Live on Less: Food

Food.... We all have to eat! The food is there, but it is up to us to get the right foods to eat.

We all know about the food pyramid...the veggies, the fruits, the grains and the meats. Food is the fuel in which we run on. It can almost be grown anywhere....on a country farm, or in the city.

Some foods generate their own seeds from each plant. In addition, if you know how to collect these seeds, you will have a never-ending supply of seeds. Most published butchery houses will butcher a cow, pig or lamb for you, and have enough meat for a year. However, country folk do have the advantage in that they can grow larger gardens and raise more livestock as food. Chickens give twice the food in eggs and meat.

As a city dweller, you do not have the space for such simplicity in homegrown foods. This is where coupons and bulk buying come in handy. Most of us shop by the week, so menus also help and reduce impulse buying. Start a menu for a couple weeks or so ahead. Go through the coupons and see what you can get with your coupons, and put that on your menu. If you have enough coupons, you might be able to make a weeks menu just from the coupons you have.

If you're just starting out collecting coupons, don't worry... you can find them in every Sunday paper, in magazines, and don't forget to check the stores flyers, they often have in-store coupons to put with the others, to double the savings! If your just starting out, envelopes do just fine. Many retail stores such as Walmart have little coupon file pouches you can buy for keeping large amounts of coupons.

If your not that picky about food... don't buy the name brands. Buy the store or generic brands, they are a lot cheaper and you probably will not notice much difference in the taste once it's all cooked up and on the dinner table. Most packing companies use the same food in all their cans, but just different labels.

As more and more people find themselves out of work, or are laid-off for an extended period of time, or for whatever reason....more and more people are getting' food stamps to help them through. A few years ago, having food stamps meant being on the low end of the social ladder, nobody wanted much to do with you. That is changing as more people are forced out of work by out-sourcing jobs, or the job went over-sea's or down south. And it is a long time in between jobs. Having food stamps temporarily isn't such a bad thing anymore. People have to eat!

You can easily feed a family of four or five for a month if you make menus, combine coupons, bulk buying, and buying off-brand foods with a three-hundred dollar food stamp card!