Can frugal meals really save you $12,000?! You might be surprised what a few meals with beans could save you!
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Beans can save you a lot of money. When I say a lot, I mean A LOT. 🙂 I started thinking about Katie’s Everything Beans Book and wondered how much money could actually be saved by using the recipes in this book. Would you believe the number could be as high as $12,000?!
If an average family of four usually ate out twice a week with a bill of $24 each time, and decided to replace those meals with one of the recipes from the Everything Beans book, the savings could be over $12,000! And these meals are super filling and nourishing! (I know when we used to go to McDonald’s my daughter would tell me that she was still hungry after we finished eating. She never felt like that when we ate at home!)
The meals in Katie’s book cost somewhere around $3.00-$7.00 for the whole meal. So, the math looks like this:
2 Restaurant meals a week at $24 a visit= $48 per week or $2,496 yearly.
2 of the meals from Katie’s book=average of about $10.00 per week or $520 yearly.
That alone is a savings of $1,976 per year. But, I thought I would take it a step farther.
Many average families owe money to someone. If our “average family of four” owed $5,000 to a bank, credit card etc., and was paying a $100 a month on this loan with an interest rate of 10.99% then it would take them:
- 68 months to pay off the card
- and they would end up paying over $1715 in interest.
If they decided to replace two restaurant meals weekly with recipes from the Everything Beans Book, and then took the extra $1976 a year and paid it on their credit card, they could
- pay off their credit card in 22 months.
- They would only end up paying $532 in interest.
AND if they kept up eating their cheap meals for the next 46 months (the amount of time that they would have kept paying on the credit card if they had only paid $100 a month), then they would consistently have $256 a month extra for saving or spending. (Because they didn’t have to use that $256 for their credit card bill anymore, because it was payed off so much faster.) $256 for 46 more months=$11,776.
$11,776 + $1,183 (that was saved in interest) = $12,959!!
That is pretty awesome! I think most families could benefit from having that kind of extra money.
But what about the food in The Everything Beans Book-does it meet my standards of healthy nourishing food? And does it taste good?
Health Benefits of The Everything Beans Book
I have very high standards, because I know how important food has been for my health. Katie and I share very similar nutritional philosophies-she believes in high quality nourishing real food.She is careful to make sure that her meals contain enough protein even when using beans as a protein source. She even has a printable in the book explaining how to choose complementary proteins-I learned some things from the printable and I thought I already knew quite a bit about vegetarian sources of protein.Katie also explains how to make beans more digestible (aka- how to avoid gas from beans).
Tasty Beans?
It might be hard to believe that beans can taste really good, but Katie’s recipes are the type that most everyone will like. She even has a kid friendly rating system for each of her recipes. In her book she gives advice for picky eaters, and tips for getting past the texture of beans.
I asked my mom to be a recipe tester for the Everything Beans Book. She looked at the recipes and chose the Homemade Limey Refried Beans. My mom made some notes on the recipe (that must be where I got it from!). She wrote that she used olive oil, ground cumin, dried oregano, and she used the blenderstick.She also noted that she loved the lime juice and zest flavor, and that the color would be better if she used black or kidney beans. She used pinto and they are light in color.
When my daughter was over at my mom’s one day, she decided she wanted to try the beans. (They were leftovers from a previous meal.) She said the refried beans were delicious! Being she is 11 and she loved refried beans, I would say that is a pretty good testimony of the recipes in The Everything Beans Book.Another delicious looking recipe in this book is the Tuscan Beef and Bean Stew. Here is a preview: 🙂
If you want to see more recipes and info about the Everything Beans book, you can check it out here.
Disclaimer: This post is not medical advice. I am not a doctor or medical professional. I share only from my own experiences and research. Consult your own practitioner before making changes in your diet or supplements.
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