I'm suddenly getting a bad feeling about the rainbow quinoa in my cupboard. D: Has anyone tried tapioca, though? I've talked about our foreign foods store, and last time I was there I realized just how much tapioca they have. One of them was actually really cool. It was marble sized rainbow tapioca. The only issue is I'm painfully aware of the fact that if it's prepared incorrectly, it's deadly poisonous.

Edit: found it. It's for boba tea. Almost tried it once at a sampling in the mall.

I've only had the tapioca that all Brits over a certain age were serves for dessert in school dinners xD I like it though, the huge bits that go in bubble tea look a bit alien to me, but I'd try them!

Boba tea is crazy, but I've heard addicting. You have a massive straw to suck them up instead of spooning one up every other sip.

Yeah, I've seen lots of pictures of it online, but I doubt it's even sold in the UK, so I've never seen it for real.

Seems to be one of those things teens obsess about, much like Pocky.

I love this little food store. There are so many things I've never heard of! But be wary of frozen foods. Frozen pork buns suck and some of the pot stickers become mystery meat when they've been frozen too long. But they've got, like, five pound drums of Ovaltine and Nesquik, and I find that hilarious.

Ovaltine. That will forever remind me of my Greatnan. Plus sneaking teaspoons of the mix out of the tin when no-one was looking.

You can always find out what pasta was on sale by looking into my pantry.

Haha, yeah. I just buy the everyday value penne and spaghetti now and that's it. For some reason, spaghetti is always cheater than any other kind of pasta. I got some lasagne sheets when they were on offer, I like the idea of trying skillet lasagne, apart from the fact that I don't have a skillet.

Our basement has a defunct kitchen section in it, complete with sink, cabinets, and a gas stoved that isn't hooked up (we don't even get gas!). My mom uses those cabinets to store all the bulk groceries she buys on sale, then we "shop" from them when our actual pantry is low. There is one cabinet that is just pasta. Pasta as deep as the cabinets are, boxes stacked on top of the rows. PASTA. I will never, as long as I live here, think "hmm, too bad we don't have the exact type of pasta I want to use," because, no, we do.

My dad also got a short shelving rack from his work, and we have canned goods on that. Every type of canned vegetable you'd want, in multiples of 5. My basement is basically a grocery store with a litter box and dirty laundry.

Please, send some of your groceries my way, because we are poor.
xD

We're not so great either. My mom is just one of those people who spends hours going through ads, then on a shopping day she'll go to five different stores to hit all the sales and bulk up on the sale stuff. And she'll show up at the cash register with a big fat wad of coupons. It's really quite impressive.

When I had to drive her car for a while - because mine had died - she sometimes had me run errands for her and pick up groceries with her debit card. She'd just tell me "this store has a sale on [brand] diced tomatoes. Get 20 cans." Then I'd show up at the cash register and the cashier would look at me like I was nuts. Or maybe it was more that I was afraid they'd look at me like I was nuts, so I avoided eye contact and mumbled something about errands for my mother.

Actually, the only cashier I can think of who has criticized a purchase of mine before is this guy who works at the grocery store down the street from my boyfriend's place. I had bought all the ingredients to make a berry cake, but had forgotten the whipped cream. So on the way over, I stopped for whipped cream. This cashier is around my age, nice, funny, always says snarky things to the boyf and I when we pick up groceries. He's seen us in the store together a lot. So I get up to him and he's like, "now, I don't want to criticize, but... just whipped cream? Really?"

Hmm. Thing is, are all these items ever going to get used, so the money saved is actually realised? Or will they just sit in the basement until they're all expired? Does your mum have some kind of mild compulsive disorder? Or is she preparing for global nuclear war?

The things like pasta and canned goods all get used, yeah. But there have been other things bought because of sales that ended up expiring. She's gotten a bit better with that, though, doesn't do it as much as she did when she first started with couponing. And yes, I do think she has a mild compulsive disorder. Definitely not severe enough to qualify as outright OCD, I don't think - it doesn't interfere with her life in huge ways - but she does have compulsions like that. She's huge on counting, counts everything she does. I'm actually a bit concerned about her, because she doesn't seem to be the most mentally healthy. She has an unhealthy neediness towards my dad (who is a fine husband, but, like, she cries if he suddenly gets overtime and won't be coming home on time some night), and it seems like she struggles to keep up with housework. She doesn't have a job and seems to spend most of the day on housework, yet our home is a mess and downright dirty.

Getting off on a tangent, there, sorry! Being quite the debbie downer, aren't I? First the soap, now this...

Originally Posted by Alexander J Luthor

Swift: Do you have Hulu? There was a new episode of Shark Tank (million/billionaires sit and listen to pitches and buy stock in up-and-coming products that could change the world) and this guy was pimpin' some super protein bars that had 50% more protein than the average bar/shake/milk without that chalky flavor. His secret? Cricket flour. He is the only person in America with FDA approved bug product of this magnitude. There are no "extra bits", it's all ground up, and you can't even taste it when it's been added. He made a pretty awesome deal to quit the protein bar route and go straight to wholesale with his four. If you got to The Original Cricket Energy Bar you find out that it actually started as a movement to conserve water. One of their facts is that for every 100 gallons of water you could get six grams of protein from a cow, OR you could get 71 grams from crickets

Crickets? Now that is a protein source I have not considered. There is a guy selling something he's dubbed "soylent" (not sure about the spelling) and created a kickstarter for it. I'll have to dig up the site info if you'd like to see more about it. It's described as a liquid with the consistency of mucous and loaded with proteins/carbs/aminos/etc that meet the recommended daily whatnot for humans. And it looks like... a bodily fluid.

Cherry ~ I've always admired how people are able to shop like that. I don't have the energy to do it. Do you think this is something you'll do on your own?

Mm, I think I will a bit, but not to the degree she does it. I can see myself buying a few extra packages of things I regularly use when they go on sale or clipping a few coupons, but I don't have the time, patience, or mental energy to devote the time to it that she does. I mean, if it takes you two hours to find coupons that, total, save you 3 dollars, you've basically just worked for $1.50 an hour. Those are slave wages. Caaaan't be bothered.

I love the idea of a well-stocked larder or pantry, but as I don't have either I just cram as much as possible int0 my 2 and a half food cupboards >< I have 2 each of the canned items I like to have in stock; tomatoes, kidney beans and baked beans; and for some things that are open in the fridge I like to have another one in the cupboard, things like jars of pesto and stir-through pasta sauce and tubes of tomato paste. But there's no space for big things like bags of pasta, so I just get another one of those when my tub is nearly empty.

Even if I had more cupboard space I'd still be unlikely to stockpile things like pasta, because unless something's on a really good offer, it's still likely still be more expensive than the cheap one that I buy. But pasta's pasta and you're paying for the brand and the shape more than anything, aren't you.

I hear you on that one, Cherry. We buy mostly organic/pasture-fed items and it's difficult to find coupons for most of what we can eat. We eat like this not because I'm paranoid about food, but we've seen some improvement with our health particularly with the kids.

Most of the coupons we use are digital. If it takes me more than 15 minutes to peruse coupon offers, I ain't going to do it! I look for deals in the store. Items with coupons attached and if we score some coupons when we check out, I hold on to them. 2 kids in tow and one is prone to having melt downs if we are not focused on finding toys, so we go to one store and that's it. We usually wind up saving $10-20 a week plus points for gas.

Coupons aren't such a big thing over here. Brits are tight, yo! Supermarket's ain't gonna give too much away xD

The last lot of coupons that I got from Tesco impressed me though, they were tailored specifically for me, giving me money off things I'd bought before, and out of the 12 there's only 2 that I'm unlikely to use. So I was happy about those. :D

Swift: Yeah... Not sure I could eat something that looked like a... bodily fluid. Plus, I like food too much to get into supplements. I'll let myself get fat first.

Do you have a Target near you? They've got store coupons for the store brand organic stuff and some name brand things. If you see ladies doing samples ask for any booklets if they have them. If they're not visible they might have some under their display stand. I've got coupons in my stash for agave, Bolthouse juice, chobani, and some other stuff. I stood behind a couponer one day and asked her about this stuff. It's crazy. I'm single and about to have more free time on my hands. I plan on crafting, but I could also find coupons for you and leave you a note on your profile if you want.

Cherry: Your mom sounds awesome, but that's probably because I'm also compulsive. You may also want to convince her to see a doctor. It sounds like the OCD isn't as big of a problem as much as undiagnosed anxiety might be. People don't think anxiety can be that bad, but a severe imbalance of hormones can be almost toxic for your brain. I know two... yeah two people on pills for anxiety and they do well, but watch out on the days they don't take them. So much crying. The girl I know had a mental break down because she dropped a new plate that she had just bought to replace an old one that she had broken not a week before.

It kind of is a bummer because as much as we try to avoid pills, some things don't have an all-natural remedy.

Jelly: Those ones are the best, but they creep me out because here in America they're usually going off your purchase history. Like, the store remembers what you purchase and suggests things... It's creepy sometimes.

And don't feel bad about the name/store brand argument! I usually only buy store brand if there's a distinct taste difference (Hidden Valley Ranch) or if I've got so many coupons it's cheaper. I just went to Target a few days ago to try couponing and now I've got about 60 boxes of their brand and Kraft Mac-n-Cheese.

Kraft- In-store sale buy 2 get 1 (99c)
4 $1 off 4 manfg
4 50c off 3 store
20% 4 boxes w/cartwheel (this app they have that gives you a bunch of coupons on one barcode. JUST started using it)

Store Brand- no sale (62c)
$1 off 4 manfg

24 * .99 = 23.76 - 7.92 (8 boxes) = 15.84 - 4 = 11.84 - 2 = 9.84 - .80 (cw) = 9.04 for 24 boxes of mac-n-cheese.

4 * .62 = 2.48 - 1 = 1.48 for 4 boxes of mac-n-cheese

I got 28 boxes of mac-n-cheese that cost $26.24 for $10.52, which brings me to my question. WHAT DO IT DO WITH ALL OF IT? I've got tuna, I've got bell peppers, I've got hamburger, but I already have a Helper meal for that...

You don't need to tell me how bad anxiety is... I've had a few panic attacks in my time, and I think I might be working on an ulcer at the moment. Even the most basic, non-threatening tasks sometimes cause me to feel very nervous, and I won't be able to explain why. I have trouble calming down when something gets me tense, and I put off homework until the very last minute because it stresses me out to even think about starting.

The only thing I know triggers a panic attack for me is thinking about the last thing my grandma said and then thinking about death.

I have two new additions to my pantry! i found a Whole Foods recently. I can't afford to shop there really, but I needed a multivitamin that didn't have gelatin, so i figured they could provide. It was all very fancy and well out of my price range. i figured I wanted a few "souvenirs," so I picked up a french soup spice and some raw pomegranate infused honey.

tomato and basil soup and some white cheddar cheez-it's, great combination.....and now i am hungry!

Originally Posted by Cherry Who?

raw pomegranate infused honey.

I. Need. This. There's a guy at our farmer's market who makes infused honey in sticks.

oh i have some orange blossom honey in my pantry. i would give any honey a whirl!