lwheelr said:
I agree on making your own soup - you don't even have to can it. Just use a crock pot and start it in the morning, it is done by evening. If you have lean meat, you can toss it right in and it will cook completely in the pot - I cut it up finer than commercial stew meat so it goes further (kitchen shears do a fast job of that). It doesn't need to be time consuming, and it does not need to mean that your family cannot eat what they like.
I LOVE my crockpot. I cook soup and braise meats etc. I just don't know what to do about the leftovers - freezing doesn't seem to work (I've tried it). DH apparently considers the freezer a no-mans land. So leftover soup hasn't been very successful.
I've never tried canning it though. Maybe that would work for us.
Ok, don't just watch what you already spent. And don't just write up a list.
Create a list in a spreadsheet - categorize your groceries. Make some extra columns beside the name of the grocery item:
St = Store - where you can usually get the best deal on that item (this helps you plan the trip better)
Avg Pr = Average Price - what you normally expect to pay for it, so you know if it is a good deal
Qty = Quantity - how many you need this trip
Cst = Cost - how much you plan to spend this time
At the bottom of each Cost column, do a total on that column. Then to the right of the last Cost column, do a grand total on all the Cost columns.
Usually it will take about four major column groups to list all the things you ordinarily buy, and you'll just fill in the amounts you need each trip, and the amount you expect to spend for them - erase the the cost on the ones you don't need that time. Leave a few blank lines in each category so you can put in unusual items that you only get now and again.
You now have a self-calculating shopping list, that will help you set a goal and stay under it. This works great, because you can juggle the items on the list, and the amounts, BEFORE you are in the store, so you can plan it out ahead when you have time to think about it and reason it out. Print it off and head to the store.
When you use it, then you'll be able to snap up sale items because you will KNOW when a sale item is a good price. Also, if you plan on spending $3 to get two cartons of eggs, and eggs are on sale for $.99 each, you know you can get three instead of two, and gradually accumulate an effective storage on things you frequently buy.
Okay. This makes sense. And I can access it on my cellphone when I'm at the store and update the price. I just realized I have only a vague sense of "average price" of many of the things we buy. I know how much milk is and other staples, but... yeah. That should help.
We shopped once a month for about 15 years, until our income became too erratic to do that. It is a fact that when you shop less often, you spend less, get more, and learn to plan better and make do better. The fewer times you get into the store, the less you tend to spend overall.
Meals out also push costs WAY up. Even grabbing a burger once a week can blow the budget.
I cook at home a lot to try to keep us from going out. Here's my challenges:
* If DH gets bored with the food, he'll go out.
* If it's leftovers, he won't eat it. He'll whine and say "what, we can't afford real food?" and then insist that I either cook something or go out. (Or grab some convenience food.)
* DH won't eat standard American cold-cuts (the cheap ones). He only eats imported Italian ones. I've cut down how often we eat them. But that's about all I can do on that.
* If he gets pasta less than 3 times a week, he whines. (DH tells me that the
real Italian national sport is whining. ) At least I managed to get him onto whole wheat pastas and the new multi-grain pastas. And I measure it very carefully so he only gets 2oz of pasta.
* DH's not supposed to have a lot of carbs (diabetes 2) so when we don't have pasta, it's a meat dish generally, with a side salad and vegetable. Beans are carb-y and lentils really spike his blood sugar so even though we both love things like lentils&rice, that's something we could have as a small side, not as a meal.
* DS is tired of pasta. So he eats more of the leftovers (and I do them for lunch) on pasta nights. Or eats pizza. I had to stock up on frozen pizza so we'd have that available for him instead of him *ordering* it. You can get 6 frozen pizzas for the cost of one delivery!
* Seafood - we try to incorporate some fish or seafood at least once a week. It's expensive. I realized last night though that the place I've been getting seafood is more expensive than our local Safeway (it just moved in about 2 blocks away - thank goodness!) so I'll start buying there instead.
* Meats: we try to go for organic, freerange, grassfed, etc etc. That of course, makes it pricier.
I think the big thing is just not really knowing how much I'm spending on the different things I buy - so the spreadsheet sounds great. I'll track all my purchases for a month so I can see what I'm spending on each item and where, so I can start figuring out that "average" and also see what stores near here are cheaper on things I'd normally buy.
I can see from what I'm writing here that my biggest problem is falling into DH's thinking of just buying things that look good without thinking about it first. (He's never had to worry about the cost.)
It's unlikely that we'll be able to get away as cheap as others, but I'd like to cut down and, more important, control how much we're spending.
Hi, my name is Anna and I'm a wastrel.
, since that is empty calories. Sounds like you are already doing a lot to save as it is. Maybe only shop sales and stock up, get produce items in season (cheaper) and freeze the extras for later. 
But he ate it. 
and the vet made him barf and then told us to feed him very bland boiled chicken breast for a couple days until his system recovered. )
