Des Moines Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Cooking on a Tight Budget?
Any meal recommendations for cooking on a budget? We are going to be on a super tight budget this month, so I'm looking for new ways to save money on our groceries. I do currently clip coupons, but not sure if there are any good websites/blogs etc. that will help. TIA!
Re: Cooking on a Tight Budget?
I don't cognizantly cook on a tight budget, but do find that I tend to cook some cheap recipes. It helps that adam is really the only one who eats meat. Cook a lot of whole grain rice, pasta, etc. and use beans in the place of meat.
For example, we often do a pasta dish w/ navy beans, italian tomatoes and spinach. Its about $2 for the pasta (barilla plus), $2 for the spinach, .60 for the tomatos and $1 for the beans. That $6 will feed all 4 of us for dinner and adam and I again at lunch the next day.
Chipped beef (using cheap dried beef) on toast is an easy/cheap option.
Whenever I make tacos I use 1/2 lb leanest beef mixed w/ 1 can of black beans. It makes plenty of meat filling. If you are ok w/ 93% lean or less beef it would be even cheaper.
I am not sure- but wanted to throw out that Hy Vee in Johnston has avocados on sale for $1 and they are of large size and delicious!
I will be interested in hearing ideas!
There's a facebook group called Iowa Couponing. Lots of great pointers and deals posted there for couponing.
There's a blog called $5dinners that has a lot of ideas.
We eat on a pretty tight budget. I find that pasta dishes and mexican dishes tend to go the farthest because they make a lot and the ingredients tend to be cheap. We use sides like frozen veggies, salad, beans, and rice because they are also cheap but good fillers. If you don't already, try out store brands because often they are just as good and much cheaper than name brand even when you have coupons.
Also, I'm not sure where you are located so this may not matter to you but not all stores are the same. For example, I have found that Hy-Vee in Ankeny is significantly higher than the Hy-Vee in Pleasant Hill so each store sets their own prices outside of what is in the weekly ads. I found this out when we moved and switched grocery stores, and I find it to be true when I stop at location I don't normally shop at just to get a few things. So it can definitely pay to shop around.
Go to hy-vee.com
Click on Meal Solutions.
They have 30 meal ideas under $3, a budget menu that corresponds with their weekly ad, and 4 weekly menus (regular, heart-healthy, diabetic-friendly, and weight-control) that correspond with their weekly ad.
They used to print out these menus and have them available where one can pick up the ad, but I rarely shop at Hy-Vee so I'm not sure if that's still true.