In the next 3.5 years, we’ll be making three bar mitzvas (the first of which is five months away).

Not only that, in the next 1.5 – 2 years, two of our children are likely to start dating for the purpose of marriage, which means funding two more weddings.

Those are all substantial expenses.  You can make frugal bar mitzvas and be cost conscious about weddings but frugal still isn’t free. Not at all.

During a recent conversation with my husband, we both agreed we’d like to be more intentional about our spending in order to increase our savings towards these big expenses.

Did you know that food is the second biggest expense for most people, after their mortgage/rent payments?  That’s why it makes sense to look at your spending on food if you want to create some financial leeway.

No, being more frugal with shopping and cooking alone won’t create tens of thousands of shekels of savings in two years but nonetheless, there’s a lot more saving potential in the small things than you might think!

So with that in mind, I’m setting a goal for myself to cut our food costs and channel the savings into, well, savings!

I find menu planning in the winter so much easier than in the summer, since thick stews and filling soups are appreciated by everyone!

Here’s the menu plan for this week:

Sunday: l – pitas with butter; dinner –  crustless turkey pot pie and kasha

Monday: l – bean burgers; d – salmon chowder

Tuesday: l – white bean shakshuka; d – ground beef sauce with spinach and baked potatoes

Wednesday: d – winter lentil soup

Thursday: d – chicken chili with white beans

You’ll notice that I haven’t planned out every meal – that’s because I sometimes use leftovers from dinner for lunch.  When I purposely cook double, I put it in the freezer for a meal a week or two later.

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Last week ds11 and I went to pick up our order for 20 kg of coconut oil at the baking supply store I periodically order from.

I heard about a different wholesale store and since it was just 20 km away from the baking supply store (well at least on the map – naturally it took longer than I anticipated), decided to check it out after picking up the coconut oil.  It was reminiscent of the bulk shopping trips I used to make in the US, though smaller in scale, and I appreciate now having a car makes this a doable outing.

This store sells only bulk quantities and though the price difference on some items was unimpressive, on others it was significant. It was an exhausting shopping trip and while at first I wasn’t sure I would go back because it was so frustrating that they didn’t have prices or the minimum necessary purchase listed on lots of items nor could anyone working there other than a cashier help. But next time I’ll go early in the day when I’m better rested and I’ll know what to expect.

I’ve been trying out new recipes lately to integrate more beans into our family meals. So far all the new experiments have been very well received.

I’ve shared before about how helpful it is for me to soak and then cook large quantities of beans at one time, then to freeze them into portion sizes for easy use when I want to use them to cook with. It bears repeating since it’s a huge time and money saver!  (I’ll try to write about how this can be a starting place for a snowball savings.)

Dd22 opened up my freezer when she visited, and when seeing my bags of cooked beans and mashed bananas lining the freezer door commented that my freezer looks like hers, but in larger quantities! She’s grown up with these strategies so I suppose they’re second nature.

Another thing I regularly do is purchase a large quantity of gizzards. They are inexpensive pound for pound since there are no bones, very nutritious and very versatile. I usually cook up about 8 kilos of turkey gizzards, and a similar quantity of chicken gizzards.

Once they’re cooked, I slice the turkey gizzards and shred the chicken gizzards (using a food processor – I used to do it by hand and it took way too long!), then freeze meal sized portions. It’s so easy to pull it out for meals – I use shredded chicken in place of ground beef, and the sliced turkey in place of other dishes that call for a larger cut. For 208 shekels, I have between 16 – 20 family meals of cooked chicken ready to be used.

Avivah