Give me your grocery $-saving tips

[Pollyanna]

We spend about $1000-1500/month for groceries and eating out for a family of seven. Honestly I'm pretty happy with that considering it includes all three meals for everyone (the kids rarely buy lunch). In the end it comes out to about $2.40/meal served, not too bad if you think about it. I'm sure I could save more but I have tried the coupon thing and to do it well it takes a lot of time I just don't have now. I do try to buy only things on sale at the store. I am really picky about my meats so I will spend more in that area. No generics because I really don't like the quality. We shop at Target and an AZ local grocery store for the most part. I am not a huge meal planner. I will typically plan only 3-4 meals a week because it's hard when everyone is going in different directions. Tonight I made 8 quarts of chili that I will serve again tomorrow and then freeze the rest (which will only serve another 2 meals max). A family meal for us always means one less gallon of milk in the house so we are now up to needing 6-8 gallons per week.

I think you really have to like to freeze items to make that a money saving plan. I only freeze a few items like chili and tomato sauce other than that I like everything fresh (I hate frozen meat) and you have to be careful because most stores are selling "fresh" chicken that has been previously frozen (yuck).

Do what works for your family and your budget, it's not necessary that it is in line with other people.

[MrsK]

I have an itty-bity freezer which has significantly impaired my ability to stock up. I make room by not buying non-essewntials that require freezing (ice cream, frozen dinners). My freezer stock pile is usually about 2-3 weeks worth of chicken and beef and about 4-6 worth of frozen veggies (and maybe 1 carton of ice cream).

I stockpile canned tomatoes, pasta sauce, cereal, peanut butter, pasta, rice, and stufflike that in our pantry (also teeny).

If you check expiration dates and consider what your family eats when, you can usually get 2-3 weeks of milk, eggs, cheese, and yogert when they are on sale.

[Vanquisher]

I am an attending surgeons wife, and I know this isn't popular, but I buy 80% of my groceries at Walmart. I supplement the rest with Costco, Sams Club, Super Target (with 5% off for using my red card) and Publix. All of my big shopping is done at Walmart though. I have three freezers, so I buy a lot in bulk. If you have room for an extra freezer, it's a good investment.

Frozen veggies are usually better than fresh because they are picked when they are ripe instead of before for transport.

In residency, my grocery and toiletry budget was $400 a month for everything including eating out. We eat out a lot more frequently now, and we have more expensive and varied proteins now, but our grocery budget is probably $500/month not including eating out twice a week. With the eating out, we probably are at around $900.

I have enough food though, embarrassingly enough, to survive the apocalypse for months on my stores. I'm not used to having so much space yet or available funds! I always had to stockpile before and make food last if one of the cars broke down or the furnace needed repair or whatever else came up.

I could definitely cut back my food budget if I wanted, but working so much and other stresses have made me let this expense go fairly unchecked as of late. We are eating out more than I'd like. I haven't been cooking or meal planning as often, but my mental ability to handle this lately has been sapped. I am glad to be in the position now where I am able to let this worry go a bit. Still, I'd feel better about it if our total food budget inclusive of eating out was around $600.

I am cheap. I hate paying more for something when I know I can get it cheaper somewhere else.

I clearly don't belong in the doctors wife club.

[MrsK]

Lately, I just haven't enjoyed meals out. Not only is it difficult with kiddos, but I'm often disappointed with the quality of resturant meals in relation to the cost. It seems silly to spend money at a family resturant when I can make a better, healthier meal at home for a fraction of the cost just so I don't have to spend a few minutes washing dishes. Cooking at home and learning new cooking techniques saves me a lot of money and hassle.

[oceanchild]

We spend a small fortune on groceries (DH prefers not to worry about them - we budget accordingly) so I have no room to talk, really, but here are a few things:

-our "meal planning" consists of each of us being responsible for cooking two meals a week, which allows a little bit of advance grocery shopping but is still pretty low pressure. We need low standards here.
-boxed goods (cereal in particular) are usually cheaper at Target, and it's not like it's going to be worse cereal.
-we recently switched from grocery list on the refrigerator to a shared list app on our smartphones, because we were having some duplication issues. I'm hoping this helps us actually get what we need at the store too.

With me working full time and DH working way more than full time, I feel like treading water is the best we can ask for sometimes.

[houseelf]

Hanging my head in shame. I clearly can do better. You all impress me.

[alison]

We don't have Sprouts or Sunflower here. There are places I can spend less on groceries, for sure. It's just so convenient to be able to walk 2 blocks to a big grocery store and pick up things here and there.

We do save in the car department, because we bike and walk everywhere. One tank of gas every 1.5 months, so I'm sure I've got most of you beat there.

I think that what we spend on food is crazy, especially when I see how little families here spend that are double the size of mine. Our system does work for us, but I'd like to cut a good $100 from the chips/processed food/crap we buy. Unfortunately, we do still buy baby formula for dd still. Arg!

[spotty_dog]

I also think we need to be sure to compare apples to apples if we're going to compare our spending habits with each other. If you drink alcohol, is that in your food budget or separate? How about paper goods and cleaning supplies? Coffee? Seeds for the food garden? Snacks for the preschool class? Groceries purchased while on vacation? What if it was a driving vacation and you brought some of them back?

It's complicated. I think Pollyanna is right, just be honest about what you can afford and what you value and go from there. I am pretty sure I can do better at keeping my grocery expenses in line, so I am interested in working on it, but a straight-up comparison to another family doesn't seem too useful, necessarily.

Also, under normal circumstances we fill up one of the two cars every 3-4 weeks, which I don't think is too bad given our rural location and our main car being a relative gas-guzzler at ~23 mpg. We've had a rash of weekly fill-ups lately though, I think because we're driving long distances to hubby's bike races.

[alison]

Yes, you're right, Alison. I've just been shocked by our grocery bill when I look at Quicken. I mean, $900!!!

I think I'm going to have to start a window sill herb garden or something, because I tend to buy herbs in the produce section, use them, and chuck out more than half a package. Now that I've got you on this thread, Alison, is now a good time to start this, and then move them outside in the summer?

[ladymoreta]

Hanging my head in shame. I clearly can do better. You all impress me.

Me too... I used to do better, but since I had DS, I try to buy organic when I can find it, and it's so expensive. A huge part of our grocery money goes to his fruit and veggies. The kid eats way better than DH and I...

[spotty_dog]

I think I'm going to have to start a window sill herb garden or something, because I tend to buy herbs in the produce section, use them, and chuck out more than half a package. Now that I've got you on this thread, Alison, is now a good time to start this, and then move them outside in the summer?

That's a really good question, I'm in the middle of re-considering my seed-starting calendar so I'm not an expert yet but I can make some guesses. I think perennial herbs like thyme, rosemary, sage can be bought as starts or small plants and kept outside right now. It's probably almost time to start basil, but you're going to want a GREAT windowsill -- basil doesn't love living outside in our climate because it wants warm nights, but it gets leggy and sad-looking without enough light. Other stuff, you're probably already past your last frost (you apparently stay a smidge warmer than we do, we've got a couple weeks to go) and this is probably a fine time to start your parsley (notoriously hard to germinate, maybe consider buying starts) and coriander and what-not, planning to put it out fairly soon after germination. My chives are going NUTS right now, those are probably fine to be outside now too.

[alison]

We don't get a whole lot of sun on our patio, so not a ton works outside. Chives do really well and I've spotted them around the city in people's gardens a lot right now. I would like to do chives for now. I spend and waste a lot of money on them!

[Ladybug]

Some of its regional too. No matter what I do I'll never be able to spend as little as they do in the south. The produce is what makes out bill high. The processed stuff is cheap. The organic, free range stuff is so expensive. I'm trying to go by the dirty dozen and clean 15 when deciding where to spend our money. I easily spend what Pollyanna spends...and that doesn't include lunches. I spent even more in Seattle, but it was food heaven to. I don't feel like im getting what I pay for here.

[Thirteen]

When comparing, the cost of living/produce is going to be much higher depending on both region and seasonal availability. We live in a cheaper area, however, if you want out-of-season, you will pay quite nicely for it.
That is something that DH was shocked by, growing up in CA. It never occurred to him that there are true "seasonal" foods.

[Auspicious]

Some of its regional too. No matter what I do I'll never be able to spend as little as they do in the south.

And further complicated by local factors, as well. Websites like this one and this one put the cost of groceries at a bit above the national average in Columbia, which on the city-data board they've very vaguely attributed to factors affecting competition. I'm not even sure what that would be--something at the distributor level? There certainly are several different grocery stores to compete with one another. All the more impressive that Heidi did it on $400/mo here.