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318 of 325 found the following review helpful:
 Worth the buy, but still a little disappointing. Jun 20, 2010
By MagnoliaSouth
"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. -- Shakespeare"
I bought this after reading all the glowing reviews, and while perhaps they are somewhat warranted, I was still a bit disappointed. The not-so-glowing reviews failed to address WHY they felt disappointed so I'll do so here.
First off before I get to it, understand that it IS a good book and is worth the buy because you will find some ideas to shave a few dollars off of your grocery bill. Just know that the average family will very likely never get the cost down to the promised $75 a week. Some can, most probably cannot and here is why:
* She tells you that she saves on produce because she has a vegetable garden and an orchard (pg 46, 47). If you have a house and a lot of time this is great, but nothing none of us have not thought of before. If you live in an apartment without a community garden, then you're sunk altogether. She is careful to not say that you SHOULD do this, but this IS part of the $75/wk plan.
* Along that same notion, she cans her items too. If I had a garden, I would probably can also. However she did say that you could stock up on in-season items and can those. Just remember to do the math yourself because you may find that the "sale price" coupled with the cost of jars, etc. is no cheaper than buying a can. You really only save well here if you have a garden.
* She frequently talks about freezing food and mentions a deep freezer often enough to make you feel that this isn't going to work for you. Granted, she DOES offer tips on freezing for those with space limitations, but to get the full benefit that she describes, a deep freeze is essential. The first example off the top of my head is sales on milk. You can't buy several gallons with only a standard-sized freezer and still keep food in there. That's just one example, another is buying ground beef on sale, she buys 30 pounds of it and there is no way that will fit in a standard-sized freezer.
* She promises you that you don't have to be a slave in the kitchen by not taking shortcuts (not using canned soups, etc.), but remember that all of that does add time. I'm not one to complain because I prefer to do mine the old way anyway, it's just that she has a lot of kids who can help her. We don't! I cannot assign one child to chop onions, one to separate, peel and mince garlic and so forth. In fact, with teens most of mine aren't even home until after dinner is done. Having multiple kids does reap benefits, having only a few can be a hindrance.
* She pretty much feeds her family 3 oz servings of meat (pg 24), or less, per meal. While this is definitely the healthy way, it is also less practical for some. This would mean an average 2-lb (precooked) meat loaf - as mentioned below - would feed 10 to 12 people in her house, but it would NOT in my house. Just keep that in mind as a tip.
* A lot of her tips are good, but nothing I've not thought of before. Are we really in an age where we don't think about how to save money? Do we have to rely on books to tell us what is common sense? That sounds terribly cynical, I know, but it appears to be true. Granted, there ARE some good tips in there of things I've not yet thought of, but those are fewer than the number that I already did know.
* She recommends going to 4 or 5 different stores to shop for sale prices. Again, most of us have probably thought about this but it is entirely unrealistic for working moms. SAHMs could do this, but not working moms.
So now that I've complained enough, let me tell you what I do love about it to prove why I said it was worth the buy. There are some great tips, tricks and recipes. Some examples are:
* If for no other reason, the recipes are fantastic (so far). Granted, I've not tried them all but her meatloaf (as just one example) is just amazing. It tastes just like my Mother's recipe that I've (for whatever odd reason) never been able to duplicate. I swear she was leaving something out! ;)
* None of the recipes call for cream of *insert type here* soup. They're all adapted to do it yourself without you even realizing it. That alone was mentioned in a review (over on a money saving blog I frequent), which made me buy the book. I am in the process of replacing all my recipes with this very thing. Excellent notion.
* She has an innovative idea for making oatmeal; use a rice cooker, if you have one of course. It inspired me to Google "rice cooker recipes" and to my surprise, there is a whole world of those out there. Very cool!
* She lays out her shopping rules and the max she will spend on certain items. I love this idea and I myself have never done that. I've always bought when on sale, but I never had a rule that I will NOT buy something unless it is less than X number of dollars.
* She does offer tips on everything from baby food to even toilet paper. Just remember that a lot of this is probably stuff you've heard before. Not all of course, but most. Still, if you learn only a few things, then it's worth the cost of the book.
She does have some excellent advice. I just feel the need to once again stress that you have to understand you will very likely not feed your family for $75 a week as promised on the cover. You'll cut costs, surely, but not get it that low unless you start/use a garden, a deep freeze and can your own food.
248 of 254 found the following review helpful:
 A Great Resource and Tool Aug 23, 2009
By Mary C. Wagner
"Mary Eady"
I was all set last night to sit down and write my thorough praises of Mary Ostyn's new book, Family Feasts for $75 a Week, when my husband blithely reviewed the book better than I could have in pages with one sentence:
As I sat cackling over the money I've saved since reading a pre-publication copy of this book a month ago I said to Ryan, "I can't believe how much money we've saved this month! I've cut our budget by 50% and I think I could easily go lower if we needed to." To which he replied, "That's insane, because we have been eating really well recently, too!" High praise coming from a man whose own mother (an amazing cook) dubbed him The Food Diva several years back when he commented on the amount of carrots she'd used in a favorite dish of his when we were home visiting for Christmas.
In case you aren't already heading out to order a copy of the book based just on that, let me elaborate just a little. Because if you're anything like me you might be thinking, "Come on, seriously. Do we really need another book on how to save money on groceries and inexpensive recipes to feed our families? How many tater-tot casseroles with cheese whiz and Ritz cracker toppings can a girl try?"
If that's you, I'm with yah sister. But let me just mention a couple of things.
1. Delicious Recipes Suited to Any Skill Level: While Mary DOES mention tater tots once in her book it is only to tell you how much better homemade fries are. Not only that, but she upgrades the oven fries with her own homemade Ethiopian seasoning mix (and provides several other easy suggestions for seasonings if a mouth on fire is not your particular version of tasty). And all joking about those spuds aside, her recipes are seriously good, seriously easy and seriously cost effective.
In particular I must recommend her Thai chicken curry dish for which you can make your own curry paste and even your own coconut milk if you don't have a can on hand but do have some shaved coconut in the freezer. Another favorite already is her suggested recipe for making your own granola cereal. (As I stood at the counter breaking up my first batch, chest swelled with pride, my husband gave me a smooch and seriously appreciative squeeze and raved about how amazing it was that I could make something like that all on my own. Sorry, Mary, I took that compliment for my own and didn't re-mention the fact that I'd learned it from the book.)
2. Flexible Ideas on Cost Cutting that Allow You to Create Your Own Plan: One of the frustrating things about many books like these is that, in order for the system to work, you have to change a million things all at once and after about two weeks (for the very strong and enduring, perhaps three), the whole thing goes out the window because it's just too hard to maintain so much change all at once. Mary, however, is very clear about her desire for readers not to make this mistake. Instead you're given four areas in which you can assess your strengths and weaknesses and then a ton of ideas to choose from in each of those areas to begin the process. This book's plan is laid out like an a la carte menu of great ideas that you can tailor fit to your needs and your money-saving goals.
I hate to admit it but I'm the queen of starting strong, getting over my head, and fizzling out completely on things. This is something I dislike about myself and have been working hard to overcome. But ladies, this process has been seriously painless so far and the benefits have far outweighed the effort. Oh and another thing? You don't have to use coupons! (But you can if you need to do penance or something.)
3. An Easy and Interesting Read that Gets Right Down to the Issues and Lets You Start Saving Almost Immediately: I got this book on a Sunday. Inspired, I refused to go to the grocery store until Wednesday because I could see in my own kitchen several different great meals I could already make with things I had in the house. During that time I was able to use small portions of my time each day to figure out what changes I could make, lay out my plan, and embark. Holding on to just a few of the ideas I'd found in the book I set out my first week and was delighted with every grocery receipt I collected because I knew I was making wiser decisions already.
I am torn between a desire to be completely honest about improvements to our grocery budget because it's so amazing and wanting to hide from shame about how easily I have saved so much in my first month of using Family Feasts for $75 a Week. I have literally saved several hundred dollars this month. I thought at first that I was unique in how much waste was happening in our home but a few conversations with friends let me know that I am certainly not alone. Some of my joking, if I'm honest, is to distract from the fact that it was painful to realize just how much room for improvement there was. I found myself in tears at one point as I worked through my new budgeting plan and list of easy changes - it was a mixture of regret over the waste I could now see over the last 5 years of my marriage and relief to have found in Mary's advice a workable, helpful and thorough means by which to improve so drastically.
In Titus 2, Paul admonishes older women to come alongside younger women and, among many other important things, train them in the ways of their home. Mary has shared the resulting wisdom of years of experience, trial, error and success in this new book and it's a fantastic boon to those of us who still have a lot of learning to do. In future I plan on giving this book for wedding shower presents so that my friends can start out ahead of the game in feeding their families well on a frugal but flexible budget.
I could not recommend Family Feasts for $75 a Week more highly.
74 of 74 found the following review helpful:
I Never Would've Guessed I'd Read a Cookbook to Relax! Sep 01, 2009
By M. Carroll
I can't even describe how much I like this book!! I had heard about it, but had no plans to buy it. Then, about ten days ago, I was in Barnes and Noble and the cover caught my eye. I grabbed it and bought it... a total impulse buy (yes, ironic that I impulse-bought a book on frugality! :)). This is definitely one of the best impulse buys I've ever made!
I read - quickly and easily - through the chapters on grocery shopping and then started reading through some of Mary's recipes. The thing I LOVE about them? They all use such spectacularly ordinary ingredients and they're delicious! The first one I tried was her recipe for granola. I'd never actually made my own granola, always turned off by the cost and specialty of the ingredients used (wheat germ is not a staple in our house, e.g.)... The granola recipe in this book turned out great and I used only things that I already had on hand (AND I didn't have to make any substitutions).
Shortly thereafter, I made the eggy breakfast muffins, as I was in search of a substantial, quick breakfast that wasn't loaded with carbs. Not only are these relatively inexpensive (they cost less than a pre-fab equivalent and are better for you), they are ... wow! flavorful and satisfying!! If you cut the bacon out of them for a vegetarian version, they'd be even cheaper and probably (almost) as good. :)
Skimming over some of the other recipes, I saw one for blueberry muffins. I almost skipped right past it, since I'm always hesitant to use fresh blueberries (even if they taste delicious), because - in my experience - they're so expensive and spoil so quickly if you don't use them right when they're ripe. To my delight, I realized that her recipe called for blueberry YOGURT! What a genius idea! She adds that if you want more blueberry to the bite, you can add frozen blueberries.
Yes, I dearly love this cookbook. It goes in my top ten best purchases ever. :)
39 of 40 found the following review helpful:
This book will change your life! Sep 03, 2009
By Beth aka Green Thumb Mama
"http://greenthumbmama.blogspot.com"
My first step in learning to be more frugal with our grocery spending was learning to bake more from scratch, have a garden, and preserve the produce. My second step was getting Mary's newest book "Family Feasts for $75 a Week".
It's not just a recipe book, although there are lots of yummy recipes. It's a guide to shopping and living more frugally. In this book, Mary goes into great detail how she shops, how she keeps track of prices, and how she meal plans. She includes hints and tips to keep costs down from eliminating or cutting down on convenience foods, to trying new things from scratch. I have to say, I thought I was doing ok in this department, but now that I've been applying her techniques for meal planning, looking for deals, keeping track of prices in a price book and just generally taking the time to shop around, our food budget has changed dramatically.
Using Mary's Two Times Five meal planner (pg 64) to plan meals for 2 weeks, armed with sale pages, the new knowledge I gained from her on what good prices for meat and other groceries are and how to check prices per unit, I headed out to 2 grocery stores yesterday with my kids. I took her approach to having my kids in the store with me - making them seek out the best deals right along with me. I taught my kids how to look at the price tags for price per unit and it became a treasure hunt for who could find the best deals on what we sought to buy! I had my calculator with me and we recorded every food item. I was on a budget; determined to stay within it!
At one store, as per their sale flyer, I got lean ground beef for $1.68 a pound! I bought enough for the next month. They were also selling chicken thighs and legs for $.79 a pound and I bought one of each for the crockpot for chicken tacos. I should be able to get 2 meals from those chicken packages. I also found cheddar cheese for $4.99 for 2 pounds. They also had a coupon for the sandwich meats we like, buy one get one free. At that store, I bought chicken, cheese, ground beef, onions ($.49/lb)and sandwich meat for the month for a total of $47.63.
At the next store, we bought all the rest of our groceries. We stayed closely to our list. We bought 2 items not on the list because I had forgotten to write them down. There were sales all over the place and we got 2 weeks worth of groceries for breakfast, lunches and dinners for $99.89!
Total for 2 weeks? $147.52. The only thing one of the stores was out of was the breakfast sausage we like. So I'll have to make a trip to get that later this week. Considering the fact that I bought enough meat to last the month, I think I'm way under budget for the month even! There is NO WAY I could have done this without help. We did not have to cut out anything we needed! The fact that we were practically under budget was a miracle.
Struggling to be frugal? Don't have the first clue how to shop for deals? Clueless about how to organize and store the food you buy? Needing some new, low cost meal ideas? Here's my advice:
1. Get Mary's book. It will change your life.
2. Put forth the effort to meal plan and stick to it.
3. Set a goal and attempt to meet it.
4. Take her $75 a week challenge!!
I guarantee, you will not be sorry!
16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
Like it, but found errors Jul 21, 2010
By Melissa Hoffman
I did not expect this to be primarily a recipe book. The recipes are fine, it's just not what I expected. It did have some tips I am starting to use and like to save money. I have tried a few recipes, and I have liked most of them. The problem is I've run into a few errors in the recipes. Some of the instructions call for a 8x8 casserole, which must be a mistake b/c it doesn't fit. Some of the servings seem off. And the Orange Chicken recipe in the book LEAVES OUT THE ORANGE JUICE CONCENTRATE. The very ingredient that makes it Orange Chicken. The correct recipe is on her blog, but it's mistakes like these that really turn me off. I still like it and would buy it again, but just know 1) it's primarily recipes. 2) The author saves a lot of money buy growing produce in a very large home garden and canning, and yet this is hardly mentioned in the book (well, there are canning instructions, no gardening tips). 3) I have seen mistakes in the recipes.
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