Help reducing grocery bill?

[Leta]

LOVE being able to 'shop my pantry'.

QFT. It's so nice not to have to run to the store!

 

[moolie]

The toiletries we buy: Toms of Maine Toothpaste, home made or Bar Naked soap (like homemade lye soap, local company, soaps sold through our local natural foods grocery store), Prairie Naturals shampoo (again, local company out of Vancouver) don't have coupons.

We don't buy toothbrushes, we each get one for free every 6 months when we go to the dentist. Never seen coupons for dental floss. Don't buy feminine products, I sewed reusable fabric ones for myself years ago and for my girls a year or two before they started using them. I guess a deal on toilet paper would be good, but I get it in bulk during Co-op warehouse sales.

We don't have "double coupon" days anywhere I've lived in western Canada and all coupons up here say "not valid with any other offer" so the deals everyone mentions aren't possible up here--if one uses a coupon, that's the only price reduction available and if the item is on sale the store will only give the sale price, not add the coupon deal.

Plus we personally don't get a newspaper or flyers or buy magazines, so I don't get coupons in anything anyway. I'm just careful about getting the best price on things.

I'm not knocking what's possible for others, there just isn't really anything that a coupon would save me money on.

 

[Veggie PAK]

All this discussion about coupons is interesting, but what are the sources for your coupons? I know everybody has different sources for different areas. Let's hear some sources that people can access if they want the coupons.

 

[savingdogs]

How have I missed this thread so long? So many great ideas presented, I don't think I have much new to add. My hubby was real picky too and poverty in the last few months kinda cured him of that real quick.

I serve "leftovers" all the time, but I would never call them that. I change them a little, serve them with something else on the side or over the top, or make them into soup, or use leftover meat in a casserole, etc. I make up a silly name like "Beef surprise".

I make a soup that is essentially clean-out-the-refridgerator-soup.

I make enough dinner for two nights often and freeze the rest and make my own "convenience" items. Making homemade pizza is cheap and is the family favorite (I use a bread machine for the dough).

When I select what I'm making for dinner each night, I say to myself, what will go bad or not be at its freshest if not used today? And that is the starting point of whats-for-dinner.

We could not/did not reduce our food bill until we HAD to. We were spoiled in our eating habits and liked expensive, easy food. Lets face it, expensive food is BETTER. But necessity is the mother of invention and hunger makes a good sauce, so we have not gone hungry. We are not attempting to eat grass-fed or organic, we cannot afford it, but we did invest in animals to raise our own eggs, duck, rabbit and milk. We try to buy natural, whole foods and make it into things ourselves.

My main complaint is that eating cheaper has increased our waistlines, I need to work on making inexpensive, delicious low calorie meals.

While I'm attempting to grow a garden, I have not had good luck in years prior in growing my own veggies and did not save money. In my opinion canned vegetables from the store are a lot cheaper than a lot of things you could eat, I'd keep buying and serving them. Try serving two vegetables a night, my grandma used to always do that and lived to be almost 100. But with my black thumb and dismal canning/preserving skills, canned veggies is a good value compared to a lot of other foods. They are MUCH cheaper than fresh produce that goes bad before you can use it up.

Sorry I was late to this party!

I don't have anything to add to the coupon discussion, we use so few products that they offer coupons for, and are rarely for things like store brands like we tend to purchase. We do use the store promotions and shop the sales however, and sometimes go to more than one grocery store. We generally find, however, that if fewer people shop less often at fewer stores, we spend a lot less money, and the worst thing for us to do is take all four of us shopping when we are hungry! If we shop two grocery stores it is better to put a week between trips.

I hope my imput is helpful even though you have already gotten things under better control for you. Bless you for donating your extra to the food bank, I'm one of the people accepting from there currently and we are very grateful to people who donate to it.

 

[lorihadams]

I have found that I spend way less if I plan my meals out for at least one week. Because of the fresh produce we tend to buy I usually shop weekly so figuring out one weeks worth of meals isn't too daunting.

Another thing that has saved us money is that my husband was given a dorm size refrigerator and was allowed to put it under his desk in his office at work. So he goes once every two weeks and buys groceries for himself for lunch and spends about $20-30 on stuff to make his lunch at work about every 2 weeks. He also takes a big jug of well water from home and drinks on that everyday instead of buying soft drinks or bottled water or whatever from the 7-11 next door.

I have tried to raise/kill enough meat ourselves that I can justify spending more money on fresh or frozen food every week because we don't buy meat. We also prefer frozen veggies to canned and we have more storage space (2 freezers) than shelf space for canned stuff. Although I do plan on buying lots of tomatoes from the farmer's market this year and canning those or freezing them cause my garden isn't doing squat this year.

We are also going to be less picky about the size deer we kill this year. I am also going to try to take more does too. Last year we let several good sized does walk early in the season and we should have taken them. The weather turned and we didn't see near as many deer later in the season as we usually do and it left us scrambling to put meat in the freezer. I am having to ration out the deer meat cause we are almost out.

We still have enough for one meal a week until hunting season and I have a boatload of chicken left and I try to only buy pork when it goes on a deep discount and cut the tenderloins into steaks. I can usually make one tenderloin into 4 or 5 meals. We also didn't kill any turkeys this year either and that hurt our meat supply. I was able to get a pretty good deal on thanksgiving turkeys so I bought 2 and still have a whole turkey in the freezer as well.

I am working on finding recipes that use dried beans cause they really go a long way too. I am also loving having a goat in milk cause now I don't buy milk or yogurt and I'm working on cheesemaking and soapmaking as my next projects. We make our laundry detergent too and that saves us some money.

I also find that if I go with a list and shop WITH my children I get only what I need and get out faster. If I go by myself then I tend to linger in the aisles and end up picking up impulse stuff.

Also, only shop after you have eaten a meal. It really is true that you will buy more stuff if you shop hungry.

 

[Wifezilla]

An increased waistline comes from to many carbs, not necessarily too many calories.

 

[freemotion]

My main complaint is that eating cheaper has increased our waistlines, I need to work on making inexpensive, delicious low calorie meals.

Please get a copy of Nourishing Traditions from the library....better yet, buy one if you can scrape up the cash. Read articles on nutrition on this site: www.westonaprice.org. You will find that you can eat a very healthy diet without counting calories.....and a self-sufficient lifestyle can be the healthiest thing you've ever done for your family and the cheapest, too.

You will get support and validation for the steps you've already taken and will learn why the few things you are raising yourself (especially the animals, eggs, etc) are worth their weight in gold, nutritionally. You will also learn why even one meal a day of the right foods can change your health dramatically, and is especially important for children.

Search for the eleven principles of a healthy lifestyle that Dr. Price discovered in his studies of native peoples who were extremely healthy, although on very different diets. There were eleven commonalities that we can all work into our lives. Although I am still stuck on organ meats! Blech!

 

[Leta]

I'm with WifeZilla on this one. I'm not an extreme low carb person, but if you cut out just sugar and flour, or even just sugar and white flour, this is a version of a low carb diet that has none of the "Atkins Induction Phase" type side effects.

WZ, do you read the Fat Head blog?

Something else that's good is the No S Diet. It approaches eating and exercise sort of like the way Dave Ramsey approaches finances- it focuses on behaviors that are fully sustainable over the long term. The idea behind the No S Diet is that you don't have Seconds, Sweets, or Snacks except on Special Days, Saturdays, and Sundays. So on the weekends and holidays, live it up. For people who are diabetic, go ahead and eat five meals a day, but get smaller plates. It's very simple and workable, especially since you don't have to pay Weight Watchers or NutriSystem or whoever.

 

[Leta]

Good advice from freemotion, too. She beat me to it.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Trying to catch up on this one ... Not read all yet.

But I'm one of those people that bought 30 bottles or so if BBQ sauce. Albertson's had it on sale CHEAP and their was a coupon atrached to the bottle, so I stocked up and paid somewhere around 15 cents a bottle. That was years ago, and I'm still using them. Down to one of each flavor, and next year I'll have to buy more, but it was a well-spent 5 bucks or so.

Also, I saw a comment regarding Kohl's coupons. I'm not sure if they still do this, but I used to get promos with my Kohl's card where they would give you up to about 30% off, give you store cash credit for another 20% or so, and let you use that on items that were marked clearance. I went to the 80-90% off stuff and used those offers in conjunction and got SUPER deals. Some items of clothing were less than a dollar, and I bought high-end shoes for $3-5 a pair (not figuring in the cash credit, just the clearance + discount). That's maybe why I can't spend $3-5 for a used clothing item at a thrift store now. It just seems WAY overpriced to me.

Might be worth checking into. But I think you do have to have a Kohl's credit card to take full advantage.