Best Cheap$kate Food Finds of 2025

 It's back to basics in this roundup of my Best Cheap$kate Food Finds of 2025. That doesn't mean you won't find a few outrageously one-of-a-kind, cheap deals that I crow about. While waiting for prices to drop, I did the legwork for you on some sweet deals. So go ahead and read 'em and reap (the savings, that is!).

The Football Playoffs are in full effect, so picking up cheap munchies is on top of my shopping list.

Click on any photo to see larger.

And I would include Pizza, Hot Dogs, Bratwurst, and Hamburgers on game days.

 

The above meat is reduced in price due to expiration at my local grocery chain store, Ralphs. I make sure the hamburger is red and not grey. I compare the sausages and the chicken's color to newly packaged meat to see if it's similar. When I get home, the meat goes directly into the freezer, unless I'm cooking it the same day.

Pork and Chicken are the cheapest meats per pound. Keep a lookout for Turkey and Corned Beef sales during holidays, especially Thanksgiving, Christmas, and St. Patrick's Day.

At Ralphs, some Bread is in a discount bin. While Bread may be a little past its shelf life, I usually toast my bread, so it is hard to tell the difference between fresh and "day old". Dollar Tree usually carries Hot Dog, Hamburger Buns, and other types of bread.

Seafood is the trickiest purchase at discount prices close to the expiration date. If you live near the water, then you will know by smell and color if fish or shellfish is edible. I will buy cooked shrimp over raw shrimp.

You can't go wrong with canned and cooked seafood. I have a heck of a Tuna Melt recipe here.

Pies are half price in the Ralphs bargain bin. They seem to last a couple of weeks more, way past the expiration date. 

I still find cheap veggies and fruit, especially at my local Latin market, Superior Grocers.

Hot Stuff

When I'm in Louisiana Crawfish with Zapp's Potato Chips are served.

Here is the rest of the Best Cheap$kate Food Finds of 2025.

Keep checking back for my great cheap$kate finds in the new year.

Happy bargain hunting in 2026!

National Squirrel Day - Composting & Squirrels Video

In the acting world, you shy away from performing with children and animals. Why...because, after all those years of distilling your experiences into being spontaneous and natural in front of an audience, there is nothing worse than being upstaged by cuteness.

It's all in the wrist if you want to compost like The 99 Cent Chef. With shovel in hand, the Chintzy Composter shows you a simple method that reduces the garbage you throw away by about half, so that means fewer trips to the dumpster. Plus, if you have a small garden, you will never have to buy potting soil again. Just hit the play button below to see my Composting Video.

Composting, Squirrels, and the 99 Cent Chef - VIDEO

 Play it here, video runs 3 minutes, 17 seconds.

In The 99 Cent Chef's latest video, you'll see birds and squirrels upstage the Anthropomorphic Chef.

My neighbor feeds the birds and squirrels every morning. So I got the idea to set out some seeds and have animals do the work of making an opening title sequence for me. Only a nut would let squirrels and birds do the typography for my videos...well, I'm that Chintzy Nut.

And my front yard critters will work for peanuts and birdseed.

For the final video scene, it's a squirrel feeding frenzy when the Doctor Doolittle of chefs scatters lettuce in the most unique way for the tree-dwelling rodents.

There are many techniques for Composting. Just Google the word, and you'll see what I mean. It really just depends on how much you want to deal with. You can start a giant compost pile with everything from veggie table scraps to lawn trimmings, and even newsprint and paper. I live in the city, so composting is best not seen or smelled!

I've come up with an easy-to-do method. Every day, my girlfriend and I collect the veggie and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, and eggshells into a small container with a top. I live in a condo complex with a lot of land per unit, and there is an outdoor common area in the corner that is not used. So every 2 to 4 days, I take my full compost bin and bury the scraps in a 4 by 4-foot square area. Nobody complains, and some of my neighbors offer encouragement, even compliments.

With a minimal amount of compost area to work with, I find it's just enough. I bury my small scrap amounts and a couple of days later dig a new hole. If you roughly chop up the scraps with the shovel and mix in a little dirt, the decomposition is complete in less than 2 weeks.

So by the time I've filled my 4 food square, it's ready for a new round of veggie scraps. (You'll see black nutrient-rich-looking compost clumps as you work your way around.) It takes a month or so until the compost is ready for my garden -- just in time for Fall and Spring planting.

A quick gardening note: Composting veggies with seeds, like cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes, means you will get sprouting seedlings popping out all over. I'll prune out most of them as they come up, but I like to keep a few plants just to see how they do. Every year, I get some type of squash plant that yields a bouquet of edible squash blossoms -- just type "squash blossoms" into the "Enter Ingredient or Recipe Keyword(s)" search window located at the top right side of this page to see all the recipes I use them for.

The trick is to keep the compost area clean and odorless. Instead of a smelly compost pile, I bury mine. Now, that means I can't compost everything, but it's good enough for big city living.

So, check out my Composting with The 99 Cent Chef video below. As I mentioned earlier, "It's all in the wrist," and I don't just mean how you handle a shovel, as you will see during the video's outrageous ending.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

And 99 thanks to Bob McGuinness, and Amy for shooting the Chef.