Thanks for all the tips. I am looking for ways to cut my grocery budget! I just spent all afternoon cutting up veggies to freeze for later. I am terrible about not using all what I buy and it goes bad. That 's like throwing money in the trash. So, today I decided to cut up what I can, freeze what I can and what I cant' will be used right away. I agree that calcium is a must but milk is not. There are other ways to get it. Not everyone can drink milk. While, I can...some in my family cannot. I love milk but I am giving up on most dairy products since slowly they are starting to make me sick. At any rate, alternatives to milk are costly. However, there are plenty of other ways to get calcium.
Here's a few of my money saving tips when it comes to groceries... Know your stores. As a general rule-without sales, walmart is my best bet for everything except meat and fresh produce which I get better quality and price at a local store. However-I have a couple of local stores email me their weekly ad. Last week I got GREAT deals at Kroger-they had frozen veggies for $1/bag so I stocked up as much as I could (as in I left $5 in the checking account! LOL) Menu planning is a great money saver too-silly as it sounds. It's nice to know you have dried cranberries on hand on a day you want to make chicken salad rather than having to change the recipe or run to the store or whatever... Make a list and STICK TO IT! (and YES! Leave the hubby AT HOME! LOL) I like to use this program (free) http://www.homeplansoftware.com/shoplist.htm it adds up your grocery list (you put in how much the item is at your store) After you use it for a while-it's not much work-it does take a couple of months to get most of your staples added in though... Honestly, I don't do many coupons simply because we don't buy a lot of things they offer coupons for. When you cook from scratch and shop sales and buy generic, coupons aren't a huge money saver. (no one around me doubles coupons) I do use some non-food coupons and on occasion do use them-but it's rare... We eat a lot of pasta,, rice and dried beans. (though hubby is type 1 diabetic so he can't live off that...) One of my local stores has turkey bacon for $2/pack- a pack will last us 2-3 meals (depending on if the kids want bacon with their pancakes or whatever) Cut back on meat and do meatless meals (meatless Monday seems popular LOL) if I cook a one dish meal/casserole or something where the meat is mixed in-I only use 1/2 lb instead of the 1- 1 1/2 lbs most recipes calls for. No one complains. (I doubt they even notice) Something I've started doing is controlling portion sizes. Hubby will eat until it's gone! LOL Sometimes I take 1/2 a roast out before dinner (to save for another night) and then we have dinner another night AND I don't have to hear him complain that he ate too much! LOL I keep a gallon freezer bag in my freezer-any leftover veggies or meats that would get thrown out but be good in a soup go in the bag. When the bag fills-I make what I call free soup.
Also you can pour the liquid you cook veggies in that often goes down the drain into a container and use it as part of broth for your veggie soup. I always refer to this as "Leftover Soup", lol!
I love the freezer bag idea! I am famous for throwing away bits of food that seem to be scraps...I won't be doing that anymore!
I also use less meat in my recipes, unless it is a special occasion. When I boil chicken, I freeze the broth for Spanish rice and other meals. I never purchase canned beans. I can get a pound of pinto beans for .49 cents, so I stock up. I try to purchase as much as possible in bulk. This includes brown rice. We don't use a lot of bread anymore but I still bake my own. It is cheaper and healthier. I try to stay away from cold cereal. But sometimes I do buy it. We usually eat yogurt with fruit, oatmeal, another hot cereal, eggs, pancakes, or french toast for breakfast. The cost for any of these is less than some boxes of cereal and milk. I try to consider serving sizes as well as portions. I want my family to be satisfied but not full after a meal.
boxed cereal is terribly expensive! I am going to cut down on that as well. I am doing a dietary overhaul anyway. Well, dietary and budget. However, the healthier you eat sometimes it gets costly. I will be making more and more from scratch. I used to all the time and now I am only a semi-homemade cook. Going back to my old ways.
When we first started eating healthier, it cost more. Now we can actually eat for less than we were before we started cutting back. It really does take time to figure out how to eat healthy for less but little by little, we are eating healthier for less and we are all seeing weight loss as well, which means less food going in our tummy. I have lost almost 50 lbs now and Handsome has lost 25. Granted, we are also exercising. I purchase fruits and veggies that are on sale. If I am going to eat meat, I purchase what I can afford. I do not eat a lot of it. Our doctor, ages ago, told us that a good way to see how much meat you need is to use the palm of your hand as a measuring tool. He said that meat eaters tend to eat WAY to much meat. I know that I still do. I love meat!LOL Handsome loves to cook and he can cook expensive healthy meals if he isn't careful. I stopped using the health cookbook because some of the ingredience were costly. We still eat junk from time to time but not like we did before. I think finances and weight loss are one in the same; it takes a life change to make it work, not just cut backs.
I can't believe how LOW the milk prices are where some of you live! Here, it's around $3 - sometimes over (or WAY over), sometimes JUST under. At my mom's in AR, WalMart milk is WAY cheaper than WalMart milk here! like as much as a dollar difference for a gallon. I try to keep dry milk around, for when we don't have a lot of milk and I want to use it in a recipe... I used to drink it regularly, because when ds and his family lived here with us, he and dil drank it in place of water - couldn't keep milk in the fridge! - but they wouldn't touch my reconstituted powdered milk, so there was some when I wanted it! I never knew that there was such a thing as powdered whole milk until some months ago, someone on a forum I was on said something about it. I've only ever seen nonfat dry milk, or buttermilk powder for baking with.
Around here we can spend a bit over $4.00 for a gallon of milk. The lowest I find it is $2.99 and this is at a bulk store. So I buy it when I go because I can't beat the price.
Wow....Milk prices sure do vary! Here the cheapest I have found is $2.99 a gallon, at a deli. At Walmart it's $3.49 and at the local grocery store it is $3.99! We go thru 2-3 gallons a week.
Locality does make a huge difference. When I last bought dry milk probably 6 years ago when I was learning the tight budget thing it was cheaper here. Then again most food is trucked almost across Canada (north to south) so shipping plays a huge factor in prices. Imagine hauling the equivalent of a box of dry milk in liquid gallons but that definitly goes with the "Pay attention" tip. Sometimes I think one store is cheaper for an item and get in the habit of buying it there to notice one day the other store has come down in price more. You are right that calcium is a big deal but milk is certainly not the only way to get calcium. I just canned a case of salmon complete with bones. We also have a higher veggie to grain ratio then the average American because I grow my own veggies. Spinach, bok choy, most greens actually, raspberries and strawberries that we pick but I should be careful making a blanket statement. Many people have lots of nutrient free grain meals. Grain is more expensive where I live though I try to make the most of our grain consumption by getting nutrient dense as possible.
Stateside it was easy to shop cheaply but here it's only the commassary and it's brandname for groceries and there is NEX brand but sometimes the brand name will be cheaper with a coupons. Coupons are good here up to 6 months past the expiration date. Unfortatally I never find coupons for the items I use. I live off $1100 a month. This has been and will always be my monthly allowance for food, gas, children activities. Out of this $300-$400 was for groceries/nonfood needs. Its not as easy now living here where it's more expensive. I can go out intown but if you add the price of the currencly exchange it's more than if I just went to the commassary but out in town I get fresher foods. Our food is shipped over frozen from the states. I have gone back to cooking from scratch. I had stopped and enjoyed the convience of jars and packages but not no more. If I want dried bread I rather bake it myself then spend $2.50 for non fresh bread.
Thanks for all the tipts. I have learned some great ones that I plan on using. I guess now I need to find out different things to do w/dried beans, because we love beans, so I might as well make the most of them. Thanks ladies.
What's crazy is that regular milk here (whole milk.... less fat = cheaper milk) is anywhere from $2.99 to $3.49 a gallon. But people think I'm totally off my rocker for paying $4 a gallon for grass-fed raw milk. HA! I literally pay $2 - $4 more a month for MUCH better milk than average, but that's "Too much?" From the same people who have no problem buy a Starbucks or two every week. ROFL!
OK, now I know a gallon is different then the four liters of milk but only by a tad. But for the four liters we buy at the store it is over $5! And I am not buying whole milk either! Whole milk hovers around $6-$7 and to top it off we have a dairy locally buy the milk prices are all about the same local or not.
