I love when I am able to feed my family for incredibly little amounts of money. Actually, I think that is pretty obvious from this blog- though its called Penniless Parenting, Penniless Cooking would probably a more apt name, from the percentage of this site that is dedicated to frugal cooking.
Anyhow, there are just some times that as a very frugal person make you go “Wow! This is amazing, even for me!”
Yesterday I was teaching a class on how to shop extra frugally at the local open air market, where all the deals and steals are (if you’re local and want info about the classes, email me) and while I was going around, I saw a stall selling 2 heads of broccoli for 57 cents! That is insanely little! Especially since broccoli generally costs something like $2 per head! But, unfortunately when I went back after the class, someone else had already snagged the broccoli, but I managed to snag some celery- 9 bunches of celery for 85 cents! Celery locally costs $1.42 per bunch, and when I found it on sale for 47 cents a bunch I thought it was a steal and bought 5 bunches- and now I got them for 9 cents a bunch!
Insane!
Ike asked me if I could get some corn, when he saw it being sold at the market, but I told him it was too expensive. He was in luck, though- one of the reduced rack stalls was selling corn on the cob, so I bought about 2.5 lbs of it, along with approximately 9 lbs of pumpkin. I don’t remember exactly how much each was per pound, but the total cost was $4.57, which worked out to be approximately 50 cents a pound, which is a steal!
I bought an onion, some zucchini, and some lemons from another reduced rack stall for $1.91- don’t know how much it weighed, but the things I bought were on average 32 cents a pound.
While walking through the market I saw them tossing huge amounts of scallions- they looked mostly perfect, so I stuffed a shopping bag full of them to take home- got those free.
We went to the scratch and dent store and got some banged up cans for insanely little- hearts of palm were 95 cents a can instead of their usual $2.28, so I got 6 for $5.70, and cans of mushrooms were being sold for 71 cents a can, when their usual on sale price, that I stock up at, is 95 cents a can.
Total at that store- $8.57.
Total for my shopping trip- $15.90!
But that’s not it!
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| Wild rocket leaves |
On my trip yesterday to the market, I also foraged a bunch of wild rocket leaves, and some eryngo, which tastes like cilantro.
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| Dock/sorrel |
And on Friday, on a hiking trip with my family, I foraged a bunch of wild beet leaves and sorrel/dock.
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| Wild beet greens |
Once you factor in all those stuff as well, you get the pictured table scene- all for a total of $15.90. (Actually, you get more than that- 4 of the cans of hearts of palm didn’t make it home. I don’t usually allow my kids to snack on 4 cans in one go, but since they were so cheap I allowed it this once.)
Wow, I am amazed.
How much would this much food have cost you locally at regular price? On sale?
Gotten any amazing deals and steals lately? Foraged anything great?
