A portion of this blog that I am always looking to develop relates to cheap and easy recipes. If you have kids, you will realize the obvious value of a cheap recipe; however, you will love the value of a fast and easy recipe!

Well, I have got something for you that should really help out.

First, I love cooking. I have cooked since I was 8, and it has always been a passion of mine. So much that I spent the better part of my professional career in corporate restaurant management. I got out of it several years back because I was tired of the hours, but my passion for cooking remains.

But alas, with the addition of our young son to the household, my days of spending extra time in the kitchen trying out a new gourmet recipe came to a shocking halt. Since his birth almost that has turned into “run in there and throw something together as fast as possible”-and hopefully something that will make a lot of leftovers.

Well, recently, I had gotten the urge for some different stuff. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but I was sautéing some vegetables and I was trying to figure out a way to jazz them up a little.

I took one look into the pantry, saw quite a few flavors of baby food that my son was no longer interested in, and voila!

Tossed a jar or two in there and I had an instant vegetable stew.

Let me explain. One small jar of baby food costs bout fifty cents or less. I would not use this idea to create a sauce for three pounds of baked chicken or anything like that. You could, but you might lose the savings, as that would get a little pricey.

Since my discovery, I have used it strictly on boiled, sautéed, or steamed veggies. Just before serving. I drop 1 or to jars of bay food over them, stir them in and almost immediately remove from heat.

The possibilities are endless, especially since there are about a million flavors of baby food.

So far, I tried a jar of Peas and Brown Rice over sautéed mushrooms and peppers (quite a unique taste).

I also did a sweet potato baby food mixed in sautéed streamed squash and zucchini.

Again, you can really try about any combination at all. It turns any cooked veggie dish into a fast and easy vegetable stew.

One more quick secret-I even served this when entertaining friends a few nights ago. Guess what? They were dying for the recipe!!!

Our household recently went almost completely vegan, and in addition to that, we went almost completely organic too.

While I am not here to debate the pros and/or cons of either, or the potential health benefits/risks, I did want to speak to the financial effects of each of these.

Our “household” consists of me, my wife, and our three year old son. And while we certainly did weigh all of the health benefits/risks and pros/cons for our son before making this change, I can tell you that I was at first skeptical. I say this because going organic would certainly mean higher costs in our grocery budget, right? Well, here is what I have found out so far.

I have no cold hard facts or numbers to give you, because I did not track it in that much detail. What I can tell you is that it seems that there is very much a cost benefit to going “just” vegan. You are no longer buying meat, chicken, or fish (we still cheat a little on the fish) and these items are replaced basically by just vegetables.

Vegetables and more vegetables. The effects on your budget will obviously depend on the expense of which vegetables you decide to buy, but with us, going vegan has had a positive effect on our finances.

Besides changing out all meat for veggies, I also noticed that there are a number of other products that we simply no longer have to buy. Among these are: condiments (you certainly don’t need ketchup, mustard, and mayo anymore if you’re not eating burgers), milk, cheese, eggs, and cooking oil. We steam most of our veggies now, so regular cooking oil is no longer needed. You can add butter to the list, along with most all sweets.

In short, going vegan it seems has saved us money. I wouldn’t do it only for this reason, and I would do some research. So far, we all seem to be healthier with stronger immune systems, and personally, I have lost almost 10 pounds in 8 weeks. So there you go.

Organic is a different story. I was concerned at first because I didn’t think we could even afford to make this change. I had always thought that organic versions of just about anything would be astronomically more expensive. Well, here is what we did and here is the effect.

Obviously, changing your diet to organic will be more expensive. The question that remains is, is it worth the extra expense to you for the added health benefit? What I have found is that depending on how you do it, the increased expense is not nearly as much as you think it might be.

Let me elaborate. First, we are not 100% organic. What most experts will tell you is that you should switch to organic for the items that you buy the most. For the others, it is not so important. And for some, there is no reason at all. For example, bananas. Think about it-there I no point in buying organic bananas. What I also found is that the apples are not THAT much more expensive, and neither are pears and a few other fruits. Spinach seems to be a little higher, and again, some things are so much more expensive that we have not made the switch yet (avocadoes, mushrooms, and a few others).

With non-produce items, the situation gets a little dicier. There is an added expense so again, you have to decide if it is worth it to you. What I can tell you is that going vegan along with going organic can eliminate a lot of these added expenses. If you do the vegan thing as well, the added expense of pastas and rice and milks and everything else become irrelevant.

My conclusion after our first month of vegan/organic? I believe that the increased expenses are probably a lot less than most might think. Also, if you decide to do a combined form of both while not doing both in any sort of strict fashion (like we did), you will probably see that the costs almost balance themselves out to where you are not spending that much more money at all.

The following is a guest post by an esteemed colleague of mine, Ryan Boudreaux, also known as Cajun Chef Ryan. He spent he majority of his professional careeer in the culinary field in some of New Orleans’ top restuarants, among others. He is currently devoted to sharing his wealth of unbelievable recipes on his blog Cajun Chef Ryan. I welcome Ryan to my blog and hope you enjoy his talent!

This odd recipe makes some of the moistest, succulent, flavorful barbecued chicken I’ve ever tasted. The secret: an open can of beer is inserted into the cavity of the bird, which is cooked upright on the grill. Besides being incredibly tender, the bird makes a great conversation piece. The proper beverage? Beer, of
course.

By the way, most whole chickens sell for under $4.00, and with one can of beer at maybe $1.25, and then a few spices for pennies, this dish would only cost maybe $1.50 per person.

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

1 large whole chicken (4 to 5 pounds)
3 tablespoons Finger Lickin Rub
1 can (12 ounces) beer

Preparation

1. Remove and discard the fat just inside the body cavities of the chicken. Remove the package of giblets, and set aside for another use. Rinse the chicken, inside and out, under cold running water, then drain and blot dry, inside and out, with paper towels. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the rub inside the body and neck cavities, the rub another 1 tablespoon all over the skin of the bird. If you wish, rub another 1/2 tablespoon of the mixture between the flesh and the skin. Cover and refrigerate the chicken while you preheat the grill.

2. Set the drip pan in the center of the grill, between the mounds of coals. Place the food on the grate over the drip pan, and cover the grill. You’ll need to add about 10 to 12 fresh briquettes to each side after an hour of cooking.

If you want to add a smoke flavor, add 1 to 2 cups of presoaked wood chips, or 2 to 4 chunks, to the coals just before you start to cook, and again whenever you replenish the coals. Set up the grill for indirect grilling, placing a drip pan in the center. If using a charcoal grill, preheat it to medium.

If using a gas grill, place all the wood chips in the smoker box and preheat the grill to high; then, when smoke appears, lower the heat to medium.

3. Pop the tab on the beer can and take a good sip or until it is within an inch of the top. Using a “church key” –style can opener, make 6 or 7 holes in the top of the can. Then spoon the remaining dry rub through the holes into the beer. Holding the chicken upright, with the opening of the body cavity down, insert the
beer can into the cavity.

4. When ready to cook, if using charcoal, toss half the wood chips on the coals. Oil the grill grate. Stand the chicken up in the center of the hot grate, over the drip pan. Spread out the legs to form a sort of tripod, to support the bird.

5. Cover the grill and cook the chicken until fall-off-the-bone tender, 2 hours. If using charcoal, add 10 to 12 fresh coals per side and the remaining wood chips after 1 hour.

6. Using tongs lift the bird to a cutting board or platter, holding the metal spatula underneath the beer can for support. (Have the board or platter right next to the bird to make the move shorter. Be careful not to spill hot beer on yourself.) Let stand for 5 minutes before carving the meat off the upright carcass. (Toss
the beer can out along with the carcass.)

* Indirect grilling on a Charcoal Grill:

To set up you grill for indirect grilling, light the coals.
When they are blazing red, use tongs to transfer them to opposite sides of the grill, arranging them in two piles. Some grills have special half-moon-shaped baskets to hold the coals at the sides; others have wire fences that hook onto the bottom gate. Let the coals burn until they are covered with a thin layer of gray
ash.

Set the drip pan in the center of the grill, between the mounds of coals. Place the food on the grate over the drip pan, and cover the grill. You’ll need to add about 10 to 12 fresh briquettes to each side after an hour of cooking.

If you want to add a smoke flavor, add 1 to 2 cups of presoaked wood chips, or 2 to 4 chunks, to the coals just before you start to cook, and again whenever you replenish the coals.

Any thoughts or comments about the recipe above? Please share them with my readers.

I would like to let you all know of my gratitude and appreciation for your support and readership over the last several months. I know that we are all very busy with our lives and I appreciate you taking the time out of yours to read my words.

I am finally took a major step towards reaching some of my longer term goals. My first book was recently published and is now available for sale at Amazon.com

It is called “Don’t Be A Mule: A Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.” It s based purely on my personal experiences. Namely, the journey that I took from the depths of financial debt to the modest successes that I am experiencing now.

This journey was not a very long one and it was not as hard as I thought it would be. Once I got my mind straight on how I needed to deal with the money that was coming in and going out of my life, it all became pretty basic. Sure, there was some hard work and some sacrifice along the way, but for anyone who thinks that getting out of debt involves years of suffering and foregoing the basic pleasures of life is simply wrong.

The basics that I learned are that it is mostly in your mind. You don’t need huge raises at work to get out of debt; you don’t need to hit the lottery. Honestly, you don’t even need an organized long-term plan. I certainly didn’t have one. If you are deep in debt now, there is a very good reason for it. For most, I would imagine that it is nothing more than living beyond your means. Well, guess what you need to do to solve this? Stop living beyond your means until you are out of debt. Then, you need to live AT your means. Then, you need to work on increasing your means.

If you are in the UK  www.ThinkMoney.com is a useful resource for help and advice on debt.

All of this and more is outlined in my book, and I hope you decide to at least check it out. I think it can provide value to the life of anyone who decides to read it. This journey was the best learning experience I’ve ever had in life, and I think that you can benefit from it too.

Thanks again for your support.

Don’t Be A Mule

Similar to my Five Minute Money manager series, I would know like to unveil what I like to call my ever-expanding list of “frugalicious” recipes. These are recipes that “taste” good on two levels. They taste good to my palate, and they are tasty to my wallet as well. In a nutshell, these are recipes that taste good and are also cheap.

But first, a few introductory notes. These recipes begin at the grocery store. And most of them are very basic recipes. As a matter of fact, you will find that most of them involve chicken and vegetables. Kind of goes without saying, because there’s not really a cheap recipe out there that has filet mignon or a piece of Red Snapper in it.

Most of these recipes will also involve “staples”. Things like rice and pasta. So, when it comes to purchasing these things, unless you have a need for organic food in your life, there is no reason to go up the price chain when purchasing these items. The store brand of spaghetti will do just as well as the most expensive one. I worked in the restaurant business for close to twenty years, and it is beyond me when people can tell you that one brand of spaghetti tastes better than another. Sure, if you only tasted the spaghetti, and it was in a side-by-side comparison, you may be able to notice some minor differences, but mixed in with a recipe I really don’ think anyone can tell.

I also think this goes for chicken as well. I have actually had people tell me that one brand of chicken tastes better than another. And honestly, I just don’t get it. What, does one company kill chickens from a better neighborhood than another company? Of course, with your veggies, be discerning and find the best quality. As I’ve mentioned before, a local farmer’s market should be your best bet.

These recipes that I will give you usually have no “amounts” to them, so you’ll probably need at least the smallest bit of cooking ability to put them together. One of the main reasons why is that a lot of time, the recipe I come up with is called a “refrigerator-cleaner-outer”. Now when I was single, this process involved nothing more than dumping all the leftovers in my fridge into a pot, heating it up and eating it (I also had a flashy name for this recipe-I called it “Dave”. My roommates loved it!!). Now that I am married with a son, I do have to get a little more creative.

Let me tell you about what I prepared for dinner last nite. My family doesn’t really like to eat the same dish more than 1-2 days in a row, so our fridge has a tendency of filling up with small amounts of various leftovers. This is probably true of most fridges. So, yesterday this I what I had in my fridge:

–about 5 oz. cooked carrots.
–about 3 cups cooked brown rice.
–1 boiled chicken breast.
–about 1 ½ scrambled eggs
–very small amounts of fresh, uncooked asparagus, mushrooms and zucchini.

This I what I did with it. Sautéed off a little yellow onion, threw in the mushrooms. Thawed out one pack of frozen chicken, cubed it and threw that in. When it was almost cooked, I added the cooked carrots, the leftover cooked chicken, the diced asparagus, and the cubed zucchini. I also chopped up some snow peas and threw those in.

I then found some teriyaki/stir fry type sauce or marinade and added that. Let it all simmer for an extra 5-10 minutes, served it over the leftover rice and topped it with the scrambled eggs.

What did I end up with? Well, it was probably a little bit of chicken stir fry, and a little bit of some kind of Chinese chicken dish. It was fantastic, and it cleaned out my fridge. Now, you might think that I contrived this list of stuff in my fridge and made the whole thing up, but this is exactly what we had for dinner last nite.

So, there you have it-the first of my “frugalicious” recipes. Soon, I’ll get into more traditional recipes where you’re not trying to clean out your refrigerator, but these types of things come in handy when the leftovers start to pile up

To learn other ways to impact your personal economy, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book “Don’t Be A Mule: a Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

I have been focused on lowering our household expenses for several years now. One would think that I have already come up with most of the ways that you can save a buck.

Over the years, I have made significant progress in our monthly grocery bill-a place I think most of us have yet to discover, and one that can yield some healthy savings. I have done things like doing my shopping at 3-4 different stores, couponing to a limited extent, actually paying attention when I’m going down the aisles, and so on.

Recently, my wife and I decided to actually shift our diet as well. Originally, the motives were not financial but we have seen the financial benefits. We never really ate too much red meat to begin with-it was mostly fish, chicken and fresh veggies. But, we took the plunge recently and went vegetarian. Not strict vegetarian as we didn’t eliminate dairy or eggs, but no more chicken, fish or red meat.

Let me tell you-the savings were almost immediately evident. I didn’t track it closely, but I would venture to say it was easily a 15% drop in our monthly bill.
Now, I ‘m sure the first thing most of you are saying is that it can’t be done, we don’t like that many veggies, we’d run out of things to eat and so on.

Let me address some of these concerns:

First-if you start off most of your meals (besides breakfast, of course) with a large mixed salad, you are well on your way to filling your tummy. Mix it with your favorite veggies, and add some other fillers if you must to make it tasty. Bleu cheese crumbles go good with just about any veggie, raisins are a nice complement, and you can always throw some nuts in there. Topped with your favorite dressing, it is a tasty starter.

Second– there are a variety of vegetables out there that you may like that you don’t even know about. Eggplant, for one. I never thought in a million years that I’d like eggplant until I tried it. It’s a very sweet vegetable and one of our favorites now. Asparagus, although usually a little pricey, is another one. I buy it every time I see it on special. Step out of your comfort zone and you might be surprised at what you’ll find.

Third-there really are a TON of things that you can do with veggies. Get yourself a vegetarian cookbook if you need to, but consider just subbing veggies where you’d normally have chicken or fish or meat. Vegetarian lasagna is awesome, and you can make a nice veggie burger if you tie it in with some Tofu (don’t freak out-it tastes good, too). And, you can still have the fries with your burgers if you want!

So, if you’re out there trying to save a buck, consider going vegetarian or at least adopting more vegetables into your family’s diet. It is obviously healthier for your body and surprisingly healthy for your family’s budget as well.

To learn more about these and other personal finance topics, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’t Be A Mule: A Common-sense Approach to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

OK, hopefully this five minute money manager thing may actually get some legs and start making some headway in your lives. I hope so, because it did mine. The beauty of these types of things is that most of them literally should take you no more than about five minutes out of your life, and you should be able to benefit from the savings forever after.

Let’s move on to groceries. And there are actually two different things that I will suggest. I am only doing that because I feel that there might be some resistance to the first one.

It is on a topic I know and love, and that is generics. I switched over to generics on most of the things I buy on a regular basis quite some time ago and never switched back. Let me give you my ten second spiel on generics. First, obviously, they are cheaper. Second, there is really not much of a taste difference. Third, believe it or not, a lot of them are processed and packed at the same place that the name brands are (get it? There is no difference).

Anyways, here is what I would like you to do. And you may have to do a little “tracking” if you want to get a real dollar amount of your savings. Without getting too deep into it, decide/track how much you spend on an average week at the grocery store. Then, on your next trip, I want you to buy generics for all of the things that don’t matter to you. If you have a favorite deodorant, then forget about that one. Some good examples though. Pasta-c’mon now, how can there be a significant difference in the taste of pasta? Plain rice, same thing. Oil, same thing. And so on. So, buy these generics and try to get an estimate of how much you saved by doing this for the week. For me, the first time around was $7-$9 when I had to buy just about everything that I buy. Multiply that times the 52 trips you make to the grocery store, and that’s an annual savings of $360-$470. All for about five minutes of your time.

If the thought of generics repulse you and you just can’t bring yourself to do it, I want you to try Plan B. On your next grocery trip, rather than going for the generics, just see if there is a cheaper brand than what you normally buy. Not generic, just cheaper. Track your weekly savings, multiply by 52, and tell me if this isn’t a great investment of about five minutes of your time.

To learn more about this topic and other ways to improve your personal economy, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’ be A Mule: A Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

Several years ago when I was in the middle of my journey out of financial hell, one day I finally decided that I was going to lose the extra 10-12 pounds that I had been carrying around with me for the past few years.  It wasn’t like I was incredibly overweight or anything, I just got tired of it and decided to lose the last few pounds that I needed to lose.

Well, at the time, my eating habits were something like this.  I probably ate fast food 3-4 times a week and most of the other food in my fridge was processed, out-of-the-box kind of stuff.  Frozen dinners and other pre-made stuff of that sort.  And I probably had just a little too much of a sweet tooth for my own good.

So, this is what I decided to do, and again, it was purely for weight-loss purposes.  I was going to give up the fast food; at least until I lost all the weight I wanted to lose.  In addition, I was going to go as “all-fresh” as I could.  What I mean is that I was going to start cooking as much food from scratch as I could.  At the time I was working in a restaurant, so it wasn’t like I was too motivated to go home and cook or anything.

But this is what I decided to do.  So I went to my local grocer, and stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies, and a bunch of chicken and fish and rice and pasta and so on.  All the stuff I would need for doing the whole “fresh” thing.  Also, I swore off sweets till I was at my desired weight.

Well, the first and best result was that I was able to take off this 10-12 pounds in just over three months (I added a little exercise program in there, too).  I was quite proud of myself, and of course, I looked and felt much better.

But here’s the kicker.  It took a little while for me to realize, but this shift in my eating habits also had a tremendous effect on my wallet!  I could not believe how much cheaper my monthly food bill had gotten.

After I thought about it though, it made a lot of sense.   First, obviously, I was eating less.  And, obviously, if you’re eating less, then you’re buying less.  But second, I had no idea how much cheaper food was when you bought it all fresh and cooked from scratch.  Sure, it took me a little extra time to cook my meals at home, but the savings were tremendous.  It was basically impossible to track, but I’d venture to say that my monthly grocery bill went down by approximately 15-20 percent.  That’s pretty substantial.

So, in a nutshell, my original goal was to simply take off a few pounds.  What I ended up with is more money in my wallet at the end of the month, a healthier me and being able to eat food that tasted much better than the stuff I was eating before.

And the real kicker is that once I lost this weight and had told myself that it would probably be OK to eat fast food every once in awhile, or pick up some of those frozen dinners when I was feeling a little lazy, I never did.  I haven’t eaten fast food in years and to this day I still cook 95% of our food at home.

To learn more about improving your personal finances, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’t Be a Mule-A Common Sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less and Generating extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

OK, so this post may have absolutely nothing to do with personal finance, but I do have some recipe blog posts here, and I love cooking, and its my blog, so there you go.

I have recently created what I like to call my “un-fried” Fried Chicken recipe. I thoroughly enjoy coming up with healthier versions of recipes, and this definitely falls into that category.

I won’t get into how many breasts to use or how much breading or any of that, you can figure all of that out on your own.

I will deal specifically with the technique involved. If it comes out right, you can enjoy almost all of the taste of fried chicken without all of the calories and fat and everything else.

First, preheat your oven till its hot, I would say to at least 380 degrees–400 may be a little too hot.

Then you have to stick your baking pan that you’ll be using for your chicken in there. You want to get that sucker nice and hot!

Normally, about 15 minutes should do. I don’t think its possible to get it too hot, especialy if you are around 380 degrees.

Then, you’re going to prepare your chicken. If at all possible, you want to “bread” all of your breasts and have them all ready to go into the oven at one time. I bread them with just an egg wash and bread crumbs. Change it up if you want, that’s what works for me.

So, after they are all breaded and ready to go, pull your pan out of the oven, and immdeiately place all of your breasts on the pan and return it to the oven immediately.

Now, it does not come out exactly like fried chicken, but its real close. The heat from the oven will cook the top and the heat from your heated pan will cook the bottom.

Its not as crispy as the real thing, but if you can stand to do without all of the calories and grams of fat that go along with the real thing, then this should do you just fine.

If after this, you’d like to learn some quick ways to save money in your everyday life, click here to download my free report and sign up for my weekly newsletter.

Let me give you a quick, stellar example of how to save money on groceries, and how to do it the right way.

In other posts and other places, I have told you that I do not clip too many coupons. I didn’t say that I never clip them, I just don’t clip them much.

Well, I have been looking at our pantry lately and noticed that we have been running low on the baby food that we feed to our son. It is one of the more expensive brands (but worth it), and normally sells for $1 for a 4 oz. jar.

Well, the last time I saw a sale for it, buy one get one free, I really loaded up. I probably bought about 40 of them. As that supply has been slowly dwindling, I have been checking around, hoping for a similar sale.

Well after looking for about a few weeks, we finally ran out completely yesterday. Oh well, not much I could do, except go to the grocery store and pay full price. So I walked into my grocer this morning and lo and behold, there it was–buy one get one free. Glory, glory glory.

Well, in order to maximize my savings, I went to my little coupon file and found about 5 different coupons for this exact food. The coupon read “get $1 off when you purchase 10″.

So to make a long story short, I picked up 10 this morning. Normally, I would have paid $10, but with the buy one get one deal and my other coupon, I paid $4.

I will use my other 4 coupons later in the week, which will make my total savings for this little project right at $34. Not to mention the fact that I won’t have to worry about buying this for the next few months.

That is the way you need to think and that is the way you need to act.

The moral of the story is this: If you pay attention to sales, if you stock up when you see them, and if you at least clip coupons for items that you buy often, your savings on groceries can be greater than you ever imagined.

If you would like to learn more ways to save and to spend less, click here to download my free report “10 Fast and Easy Ways to Save Money in Your Everyday Life”.