Beans, Glorious Beans

Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't know beans about cooking beans. I have a lot as you can see in the picture but I've had the same stash of beans for a very long time. They are sort of mystical to cook since we can get in them in a can and they are ready to use. For some this isn't rocket science. For me, it is. I haven't often tried to use dried beans. I worry about the time it takes, I worry about seasoning them well. Usually, I abandon the process and get out my trusty can opener. The problem with this is cost. Dried beans are a tiny fraction of the cost of canned. I can purchase 1 lb of beans for around $0.70 dried. That same pound of beans yields about 6 cups of cooked beans. I can buy a can of beans (around 16 oz) for around $1.00 ($0.50 if its a good sale). That is only 2 cups of cooked beans! We are talking a major savings by planning ahead a little bit. Dave Ramsey often tells his callers to live on beans and rice, rice and beans. This is why.
So, in an effort to learn how to function in the kitchen with this little mystery I am undertaking beans. I cleaned out my bean cabinet in order to attempt to get aquainted with them. I have alot more than I thought. Given how often we eat these this amount would probably last another five or six years. I'm hoping to correct that though. First, I realized that we don't ever eat pinto beans but that is what I have stored the most of. I definitly need to increase our black bean stash. They are our favorite. I also have pink beans, what the heck are these and how do you cook them? If you know please tell me.


I have these two bottles of white beans. I bought the bags at the grocery store and put them in these bottles. They have the PETE symbol which means they are safe for food storage. They also work well for water (I'll get to that later). I like white beans too, once again cannot for the life of me make them taste the way I like them.

This is a picure of my bean cabinet. I like to keep like items together. This allows them to play with their friends and for me to find them easily when I go hunting for them. This is one of those cabinets that is wasted space in my kitchen (I actually have a lot of that). It isn't wasted in my house. Every cranny is filled with #10 cans. This keeps the food in my kitchen where I will use it and it also fills space that would otherwise be infuriating.

Coolness is Key!

How cool is this bag! If I'm going to be a hippy chick saving the planet it is very important that I have a really neat bag. This even has fringe. I found this at the thrift store for $1.00. This is one less item out in circulation. It is big enough to hold two other fabric bags (I used one at CVS today), my coupon tin, my circulars, a calculator, a water bottle, pencil, notebook and anything else that strikes my fancy. It holds a bunch. It is also very comfortable to carry. I wish I had a couple more. Hopefully, all my new shopping bags will be this awesome. Who says frugality has to be boring.

Nearly free is good.

Tom Thumb is definitly becoming my favorite stockpile store. Every week it seems there are awesome bargains to be found. Today was no exception. The items on the table totaled about $51 before coupons. I saved $37 and paid $14 out of pocket after coupons. This was a sweet deal because the cereal was all kinds that we like, are low in sugar and will last a while. My mom asked how we could eat that much cereal before it went stale. Believe me in this house of six, we eat a lot of cereal. Its expensive and when I can't get it for a reasonable price we eat other things like oatmeal and pancakes. However, I'm leaving early in the mornings to go to school and Dad just doesn't do hot breakfast. Anyway, I feel like I'm well on my way to having a month supply of the things we normally eat. I feel like right now I have let my stores drop way below what I normally have. School has been a huge distraction for that (Go figure). In any case, I want to start building up what we have.

Update: a few days ago I mentioned I had a goal of going to all fabric shopping bags. Well, this shopper has realized you have to actually own some first. For some reason, all of my bags I have used before have been recycled to someone else's home. So, new plan: look for shopping bags at thrift stores to build up a good stash.

CVS trip

I did pretty well last night and today at CVS working the deals, despite some glitches. For anyone not familiar with CVSing go to Money Saving Mom and read up. Last night I braved the snow to go out and grocery shop. We were hitting critical points with toilet paper and dishwasher soap so I decided I should stick to my Monday night run. I haven't been buying as much at Costco as I normally do because I'm trying to make the grocery stores closer to my house work better. I still have to go to Costco for a couple of things but I'm not spending as much. So, back to last night. First, I went to CVS. I bought a night creme and some face wipes and some eggs. Total before coupons: 23.50. I used a $15 ECB, a $5 off coupon and a $3 manufacturer. Total out of pocket: 0.33 Then I headed over to Kroger for their sales. Here's the rundown:

3 boxes lean pockets
2 calzones
2 peter pan peanut butter (these are a food storage item)
3 lb pears
3 lb broccoli
1 Naked smoothie (I'm feeling quite sick)
1 box gogurt
Total before coupons: $35
Total after: $20.20
Plus I have a $2 off coupon for my next purchase there.
This run was for lunches and snacks.

Next I headed to Albertsons. This shopping trip was a little disappointing. I paid almost $10 for a gallon of milk (this was the correct price because it was organic)! I didn't realize it until later and I'm really bummed. Take that out of the equation under stupid tax and I did ok. My total before coupons was about $65 and I paid $38.85 out of pocket. If you subtract the stupid tax I did ok. This is my household budget for the week. The total is only about $60. This is an improvement over my previous weeks. However, I did not buy formula, diapers or wipes. This really bumps up our bill. I have been able to work in diapers to my CVS deals for the most part but formula is a killer.

Ok, now to explain the picture above. I went to CVS this morning to pick up the razor that's on sale and some easter candy. The razor was $10 and I had a $4 coupon, then you get 6 ECBs. This was really cool. So I got the men's razor (still have to go back another time for the women's), and the candy and my total that time was $.051. Then I went to another CVS for the toothpaste and got some more candy. My total that time was $0. I was frustrated because the candy was marked $2.99 and I needed $10 worth of candy to print a $5 ECB, when I went to pay I realized the candy was only $1.50 so I didn't have enough candy to get my ECB. I'm only $2 from getting that $5 and I have more Hershey's coupons so I should be able to swing that for free. Hopefully, I can work in a few more free or almost free deals for stocking up. One of the reasons I feel like this is worth my time is because from a storage perspective I am picking up items that we use regularly (or in the case of Easter, expensively) for very little money. One of the basic principles of food storage is to buy things you don't need so you have them when you do need them. Because these items are consumable they get used up and need to be picked up regularly. Making CVSing a habit has become a way to increase my storage capability without dramatically increasing our budget. I'm going to shave my legs, why not do that for free!