Depression Recipes: Cooking for Less
Smart People Save Money by Making Cheap Meals at Home in Recession
Feb 27, 2009 Jennifer Harshman
Millions are being affected by the long-predicted economic downturn of 2009, and are looking for ways to survive it. For most people, the first step is examining the discretionary spending in the household budget. The biggest flexible expense most people have is food, and that includes groceries, take-out, and food eaten in restaurants.
Depression-era Recipes and Techniques Make a Comeback
On February 27, 2009, one of Google's most popular search terms was "Depression Cooking With Clara," which is an online cooking show featuring a 93-year-old woman demonstrating recipes from the Great Depression of the 1930's. People are hunting for frugal recipes and cookbooks. Many want to learn to cook from scratch in order to save money. The wealthy may be unaffected, but everyone else must watch their spending.
Dave Ramsey encourages people to "eat rice and beans, beans and rice," a euphemism for cutting the grocery expenses. Eating for less might mean cooking at home, growing a garden, or bartering for food. Some people take Dave somewhat literally and are able to cut their spending drastically. Some of Dave Ramsey's forum members feed their families for as little as $100 a month.
Buying inexpensive foods is one way to cut grocery costs. Foods such as rice, beans, potatoes and pasta have long been staples of a frugal diet. These foods are inexpensive and versatile, and they store well.
Raising garden plants such as tomatoes, squash, and peppers can be a cost-effective activity, even for those in urban environments. Amy Dacyzyn, author of the Tightwad Gazette books, and Mel Bartholomew, author of Square Foot Gardening, both encourage people to grow some of their own food. These foods and more can be grown in containers for just pennies apiece.
A third way to cut the grocery budget is to eat less. Some people opt to skip meals, and others eat smaller portions. The American Dietetic Association says that cutting portions down to the proper size is the healthiest option.
Food Isn't the Only Area Where People are Trying to Save Money
Dollar-conscious people are trying to save money in other areas as well. Some common expenses to trim:
- Utility bills
- Home improvement projects
- Clothing and personal care items
- Baby and children's products
- Vacation and travel
Vacations and home improvement projects can be put off during tight times, but things like utility bills are a constant. Utilities are a substantial percentage of the household bills, so it's a good idea to try to reduce electricity and gas usage to cut costs. Cutting costs by using free energy is a dream come true.
Free energy can be collected by several devices:
- windmills or wind turbines
- water turbines
- solar heaters
- solar ovens
- sunlight concentrators such as parabolic reflectors and fresnel lenses.
Energy can be used directly, as in the case of solar cookers and heaters, or it could be converted to electricity and used to power household devices. Many wind and solar items are produced commercially, and the commercial versions look better than the DIY versions. As money becomes tighter, appearance may not matter much. People may not care how it looks, as long as it cooks.
Frugality has been the way of life for some people for decades, even though it wasn't popular. Now tightwad living may become the way of life for the majority of Americans, at least for a time. Free-energy cooking and heating devices may become status symbols. Families might find themselves huddled together, happily using a foil-covered sattelite dish to cook their beans and rice.
Inexpensive fruit
|
What do you think about this article?
Comments
More in Business & Finance
Latest Articles