Just sent a free Evite to our family and friends for our son’s second birthday.  We debated not doing anything at all other than cake at home with just mom, dad, Grandma and Grandpa.  We decided on a birthday party at a free public park with free entertainment in the form of playscapes and learning centers. Scheduling it mid-afternoon, right after nap time, means: no expensive food to buy. A bonus to the public location? No one will bat an eye at the absence of beer. The kids will run around in the fresh air and adults will gossip or take pictures.  No muss, no fuss, no reservation fees or security deposits.  No mediocre-tasting Chucky-Cheese pizza to buy or kid-friendly spread to prepare.  Just cake and ice cream in the park with friends.

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

Men’s Health recently published a list of “The Healthiest Cheap Food in America” featuring twelve food trade-offs based on the premise that a similar item with equal, almost equal, or better nutritional content (vitamins, minerals, grams of protein, etc.) should be eaten when it saves you money.  I wanted to share the article since I agree with more than half their suggestions.

Here are three I’ve already been doing:

1.  Eating Eggs for breakfast.  Very cheap protein source.  Also try buying whey protein powder in bulk to make smoothies by . . .

2. Using frozen Blueberries and  fresh Bananas.  These are some of the lower priced fruits year round.

3. Choosing chicken legs whenever chicken breasts aren’t priced low enough.  Nutritionally they are almost equal.  Help compensate for the higher fat content by removing the skin before cooking.

Two I’ve just started:

1. I’m using cabbage wherever possible.  (getting back to my Ukrainian roots with this one)  Using the nutritional info presented in this article, I could argue coleslaw is as healthier than a tossed salad. (providing I watch the quantity of sugar and fat in my dressing of course)  Chopped green cabbage, diced yellow onions and shredded carrots; I challenge you to find three cheaper vegetables.

2. I’m learning to like cauliflower.  By now you’ve all heard of using mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes to lower your carb count.  Here’s another even more unique way to enjoy cauliflower, courtesy of my mother-in-law, famous for her 3 ingredient meals:

Break apart a head of cauliflower.  Boil the cauliflower until it starts to soften but is not mushy.  Drain.

Whisk together a couple eggs, add some salt and pepper.

Preheat a skillet on medium, have some olive oil handy.

Soak the cauliflower pieces in the egg mixture (if you’re really fancy you can also roll them in breadcrumbs)

Fry the cauliflower in the olive oil, basting with any leftover egg mixture.

Surprisingly good!

Finally, there’s one item I really don’t agree with: substituting canola oil for olive oil.  Personally I’d rather buy decent (NOT high end, just decent) olive oil when it goes on sale and use it sparingly.  I just don’t think the flavor sacrifice is worth it and I think the jury’s still out on whether vegetable oils are actually any better for you than any other fat sources used to cook with.

All this talk of food is making me hungry; its time for lunch.

My company decided to change insurance companies, effective January 1st. Treating our son and ourselves this past month has been a learning experience. Back during open enrollment times, the wife and I decided we were going to middle of the road insurance (out of three choices) where before we had chosen the best offered. The only real consequence we could see was a $100 higher deductible, and we really wanted more money coming in per pay period.

We also decided not to manage a flex spending account this year. For those not familiar, a flex account is money deducted out of your check, tax-free, that sits in an account earmarked for extra health-related items like dental work(other than cleanings), contacts and/or glasses, some over-the-counter medications like cold or allergy medicine, etc. A couple caveats: You’ve got to front the money for these things and then submit the reciepts for reimbursement. Also, any money still in the account unclaimed at the end of the year is LOST to you. USE IT OR LOSE IT.

Some companies put your flex money on a debit card; ours never did. We decided not to deal with the account this year for many reasons:

1. Healthcare reforms mean 70% of the medicines that qualified for reimbursement in 2010 would now require a doctor-issued prescription if I wanted my money back.

2. This past year I logged the amount of time spent on organizing, scanning, faxing, emailing reciepts and checking and double-checking that refunds had been posted to our checking account. The amount of hours spent doing that could have brought in enough money for new tires for my car had I spent it freelancing.

3. Last year we contributed the maximum amount, got a ton of dental work done, bought more than enough contacts and pairs of glasses, yet still found ourselves scrambling in December to spend the rest of the money. We bought even more ridiculous amounts of contact solution, “gift” medications to send to my family overseas and  meds our son won’t need for another year and a half.

4.  Not contributing to a Flex account PLUS choosing the slightly less awesome insurance gets us to our goal of a significant amount more take-home dollars per paycheck.

Fast forward to 2011 . . .

January 7th the wife and I needed to use a walk-in clinic when we contracted strep throat and bronchitis respectively, simultaneously.  The one we’d been using now cost 5 times as much so we drove across town and went to the cheaper, crappier one.  My wife is still having symptoms.

My wife has also spent 8 hours so far researching what physical therapist, private, clinic-based or otherwise, we will be able to afford now that the one we’d been seeing for 7 months has become prohibitively expensive.  I still don’t understand all the details, but the first question we’ve been able to answer is: YES, this would have happened even if we’d selected the best insurance. It isn’t the level of insurance that’s the problem, its the different provider.

This new company has more than a few differences . . . has different rules with how services are billed and whether or not they’ll cover them at what amounts . . . its kind of a mess.  So the irony is that the time (money) we thought we were saving by not screwing with a flex account is now being spent re-learning how to manage (not waste money on) services with this new insurance.  We’re still trying to find an in-network, covered therapist that bills as an office visit rather than as outpatient services AND is close enough to our home to get there, have therapy, and get back at a time conducive to the child getting his meals and naps on a decent schedule.  This whole situation just rubs me the wrong way.

At least I have new tires.

December first is here and we’re still eating Thanksgiving leftovers.  The last of the turkey and a few slices of cheese from the meat and cheese tray went into a casserole yesterday with lots of rice, a can of black beans, a can of  tomato sauce and half a tub of aging salsa from the fridge.  Yes, a main ingredient here is white rice which is getting a bad rap all over the place but we’ll  be eating this with a serving of stir fry veggies from the freezer.   When you can’t afford a diet of nothing but lean protein and fresh vegetables, you can use your pantry and adopt portion control.

My wife has been checking into some healthy eating/living blogs for economical recipes and forwarded me 5 Ways to Stretch Your Food Dollar and Shrink Your Waistline on ronisweigh.com.  We’ve already been buying meat in bulk and bulking it up by adding veggies but I never thought to water down juices and dressings.  Genius! I already feel guilty when we don’t make our own dressing but I hate paying for a healthier ranch I can’t buy in bulk and having it gone in a week.  There’s one more thing we can stretch this month.

In case you haven’t been reading lately,  we’ve got just over two weeks until we fly home for Christmas (and to weeks of free meals) and we’re not buying any groceries in between.  This is both to save money and out of principle: we will experience restraint and our holiday snacking and home cooked meals will be that much more special.  There is ONE exception: we plan to buy just enough frozen and/or cheap fruit so our toddler can get enough fruits and veggies each day.  Plus, we’re still working on that mega bag of whey protein powder and blending it with frozen blueberries and milk is as close as we’re getting to dessert until the week before Christmas.

Speaking of which: 24 days and two paychecks ’till Christmas . . .

I highly recommend drawing names.  Last year, in the wake of more than a few layoffs, my wife’s extended family agreed to this.   Three of us (my wife, my son and I) will buy only three presents – our contribution to gifts for the entire extended family of seven aunts, two uncles, four grandparents and of course all the cousins.  They also set a modest $30 limit per gift.  I can’t tell you how it comforts me to know that her family is taken care of for less than $100.  If two of the relatives we drew weren’t under the age of 19, I’d be buying and giving everyone silver for Christmas like I’ve been saying since 2008.  I’m so glad we’ve spent the last two years building a security stash of gold and silver but I can’t project my worries about the economy onto an innocent kid.  I may be a softy but I know how I’d feel as a 10 year old tearing open the wrapping paper to see a couple hunks of metal.  Hopefully the family members reading my blog have already bought some.