Shrink your bills and grow your pantry

http://groceryshrink.com/store/Default.asp



It's mainly an advertisement for her ebook, but on the side it has tips you can click on.

Her story:



Many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck as they struggle to make ends meet. FOX 4 asked you to share your ideas for making your household budget go farther and now FOX 4's Heather Claybrook is working for you with the first in a series of reports on how your neighbors are pinching their pennies. The rising cost of food has been hard to swallow for many people especially people with large families. But one Raytown family has a plan for making mealtime more affordable. Angela Coffman is a back to basics kind of gal who homeschools five children. Her first step toward frugality grew out of necessity."Sometimes I do things I don't know how to do. Like I wasn't a great cook when I got married. I couldn't sew when I got married. But I just learned to dig in and try," she said. Now Coffman is an expert at pinching pennies. She's able to feed her family of seven for $300 a month. That's $200 less than what the U.S. Department of Labor says is the national average. "The kitchen is the heart of where we save money," she said.She's the guru of GroceryShrink.com and she hopes of encouraging others to save money."It's true a lot of people are struggling. I think their attitude is the most important thing," Coffman said. That's why she preaches the gospel of planning and patience. She plans a month's worth of meals at a time and builds that menu based on what she already has in her pantry. "A lot of it came from salvage type stores, dented can shops, things like that where you can get really cheap," Coffman said. For the Coffman family it's a group effort to get the meal on the table. On this day for lunch, the kids pitch in to help make mini pizzas out of day old bread and slicing up a cantaloupe right out of the garden. Coffman also avoids processed or prepackaged food, and goes back to her do-it-yourself roots. Her daughter Heidi is preparing a skillet mix to store for future meals. (Find the Skillet Lasagna Recipe and more here!) All Coffman has to do is add meat and tomato sauce and the meal is done in minutes for just pennies. "It's almost like a Hamburger Helper type thing but half the price because we did it ourselves," she said. Another simple secret is that she only uses cash to buy food and that's something other experts recommend too. "I can't stress how being patient is so important," she said. For Coffman, the patience to wait for a sale price is a virtue that makes pinching pennies pay off. Her lifestyle is basic to the point of seeming primitive by today's standards. She said it's being satisfied with what you have until you can afford what you want."So we don't feel like we're deprived all the time. We're just patient and wait," Coffman said. Coffman and other grocery experts also preach patience when it comes to produce: wait until it's in season, and therefore, cheaper. And if you don't have a big family like Coffman you still can have financial trouble. On Tuesday night we'll visit with young couple who will share the secrets of their financial makeover. Heather Claybrook, FOX 4 News