Tips For Saving At The Grocery Store
By kellys3ps
@kellys3ps (3723)
United States
February 14, 2008 10:07am CST
The old saying goes "There's no use crying over spilt milk", but with the price of milk these days, even a drop or two on the floor could leave you in tears. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of milk has risen 20% in the past year. Nationally the prices of groceries have risen 5% since December while the West has seen an even higher price hike at 7%.
With food inflation the highest it has been since 1990, I was wondering what everyone is doing to cut costs. We currently spend between $150 and $220 a week to feed our family of 8 and I would love any ideas on chopping that bill down!
3 responses
@lilybug (21107)
• United States
14 Feb 08
I use coupons when I can. Those 25 and 30 cent coupons really add up after awhile. I also buy things in bulk when they are on sale for cheap. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables with our meals too. Meals lately have been mainly vegetables with a little bit of meat with it instead of mostly meat with a little bit of vegetables.
@dvschic (1795)
• United States
14 Feb 08
wow, a family of 8!!! sheesh, i use coupons and only buy an item if it is onsale, most groceries also have a discount bin. you'd be amazed at the quality of stuff at your local 99 cent store or dollar tree. i can get the same canned products for .50 rather than 1.50 that i'd spend at hte groery store. lucky for me, there is one in the same shopping center as my grocery store, i go there first and if i can't find it there, then i buy it at ralphs. sign up for the club cards, use any and all coupons u can find, including online ones, watch out for double coupon days or even triple coupon days.
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
14 Feb 08
Man I am telling you it is a challenge. Our cost of living has raised so much yet this past year my husbands annual raise was get this 2%. How in the heck can you keep making the ends meet. I have had to cut out in other ways in our lives. Eating out was the first to go. Normally we would go out as a family at least once a month, Now its every other month or so. impulse fast food has had to come to an end. No more I am too tired to cook tonight lets stop and grab a burger. Or order in pizza for that matter.
We are a family of 3, but I am continually feeding my Grown sons and their kids. My grocery budget including non food household items such as kleenex laundry detergent so on has to stay under $140.00. This is not at all an easy task. My husband takes his lunches to work with him and you would think this saves money but you would not believe the cost of having to keep lunch meats, cheeses and snacks for him to take.
I have gotten to were I cook meals that I can get more then one meal out of. You learn to be more frugal with left overs. Something I might have thrown away before now gets frozen for perhaps a soup or a stew later in the week or the next week. I get inventive with beans and vegetables. We go though on average 2 gallons of milk a week.
So I am open to any ones suggestions.. and yes I use coupons,
@compumom (738)
• United States
15 Feb 08
Your life sounds very much like mine. I feel your pain.
We have also cut out eating out. As far as grocery shopping goes, I significantly cut the expense of laundry detergent dishwashing detergent and paper towels. I've been making my own laundry detergent for almost a year now (here's my blog entry on homemade detergent: http://blulow.blogspot.com/2007/06/laundry-dish-detergent-go-blulow_30.html and my blog entry on switching from paper to cloth towels: http://blulow.blogspot.com/2007/08/paper-towels-go-blulow.html).
In addition to the above, we recycle the heat from our electric dryer ( wrote about that on my blog too).
Making the hard earned money stretch as far as we can is just one side of the coin. I can't help but notice that you seem to have a good command of the English language. Why not try writing articles to earn additional money?
I write articles for a site called Suite 101.com. As long as your articles are on their site, you will earn income from them. Just like the rising price of food and necessities, it doesn't happen over night.
Try writing for the web. There are lots of opportunities for good writers. You can earn income on your terms and your time. It's extra income that will help soften the blow of the ever rising cost of groceries.
Good Luck.
If I can be of help, contact me through my blog.
@spectrum42 (393)
• United States
21 Feb 08
Your bill doesn't sound all that bad for having to feed 8 people, so you're probably already doing the following things.
We don't use convenience foods. It's so much cheaper to cook things from scratch and if we make extra to freeze, then we have our own freezer meals.
I learned what time a couple of the stores usually put out the reduced produce rack and I get whatever I can from that. You have to use it quickly, but things are usually sold at a great discount. I buy whatever is available and freeze it if it's something that will freeze okay.
Most of our meal planning is done based on what's on sale each week or what we stocked up on that was on sale last week. It's not so flexible and we sometimes have to be creative, but I've cut the grocery budget a lot this way.
