you won't make yourself a name if you follow the rules

Skirophorion 29

I would appreciate any advice people are willing to give me on how to reduce how much money I spend on groceries with minimal increase to the time and spoons I spend shopping and cooking.

The main problem here is that I buy groceries assuming I will be cooking, and I also buy frozen entrees, and then I do not simultaneously have time and spoons to cook, so what I eat is the frozen entrees. This is a ridiculous waste of money and food, but I like cooking (when I am able to) and I really like eating food that did not spend any time in a supermarket freezer. The secondary problem is that eating frozen entrees three or four times a day seven days a week, plus an iced coffee five to seven days a week, adds up to just about what my budget says I can spend on groceries, if I stick to the cheaper lines of frozen entrees—and "groceries" is supposed to include shit like "toothpaste" and "toilet paper". The tertiary problem is that my groceries budget is in line with the Moderate food cost from the USDA and I would like it to be in line with the Low-Cost column in that PDF.

Hokay SO. ( Cook the whole contents of the freezer time. )

It belatedly occurs to me, as I stare at the tomato sauce splatter all over the stove and wall and floor, having just taken the meatballs and sauce (and they don't seem to be disintegrating into meat sauce) off the heat, that they make lids for pots and a lid to fit this pot is actually in my possession.

Though it then occurs to me that I am not sure (because the sauce is supposed to reduce in volume) whether putting a lid on the pot would have been wise anyway.

ETA: My middle sister, who has made this before (I haven't), tells me that the lid is supposed to be half on half off (*scribbles notes*) and that the sauce splatter is expected behavior with electric stoves. :(

Know what looks tasty? These donuts (Loukoumádes) look tasty.

Speaking of coffeemakers. How do I tell the difference between good and bad coffee? (that is so not a question that is cooperative with Google.) What coffee readily available in the US is, in your experience, best-for-cheapest? Or, since I am planning to refrigerate the brewed coffee and then drown it in cocoa and milk and sweetness anyway, does it not really matter all that much?

(All I actually know about the difference between varieties of coffee comes from Anne McCaffrey's Freedom series, and can be stated very nearly in full as follows: Arabica is milder than robusta.)