Week 17

This week we are down to $15 to make it in the $200 budget that I promised to stay within in this program. And I have two things for you to purchase.

Garlic

The first is minced garlic. Now, if you have never used garlic in a jar, I’m about to change your life, number one. And number two, if you don’t wanna change your life, that’s fine. You can keep using fresh garlic.

But think about if you weren’t able to get to the grocery store, what would you use to flavor your food? How many times are you purchasing garlic or getting this out of the fridge?

If you’re using this kind, my guess is, at least a couple times a week with a home-cooked dinner. So this is really important.

Expiration

I’ve got about a year and a half to use this. So in my opinion, even if you’re going to be using fresh garlic, I think it’s worth a few bucks to get a jar of this to have on hand, even if you never use it.

But like I said, I think that you’ll learn that it’s life changing, and you’ll probably switch to this forevermore. That’s just my prediction.

But anyway, if you really just can’t see yourself ever using anything other than fresh, you can skip this. But I think that this is a very decently priced substitute for a “what if” situation. I mean, this big jar was like five bucks. You can get smaller ones for a couple dollars and then you would at least have a backup.

Before I was completely converted to this type of garlic, I was still buying fresh and then I was just using this if I didn’t have any on hand or if I ran out. It’s really nice to have for just everyday cooking.

Broth

Your other item is broth. So if you cook with chicken broth, then load up on chicken broth. If you’re using beef broth a lot, vegetable broth, whatever type of broth you use, get more of it this week.

Budget/Space

Now a word on budget. If you normally use bone broth, 15 bucks is not gonna get you far.

I have some cubes here that I buy vegetable broth, or this powder stuff, however you buy it, of course, if you buy it without the water, it’s going to be a lot easier to store as far as space goes. So look at your space, look at what you normally use, and this is where you’re just gonna have to decide what you use. When a recipe calls for chicken broth or chicken stock or whatever it is, what do you use?

And the same goes for beef or vegetable. I say chicken because most of my recipes call for chicken broth. I cook with chicken a lot, and so that is my most used base. So I just have a little guy of beef broth, and then I just buy boxes of vegetable cubes because I just don’t go through it as often

So that’s what my storage looks like. Yours may be heavier on the beef or the vegetable if you’re a vegetarian or whatever it might be.

So, I would recommend getting your garlic first. I think that one container is good and I would get whatever size you usually get if you already use this; if you usually get a big one because you notice that you go through it every few months and you have room in your fridge, the bigger one is usually a better value.

And then use the rest of your budget on broth/stock. And then again, if you’re gonna decide to skip the garlic, you’ve got 15 whole dollars to spend on the broth. If you want to get a variety, that’s fine. You can get some of this and some of the bone broth.

Encouragement

Even if you can only buy four boxes of bone broth because that’s what you use and that’s what you wanna store, which is a smart move in my opinion, even though it’s more per serving … Let’s say you can only buy four boxes with $15 this month, and you don’t have any more in your budget. You are maxed out. You can’t cheat a little and go over and get some more boxes of broth.

That’s fine because guess what you have? Four boxes of broth that you didn’t have before. And if you do this program right, you will end this year with four extra boxes of broth still in your pantry because every time you use one of these boxes, you’re gonna put it on your grocery list because that’s not counting towards your food storage budget anymore. You used it this month on broth. And so the next time you use a box of this, you’re replacing it out of your normal grocery budget.

So feel good about yourself that you have, even if it’s only four boxes of broth that you didn’t have before. I realize that you could buy a whole lot of bullion cubes and probably make quite a bit more broth … it would just go further with this, but if bone broth is your choice, I think it’s a really smart choice and don’t feel bad about getting less of a quantity. You’ve started. You’ve got something and be good with that and feel good with that. So I just wanted to give you a little encouragement. .

Feedback

Would you do me a favor and reply to this email? Let me know how it’s going for you. Do you have questions? Have you run into roadblocks? Are you loving this? Are you not loving it? Is there something about the format that’s easy or hard? Are there any changes you would make?

Let me know if you have any questions and again, please send me your feedback. And thanks for being here! 😘