Free Food?! UMF MEAL PLAN SCHOLARSHIP!!

MAURER MEALS / UMF DINING SERVICES
MEAL PLAN SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY GUIDELINES

In 2005, Justin Maurer, a 2004 high honors graduate of the UMF Community Health
Program, died in a motorcycle accident. His parents and friends established a scholarship
in his memory for a third or fourth year Community Health major. The Maurer Meals
Project was formed: “To raise money for the Justin A. Maurer Memorial Scholarship at
UMF while raising awareness of activities necessary to improve local community health
nutritionally, economically, environmentally and spiritually.” The main focus of the
project has been Maurer Meals, occurring annually the weekend following Columbus
Day weekend. More about Justin, Maurer Meals, the Memorial Scholarship and the
Project goals can be found at Maurer Meals.com.

UMF Dining Services has been involved in both buying local and sustainable activities
for a long time. UMF Dining Services has very generously offered The Maurer Meals
Project two fifty meal plan scholarships each year to be used in a way that will 1) benefit
deserving UMF commuter students and, 2) further the goals of improving community
health through increasing awareness of the benefits of using locally produced and
sustainably produced foods.

The Project Steering Committee has decided to award these food plan scholarships in the
following manner:
1) A UMF commuter student will submit a 500 – 1,000 word essay addressing the
following:
A) Locally produced and sustainably produced foods – why it matters
B) What I have done to improve my community’s health and well being
(for purposes of this essay “community” will have a very broad meaning –
any group or groups of people with common interests).
2) Separately, but concurrently, the student will submit a paragraph or two on the
topic: “Why the meal plan scholarship will be financially meaningful to me”.

Both essays will be submitted via email to Denise Boothby by March 29, 2013
at denise.boothby@maine.edu subject heading: meals plan scholarship essays
submission.

Zero, one, or two 50 meal plan scholarships will be awarded in April, 2013 for
use ONLY during the 2013-2014 school year.

What Could You Learn from Shopping With Your Grandmother?

 

What I Learned Food Shopping With My Grandmother

  By Sasha Laferte | February 27, 2013 – 1:07 pm | Budgeting, Financial Attitudes

I would never need to buy ketchup again! That’s like $12 a year or something.

I have come to believe that all grandmothers have special powers in the kitchen—especially when it comes to stretching a dollar.

My grandmother keeps more food in her house than any person I know.  She always has 45 pounds of pasta on the stove, five-course meals available to reheat in the fridge, and a larger variety of cereals than the supermarket.

And yet, I’m pretty sure my grandparents’ food bill is less than mine (which consists of instant coffee, ramen, and Reese’s Pieces, if you were wondering).

***

My grandmother has more tricks for cooking meals on the cheap than she does varieties of cereal. I recall a past shopping trip with her and the lessons she shared with me. I should probably start taking her advice before my blood pressure skyrockets from daily ramen (aka salt in a cup).

Come Prepared

Going to the store, my grandmother always has a grocery list and a flyer full of coupons. “You have to have a list,” she said. She adds that, “If you don’t have a list or haven’t clipped coupons, most of the bigger sale items are usually advertised at the front of the store. Look through that first.”

“And you can’t have an empty stomach. You’ll end up putting all sorts of garbage and junk food and snacks in the carriage.” I note that this is probably how I ended up with six packages of mega-stuff Oreos last time I went shopping solo (at three times the filling for a limited time, I can’t help but think it was worth it).

The list my grandmother keeps usually centers on bigger sale items (which she has planned her meals around) like meat. She also carefully calculates the amount she has in coupons, so she knows exactly how much she’ll end up spending and saving at the checkout.

In-Store Strategies

Our trip took us to BJs. List in hand, we first stopped in the meat section. My grandmother rummaged through the packages to find the most recent time stamp. “If you’re paying the same amount, you might as well get the freshest cut,” she explained. “If I don’t use it all today, it will last longest in the fridge.”

After finding a pot roast cut that had been packaged minutes before we arrived, my grandmother directed us to the sample carts (BJs is notorious for setting up carts throughout the store around lunchtime). She wouldn’t be cooking until dinner, and rather than spend money on lunch out, we taste tested all the featured food products.

At check out, the cashier’s grand total was different than my grandmother’s pre-calculations. She was not afraid to ask why and realized a coupon did not ring through. The cashier immediately rectified the problem.

“You don’t have to be rude about it,” she explained. “But there is nothing wrong with wanting to understand where the mistake is.”

Saving Up At Home

After bringing our groceries back to her house, I began unloading. My grandmother explained how her grocery saving habits began. She married my grandfather at 19 and was “very poor,” she said. “I started clipping coupons and learned from there. We … pinched every penny we could.”

In the fridge, I recognized the small container filled with ketchup packets and other types of sauce from various take-out restaurants. She always asks for extra. (“If [we’re] not going to use it now,” my grandmother said, “we can use it later.”)

Also, there were Ziploc bags and Tupperware filled with leftovers.

“Most things can be cooked twice,” she said. “You can make ham or potatoes or egg into a salad with a little bit of mayo; you can bake most things into a casserole dish or even sauté them up in a pan. I never throw out food.”

***

It’s always hard to believe that the wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchen are rejuvenated leftovers, but every time I put the first bite of food to my lips, I relearn the same lesson: waste not, want not … or maybe just that grandmothers are the best. I don’t know.

Let us know how you save on food in the comments!

(Photo: xajondee)

About Sasha Laferte

Sasha Laferte is an intern with the SALT Blog and a junior at Emerson College. She is paying her loans while attending college full time. Find her on twitter @SashaLaferte.

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Advice for broke college kids

Food Budgeting

Click here to view our Food Budgeting for College Students Hand-out

Food Budget Communication

Financial Planning Communication

With budgets shrinking and the prices of some agricultural commodities rising, the effects can be felt directly….in your shopping bag. The goal of this communication is to give you an idea of how easy it is to eat off around $5 a day (although, at $5 a day it may seem like you’re camping…you still get the calories you need). To put this in perspective, students paying $1,910/semester for 19 meals a week (and $115 in points at the Snack Shack) over 15 weeks are essentially paying $128/week or $18/day. There is large potential to save money by shopping for your own food IF you know how to go about it…by the same token, though, if you don’t plan and execute shops exactly as you plan them, this exercise is valueless and you should stick with the meal plan.

There are a number of rules to live by if you want to be able to stretch your budget and eat well, they may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how much less you spend when you plan your grocery shopping ahead of time.

1. Develop your meal plan based around sale items.

Use the local paper to find coupon sections for your local grocery stores. If you don’t receive the local paper, you can go in to the store and ask for a coupon sheet and if you’re proactive, you can even read your food ad in advance on websites like A Full Cup and then buy your coupons.

 

Here is what I buy

Produce: Generally, produce will have some items that are ‘manager’s special’, those items are a goldmine and they can be found all over the store, not only in the produce isle. I always take home a 10 lb bag of potatoes because they go a long way and they’re cheap. Often, potatoes will have coupon offerings as well, making them stretch even further for your buck. 12 oz bags of frozen veggies are also a savvy shopper’s go-to (unfortunately, fresh greens are less likely to be priced so they fly off the shelf). One pot meals are a blessing and get the shopping, cooking and (most of) the cleaning out of the way for a few days in one go, with that in mind I always grab a couple of pounds of carrots and an onion and celery in case stew is on the menu.

Canned goods: You’ll rarely go wrong with canned goods: tomato sauce and salsa, two cans of soup, two cans of diced tomatoes, tomato paste and a couple cans of tuna (chunk light is the cheapest).

Protein: Protein is generally slightly more expensive, and it is also the foundation of my diet so I’ve had to learn to scoop up deals when they’re available. Usually there will be items marked as ‘best deal’ or ‘family friendly price’ or something of the sort, those items are the ones to get. I usually do all my protein shopping for two or three weeks in one go. I’ll buy 4 pounds of beef for stewing (whether I use it or not, it can always go right in the freezer) and usually a package (or two) of 20 chicken breast tenders. As soon as I get home I open the chicken tenders and put them in individual Ziploc snack bags so that I can freeze them all, and if I choose it takes about 10 minutes to completely thaw two out in a pot of warm water and they’re ready to cook. Chicken and beef are also great because there are a multitude of one pot uses for them (stews, soups) and other cheap ways to prepare them (stir fry, chicken salad, chili, etc.)

Miscellaneous: Rice, multigrain bread (whole wheat breads give you energy for longer, and help you feel fuller…don’t skimp and go with white bread…it’s not worth it), quinoa (a very nutritious and filling sprout),oil, sugar, cornmeal, milk, and a couple bags of your favorite snacks.

Using sale ads and coupons and a smart-shopping methodology, a grocery list like that one should cost around 50 dollars and last you around ten days.

2)  Shop with a plan

Don’t limit yourself to one option if you have several in the area; in our case we can take advantage of Tranten’s in town, Hannaford’s and Wal-Mart on route 4, and all within about 5 miles. Pay attention to store ads in the paper and see what is on sale where, if you’re going to do the shopping you might as well make an afternoon out of it and go to where the items on your list are cheapest, wherever that may be; you may find that this week you go to Tranten’s for meat and Hannaford’s for produce and Wal-Mart for your miscellaneous goods, and maybe in two weeks things change. That is the importance of planning ahead and finding where you’re going to be able to save the most money on your grocery list items.  You can find 5 pound bags of rice for around $3 or less and they come out to around 6 cents a serving!

3)  Cook with a plan

As I’ve noted, one-pot meals are a smart way to save time and money. Making your own soup stock from leftover chicken bones and pan juices is a free way to create healthier stock than you would have otherwise had to buy. Soup or stew in combination with cornbread can be a delicious and filling way to stretch your budget, if you make up an extra large batch you can freeze it in single serving portions and have them ready to go any night you wish. If you cook an ingredient and don’t use all of it (such as rice, or beans or what have you) save that ingredient in the fridge and use it to fill out another meal, later. Another way to stretch your budget is to remove meat as the primary food item on the plate, instead, mix it into a stir-fry or chili. Instead of having a chicken breast on every plate you eat, you can cook up a stir-fry with two chicken breasts and those frozen veggies and refrigerate it to last you through the week. If you pick up produce on ‘manager’s special’ (such as slightly over-ripe fruit) turn it into another dish (banana bread, applesauce) to make the most use of it.