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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]See if you can reduce or stop buying certain kinds of processed food as these items are relatively expensive.  Oatmeal instead of cold cereal, bulk flour and yeast for the bread machine instead of buying loaves of bread, etc.
Also, shop your fridge and [b]pantry[/b] when planning meals - incorporate whatever you need to use up.[/quote]
This is OP and this is one of my biggest struggles. It’s empty and I think it’s psychological. I NEED to have stuff in there for a rainy day. [/quote]

Maybe try to change your mindset so that when you see space in your fridge or pantry you're proud of using your money and space efficiently?  I'm happy when my fridge is relatively clean and only has ingredients that I'm actually going to use in the near future.  It bugs me when there are things left over -- half a cabbage, etc -- that I don't have a plan for.  I think its fine to have some non-perishables in the pantry for a "rainy (or snowy) day," but I think the trick is to be mindful about what those things are. Maybe having a specific list of "emergency" food on hand would help?  (It's actually not a bad idea in this day and age.)

I definitely "shop my pantry", but try to avoid having lots of leftovers by being careful about my meal planning.  Sometimes I find that a lot of the savings from cooking at home are eliminated  by the fact that you usually have to buy more of something than you really need. For example, I have a recipe for sheet pan chicken that uses a quarter of a jar of pepperoncini, so I try to make another recipe (Mississippi pot roast) that uses up the rest of the jar in the next week.

As for stores, I find that Aldi is consistently cheaper on staples, but the biggest savings from Costco and Aldi are things that are really expensive at regular stores. For example, I love Dubliner cheese, and the price at Trader Joe's is generally half what it is at a regular grocery store, and the price at Costco is half of the price at Trader Joes (per pound).  If I buy it at the grocery store, its a splurge, but it's really not at Costco.  Aldi has good prices on trail mix and good chocolate (things that are outrageously expensive at Giant or Safeway). [/quote]

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