Give me your grocery $-saving tips

[alison]

We spend way too much on food. We've cut down on eating out, and I'm happy with where we are in that respect, but how is it possible that we're spending $900 on groceries every month. We're a family of 3, and 1 of us eats next to nothing!

I suck at meal planning. I look through coupons that come in the mail, and I HATE hotdogs and cereal.

I look through circulars, but have no idea what to make with the food that's on sale...

How do you go about with meal planning by using what's in your fridge and on sale at the grocery store?

Gawd I'm a mess!

[diggitydot]

I try to buy staples that work in several different dishes and stuff that is either frozen or freezes well. With DD1 being a vegetarian, we consume tons of veggies (frozen/canned/fresh), beans, and rice.

Truly, I need to be better about meal planning, but I just look in the fridge/freezer/pantry and make whatever we have on hand. On any given night we could have stir-fry, curry and lentils, or turkey burgers.

[MrsK]

We spend a little over $400/mo on groceries. My tips:

- clip coupons but only for what you use
- meal plan around the store circular
- combine coupons with sales - so, hold on to that coupon until the store puts the item on sale
- most staples go on sale about every 6 weeks. Learn your store's schedule and stock up when there is a sale. Also find out when your store marks items down.
- shop the peremiter of the store (fresh foods) and don't go through every asile. Only dart into asiles that have items you need.
- don't waste money on sweets or junk food
- don't waste grocery money on paper or cleaning products (better deals at Walgreens)
- shop with a list
- go to the store that doubles coupons.






p

[spotty_dog]

Well, the good (?) news is that the USDA tells us that food just plain costs that much. According to the current Cost of Food numbers, a family your size with eating habits in line with the top quartile of spenders (the Liberal plan) is expected to spend about $911.

You mentioned recently that you have local milk and produce delivered to your door -- you know that's not the most cost-effective choice. I'm not saying you have to discontinue or anything, but maybe consider the difference between the cost you pay and the price of the similar product at the grocery store to be more like a farm subsidy or donation as opposed to a grocery expense.

As for shopping from circulars...I guess I just know what staples I need and what's a good price for them. Then I flip through and find the store that has the good price. If it's a great price, I plan to stock up. So this week at Safeway I'll probably get a few meals' worth of chicken at $.99/lb and freeze the extra. I'll get 6 bottles of Smoking Loon wine at $6.30/bottle (minus a $3/bottle rebate with a wine tag I've been saving). I need fruit, so I'll probably jump on the 10 lbs/$10 apples, and I've got some room to stockpile pop (which I always buy up when it goes under $3.50/12 pack) so buy 2 get 2 free plus free ritz crackers sounds decent. And check out the Friday-only sale! Keurig k-cups for $5/12 ct is better than I can get online, so I guess I will aim my shopping trip for Friday (and I guess I will try to go early since it is spring break and it will be a madhouse!)

But the super local Red Apple has a much better price on broccoli and they have the grass-fed ground beef I like, plus the naturally raised Hempler's pork products are on sale for almost the same as regular ol' Johnsonville, so I'll get that stuff there. I'll aim to make something kind of nice and involved on the nights this coming week that DH will be joining us, but I'll focus on just simple chicken dishes, pasta (frozen cheese ravioli or else Italian sausage in red sauce), quesadillas, or homemade pizza for the nights it's me and the kids. Ideally I'd like to have a week's worth of main dinner dishes from one shopping trip -- I can pretty much punt from there.

[Thirteen]

I will write more later, but I sometimes do an ingredient search online to find a recipe that highlights what I already have.


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[alison]

Alison--the milk is cheaper if I order from the farm than milk at the store! For 4 cartons of milk, I pay $10! And there's no delivery fee.

The veggies from the farm are crazy expensive. I need to get rid of that. I feel like we eat healthier and I have an easier time getting inspired on what to cook when someone else picks my veggies. .

We have a tiny freezer. I try to stock up on things that we use a lot, like chicken breasts and ground beef.

What sort of staple veggies do you buy? And what kinds of sides do you make (lettuce, for example, is expensive this time of year).

[diggitydot]

We do a TON of veggies, mostly frozen. Broccoli, peppers, green beans, sweet peas -- all are great frozen. The only fresh veggies I frequently buy (when not available in my own garden) are lettuce, Roma tomatoes, and onions.

Also, consider looking at local co-ops. The ones here have much less expensive fresh fruit and veggies than the typical grocery stores.

[alison]

What about frozen Brussels sprouts? I've always bought them
fresh. I love them.

Do you think flavor is at all compromised when the veggies are frozen? I know that peas and corn are great when frozen, but what about some of the others you've mentioned?

[diggitydot]

Truly, I don't notice a difference in taste. Occasionally texture in the cheaper brands, but not taste.

Honestly, I haven't the foggiest idea about Brussels sprouts because I think they taste like ass and don't buy them. Ever. I'd rather starve.

[spotty_dog]

And see, for me Brussels are the epitome of a late fall/early winter/sometimes early spring treat. Frost-kissed and sweet, NOM, there's nothing like the farm-fresh ones. I don't think I could contemplate frozen ones, but at $5/bag or $6/stalk, the fresh ones are a very rare treat indeed. I wish I were better at growing them.

We use a lot of frozen spinach because it's easy to toss in to soup or pasta sauce. Peas and carrots and corn and broccoli can also be convenient. And we always stay stocked up on frozen stir-fry mix, because it livens up ramen noodle soup as well as being the base of...stir-fry.

This is a tough time of year because local stuff is still so sparse. Our diet relies heavily on lettuce salad, it's always the fallback veggie side, so at this time the best I can do is watch for leaf lettuce to go below $1.79 and buy at least two heads, and if it stays above $1.99 I try to switch us over to other veggie sides like broccoli for a little while. We've still got winter squash in storage from last year's harvest, so we try to incorporate that now and again.

As the growing season starts though, I just keep in the back of my mind what's in season, so even if I'm not buying super-local from my farmers, I know it's not anything that's been forced or transported from another hemisphere or anything. Plus it keeps me in the habit of rotating variety through our table. We'll be looking at the first spring greens within a matter of weeks, spinach and lettuce and kale and sorrel, then peas and favas and artichokes and asparagus. Early onions and sprouting broccoli and peas and garlic scapes...strawberries and rhubarb for dessert...OMG I can't wait!

[SoonerTexan]

I mentioned this on another thread, but do you have a Sprouts or Sunflower Market nearby? Cant beat their produce. They also have Chicken Breasts and Ground Beef on sale for $1.99/lb about once a month. I buy it there and stock up in my freezer. You can save a ton on meat that way.

I'm also a huge brussell sprouts fan!

[Thirteen]

A - we go to the huge Korean market for a lot of our produce because we can get it SUPER CHEAP. Hooray!
Our grocery budget is also supplemented by: SuperTarget (for when I am in a huge pinch) and Sprouts.

I am not organized enough for coupons, but I do join the store's "saver card" thing, which gives me discounts at the register.

We spend about $100-125 per week on groceries for a family of 3. I make my own bread, because I'm GF, and because it's tastier/cheaper.
I also have taken the time to learn how to make proper sauces/season blends from scratch. Seriously, I just get online and google it. Favorite sites are: Food Network, Maangchi (K food delights), Epicurious, and AllRecipes. I don't have time to menu plan in advance, but like DD, I have staples that I buy every week that make a variety of different dishes. In fact, if the food doesn't do double or triple duty for a meal ingredient, I usually don't buy it.
I have a 3 cup food processor, and an additional coffee grinder for spice rubs/blends. Those 2 items make cooking quite easy.
**Most of the time, however, I'm all about a good silicone spatula and my potato masher (Love that thing!).

Our go-to grain is rice: we purchase that in bulk from the Korean market, and we still haven't gone through our stashes of: short grain, brown, and basmati. The bags were purchased about 6-8 months ago. 1 cup of uncooked rice goes a long, long way.

We also don't eat nearly as much meat as we used to, and I'm supplementing our diet with veggie options instead. I like mushrooms, squash, and occasionally eggs in my rice dishes.
A meat splurge for us is pre-cleaned tube squid or shrimp (frozen), which I keep in the freezer until needed.

I often eat left overs for lunch.

Oh, and we order my coffee and agave nectar (nerd alert!) directly from Peet's and Amazon. Waaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

[diggitydot]

We buy in bulk, too. And now I'm totally off to check out Amazon's prices on agave nectar. We blow through it between my morning coffee and DH's love affair with his Greek yoghurt and agave nectar concoction.

[BonBon]

We spend about 800 a month for a family of 6. (bear in mind the kids only eat half portions) I want to echo MrsK in the "shop the perimeter" advice. I buy a lot of stuff in bulk, as the grocery store I use discounts quite a bit. ie a sack of pears or apples is $1/lb, but if you bag it yourself from the bins it's $2/lb. Organic field greens are $4/lb, antibiotic/hormone free milk is $2/gallon. Bulk buying may not work for you guys .

Do you meal plan? I find that's the biggest saver there, because then you (generally) don't have waste.

[alison]

We don't plan meals. It's more of a what-do-you-want-for-dinner approach which is really bad for our finances.

Generally, we don't have waste (nor leftovers for that matter).

I just don't have enough space in my freezer to stock up on things that are on sale, so I'm not sure what I can stock up on other than non-perishables.