Most convenience appliences - Avoid buying any pseudo waffle-iron gadgets that have two iron plates you press together to make evenly formed quesadillas, grilled sandwich “triangles”, or perfectly grill-marked paninis.  Even actual waffle irons are a stretch when you can just make pancakes.  These gadgets are an unnecessary expense and a pain to clean.  Use your frying pan.  You don’t have to add tons of butter or oil, just enough to avoid sticking.  You will get over the absence of grill marks.  For better-looking quesadillas, use medium to low heat and place the flat bottom of your clean teapot on top of the quesadilla as it cooks.  The bit of extra weight will help the cheese melt and tortillas brown evenly.

**Note on blenders:  It is my opinion that if you have a blender, you DON’T need the Magic Bullet or any knockoff.  You MIGHT still be able to justify a food processor OR chopping device, especially if you can things in quantity or make your own salsa. (both great way to save $ when ingredients are purchased in season and on sale!)

More Plastic Containers for Food Storage – If you ever buy things in tubs, like butter, cool whip, peanut butter, mayonnaise, etc.  these containers are easily washed and re-used to hold leftovers.  Yes, your containers will be all different sizes and the lids aren’t interchangeable but they are free.  Get over it.

Packaged meat marinades – why overpay when it is so easy to make your own? You really just need three ingredients:  Some sort of acid, like vinegar, wine or citrus juice to tenderize, some combination of spices, and some oil to hold it all together.  I’ve been using Orange Juice, Soy Sauce, Ginger and Olive oil to marinate chicken before I grill and guests keep asking for the recipe.  Another benefit to making your own marinade is how much easier it is to control the amount of salt, sugar or preservatives/coloring going into your food.  You created the deliciousness, so you won’t spend time trying to decipher those mysterious five-syllable mystery ingredients from the paragraph of additives on the marinade label.

Soft drinks – If the empty calories, sugar and caffine weren’t enough to make you give them up, their unnecessary cost should be.  Purchased in a 12-pack, you’ll spend about thirty cents a can.   On another health note, some studies have shown the phosphoric acid in colas harms bone density.  Drink homemade iced tea or water instead.  Flavor them using the same economy-sized bottle of lemon juice you keep on hand for your marinades.

Any produce that isn’t in season – I hinted at this earlier.  We all know a balanced, varied diet is better for our health.  A great way to change things up is to buy what’s in season and ON SALE and find ways to cook with that.  The most immediate four months are below and you can find the complete list at About.com.

• March – pineapples, mangoes, broccoli, lettuce
• April – pineapples, mangoes, zucchini, rhubarb, artichokes, asparagus, spring peas, broccoli, lettuce
• May – cherries, pineapples, apricots, okra, zucchini, rhubarb, artichokes, asparagus, spring peas, broccoli, lettuce
• June – watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, cherries, blueberries, peaches, apricots, corn, lettuce

Halloween is over and we survived with candy to spare – we spent exactly $20 on the first holiday of the most expensive season of the year.  Damn near all traditions honored October through February can be reduced to two things: eating and spending.  And what is a delicious meal if not a good excuse to spend money?  With just one paycheck before Thanksgiving and three between Thanksgiving and Christmas, its time to plan how we’ll survive without buying on credit or tapping into our savings accounts.

For Thanksgiving, I have a theory: More is Better.  More people that is.  Whatever family member is brave enough to surrender their home and their kitchen to the food-fest should only have to buy the turkey and maybe the stuffing.  There is no reason each other guest can’t contribute an item or two.  Aunts Sally and Rita can make a couple pies each, Dorris can bring her famous green bean casserole, Grandma Jean and Grandpa John can bring the mashed and sweet potatoes and even the craziest aunt, uncle or cousin can probably handle rolls or (gasp) store-bought cranberry sauce.  The hosts will have so much less to worry about, everyone can just relax and have a good time.

I realize that for some family members, football competes with turkey for the most important part of this holiday.  I’m sure you’re shaking your heads lamenting missing that “game changing” play while you’re slaving in the kitchen.  To this I say:  Man Up.  DVR it or if you have to, turn the tv up loud for the less than 60 minutes you’ll probably be in the kitchen.  Make the food the day before so you can just heat it up the day of.  Everyone loves leftovers anyway so this will taste as good or better than if the poor hosts had been cooking nonstop since 4am.  Give one dish and you shall receive many; you’ll catch up on zzzzz’s after the tryptophan kicks in.

This way, the cost of the meal is shared relatively equally.  In 2009, the average cost of a basic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people including a 16 lb. turkey was $42.91.  Completely manageable if divided among 8 or more people.  Besides, knowing I’m not the host (read: I don’t have to be the one putting the turkey in at 5am and washing the dishes after the meal), I’d be willing to spend half that much on ingredients for the side dish and beverage(s) I’ll be bringing.  Show me a way to avoid trashing my house on a holiday weekend and I’ll show you a man who is truly thankful.

I’m feeling a little guilty that instead of approaching our baby’s first Halloween with excitement, I’m worried.  What will happen when we run out of candy to give the neighborhood kids?  I’ve come all too close to the Sue Sylvester school of thought and I don’t like where that’s headed.

Kidding aside, I’ve already decided I don’t care if we’re the “cheap candy” house this year.  Beggars can’t be choosers, no matter how cute/scary/strangely they are dressed.  Don’t misunderstand me: I love Halloween and have gone “all out” a number of times . . . but this year we are trying to afford two Christmas plane tickets.

According to this study by Visa, the average family with any kids under 18 spends about $54 dollars on just candy and decorations for Halloween.  (Roughly 10% of our estimated ticket cost)  With costumes, this holiday can be quite an investment.  If we were buying our costumes, I estimate we’d be out at least $40 per person.  We did luck out this year in a number of ways: our 11 month old can’t walk yet, so we will probably just stay at home and let him help us give out candy.  Grandma sent us a little pirate-themed onesie about a month ago, so we’ll add a homemade eye patch, some existing pants, goofy black and orange socks found in the dollar bin at Target and have a makeshift baby Halloween costume just right for staying at home and taking a couple pictures.

As for the wife and I?  We didn’t get invited to any parties, so the wife is still deciding if she cares enough to make a costume. I figure I can dig that last-year’s clearance bin skeleton wind chime out of the attic, recycle last year’s Spiderman costume for $0 and if I have the energy, use twine from the garage to make this our house’s primary decoration.  We’ll buy our candy the morning of Halloween, hoping the stores are marking it 50% off by then.  You know, the more I think about it, the less guilty I feel for avoiding some of the hype this year.  I’d rather spend the money when our son is old enough to really understand what its all about.

We’re about 3/4 of the way through our cheap, carbohydrate-laden, “eat what’s in the pantry” experiment.  I thought we were sure to gain tons of weight eating  bread, rice, tortillas, peanut butter, and oatmeal but I think I’ve figured out some reasons we seem to be just maintaining our weight.  We’ve been watching portion sizes; needing to stretch our food has made us re-think second helpings.  Almost more significantly, the actual desire to eat anything containing oatmeal, peanut butter, or  the combination of rice/chicken/diced tomatoes has been severely lessened over the past week.  We are now struggling to combine the same limited ingredients and feel like we’re eating something new – spices have made a small difference:

We’ve had Mexican casserole (chicken, rice, tomatoes taco seasoning and black beans), Italian casserole (chicken, rice, dried basil, fennel, and the last of the cheese), vegetarian chili (tomatoes, corn, beans, celery and onion with chili powder in the crockpot), and random canned veggie and SPAM casserole (don’t ask).  We’ve and bean and tomato quesadillas (more like tacos, since they didn’t stick together well without cheese) and also tried peanut butter and jelly quesadillas when the bread ran out.  One guilty pleasure this weekend was a crust-less pumpkin pie using canned pumpkin, eggs and evaporated milk.  We weren’t sure we had enough butter for an actual crust.   There was nonstick spray on the pan, then oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and applesauce adding some crunch to the bottom of this slightly unusual but delicious dessert.  It was gone in two days.

We are left with: oatmeal, a few eggs, some milk, the protein powder, some frozen veggies, two overripe bananas, a can of tomatoes, a can of baked beans, two hot dogs, pasta, tomato puree, peanut butter and jelly, condiments, baking supplies and spices.

Today I’ll make more bread and my wife will attempt peanut butter oatmeal cookies. We are trying to decide between using the bananas for banana bread or for peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  We may go with sandwiches so we can attempt a quiche or omelettes with the eggs and frozen veggies.  We know we’ll have meatless spaghetti with the pasta, tomatoes, tomato puree and Italian spices.  We can do smoothies with the protein powder, milk, ice cubes and peanut butter.  We just need to make it until Friday.

What’s up.

I was looping though the radio stations in my car via my favorite button ever — the “Scan” button, and inevitably stopped at GCN Station at 90.1 here in good ole Austin, Texas.  “GCN” stands for “Genesis Communication Network”.  It hosts a pretty insane cadre of “experts” who seem to believe a variety of so-called “conspiracy” theories ranging from the complete and constant monitoring of EVERYONE to getting ready for Jesus’ Second Coming.

I’m not into Jesus, but I am into privacy, so I gave them a listen.  After about 10 minutes, the show spiraled uncontrollably into the abyss of supposed police states, RFID conspiracies, and Big Brother-like plots.

That got me thinking — what would a person with the right type of access learn about me?  Looks like quite a bit.  If you flash your Homeland Security badge and cite some obscure deed falling under the Patriot Act, you’ll probably get access to the following:

• My bank records.  Because I bank at the same place, it will be a one-stop-shop of everything you need to know about my financial situation and purchasing habits.  After all, I like the convenience of debit, which means 95% of everything I buy leaves a trail.
• My shopping patterns — you could get this from several shopping club cards I carry for discount purposes.
• My internet search habits.  If you subpoena Google, you’ll have a very complete track of not just what I am doing, but what I am thinking about.  THINKING, for Christ’s sakes.  This is the exact idea behind Google’s recent flu maps.
• My viewing preferences.  Your cable company knows what you are watching — I’ve confirmed this.  One time, my DVR broke, so I called in and they were able to manipulate it from their central office, and they told me what I was watching (Comedy Central, of course).
• Most of my Internet habits.  To get this one, all they’d have to do is subpoena my cable provider, and voila — all places where my IP pointed, in neat little log files.
• My phone calls — between the exact time, date, and length of ALL my phone calls, some VoIP providers actually record the calls — after all, the cost per terabyte of hard drive space is dropping lower by the week.
• My travels — between the credit card records such as gasoline purchases and reservations at airline companies, you’d know exactly when I traveled and would be able to deduce why.  Don’t forget about toll tags in your car.
• Email conversations.  This one is easy and is directly tied to your email account provider — while Google and Yahoo! may push a little bit, Comcast and TimeWarner would quickly fall in line and divulge everything.
• Social networking sites.  Everyone’s got at least a Facebook/MySpace account — this one is self-explanatory if you just think about crap people post, sometimes with up-to-the-minute precision.
• Compliance records — driver’s license renewals, registration stickers, tax records, etc.

You can also get into some other stuff that tracks your behavior, like OnStar tracking, street cameras, Google Streetview.

The bottom line — we all leave more of a trail than a car with a busted oil pan.  I am not too bothered by it, fuck it, we live in a modern society.  But there are people that are … oh yes, they are.