About Me

Hi there! I’m Penny. I’d like to share a little bit about myself and this site.

I came to a point in my life where I had to decide between keeping a roof over our head or putting food on the table. In that moment a story from a children’s book pointed me in a new direction, helped me feed my family and ultimately led me to making changes that got me out of debt.

I know that every “about me” page tells the story of that persons great achievements…. how they made tons of money, how they lost weight or how they reached some great goal. I don’t have an amazing story like that to tell. This story is about something more basic and yet just as equally important as all those other amazing achievements. It’s the story about feeding my family night after night even when there was no money to buy food.

There were many times throughout my life when I didn’t give grocery shopping a second thought. I cooked what I wanted and, when I didn’t want to cook, I bought take out food.

I liked cooking and enjoyed finding new recipes to try. More often than not those new recipes needed ingredients that I didn’t keep on hand. Which would often turn into a quick trip to the grocery store that ended in buying more than just that one item. A bag or two of groceries later and I had the one ingredient I needed plus a bunch of unplanned items. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience at some point.

When I got married this style of meal planning and grocery shopping continued. I tried to plan meals but having kids and working night shift often left me tired and worn out during the day.

On good days I cooked our meals and stuck to the plan. On days when I only managed to get in 3 or 4 hours of sleep I would make store bought meals like rotisserie chicken, take out pizzas, fast food or whatever could be quickly made.

As the years went by things between me and my husband changed.

My husband’s weekend drinking that took place while he watched sporting events turned into a daily drinking. He offered many reasons…. he needed to relax, his job was stressful and so on. But it was much more than. He struggled daily with a drinking addiction.

While he battled addiction he would go on spending sprees and credit card debit would pile up. During his better times I would manage to pay down the debt and paid off $20,000 worth of credit card debit not once but twice.

I came to a point in my life when I could no longer face the daily fights that were turning from emotional and verbal battles into something more. I filed for divorce. This required me to once more put myself into credit card debt, this time my own doing, to pay the lawyer thousands of dollars for the multiple trips to court that would be needed for the divorce to be finalized.

Along with the credit card debit, when my husband left, he cleared out the bank account taking the current mortgage payment as well as the money for several other bills with him. I started out behind on every bill as well as growing credit card debt.

I was left struggling to pay the mortgage, keep the lights on, the house heated and food on the table. While child support was ordered it was only $125 a week, which barely covered groceries, and that’s when it was paid.

I tried to pay bills as best I could and the amount of debt I owed slowly grew.

Before the divorce I had started taking college classes in hopes of becoming a registered dietitian. I had been slowly taking courses for a few years, paying for classes as I took them, and had finally been accepted into the internship program when my divorce began.

While the registered dietitian program gave me insight on eating to benefit medical conditions I also got to see the misconceptions that many of the other students had about “healthy eating”. Students would often complain that eating “healthy” was so easy and they didn’t understand why these people (meaning people who might not have had as much money as they did) weren’t able to do so.

I saw that many of these other students were single, in their early 20’s, had no kids and lived at home or at school. Their pay check didn’t need to cover a mortgage, real estate taxes, medical insurance, medical bills, clothes for growing kids and food to feed a family of 4. They brought in coffee from Starbucks and talked about their latest shopping trip to WholeFoods where they bought “healthy” organic foods and grass fed meat.

My food budget was next to nothing and I certainly couldn’t afford take out, fancy coffee or food shopping at WholeFood. Actually, I couldn’t afford food shopping at all.

As students we learned about food pantries and how to make referrals for patients who struggled to buy food. We were taught about some low cost meal items to suggest such as using beans in place of meat in a dish. Unlike the other students I was getting first hand knowledge on this as I was visiting local food pantries to help feed my family.

Each pantry is different and they limit how often you can visit. You are also limited by the number of pantries in your area as each one serves different towns. We had several that served my small town. I was able to visit one pantry every two months and another every 3 months.

What you get varies from visit to visit. After each visit to the food pantry I would look over the food and try to plan meals. Sometimes I would be able to make some meals using recipes that we had enjoyed in past. Other times I was left with odds and ends and struggled to figure out how to use them.

During one particularly tough week, I didn’t have much food and it was still days away from payday. My youngest daughter had been reading the story Stone Soup. The different story characters each contributed a small amount of different ingredients to the soup pot to make a delicious soup. While the story was written to teach kids about sharing it provided an idea on how to approach meals during this tough time.

I pulled all the leftovers out of the refrigerator to see what I had to work with. There were small amounts of leftover vegetables (corn and string beans), enough mashed potatoes for one person, a chicken leg, part of a slice of meatloaf and a bit of taco meat. I had onions and a few sad stalks of celery. In the kitchen cabinet there were diced tomatoes, a few cans of vegetables and chickpeas. I had a package of spaghetti, elbow shaped pasta and rice plus all the condiments and seasonings I could want.

Sticking with the flavors in the taco meat seemed the best way to pull this off. While not my typical taco soup I went to work. Onions and sad celery were sauteed until soft. The meat was pulled off the chicken leg and diced. Same with what was left of the meatloaf. Like the characters in the Stone Soup story each little bit was contributed to the pot….diced chicken, meatloaf, taco meat, bits of corn and string beans, a can of diced tomatoes, an extra can of corn. I pureed up the chickpeas until it was paste and stirred it into the soup. Hopefully the kids would never know it was there. The mashed potatoes went in too. Next was chicken bullion and the seasonings (salt, cumin and chili powder). I finished it off with rice.

As the rice cooked the soup become more stew like than soup but that was ok. The large soup pot was filled to the top. We had supper that night, I ate it for lunch the next day and then we stretched it out to a second supper.

We ended up having many nights of stone soup, mystery casserole and tacos made with an assortment of ingredients not typically seen in tacos. Each meal was created with bits of this and that. Much like the story of Stone Soup meals were made with no special recipe.

I learned a variety of skills along the way that allowed me to cook tasty low cost meals. It helped to save us money by using what we had and not wasting food. I also learned more about meal planning and frugal grocery shopping.

Even after I graduated I continued using many of these skills to help control what we spent on food.

Many household expenses have little to no wiggle room. Rent/mortgage stays the same, car insurance isn’t very flexible and you have no control over the cost of gas/electric except to use less. I found that the food budget was one of the few places that I could control what I spent. By carefully meal planning I was able to pay regular household bills as well as pay down my debt. In the end, after several years, I had paid off more than $12,000 in credit card debt.

This website was originally created as part of a school project. When school ended I continued to share easy to make recipes, tips and techniques for meal planning as well as providing ways to stick to your budget and save money. I also wanted to show that delicious tasting food doesn’t have to cost a fortune and doesn’t require organic or grass fed ingredients. I love to includes lots of ingredient swaps that you can use to make each recipe so you can use what you have on hand.

I know times are tough and more people than ever are struggling to feed their families.

I know the stress that puts you under. I’ve been there before myself.

My goal is to help you save time, money and even a little bit of your sanity when it comes to meals. “Healthy” food doesn’t require you to purchase special ingredients from certain stores. Even if you need the help of a food pantry you can still make delicious food that you will be happy to serve your family.

I have lots of meal planning information and ultimately gathered it all together to create a course to build on these ideas called Mastering Meal Planning and Meal Prep. But, I also post new recipes, tips and information on current grocery sales cycles so you can stay within your budget.

If you would like to get updated as new recipes and tips as they are added to the site I would greatly appreciate it if you signed up for my free newsletter. I usually send it out twice a week.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story.

If you are struggling to put food on the table let me be the first to tell you there is no shame in reaching out and accepting help. Here are some resources that can help you. Please reach out to them for assistance today. It’s a great relief when you don’t have to struggle to feed your family.

FoodPantries.org

Feeding American (food banks)

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. You might be eligible for SNAP benefits to help feed your family. It’s worth reaching out to see if you qualify.

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides supplemental food as well as nutrition information for breast feeding women and their children (infant to age 5).

If you or a family member struggle with substance abuse problems there is help. Sadly, my ex husband passed away from the long term damage that alcohol inflicted on his body. Reach out for help today:

Alcoholics Anonymous

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration national helpline 1-800-662-4357

If you are dealing with domestic violence please give the National Domestic Violence Hotline a call at 800-799-7233.

In May of 2015 I graduated with a degree in nutrition, finished my internship and passed my boards to become a registered dietitian. I have been featured in the press discussing various aspects of diets and healthy eating:

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