Quick Note

I'm still here! I haven't dropped off the earth. I've just been a bit busy, especially this weekend. We have a big project for you all too see. I'll update when it's ready! :D

How To Figure Meal Pricing

 

I have a knit post coming up for you, but it's not quite done yet. So in the mean time I thought I would share with you how I figure meal prices.

I keep all our grocery receipts. At least for a month or two, just so I can refer back to them when I forget the price on something. It's also handy when I see a price in a flyer and think "Wasn't that X price last month?" (I also keep a price book, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

The easiest part is things I use whole packages for. Pasta is .89 for a 1 pound box. Beans are .99 for 1 pound. Since I usually use a whole package for one meal, then that's easy enough to figure out. 

Meat is usually about the same. Most of the time the price is right on the package, so if I use a whole package then I just take that price. Things like ham, that I use small bits of, are a little more tricky. I have a small scale that I weight things on. From past experience I know that 2 cups of chopped ham is about 6 oz. So I figure the price per ounce. 1 pound = 16 oz.. Therefore, if your meat is 2.99/lb then one ounce will be roughly 18.5 cents (2.99 divided by 16). Multiply the number of ounces used by the price per ounce and there you go! Before I started using the scale I just guesstimated. Something like "How many slices/breasts/quarters per package." It's close enough.

Onions and potatoes and other produce I figure the same way. Weigh it, then figure out the price per pound or ounce and multiply accordingly. For us one onion weighs an average of about 7 oz. We get a 3 pound bag of onions for 99 cents. So for us that means one onion is about 14 cents (33 cents a pound divided by 16 (oz) = .02/oz x 7 oz = .14). 

By the way, my mother is probably laughing her head off as she reads this saying something along the lines of "And you always complained about math! Saying you would never use it! *cackles maniacally*". Yes mum, you were right. You may have your moment of gloating.

The tricky part is the things like powders and large package items. Dry measurements are not the same as liquid measurements. So while one 1/2 cup of milk will weigh 4 ounces, one 1/2 cup of rice will not. I can usually get a pretty big help by reading the nutrition chart and seeing how many servings are in a package. Let's use that rice as an example. I got a 20 pound bag of rice on sale for $6.98 (half of what is usually was!). On the nutrition panel it says that a serving is 1/4 cup (dry), and that there are about 202 servings per package. So each 1/4 cup of rice would be 3 cents ($6.98 divided by 202), making each full cup 12 cents. Pretty easy huh?

For things that don't have a nutrition panel (like spices) I sit and complain about it and consider writing the companies a letter to please put the serving size on the package. Then I start trying to figure it out. For awhile I was just guessing for the most part. I figured the dry measure of garlic powder was roughly the same as a liquid measure since the particles were so small. Then I found the Gourmet Sleuth's Cooking Conversion Calculator. All you have to do is search for whatever you're looking for, then type in what conversion you want (for example tsp to oz.). Then figure the price from that. Garlic powder for us is .02 cents per tsp ($5.01 (on sale) for a 24.7 oz package. 24.7/.099oz (the weight of a tsp of garlic powder) = 250ish teaspoons. $5.01/250 = $0.02!)

I hope that wasn't as confusing as I think I made it. A lot of you are probably thinking that's just a little too anal for you. But, on the off chance that there is someone else out there who was sitting at dinner one night thinking "I wonder how much this meal actually cost" (and how much of a savings it was over going out), then this post is for you! Figuring meal prices has been a big help to me because now I realize that some of the meals I was making just weren't good for our grocery budget. Now I just save those meals as special treats.

Menu Monday - 2/1 - 2/6

Someone wanna explain to me how the HECK we got to February. Wasn't Christmas yesterday?

It's another week, as well as another month, and that means a new menu! This week's list is:

Monday: Salisbury Steak & Taters   Scratch that! Ben said he would do hamburgers! Weee!
Tuesday: Birthday Dinner! Ben's cooking me tri-tip and I don't have to do a thing! :D
Wednesday: Crock Pot Chicken
Thursday: Chicken Tetrazzini
Friday: TBD
Saturday: Potato Soup (or maybe Tortilla soup if I have enough chicken)

You guys getting bored yet? Heh. I've come to realize that lately our menus have been pretty much the same thing. Maybe it's because Ben's been deciding what to have, and he likes what he likes! Or maybe it's because we're trying to tighten up the grocery budget so I'm not buying all the fancy things from meals past. Or maybe I'm just lazy (this is most likely the reason). I haven't posted a What's Cookin' recipe in awhile, so I will try to get something new for you guys soon.

DIY: Marbled Wall Tiles

Our little house is sadly lacking in decor. It's kind of pathetic really. But having little ones means not much time for decorating, so I have an excuse (right?). We moved in shortly before Duder was born. But! This week I did a little experimenting with some canvas tiles, paint and paper and came up with this:

 

Whatcha think? I love them! We don't have a headboard yet (or... a bed frame at all actually. It's coming.). But this seemed to add enough over the bed to make the room feel a little less empty. I'm very happy with the way they turned out. I tried about three different things to get them how I wanted in my head and I'm really surprised it worked.

 

Here's how I did it, just in case you want your own personalized wall tiles.

 

Start out with canvas art squares. The size I used was 8x8. You'll need as many as the number of letters in your word/saying. 

 

Now, I have to tell you that I have no artistic talent what-so-ever. I'm just not artsy. So instead of attempting some kind of watercolor technique, I got a little ... "creative". Wet a paper towel and wring it out so that it isn't drenched, but it's still pretty damp. A few drips coming off is good. Then place it over the canvas. It doesn't need to me pretty. In fact, the more wrinkles the better.

Paint over the wet paper towel with the craft acrylic color of your choice. Mine was black. It helps if you wet the brush with water first, to help with the water color effect. Put as much or as little paint as you want. Less = lighter color, more = darker.

 

Once you're done painting let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then lift off the paper towel. It won't look that great at first. Using either the painted towel (if you want more color) or a clean and slightly damp towel (if you want to remove some color), blot around on the surface. Just go until you think it looks pretty good. As it dries it will soak into the canvas and the colors will bleed, giving more of a water colored/marbled look rather than blotchy chunks of color. Just be patient.

 

 

While the squares dry, open up some kind of text editor that lets you change fonts. Change the print margins to the smallest they can go. Type a letter, pick a font and color you want, then blow it up to as large as it can go. Print out a test page to make sure your letter will fit on the canvas. If you like it, then type out all your letters and print them. Cut them out (forgot to take a picture of that part).

 

Glue one letter on each square (after it's dried of course). I used white glue, worked just fine. Paint the edges if you'd like for a finished look. If you want a shiny look, or you want to seal it you can cover the whole thing with Mod Podge. I just left ours as is. With a level and some nails, hang on the wall, step back, and admire your creation!

I think these would be adorable with some fun colors in a kid's room displaying their name or a fun saying. I think I might make some for the kitchen saying "Eat" or "Feast".

Favorite Thing Friday: Clothespins!

 

This is probably one of my weirder posts. Some of you are probably thinking "What the heck? Clothespins??" Well, I have to admit... I love clothespins. They're so versatile! We use them for everything around here. I've used them to not only hang clothes, but we also use them for holding chip bags closed (no need for fancy "chip clips"), I've used them to hold up the boys' pants and also to clip towels behind necks when I'm cutting hair. I'm planning on gluing magnets to the back of a few to hang on the fridge for holding things. They also work in a pinch (pun intended) if you run out of paper clips. I think they're just great for so many things! And since you can get a bajillion in a package for around 2 bucks or less, they're totally worth it.