Cooking up Big Savings: Money-Saving Strategies and American Home Cooking

By Mike Maynes

Certified Financial Planner practitioner Mike Maynes will show you how to accomplish money-saving techniques in all phases of the shopping and cooking process. Because eating will always be a necessity to satisfy a basic human survival instinct, drastically cutting back on daily food consumption to save money is not a viable long-term solution. Research over time indicates that there is a strong correlation between regular meals and survival. Insteadof hemorrhaging a paycheck to overpriced restaurants who serve average quality food, to save money, stay home and cook. By doing so, youll save significant amounts of money, eat higher quality food, and strengthen your relationships with family and friends. Celebrity cookbooks often become dust collectors due to exotic ingredients coupled with intimidating cooking techniques. You can save big money with specific strategies and superb ingredients. In addition, practical basic financial planning exercises are included to strengthen your overall financial position.

Cooking up Big Savings will illustrate how to accomplish the following goals:

Create weekly menus for your family
Save money at the grocery store every week
Stretch the money you spend on food to unprecedented lengths
Allocate saved cash to fund common financial goals
Increase your financial IQ
Increase your cooking IQ

In the midst of challenging economic conditions, take advantage of these timely and timeless concepts. Cook yourself right into financial freedom. www.cookingupbigsavings.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440187315

Mike Maynes

Born and raised on Long Island, New York, today he lives and works in Boca Raton, Florida with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs. Due to the rare combination of an Italian wife, who does not cook, Mike has handled the culinary responsibilities in their household for more than a decade. He has refined the art of saving money throughout all aspects of the grocery shopping and cooking process. A Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner, Mike helps his clients achieve their financial objectives through a long-term relationship based on personalized, knowledgeable advice. His goal is to empower clients with a solid, actionable financial plan to allow them to enjoy an active and successful retirement. He puts his knowledge to work by developing strategies, which are all aimed at maintaining your financial independence and lifestyle. A life-long seeker, Mike is very involved with various personal quests and sharing his knowledge with others. He has trained and certified over 1,000 recreational SCUBA divers and instructors. He has spent the last three decades gathering, learning, and using tools to aid himself and others in claiming the glorious lives and experiences we all deserve. www.cookingupbigsavings.com

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Mike Maynes, CFP®

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8729-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8732-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-8731-5 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009911484

iUniverse rev. date: 01/27/10

Contents

Dedications

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1

Dollar-Stretching

2

Brilliant Basics: Food & Cooking

3

Calculating Breakfast

4

A Cash Reserve of Sandwiches

5

Appetizers, Soups & Platters

6

Salad Protection

7

Meaty Investments

8

Risky Seafood

9

Pastas

10

Sides

11

Death & Dessert

12

Dinner for Two & The Complete BBQ

Holiday Menus

Dedications

To the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. I want to dedicate this book to all who have served our great country in the most honorable and noble fashion. Without you, our freedom and liberties would be in great jeopardy. I hold all of you in the highest respect and on behalf of my readers, thank you for your hard work, dedication and service to our country.

To the American taxpayer: I want to dedicate this book to the American taxpayer, who faces unprecedented challenges with price tags due to their enormity, can hardly be conceptualized. We will need to save every dollar possible in order to maintain our lifestyles and provide for our families. However, regardless of ideology, one way or another, American taxpayers will unite and overcome our obstacles and continue to lead the global community.

Sincerely,

Mike

Acknowledgments

When I became a father for the first time, an instantaneous wave of family responsibility consumed me. I begin with my beautiful wife Dawn. She is small, yet powerful. Somehow she’s able to squeeze the heart of an elephant into her five foot frame. A gifted therapist, her contribution to human kind is helping others. No one does it better than she. She may be one of the few Italian women who do not cook. I thank her for providing me with the opportunity to cook for the family, which ultimately created the tasty fusion of money-saving strategies and American home cooking.

My angelic daughters Samantha and Zoe are the quintessential example of daddy’s girls. There are some things in life that are hard to describe with words, although accomplished writers may disagree. Feeling, experiencing, and living the father-daughter bond is one of them. I take that bond extremely seriously and strive to set the new modern benchmark for a father’s expectations with his daughters. My proximity to them directly influences my quality of life. The closer I am, the higher the quality. They bring out my very best qualities and in general, one should surround themselves with beings which do that.

My dad’s main advice was straight forward and to the point. He stated, You work hard and you eat hard. It was simple, actionable, and effective. On behalf of my father, my mother would say, We never worry about you. Regardless of what you want to do, we will never have to worry. It provided me with the confidence to succeed at any of my endeavors. To this day, when people place their confidence in me for any task, it draws out my highest attributes.

In the mid 1990s television cooking shows began to rapidly soak up airtime. The shows were varied in format and certainly subjective to a viewer’s taste (pun intended). Most were informative and entertaining. At first I became excited to experience new food concepts purely from a consumer’s point of view. Soon the excitement shifted to inspiration and I started cooking. Emeril Lagasse was an early favorite, but my philosophical and logical beliefs were strongly connected to Mario Batali, and subsequently Giada De Laurentiis. They and their cohorts have been catalysts for a worldwide food revolution in which I eagerly participate.

I acknowledge and pay my respects to all of the people I have encountered throughout the course of my life as far back as I can remember. Although I am choosing to lump all of you into a giant category, each of you have provided me with bits of data that have added to my brainpower and shaped the man I am today. Some were good and some bad. Nevertheless, I have learned from all of you, which has allowed me to share my knowledge to help the people I encounter achieve the glorious lives we all deserve.

Finally, those who donated to the cause: Dawn, Mom, Dad, Michelle G, Keith G, Mike Beck, Kristen K, Samantha B, The Governor, Helen Can, Carl G, Cindy M, Edrianna S, Elinor R, Dawn R, Richard R, Susan R, Lee Viv, Violet N-L, Richard H, Avi F, Kathy E, and Grandma Rose.

*

Introduction

Due to the fact that you need to eat to satisfy a basic human survival instinct, you will quickly find that drastically cutting back your food consumption to save money is not a viable long term solution. Time-tested research indicates that there is a strong correlation between regular feedings and survival. Instead of hemorrhaging your wages to the over-priced restaurants who serve average quality food, stay home and cook. Everything you cook at home costs less money than dining out. In addition to saving significant amounts of money, you will eat higher quality food, and strengthen your bonds with family and friends. This book will show you how to accomplish the following goals:

• Create weekly menus for your family

• Save money at the grocery store every week

• Stretch the money you spend on food to unprecedented lengths

• Allocate saved cash to fund common financial goals

• Increase your financial IQ

• Increase your cooking IQ

In the midst of challenging economic times, these concepts are both timely and timeless. Reality dictates that you have limited control of global economic issues, but you can shift your focus to one of life’s expenses that you can control, and cook yourself right into financial freedom. Cooking up Big Savings delivers the tasty fusion of money saving techniques and American home cooking. It provides you with comprehensive actionable steps, which lead to instant and dramatic financial savings by cooking popular restaurant selections at home.

The concept of dining at home vs. dining out in order to save money is not revolutionary. By instinct, it is one of the first things people do when they are challenged financially. As a Certified Financial Planner™ for over a decade, I have witnessed clients purchase fewer toys, drive less, rent movies, and cook at home more often during times of financial crisis. They buckle down and adjust their spending to ride out times of financial difficulty.

Like many people, I enjoy dinning out from time to time. Ironically dinning out frequently in a business capacity has made me want to dine out less, because it increased my knowledge of ingredients, which inspired many of my recipes. I often found the restaurants were very close to serving a great recipe, but somehow missed the mark. I realized I could determine the essence of a recipe, pair the proper ingredients and create a cost-effective version, without sacrificing taste.

Cooking up Big Savings is designed to take the task of home cooking and provide you with strategies to integrate a variety of money-saving tips and cooking techniques designed to stretch your food dollar further than ever imagined. Unlike stories in the news which show the rare individual paying nearly zero dollars for a full cart or groceries, the concepts and strategies in this book are universally applicable to all shoppers. All facets of your eating and dining habits will be operating at maximum efficiency. Tangible grocery bill savings of 10% to 25% per week is easily attainable with a minor contribution of effort. One trip to the grocery store will result in an immediate return on your investment in Cooking up Big Savings.

The menu of recipes is intended to help you discover the phenomenal results you can accomplish with superb ingredients paired with clear instructions. Many recipes are derived from the culinary heritage of The United States, which developed dramatically in the late 1800s and early 1900s with the massive influx of immigrants and their diverse backgrounds. The immigrant contributions gave birth to an endless variety of ethnic choices. Many have blended into good old American continental cuisine, which is predominantly laced with Italian, Asian, and Hispanic influences. However, in recent years the culinary trend has evolved into celebrity chefs assaulting us with exotic ingredients, wild concoctions, and bizarre food pairings.

Despite owning a few celebrity cookbooks, I rarely make any of their recipes. Often, the recipes have strange names that just are difficult to pronounce. Many have difficult to find ingredients and specialty cookware/serveware, which are coupled with intimidating cooking techniques. I find myself annoyed when recipes are promoted with a bouquet of condescension and the ingredients list is longer than the number of zeros on our national debt.

The trend has pushed us away from actionable cooking or made us spend additional money and time searching for and purchasing unusual ingredients. These unusual ingredients can frequently produce a big grocery bill and poor results in the kitchen. Furthermore, the trend has pushed us far away from the fundamental basics of our immigrant inspired culinary heritage.

A giant white French chef’s hat or granite countertops are not required to make sublime recipes. Superb ingredients, quality cookware, and simple cooking techniques will yield mouth-watering delights, which will stand up to the harshest family critic.

My cooking skills were born as a teenager, who was forced to take Home Economics classes with Mrs. Albano. At the time, I acted cool and as if I didn’t care about cooking or baking. However, I secretly replicated the recipes at home with my mother’s guidance. Driven by a hunger that appeared every few hours, I continued to learn by watching others work in the kitchen during the remainder of my teenage years.

At age 15, I secured my first job at a local Italian restaurant, mainly to earn money to spend on my dating habit. My busboy duties gave me early experience in a professional restaurant and kitchen environment. Countless hours spent with the chefs and cooks provided me terrific insight and laid the foundation of my culinary skill set.

In 1990, I started to date an Italian woman, whose father owned a delicatessen. In addition to her natural beauty and giant heart, I was seduced by an endless array of sandwiches, meats, cheeses, and Italian entrées. Eight years later we were married and it occurred to me that some Italian women just don’t cook.

I eagerly accepted the cooking responsibility and took the control. Lucky for me, the Food Network was part of the local cable television lineup. I soaked up information like a dry noodle to the point I was watching re-runs of cooking shows. I knew I hit bottom and realized I was a foodie.

Thousands of meals and a decade later, I find myself driven to share my knowledge to help people improve their lives in two areas: Save money to achieve financial goals and cook terrific American food with maximum flavor.

In order to accomplish the goals of saving money and maximizing flavor, all strategies, ingredients, cookware, and serving dishes discussed in this book can be implemented and found at most standard American grocery stores. Practicality and availability are fundamental values that I bring to this book and are part of my overall cooking philosophy.

Each recipe includes comprehensive Ingredients and a Cookware/Serveware list. My diversified portfolio of delectable delights includes: breakfast, sandwiches, appetizers, salads, meat, seafood, pastas, desserts, and your favorite side dishes. The recipes range from ultra-cheap favorites to decadent restaurant selections. Easy to use Holiday Menu Guides and a Complete Barbeque Guide are also included.

In addition to an ingredients and cookware list, you will find my Prep* Cook *Serve* Store action plan for each recipe. Follow my action plan directions and you will achieve tremendous results each and every time.

Consider this a user-friendly book that is meant to be brought to the grocery store, opened on the kitchen counter, and read on the airplane. Cooking up Big Savings welcomes spills, stains, and wounds that are the direct result of implementing its very own strategies. This is not a celebrity cookbook, a.k.a. Glorified Dust Collector (GDC), which rests in peace on your coffee table or is buried in your bookcase.

You will discover integrated basic financial planning topics that are simple and actionable. These topics will teach and show you how to plan and document your savings. They will also provide you with big picture snapshots of key areas, which include: Net Worth, Cash Flow, Cash Reserve, Insurance, Investments, Risk, and Estate Planning. Although not designed to replace your relationship with a financial professional, the book will encourage you to inventory and address key areas as they pertain to your household. Exercises and worksheets are sprinkled throughout the various chapters, corresponding with recipe counterparts that I have designated as logical duos.

I hope you have a wonderful time reading Cooking up Big Savings and save loads of cash, while cooking fantastic food!

*

1

Dollar-Stretching

I rely on the rule of the "6 Ps" when implementing a plan: Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. It’s a simple rule that when followed, can set an individual up in the best position possible for goal achievement.

Regardless of your goal to conduct successful brain surgery or to save hard-earned bucks when shopping and cooking, a well thought out plan of action and solid execution will increase the likelihood of your desired outcome.

Chapter one is designed to create a common language between us and build a foundation of knowledge and skills in order to save money during all phases of the shopping and cooking process. Many of the techniques used to save your cash have front-loaded effort. The strategies and basic tasks are easy to comprehend and quick to reward your wallet.

Read the Week One Goals table to begin your dollar stretching implementation plan. Follow the bullet points and experience an immediate return on your investment in Cooking up Big Savings.

Weekly Menu Exercise

Planning a weekly menu is a terrific exercise that allows you to save valuable dollars and reap the benefits of saving time and eliminating guesswork. Most people spend too much time and effort figuring out what to eat next, often settling on more expensive and allegedly convenient options. Here are your main focus areas when planning a weekly menu:

• Current season

• Temperature and heat

• Ingredient stretching

• Leftovers

Current Season

The current season will help you determine ingredients that are available and in abundance. When you buy food in season the grocery store will likely have a surplus of product and will reduce prices and provide