Nice article about ramen from The Register Guard in Eugene, OR. They talk about how true ramen is starting to replace the old notion of the dried stuff you get for cheap at Costco. I happen to really like both types… the real kind is amazing in taste when done right at a restaurant and the cheap junk is amazing in what it can save you. Theoretically, you could subsist on a meal of instant ramen all the way through the week. I think several people have even wrote books on that method of eating cheap. Here is a quote from the article:

Long seen as the cornerstone of the American college diet, ramen is finally starting to gain some respect as American diners realize something the Japanese have long known: Instant ramen is not the same as ramen … In Japan, chefs at ramenyas (tiny ramen shops) cook up fresh, springy noodles and add them to savory stocks made from pork, chicken, seafood and kelp.

Soups are seasoned with soy sauce, miso, pork or salt broths and topped with egg, pork loin, fish cake, bamboo shoots, scallions and mushrooms.

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A quick tip to increase your “nonspoilability” Cheap Eats score. Buy meat in bulk and freeze it. What? Frozen meat, you say? Didn’t they tell us on the Food Network about freezer burn and all that other stuff? Sure. But that’s if you forget and freeze it for say 2 years. That definitely won’t contribute to Cheap Eats.

In order to get the benefits of buying bulk meat, you need to keep track of which meat in the freezer has been bought when. They sell ziploc bags with a little white space on the front of them for writing on it. Keep a permanent marker in the kitchen and use it when freezing food. Write down the date and also what’s in it. That’ll go a long way when you’re doing freezer inventory to see what needs to be thrown out.

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So do those grocery discount cards that they give out at Albertson’s and Ralph’s really work? I was all set to try a little ex-po-say investigation by trying to buy the same groceries at different stores. But apparently someone has already done the work for me. Hot damn. The KCRA Channel had done research on whether discount cards actually work.

We all know that the grocery stores use the discount cards to gain information on shopping habits of customers. But as far savings go, they don’t really actually save you a huge amount, if any, compared to shopping stores that don’t use cards. It seems to average out at best.

However, one thing I discovered is that the average person is somewhat “attached” to the grocery store that they frequent. Whether it’s due to location or just familiarity, you’re mostly going to shop at just one grocery store whether or not they have discount cards. The only reason you’d go to another one is if there is some unbelievable discount on a particular item where it’s a worth a special trip.

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