HerMoney Classic: Cooking and Food Budget Hacks
28:25 Share

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Her money is proudly sponsored by adult financial engines. Every day, we plan and save for our futures.

But are you taking into account tax strategies when dealing with your investments? I know it's not something we think about often enough, but you can find ways to save and invest more and Better plan for your future visit. plan.

E F E, doc, slash her money to schedule your complimentary wealth check up today. Her money listeners know how much I love to cook for my family, but I gotta admit IT grocery bills can really start to add up. I, anna, let you in on a little hack I use to save money when shopping for the turkey and the cranberry sauce.

And everything I need to make my favorite I bought when you use, I bought a, you earn cash back on all the most halves for your thanksgiving feast, things you're already got a back. So win, win this month. I thought that is giving new users a hundred percent cash back on your thanksgiving feast. Just ad offers in the APP to redeem for everything you need to make your meal complete, whether you're doing the cooking or just bring in desert.

All you have to do is shopping your favorite retailers and upload your receipt, download the I bottle up now and use code her money to get one hundred percent cash back on your thanksgiving fees starting november first, just go to the APP store or google play store and download the free I bought a APP use code her money that I beta I B O T T A in the google play or APP store and use code her money. Everyone, i'm gene chat ski. Thank you so much for joining me today on her money.

I wanted to drop this episode ahead of thanksgiving so that maybe when you do your grocery shop and you can be just a little bit more I don't know about you, but food wise, to me, the holiday feel, I like so much access, and this year, leftovers not withstanding, because I am a big fan of leftovers, I am deterred not to let a morsel go to waste if I can afford IT. That's why I am so excited to share this episode with lean Brown, new york times, the best selling author of the cookbook, good and cheap, eat well on four dollars a day and good enough a cookbook, we get into how it's possible to eat healthy while saving money. And her favorite pantry and freezer winter recipe from every everything toast to Hardy studes. Here's my conversation with lian lian n welcome.

hi. So good to be here.

It's so great to see you. I wanted dig into your book, but first I want to talk about how you got started because you have such an incredible story about how your first book came up to be. I mean, really, I could tell IT because i've got notes on this, and I know your story from reading about you. But what do I let you tell? IT.

sure. yeah. IT is definitely IT was unusual way to put a cook book out into the world.

So my last foot, good and cheap IT started out as my thesis project for my masters and food studies at m. yu. And so really, IT started out as a theis, and IT was as a collection of recipes.

IT was a cookbook. But at the same time, I didn't sort of have these massive grand plans I had hoped to share IT with some of the nonprofits and places that i've been volunteering with. It's a cpb ook built for a four dollar days for food stamps budget.

So was really meant to be a resource in a place that I think was really lacking in resources, and in particular, not just a resource, but something that was attractive, that made cooking sort of the beautiful, life affirming sort of thing that I really believe that to be something that was full of hopefulness and and I hope not false hope, but practicality and sensible information, as well as of just the beauty and sensory sort of joys of cooking as well. And so after I graduated, I just put IT on my little website, made IT sort of freely available, and someone found IT on redit and shared IT. And I went like mini viral there.

And that gave me the confidence to kind of try to take IT a step further. So I wanted to kick starter to fund a print run of IT. And IT was wildly popular, as much more so than I expected.

And through that, we self published one version. My husband to helping me cr on the product would have fully lost my mind. And during that I found a publisher, which was something i'd never been thought to look forward, because IT was a cookbook.

The thing about good and cheap there was also unique, as I made IT freely available as A P. D. F. IT still is available on my website that way, but also the print version. We wanted to make sure that IT was freely available for anyone who could afford to purchase a cookbook.

That was the idea, so like a cookbook for people who can't necessarily afford a cookbook at that point in their lives. And so for every copy sold, we donate one. And I just didn't think that a publisher would be interested in a project like that, but IT turned out that several were.

And I ended up where he was, workman publishing, who has been amazing to me and so supportive. And so we made another version of the book. We were able to kind of work with this audience that had found the work and had sort of given so much to me and offered so much information, so many people share their stories and their experiences.

And what worked for them. And what didn't was able took kind of work on another version of the book. And then we put that won to the world.

And for every copy sold, we still donate one. And we work with hundreds of profits across the country. And yeah, is just like a project that really took on a life of its own. And I kind of just do bay .

best to keep up with IT. amazing. I know it's been downloaded fifteen million times. That's incredible.

So if that book change the notion of what a cook book could be, which is what people said about IT, how would you describe this next one? How would you describe good enough? And I have to say love that title because I think good enough is what we should all be aspiring to in life. Yes.

i'm so glad to hear you say that because I know it's one of those titles that a little bit you can either get IT and really connect with IT and see sort of the value and the humanity and IT or you can go, I don't know, good. And does that sound like you're giving up?

I hope that every day I put on the table is good. I and I am for perfection. When I looked, I would never put anything on the exactly.

And I think that was really the impetus to write IT. Was so many people, myself included, really struggling sort of under the weight of perfectionism and the sort of culture of perfectionism around food and what food represents and harvest for identify ourselves with IT and that we can't need to reorient, I think, around this notion of good enough and that good and us also isn't IT also isn't like a borrow.

IT isn't something that looks a certain way all the time at something that really changes day by day and changes based on the circumstances that were in. And so for me, goodness really did come from a lot of experiences I had with good and cheap, with people sharing their stories, with a lot of people really struggling. Of course, my first book was so much about cost and money.

Is this really significant barrier? And I would never undervalue that is a huge ongoing issue. I sort of systemic, like system wide issue that we absolutely need to continue to address.

But I found myself rarely drawn to so many people will come up to me and tell me that they struggled to cook, or they felt like they were bad cook like that over and over yours, like i'm a bad cook. And and all of the time I was like, and they were coming to a cooking event to meet a book author and to get IT. And IT was like, they clearly had this love of food.

Is interest in IT sense that IT was important for them personally. And yet they didn't feel good about themselves as this insecurity. And I was so moved by IT and also touched personally, because I could really see myself in that experience, and because I realized that I kind of do the same thing, I really judge myself, by the way, that I cooking, that I Operate, of course, in so many other aspects of my life as well.

But specifically, when I make something that turns out well, I would feel good. And when I didn't, I would begin to really question myself and wonder what i'm doing. And I was just became too deep.

And so good enough is like it's really a cookbook about how we need to be able to think about cooking as part of our lives, the way that people learn how ook basically is often in a sort of false environment. If you might see someone who's in a studio or has like a team around them making IT beautiful or even in a restaurant, it's like home cooking and restaurant cooking so different. A restaurant you really are meant to be pleasing an audience.

You need to have something consistent. There is bar that you have to reach. But at home it's a completely different thing.

You really are cooking for yourself, often those you love as well. And and that's teamwork. That's not about performing. That's not about something to valuing you. And yet that's not sort of how we learn to cook. And I just thought it's so important to try to reframe the way that we think about cooking to bring a summer relief to this sort of really suffering that I could see so many people experiencing, where food, thinking about dinner every day became like stressful, became something where there was judgment around IT, that where there is judgment around IT, and where I can be harder, harder to find motivation to do IT.

So what's theory of home cooking? How do you, I mean, or you with thirty minute meals? Girl, are you a one pot? Girl, are you an instant pot? What's cred jam for people who are not familiar with you?

I truly do everything you said IT depends on, I think, the day, the week, what else is going on. I think it's hard to limit IT to just one style. I think that there are times when I want to do things incredibly simply after a long day, if I have a really intense week, I want to do absolutely as little as possible.

And then there are times I do when I maybe spend a little bit more time. I think what I would say my style is, overall, though, most of the time is I like to spend twenty or thirty minutes, but not rushing around. I like to take that time and try to like be calm with myself.

I think that's something actually with thirty minute meals, like those shows where someone's making a thirty minute meal, something I noticed a lot of the time, is the person make IT is often a special chief. And to the whole show, they're rushing around doing one thing after the other really quickly. And so at the end, they have a meal that happen to take thirty minutes.

And IT looks incredible, but IT also looks really exhAusting, like you were had to be and you've got like a pilot dies and it's just like a whole thing. And well, again, there's a place for that, I think sometimes. But for me, I think about everything that goes into the mail.

There's the planning, there's the grocery shopping, there's the dishes, there's the clean up, there's so much and anyway, can communi mize that noise around IT. So for me personally, the cooking car is, if I can break them, let go of everything. Actually very calming, very sort of meditation experience.

Ed, I find I try to take the best, like I wood in a yoga class, and I try to listen in and just experience all of the sensory that is going on, the smells, sounds of the bubbling water for the pasta that sort of rythmic chop, chop, chop of something that i'm doing. The sounds of, you know, a crisp vegetable breaking the way that, and maybe chopping a bell pepper and a little bit of the two of spring up. And it's my cuticle and I can like, feel the tingle.

I like all of that, I think is actually a really beautiful and nurturing experience. But how can you possibly even notice any of that when, you know, I gotta get IT on the tables as possible? I got ta do this dish. I got do all the things, or if you're read also about pleasing others.

But at the same time, we think of imagine someone in our head and whether it's a chef on A T V show or some imagine like some maybe harsh teacher twenty years ago, whoever IT is, there's a sort of judge in our minds. And if we're performing for them, we're gonna tight and we're gona be worried and we're not gonna be in the moment. And so I think my style and the style that I really want to share with others, a sort of this reframing of, like you are the only person that really matters when I used to cooking.

I think so. Or at least the person who matters most, diets and exercising, pleasing others, but you can't too. I wanted get really tactical because that's what our listeners count on us to do.

And so in terms of saving time, in terms of saving money, in terms of how to stuck a pal so that you don't realize that, oh my god, i'm three quarters of the way into this exercise and I don't have business. But before we get into IT, very quick break. Her money is proudly sponsored by admin financial engines.

Have you taken into account tax strategies when dealing with your investments? I do IT with my advisers a couple of times a year, and so I can tell you the right tax planning can help you save, but the wrong ones, well, costume, are you saving where you could be and taking advantage of strategies that can help you grow your money for the future? With a little advanced planning, you can find ways to save and invest more and make sure this year is one for the books.

Visit plan E F E dot com slashed her money to schedule your complimentary wealth check up. It's the end of the year, which also means it's a perfect time for a financial check. Kp, sitting down to review your investments, maximize retirement contributions and protect your personal data.

This last up is crucial because your information is likely floating around on countless data broken sites, easily accessible to anyone. What you may not know is that with just a few clicks, these sites can and do share your address, phone number, family members, even some of your financial details. This puts you at risk of everything from annoying robot calls to that and stolen credit.

Think about securing your privacy within cognition in just three steps. And cognition reaches out to all those data brokers on your behalf, requests they remove your information and keeps tabs on them to ensure that information gaza, it's easy, effective and gives you piece of mind as you head into the new year. If you're ready to take control of your data, try in cognition today.

Use promo code her money at in cognitive dock com slash her money to get sixty percent off an annual plan that's promote de her money at in cognitive dot com flash her money to get an exclusive sixty percent off an annual plan. I'm talking with lean Brown aur of the new cookbook good enough. You know, at our core, we are a show about money.

And so we talk about saving and budgeting in all its forms. I don't think we do enough food shows. So i'm very, very did about this one, and i've got a bunch of questions for you.

So first, what are the couple of best things to do if you're looking to cut back on your food budget? I go through budgets of a lot of different people, and I got to say, and I have them do the exercise of tracking their spending, which is one of the very first things that we do in our finance fixed coaching program. And about week, three people are like, oh my god, I did not know how much of my money was gone to food. Yeah, yeah. Well.

that makes so much sense that that ends up being the place that a lot of foods are spending more than they mean to, I think because IT is such a place where it's a necessity, I think. And so that makes us thing okay. This is something I need to be doing.

And it's also, please, where we find a lot of our pleasure and where I think we look for comfort when we're struggling as well and that there's nothing wrong with that, that is sort of appropriate that as IT should be. But that also means that we can easily be making choices, are buying more of certain kinds of foods then we need or buying a lot of stuff and letting IT languish in the cupboard. I will say that probably something that will trickle down into your finances really quickly and make a difference is really to begin to simplify in terms of number of ingredients that you are using per recipe.

They creating recipes more of the time. Of course, we all have something special that we love to make, and that can be like twenty five ingredients that your special thing and go for IT. But in general, if the bulk of your meals are five to ten ingredients per meal, I think that's a really great way to cut, budget down and also to rankly simplify your time as well.

And you can do that by buying ingredients like pasta and some kind of a charge like always having that around. And can tomato eggs like things that you are using across multiple meal? Actually, you know what, dan, i'm thinking of the stew that you mention, which is a lot like there is recipe p in good enough called fast White being trees on hurting Green stage.

And so it's a lot of the same things. And that recipe, much like all the recipe in the book, is like a building blocks ts a vegetable based onions and peppers. But IT could be carrots, and sale could be any kind of thing you have around.

And taking some beans, I use White beans like this classic combination, but I ve used pink beans. Black beans like, it's all good. Any kind of being will work.

And that's a lovely base. And IT comes together quickly. And the flavor, sort of ingredient that is just one thing, but sort of packs a punch of flavor, is sausage. And I use trees or a sausage, but i've used, again, many different kinds of sausage. I could be anything. And like you were saying, you make a sausage and wait, being still in the news brockley rabb, which is really like a hearty Green, could be swiss charge or kill or anything like that. And so beans, Greens and vegetable les that are long lasting, and some sausage which can be frozen, like these are things you can sort of remix to make so many different kinds of meals.

It's so true when I think about the things that I make over and over again. Lemon, all of royal garlic, not so much onions, because i'm not a an onion lover, but I do have them in the house. Garlic, red pepper, hot red pepper, salt, pepper.

Maybe a little chicken broth, if I need IT. Maybe some can tomatoes, if I need IT. But I can take that.

And I can make a meal with chicken. I can make a meal with pasta. I can make a meal with port if I wanted.

I could make a vegetarian meal with a couple of cans of beans. I'm not a bean sugar at IT takes too long for me, but I do keep cans in the pantry. And so yeah, I think you're totally right. What are your favorite budget neils those that are ideally quick .

as well as cheap? Well, I would first just for various say, cheko good and cheap because it's full of those and IT is freely available I love and soups I think are absolutely one of, especially this time of year. And I have a whole section called stuff on totos.

I looked that my favorite top shift contestant was Carry because he made everything on fancy toast. That was her thing. fancy. That was amazing.

It's good, and it's such a lovely way. Can reuse leftovers. You can kind of take some vegetables that you have or some kind of leftover sauce, I kind of thing, and remix that is a really lovely way to make a very simple meal out of kind of whatever you happen to have around.

And I think there is something really a ming about making a meal like that because it's using up we might sort of have the band with to me, the plans, three or four maybe meals a week that are like, okay, the ingredients I made those things and then in between, it's like you have loved to resist are making due in those times. And I think those are stuff on toast, like a funny salad that you put together out of, like, little bit like these are the sorts of meals that get you through. And sometimes those can be some of the most cious and fun discoveries.

And at the same time, I think you also need to be open to sometimes you might put together like a little Frankton, but look, doesn't work great. I think that's another time to just know that that's a completely Normal part of the process. I know that so many people come up to be like i'm a bad cook because sometimes I make things that don't work out. All I just wanted say, yeah.

of course, of course.

all of us all, all of us, that part of learning any skill again, just like we don't want to judge ourselves by other people standards, I think we also don't want to judge ourselves always purely on taste, because sometimes it's not gonna. Taste isn't going to be the best thing. But what other values is IT giving you? For example, if I made something out of leftovers that I wasn't to thrill with, i'm still proud that i'm using the left tos.

Well, yeah, can I just point out what an important thing you just said about leftovers? We had leftovers for dinner last night, which meant that we had a little bit of the stake that I made when I company. We had a little bit of this. I mean, there's amazing Brown rice that had some lemon in IT.

Again, my huge city found to like.

yeah IT had lemon desk and lemon juice and some shallots and and IT was just, you know, was just a simple Brown rise, basic, but so good. So that was left over, and that held up really well. Brown rice holds are Better than White rice.

We had some fish that was leftover, and you you never know, with left of our fish, we did. I made some string beans because we needed something Green to go with IT. But now I met a leftovers.

And we can start over and we throw out, I mean, americans waste. I think the number is forty percent of our food budgets because we throw things away. So eat your leftovers.

yes. And I see the reason why that simplifying tip also creates less waste. Because when you're not buying so many different things to use small amounts of them in the recipes, then you don't end up with things languishing like on shelves are in the back of the fridge is frequently we sort of focus on just a couple of maybe interesting like flavor enhancing pace or something cool like that, that your playing with at a time rather than dying a gazillion an different things. It's just more realistic.

IT feels like kind of a downward because sometimes there's something beautiful about the going on a shop in mix. I'm just so excited about all this fresh protest. I have these planes and everything, and I know like I can get Carried away and that slow a little bit time to me IT.

It's wonderful to have a list of all those things that I want to do, but maybe I can do two of those this week. I do two of those next, rather than to do them all now, because I think sometimes how waste really creeps up on us. And then also two thing is just bridge management. When we have left tos, IT really is important to remember and to eat them and then to check before we go. The growth y restore again, leftovers in the fridge and in the freezer too, to sort of see actually do I still have who do I even need to begin to sort of renew some of these things yet?

I just love that term. Fridge management. We are assigning a story on the ten things you need to know about fridge management.

I'm just put that on my life. It's true. IT is so true before we read this up here. Inflation is hitting all of us, is hitting us in the grocery store.

It's hitting many people hard when you go into the grocery store and you realize all of a sudden that the Price of that chicken that you were gonna buy has doubled. Yeah, what are your favorite swap if you're starless in the face and you're thinking, oh my gosh, I am not paying that for this. What do you do instead?

So I think, will you brought up chicken? And so I think that something when IT comes to. Meat the meat and dairy tend to be pretty expensive they have in four years and its only goes out and it's sort of appropriate because of the way they're raised in.

What I generally do is use basically less of that in my meals. It's not to say we're cutting IT up. We're thinking of the school.

The meat in that is sort of the flavor is part of IT. It's important part of IT, but it's not the center of the plate was like a whole rose chicken. Not to say that doing a whole rose chicken isn't within a budget, I think IT often very much is. But when we eat, maybe like bonus skinless chicken breast, three or four nights a week, that really can add up as sort of the center of the play.

So rethinking using protein in like that, in smaller sort of quantities across me, like a rice dish like you were saying, or a poster dish, or in a super, do we sort of other vegetables? And the other thing I know, we tend to really idealize crash produce that is also placed or is very expensive, especially like begged fancy other stuff that's been prepped. That kind of thing can be really expensive.

And you can manage that through the seasons and their deals, and there can be great value. But can frozen first of vegetable are create too, and not even just like their tasty and they really are just as good, but also like there are so handy sometimes like frozen chops in is amazing, like I D much rather have that than fresh. Most of the tony is much quicker to sort of views.

And most of the ways that I want to something like a frozen collie is already chalked ed into ploughs for you. Like, I love collie E. R. And I have a habit buying a fresh. But i've been realizing over the last I just frozen, I can just take IT out, put IT on my little tray, and I covered in spaces are roasted and it's so fast and easy and it's less expensive as well. And so I really do recommend yeah looking for things in different forms in canned, frozen.

All right, let's ask you the last meal question. If you had to pick a last meal and you were gonna make something from your good enough book, what would you be for?

Maybe I would go for have a salmon dinner pie. It's like a chicken pot pie, but with salmon and potatoes and dill and lemon and it's just like really hot and warming and delicious and has like A P top and it's really good. It's just like very .

much to my so making that I am so making anything that deal. And lemon are like two of my favorite words, so amazing. Lean Brown.

Thank you so much for doing this with us today. Thank you for letting us off the hook. When IT comes to expecting perfection from our kitchen, the book is good enough. Where can we find more about you?

My b site lean Brown on or am also on instagram. I'm lean e Brown on there. I would absolutely love to hear from you.

Thanks so much for joining me today on her money. If you love this episode, please give us a wife star review on apple podcast. We always value your feedback, and if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive.

Her money has two incredible programs, finance fix, which is an eight week program designed to give you the ultimate money makeover, and investing fix, which is our investing club for a women that meets by weekly on zoo. With both programs, we are leveling the playing fields for women's financial confidence and power. I would love to see you there.

We'd like to thank our sponsor admin financial engines. Her money is produced by hairy pascual's ARM music is provided by video helper, and our show comes to you through mega one. This podcast is also part of the airwave media podcast network. You can find us and other other shows like us at airwave media dot com. Thanks for joining us and real taxi.

I hate most business podcasts. It's all blow, blow, blow. Tell me your background now. Nobody has time for that. I'm Jason fiver, editor in chief of entrepreneurs gazing and host of the podcast problem solves.

So I know you are busy running a business and you just need answers, and I find them want to increase trust as a leader. I talk to whole foods co founder john maki. Want to manage your time Better? I talk to google in house productivity expert, straight to the point, thirty minutes or less, just searched for problem solves.