Monday, October 07, 2013

5 Tips for Stretching the Food Budget

So.  My husband gets paid once a month.  Now, I know a lot of grown ups have been budgeting this way for years but for me it took a while to get used to waiting sometimes 31 days between paychecks.  Oh, and when you get paid every other Friday, you sometimes get a month with three paychecks instead of two, ya know?  I always loved those months.  Pero no mas para nosotros.

Anyway, it's now eight days until payday, and this is when I always have to go on a spending freeze because basically I'm a child who spends as much as possible for the first 23 days of the pay period so that I can Mr. Krabs it up for the final week.  So in the spirit of said cheapskatery, I'm going to try and spend just $50 at the grocery store tomorrow for enough groceries to last us until the following Tuesday with no eating out budgeted in.  Eek. 

 (When your fall property tax bill and your first propane fill-up of the season and the mandatory purchase of a new bunk bed because your daughter's cheapo 6 year old bed physically broke beyond repair and bills for getting your grown up cavities filled all coincide, you gots ta tighten the belt somewheres.  Darn you, early fall.)

The good news is that many moons ago my friend Mary Kate told me that the basic secret to using coupons and having a stash of non-perishable goods is that you have to stop shopping for what you've just run out of and start shopping for what's on sale that you can combine with coupons and other discounts.  The bad news is that when you make the transition from need-shopping to stash-shopping, you have to buy what you've run out of at the same time as you start building your stash.  Ugh!  You mean it's a process that takes time and requires patience and organization?  Dagnabit.

Luckily I've been on this train for the last couple of months so we have a small stash of non-perishables at our disposal to make this week's $50 budget for perishables even possible.  I mean, 7 people, y'all.  We eat a lot of food. 

So how am I gonna do this?  Basically I think we'll be buying lots of bananas.  We'll get apples off the apple tree, finally dig the potatoes up, and harvest what I'm pretty sure will be the last of the tomatoes from the garden.  I'll buy milk and cheese and yogurt and if there is any meat that is on super sale, I'll grab some of that too.  But then there's gonna be a lot of bread and roll baking (flour stash, yay!  Cheap bread machine, yay!) and slow cooker using.  Oh, and beans and rice.  Lots and lots and lots of beans and rice. 

So if you're needing to stretch your grocery budget and you've not already been working at it, here are my beginner tips (which will probably be painfully obvious to most of you smart women out there but that kind of changed my life):

1) Spending more at the grocery store will help you spend less eating out and will save you money in the long run

2) Looking at the grocery ads and matching up coupons FOR THINGS YOU ACTUALLY USE to things that are on sale or have a promotion attached will eventually pay off

3) Buying large quantities of meat and dairy when they are on sale and freezing them will lower your bills and help you get through lean times or unexpected emergency-feedings-of-extra-peoples

4) If you hate cooking the way I do, a slow cooker and a bread maker will be invaluable to you and will sometimes be what saves you from spending $30 on Chinese take-out on those nights when you just can't handle another dirty pot.  But do not pay full price for these items!  Check Goodwill and the Salvation Army and Craigslist and yard sales.  People are always getting these kinds of things for weddings and then not using them.

5) Try and make a space for some storage shelves to stash non-perishables that you actually like.  Never buy stuff that you don't like just because it's cheap.  It will expire and be gross and you'll throw it out and waste all that money.  Buy what you regularly eat and shop from your stash.  When you shop at the store, it goes into your stash, not into your kitchen.  Does that make sense?  New things get put into the stash, stash things get put into your belly.  That way nothing ever gets old and weird and of questionable health benefit.

Let me just tell you that before I started following these obvious rules, we were spending almost (sometimes more than) $1000 per month at the grocery store (that includes food and toiletries and cleaning products) and sometimes $300 a month eating out (I KNOW!!!).  This month because of the propane and the property tax and the bunkbed and the dental expenses, we will end up spending less than $700 total at the grocery store (including food and toiletries and cleaning products) and less than $150 eating out.  That is a big savings, y'all. And lemme tell you, we were not eating like paupers for those first 23 days, no sir.  I even went on a mom's night out to some fancy Tapas restaurant downtown.

Do you have a favorite tip for keeping the grocery budget low?  Feel free to share it in the comments so other people can benefit from your glorious wisdom.





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57 comments :

  1. I use the tips you shared, and it have found that it also helps to meal plan. I'm not good at it, but I have much less "it's five and I have no idea what's for dinner!" stress and I don't throw out as much, either. If I don't have a plan when it buy it, there's a good chance I won't use it in time. Having a plan helps ensure I will use what I buy, so less money down the drain!

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  2. We have what we call our "overstock" closet. We do just what you said, we fill that closet with extras of everything we use on a regular basis, household items as well as food. We have enough extra non-perishable food to get us through at least a couple of weeks, if money is tight. And when we shop, we check to see what's low in the overstock closet so that it gets filled up.

    Also, for meat, I look for the meat that is reduced because it is close to the sell-by date. I then either immediately use it or freeze it. Plus, our local grocery store has sales a lot on certain cuts of meat, where you buy one, get 2 or 3 FREE! Those are always gold for stocking up.

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  3. I shop at a wholesale store, like BJs, to stock up on major essentials (flour, sugar, eggs, etc) and meat (I buy the huge $45 giant tube of ground beef and freeze it in 1 pound batches so I can have Hamburger Helper, meatloaf, meat for spaghetti sauce and flavour for gravy for about 4 months! I can get 2 full size chickens at BJs for $6-$7 that provide us with 3-4 meals PER chicken. (Roasted chicken-2 meals, then boil down carcass in slow cooker for broth plus, plus ends up in a pie, broth = soup). I have found Dollar Tree especially helpful. I get all my condiments there plus some baking products. They also have great stuff like olives, roasted red peppers, tortillas! All for a dollar! They also have side dishes like flavoured rice, alfredo fettuccine in the meal packages and canned veggies. These are what I have on my stock shelf and it makes me feel good to stock that shelf at the Dollar Tree! Dollar Tree also has specials like this past week 4 boxes of mac and cheese for $1!!! One of the Dollar Trees that we try to go to at least once a month (it is a little further to drive) has a freezer section! Bags of has browns, breakfast burritos for when my husband goes in early! Oh, and I always try to make a breakfast casserole and have it on hand. Spread a can of corned beef hash in the bottom of a buttered casserole dish, bake for about 20 min on 350 degrees, then pile on sauteed vegetables and crack 6-8 eggs (whole or scrambled) and bake another 20 min. When it comes hot out of the oven, sprinkle with cheese and let sit. Everyone loves a little slice of that with a piece of toast for breakfast!

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    1. Dollar stores are great places to save money; great suggestion! I love Dollar Tree, and there's another place in my area called 99 Cent Only Store, and they actually have a fresh produce section where everything is only a dollar.

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    2. Some Dollar Tree stores also take coupons to stretch that dollar further.

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  4. I seriously wish you guys lived a little closer. We're transitioning into a crazy diet for Mae and I have a stockpile and I can't really use any of it (because if she so much as sees normal food she goes crazy).

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  5. I do all these things also. Definitely, the "pantry shopping" has been a huge saver - mostly because when we "run out" of something in the fridge or the main food shelf, my kids know to go in the pantry and THEN put it on the grocery list. That lets me have time to shop for sales, etc. And not run to the store for "one thing", which always ends up being more than one thing. We also have Aldi down here, and I've totally switched from Kroger to there. They don't have a couple things I regularly use, so I do a quick Kroger run every so often, but I'm mostly Aldi and Costco. We have 4 boys (two teenage athletes), so our grocery budget is insane. Both boys are in Catholic high school this year, so the double tuition is killing out budget. I had to make some major cuts this year and I've been able to drop my grocery/supply budget by about $600 per month. And we've mostly stopped eating out. I agree with what someone else said about meal planning, but I do it in reverse - I buy what is on sale and THEN plan my meals around what I've got. There are SO many resources out on the internet for recipes that I no longer feel like I have to plan first and then shop. Big savings there. And whole, roasted chicken is a huge, cheap meal.

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    1. I also meal plan after shopping so I don't end up looking for ingredients that aren't on sale. I have a vague notion of what things we use a lot of, go shopping for sale items, then make my plan once I get home and take stock of what we have.

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    2. I ditto Kris: ALDI has saved our rear ends. Especially as I have these weird food issues and eat mostly produce to, you know, stay alive. I make one Meijer trip a month to stock up on non-Aldi stuff, and then I split the rest of the time between Aldi and the local farmers' market, which (surprise!) actually has farmers! With low prices! Because they're competing with each other! Win for us!

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    3. Oh, and I also have made a master list of stock-up items. I check my pantry against the list once a month and make one HUGE trip for non-perishables. Besides helping us keep a full pantry without impulse purchases, it also keeps my more frequent trips during the month SHORT - my three-year-old has the patience of a three-year-old. It's better that we spend 10 minutes versus 60 in the store on a weekly basis.

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    4. Farmers' markets are the BEST! I feel like it took me a while to get to know the prices, because some things end up being way more expensive than at the grocery store and other things end up being an AMAZING deal. But I loooooove our farmers market. Plus it's fun! (YMMV if you have kids I guess, but with just me and my dog it is fun :))

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  6. We do a lot of stash shopping, versus list shopping. I have a basic idea of meals that we cycle through, so some weeks I buy LOTS of chicken and some weeks I buy LOTS of beef. We keep stuff stashed and were actually able to go for about two weeks without grocery shopping (except for milk) when money was extra tight last month.

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  7. I have such a hard time figuring the best price for foods..making a price book of some kind is my goal, but feels so huge a project that I haven't done it yet. Coupons don't seem to get me far because I buy very few name brands. Love to see more comments on this topic!

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    1. Mel - took about 2 hours and went to Aldi, Kroger and Costco with a pre-printed spreadsheet that I made with all the items I buy regularly. I wrote in all the prices and did a compare. It was some time and effort, but worth it, because now I feel like I have a handle on "good" prices, what is a deal, and where to regularly shop for specific things.

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  8. I do most of this. My big secret is occasionally doing a stock up run at our overstock/fire sale/nearly-expired-goods grocery.

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  9. Beans, rice, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, bananas, peanut butter, bread, crackers, milk, tomatoes. Meat once a week. Eat out for less than $10.00 a person.

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  10. The website I use is called www.couponmom.com and it has been a huge time saver for me, matching up the coupons with sales.

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  11. Ok, this is going to sound like a rambling story that makes zero sense, but there's a payoff, I promise.

    My mom refuses to buy turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas that are under 20 lbs. She would prefer no less than 25, but when you consider that we pretty much never have more than about 12 people at dinner, it's a ridiculous amount of bird. One (recent) year, I went to the commissary with her right after Christmas. Because they had leftover turkeys that hadn't been bought, they were marked down to something ridiculous, like 17 cents a pound. I mentioned, jokingly, that we should buy one for next year. She sniffed and said there probably weren't any above about 15 pounds. I made the mistake of looking in the case and said, "This one is 23." "Really?" And that's how we got our Thanksgiving turkey for the next year for about $4.

    The moral of this story is that if you have a freezer that can handle it, you might be able to make out like a bandit for next year, or at least the next holiday, after Thanksgiving. And a roast turkey is the gift that keeps on giving! Turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey soup....gobble gobble gobble. Same with hams - some people buy them for Christmas (we do it for New Years) and they have to get rid of them somehow, so you can buy your Easter ham then, and then buy your next holiday's ham after Easter.

    And if the freezer breaks, you get to have holiday meals in July, and that's cool, too.

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    1. Oh, also, international grocery stores. Not sure you have one in rural Michigan, and you probably can get better deals by going to the farmer or growing it yourself, but here in the suburban sprawl of NoVa, those places are the way to go for most produce and meats. I can get ground beef for sometimes as low as $1.39/lb. The best I have ever seen anywhere else is about $2/lb.

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    2. Corned beef for St. Patrick's Day is another one of these types of sales. But sometimes the best price is not in March.

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  12. Sounds great, Dwij. It is somewhat comforting that I'm not the only one spending a lot on groceries. With our 7 people (the oldest being a growing BOY), I just reaised our budget to $1,600 for groceries! I used to be really good at our co-op buys and stocking up a huge stash, 12 passenger payements and gas hit, so I panicked and only bought what I needed, then we would go over even more! I'm getting back into stash-stocking (a cow will arrive for our freezer next week for $3/pound) and I think that the cost will work it's way down in the next couple months. I have to resist giving in to the temptation to just buy what we need as we need it. I'm no good at full on meal planning, or couponing, but I'm working at both! When one usually purchases ingredients and not processed stuff, there aren't many coupons for that!

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  13. We haven't bought store bread in a year and did NOT go buy a bread machine, even off craigslist/goodwill, because we didn't need it. We were gifted a book called artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, and it's been awesome. cant say enough how when we stretch our food budget we still feel like we eat like royalty if we have garlic, butter, italian spices, and that bread! i'm sure googling recipes could yield that too. but we make a dough mix 1-2 times a week, bake a loaf for the day (family of 5, 3 girls all under age 5 so we aren't feeding mammoth athletes yet) and keep the rest refrigerated for the next morning. and our house smells wonderful!

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  14. I've started using Blue Apron. It's just my husband and I, so for $60/week we can get delicious ingredients and recipes planned for us for three dinner meals. I live on the East coast now, so our kitchen is a tiny galley kitchen. There is barely any counter space and no pantry. The oven and stove isn't even full size. I miss the kitchens people have in the midwest. I could only dream of being able to shop in bulk and buy food for storage just because it is on sale. That doesn't happen here! I just buy my food on a day to day basis. Or do blue apron each week. If I was to spend $50 for a big family each week, I'd probably buy a lot of spaghetti and tomato sauce. Maybe some quesadilla or burrito ingredients too.

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  15. Menu plan saves me every time. Seriously, we have not eaten out in a restaurant (fast food or otherwise) in so long that we have actually lost the taste for it. (Little Caesar's pizza's totally don't count.) Restaurant food tastes too salty and bland. But I have to have a menu plan with at least a couple of alternatives in the freezer/pantry for when I don't feel like sticking to the plan otherwise fast food becomes a temptation. For example, when it's spaghetti night, I make extra sauce and freeze. That along with extra boxes of pasta in my stash means that later on, if I don't feel like making teriyaki pork tenderloin, I can whip up spaghetti instead.

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  16. My food budget is the one budget area that I am terrible about. But on purpose. Because I would rather do without fast internet, cable TV, car payments, new clothes, etc. than go without cooking healthy filling meals. I just won't serve my kids pasta or rice everyday because chicken and beef costs more. They can wear hand-me-down clothes and we can keep our heat low all winter, but I will not scrimp on meals for these growing kids. All that being said, I KNOW I could cut back on prepackaged/convenience/take out food if I was able to stay at home, and meal planning would probably greatly reduce my trips to the grocery store and therefore grocery budget each month, and I need to work on those areas. I know I can be more frugal with groceries, but I will never be cheap with them, ya know?

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    1. Food is our biggest budget item for this very reason. Protein with every meal is so important.

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    2. I think I fall here too. I have had like some serious thinking days, where as a mom I just decide that yea, I WOULD like to have my kids eat fruit every day and afford yogurt, flowing all milk and honey style and even purchasing what we can from local (organic or not) sources. My husband asks for meat with each meal, and will not bat an eye if once every two weeks we do meatless, but I was putting a silly strain on our marriage trying to lower our food budget by asking my husband to eat less protein! And he does serious exercise 4 or 5 days a week! Anyway, just to say, basically our food is our health insurance. So if its costly, its costly. But YES to eating out less (I totally had to double-take reading that Dweej - thanks for that transparency that even you, frugal Diva, eat-out!). And I do try to buy what is marked down/in-season, but overall we try to eat primal-ish which is a bit more costly but helps with a few health issues in our family.

      Way too long...sorry...

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    3. What would happen is that I'd not spend enough at the grocery store, so then we'd run out of food before the end of the week. Since I hate cooking, instead of getting ingredients, we'd get take out. But then I'd just buy whatever the next week because I wasn't stocking up, I was buying in desperation, so it would be very costly even though it wasn't enough food in quantity. Total disaster.

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    4. Wow, makes total sense. Great insight. I should consider if I am in need of applying tip #1! Thanks!

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  17. My mother was one of ten, my husband is one of ten, so it's been instilled in me to cook for more people than are eating. (There are only three of us so far.) Anyway, I make a LOT of soup, chili, casseroles, etc. (Roast turned into stew turned into roastbeef sandwiches, chili, taco soup, chicken and rice casserole, spinach enchiladas, shepherd's pie, just to name a few.) And I've learned (more than once) that meal planning is the way to go. I also make broths and spaghetti sauce by bulk and freeze whatever we don't need for the current meal.

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  18. Thanks for all the great comments so far. We buy very few processed foods as well, so coupons don't work as much there except for yogurt, crackers, and condiments. Mostly coupons are good for toiletries and cleaning products which will yield better prices than generic if you buy them while they are also on sale.

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    1. My mom recently blessed us with a grocery shopping spree - INCREDIBLE BLESSING! But I opted for juice boxes as a treat for the kids...but, I'm just as excited about that treat! haha! Yay for feast days and Sundays = juice box for all!

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  19. I'm not very good at couponing (I know....I need to be better about it!), but I've found that making a meal plan, and sticking to it help us save a lot of money. I also try to plan around by "stretching out" meals that I make in a week. For example, I'm Italian and every Sunday I make our gravy, and we have a pasta dish. I'll divide the remaining gravy in half and freeze one batch, and refrigerate another. A few days later, we'll make homemade pizza and use the refrigerated gravy, and if I'm desperate for a quick and easy meal a few nights later-and we want to avoid eating out-I'll boil some pasta and defrost the gravy in the freezer. I buy certain things in bulk at Sam's Club-boneless skinless chicken breasts, fruit (we eat a LOT of fruit in our house!), cleaning products, etc. It does take about two hours every week to make a detailed meal plan and grocery list, but it's worth it.

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  20. I didn't read all the way to see if anyone else said this, but one of my big tips is checking the PRICE PER UNIT. Say there are 3 different sizes of ketchup bottles, all of them on sale. You might automatically assume the largest bottle is the best deal, but NOT NECESSARILY. My grocery store lists the "price per oz" right on the shelf label, even for the sale prices. By reading that tiny print, I'm able to figure out which size and brand is the best deal, and it surprises me how often the SMALLER container is a better deal. Sometimes it's tricky to figure this out, so the price per unit (oz, lb, each, etc) is the great equalizer to get a much clearer picture. Make sense? I'm pretty allergic to paying full price for things that I can get on sale easily, so I definitely wait and then stock up. I know that when I can get pasta for $1 a box or less, that's when I buy a bunch. Then I never spend $3.49 for the same thing. And warehouse stores (Costco) are awesome. I get my bread, cheese, eggs, and organic chicken (and a bunch of other things) here for crazy cheap; very rarely can I beat the prices elsewhere. I buy the giant thing of toilet paper, even though there's only three of us now, so I only have to think about buying it a few times a year, instead of monthly.

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  21. (If you can't grow it) Buying fruit in season, then freezing or canning a bunch will save lots of money and fill your pantry shelves quickly.

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  22. Wow.. I need to learn from you!!! I have been spending so much money at the grocery its unreal! I need to make a list I am so awful at that... Thanks so much for sharing.

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  24. Learn how to hunt deer! ha! we eat a lot of venison!

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  25. We have a lot of food allergies and sensitivities in our house, so our grocery bill is sometimes so expensive! We started getting our eggs from the farmer's market and some produce too. We get berries on sale when they are in abundance and freeze them. We also get some allergy friendly snacks from amazon because it's cheaper than in the store. We do crock pot meals a lot more lately and freeze the leftovers for when I am too tired from work to cook, so that we don't end up eating out. Great tips, thanks for sharing!

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  26. Ok so the ONLY question I have remaining after this great post and awesome comments is... morning sickness! I'm still at that early stage where I would rather eat nothing than handle raw meat...and Wendy's $0.99 burgers are a Godsend. And prepackaged foods and lots of fruit sorta save my kids from going hungry while I muse over the thought of eating...anyway. Meal planning nauseates me to think of food food food and the smell of things cooking....run away! Praying this passes soon so I can be all frugal-awesome like you peeps!

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  27. Emily Graves makes a free weekly comp list with all of our local grocery store sales in one spreadsheet/pdf. I go through, see what I need/have coupons for, and at our Walmart they will price match the ads. I save around $20 a week, which doesn't seem like much, I know. But it's my stash builder. And some weeks are better than others, like when cereal is on sale. We buy a whole beef and pig from local farmers, so we always have meat in the deep freeze (much cheaper than buying in the store and better quality) We get a deer each year too, although I prefer it ground so that I can mix it with hamburger. That's how I shop from home. I do go to Costco occasionally, but I've learned that some of the bulk sizes of food end up wasted at our house. So I'm cautious about what I buy there.

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    1. How do you go about doing the pig and cow? Do yall set aside $ each month throughout the year or just subtract that out of the grocery money, the month you order?

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  28. As money keeps getting tighter and tighter around our house I find my shopping evolving in the same way your list lays out. I've always menu planned, because I love to cook. The biggest thing that I'm doing right now is taking a page from history and doing a Sunday roast and then spinning the leftovers into another meal or two during the week.

    Lunches are what's killing me. I can do a cheap breakfast, and I cook enough for two meals at supper so that I don't have to cook as often (sanity saving with two babies), but I cannot figure out a lunch that makes everyone happy, is filling, and is cheap. argh.

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    1. We like cheese quesidillias dipped in a little sour cream (cut into small triangles for our 2.5 and 1 yr old). If i have like an ounce of meat to shred up it gives just a bit of protein extra and satisfies that "meat" need. Apples or bananas with PB or almond butter (just a tbsp or two). Yogurt and fruit slices. Also, crackers, cheese and a fruit works well for us too. I guess cheese really isnt a thrifty food, but with preparing/cooking three meals a day I have to have a breather! Also, fried rice, peas, carrots and scrambled egg all together is a quick and satisfying one. Hope this helps! I'm in that same boat!

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    2. Yum! This is a great topic.

      Something I'm quite conscious of as an apartment-renter is that we don't have space for a big chest freezer for meat and berries and other foods that can be bought cheap and frozen. Any opinions? As far as I can tell these are a good thing and worth the electricity costs. Especially living on MI's Upper Peninsula, produce is hard-pressed to grow here 3/4 of the year. :-P

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  29. As an almost empty nester, I do eat out more often (mostly lunch) but old shopping habits die hard. I still stockpile food and household supplies, taking advantage of weekly sales and store coupons with some manufacturer coupons used as well (mostly for things like cereal, laundry soap, health & beauty aids, etc.). I don't go to coupon web sites, I typically just use the coupons from the Sunday paper or the ones the store gives me. We don't have stores that double coupons so that saves a lot of time and we don't buy stuff we wouldn't normally buy. I don't have a pantry and my kitchen is fairly small so I store stuff on shelving units in the garage. I keep dry goods like pasta, rice, flour and such in plastic storage boxes since they stack well and I can still see what's in the boxes. I mainly shop at Costco (for things like yeast, vegetables, eggs, tortillas, chips, salsa, and cheese) and Fred Meyer (Kroger) for most other items. I do shop higher-priced stores such as Safeway and Albertson's when they have their big meat sales (such as B/L, S/L chicken breasts for $1.79 per lb.). I tried making up a price book years ago but found that over time you'll figure out how often the stores run their ads and how many to stock up on to get you to the next sale. My daughter and I will take trips to Target together and share coupons when buying personal care products and cleaning supplies, especially if you have to buy multiples to get the discount. We hope to add one more family member and split the cost of things like fresh produce and large bags of cheese from Costco so food doesn't go to waste. I try to keep my grocery bill average around $75 a week (this includes things like laundry soap and toilet paper); when we had four adults and a toddler in the house we averaged about $125 per week, but that was because my super-frugal son-in-law did most of the cooking and can work magic with beans and bread. .

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  30. We do most of these things too. I also find shopping at Costco to be essential to our budget, especially for meat, dairy, and eggs. Our costco has a good selection of organic/grassfed/cagefree/whatever for better prices (or equal prices) than non-organic whatnot at the regular grocery store. Produce there is often cheaper for us too, especially since there are 6 of us so it all actually gets eaten. Meal planning helps too, but I meal plan around staples we almost always have around.
    My husband has always gotten paid once a month, which I think is a million times easier than twice a month. We pay all of our fixed expenses/savings the first day and then I know what I have for the rest of the month and don't have to worry about due dates or how to split up payments. You'll get used to it! Haha, although I am more likely to say yes to dinner out with friends in the first two weeks of the month...

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    1. It won't let me link my blog, :( <- sadface Can you add a name/url option for commenting?

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  31. We eat really well and our budget for food is much higher than if we were eating more processed foods, but that isn't something we willing to do. That being said I have it down to about $70/week for the three of us (food and household; but really like 4 as my husband eats A LOT!) We are both very active people and competitive runners, so we have to be really careful about what we eat. I have a chest freezer in the basement that allows me to stock up on meats when on sale. Our local butcher has amazing prices every few months and I by the "essentials" - chicken, steak, and hamburger, vacuum seal them, and freeze everything. I stock up on the staples (beans, rice, pasta, cheese, flour, sugar, butter, oatmeal, canned goods etc) when they are on sale. We don't eat out..maybe 3 times a year. I go grocery shopping once a week after seeing what is on sale in the sale ads and tend to plan my meals accordingly (pork loin is on sale? Dinner on Wednesday..). I usually try to have one meat meal (on sale) a week that isn't from my stored supplies and then use the frozen for the other meals. We eat a lot of seasonal vegetables (depending on what is on sale) and fruits. I have a small garden in our back yard that provides basic salad ingredients (lettuce, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, peas, eggplants etc) for the summer months. I make almost everything from scratch (within reason) and try to make sure we eat ample fruits/veggies with every meal. Man, how I would love to see a coupon for say...a bag of spinach or a 5lb bag of apples? I browse the coupons in the paper, but more often than not, they are for foods that we don't/won't eat. Why is it a weeks worth of apples costs more than a couple boxes of oreos? Sad. I have a tablet with a list of the "standard" favorites of ~ 50 meals that are what most of our monthly meals consist of. I try to rotate through them as best as possible so that we don't have a lot of repeats. I will then try to add a new meal a week (google searches/Pinterest) that have maybe the seasonal veggie/meat that is on sale. It is a challenge to keep us on such a tight budget and eat healthy, but I love to cook and try new things and always try to make meals healthier. All in all, as someone else mentioned, we would rather eat healthy than have other "extra." This means no TV, no eating out, no smart phones, no gym memberships (running outside is free!!) to make sure my family stays healthy. Great post!

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  32. Great tips! I just did a post on my blog about menu planning and stocking up the pantry is one of the "must do" things on the list. I know what kinds of things we eat and what the items we use most of are and I made that my pantry list. People sometimes start with a list they find on-line and stock up their pantry, but I find most of those lists to be ridiculous. We don't use half the items on the list so it's a waste of money for us to buy/store them.

    I am also having my dad build me a new pantry and a new island for my kitchen. He loves to build stuff for me and these'll be some things I can actually use. It's my Christmas present!

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  33. We do a couple of things that have been great budget meeters. Every year after Christmas, for January and February, I get to the bottom of the freezer. I just dig through, pick stuff out for the week and have to meal plan around it. Usually I end us just buying mostly produce those months! I don't put anything else in the freezer 'til I've emptied it. The other thing we do is make extra for dinner, throw it all in a casserole dish for the next day (along with any other leftovers kicking around), and that is our lunch. Lots of good wholesome food for lunch, no prep cleanup, and the leftovers are always being used up.

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  34. Meal planning is key, and I will go a step further and suggest Once A Month Cooking. Google it because there are several sites. I love their advice to precook ground beef for freezing for fast use later, and it takes up less space in there too. If you can get into a crockpot pulled pork or beef habit, you can make a lot of meals with the cooked meat. If you make a double batch for freezer meals, the end of the month can look a lot sweeter. If you don't have a rice cooker, get one. It makes it so simple. Leftover rice is needed to make the best fried rice, a dish that's cheap and filling (with eggs and cubed leftover meat). Rice is just such a versatile meal extender. Also Roger Ebert came out with a book on recipes you can make in a rice cooker, so on a double cooking day you could have both the crockpot and the rice cooker making things. I am personally a fan of keeping a freezer chart so you make sure to rotate and use what's in there in a timely fashion. I am not one for longterm storage of meat because of quality issues and because I feel that the electricty cost for the freezer takes away the savings on cheap meat.

    Another idea for planning is if your family will eat casseroles, you can find charts online that suggest ways of combining meats, sauces, starches, and optional ingredients so you can mix and match. My favorite sneaky casserole trick is to find a buy on frozen cheese ravioli, which can make a very fast variation of lasagne with no trouble at all.

    Ina Garten has a book of family meals in which she says that if you can find 10 meats, 10 starch sides and 10 veggies that everybody likes, you can have an easy rotation that will really simplify things. I also know families that plan by having each day of the week be a theme: Pizza Night, Sandwich Night, Roast Night, Pasta Night, Soup and Salad Night, etc.

    I don't know if your family is into soup, but if so, there is a great blog called Soup Chick that I like a lot. A cool book on easy ways to incorporate more cooked veg into your life is Tamar Adler's The Everlasting Meal.

    Happy cooking! I am looking forward to hearing about what you found did or did not work for you.

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  35. Could you please say a prayer for me. An unexpected second trimester miscarriage happened to me this week.

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    1. I'm so sorry, Abigail. I'm saying a prayer for you right now. October is Infant/Pregnancy Loss and SIDS awareness month. There are many people praying for you as you grieve.

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  36. As a Mom of seven kids myself (down to just two left at home)... I have budgeted hard! Here is a hint you may make use of in the future: When times are good- keep having the beans and rice! Save that bit of meat whenever you can, so that when you are in the lean times, you may have a treat. And the kids won't associate beans and rice with lack of money.

    Another thing I did was shop the clearance sales at the end of seasons, especially toys. How many times did a kid come to me and say their best friend was having a party and can I go please please please please please? Shop from the gift stash!

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  37. YES to the bread machine and crockpot...we're down to the last dregs, too, and are needing both stashing and perishables and only $40 to do it with. Like you said...dagnabbit!

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  38. well, i know you are seven people, and if you do have the money for this budget of $700/groceries, $150/eating out, ok! But I do feel you spend quite a lot yet!
    I would suggest checking out this blog http://www.funcheaporfree.com/p/how-i-grocery-shop.html
    It gave more insight about budgeting although I can't really manage to do what she says yet!
    also, i just discovered that Aldi is so great for almost everything (except meat, and deli meat) seriously!! Fruits and veggies so cheap!!

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