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Yes, You Have to Clip Coupons: But Really, Eating Well and Inexpensively Isn?T All That Difficult (and It?S

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 January 2006, 09:00 CST

By Allison Askins, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Jan. 18--OK. Here's the deal.

If you want to save money in the kitchen, you have to take the time to plan and to cook.

Plan? Cook?

Yes, plan and cook.

And it will save you money.

That's a promise from Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross, cookbook authors and "Desperation Dinners" syndicated columnists. Their newest book is "Cheap. Fast. Good!" (Workman, $13.95) and it's filled with tips and advice on how to take control of your grocery costs and create a better spending plan for your family.

"It's all about planning smart, cooking smart and shopping smart," Mills said. "You really can see the results."

Before you turn the page, bored by the idea -- just certain this means you'll be spending hours clipping coupons and eating lots of beans and rice -- stop.

That's not so, Mills said.

You may need about an hour a week, or less, to plan your meals and organize coupons, but the planning will make you feel more in control of your life and budget.

And here's a word of wisdom about coupons: You should use coupons only for foods your family eats.

"Just thumb through like you're looking for a Coach handbag (in a catalog)," Mills said. Pay particular attention to the coupons for a dollar or 75 cents.

They'll pay for your newspaper and "it's a free dollar," Mills said.

"We're not asking you to be a coupon queen, but you do want to be the duchess of the discount," she said.

For example, Mills snags orange juice coupons. Her family loves orange juice, and when she pairs a coupon with a store sale, she saves money.

Mills learned many of her habits from her World War II-era mother but knows a younger generation in the kitchen today hasn't grown up with a frugal mind-set.

"All the tapes from my mother began playing over and over when we were writing this book. They knew how to do this," she said of her mother's generation.

The good news is that being frugal is back in vogue and can be learned.

"It can be about saving to share or living closer to the land," but the idea speaks to a lot of people "on a lot of levels," she said.

Especially after those Christmas bills start filling the mailbox.

The ideas in "Cheap. Fast. Good!" aren't hard to understand and many have, as Mills said, been used for generations.

Octogenarian Barbara Benedetto of Columbia has been cooking a large dinner for family and friends once a week for more than 20 years.

She does it by cooking from scratch and shopping off the grocery story ads.

"I couldn't afford to have all these people over every week if I bought everything ready-made," she said.

Instead, she has learned to serve meatless meals such as a favorite pasta primavera that uses spaghetti noodles, broccoli, zucchini, frozen snow peas and asparagus or green beans, depending on their price.

"It makes an enormous amount and is very tasty," she said.

Benedetto also recommends paying attention to give-aways in stores. Buy-one-get-one-free isn't always the deal it may appear. Divide the price you're paying in half and consider whether it's really a bargain.

She also suggests planning weekly menus that include soups. They're inexpensive, make good use of leftovers and feed many mouths.

"There are all kinds of easy-to-do soups that you can make without having to pay a dollar a can," she said. "You can pay a dollar and have enough to go around."

Laine Pope, also of Columbia, has found she saves on her grocery bill when she substitutes frozen vegetables and fruit for fresh.

She started this after she noticed that her family's plans would change suddenly with baseball schedules or other outings and fresh vegetables would go to waste.

"If I know for sure we're going to be home, I will buy fresh," said Pope, a mother of three boys, ages 9, 7 and 3.

Otherwise, frozen works just fine.

Pope's sons, in fact, prefer frozen fruit to fresh. They particularly love frozen blueberries and she loves feeding them such a healthy snack.

Mills adds to Pope's suggestion of using frozen by recommending that you pay attention to how much your family really eats.

Her family loves tortellini. She used to cook more than she needed but has learned how much per meal each family member actually eats. This prevents leftovers that may or may not be used.

"The most expensive food we buy is the food you don't eat," she said.

In researching for the book, Mills learned that the average American family throws away about 470 pounds of food a year, or 12 percent of what most of us buy.

That's a lot of waste.

Mills also suggests that home cooks consider making their own chicken stock for use in soups and other dishes. If you're not keen about this idea, keep an eye on sales for stock, and then, stock up.

Buying hamburger meat on sale and storing extra for later is another way to shave the budget.

The biggest obstacle to any of these habits is becoming convinced of the need. And that can't be done until a family really knows and understands how much it spends on groceries, Mills said.

So, take some time, add some grocery receipts as well as the tab for those pizza deliveries and fast-food runs and give the numbers a good hard look.

"Really add it up," Mills said. "We were shocked."

Reach Askins at (803) 771-8614 or aaskins@thestate.com [mailto:aaskins@thestate.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.

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Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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