Frugal Atkins-ing with a family?

[Naz]

I am a single mom with 3 kids. I am saving money by not purchasing so much "garbage-y" food for my kids and more protein and fruit.

How do you do Atkins and save money? Frugal tips?

[DorianH]

Buy in bulk if you can, freeze when you can. Sam's club and Costco are great helpers here. I find that my grocery budget is higher now, but you pay more for quality food. It costs more money to make real cheese than boxed mac and cheese. But, it's offset somewhat by the fact that I bring almost all of my food from home- no stopping for fast food, coffees on the road, etc. It adds up.

I also have a price-rite discount store that I buy my fresh produce and some meats from. It's cheaper there. I only shop at the regular food stores for the items I can't purchase anywhere else.

[Naz]

I have tried shopping at Sav-A-Lot, which does help, and I definitely need to get in the habit of making food in bulk, which I completely stink at.

Do you have a set time per week that you set aside just to cook in bulk?

[KROERT]

I set aside a Sunday afternoon to do my cooking for the week. Sometimes I end up doing it Sunday night. Sunday is the most laid-back day of the week for me.

I know that going low-carb has helped me save money. Like Dorian, I don't make fast food stops anymore, nor do I eat at eat-in restaurants all the time. I also feel that whole foods keep you fuller longer. With all that junk food and empty calories, it's like it's never enough. JMHO

[Naz]

I have to start getting disciplined in this area. For so many years, it was tacos, spaghetti, meatloaf, fast food and frozen food. I also want to get disciplined on packing my kids lunches this year- I know that will save money AND get them better nutrition.

It's a very tough habit to break to not rely on convenience foods.

[KROERT]

Believe me, I know exactly what you mean, Naz. But there will come a time where it is second nature to you, I promise. And just think of what you'll be teaching your kids! You can do it!

[suzanneyea]

I buy the highest fat ground beef in bulk, very cheap. Plus I buy the rest of my meat when it gets marked down to 50%, the last sale date. I never have a type of meat in my mind when I go to the store, I buy only what is on sale and make my menus from there. Plus, costco

[fviegas]

My 2cts on frugality ( and I need it as meat here is exorbitant) :
Roasting whole chickens is very cheap and always a winner at dinner.
Leftovers make great salads for the mums and dads.
Don't forget our fishy friends: tuna, sardines, mackerel canned. They
make great salads and bakes and the kids usually enjoy tuna!!
A staple at my home: ground beef, it's cheap and you can do a lot of
inexpensive stuff with it: mix it with canned mushrooms and tomato
sauce, and forego the pasta, for example.
Simple vegetable soups are also filling and allow you to not do side dishes.
Another cheap source of protein is organ meats. My kids love beef tongue and
chicken gizzards. Having a pressure cooker is a really good investment here.
Good luck!!

[Naz]

Honestly, I have been a mother for 10 years, but haven't got this area under control- sheesh! I am going to go over to Costco and buy up some meat and kid snacks. I am one of those moms who is always caught off guard when it's our turn to bring snack in the morning and has to run to the grocery store at 8:00 p.m.!

I really want to change this. Suzanneyea, do you brown up a bunch of GB in advance? What do you do with it other than tacos or spaghetti?

OK: my goal is to go on Linda's Low Carb and pick a couple of casseroles and actually cook them, not just look at them. I also will cook up the bacon and sausage in my fridge, mix up the tuna in the cupboard and boil the eggs in the fridge. I will also make up a LC cheesecake.

Now that I posted it, I have to do it! I'll let you know when I am done (after the next cuppa coffee- I swear!)

[dae_tona]

We clip coupons. One store always has buy one, get one free when it comes to eggs. Sometimes they have the free-range eggs 3 cartons for $5. So I always look in the Sunday paper to see what's on sale & will clip, clip, clip.

We also go to the Farmers Market. You can find fresh produce there for reasonably cheap. We recently found blueberries for $1 per pound. That is inexpensive!!

We also don't eat out as much so that saves money as well. We might go out once a month to a nice place. But beyond that, we eat at home.

Daetona

[DorianH]

I cook and prep once a week. I go to the grocery store, buy everything, and prep it all when I get home. It takes me a few hours on Sunday, but it's totally worth it. Salads are made, veggies are cut up, garlic is ready, EVERYTHING. Then, Monday through Saturday it is grab and go. And if I cook, it takes me 15 minutes to make dinner- no chopping garlic, no cutting or defrosting chicken- it's all done.

Usually I cook most of the meats for the week too and it's all done. I'll do 2-3 pounds of ground beef, season it, and stash it in a few containers. One night will be sloppy joes, one will be tacos or something, the other in the freezer for next week. The same with the chicken- I roast it, cut it up, and we have chicken cooked for everything from chicken salad to just roast chicken and veggies. Once you have a rhythm going Sunday is a pleasure and the rest of the week is a breeze.

Plus, it forces you to prepare so no wasted food and no buying food you don't need.

[LW3707]

I just started and my grocery bill just went up! It's hard to do low-carb when you still have to purchase regular stuff for family members with different nutritional preferences. I feel like I have a double grocery bill now.

What I started to do is stock up on sale protein and bulk stuff from Costco. I always did that, but now I double up since I go through fat/protein/veggies a lot faster now.

[LESESKI]

You can make spaghetti with low carb pasta and tacos with corn or low carb tortillas for your kids. I also make meatloaf but I add in oatmeal and shredded cheese to hold it together and not crackers/bread crumbs.

[debkeversole]

these links might help
It is time for another round of cheapskate lowcarb!
For the Cheapskate Low Carb Baker
It is time for another round of cheapskate lowcarb!

[YellowRoseTX]

If you have an Asian grocery in your area, that can be a good place for cheap meats and/or vegetables.

[emslight]

I get cheaper cuts of meat from the butcher and cook them up in my slow cooker until they are beautifully tender. This is a great way to get your protein without spending fortunes. I also use lots of tinned fish (sardines, mackerel, tuna and salmon) - great for salads or oopsie fillings or just to eat straight from the tin with some mayo. Think also Linda Sue has some good recipes that used tinned fish/chicken. Obviously, eggs are cheap and fantastically versatile. I also grow a lot of veggies in the garden - spinach, chard, lettuce, radishes, broccoli - all the low carb staples - but if you can't do this then buying them from local markets (in the UK anyway) is much cheaper (and nicer) than supermarket veg. Ooh, and frozen veg can be handy for some recipes such as frozen cauliflower to make into mash.

[retroworx]

Originally Posted by Naz

I have tried shopping at Sav-A-Lot, which does help

That's where I stumbled upon a $3.99/lb rib eye special!

Speaking of which, I really think you can save money by spending money sometimes -- our extra freezer really comes in handy for stocking up on sale items (like all the rib eyes I bought.) Gotta have the room for one, of course, and account for the extra money to run it. . . .

[nanberrycritter]

For help with bargain shopping & money management I highly recommend hotcouponworld.com. It's a fantastic site with lots of great advice and helpful, friendly people. My username there is Clipper so be sure to give me credit if ya join. I don't get anything for new members, other than bragging rights. The started a sister site called organicgrocerydeals.com which might be of more interest. I haven't scoped that one out yet myself but will soon now that I'm trying to eat the best stuff possible. You can save a huge amount of money shopping the sales and using coupons. I'm a little passionate about this topic so I hope you don't get tired of me!

[rosethorns]

I agree with the slow cooker, take a whole chicken sprinkle with seasonings put in crock pot on low then pour diet orange or cherry cola soda over it. This is so great when you come home from work.

I also make a big meatloaf in a bowl, LC of course then cook it in muffin tins and freeze. They are great for after work. Your kids will love them. Great with green beans and salad for you and tater tots for kids.

We don't give sugar to the kids if we can help it. They are hyperactive and it makes them mean.

My nephew love mock mashed potatoes .
My 3 year old neice and I are going to make cupcake now.

[emslight]

Originally Posted by rosethorns

I agree with the slow cooker, take a whole chicken sprinkle with seasonings put in crock pot on low then pour diet orange or cherry cola soda over it. This is so great when you come home from work.

How does the diet orange/cherry cola work? That sounds so strange to me!

[fawn]

I agree with the slow cooker, take a whole chicken sprinkle with seasonings put in crock pot on low then pour diet orange or cherry cola soda over it. This is so great when you come home from work

I don't want to be a dark cloud but does the diet soda have aspartame? For your own piece of mind, do some research on children and aspartame but most importantly, heating aspartame. It's a neurotoxin........

again, I'm sorry and I am just being informative.....something which seems so innocent could potentially have devastating effects on your children.....it passes the blood brain barrier.

When the FDA first approved aspartame it had the warning that aspartame should not be heated or used in cooking. This is because heating aspartame over 86F turns the methanol into formaldehyde. It is very easy to find many studies that discuss the damaging effects of formaldehyde on the human body

[emslight]

The chicken tastes great done in the hotpot even it's done with just herbs and spices, stock and some veg. I don't think the soda is necessary.

[Jake]

I second LindaSue Frugal, Atkins-friendly menus and recipes.

[DorianH]

Hey Fawn, just playing devil's advocate here.....

If heating aspartame above 86F changes the methanol to formaldehyde, won't that happen in our bodies anyway since our bodies are warmer than that?

Just food for thought........

[fawn]

yes it claims to dorian. It's too questionable a chemical especially in the feeding of young children in my opinion.

[suzanneyea]

Just stop buying things that are not necessary, even when they ar eon sale. We do not buy soda, ice cream, chips, cereal, none of that. Most of the time our meal is a roast from the crockpot, that is all. Get out of the habit of needing a side dish. We drink water with our meals. If you need a snack I have yogurt, cheese or nuts. Not much else. Oppsie rolls are always around I seem to have to make those every day, lol. I do not even buy cold cuts, if they want a sandwhich on an oppsie, take some of the cold chicken or egg salad, or just cheese and tomato.

[elyseelyse]

My biggest expenses are fresh berries and meats. I got a fruit keeper from Tupperwear so I can get a couple extra pints of berries when on sale so they last a couple of weeks. When good quality beef, seafood or chicken is on sale, I stock up as much as my freezer will hold. I am hoping and praying DH agrees to another fridge/freezer once the basement is finshed. He is weird about some things, its not the money per se of buying one, its the idea that a family of four needs two. After all, how did his mom and dad & three boys grow up with only one?

[brittone2]

We use Costco for things like organic salad mix, Tillamook sliced cheddar (not organic but mostly grassfed and hormone free), frozen berries, Coleman nitrate/nitrite/hormone/antibiotic free hotdogs, wild salmon etc.

We did PYO organic strawberries earlier in the year, and we're doing PYO organic blueberries right now (have been going 1-2x a week. We pay $2/lb and part of the proceeds go to charity). We eat them, but we also flash freeze a bunch and pop them into freezer containers.

We buy grassfed, hormone/antibiotic free beef by the half and stick it in our freezer (from Craigslist).

We focus on buying whatever produce is on sale/in season. So if apples are cheap, the kids get lots of apples that week. Ditto plums, etc. (I'm okay w/ my kids having those types of fruits, although our whole family is generally pretty low carb).

I've reduced my organic dairy consumption a bit and subbed in hormone/antibiotic free from WholeFoods house brand to stretch the budget a bit (stuff like cream cheese, for example).

When my kids eat half of a banana, or half a peach, etc. I cut off the eaten part, chop the fruit and toss it into the freezer to use for smoothies.

We do a lot of bulk cooking as a PP mentioned. In cooler weather I cook two chickens every Sunday side by side in a huge cast iron "fish pan" (looks like a rectangular roasting pan). We eat some that night, and t hen I debone, cube and freeze a bunch of it. Easy to reinvent for fajitas, chicken salad, over salad greens, as a LC chicken taco salad or taco bake (add salsa and cheddar). I'll put cubed chopped chicken in a pyrex with Trader Joe's frozen (thawed) artichokes and top w/ some boursin cheese sauce (melt a little w/ butter or cream on the stovetop). I also prebrown ground beef pretty often and stick that in the freezer. I make up a bunch of LC meatballs and flash freeze (good on oopsies as sandwich, made into a pseudo-Italian wedding soup, etc.).

My grocery bill is still not cheap but these things do help us.

eta: we finally have a local co-op grocery 5 mins from home. We hit there fairly regularly and buy the meats that have to be sold that day and then pop them in the freezer, or cook that night and freeze. I got a whole Bell&Evans chicken last night for 6.50.