The flavor is in the flamingo shit.
Are we ruling out intentionally giving the kids an eating disorder?
How do the flamingos keep the flamingo shit off of their shrimp?
Meatballs are as good as steak and cost much less. But much more work.
You have four kids and you want to cut the budget for something used by the four of them by 25%? I guess I'll find a math professor and ask them how to express 25 percent as a fraction.
Kind of on topic: My son decided he was too heavy, cut down how much he ate, and lost like fifty pounds over maybe a year and a half, which included his first year of college. He's now in the lower part of the "normal" range and easily the thinnest adult in the family.
We have like six kinds of salt (normal, Kosher, sea salt, some expensive flakes, different sea salt, and probably one more). When I was a kid, we had one salt.
None are pink. At least one is from France.
OP-2: I'm not sure much advice can be given when you don't even vaguely outline what they typically eat?
You can substitute New York strip for filet mignon.
9: well I was asking what YOU all value and would swap in YOUR lives! Ignore the teenagers part.
I would say "there's mac and cheese in the pantry, I'm going to the bar for fries."
I already ignore the teenagers in my life.
I don't know whether this holds true outside of NC, but the most bang for my buck in terms of meat are pork loins and shoulders, which have become way cheaper than chicken or beef and have giant yields.
You can sometimes find chickens in your neighborhood wandering around.
Those are pigeons. They're free, but you need a lot of them if you want to feed four teenagers.
We used to have a neighbor with hens, but their house started to fall down the hill and the house was condemned.
On the OP, unfortunately, most of the savings would likely come from downgrading restaurants -- more fast food (though even that can be quite pricey) and fast casual instead of splurge restaurants. Since it's summer, you could look at free-cycle and gardening pages - a lot of people will have excess of what's in season, so you can likely pick up lots of free veggies that were going to be thrown away. If you're feeling outgoing, you could ask to pick some fruit once you see it start hitting the sidewalk -- some people will have a plan for all those peaches, but most will be happy to see them get appreciated instead of wasted. [I lost a lot of plums in the last few days and just picked all I could reach over lunch.]
Protein tends to be pricey; I shouldn't often serve protein free meals since my wife is Type 2 -- alone, I'm often content with a pot of beans and rice, or a big pot of chicken and rice, or jarred pasta plus some kind of noodle. Beef seems to be sustained at a much more expensive relative price to other meats than a couple of decades ago - shifting to pork and chicken can shave a bit. Similarly, good frozen veggies can be cheaper (and less prep) than fresh - especially if fresh is coming from the southern hemisphere.
Good lord, I have no idea. Keeping the Calabat (12) in raspberries was hard enough before he started packing his own lunches and just taking the entire container, and he's easily doubled what he typically eats in the past few months. It's like he's a newborn in terms of feeding frequency.
We don't eat out much at all so I'm just assuming there's really nowhere to go but up, costwise. Meat?
"I shouldn't often serve protein free meals since my wife is Type 2 -- alone, I'm often content with a pot of beans and rice"
Beans have lots of protein, though the best ones are soybeans which you probably wouldn't use in beans and rice.
Cutting food costs is mostly about cutting the amount of meat you buy IME - bulk the meal out with beans or vegetables instead. Serve a big carb dish first like pasta or noodles or Yorkshire pudding to fill everyone up, then serve a small meat course. Italian style.
This is depressing (I mean, I don't mind it because I have no soul, but for other people), but I think the biggest thing is to be tyrannical with yourself about food waste. Buy food (and yes, less meat, more beans, whatever) and eat it until it's gone -- have the refrigerator basically empty except for things you have a clear plan to finish eating at some definite point. I've been doing that out of sort of vague irritability rather than because I really need to economize, but wow does it cut the grocery bill.
(I do realize this is very hard with other, disobedient, people in the mix. I can do it successfully when it's just me, but not otherwise.)
Cooking only one type of cuisine or a limited range of meals saves money, since you can buy fewer ingredients, buy in bulk, and your groceries are less likely to go bad before you can use them.
Also, frozen vegetables are nutritionally similar but cheaper than fresh, and you don't have to worry about them spoiling and going to waste.
In my own household, we (I) mostly cook at home, and eat pretty simply/frugally 90-95% of the time, but any savings is easily obliterated by the other 5-10% of our meals, when we eat at stupidly expensive restaurants. This is made even dumber by the fact that although I've mostly stopped drinking alcohol, I still love having a fancy cocktail with my dinner when I go out, the price of which is probably like half the cost of our groceries for the rest of the week. So, if you can convince your teenagers to curb their mezcal paloma habit, you'll probably save a lot of money.
Frozen vegetables are much colder than fresh.
You could start them vaping. Nicotine is a pretty reliable food replacement.
You save energy if making something chilled like gazpacho or onionsicles.
I now buy all my sushi from the grocery store, but I don't save money because I get it way more often.
You can save money with Arizona rolls instead of California rolls.
Jammies and I went through the typical shopping list a little more closely this afternoon. We already do frozen vegetables and finishing off leftovers pretty well. We aren't spending significant money at restaurants, either.
What we came up with as possible swaps are:
- evil sugar instead of fair trade sugar
- cheap eggs instead of artisanal hand-stretched
- cheap milk instead of virtuous
- frozen ground turkey instead of the kind in a tube. (We weren't getting the super fresh kind in styrafoam, but frozen is still significantly cheaper than tube.)
We go through a ton of both frozen and fresh fruit, and various protein powders, but that stuff we're waiting on.
Basically I've been fretting about finances this year and I finally did a deep dive, and we're spending a wild amount on doctor's appointments and groceries. It's kind of a bummer because I still feel like I've been living this virtuous frugal life, and I also feel shame of living beyond my means!
The liberals don't want you to know this, but the geese in the park are free.
Apparently, eating roadkill can save you money on food and doctor bills.
Sure, but don't be getting ideas.
We have started shopping at Costco. I don't think it's a great way to save money on groceries overall, because of the randomness. But someone with more discipline would probably find differently.
Never have I been more instantly and overwhelming repulsed than the one time I went to Costco.
Mostly I buy coffee, butter, nuts, soft drinks, and nonprescription medicine there.
There's an Aldi near me, and I have tried shopping there a couple of times but the stuff it sells is peculiar enough that I can't quite make a habit of it. For a couple of specific things -- frozen berries to put on my cereal in the morning -- it's good and cheap.
My old car dealership is now an Aldi.
We don't even have a Costco. Because liberals hate real America.
Liberals run Costco? Maybe. We started because of trying to stop using Whole Foods, Amazon, and then Target.
But we still buy most of our food at Whole Foods.
We also don't have Whole Foods.
We do, however, have a Target.
We have two Targets, the one we don't go to because of the boycott and the one we don't go to because we like the other one better.
Sometimes we go, because it's the only local source for Australian licorice.
We also spend too much on groceries. However, when I was very poor and living on an extremely low food budget, I tended to make a lot of things I could cook in relative bulk and which would freeze and reheat well, and I'd buy much cheaper cuts of meat.
So, for example, bacon offcuts (bacon ends?) are often around £3 a kg. Chicken thighs, especially if you buy the cheaper ones, or go to a local halal butcher, are a good option. I'd buy whole chickens when they were cheap and then butcher them myself and get enough for about 4 meals (for 2). Minced/ground meat, in general, was always a good option, and I'd bulk the meat out with lentils or chickpeas/garbanzo. Lentils I'd always buy dried, but if you don't have a pressure cooker, most other pulses I'd just buy the cheapest canned ones I could find. Again, local Indian cash and carry places selling to the restaurant trade are a good option.
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He had to have silicone inserted into his scalp to pass the Sumo Association's minimum height rules.|>
That's a work around I never heard of.
Pointy-headed liberals always trying to cheat the system.
we're spending a wild amount on doctor's appointments and groceries. It's kind of a bummer
It's as if you decided to do something wildly vicious and profligate like, IDK, have four children.
Conversely, you could also save a lot of money if you converted to Christian Science.
Costco has great prices on things like huge bags of chips and nuts, or 20-packs of quick frozen things.
"local halal butcher"
Oh yeah, this. Especially if you learn how to use odd cuts (eg, lamb neck, which is awesome), you can get really good deals at the one here.
We do have a local halal butcher. I've never been.
Have any of your started the hair/skin products arms race yet? Boys are so much cheaper.
I remember noticing the existence of a place called The Vegan Butcher, which I believe would also qualify as halal. I'm only guessing, but it seems likely that going to The Vegan Butcher is not the most economical way to be vegan.
re: 59
My son (12) has started to get obsessed by smelling OK. He has to be bullied into washing his hair--he naturally has the huge curly quiff / alpaca style hair that is still somewhat in fashion--but when he does, he has various teenage boy smelling shampoos and body washes.
No skin products, though, other than face wash and sunscreen.
If the cow dies of natural causes, is it vegan meat?
You can get 8 hotdogs for 99 cents at Aldis. And 8 buns for $1.35. That's a whole dinner for just $2.34.
The Calabat has wound up with amazing hair. Thick, dark blonde, slight wave, and he wears it a little long ever since a friend told him his grown-out hair made him look like a ski bum. And the sun has given it all sorts of highlights. Nothing to do with product or scents yet. He's getting better about skincare because a small zit on his forehead horrified him, but by 'better' I mean 'remembering to wash face.'
Pebbles is oblivious to all makeup/skincare, and dance makeup at her last recital did not go over well. "I don't look like me!" --- and that was with a very, very light hand (foundation was tinted sunscreen, no mascara). She thinks lipstick is cool, but her generation is all into skincare, I think.
The cow in the MacBeth is even less vegan than average.
59: Selah has decided her hair needs daily product updates, which is one way to do the styles she's preferring now. Black haircare stuff already has a huge markup, but I'm making her try a cheaper leave-in conditioner and hoping it will work as well as the fancy one. Not pushing on the gel because the one she's using does work well and we've made a container last for more than a month now.
I don't know that I can add much to the food cost discussion, though I am so tired of cooking and shopping and thinking about food and all the rest of it. A friend recommended the Too Good to Go app that lets restaurants (or, around here, the Circle K convenience stores) sell surprise bags of leftover stuff cheap and we have tried that a few times but basically just for bread. Kids are finicky and will eat six pounds of salmon at one meal and refuse to touch the stuff at the next and so forth. I'm a grouch.
I used to think we spent a lot on groceries, but we eat less now (OLD) so buy less and budget has stayed pretty constant. Breakfast cereal vs overnight oats is a good trade to save money, especially if you buy the cheapest oats (it makes a difference but not a huge one). Fruit - lots of bananas, apples, and oranges less everything else and going with what's on sale. Bulk/dried beans vs canned is a decent swap, but if you have to heat the house to make them, that's unpleasant enough it's not worth it (I do a pot of beans in the oven basically every Sunday in winter). Cheap pasta usually tastes good enough, and long noodles are cheaper than shapes. Gallons of ice cream in a cheap-ish brand usually taste good, especially if you find a winning flavor (mine right now is coffee-chocolate chip). That's not 25%, though - I don't think i could honestly cut 25% from our budget.
I would eat six pounds of salmon or oats, but only steel-cut oats.
Breakfast for me is oats with dried cranberries and 2.5 eggs, scrambled with some shredded cheese on top.
On Sunday, the eggs are topped with pig brain.
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Back in hospital again. This time just for a small bowel obstruction. So at least it's not another heart attack. Pretty goddamn painful though.
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72: That sucks; hope they're able to swiftly fix the problem!
72: that sounds awful. May you feel better asap.
May you recover quickly and your bowels flow freely we that is needed.
72: Ouch. I hope there are effective drugs, rapid repair, and easy recovery.
My your shit flow as fulsomely as the upper Mississippi.
The low Mississippi would be a bit much for the Toto.
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NMM to Rebekah Del Rio.
This one hurts. RIP
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I kind of want to watch F1, but OTOH I have yet to pay one red cent to Apple and I'd like to keep it that way.
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Things are looking up! Feeling optimistic about getting out today or tomorrow
Ate some solid food at doctor's insistence. BIG mistake. Wish I had a patient controlled Dilaudid dispenser
The guy I knew who fell down the elevator shaft had one. I don't what opioid was in the machine, but he pushed a button and got a dose.
I guess if you pushed the button for the elevator but got a Dilaudid dose instead, you'd fall down the shaft too.
It's really lucky for him his room was on the 2nd floor.
I'm on the 8th floor. We had a tornado warning here in the city last night. The protocol for patient safety during such is to close both sets of blinds and leave the room door open.
Here at least till Monday. Won't know about possible surgery until tomorrow morning at the earliest.
That doesn't sound very safe. Hope they can get you fixed soon.
I guess if the blinds are shut, you won't see the tornado so you'll be sucked out the window without so much preliminary panic? But maybe bigger buildings are safer? People seem to die from tornadoes in houses and trailers and the like.
In Hong Kong the double-decker buses did not have air conditioning, but they did have signs saying "in case of typhoon, ensure all windows are fully open" - I guess to stop the bus blowing over.
Ekranoplans are always on topic. Plus... hydrofoils!
This article is heavy on the gosh! wow! Hydrofoils! But it's the combo with ground effect right that caught my eye.
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Of interest to some.
https://youtu.be/njd2xvMcTx8?t=1534
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