How To Save On Groceries | Frugal Food Tips

food tips for you. We we need groceries and it's a massive but yet variable expense and we're always looking where we can cut costs on groceries, how we can eat at home more, and then when we're eating at home, how to save on groceries. Right, we need all the tips, were collecting all the tips. Yes, um, interminute fasting is not one of the tips. You can try not eating, but it's not something we recommend because we person and only love eating is the thing that we love to do.

So we have tips for people who also love to eat. And that's what's uh, that's what we're talking about today. But first, our sponsors, speaking of eating, eating, sponsored this episode. Believe it or not so good serious seriously, I mean they're they're big money and eating, so that eating eating we all do it. We all need to do it. Some of us do it three times a day. Now there's five times a day. Many of us prefer to

eat rather than cook. Wherever you find yourselves on the spectrum of food consumption, we all have to purchase food, and we will be purchasing food to eat food for the rest of our lives. So why not start saving? Did that feel like a jump? It kind of was. And if you love eating as much as we do, you can queue up a few more episodes to listen to after this one. I promise you this won't be regurgitating what you've already heard on the show. We like

to reiterate a topic without repeating it. So we've got episode one nineties six, which is how to do a pantry Challenge, so shopping your pantry, doing shelf cooking. We got one two which is Eat Healthier and More Affordably with Cassie joy Garcia from Fed and Fit. She's so wonderful. I love her so much. You will love this episode. And then episode one seventies six which is zero Waste Ish Cooking with Debt, Kick and Mom. So these are all really good episodes to queue up after this one.

And so for our articles today, we're really looking at frugal food tips. But we're not going to, like I said, regurgitate the tips you've already heard on the show. We chose some articles with some fresh ideas and those are the ones that we are going to go through. So this first one is seventeen grocery store hacks that will cut your bill in half. And we also know that you love hacks. Literally, any time we put the word hacks in something, it's like skyrockets in downloads. So we're listening,

and here are some some hacks. I think maybe it's that internal desire to maybe like chop something. We just want to hack something down, and we can do that with our groceries. I don't want to build it, I want to hack it exactly. That's that's that's a bumper sticker. There's destruction rooms built around this. So all right, here you go get out your aggression by hacking your grocery

bill and hacking it. Okay, okay, So this first one, I will I will say that it does bear repeating, and I know I said we wouldn't say the same thing we say in every episode, but I'm lying for this first one. Just this first one plan plan plan, that's the literal first one from this article on Pure Wow. And yeah, we can't stress this one enough. You have to plan what you're going to eat before you have to cook it or eat it. It's the once we get to the end of the day, especially by dinner time,

but even by lunch, our brains are fatigued. We've made a lot of decisions and we are not ready to make more decisions. And cooking involves a lot of micro decisions, and so you have to take the big decisions off the plate. Said that was upon I'm so sorry. You have to take the big decisions away to make sure that you follow through with what you want to do

with your goal. So making a meal plan, making a realistic meal plan that you can follow through, making sure that it is appropriate for the season that you are in. And if you can't meal plan, if you don't know how, or you're comfortable using a meal plan service like cook smarts. We we love cook smarts, even if even for a season, to just get kind of acclimated to meal planning. I mean, you can even try out two free weeks Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash cook Smarts, but Yeah, planning is

so important. It's worth the hour it takes on Sunday, or the seven dollars and fifty cents a month it takes to purchase a meal planning service, but it should be done. It is amazing how much more I spend when I haven't made a plan on getting duplicates of something, or I just go off of what looks good and I'm not really thinking through the versatility of the things

that I'm purchasing. But also I'm more likely to also to go to the grocery store and get the things if I have a plan, I'm less likely if I've not thought it through. It's the same thing with exercise, like unless I know what exercise am I doing the next day, I'm less likely to do it. So there's also this motivation and like habit forming technique that goes into planning. So people want to talk about this a lot.

But if you don't plan and then you have to send your husband or partner to the grocery store to get something, they will always come back with more. Yes, always come back with more, typically bogo donuts that you don't need. So, yeah, make a plan so you can get everything in one fell swoop one shopping trip and keep your donut loving partner away from the grocery store. Just sent Eric to the store the other day, and

I mean, bless his heart. I never say that, but I mean I love him, and I was so grateful because I did not want to go the stores. In the middle of making dinner, I thought I had butter, didn't have butter, so he had to quick run and grab butter. Of course he did not just get butter. He got famished at the check outline and had to buy Cheetos. Well as one does, butter is dift to find. Speaking of that goes into number two, which is shop alone. So if you have been the one to plan, plan, plan,

implement that plan by yourself. We love community, we love accountability, we love collaboration, but when it comes to stepping foot into the grocery store, it really is best to do that by yourself. Utilize your accountability and your friends and your people in all of the other important ways that that matters. But if you bring someone along with you to the grocery store, chances are they're gonna want They're gonna coax you into buying more than what you intend

to purchase all of your tiny humans. This is this is maybe like less realistic for some then for others. I get it that if your routine includes you've got to bring your kids to the store, well, then that's when the first step of the plan, plan, plan is going to be really helpful and stick to that list. I will say there have been times where I bring my husband Eric to the store with me and it

goes well when we have that plan. So many of you have heard me talk about how I make like a Google sheet list, like a checklist on my phone that is shared with him of the things that we're going to purchase, and we make a rule for ourselves that unless it's on the list, we don't get it. Things can go on the list before you step foot into the store, but once you step foot into the store,

it's like it locks and that's all we get. And then we can kind of gamify it where we go our separate ways, we check things off the list, we can see what's checked off. It cuts our time at the grocery store in half. It makes it kind of fun. But he has actually done really well with not adding extra things to the cart when we gamify it. So if you can't shop alone, which is still I think it's a great tip. Do something like that where you are more ensured that we're only going to buy the

things that we need. More isn't going to find its way into our cart. Yeah, if you are a mom, my tips are shop online. So I have a Walmart grocery pickup near my house and that's how I shop. I'll do all my grocery shopping through the app and then I'll just pick it up Otherwise, if I do have to go to the store, YouTube is your best friend. I will no shame, put the YouTube in front of my kid and just let him tunnel vision because he's

the he's just like me. He gets very tunneled vision into what he's watching, so he doesn't notice the candies and the pouches and and the things. Um, so I can go in and get what I need. I just have to steer clear of the produce section because when he sees strawberries like it's at he's he has to have like a kind of strawberry on that, or the tiny tomatoes or the tiny So using the lesser of two evils, everyone's going to choose their own thing in the midst of that, or give your kid a snack

wall they're in the store. So you're not someone who is okay with screen time at the grocery store, then snack time. Snack time, Yeah, I will do that. I have done that as well. So those are my solutions to shopping with a child. My next tip that I liked was number nine, and that is try meatless. Mondays y'all, when you cut out meat, it saved so much money. You have like no idea. I was a vegetarian for ten years and I spend and now I eat meat. I spend so much more money on groceries. I mean

so much more. And I'm not saying you have to be a vegetarian, but eggs are cheaper than chicken and definitely cheaper than beef, and beans are cheaper lentils. I know, I looked at your eyes and I knew I used the sea word, but they are like these vegetarian sources of protein are so much less expensive than animal sources. And so if you just took one meal a week at least and just transitioned to these plant based sources of protein, you can really save money over time. And

and I think it's a healthier way to live. We we still have probably three out of four vegetarian meals per week, and it might even be part of your plan already, but just making it a more intentional part of your plan, where you know, at least one meal a week, but chances are many of us have a meatless meal at least once a week. So just incorporate that you don't. You don't have to eat meat every day.

You can get protein in other ways for sure. Alright, my next tip that I enjoyed on here was number four, which is right, a reverse shopping list. Learning this one how has been so so helpful for me. So it is obviously connected to the plan, Plan, plan tip, but not just planning when you're out and about. Okay, I can write my list, my shopping list in the car. This really does require us to be aware of what

we already have on hand. So starting backwards, looking at what do I have in my fridge, freezer, pantry, how can I utilize that in the upcoming week? And what do I need to purchase in order to supplement. So not only is that going to save money because we're utilizing what we already have on hand, but it's going to keep us from buying duplicates, which I am notorious for. I get to the store and for whatever reason, these things come to mind that I had run out of,

maybe even a year ago. But I think in my mind, I don't have that thing. For our first year of marriage, it was shredded cheese. I don't know what it was about shredded cheese. Like for weeks straight, I would go to the store and be like, I know, I know that I was out, and I bought more, but I think I'm out again, and I think I really do need shredded cheese. And I ended up, I kid you not,

with five unopened bags of shredded cheese somehow. So maybe you're not that extreme, but still we could think that, oh, I don't know if I have that spice. I don't know if I still love butter or not. Do I have milk? You just came over to my house and you're like, is there any coffee? Like, yeah, but we don't have any more milk. And she goes in the fridges like, you totally have milk, and it was like unopened. So here we go. And so we we just don't know as much as we think we have a handle

on what's in our fridge, what's in our pantry. Most likely there's something hidden in there that you've forgotten about. So go backwards and make your plan around what you

already have. It will save you a ton of money, yeah, and food waste, because when you know what you have, you can plan around that stuff that's you know, like the in the restaurant industry, they go first in, first out, So like the older stuff, you can try to incorporate more of um is this especially in pantry like shelf stable items that can just sit there forever, you can start to use them up when you do something like this.

My next favorite tip on here, which I have talked about four years, by frozen when you can, So I'm gonna read it. It's on Pure Wow. If you don't believe me, believe the Internet. Contrary to popular belief, frozen food isn't inherently less healthy than it's fresh counterpart. In fact, fruits and vegetables are frozen at their peak, so they're

great alternative to price produce that's out of season. Plus they're cheaper, less expensive and last longer win win, And it's already cut like you don't have to cut it up. There are so many reasons to love frozen. I don't buy regular broccoli anymore, only by frozen broccoli because it

saves me time. Like one of the tips on here was to like, don't buy pre prepared foods or whatever, But for me, it's like, I if I that's a big jump for me because I don't always get time on Sundays to meal prep so I will not eat at home if I have to take that extra step of preparing the produce, and that's going to cause me to spend more. So I buy frozen to kind of fill that gap that's already pre cut, and I can use it whenever I want. It's like a win win

win for me. Especially if you plan on cooking the produce anyhow, then you might as well go frozen, unless you plan to eat the thing raw, like you prefer

the thing raw. That would be the reason to go fresh. However, I will even say that I've had some friends introduced me to the idea of just defrosting frozen fruits and throwing it into oatmeal or yogurt that doesn't have to be fresh, that could come frozen first, defrosted, set it out on the counter for a little bit, and it's fantastic frozen fruits exclusively in like my overnight oats or my oatmeal bakes or whatever. It's already prepared. It's just

needs to defrost a little. It's fantastic. Love buying frozen. Okay. My next tip from here is number six, no where to look. So obviously, buying generic brands of products is going to be less expensive than the name brands, So certainly get get yourself into that, but recognize that they're gonna put the name brand items at eye level. So if you're buying any kind of canned good, boxed good, whatever in the center aisles of the grocery store, don't just go for whatever's right in front of you and

what's familiar. Look for a generic alternative. It is always going to be less expensive and it almost never is going to have much of a flavor difference. I will also say something that I've noticed in my deep dives of grocery stores is that different aisles will have the

same product and at different prices. So sometimes in the ethnic food section, for instance, for me, I've noticed this with coconut water, they'll have coconut water and the ethnics food section, and also coconut water in your general juice section. But for whatever reason, it's cheaper less expensive, it's less expensive in one aisle over the other, So do your research on that and kind of and the ingredients. There's a reason some are cheap people. That's like literally, there's

a reason for what is cheaper than the other. It's interesting, you know. I I posted on an Instagram story about that. I think it might have been coconut milk at the time that I had bought it, and it was like a dollar difference between one brand over the other. And of course I got tons of d ms like check the ingradients. And while that can be the case for some of it, for the this it was it was

the same. So sure, look at the ingredients. But if it's something that you're not that concerned about and you can find it less expensively in another section, that's just that's this concept of knowing where to look. We're talking about saving on groceries. I'm mostly going to recommend that we shot the perimeter of the store because that is your your fresh, your meets the staples of course frozen section two. But when we need to buy things from

the center. If we need the can goods, we need some of the condiments or the spices, just know that whatever is right in front of you might not be the least expensive option. We can dig a little bit further, look a little bit more by generic, you can find

it less expensive. Well that's one of the perks of grocery shopping online because I could just search for what I want and then everything that's in the store pops up regardless of what aisle it's on, which has been super helpful, and then I can compare ingredients right on my phone. So my next one is number sixteen, play the long game in the produce section. And I am really just I'm this is a I just want to

read this first sentence. People love to squeeze and grope fruit in the produce section in search of the ripest and readiest piece, and there's nothing wrong with that approach, per se, provided you plan to use it in a short amount of time. And so this one, I think really not just because you know I wanted to read that you squeeze and grope your fruit, but it also comes down to your plan. If you know when you're going to cook something and when you are going to

use your produce. You can choose under ripe fruit and vegetables if you need it fresh, because if you're not going to use it for five days, then if you buy it at its peak right now, like what's the point because it still has five days to sit on your shelf, So it's not that bad to like, or if you know all of the avocados in the grocery store are under ripe, you don't plan your taco night for the night you go grocery shopping. You plan it for four or five days later, so the avocado is ripe.

And so that's where again planning is so important, so that you can you know what you're buying. You can buy at its peak or a little under ripe. I've started to do this with bananas. I would always look for the best looking banana right then and there, and then a few days later they'd all be going brown. And I get it that you can put them in

the freezer. You can, like I never let them go to waste, but I would always get bummed, like I just really wanted to eat that banana, not throwing in my smoothie, but it's like just too mushy for that right now, so and and they ripe and really quickly. And so I've been now getting some that are ready to eat now and some that are going to be ready to eat in four days. You don't have to get like a bunch together. You can get single bananas and just get a few green ones, get a few

yellow ones. Like you can do that. You're loud, you have permission. I saw a meme that was I don't know if it was mean. It was just a funny cartoon I guess of a banana and it was green. It was like not ripe green, not ripe green, not ripe yellow, like for four hours in the middle of the night and it's like hello, I'm ready and by the next morning brown. Yeah. That is expensive thing. So yeah, they're a great food to have as a staple in your house. Okay, thirteen is partner up. We love this.

Get with a friend, Get with a buddy, find someone nearby that you can split some of the cars of food on. So this might be the things that you would consider buying in bulk. Sometimes it could be meat that you could buy a lot of, divvy it out and split the cost on, so then you don't have to take up as much space. You know, if you're like Hi, I want the cost savings of buying in bulk, but I don't have the space for it. This is

where we could utilize our friends. Many of you have also heard me talk about this concept with cooking as well, so I'm going a little bit adjacent to this idea. But it can also save us money to be able to bulk cook meals and also split that with friends as well, so that gives us variety. It can give us some cost savings. So wherever we can utilize our community, our network for splitting the cost of groceries, dividing and

conquering cooking together, splitting meals, it's fantastic. Yeah, I love it. And the last one for me, which we don't talk about this much anymore, but we used to talk about it all the time, is switching up your grocery store. And we love all d obviously, but if you don't have an all day around, just try switching up your grocery store. If you are using all of these tips and still feel like you're spending like a lot on groceries, which you granted inflation is real, you are going to

be spending more on groceries than you did before. That's okay, But if you still feel like your budget is out of control, try using a less expensive grocery store, one that does not offer such a pleasurable experience while shopping. It's okay. Maybe you don't shop there all the time, and maybe you go there it's horrible, you never go there again. You don't know until you try it. I know so many people who don't want to go to All D because they're worried about it. It's like, try

it one week. One week is not going to like ruin your life, and you may fall in love with it like so many other people. Now they're selling All D merge like because people love it so much. Just try to switch it up and see if you can get some better deals elsewhere. And the last tip for me that I just want to read because it's funny and I can't believe it made it on this list, but fifteen by a Rotissary Chicken. This has been my go to for as long as I can remember, like

nearly nearly out the womb by Rotissory Chicken. It was a child picking up rotisserie chickens on Wednesdays. The chicken was lightly smaller than me. And it is interesting. Rotisserie chickens, as this article points out, is one of the very few meals that often cost more to make at home. It has something to do with the grocery store potentially having a surplus of chickens, knowing that they're not going to be able to sell it, and so they roast it and they passed the savings along to you. But

I love it for yes quick meal. But usually this is many of you who have listened for so long, you know this. You could fill in the blanks and what I'm about to say. But with the leftovers, you can utilize it to make lunch the next day by picking off that extra chicken from the bone and making chicken salad or whatever else you want to make with it. Then you can keep the bones and you can make a broth. You can throw that extra chicken into some chicken tacos, you can make a soup, you name it.

There's so many ways that a rotisserie chicken can turn into two meals. And usually it's like five dollars. And that's amazing. And here's the real hack. If you don't have one that sells five dollar rotisserie chickens or you don't have access to it. Skip the rotisserie section and head to the refrigerated because you'll see cold rotisseries that they didn't sell and they're half the price. Just got a cold, you know you're gonna turn it into chicken salad. Anyways,

just skip the Yeah, hold rotisserie chickens. Even less expend. Everywhere that has rotisserie sells rotisserie chickens. You can also find like I guess day old ones or something. Findament like cold in the culture. Walmart actually shreds it for you. Like I will buy a pound of rotisserie chicken already shredded, and so that's a little bit more expensive. It's kind

of in the in between between the hot and the cold. Um. But yeah, head to the refrigerated section in the deli and I'm sure you will find a cold rotisserie chicken at half the price. Is this turning into an episode about rotisserie chickens because I'm here for it. Well, we're done talking about rotisserie chickens, but we are actually going to move into an article talking about eight foods you are throwing out that you can actually use. So we want to reduce food waste as much as possible. That's

the biggest thing that's planning and reducing food waste. But we plan to reduce food waste. Those are the things that save us the most money. But what about the foods that happened to be wasted but can actually have another use? And so we're gonna talk real quick about

eight of those. The first is sour milk, and this is this was an interesting one to Yeah, the fifty frugal mom is who writes this, and she says, if you aren't used to the idea, I know it sounds kind of gross, but trust me, you can use sour milk to make some absolutely delicious things. And I'm still skeptical. And she says, when I say sour milk, I mean milk that's just starting to sour and taste bad. If the milk is starting to discolor, kurdle or smell awful,

it is too sour to consume. But you can use it kind of like in a replacement as a replacement for buttermilk and pancakes, cake and biscuits. I will also say that milk can freeze. I don't drink milk. I only use it in other dishes, maybe that I'm preparing. So we don't ever keep a ton of milk on hand, and when we do, we don't always use it all. So I freeze it and it freezes fe line and I'll freeze it and maybe like an ice cube tray or something where I could pop out little bits at

a time for future use. So that's another thing that you could consider. If your milk is just starting to go bad, you know you're not going to finish it up. It freeze is fine. The second one on here is chicken and turkey bones. Many of you frugal folks already know about this, but in case you don't, you can utilize any leftover bones from prepared chicken or turkey that you've made, or that rotisserie chicken that you've bought, and you can boil it down to create your own stock.

So before you get rid of that bone, make your own stock so you can make your own soup. Absolutely and it's healthier, taste better, yeah things. Third is bacon grease, and this is this is a yummy one that I use. You can just use it as a replacement for um oil and just any dish you want and it can be kept in a fridge for up to six months. I do appreciate this one. Many of you will remember

all the way back. I don't even remember which episode, but this was my thing that I would use paper towels to clean out bacon grease, and like, I can't stop using paper towels because it's how I clean out bacon grease. And then we got a ton of d ms from people like here's what you can do with the bacon grease. It seems kind of gross to me. I didn't grow up utilizing bacon grease in further cooking.

But reality is as I use oil and butter, and so I'm not saying like I want to cook with it all the time or like eat spoonfuls of it. But this article links to another article which I found really interesting, of twenty five ways that you could use bacon grease, and so popcorn or mashed potatoes or beans or all sorts of ways that you can utilize, not not in hoards small amounts, and bacon grease can keep

for up to six months in your fridge. So yeah, instead of throwing it out and making your trash smell gross, consider using it if you're already eating bacon, then you're already okay with eating some of the grease to let's just recognize that. Okay. Number four stale bread. I love this one. We don't need to throw away bread just because it gets stale. First of all, you can just reheat it. Usually that takes the staleness out of it. But also you can repurpose it into things like casseroles.

Remember that term casseroles bakes. The millennial generation is replacing the lord casserole with bake. So whatever you choose, you could. They give links to all sorts of recipes, whether it's a bacon, egg cheese spinach casserole or bake or tread pudding and red breading, coast casserole, creutons. I love making crutons with bread that's going a little bit bad bread crumb. Sometimes I'll make French toast with bread that's just and it actually makes it good like maintains, it doesn't make

it soggy. So many good things to do with stale bread. Fifth. I don't eat ham, but hambone. I guess you could treat it the same way as a chicken or turkey bone and create broth. Or they put it in their soups to give extra flavor to soup. So if you if you eat ham, there you go. Number six is back to the stale stuff. Stale chips or crackers. You can easily crisp them right back up again by putting them in a single layer on a cookie sheet, putting it in the oven for three at three seventy five

for five to ten minutes, they are crisp again. I will also shott and delicious my own little tip here chips, crackers or pretzels that are going stale, crunch them up and do it as um, like a layer around chicken. That's yes, that's what I like, a pretzel chicken. Or yeah again, even the chips. You could also crunch up tortilla chips and use them in like a layered Mexican dish, like a taco dish or something, so all sorts of ways. Don't just throw it out because they don't taste that

great anymore. Repurpose them in a meal that you're mass or the random cheetos that your partner comes home with. When you send them, they were already eaten. They were all gone by the time he got home. Um, we don't have a problem with wasted Number seven, but it's brewed coffee. We would never, we would never. But if you have leftover coffee, you can use it in like desserts.

So maybe a chocolate cake. Instant coffee and a chocolate cake brings out the chocolate flavor so much, so it's kind of similar using brewed coffee in a chocolate dessert. It just accentuates that chocolate flavor. Or you can make a um like coffee ice cubes and make homemade pepper and smoker or little frapp chinos using your coffee ice cubes. So many options, but we never have a problem with leftover coffee. We do We don't either, How do I

make more coffee quickly? Faster now? And lastly, number eight dried out cheese. So I don't know if you've ever had this problem before, like not properly storing your cheese and a little bit gets dried out, or maybe a lot of it gets dried out. It doesn't mean that it's bad unless it's moldy. But you can grate that dried out portion and still use it. So sometimes I will great dried out cheese just onto a salad. Or

you can cook with it. Use it melted in some sort of dish, and it's gonna taste just like smelted. No one will know. They don't know. Yeah, you know what else they don't know. They aren't ready for, but we're bringing it out them in every episode. The Bill of the wet That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have

to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This is the Bill of the week. Hi, sen and Jail. This is Kim calling for Madison. Just want to say thanks for the awesome podcast. I just found it very recently because I'm trying to turn my financial situation around and it's been really helpful. Calling to say that my favorite Bill of the week is my book cover bill that I just had professionally designed because I have decided

to take the plunge and become an author. Thanks bye. Oh my gosh, that is so gratifying. A so happy you found us and that you're getting your finances together and be as an author. The cover is so important I've had. I actually I actually redesigned my own cover because my I was so picky and I don't recommend doing this, but I was so picky about my the No Spend Challenge Guide second edition cover that I just did it myself, but I tried to have it professionally done.

But yes, when you find a good designer and they produced something like pay off your Debt for Good, that cover, um was professionally done and it was like I could never have it was so great. So yeah, that is that is so great. Congratulations. It is a huge accomplishment to write a book, um, and it really will change your life. Yes, Kim from Madison. It is so gratifying to spend on an investment in ourselves the things that were good at what we want to be growing in

and accomplishing. So well done. If you are in our Facebook group, feel free to let us know what the what the book is. Yes please, And if you all listening want to some that your bill, whether it has to do with a personal professional endeavor that you're so excited to invest in, or just you know your neighbor

named Bill, we'd love to hear about it. Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill, leave us your bill and now it's time for Now that I'm sitting in front of you, I just wanted to like see you say that and all your glory, just like sat here and watched it happen. Yeah, weird stuff happened, but that's how you know you're at the Lightning Round. We don't always record together, but when we do, I love to

see's facial expressions. So this week's Lightning Round is what is your non negotiable grocery item, the grocery item that always makes it onto the list, always gets used, And for me, it's kale. That's amazing. So like that, there's the standard ones, like the shredded cheese and the almond milk and you know, like the stuff that everybody has, but for me, the unique one is kale because I do love kale salads. It is a hardy green. I'm

not like a spinach. I hate arugula. I could do an iceberg or romaine, but I just love how well kale holds up. It's like a salad green. You can kneel prep because it just gets better when you put dressing on it and all of the things. It's just a hardy good and so the secret is you have to massage it. You've got a massage it there, I mean sixty seconds, like just feeling it up, groping it like you would with your produce in the grocery store. You got to do that with your kale. Butter her

up and she will treat you so good. And right now, this is why I'm loving to be in person, because you're making all of the motions that corresponds with massage and kale. And this is why we're allowed on YouTube. Yeah, you taught me. You introduced me to the massage and kale concept, and I thought I didn't like kale until you massage the kale, and I'm like, it's so much

better behaved in my mouth after it's been massaged. It's like me, you thought you didn't like me, and then I got a massage, and then there I all my glory. I don't think that that's not true to the story. It's loosely based on a true story. For me, it's not that healthy. But y'all, y'all know me. It's gum. Gum is always. I can't cut that out. I will sooner cut out literally anything else. My grocery list, but

gum is a must have. I'm chewing gum all the time and straight out the womb, even before I was hooked on rotisserie chickens. I was hooked on gum and gum before she had tea. It's a rough time for her mom. So I mean, I don't it doesn't make it on the list every single week. I'm not. I can space out my gum consumption, but you're not going to talk me out of it. Yeah, and you are not an annoying gum tour It's not like every time I think of Jill, I think of like gum. It's

you just like it and you do it. I guess conspicuously. Well, you know I don't chew gum while we podcast, so you're welcome. That's a sacrifice for you. I realized quickly, I can't have gun in my mouth while we're podcasting. So anyhow, that's our nonnegotiables. Yes, So thank you so much for listening. I hope you picked up a new tip or two from this episode, and if you want

to hear more tips. You know, we have a private community where we do monthly challenges, and we we have a whole channel where we talk about meal planning and groceries, and we want to congratulate one of our members, not necessarily for a grocery win, us like a win in general. This is from Zerlin. She says, we paid off ten thousand dollars. Yes, we have a personal loan that came from consolidating our consumer debt that we are going to

be paying off. It was scheduled to be paid off in January three and by the time we, you know, pay it off by the time they paid off by the time this episode airs, So congratulations, Zerlin. She said. The biggest thing that help was doing the no Spend challenge. We did that in January as a membership, as a group um. It made us really think about any purchase before actually going through with it. Most of the time we ended up not buying that item slash items anyways,

because we didn't really need it. When the challenge was over, we had developed the habit of not making any impulse purchases and that has helped tremendously. My hobby appreciated the challenge so much that we've already scheduled to other no spend months this year just to keep us in check. We used the extra quote unquote money towards aggressively paying off more debt or adding a large chunk into our savings.

That's amazing, Zerlin congratulation. So thrilled to hear what an amazing, what an amazing dent a challenge has made for your finances, and then what that's producing for you going forward in the future, and that it was one of the things that helped get a spouse on board. How incredible. We're cheering you on and celebrating with you. Yeah, it's definitely easier to get a partner on board when you can gamify something, so we're excited about that. So again, thanks

for listening. If you want to check out our monthly challenge community, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club to see what challenge we have coming up next. See you next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian. All Right, what are we eating today? Oh, that's such a great question. Well, I had brought some leftover chicken salad actually from a rotisserie chicken. Yeah you did not,

it is exactly. Oh, we're such good friends, so um, so yeah, that's what I brought over to your house. It's amazing. Okay, um, I have actually let us in my garden that I have been needing to pick for a very long time, So we're probably going to do that. And we've got some ripe green beans that I'm going to pick. And then we've got a lot of leftovers that we need to eat up, Like I think enough to make one taco. We've got like a slice of pizza, a serving of pasta. So you were just gonna over lunch,

it's left over lunch, that left over lunch Friday. Yes, let's do it. I'm hongry. Let's eat