Cheap Bastids Ultimate Triumph

I can’t take all the credit for this. I had lots of help from Mrs. CB (interesting that just happens to be her real initials too). But, I have out done myself. I have set the bar to new heights of “cheap bastidliness”. And it was glorious.

We just managed to “score” 4 London Broils, 6 chicken breasts, 3 pounds of bacon and 2 pounds of sausage. For a total of $1.80 at Albertsons. That’s about $87 worth of meat at “full retail”.

So how’d we do it? Well, first and foremost, Mrs. CB is at least as frugal as I am. OK, she makes me look like a “big spender” especially when it comes to Christmas. So, not too long ago she came across a “special” at Albertson’s. “Spend $100 on Gift Cards and get a $20 discount coupon.” (With exclusions for booze and cigs and deli, of course). That’s 20% “off” the price of the Gift Cards for those of you doing the math. Well, we went to Albertson’s for the Gift Cards on our list—and spent $200 which was a big, big chunk of our Christmas giving because kids and kids-in-law and grandkids, mothers, mothers-in-law and brothers would rather have a Gift Card.

And that's pretty good because I hate Gift Cards. Know why? Because you have to pay the full price. I like giving $50 gifts that I buy for $30 or even less. But a $50 Gift Card costs $50. The damn stores want you to do that! But, this was essentially 20% off the cost of the Gift Card (OK, so it was a bonus, but we go

t $20 worth of stuff for free and we managed to leverage it even better than that!).

So now we’ve got 2 coupons from Albertson’s for $20 each. Mrs. CB went out shopping with her Mom today and scored 2 London Broils (bottom round) and a couple of packages of chicken breasts which she had Mama Stella take home with her. Total “out-of-pocket” was 60 cents.

So we just made a “run” to Albertson’s for stuff for ourselves. Now normally we don’t shop at Albertsons. Why? It’s just too damned expensive. And some of their specials are a rip-off. Here’s a “case in point”. They had a 2 for 1 special on Tri-Tip. Hey that’s pretty good. Except for one thing. It was marked at $5 a pound for the “select”. The “choice” was $6 a pound. I only buy it when it’s on special at my usual grocery store (Stater Bros.) for $1.99 a pound. So, the per pound price was marked up but it was buy-one/get-one free. Naw, you’re paying for both of them—which means you’re getting hosed.

So we did just a bit of planning. Their thick sliced, smoked bacon was $2.99 a pound which is about half a buck off. And their London Broil was $1.99. Cool. I want a couple of chunks—one for Swiss Steak and one for Chinese Steak and bottom round will work just fine, especially for the braising in Swiss Steak and as for Chinese Steak, I’m going to pound the crap out of it anyway.

And then I picked up a couple of pounds of bulk “country sausage” which was $1.99 a pound—a buck less than at Staters. This I’ll use to make sausage patties to go with homemade biscuits or to augment with a bit of fennel and red chili flakes and make pork “burgers”.

So that’s it. The second trip cost of $1.20 out of pocket. And we’ll get a minimum of 7 meals out of it.

Why am I writing about this. First to brag. Second to say, if you put just a bit of planning into meals and the food you buy you can save money. This was a case in the extreme. But, it was sure a lot of fun going through the checkout line and seeing the look on the cashier’s face.

Well, maybe that’s because, when she said $1.20 I said something like, “What? That’s not right, it should be less than that.” Leave it to a Cheap Bastid to not be satisfied with 98% off! But I apologized for not seeing the “computer” take the discounts. Hey, I’m not Scrooge, I’m Cheap Bastid!