Frugal Forward

The weekend before the inauguration, I took a look at weekly deals at some of my local brick and mortar grocery stores. In the coming weeks I’ll be doing research into the grocery stores in my area to identify if they support democratic candidates so I can make informed values-based decisions regarding where I shop moving forward.

The Plan

Until then, I’m looking for loss leaders or good buys that I can use in multiple ways:

• Eating now
• Meal prepping
• Saving for future use

The Deals

I found some pretty good deals. I was able to get a head of celery at my local Kroger store, Ralph’s, for $1.59.

I was also able to get 4 organic bell peppers (3 yellow, 1 green) from Amazon Fresh for $2.00. These were the last 4 organic bell peppers on the shelves. There were lots of bare refrigerator cases for produce, dairy, and eggs.

I also still had carrots in my refrigerator from a prior deal at Amazon Fresh. I got a 32 ounce bag for $.92.

A few weeks ago I bought 10 pounds of organic yellow onions from Azure Standard for $14.36.

What Am I Doing With These?

All of these are great for cooking a bunch of different things, especially soups and stews. So, I diced up all 4 bell peppers, most of the celery and carrots, and 2 of the onions.

I didn’t weigh the onions before I chopped them (I wish I would have), but I estimate that since they were on the small side they came in at around a pound. I would guess that I used about 80% of the carrots and celery.

After I diced everything up, I set aside about 2.5 cups to use to cook dinner, then vacuum sealed the rest in 2 cup portions. This resulted in 5 pouches that I put in the freezer for future use.

Don’t Throw Away Your Veggie Scraps!

I also took the vegetable scraps — the leaves of the celery, peels of the carrots, and the skins of the onions — and put them in a freezer bag.

Don’t throw away your veggie scraps. Instead, use them to make your own homemade chicken or beef stock. These keep just fine in the freezer. Add them to a pot of water with a chicken carcass or beef bones to make stock out of stuff you would have otherwise thrown away. It’s easy, hands-off, and saves you money! If you’d like me to write a post about how to make it, let me know in the comments.

The Cost Breakdown

• Celery: The head of celery was $1.59 and I used 80% of it, which totals $1.27.
• Carrots: The bag of carrots was $0.92 and I used 80% of it, which totals $0.74.
• Bell Peppers (Organic): I used all 4 of the bell peppers, which cost $2.00.
• Onions (Organic): I estimated I used one pound of the onions, which came to $1.44.

The total cost was $5.45. It yielded 10.5 cups of diced vegetables and the bag of veggie scraps. I won’t assign a value to the scraps, since they would have otherwise been put in our Mill. So, the total comes to $0.52 per cup, or $1.04 per 2 cup pouch.

Why Do I Care?

First, because this will help me calculate the cost of a meal when I use this in the future. Second, it saves me time. When I want to put together a quick meal that requires diced vegetables, all I have to do is pull out a pouch from the freezer and put it in some water for a few minutes to thaw it out. Third, I want to track these costs moving forward.

What do you do to save money and time? What would you use these for?

*Some links in this post may be affiliate links. For links to products on Amazon, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. You are not charged for using an affiliate link. If you use my link, I earn a small commission, which I can use to offset the administrative costs of this blog. If you use my links, thank you.

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