Frugal Juice

My title is not a recipe for making cheap juice, which you can do just by adding 4 cans of water instead of 3 to frozen concentrate orange juice (don't be an idiot and buy the "drink" or "punch" which is just coloured and artificially flavoured sugar - it needs to say 100% juice on the can).

My title is instead a nod to that fabulous children's book writer Judy Blume and her book Freckle Juice, which hints at a recipe for juice to make someone freckled. If you haven't read it and you have children, get a copy from the library and read it to them for their next bedtime story. It will take several nights, and it's absolutely delightful, as are most of Blume's books, although I advise against Wifey as a choice for most children ;) .

I hint instead at a recipe for making someone frugal, but since there isn't actually a recipe for that, I'm not giving it out. I will instead relay a recent experience which has been a little eye-opening for me...

I found a great blog network about some San Francisco foodies who took a Hunger Challenge and tried to live on $21.00 per week per person for food (the amount that someone on welfare has to spend). Most/all? of the participants started with nothing and did not use any of their existing foodstuffs/spices to equalize their challenge, but the challenge got me thinking about how much my meals actually cost me and how much Ken and I spend on average on most of our meals. $21.00 (US dollars but I just used Cdn for a simple comparison) per week seemed really low to me, shockingly low when I was reading about the hardship these foodies were undergoing.

I gradually realized that these people aren't me. I'm already more frugal than most of them had to become to survive. Some of them were learning how to use leftovers and cook food before it goes bad and has to be thrown out. Learning!!! How much money do people have so that they don't regularly eat leftovers?

Anyway, not to be smug (well, smugger I suppose), I figured out that an average evening meal for Ken and me costs between $2.00 and $3.00 for both of us (I did not include the cost of our homemade wine ($3.00/bottle), which we drink with all of our evening meals, and would obviously have to give up if we were really struggling). We use frozen vegetables from the garden; herbs from the garden (frozen or dried); garlic and green onions from the garden; cheap staples like rice, potatoes, beans, lentils, and pasta; we use meat sparingly and bought on sale. Usually the most expensive thing in the meal is the meat, or in the winter it will be a main vegetable like broccoli/broccoli rabe, and even though I adore mushrooms, we use those sparingly too (mostly because Ken had a bad experience with a bowl of mushroom soup and an insistent mother when he was younger and now he really can't stand them). If I do make a meal which is a little pricier, I make sure to bulk it up enough so that there is enough for lunch the next day.

The foodies were suffering a little and all seemed to stumble upon oatmeal for breakfast and homemade soup for dinner. Good God. Welcome to my formative years. I'm Ulster Irish, and that's not called suffering frugality, that's just everyday eating. My mother made the porridge with whole milk and called it creamy deluxe (we were allowed to pour evaporated milk over the top and the damned stuff tasted close to rice pudding). Dad made his with water and salt the "proper" way, but fortunately he didn't do this often and we still poured the "cream" on top.

Homemade soups, especially my mother's, are just about the most delicious food going, so it's no hardship to eat them. You can bulk most soups up with water and an extra stock cube if your food budget is really tight for the week, add some potatoes and butter on a side dish and there's an extra meal there.

I also dig up some of my more useful herbs at the beginning of the fall, let them get used to the lower light levels in a shady spot, then bring them into the house for the winter. They might not last the whole winter inside, but they will last several months at least, and give me fresh herbs. I just have to move the pot around chasing the sunspots to keep them happiest, but I like to keep them happy, so it's not a bother...



Tip of the day: turn your thermostat down and put on a sweater. If you are cold, do some housework. You know that you need to wash the floor and dust the tops of your door frames anyway. If your kids complain that it's too cold, send them outside without a coat for 5 minutes, and the warmth differential when they come back in will shut them up. How's that for compassion?