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How to Save on Groceries?
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Anonymous
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It is hard. I think it is easier to find deals on toiletries than on groceries. I have been using coupons on things like paper towels, toilet paper, diapers, toothpaste, etc. I try to hold on to the coupons until these things go on sale. If I bide my time I can usually get a deal. I recently transferred three prescriptions from CVS to Rite Aid and got $75 in Rite Aid gift cards in return. Yeah! It's when I really need something right now that I end up paying top price. Planning ahead is key.
As for groceries, Shoppers does double and triple coupons every now and then. I read all the grocery store circulars but I really don't find much on sale that I actually like to buy. I do find that I buy more frozen veggies when they are "10 for $10." I tend to do what PPs have mentioned, get some stuff at Shoppers, some at Giant, and some at TJs. It's kind of a pain in the butt. |
Anonymous
| I just posted above, but I just wanted to add another tip. Know your prices!!! It's hard to recognize a good deal (or rather pass up a bad deal) when you normally don't pay attention to prices. I've worked really hard at this one, and it's still a challenge. |
Anonymous
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At WF, sometimes the chicken is cheaper than the fruit.
We are at about $400 a month for 4 of us. 80% at WF, 10% TJ. |
Anonymous
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I have managed to cut my family's grocery budget to an average of $115 per week for my family of five and this includes all of our eating out, which isn't much. And, it doesn't take me a lot of time. The key to it for me is making my menu plans for four to six weeks at a time, which I do on lunch break every few weeks, and being careful that I don't waste anything that I buy. I do my grocery list at the same time as I make my menu.
I shop primarily at Costco, Shopper's and Walmart and I know who has the best prices on everything. Surprisingly, Walmart is cheaper for canned goods, except for chicken broth. But never buy cake mixes at Walmart. For that, you have to wait for your grocery store to do a sale and then stock up. Milk is cheapest at Costco, but bread (except specialty bread) is cheaper at the grocery store. Hamburger and whole chickens almost never go on sale for less than you can get them at regular price at Costco. I don't know the cheapest place to buy Salmon, but Costco always has the freshest, so it's worth the price. Produce is cheapest at Costco, but except for certain vegetables, it isn't cost effective for us because we can't use it all before it goes bad. Pasta is a toss up - regular price at Costco and Walmart are the same and a good sale at the grocery store will match this. I do Costco every other week and always clean my refrig before I go because I have to fit in at least five gallons of milk and four dozen eggs along with whatever else I have to fit in. I do Shopper's every week, but my bill is always less than $50 for what I need to fill in and those items that I try to stock up on when they go on sale. I do Walmart whenever I happen to drive past one, which is about every six weeks or so. And, I never even go into the aisles of a store where I might be tempted for impulse buys. With Costco, that can be a challenge, but In the last two months, I only made one unplanned purchase - it was for something that I will have to buy in the spring and the price that I got was about 60% of what I would be paying later had I waited. I can't wait to hear others strategies. I don't clip coupons because very few of the items I buy are coupon items so it is not worth my time and effort. Instead, I buy store brands of everything. I stock my freezer two to four times a year with meats when they go on sale. |
Anonymous
| 22:31, do you mind sharing some of your menu plans? |
Anonymous
Uhh...Giant and Harris Teeter both double coupons up to 99 cents. Safeway up to 50 cents Shoppers Food has triple coupons about every other month. However, sometimes the generic version of the same brand name product is still cheaper (like cereal, pasta sauce, frozen items, etc.) so take a careful look. |
Anonymous
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I save a lot in groceries by planning my meals. Instead of roaming around and buying a bunch of things that might or might not go bad before I use them, or duplicating sauces and spices, I think about what I want to make for the week's dinners (lunches are pretty constant-- fruit, yogurt, and sandwiches for DD, on-sale Lean Cuisines, fruit, and Amy's frozen for me and DH; breakfast is pretty constant too), starting with the entree. I buy something relatively small for each protein/entree and then figure out five nights of veggie and starch side dishes. Typically, bulking up a small fish filet (we buy flash frozen) with a large sweet potato and a huge heap of steamed broccoli does the trick.
We buy many vegetables frozen. We don't buy more fruit than we need, but we are sure to have it with every breakfast and lunch. In terms of the meals you choose, consider both the food pyramid and the way Europeans do things, and get a small protein/fat portion with tons of vegetables. Using those proportions-- which are healthy-- you also get the cost right, especially if you purchase vegetables that are in season, on sale, or frozen. We do get things at Whole Foods, but not everything, and not every time. If I have a dinner party, I buy some cheese there. Some of their vegetarian items are competitively priced. Coupons never really work for me-- I want to decide what to buy based upon our nutritional needs and tastes, not on what the cash register spits out or the newspaper has. Anyway, the best tool you can have for saving money is a PLAN. Figure out what you need meal-by-meal. Also, cutting back on snack foods helps a lot, both for your health and for your pocket book. If you find that you're consuming tons of chips and pretzels etc before dinner, maybe dinner's happening too late. If you find yourself snacking afterward, either dinner wasn't filling enough or you're just bored. Finally, sometimes there are cheaper routes to getting the same product you want. For instance, packets of "emergen-c" sport drink mix cost a fraction of prepared sports drinks (and lower calorie). Whole veggies cost less than the pre-chopped packages in the produce section. Blocks of cheddar cheese often cost less per ounce than the sliced kind. Look at the unit price of products you're buying (i.e., price per ounce or gallon, not the total price). FWIW, I think that the prices at Harris Teeter and Giant are the best. Safeway is sometimes technically cheaper, but the quality is low. |
Anonymous
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How do you find out when stores double or triple coupons?
I agree its hard to find good coupons for groceries with a few exceptions but it can knock about $5-$10 off your bill. I usually wait until something goes on sale and then use the coupon. We only buy things that we eat and will use. I'm not a great cook so we don't make meals that require alot of ingredients we don't have on hand. We also almost always buy only things that are on special or sale or at Costco. If we have a coupon great, we'll stock up. I'll also buy ingredients with a longer shelf life that go into recipes we like but wait until all items end up being on sale to make it. Best savings The Costco bags of Perdue individually wrapped chicken breasts..very easy to make chicken parmesan, curry chicken, or terriyaki chicken. Toothpaste with coupons at CVS, end up almost being free. Wipes on sale at Target. Cereal on sale and with coupons. We go through a lot of cereal but never spend more than $2 a box. Stick to fruit and veggies that are on special and in season. |
Anonymous
ditto this request!! |
Anonymous
Whole Foods has a TON of affordable products. All the 365 brand stuff is priced competitively. They sell very inexpensive pasta, their brand of organic milk is not expensive. You need to know what to buy there and what it should cost. |
Anonymous
How do you find out when stores are having triple coupon promotions? I read the Shopper's weekly sales paper. It's not a secret when it happens, they advertise in the paper, online at the store website and usually put a huge banner outside of the store. |
Anonymous
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22:31 here. I want to start by telling you that I am a lousy cook, no one in my house likes to cook and we both work. But, here are some of the things I do.
The kids eat one of three things for breakfast, which is their choice: cereal, cinnamon toast or sausage patties. They also get a yogurt and milk. I buy cereal and sausage patties at Costco and I use cheap store brand bread for cinnamon toast. The adults eat an egg white sandwich. Instead of buying the packages of egg whites, I buy eggs at Costco and throw away the yolks. Lunches are pretty easy during the week. DP eats free at work. My kids eat school lunch or I pack it. If I pack, it's a sandwich and maybe a piece of fruit. (After they leave in the am, they get a second breakfast at their daycare, lunch and two snacks before they get picked up in the evening, so they don't usually eat anything I pack but the sandwich at lunch). I buy my lunchmeat and cheese at Costco - it's about half the price of the grocery store. I take a sandwich or dinner leftovers (which I try hard not to have). On weekends, my kids like canned spaghetti products or mac and cheese plus fruit and milk. Awhile back I got a sandwich griller (not the correct term but I can't think of it right now) and the grown ups make use of this on the weekend. I pulled out my breadmaker so that we can have good bread for our sandwiches, which is far cheaper to make than buy. Dinners consist of things like pancakes and bacon or sausage; eggs and cheese with toast and yogurt; spaghetti and meatballs; baked spaghetti (you mix up the lasagna filler, mix it in with a box of penne pasta or whatever other pasta was on sale that week, add a can of tomato sauce and bake for 30 minutes); homemade chicken noodle soup or some variation thereof such as chicken and dumplings or matzoh ball soup. I make sloppy joes, chili, quesadillas hamburger helper (embarrassing I know, but my kids love it), tuna or chicken casseroles. My kids love meatballs and noodles. On occasion, I will give the kids chicken nuggets or fish sticks with rice and the grown ups will have fish or something else the kids don't really like or eat that well. The biggest thing I do is that I use everything I buy and make. A pan of baked spaghetti will give us two or three meals but if we get sick of it before it is gone, I freeze one portion. One chicken will give us a chicken dinner, chicken quesadillas, and a big pot of soup. I would say I get at least six meals out of a chicken, a bag of potatoes, a bag of carrots and a bunch of celery. If we get sick of soup, I drain most of the broth and freeze the soup in ziploc bags. Sometimes I even save some of the chicken for something like fettucine with alfredo sauce. If I buy fresh herbs for something (I try not to because we grow them in the summer), I will find recipes so that we use all of them. I always serve a vegetable and a fruit with dinner. I buy the big jars of applesauce and serve it everyday with dinner until it's gone. I use mostly canned vegetables, which my kids prefer, except in the summer when we can grow our own. One thing I did do was to make a list of menu ideas. I listed all of the vegetables we eat, all of the fruits, all of the potato/rice/noodle sides, meats, casseroles, pasta dishes, etc. I organized the meat, casseroles, pasta dishes by type of meat or fish that went into them. It makes menu planning pretty easy. I hope this helps. And, if anyone has other ideas, I would love to hear them. |
Anonymous
Safeway, Harris Teeter, and Giant ALWAYS double coupons. Harris Teeter and Giant do it up to .$99 and Safeway up to $.50. The triple coupon thing seems to be special and you have to look in the circulars for those. I do use coupons and I try to combine them with things that are on sale as well. We also usually make a trip to Wal-mart once every 2 months to stock up on toiletries, paper goods, and some non-perishable foods. Their prices are really significantly cheaper and it is worth the drive from Arlington to Fairfax for us. |
Anonymous
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Products to avoid:
--bottled juice. It's overpriced and sugar-filled anyway --too many boxed cereals. The store brand "Os" are much cheaper and also healthy --prepared foods like "Lunchables," which are also miserable for you --individual cups of applesauce; buy a jar and send a tupperware to school (to be brought back on penalty of glaring mercilessly) --More fruit than you can use before it spoils --pre-cut veggies --too many chips/doritos-- expensive, they go quickly, they're empty calories --plastic bag salad mixes. Lettuce and veggies cheaper Products to get: --frozen chopped spinach. Freeznig does not kill veggies like canning. You throw the spinach into pasta sauce or directly on pasta with a little garlic and parmesan; bulks up the meal --canned, peeled tomatoes-- make great pasta sauces --veggie or regular sausage; filling and cheaper than steak --eggs. you can make quiche, omelettes, or frittatas with some frozen broccoli Great square meal, from my Italian grandfather: homemade pasta carbonara. saute garlic in oil, add canned tomatoes, simmer 20 min, add two veggie or turkey bacon slices in tiny pieces or, bac-o-bits, simmer 10mins, add one raw egg and stir around until egg is mixed in and fully cooked. Pour cooked whole wheat penne into skillet until coated. Serve with parm. This is even better as a leftover and is CHEAP and delicious! You can add hot red pepper flakes (like in pizza restaurants) to taste if you want it spicy. --frozen chicken breast or veggie chicken. Grill |
Anonymous
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I think it's amusing that there are so many anti-couponers. Too low-class for you?
It takes a total of maybe 10 minutes to sort through the coupons that come with the Sunday paper on Saturdays. I actually find it fun, and if you have any wits about you, it is not too difficult to clip only the coupons you will use for things you need and/or will definitely use. For example, like one pp mentioned, there are always coupons floating around for toothpaste and batteries. Not 35 cent coupons, but $1 coupons. In my opinion, if you ever buy toothpaste or batteries without a coupon (unless you're going to Costco, maybe) you are wasting an easily saved dollar. There are many other items that this rule applies to. Additionally, I think that everyone has a tendency to splurge every once in a while on things that are not needed. It's fun to splurge. So why not allow yourself to splurge when there is a coupon involved? At least that way you don't splurge the full amount. There are often restaurant coupons in the Sunday section or in the local Clipper magazines that will save you the price of a whole entree. |