the year. The idea is to make it so thick that the ladle stands up in it. Potatoes, peas, pumpkin, parsnips, turnips, broccoli, and sweet potato are all good choices. This should make a huge pot, which you can freeze in plastic freezer bags. I get a big bowl or small saucepan, put the plastic bag in that, and then fill the bag using the bowl or pan to hold it up. That allows me to judge the amounts. I then tie off the bags and freeze them. It's a good instant meal, and it's very filling.

If you stick to foods you prepare at home, you'll save heaps of money. Look online for a good recipe for dhal (that's a lentil tomato stew) because I lost my recipe and I haven't made it in years. It's extremely cheap to make, full of protein so it doesn't need meat, and can be frozen well too. Meat is ridiculously expensive and can blow the food budget.

Learn to make white sauce. You melt butter in a pan, add an equal amount of flour, and then make it into a paste. Then you add milk and heat slowly, stirring constantly, til it thickens. If you add a big handful of cheese to the thickened sauce, you can bake pasta and vegies in it. It's pretty cheap and filling.

You can make a 'quiche' but mines more of a vegetable bake in egg. You get heaps of vegies and cut them into small pieces, and grate some cheese. Then you cook some rice and add that. Then, you make an egg mixture with eggs, milk, and about 2 teaspoons of flour, and mix that thoroughly, and then pour it over the vegies in a deep baking pan, and cook it. The flour helps the egg to set, and the milk stretches it. The rice or potato are good if you don't have as many vegies. You can add bacon to it, but I find that's often unnecessary if you put heaps of cheese in. I find this makes enough to feed my partner and I, and also I have extra to take for lunch the next couple of days.

I hope you find some of this useful.

Best wishes

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