Ways to save at grocery store and have your cake and eat it, too

This may seem bizarre to some and even repulsive to those who don't like mayonnaise on a sandwich. However, bear with me and hear me out......
With eggs and butter (even oils) so costly at the grocery store, you can still make a little cake without breaking the budget.

Mayonnaise - yes, mayonnaise.

Full-fat, real mayonnaise has eggs and it has oil. It has what you need to make a cake.

But you say, "Isn't mayonnaise expensive, too????" And yes, it can be. It can also be cheaper than eggs and butter or oil for baking. You can use high end or store brand as long as it's real mayonnaise and not "light," "fat-free," or made with "olive oil."

You can economize by purchasing it when it's on sale and also use a coupon. You can also use more economical "store brand" and get just as good results.

Example: This particular week, Mid-March 2025, at the Food Lion grocery store their 30 oz jar of real mayonnaise is $2.69 and there is a digital coupon of $.95. So if you use 1 cup of this mayonnaise your cost is $.41 for the oil and eggs in your cake! This week a single white/large store brand egg is $.47 each!

So whether you're trying to economize or simply have just run out of eggs and/or oil at home, give it a try. (NOTE: You can use mayonnaise with cake mix also with great success.)

Basic vanilla "mayonnaise cake" recipe:

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup cold water

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Sift dry ingredients together 2 or 3 times. Set it aside. Thoroughly blend together mayonnaise and sugar. Alternate adding sifted dry ingredients and water to the mayo/sugar mixture. Begin and end with flour. Blend in vanilla. 

Check out my post on Chocolate Pumpkin "Mayonnaise" Cake - click here

Help! I'm broke and need to feed my family & I don't know how to cook!

A cry for help was raised by a friend on an online forum. Here is my simple reply for frugal eating that this wife and mother could use even though she doesn't know much about cooking.

Hi Friend- Here are some things to keep in mind.

• Whenever you use Ramen noodles or any type of super saturated "sodium" loaded food, you risk your blood pressure. So once in awhile is o.k. Constant is not. Unless of course there is no money and it is the only food available (short term, hopefully).
• Anytime you cook in water, you save that water. There are nutrients in it that flavor, enrich, and help thicken your next dish. Example: cooking pasta? Drain it but save the liquid. It is good in soup. If cooking veggies, you eat the veggies, but have some of the seasoned liquid left, save it (freeze in a container that you add to). This is great in soups, too. Before you know it, you'll have a rich soup base and you can add a trifle of veggies or meat and have a bang up good soup for dinner.
• When you roast any meat, save all the drippings. These make wonderful gravies. You don't need to buy the kind in a jar, make your own and use it in Shepherd's pie.  Or you can make a nice gravy (remember you saved water you cooked veggies or pasta in- use it, too) and add a bit of hamburger to it.  Serve it over rice, pasta, or toasted bread.
• You can brown hamburger or ground turkey and use it in lots of ways. Cook up a big package and freeze it in portions for dishes and save your time browning it.
• When you make sauces for your browned, ground meat, you can use some of the water in which you cooked pasta, veggies, etc. as the liquid. This enriches it so that you have more nutrients.
• When you make your Shepherd's pie, don't worry if you don't have the exact ingredients. Make do! You can use whatever veggies you have. Instead of green bean, use pinto beans, or white beans, or whatever. Instead of mashed potatoes on top, make a "drop biscuit" and spoon it over the top.
• You can have the sauce in the Shepherd's pie a red (tomato) sauce that you make out of spaghetti sauce or tomato soup or any combination of "red" sauce stuff you happen to have on hand. The name of the game is make do and use it all up.
• Don't throw anything out unless you have allowed it to spoil. Remember that wrinkly carrots, potatoes, apples, peaches, etc. are still usable. Just don't use them if they have grown stinky or brown inside.
• I hope some of this helps. Just keep in mind, it doesn't have to be perfect. Food is edible if not too salty, and not spoiled. So go for it and enjoy learning to serve nutritious meals to your family on a tight budget.

Oh yes, I don't know if you eat grits or not. Us'ens in the South does. So what you do is cook up a pot of grits, and stir in as much good sharp cheddar cheese as possible with a bit of butter. Cook up a few apples (leave peel on, get seed portion out, and cut apple in bite size pieces) in a little (very little) water and a little sugar (and cinnamon if you like). This makes a decent supper on a winter night. Cheese grits and stewed apples. I cook my apples in a skillet with the lid on it and cook 'em down kind of low to where there isn't much liquid in the skillet. In this supper you have a grain (grits is corn), a protein - cheese, and a fruit/vegetable in the apples.

So get cooking folks. You don't need special recipes and ingredients. You just need to take what you have on hand or what you can afford to buy and put it together in a creative and simple way.

Vindication of frugality

Through the years I have received "the look" that said, "Really!" when talking about things I did around the house. Some things for example:

• Catching the water potatoes were cooked in during draining to use in soup, gravy, or for cooking other veggies in.
• Catching the water pasta was cooked in during draining to use in soups and gravy.
• Taking old towels and cutting them down into wash cloths and hemming the edges. Or making a smaller towel to use as a hand towel out of a bath towel.
• Remaking clothes to fit smaller bodies.

Now I have been vindicated! I was reading "Nature's Place," a free magazine distributed at Food Lion grocery stores. There is a mini article that I will quote below:

savings, al dente
Has a large pot of pasta water ever seemed too heavy to hoist? Don't laugh - mericans cook around a billion pounds of pasta a year, and besides muscle, we use lots of energy and water to do it.

So here's some welcome info: you can cook pasta in about half the water called for. Save energy and water (and your strength) by using three to four quarts for a pound of pasta. Gradually add it to boiling water, stir until water returns to a boil, and cook to your liking, stirring occasionally. Besides tasty noodles, you'll end up with thick pasta water you can add to sauce. Even better, use whole-wheat pasta; it's nutritious and results in flavorful water for sauces and pestos. (Selected Sources. "How Much Water Does Pasta Really Need?" by Harold McGee, New York Times. 2/25/09, "How to Cook Pasta," www.savvyvegetarian.)

Now the funny thing about this whole article is simply that I always felt that the amount of water called for in the directions to boil your pasta was too much, so I have NEVER used as much. Yes, my water was kinda thick, but that was so much better for my later uses of it.

So get cracking, folks, and save your strength using less water and save your pasta-water to use later. You'll be glad you did. You'll be being frugal - by not wasting ANYTHING - and you'll get every smidgen of good out your food products.

Rethink what you are throwing away! Save the water any veggie is cooked in. You can use it in soups, sauces, etc. You'll be glad you did.

And while you're thinking pasta, you might want to look at The National Pasta Association website.