Convenience Foods

I like to cook, but sometimes it can be a hassle. Especially since I'm not big on planning out meals in advance. Even though I try to avoid prepacked foods and ingredients, there are some indulgences that I do allow myself:

• Bottled minced garlic
• Minced ginger in squeezable tubes
• Pre-shredded cheese
• Yogurt
• Breaded fish fillets
• Bread for sandwiches
• Breadcrumbs
• Condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire, etc.)
• Spaghetti sauce
• Potato or tortilla chips (the baked kind)
• Frozen pizza (in case of emergencies)

Some of these things I would like to make myself eventually, particularly the four items at the bottom of the list. But for now I'm not really that motivated to make myself. all of these items I can either get cheaply from the store, or the store version is much better than anything I can make.

I am much more proud of this list next list. These are all things that I have virtually eliminated from our diet:

• Frozen or boxed dinners
  
• Hot pockets and other frozen lunches
• Frozen snack foods, like pizza rolls
• Frozen breakfast pastries
  
• Cold cereal
  
• Pre-chopped fruits and veggies
• Baking mixes
• Bottled salad dressing
• Canned soup, especially condensed
• Anything packaged in individual servings or slices: oatmeal, yogurt, etc.
• Microwave popcorn
• Minute rice
• Bread from a tube
• Processed cheese
• Carbonated Soda
  

So why did I cut out these things? First, most of them have very high levels of preservatives, especially salt and sugar. Making food from scratch is much healthier than buying ready-made food. Second, most of them use an excessive amount of packaging. Do you really need your pudding divided into individual cups and your fruit snacks in individual bags? Frozen dinners force you to throw away a box, a plastic tray, and the plastic film on top. Tubes of crescent roll dough force you to throw away the cardboard tube. Buying prepackages foods means I am giving extra money to the store and to my city: because I'm paying the store for packaging I don't want, and I'm paying the city to tote that packaging away for me. Third, making food from scratch takes up less space in the kitchen. I have a small pantry and no second freezer. I've found that if I have a box of hamburger helper in the cupboard, all I can make with it is hamburger helper. But if I have a box of noodles in the pantry and various spices in my spice drawer, I can make hamburger helper, or a casserole, or soup, or a million other things.

 

So what do I eat instead of packaged foods?

• For breakfast: whole fruit, toast, eggs, bacon, home baked goods
• For lunch: sandwich, pasta, homemade soup, salad
• For dinner: whole fresh vegetables, pasta, long grain rice, homemade biscuits, baked or braised meats
• On salads: vinegar and oil, homemade buttermilk dressing
• For snacks: hand chopped fruits and vegetables, chips, yogurt, home baked goods

Cooking dinner from scratch takes about thirty minutes of active prep time and thirty minutes of cooking time. That is longer than when you cook with prepared foods, but worth it. For snacks, it only requires a little planning ahead to have something on hand when you want it. I chop veggies, hard-boil eggs, make dips and spreads for crackers, and freeze homemade muffins so that if I want to eat something, it's there. I try to have some sweet snacks, some savory snacks, and some frozen snacks available at all times. I don't have any frozen snacks this week, but I do have homemade pumpkin bread, herbed cheese spread, and pickled red onions.

I am working on being able to update my blog from my Blackberry. This should make it a lot easier for me to post more frequently, although probably with more spelling and grammar errors as well. We'll see, until then my posting schedule is going to remain pretty random.

On Lifehacker today, there was a great post about How to Live Cheap. It is geared toward people who are ready to make a major life change with their finances. Most of the advice is right on target, limiting the social budget, eating frozen food, etc, although judging from the comments many Lifehackers were taken aback by some suggestions. One person essentially said that if you can't go out regularly then you are so poor that you may as well just join the military.

This reminds me of a post I saw several years ago on another blog, I can't remember which one. The blogger gave the standard advice that your monthly housing payments (whether rent or mortgage payments) should cost no more than one third of your monthly income and was bombarded by comments from 20-somethings, all saying that this was an impossible rule to follow since apartments in this price range were too grungy to be worth living in. This was before the current economic crisis - those people are probably all living with their parents now. Always a bad situation for people whose self-worth is dependent upon their lifestyle.

Back on Lifehacker, the main concern was that they would lose friends by switching to more affordable social events. This is completely true - it is sad to think about but if you have been living beyond your means to keep up with your friends, then it is quite possible that changing your budget will cause you to lose those friends.

My advice: join free clubs and attend community events based around your interests. The people there will share your interests AND your financial situation. New friends! This doesn't mean you have to ditch the old ones though - you can stay in touch online, and periodically throw a party at your house, where you can invite everyone but keep it in your price range.

Friends really can be a cash-drain. You have to be honest with them, and tell them you are trying to save money. If they still insist that hanging out with you isn't worth it unless there are also expensive drinks and entertainment, what does that tell you? Also watch out for the chatty ones - switch to a smaller cell phone package and screen your calls, especially for the friends who call for no reason and want to chat about nothing.

All of this is still true for someone you are thinking of dating. There is no point getting sucked into a relationship that requires excessive spending to maintain. If your girlfriend/boyfriend requires blow-out birthday parties, frequent weekends away, gifts for a different reason every two weeks, etc, it is not a good match for you.