Ep. 14- Eat at Home, Save Money/ Save Time... to Spray

Want to save money, stop eating out.  Easier said than done.  In this episode Tyler and Anna are back at it.  It's the time of year to start thinking about weed control. Herbicides have there place and Tyler talks about pre-emergent and post-emergent herbicides in lawns, landscape beds, pastures and hayfields.  Timing your spray application is important for control. 

Anna talks about how to save money by buying ingredients to cook at home, rather than going out to eat all the time. 

Transcript

Welcome back on this snowy day to Stone County Extension Saves the World podcast.

Yeah, we got snowed in over the weekend and Yeah. Roads, inclement weather and we're, I come back yesterday and y'all were able to get back today.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about getting up my driveway, but I was able to get out pretty good.

Yeah. So how much, I don't know how much really snowed. We measured like 9 inches.

Yeah, my father-in-law said he thought about 10, but it's kind of hard to say. And there was sleet, quite a bit of sleet in there too with the snow.

Yeah. Did y'all do any sledding?

Yeah.

Did you get hurt?

A little bit, yeah. I mean, I don't want to make too loud of it because I saw some serious injuries, but mine's not serious. But we have this really good long hill and we drove over it multiple times to the side by side and got it smooth. And And the first time I went, it was, just a nice sledding ride. And then, my daughter had gone several times and Brandon went. And it was the last time we were going to go for the day. And I went up really high at the top. We did. And we're going and we were really picking up some speed. And then we got to the spot where we had caught air, like every time we went. And we caught so much air that I went up and when I landed, my rear end in a strategic location landed on the rail of the sled, which then flipped me and my child, flipped me and my child out. And I kind of landed on her, and she's about 60 pounds, soaking wet. But she's like, get off me, landed on me, all offended like I did on purpose. But my rear end hurts, my right ribs were sore, but I've got a terrible crick in my neck.

Oh, man.

And it's not the worst one I've ever had, but it's pretty bad. And then Whitney has a little bit of a crick in her neck, but I guess I landed on her arm, but it hurt. She was fine.

If you can hear that noise out there, their blade in our parking lot.

Which is wonderful.

Yeah, because it's covered. It's a little sketch up there.

I'm not, it's not as bad today because it's still crunchy and varied, but as that gets melted and real smooth, we don't want a repeat of your accident.

Yeah, but so, but otherwise, you're a little bit sore, prick in your neck. We went sledding 1 evening. I took the kids over to father and mother-in-laws and we sledded down their hill and Case, like they had this little pond that it's dry and Case and Addie both kind of went in the middle of it. Luckily it's frozen over and not very deep that they able to get out. But having fun and I Worked on leveling up my blacksmithing skill a little bit.

Blacksmithing.

Not in real life, but I decided I'd pick up Skyrim again. And so I spent a little bit of time.

You put your time in, your training.

Yeah, leveled up blacksmithing to 100, speech to 100, working on my one-handed skills and Trying to rid the world of dragons. That's not really what you do. That's what Skyrim's about. Dragons come back and.

I pushed hard getting everything clean before it snowed, which is like one thing I like to do, like the excitement of it. And then I did very little. But then I started working on some new recipes again with sourdough and been working on a a recipe with scone and fermentation, like it sits in the fridge for multiple days and it breaks down the grains. I'm just trying it. I don't love the recipe exactly, but I can tell the difference in my, the 12 hour versus the 36 versus density.

Which one? Which is better?

It's less dense as you go. It's like it's a lighter, fluffier bake.

Anyway. The longer, it's more fluffy.

The longer, the main reason is to break down the grains and to make it easier to digest.

For people or for the little enzymes that are working.

For people, for gastrointestinal. And I did read some more about sourdough and the benefits. And I'm feeling like there's a lot, there's so much more journal, excuse me, journal articles than when I first started working on sourdough to actually make me feel comfortable even mentioning that there are benefits because at first there just wasn't much research out there. I just don't want to say anything unless it's legitimate. And now there's some good looking stuff promoting it. So I spent a few times in those hard to read journal articles this weekend.

That's cool.

That was my nerdy thing I did instead of Skyrim. Well, I have a question. Does snow add any nutrients to the soil?

Yeah, it does. So I know people have heard this because I think when I first started, I got a call about it. And this little old lady asking me, and I looked it up and it does add nutrients like nitrogen, like the snowflakes were, I was reading about it, able to trap like the organic nitrogen in the atmosphere and bring it down. But it's not a lot like.

How much?

Average. From rainfall and snow, what they estimate, I think, is around 2 to 12 pounds of nitrogen per acre.

In one snow, what'd you just say?

Throughout the whole year, rain and snow combined.

Yeah, that's not very much.

Not very much. So it's it does add. Yeah, it does add some nutrients to the soil, but if you're needing to increase your yield, you're still going to have to add that.

Add more.

Add more fertilizer to.

I've always heard that. Makes you wonder if it's true or not.

And we talk about adding fertilizer. You can also, if you're chasing the regenerative, you want to build up your healthy soils. You build up that nutrient resvoir, adding organic matter, adding compost. But it does add some, but not a whole lot. But speaking of soils, gardening, about to be February. And so I was thinking I'd talk about pre-emergence today, or just weed control in general, because we're starting to think about it. We're about to be in February. We're about to see a bunch of stuff popping up. and people are going to be wanting to control it or spray it. In pasture situations, some people have lawns and they don't like all the weeds in their lawns. And so I thought I could talk about, the timing aspect or figuring out the timing for what you're trying to control. So there's certain things if we wanted to target them for like the cool season weeds that are popping up, we're late for for pre-emergent for pre-emergent that typically has to go out in the fall that because what a pre-emergent does is it just say you put it out there typically have to water it in to get it activated but then it provides A protective barrier on the soil layer and as the seed germinates it hits that and it doesn't allow for like a healthy plant to grow and it kills it. Pre-emergence typically only work on like annual weeds or again something coming from seed. So if you're putting out a pre-emerge hoping to control like a perennial like Bermuda, fescue, if it's already established and it's just re-growing, that pre-emergence ain't gonna help you none. Okay, that makes sense. You'd have to step up to like a post-emergence for that. But for pre-emergence, we can put that it's the time to put it out is coming up if we want to control like warm season weeds like crabgrass if you're in lawn situation. Pre-emergence for pasture situations there are some but I don't that'd be on it. No it's like it's not as economically feasible. You'd have to you'd have to be set up and they typically only work for like Bermuda grass type hay operations. I know we messed with it a little bit when we were doing that hay verification field over there at Clinton. They had applied a pre-emergent and it worked okay. It doesn't last the whole year, about six months, and then stuff started popping up. And then there were actually two. We did a little trial and that one of them worked. It did work crazy good. It like surprised me, but just the cost of it was.

You kind of get into the cost effectiveness.

The cost per acre wasn't worth it to me unless it'd have to be a certain situation for use.

But it did work well.

It did work, yeah, but it costs a lot of money. Not for everybody. Not for everybody. But in a lawn situation, you know, or say you've got a landscape bed or you got a garden or something, there are You can put out pre-emergence out to target those annual weeds that grow up and the timing for them if we're targeting for like warm season, like so for instance, I say crabgrass, sand burrs, like I'm going to talk about spurweed here in a second, but people get those two mixed up. Like sandbur is a summer annual grass and it grows the little bird that like gets in your socks on.

Oh yeah, I know all about that.

Pokes you crazy. That's a sandbur. It's warm season. So the timing for putting out a pre-emerge for it, February, March, April. And now talking about that lawn bur weed or spur weed, and some people call it a sand bur, but it's a cool season. You're going to, if you find it and step on it, it's going to be out there like March, April. That's late February. That's when that seed forms and it forms like that little sticker on it. And they're just as sharp. You step on them. But to control them, again, if we wanted to hit them with a pre-emergent back in the fall. What we can do now for those cool season annuals, we can use a post-emergent, like in a lawn situation, that's going to be something like a three-way or I know people don't want to use it, but I've done some like lawn turf demos and the best in our trial was doing a glyphosate application and this was for like Bermuda grass. in a Bermuda grass lawn. So I'm just talking what we did, this ain't going to work for everybody. So if you have questions wanting to get your lawn in shape or your pasture in shape, it's going to be like an individual assessment of each thing. That was a spam call.

Oh, I was supposed to say, kids are out of school, so it's not your pickup alarm.

But where was I? Who knows?

Individual, it'd be based on your individual needs.

Yeah, based on your individual needs. So, but in our demonstration, we're doing a lawn care, we control, and we applied several different things. We did a weed and feed, like you put it out. We did a trimec, which is a three-way. We did metsulfuron. We did glyphosate. Glyphosate applied in February, cleaned it up great, like excellent control. Metsulfuron was next. It's more of a selective. It is hard on like tall fescue. It'll stun it, but it may not completely kill tall fescue. Again, I'm talking about in a Bermuda grass lawn and like you talked about the little onions earlier.

Yes.

How to control them. That's really what we were targeting in this demonstration. Metsulfuron worked, glyphosate worked, TriMet worked pretty good on those. What didn't work at all really was that weeding feed. So people, it can work, but the problem with it is most people put it out. It's supposed to be a fertilizer and then it has post-emergent herbicide in there to kill anything. Well, A lot of times when we're putting that fertilizer out, those weeds are too big by that time to really work well, and we're really just fertilizing the weeds. So it's all about timing if you wanted to use that weed and feed. And so again, depends on your situation. But that's something to think about. February, March, is really when we want to control cool season weeds because they're small, we can use less product. If you do have a problem with that spur weed, again, pre-emergent ain't going to work right now, but if you've had it in the past, you want to spray that before March 1st because if it's much past March 1st, that seed starts to form and the burr gets on there. And then in pasture situations, You got a Bermuda grass pasture. Again, like this time of year, while the Bermuda grass is dormant, you could go out and do like an application. You could either do like a selective herbicide that's going to target you like your broadleaf weeds, or you could do like a glyphosate that's just going to get all the little, it gets, it's not selective. It's going to get most things. So don't kill everything good, but it'll get most things.

Before the snow, I noticed the thistles already coming up.

Yeah, thistles. So thistles will sprout. They really germinate like in the fall. Like they'll, you know, we see the seeds fly around all spring and then they'll germinate in the fall and be there October, November. And there'll be a small little tiny rosette plant. If you made an application in the fall with a, broadleaf selective herbicide, 2, 4-D or Grazon or Metsulfuron, something like that. And again, each situation is dependent, depends on what your base grass is and what else is out there. But you could control thistle October, November. And because it'll go, or, and then if it's still in that first life cycle, like their biennial plant, that first year, they'll be in that rosette. And then the ones that grow up tall and put on the flower, they're in their second stage. So if you're seeing them by then, and that's when you're controlling them, you're late. Again, applying herbicides is all about your timing. And just figuring out what you need to make, ID what type of weeds you got out there and select the best type of product that would work for you. And what is your base grass out there? What are you trying to grow? And this kind of grows across, say, gardeners, lawn care, and into pasture situations. The products we use are different, but kind of the thought process behind them is similar.

Yeah, we've been working on our yard and bringing in soil from different areas because we had nothing but clay and working on establishing grass. And so there's a lot happening in my yard at the moment.

And so trying to build up something good. What was I going to mention? Using these products, make sure you read the label, like understand the label, make sure again that When you, if you're going to use this product, I've said this on the podcast before, it has to be labeled for where you're going to use it. So if you're in a home situation and you got a product and it's labeled only for like pasture use, can't use it on your lawn. You're breaking the law. Or if you're in a pasture situation and it's labeled for like lawn use and not labeled for pasture or hay field, and you put it out, you're breaking the law. So we want to make sure we familiarize ourselves with the label, make sure where we're spraying it, it's labeled for. And you really want to make sure what you're trying to control is on that label too. Because you don't want to put something out that it doesn't control, you know what I mean? And if you need help with that, that's what I do a lot at the Extension office here is interpret what rates to put out stuff, figure out rates. And another thing, calibrate your sprayers. If you didn't take care of them last spring, put them up, winterize them. We want to, even if you did, you want to inspect them, make sure any hoses or nothing's broken, nothing's clogged up, nothing's leaking. You want to kind of get that prepared because in February, I guarantee you, we'll have some like perfect weeks of warm, like a week of nice weather, warm days that we can go out and Get ahead of some of these weeds. Hit them when they're small, use less product, get better control. Again, all that's about timing. If we're targeting, control, and cool season type weeds, you know, October, November does vary across the different types, but then February, March is kind of our time frame.

And you have a PAT coming up in February.

I do have a pesticide applicator training too. If you need to purchase restricted use pesticides, you can come attend that training. Costs $20. It'll be February 24th.

Yes.

Yeah, February 24th, EHC building. 530 Stone County Fairgrounds here in Mountain View, Arkansas. Again, costs $20. That's just for the training. We talk about it at the training afterwards. You still have to send information and paperwork to the state plant board to get your license. But if you have questions about that, hit us up. So another thing that's real important is, I mentioned reading the label, but also understanding the safety and first aid section of that label and wearing the proper PPE, which is the protective equipment. Most generally, long sleeves, long pants, gloves is what's required, but it can be more specific depending on the product that you're using. So read that, familiarize yourself with it and wear it because You can get sick if you get that stuff on you. There's chronic and acute symptoms. And I've got a story about getting some acute symptoms and spraying thistles. So one time, back in the day, I was a kid, and during the summers, during June, we'd work in the blueberries, and then typically I'd be helping dad in the hay afterwards. And At one point, I can't remember the time of year, but I was spraying thistles and they're pretty tall. So it seems like it would have been summertime. And I was wearing a cutoff t-shirt, shorts, and I think I rode around in flip-flops on the four-wheeler, spraying a product that'll kill, a selective product that'll kill thistles. I'm going around, had the dye in it, and so I'd spray and be able to see, but I didn't pay attention and I didn't know. Dad had just said, you got to spray all these thistles. Well, I spent like a whole half of the day like going around spraying all that stuff, just getting soaked. Oh, gosh. It'll be all right. Well, it'll be fine. Everything's fine. Yeah, it'll be fine. Well, about 3 hours of doing it, I started getting sick. Like I got a terrible headache and felt like I needed to throw up. And so I went up to my grandma's and went up there and was like, grandma, I'm sick.

Gritty Mary.

Yeah, Gritty Mary. Grandma, I don't feel good. I've been spraying and I just need to go lay down. And I went in there and laid down, and the next thing I know, I hear.

What are you doing, you lazy so-and-so?

Get up, you're supposed to be out there spraying. So I got sick from getting acute poisoning symptoms, I believe, and then got accused of being lazy. But...

There's a world in there somewhere.

I will say... You learn from your past experience of my laziness, I typically would be lazy. I remember one time, one more little thing, I was about to be talking about pruning, but I remember one time they put me, Dustin, and Tanner to prune in the blueberries, and it was like wintertime, because I remember we were out there in coats. And I remember one time we got out there early, and like we're pruning, pruned like a roe. And we're like, we pruned a row and we'd prune and then we'd take a little break and talk about stuff. Well, we took a little break and that turned into a long nap. We fell asleep down there.

In the blueberries.

In the blueberries. We're supposed to be pruning. We fell asleep and got caught. So track record of laziness is.

You and your cousins.

Yeah, we. We got in trouble. Well, so how can we, how can you help us financially?

So I had hoped to work on a budget, but the snow kind of threw me off that. And I didn't want to talk about it if I wasn't actually working on it. But one thing I have been working on this year, this was sort of a resolution, was trying not to eat out as much. And not so much like not go to a nice restaurant. We've got a bunch of awesome eating places. It's less like fast food type. during the week. And so a few things on that. And I've said before that I like a good statistic. So I've got one for you. So how much do you think food prices in the US have rose from 2019 to 2023?

Percentage.

Yes.

400%.

No, 25%. I knew you were going to say something ridiculous. So according to Oklahoma State University's Department of Economics professor at the time, food prices in the United States rose by 25% from 2019 to 2023.

Wonder why, what happened?

I don't know. Anyway, and then it says, in 2023, US consumers, businesses, and government entities spent $2.6 trillion on food expenditures with food away from home spending, accounting for nearly 59% of total food expenditures. That's a lot. So A, US consumers, businesses, and government entities spent 2.6 trillion on food in 2023, but 59% of that was food away from home spending.

I see that. We eat out too much probably.

You contribute.

Yeah, we contributed to that stat for sure.

We don't have an evening, but as far as during the day, during the week, I was doing too much. So.

We need to do what I do.

I'm not doing that. And I'd be so hangry. Like, you don't want me to, Grouchy, trust.

Yeah, I'm not. I got, I think that did contribute to wise Grouchy that first little bit coming back from Christmas break.

Well, and when I've. taught extending it fit and not ate breakfast, I feel a little woozy after sometimes. So I think a quality breakfast is a positive thing for me. And I think a quality breakfast helps me eat better at noon.

Well, what I do is I drink a Monster in the morning and then drink coffee. And then I don't eat all day. until at night. And then I'll eat at night when I get home.

And he does this every day.

Every day.

Like clockwork, you can expect it. We do drink about a pot of coffee a day here, at least. We've pulled a few two-potters. That sounds interesting.

Two-potters. It works for you. saw that photo that Amber sent?

When you first started working. Yeah, it works for you. I think that's awesome. You know.

Yeah.

But anyway, so also in this article, a typical dollar spent in 2022 by consumers on domestically produced food, 34 cents went to food service businesses such as restaurants and eateries outside the home. So basically, we spend a lot of money in the United States eating out away from home. And so I really just, for me, I felt that I eat out too much during the day, during the work week, and I really wanted to rein that in. And I'm one of those people, it's like, if I'm gonna eat out, I wanna eat out nice. And so I'm not, I wanna cut back so that I can continue to do that. And that's part of my budgeting. But a few things. on how we can help work towards that is, try to cook food at home from better. And so that also can be expensive too, is buying groceries. And I found this extension article from Alabama, and it had 101 plus ways to save on food dollars, and I highlighted some I liked. So you can give me some of your thoughts as we go through. So take time to plan your meals and make a grocery list. And I do feel that apps have actually helped with that because I can just add to my app and then schedule a pickup time. And it mentions, doing grocery pickup instead of going in the store.

Yeah, I can see like going into the store, it's like impulse buying a lot. Whereas like Lauren will be like, what do you want? pick up order and I'm like, shoot, I don't know. I'm not hungry right now. So I don't want anything. And then I get home and I'm like, there's nothing. Yeah, there's nothing in this house. And I'm home and having a natal day. And so.

You're a lucky household. So yeah, take time to plan your meals. Whenever I'm going through working on my grocery list, I check cabinets in the kitchen and try to get a good idea because it drives me nuts when I start working on something and I'm missing a key ingredient. And I live 30 minutes out and I just, we're just not gonna eat it.

Yeah.

We're just not gonna eat it. I'm not driving into town to do that. So, and then check for your weekly food, you know, newspaper, if there's anything. We're kind of limited on our grocery store options, but if that works for you. And then one thing I like is plan your meals to use seasonal foods. And I thought that's just kind of a fun way too to vary what you're eating at your house. You get kind of bored. And so oranges are in season right now. And so like a good example of that is, cranberries in the fall and blueberries. We're talking about blueberries in the summer. There was a lot of really good sales on frozen turkey. So I'm definitely going to be keeping my eye out for that next year and buy bulk on that. So look for those seasonal foods and shop less. So I've learned living further away from town to shop a lot less often, whereas when I lived in town and town and country was right on the corner, we'd just get whatever we needed for the meal that night if we didn't already have it. And so I've had to learn to not do that. And think of mileage too. I'll see some people say, well, we drove here, you know, we drove an hour away to save on groceries. And it's like, I hope that's not the only reason you went, because you probably didn't save enough in gas going that hour. But if you were wanting to go for other reasons, or you were already in that area.

Like eating out. What I'm hearing is we should open up a restaurant.

I'm feeling that some Asian food and flavors.

Chinese restaurant in Stone County, a good one.

Any Asian flavor would be amazing. We would support it at this office. We've been talking about it. Not opening one, but supporting one. As we're talking about trying to eat out less. Well, anyway, that's where, you know, you limit your time eating out. And find local farmers market. And I thought just local farmers period, because It's coming to the point now where maybe before it was more expensive to buy meat cuts from local farmers, where in some it's might be cheaper now. And you're supporting local and during the summer, the farmers markets, really look for that. And I know that's a little difficult right now, but that's something to consider. And then if there's a senior day for extra savings, you know, if it's Wednesdays or cheaper for seniors, do that. look for those big food sales. I know one of our local places will have like a meat sale here and there. So that may be a time to maybe plan and save so you can stock up during those moments. I feel like we're both really fortunate because I've got beef in my freezer and I know you do too. And I just feel spoiled. That helps me with my planning. And speaking of planning, one thing that helps too is I'm like, okay, here in a couple days, I'm gonna make this. So I'm gonna go ahead and put it in my fridge to thaw, or if you're purchasing, and that way it's kind of like my meals are planned already, because I'm not always good at, I go home and I'm like, what am I gonna make? I like to have an idea before I get there. You know, really, if you're doing a shopping list, stick to that and don't go while you're hungry, because you're definitely gonna buy more than you need.

You know, why is that? Like, You just see stuff and you think that looks good. Cause I know like we've ended up with stuff that I'm like, why did we even get that?

No, you were hungry. You just, it sounded different at the time. One thing I've noticed, and it was mentioned in here, if I buy something that's not in my normal, like a, I have some breadcrumbs, for example, that I've not used. I don't normally bread anything with a breadcrumb. Why did I? buy it that day. what was I thinking that I was going to do? I mean, I know what I was thinking, but I've never made it. And now I've got this big thing of breadcrumbs. So maybe going to the food pantry before it expires. But, you know, things like that happen when you do those impulse buys and you end up wasting more food and you're not saving any money. Yeah, do not shop when you're hungry. It mentions that again. One thing you can do if you struggle with that is bring only the cash you need or you've budgeted. So if you have cash and that's it, that's your option. So you'll definitely get your priority items. And compare the unit price of food items, the cost per ounce or per pound, finds the best value. And that's so key because I make sure I check that. And it's a little harder to do sometimes online, but People think because it comes in a bulk size, it's cheaper. And then there's some brands that the name brand is cheaper than the store brand. And I've had that with Worcestershire sauce.

I look at the per unit price.

Yes, yeah, per ounce, per unit. You have to look, you have to pay attention. And people don't always look for that. And like I said, sometimes things are, the name brand's cheaper than the store brand. And I typically just buy store brand because I just it's usually made from the same company or the same place. So I just can't, I just can't get a name brand. I can't do it. And then one thing me and one of my friends has talked about is buying those bulk items and then splitting them up. So we were talking about rice. They had a I think it was like a 25 or 50 pound bag of rice. I should have three people in my house. It'd take me forever to get through that. But if I split that up with her and we, utilize those cost savings, that's a good idea to do, to think about. And don't buy large amounts if you're not going to use it and it's just going to spoil because then what was the point of buying bulk that way? And then another thing is look for those, excuse me, sell by and use by dates. And even be careful when using coupons, because coupons seem to really go with that name brand stuff. And I don't know if you're really always saving anything.

Was that a thing when people, you remember those shows?

Oh, the extreme couponing? Yeah.

Could you really like go someplace and like?

There's, not really here, because we don't do the double tripling so much. But there was a couple times I'd watched those shows and worked really hard and I got BBQ sauce for like 40 cents. But I think you have to be really in tune with it. I think if you spend a lot of time working on it, and I've seen some people successful, then they make it work and save money. But if you're just kind of glancing through a lot of times, like I said, it's just that name brand thing and it's still not less than the store brand version of it.

Makes sense?

Makes sense. You just got to be careful. And if you're not going to use it anyway, then there's no point in buying it even with the coupon. And then one thing I've thought about doing, and I'm glad it mentioned, is make a cheat sheet. So when I'm going to a bigger store and I thought, I don't know if that's cheaper than what I'm normally paying or not. So that's something to look at because just because it may be a store that touts being cheaper, it may not be for the one thing I was looking at was clothing detergent because I buy a very specific one. I have to get name brand in it. Because my skin's sensitive. So anyway, and then give those grocery shelves a once over and that makes sense. So anything that they're really wanting to sell is going to be about chest height. Whereas if you're going over or way down low, that's probably going to be your better money buy. It's not so easy to see. So take your time in the store. And it's a lot harder. It seems like stores are so busy. Sometimes it's hard to kind of, you know, really look, take your time. Check the clearance section, but always make sure you check those use by dates and forbidden dents. One grocery store, when I worked in a different county, they would have like $1 bags and it would be like a bag of peppers, for instance, and one just had like 1 little spot on it.

Yeah.

And I loved when I saw those dollar bags because usually it was very, very cost effective to get those. So look for those depending on where you shop. And one thing I'm considering doing is it talks about shopping for meat. And so when you buy chicken, for instance, the pieces that have the bone in are a lot cheaper, but is it that truly?

How much does that bone weigh?

Yes, how much are those bones weighing? And I've been thinking about getting a couple packages and trying to demo out on what you're really getting with that. So then also you can look at, of course, head of lettuce. You wash it yourself instead of those pre-bagged mixes. Quick cooking oatmeal and grits are less expensive than those like little single serving. You know, those are real catchy, but oatmeal is pretty cheap to buy if you just get it and you can add your toppings in as you go. Also, make sure you keep food safe when you're transporting at home. I've really got in a habit of keeping a cooler to try to keep things cooler and maintain their low temps as I get them to the house. And then one big thing I feel like has been the biggest help for me on saving for groceries is what's called being an ingredient household. So my mother-in-law is like a professional at this.

I don't know what, I don't know what.

So instead of you buying all pre-packaged things and pre-made mixes and pre-made this, you just have like flour and corn and you're adding all that to it. And that, excuse me. And so that's one thing that I've really tried to focus on is having those main ingredients and keeping those stocked that I know that I'll use. And then, so I'm, we're eating leftovers in my house. If I'm cooking it, like I cook enough that we have leftovers. But it's also important not to just have leftovers and those go to waste. So either repurpose them, like chicken's a really good one. You could shred it after you've baked it or grilled it and put it in quesadillas or tacos or poppy seed chicken, something I've done at my house. And And so being ingredient household, trying to make things from scratch and also repurpose those leftovers. And like I said, baked chicken one day, poppy seed chicken the next. So biscuits, pancakes, those other mixes. One thing about those is like flour a lot of times has really good, like my favorite pancakes off of one of the flour company's bags. And so that's from scratch. And that's just something to help save you. And then like bananas, it's funny, I've seen this in a lot of places. Bananas, it's like everybody will eat them, eat them, eat them, and then all of a sudden you bought a thing of bananas and no one wants them anymore. So those are an easy thing to freeze. You can go ahead and mash them up and freeze them and make muffins. You can add those to a lot of your breads, whether they're banana flavored or not, and they'll kind of take on what you're using them in. And I'm just thinking too, another piece of advice I'd gotten one time that I've used is like keeping those little random ends of like onions or carrots or those little leftovers. And you could use that to make a broth. Or you could do what they call a soup container. So random little vegetables and this and that, you can chop them up and just freeze them. And once you get enough, then you can have a soup or a quiche would be great use. great use of those veggies. I bet you love soup. Do you like soup? He's picky, that's why I'm asking.

It depends. As long as there's no big tomatoes. Yeah, as long as there's no big chunk of red in it. Because if it looks like a tomato, like I can't even hardly do a red bell pepper because it's just...

Are you serious?

Yeah. If I don't know what it is, I'm like, you're trying to trick me into eating one? No, thanks. And so...

So it's really the color red.

I don't know what it is. Red, being red's part of it. I also don't like little green. Like little green. I like big peppers. If they're little green, like in, say, Rotel, I don't like those.

So, okay, for instance, my 7 layer dip, those little green chilies, if you see them, are you like, no.

I can't look at them. more like that way I can do it, I guess.

Because you're not, because they're not just laid out on top of it.

Yeah. But tomatoes in there, I taste it and feel it. And you fool me once. What is it? Fool me once. Shame on you.

Fool me twice. Shame on me. pick on them about as tomatoes. Another good thing to do, and I do this with blueberries especially, is when they're in season and they're local, I'll get enough of them that I have them frozen throughout the year. And I love doing that.

I don't like frozen blueberries neither.

You're just spoiled. You're spoiled to blueberries. Growing up, I remember us teenagers, they had all these different kinds of blueberries. And I remember I like the ones that are like big and juicy. And then Brandon likes the little tart ones and stuff like that. But I remember driving around.

I think the ones that would get big and juicy were the blue crops.

Those are my favorite.

If I'm. thinking right, the little small ones are like blue rays or blue jays.

But I remember literally driving to the different sections so we could all get our favorite ones that we liked.

I do have a story.

Let's hear it.

About blueberries. It's just a short little deal. It's like so used to, we would have, some people would come and they would do like you pick. We're not a you pick, we're a commercial blueberry farm, but people would come and they'd want to pick their own berries and we'd, charge them like half price if they were picking their own. And there was always this one guy and he's just an old goofy guy, but he only wanted Collins, Collins blueberries. And we had like a, not even a row, like 1/4 of a row of like three or four or five, however many plants of Collins. And so we'd always pick over there. And every year he'd show up, I'm looking for the Collins. Where are the Collins blueberries? And I wasn't sure. And so I just, I think they're, I think this is them. And he'd pick and he'd be like, oh yeah, that's them. And finally I asked my dad, like, where are the Collins? And he's like, I'm not even sure if we've got any. At one point we did, but I don't think we have them anymore. But this guy only wanted Collins. and he'd show up and pick. And one time there was this guy, he was picking and he'd come over and like we, me and Dustin Tanner, we'd check them, weigh them up and take the money. And so we weighed up how much he had picked and was like, all right, it's this much. And he gave us the money and then he like gave us a dollar. And he's like, here you go. Use it to buy a Coke sodie, boys. A Coke sodie. A Coke sodie. And then we were like, we can't buy. We can't buy.

Didn't y'all used to get in box making contests? Who could make the most boxes?

Yeah, we'd race like, so we'd package them and you had to make so many boxes for however many you expected to ship out that day. And so we would always race amongst, I would say that I was amongst the fastest of the cousins, but Maria was pretty good. You can't keep up with Maria, mom. She's professional. Yeah, she could do them fast. And like, we're like trying to race. Like we're trying to keep up. She's not even trying. She's just. And she's whipping you. Yeah, she could. She's the best at folding the boxes.

Oh, blueberries. So back to this, plan, plan for using those leftovers. And this is the big one for me. Take your lunch to work instead. So I've been trying a little bit. So that's been what I've been working on, which of course we've been home. So there's been a whole lot of lunch at work situation. But try to do that and try to think about your kids and making them things making their snack boxes and having stuff in your vehicle already so that you're not buying convenience items as much. And I know when you pick them up from school, they're usually hangry. They want something quickly.

We got about, we're almost there.

Almost there. So limit your eating out and try to focus on being that ingredient household and try not to eat out as much and save a little money on those grocery bills.

All right. Got about a couple of minutes. Anything else? Anything you want to wrap up? No. I'll say, I tell you, I think of the stories as we go, but I thought of a few more. I won't tell them today, but we got to remember them. Got to talk about the fight that some of the pickers got into one time.

Oh, really?

We got to talk about my cousin accidentally doing something with the porta potties accidentally. That was the, I hope I can tell it funny, because that was the hardest I think I've ever laughed. And then we got to tell about the time we wrote on a blueberry. And so it's just you'll have to be listening.

I've never heard these. I can't wait.

They're probably the best ones. The ones that come to me.

Yeah, those are always good.

Those are the best ones.

Oh, man. I look forward to that.

All right. Anything coming up?

I'm sure, but right now it's waiting on that snow to melt.

Yeah, February 24th, PAT, February 13th, we're going to do the cool season gardening community garden interest meeting class. We're going to, I think, build a low, not a cold frame, but a low tunnel. I use that word interchangeably, but a low tunnel. And we'll probably start seeds for folks and maybe start some seeds in a couple of those beds. Kick things off. Spring's coming. It's on its way. Well, hope you enjoy the episode. Thanks for listening.

Thanks. See ya.