Reply to If you spend less than DCUM average on groceries

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]10 years ago, to persuade my husband that I wasn't insane to want to shop at Whole Foods, I drew up a spreadsheet of items we bought at our local Giant and compared them with WF. Giant turned out to be more expensive, AND the produce was less fresh. [/b]

I haven't done the same calculation recently, and I know it's tempting to put packaged, fancy things in your WF cart, but if you stick to staples and cook from scratch, it might not actually be more expensive, and unless you need specialty foods from your country of origin, everything is there in one store. We go to H-Mart or Lotte for our Asian food needs, and we buy the gigantic bags of rice there.

The usual advice applies: find ways to create cheaper protein and be very careful with prepackaged, already cooked/prepared or processed items. I had a hard time with this for my kids' lunches, since they always wanted the little fruit cups and individual snack packets - now I can afford them, but for many years, it was all whole foods, cut up and prepared by me and put into little containers. I've done plenty of rice with beans (together they form a complete protein), stretched out stews with lots of potatoes and other root veggies, etc. When meat is on sale, store it in your freezer. Fruits and veggies can be cheaper frozen, and just as nutritious. Stocking up on sale items is helpful generally, but do keep on eye on whether it's a good sale or not - sometimes they're sneaky. We have a water filter and we buy milk. That's all for drinks.

Basically, eating unprepared foods takes more time out of your day, but if that's what your budget allows, then so be it.[/quote]

This. I also shop at Whoel Foods and find it to be way fresher and less expensive than Giant.

One tip -- I very, very rarely go into the aisles. I stay on the outskirts -- produce, meat, dairy, bread, and cheese. I'll go into the aisle if I need to buy more flour or salt or something, but as I rule I don't go in there. Packaged food is so much more expensive and doesn't taste as good, IMO.

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