When gas prices went down, I calculated the difference between a full tank at the top price, and the same tank at the lower price. The difference gets transferred to my savings account with each fill-up.

Here is what I have done this week and my family loved it.

First Dinner: Roast chicken, home made gravy, mashed cauliflower, stuffing, salad.
Lunches: Hot chicken sandwiches, stuffing
Second Dinner: Boil down the carcass and make chicken soup. Basically add pastas, veggies, beans, and seasoning to taste and cook down a bit.
Third dinner: Take all the meaty bits and cut them up. Made buttered and seasoned chicken and rice.

3 dinners, 2 lunches, and a pile of leftovers. All in all it was around $20 worth of groceries and some leftovers for 5 full meals for the three of us. And of course, anything left over ( or left overs from the dishes above ) can be thrown into meatloaf.

I also pop my own popcorn in a thick pot on the stove. It’s a lot cheaper than the microwave stuff and you can coat it any way you like.

Frugal and yummy I say. Victory gardens can also be a good source of family time and food. Still need to get more into making my own breads.

@john – I agree with your comment re coffee abroad, however I’m onboard with cutting it down or out when home. I’m down to one cup of decaf at work each morning, and other then that I get my caffeine from tea. Still get the benefit to my mood, etc…without the negative affects to the rest of my body. And I’m really noticing the difference!

@slowingdown (twitter id)

I love your idea of cooking more as a resolution. I think I might have to give that a try!

I have gone the other direction. Frugal is already ingrained and using plastic makes it a lot easier to track my purchases to see where I’m cheating. We want to get our cash withdraws down to a minimum so that we can better budget the little things.

Also BAKE your own muffins, if you bake 2 dozen on sunday and store them right, you’ll have them through friday morning. Tons of money saved.

Finally a great way to spend less money. do NOT take any credit cards with you. lock them in your firesafe at home and refuse to have any of them on you. I go as far as not having my ATM card or checkbook. Cash only in my pocket. If I break down on the road, that’s what my road service from the insurance company is for. Outside of bills my wife and I have reduced the daily drain on the accounts to almost zero.

Simply stop the daily $5.00 to $10.00 here and there for lunch and breakfast adds up to over $100-$200 easily.