Second lesson

The second lesson, and it bears repeating and will come back a lot throughout the blog is, more bang for your bucks. Its pretty obvious that we want to most for the least, but its not quite as obvious to know how to get there.

Essentially, the one inescapable constant is that we have a limited budget. So the game is to learn to be as efficient as possible with that budget. That means that more than likely there will be sacrifices to be made. Some items, which might be considered necessities could well turn out to be actual luxuries, and its also very likely that you'll have to step on your pride about certain things. Better come to terms with that early on, deal with it and move on.

The trade off of sacrificing certain foodstuffs is that you'll learn to make not just do with what you have, but to make it so delicious that neither you nor your fellow dinners really miss those previously cherished items. Its not that they will be forever banned from your diet, but its that they will be all the more cherished because they will now become special occasion treats.

You'll have to bone up, both on your knowledge and skills, expanding your possibilities. Its not so much going to be about "what can I eat" related to a lack of ready-to-eat scarcity, but "what will I eat" based on the range of possibilities based on what you have available on hand and what you can do with it. Once that you've opened your mind to cooking, its amazing the simple dishes that you can make that will satisfy both palate and stomach on a few ingredients, minimal effort and a few dollars.

In the next post, I will demonstrate a couple of useful methods that you can use to expand your pantry without blowing your budget.