Grocery saving tips?

[JoyNChrist]

The thread over in the B!tching Post got me thinking...

What are your favorite tips for saving money on your grocery expenses? We're trying to eat healthier, and I've noticed that I'm spending more on groceries than I did before.

[firstbaby]

I actually feel pretty proud of myself for how much I keep our grocery bill to our budget. I look at the on-line sale flyer for my regular grocery store each week before going and based on which meats are on sale, I plan meals around it. That helps me build a list that I know will take care of all of our meals to include side dishes, etc. I also keep a running list of things that we are running low on or are out of. Nothing like having two or three jars of something sitting in your pantry because you'd forgotten that you already bought it :)

I also try to focus my time spent on the "perimeter" aisles - the way my grocery store is configured the dairy, produce, meat and seafood departments are along each of the outside walls. Since most of what is in the middle aisles are convenience or processed items, I try not to spend a bunch of time and money there. I mean, really, almost $4 for a bag of Fig Newtons?! My family could go through those in one sitting.

The convenience or canned or processed items my family does tend to buy on a regular basis are MUCH cheaper at Target than our grocery store. The two are next to each other so I do combine it into one driving trip.

I do limit myself to going to Costco only one time every month or every other month - it is so easy to spend money there on spontaneous purchases. Our family size is not so big that I can justify buying some of the big boxes of stuff. Occasionally, I will set up with a couple of girlfriends to split a few of their meats which is a better grade of meat and less expensive than the grocery store. I then don't have to go through the freezing / defrosting cycle that I would have to do if I bought the meat for just my family due to the large package size.

I don't clip coupons because they tend to be for convenience type or gimmicky type products that we don't eat or use.

One money saving thing that drives DH CRAZY is that I park myself right at the register while the person is checking us out to confirm prices. If something does not ring up at the correct price, you get the item free if it is $3 or under, or $3 off if it is over $3. One trip, we saved $11 from errors alone!

Between shopping the sales and going to Target to save money on specific things, I would say I save $50 on a weekly basis.

Great thread! I'm looking forward to reading other tips!

[kep]

Sunday newspaper coupons. I'm subscribing so I can get them. Great deals! And don't be brand loyal. Shop the sales. Look for a store that doubles and triples coupons.

[Pennylane]

I try to use coupons whenever I can. Although like a PP said, there are usually for convenience foods more than fresh food. On items like mayo, peanut butter and baking items though you can really save especially if your store doubles. I always stock up on those items during triple coupons too.

I also check the store flyers for sales on fruit. We eat a ton and one out of 3 stores usually have a decent sale.

I have also found that Walmart SuperCenters have pretty good prices on most items.

Ann

[katydid1971]

Make sure you pantry shop. If you like s certain item or brand of a staple, non-perishable item buy it ONLY when it is on sale. Also take a notebook with you and write down the prices of items you buy regularly at the different stores. Then when you see that items on sale you can consult your notebook and see if it really is a good deal. Be careful of coupons, most are for things you wouldn't normally buy, so saving $.25 but spending $3.00 to do so isn't a savings. Always shop with a list. I find that my big oopsies are when I go off my list. Watch the store flyers and use them to plan your meals. Those are the things that help me save.

[missym]

We save money by shopping sales, price matching other stores' ads, and clipping coupons. I avoid buying items just because there's a coupon unless I'm getting it free and it's something I'll donate.

I find www.hotcouponworld.com (http://www.hotcouponworld.com) very helpful.

We also try to plan meals to use leftovers, and we make large batches of favorites and freeze them for quick dinners. Our Foodsaver has turned out to be a great investment.

[kijip]

We spend $500 a month on groceries. We used to spend around $300, but to be fair we used to spend another few hundred on top of that (sometimes more) on eating out/take out. So even though our bill is higher, we are saving money. Also, that $500 for for nearly all organics (all organic produce, meat, dairy, eggs, grains, sweeteners, mostly organic for for few processed items we buy. Right now the only non organic items in the house are ice cream, halloween candy, hot chocolate and various spices.) We would spend less for sure if we did not buy all organic. If we did our diet and meal planning using conventional ingredients, it would be around $300 a month I wager. We average $5.55 per person per day. That money buys us 6-9 servings of vegetable and fruit each daily, meat or fish most days for at least 1 meal (we choose to eat less meat intentionally for health reasons), a whole variety of grains, nuts, eggs etc. We eat very, very well IMO in terms of the variety of foods we can afford and the either nutritional or tastiness value of each item. While $500 for a family of three is not uber cheap, is is pretty economical compared to the national averages and is a lot of nutrition all things considered.

We buy whole foods, ingredients and not many packages of prepared or convenience foods. That is hands down the biggest money saver we do. We are very busy, each of us works outside the home (me 40ish hours, him 24 hours) and goes to school (him full time, me part time in a business/management program). To cook mostly from scratch with those schedules, we rely on a chest freezer and a crock pot heavily. No casserole gets made without a second going into the freezer, no muffins are baked without some going into the freezer, at least 3 morning out of 5, I am tossing stuff in the crockpot on the way out the door to work. We broke out the kitchen tasks to ensure we could consistently get the jobs done. I do 95% of the cooking, he does most of the baking and most of the kitchen cleaning. When we tried to split it all 50-50 it did not work and we ended up in take-out purgatory more often than not. :)

We also stopped wasting food. The average household wastes hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in food to spoilage a year. Meal planning, that includes breakfasts and lunches and dinners for a few weeks out at a time is key to this- I know what needs to go into the freezer based on the plan and I can block out prep time if I know what needs to be done for the foods we plan to eat. Meal planning saves on food costs too, because I plan with the circular open in front of me. Before we went all organic, it was even easier since I could plan with the circulars of 8+ stores in front of me, whereas now I pretty much just stick to the co-op and Trader Joes and 1 local grocery chain. If you coupon, pull out the ads and the coupons in making your plans. The Grocery Game and Coupon Mom help you match sales to coupons for maximum savings (only really helpful if you are buying packaged foods).

Our produce comes mostly from a local CSA that I found through www.localharvest.org. Since I don't have to go to the store very often for fresh stuff, that cuts down on impulse buys.

The main question I get when the whole homemade, less packaged foods comes up is what do we eat and how do we find the time. I covered the time saving stuff above and here is a sample of a daily menu (this is what we ate today):

-Carrot muffins, fruit and yogurt for breakfast (J, T and me).
-fruit for snack ( J and me)
-Salmon, cream cheese and veggie sandwich, cheese, fruit for lunch (T and me- J ate lunch at school).
-Dinner: Split peas with potatoes, veggies and chicken in one pot. Greens on the side. Poached pears and pineapple slices. Ice cream for dessert.

Yesterday we ate:

-Granola for breakfast (I make this up to have on hand in lieu of boxed cereals), milk (T), coffee (J and me) and fruit all around.
-Fruit for snack (J and me)
-Carrot muffin, cheese, fruit and yogurt for lunch for Toby
-Breakfast for dinner - waffles, veggie omelets, bacon, fruit.

Tomorrow:

-Waffles for b-fast with meat and fruit
-Lunch will be cheese and veggie sandwiches, fruit and raisins.
-Dinner is injera (bought from the store) with lentils and veggies and a little meat. Salad on the side.

Hope this novel helps someone a little. :)

[mezzona]

kijip, thanks for the post.. our budget is $300/mo as well and we do mostly organic. It seemed, though, that we still weren't eating as healthy as we should be. I think I was lacking in the meal planning and relying on too many of the premade stuff at TJ. I have a crockpot and have never used it.. Your info has already helped me tremendously.. better get crackin on my menu!

[denna]

What about The Grocery Game?! I cant personally vouch for it yet, I just signed up for it myself but I have heard some great things here is the link if you're interested:

www.thegrocerygame.com

[missym]

What about The Grocery Game?!

Some people have good luck with GG, but honestly you can find sale lists and coupon matchups free on other sites. I found that the GG lists weren't very accurate for my area, and all the rules about discussing deals on their forum made it hard to find good info there. I use HCW instead (see link in my other post).

[JTsMom]

Slickdeals.net is another good place to learn about deals. If you are including household items in your grocery tally, make sure you learn about CVS's deals. You won't believe how much you can save with their Extra Care Bucks and coupons!!!


A lot of the things I do have already been mentioned- limit pre-prepared items, shop sales/coupons, know when a deal is really a deal and then stock up. One thing nobody else has mentioned is buying coupons on ebay. For example, we go through a lot of Muir Glen organic soup and tomatoes. When a $1 off coupon comes out for it, I go on ebay and buy a bunch- like 30 or 40 of them. This costs maybe $1.50 or $2, but if I use them all, I save $40. Then I watch for a sale on it- a few weeks ago, I found certain varieties of the tomatoes on clearance at Publix (they weren't old or anything) for .75. So, Publix paid me .25 for each one I took. Can't beat that!

Cascadian Farms is also another brand that puts out coupons often.


Try to cut back- even a little- on meat and dairy. A lot of our money goes to that. Every once in a while, have a vegetarian meal- a stir-fry, spaghetti or something with beans. If you make something like spaghetti w/meat sauce, use 3/4 of a pound instead of a pound- you'll never miss that extra bit of meat. Before you start to eat, put aside a little for lunch the next day. It saves time and money.

Be careful not to waste food- this is such a sore point for me b/c we do way too much of it. I forget about veggies in the produce drawer, etc.

The freezer is a key for me. I try to make things like baked chicken tenders and keep them stashed for when I'm too lazy to cook. This also works for meatballs, soups, baked stuff- even cookie dough. When I make cookies with Jason, I make a double batch, divide it into 4 parts, and freeze 3 of them. If I'm craving cookies, I don't buy them- just defrost for 3 mins in the microwave, and throw them on a cookie sheet.

[ThreeofUs]

ITA with other posters. I shop at Costco, however, for organic items and get really good deals on them.

Otherwise, my biggest suggestion is to buy in quantity when things are on sale. A few, blessed stores will give you a discount on top of the sales price.

[Bean606]

I am looking forward to reading other people's threads, because I need help in this area. Working full-time with a long commute makes ordering in or eating already prepared foods too easy, and I know that eats up a lot of our budget.

We, too, are trying to eat organic, and the biggest selection near me is at Whole Foods, which is so expensive. I have started to see a lot more organic items at Costco, and am thrilled, because honestly, that is my only saving money tip. We have a large basement for storage, and I buy non-perishables there, and will also buy organic milk for DS there, since he goes through it quickly. For example, the grocery store near me sells 1/2 gallon of organic milk for $4.99. I got three 1/2 gallons at Costco for $9.99. The expiration date is not until Feb, so I know my son will drink it all by then.

My biggest money-waster is throwing out food that has gone bad, so I am focusing on trying to use up stuff in the fridge before buying more. It doesn't always work with our schedules, but that is one of my New Year's resolutions - avoid wasting food.

We are also trying to limit eating out, but I just don't have the time or energy to make my lunch to take to work. I already have to get DS's stuff ready for day care, and I just can't make myself do it. That would probably be a huge money-saver. Maybe next year.

[Puddy73]

As many of the pps have said, pre-planning and limiting purchases of processed foods really helps! I plan our weekly menus around what is on sale at the grocery stores. CouponMom.com is a great free site for reviewing the weekly sales in your area. If you keep track, you will find that sales often run on a certain cycle (for example, Goldfish crackers go on sale at Kroger every 4 weeks). This will help you plan how many items to buy at the sale price. I also buy discounted meat that is close to the "sell by" date and put it in the freezer.

We don't have TJs, Costco or Whole Foods around here, but I've found that Wal-Mart actually has a number of organic items at decent prices.

[gatorsmom]

you are my hero! If the whole world ate like you described, we'd put the medical industry out of business! What a nice, healthy menu.

i wanted to say thank you for the excellent idea of buying CSA products. I used the website link you posted and found a farm near us that does deliveries of boxes of produce each week throughout most of the year and am on their delivery waiting list. I had never heard of this before you mentioned it in your post so thank you for that info! I can't wait to start doing this. I think this will help tremendously in my attempts to serve more healthy, fresh foods.

[brittone2]

My suggestions would be to follow Katie's LOL. We eat pretty similarly. We do a CSA, buy 90% organic, and buy most of our meat, etc. from local sources.

We do spend quite a bit on food, but we cut back in other areas to make that work. With PCOS and insulin resistance, I try to minimize carbs (getting back to doing this) even though I'm not overweight. That is not an inexpensive way to eat, however.

We try not to buy much in the way of convenience foods. I do "planned leftovers" (make extra of something tonight and reinvent it tomorrow night). I roast two chickens side by side in a huge roasting pan about once a week, and then debone, chop, and freeze a good portion while leaving some out to eat the next few days. The chicken carcasses then gets made into soup, giving us an extra few meals for only a small amount of money. I do buy 2-3 convenience food dinners to keep on hand at times (things like Trader Joe's frozen meals) and save those for nights when the alternative would be going out to dinner (better to spend $5-6 on convenience food than $30 to go out to eat, but that's only if I save it for a relative crisis night when there's no other way dinner would happen). Even with a coupon, organic soup in a can is far, far more expensive than making your own. Ditto things like organic waffles (one of my son's vices, although it is now only every few weeks he gets a box of them to enjoy). Look for house brand organics like the 365 organic label at Whole Foods.

You can often reduce the amount of expensive ingredients (like organic cheese) in a recipe without a noticeable loss in taste. You can sometimes skip exotic ingredients without sacrificing the overall taste of the meal (but I am a foodie and like those things. But they can often be reduced or eliminated and you can still have an enjoyable meal).

Keep a price book w/ the best prices on the items you use most often. Figure out the price per ounce/lb or serving depending on the item. When that item goes on sale, stock up if it is something you have room to store it and you know that you'll use it.

Meal plan. Look at what you are throwing away and think about how to minimize food waste. Keep a shelf devoted to leftovers in the fridge and try to use up that stuff when possible before making something new. Plan leftovers intentionally and use them in the next night's dinner. Feed the freezer with extra meals so you always have something ready to go (eliminates the need to go out to eat so often).

Learn how to cook things from scratch like soups. I never had much luck w/ beans and then found a method for doing dried beans in a crockpot that works great. Dried beans are a fraction of the price of canned beans. You can add beans to a lot of ethnic types of dishes and use less meat. We've canned in the past but haven't for the past year or two while I was pg and then had a young infant, but that can be a pretty decent savings if you grow your own tomatoes for example.

We make our own ice cream pretty often (using up our locally bought raw milk :) ), and do things like air popped organic popcorn (60-90 cents or so a pound, even for organic) for snacks.

Consider getting involved w/ a buying club, local co-op, etc. Our local co-op gives members 20% off their grocery bill in exchange for a volunteer commitment of 3 hrs per week. We aren't doing this yet, but plan to in the future. (our co-op doesn't require volunteer hours). I buy spices, vitamins, non food items like dishsoap and toiletry items like soap, etc. from Frontier. My mom and I formed a buying club for those items. Shipping to me is free for $250, which isn't that hard to reach if I buy a bunch of things I know we use already, like my Rainbow Light vitamins (about half the retail price, so savings of $10-15ish per bottle!).

[kijip]

One more thing I will add to this discussion is that food (while more now than say last year) is really very cheap in the US...in some cases too cheap. In previous generations, we paid 25+% of our income for food. For me that would be over $17,500 annually for food...and as stated above, I only spend $6000. That seems like a lot to me, but my grandparents paid out much more relative to their incomes to feed their family and spent way more time than the average person does now in terms of preparation. Food is generally cheaper now relative to income but some of the mechanisms and subsidies that have brought that about come at costs we pay, but not on our sales slips at the grocery store. Just because the grocery bill is less, does not mean the cost is less...we pay in taxes, we pay in environmental costs and lord knows we pay in health costs. HFCS made artificially cheap by sugar protections, subsidized corn in some form in nearly every processed conventional foods and mysteriously cheap meat product. By buying more local, sustainable foods, I feel I am paying closer to the true cost of what I consume. Cooking from scratch makes it doable and while that takes time, I sort of feel like if we can't take time to cook and EAT, what the heck do we have time for? Sorry, feeling cranky today. ;)

So I agree trying to save grocery money is great, but I think that it can only be done to a certain point in terms of personal, economy and environmental health. Frankly, I don't care if a can of trans fat laden biscuits or crustless freezer sandwiches are free after coupon, I don't want to feed that to my body, soul or child. I am sensitive to the economic factors that cause poor people to need to make tough choices but I know from personal experience with being in poverty as a child and being low income as a very young adult, that healthier foods are possible on a small budget with some careful planning. Even if we could not afford all organic, we would still be at least eating healthier than all processed, all carb and sugar stuff. And I am willing to cut in a lot of other areas to make organic foods more reasonable for us.