I have a bottom freezer and it’s an organizational disaster. It’s just a giant pile of frozen vegetables. I probably need to get some dividers or something. I also hate that it’s really difficult to put baking sheets for flash freezing stuff in there. 

Our local Orowheat outlet is on the other side of town so we stock up about every 8 weeks. Chest freezer will eventually be paid for in what we save on bread and english muffins. 

I love your dimensional analysis! I just wanted to say this takes me back to food blogs circa 2011 when the trend was homemade everything. Sure, bread and hummus are reasonable. But sprinkles, pop tarts, and oreos were never meant to come out of a home kitchen.

My husband used to brew beer. You have to be into the process because it’s easily half a day. Now we just buy local craft beer kegs and put it in our kegerator.

Sometimes I cook dried beans from scratch and freeze them. 1 pound of black beans is $1.50 and it makes the equivalent of 6 cans of beans (so $0.25/can so to say). Yes, that is cheaper, but it is somewhat labor intensive (soak beans, put beans in slow cooker, bag beans, flash freeze bags of beans). I think $0.75 is a…

The legumes thing always kills me. Beans are literally one of the healthiest foods you can eat. It’s just dumb as hell.

Mint says my grocery average over the last year is $437 to feed my husband and me. I feel pretty good about since that includes breakfasts and lunches. I am vegetarian so we don’t purchase much meat (1/2 lb lunch meat per week is about it) so that definitely helps. We eat out or order pizza about once a week. We go…

After we bought our first home, we needed to buy a washer and dryer. Having to buy a lot of stuff since it was our first home, we were a little tapped out. Decided to buy a new washer (that’s where all the high-efficiency tech is) and a used dryer. The used dryer lasted 9 months before crapping out. Then we really…

We camped when we visited Yellowstone in September 2015- a zero degree two person sleeping bag is cheaper than 1 night in a lodge. There are many first come first serve campsites but they fill up early. We reserved a spot for our first couple nights and then moved to a different location.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking. This book is wonderful at explaining what makes great food so great.

To me that aged taste is what makes it coleslaw.

I also feel like cumin keeps pretty well. I bought a big container over a year ago and it’s still pretty pungent.

Who did the cooking in your family when you were growing up? What seasonings did they use in almost everything? My dad was a big fan of Mrs. Dash.

Boring answer, but cooking. We eat at home every weeknight and I pack my lunch 9/10 days. You eat 3 meals a day so making them yourself definitely adds up. I happen to really like cooking so that’s a bonus.

I love this. It’s just the right balance for my sensibilities. I’m not worried about our grocery and gas spending; honestly it’s usually pretty steady. It’s eating out that tends to really surge every couple weeks.

For me refried beans are a pantry staple for quick meals. Tostadas, nachos, tacos. I freakin’ love these green chile ones:

Interesting study. I buy into the theory of “sunscreen you like is best” because you’ll actually use it, but I probably will upgrade from SPF 30 to 45 on my next bottle after reading this.

Meijer is my favorite grocery store but they have not expanded out of the Midwest. Sprouts is my favorite grocery currently in rotation. They are a “natural” grocery chain and have great produce and bulk bins. I split my grocery shopping between Sprouts, King Soopers (Colorado Kroger), and Costco. Sprouts for produce…

There’s just something about diner coffee.

My husband and I are taking a long vacation at the beginning of March and I was totally planning to take an extra day at home at the end. Buuuut I just can’t bring myself to burn that extra day. I get 14 days PTO so using an extra 7% of my precious vacation time just to get a grip on things at home feels wasteful.…