Extreme frugality: Be a frugalvore.

(Happy Throwback Thursday! Given how expensive food has gotten lately, I thought a little shopping reminder would be in order. This piece, which originally ran on Feb. 7, 2021, is one  in an occasional series of articles focusing on saving serious dough. A little background can be read here.)

The “locavore” movement is based on the idea of eating only foods grown within a 100-mile radius of where you live. I’ve got my own version, which I call being a “frugalvore.” It’s pretty simple: You shop mostly (or completely) based on what’s on sale that week.

This isn’t exactly a new idea. Plenty of people shop that way their whole lives. But it might be new to you if you grew up in a home where no one read the supermarket ads, created menus and then worked to get the most bang for each grocery buck.

Frugalvorism both simplifies and complicates your approach to eating. On the one hand, it’s easier to shop because you plan menus around that week’s most affordable foodstuffs.

However, if you’re the kind of person who always shopped by grabbing whatever looked good, then you’ll need to rethink your supermarket habits.

Fortunately, it’s fairly simple. Not always easy, but simple. 

 

Read more

Swimsuits, gleaning and Christmas in July.

thFor women, there are two kinds of bathing suits: the kind you promenade in and the kind won’t fall off when you dive into a pool/get hit by a wave.

The latter actually happened to me when I was a young teen, down at the Jersey Shore. Luckily my feet were planted in the sand so the suit bottom didn’t have a chance to float off, but for a few very anxious seconds I felt like the little girl at the end of this old Coppertone ad:

July is the best time for discounts on both bathing suits and summer clothing, according to a merchandising specialist at Retail Me Not. Tips for finding good deals on such can be found in my current post at RMN’s The Real Deal, “What to buy in July: Celebrate the best of summer, right in your own backyard.”

Read more

Give yourself a present for Christmas 2011: A well-stocked pantry.

The food ads are mighty attractive at this time of year even up here in Anchorage, where prices are noticeably higher than in the Lower 48.

A few of the items currently being offered at decent sale prices: bacon, eggs, cheese, soup, canned tomatoes, flour, chicken broth, coffee, yams, canned and plain frozen vegetables, crackers (I’m partial to the cracked pepper and olive oil Triscuits), potatoes, butter, apples and canned beans.

The idea is to get us to buy extra ingredients for holiday meals and those homemade sweets. But why not buy extra ingredients for ourselves?

Read more