Day 1

I went to the grocery store yesterday (my $97 worth of food stamps were issued) and after much searching and shopping I decided to share how I feed my family with limited funds.

Clipping and finding coupons has become an art. Sale bills are my preferred reading on Tuesdays, when the grocery ads come out. I generally use two stores, a local warehouse store and WalMart. Both honor coupons and run good specials. Meat is purchased at the local store, along with their weekly specials.
 On the way home, I stop at WalMart and buy frozen foods and shop their specials. The only problem with using coupons with the food stamps is that you have to pay tax on the coupon items.

My freezer is full of chicken broth...our town grocery sells us chicken backs for $.19 a pound, which I boil and strip for dog food. I strain and freeze the broth for stews, casseroles and for cooking pasta. We had vegetable soup and cornbread for supper last night and I still have leftovers for another meal. The cornbread goes in the freezer for dressing.

The soup, not counting the meat of choice, has carrots ($.49), celery ($.15), onions ($.15), corn ($.39), tomatoes (2 cans at $.55), mushrooms ($.50), and a handful of barley ($.10). Since I didn't have to pay sales tax, my basic soup cost $2.88 for nearly a gallon. At this point, I will digress and explain a big part of my savings.

Food stamps may be used to purchase food plants such as tomatoes, squash, okra, etc. My husband and I have a garden every year. I also learned how to can and was fortunate enough to find a lady who gave me all her canning jars. We grow blackberries, blueberries, tomatoes, squash, okra, cucumbers and a large variety of spices. I dry the spices and store in glass jars for use throughout the year. I puree most of the berries and freeze to make jam throughout the year. I had enough tomatoes to put up a year's worth of the best salsa we've ever had. Sweet pickles are made every year also and are better than any you can buy. SO...when I made my soup last night, I had my garden herbs to season the broth. Our dessert was cornbread with a slather of homemade blackberry jam.