Crooked Kitchen

One way to save money on food is to shop at local, independent markets, especially ethnic markets. When I was living in Santa Barbara, I did some exploring of the local markets, and found that prices on most real food were cheaper than prices at the chain supermarkets. Here in the LA area, I have a large ethnically-biased produce market that I do a lot of my shopping at.

Sunland Produce is a supermarket-sized business on the corner of a major intersection. I believe it’s owned by an Armenian family, and they seem to cater mostly to the local population of Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and Hispanic customers. Aside from the namesake produce section, there are aisles of ethnic pantry items.

Olive Oils

Some of the interesting things are the varieties of olive oils and vinegars. exotic pickles and peppers, cans of hummus and baba ghanoush, and all kinds of spices. There’s also a great bread aisle with all varieties of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern breads and pitas, and lots of interesting little cookies and desserts.

Continue reading to see the deli, meat counter, and huge produce section »

When I was young, I used to eat a quick breakfast of cold cereal, instant oatmeal, or a toaster item like frozen waffles or a Pop-Tart as soon as I got up, before rushing off to school. I was never especially hungry, but I knew I needed to eat something, because I wouldn’t have another opportunity for a meal for several hours. My first year of college, I had morning classes, and managed to get up early enough to get to the dining commons and have breakfast. Sometimes it was cereal and coffee, but often it was a larger breakfast of hot foods – eggs and pancakes, or a big bowl of oatmeal, or whatever else they had that day. After that, I started sleeping in more often, and eventually stopped really eating breakfast. When I did get up before lunch hours, I’d just have some coffee or tea.

More recently, I’ve gotten back to eating shortly after waking up. Many days, I find myself actually hungry in the morning. I think it has to do with my appetite being much better now that I’m getting adequate dialysis.

Several studies have shown that eating breakfast can help you eat fewer total calories during the day. Not only does that help a diet, but it means you probably also spend less on food. Not only that, but breakfast can often be made much cheaper than lunch or dinner. If you split your calories between three meals instead of two, and one is significantly less expensive, you save money.

I’ve worked out an example to illustrate my point. Let’s say you eat 2000 calories in one day. Let’s split that between lunch and dinner. For the sake of argument, we’ll say that lunch is constant, and you eat enough dinner to make up calories to reach a total of 2000.

• Lunch: cheeseburger and potato salad – 876 calories, $3.46
• Dinner: pot roast, vegetables, and a green salad – 1124 calories, $8.61
• Total: 2000 calories, $12.07

Now let’s add a typical hot breakfast, and adjust the amount of dinner eaten to stay at 2000 calories total:

• Breakfast: fried eggs, toast, and bacon – 417 calories, $1.06
• Lunch: cheeseburger and potato salad – 876 calories, $3.46
• Dinner: pot roast, vegetables, and a green salad – 707 calories, $5.41
• Total: 2000 calories, $9.93

You can see that, even though you consumed the same number of calories, there’s a 17.7% savings when you eat breakfast. Now, that’s not considering that you’ll tend to eat fewer calories. You might still be sated enough from lunch that you won’t eat that whole cheeseburger for lunch, or maybe you’ll snack less through the day (I haven’t accounted for snacking here, but if you snack, you could potentially save even more, as snacks tend to be more expensive per calorie than full meals).

Simple breakfasts are pretty cheap. Two eggs and toast comes out to a few cents (okay, maybe 50 cents). If you utilize leftovers, it gets even cheaper. An omelette using leftovers in half-free. Oatmeal is very thrifty too, as long as you don’t pile on the butter and out-of-season berries.

I had a plan to write a great post on shopping the grocery flyers. That was April 29th. But the infection I had been fighting flared up and made me not want to work all day, then put me in the ER that night. Since then it’s just been problem after problem, and only now am I finally able to get back to posting.

Since the last time I posted, I’ve moved out of my rented room in Santa Barbara and back in with my family in LA. it’s been a month, but I still have to move all my stuff in to where I want it. Health problems have kept me from doing that, but now I’m getting better. One of my major goals in moving in is to get my computers set up in a clean, organized environment, so I can be more productive, both with my blog and the other things I do.

Also, once I’m all moved in, I’ll take over the kitchen and start doing my own grocery shopping. My eventual goal is to do all the grocery shopping and cooking for the family, with my mother willing to finance the shopping. I think the best way to get that going is in stages. First I’ll do my own shopping, with my own money, and cook mostly for myself, but in larger portions than I’d usually cook. I’ll offer the extras to whoever wants them, or leave leftovers in the fridge (which my brother will probably eat). Eventually, when more of the food in the kitchen is “mine,” I’ll begin asking for input on what the family wants for dinner, and cook dinner for everyone. Hopefully once I’m doing that on a regular basis, I’ll be able to ask for funding to buy food each week.

Once I’m fully moved in (should be within the next couple days), I’ll post again about how I’ve organized my working space. I’ll also post once I’m on my way to cooking for the household.