The best way to cut your Grocery Bill during a recession

basically i have always bought like that. i have always kept a good backstock of groceries even tho i live alone. coupond do help. i buy alot of store brands that are cheaper & have found them to be good mostof the time. if i don't like them i just don't buy them anymore, i don't waste food. i eat it till it's all gone or will stick it in the frezer & make soup, chicken pot pie or whatever w/it when i get enough.i have always had to live frugally so it's not as hard on me as i'm sure it has been w/alot of folks.people need to live w/in their means.

I find that I can't buy much in bulk as I don't have the space for it. I would like to shop like that when I could. I am hoping that my husband and I can build a room onto the house this year and we can make one room into a pantry as I could use the space to buy like this. I have found that if I buy larger containers of laundry soap that they last a month so that I don't have to buy every week. I also have found that I can save quite a bit on the bills if I buy meat in bulk. I actually done that today. I bought 10 pounds of chicken quarters for $4.90 and we will cook out tonight and I will freeze what we don't use. I like to shop like this.

Hello livinglegend, I am from Philippines, and from what I learned from my mother, you can save the most when you cook your own food (well I think this will work best if there is more than 4 in the family). It is a routine in the family that at least one of us will go to market to buy fresh raw foods which is consumable for one day. Fresh raw foods are cheaper and are nutritious while canned goods and other ready to eat products, also those foods which have preservatives, based on my readings, are detrimental to ones health and eating those daily could lead to a cancer. When you think it is still expensive because of the fare from going to market daily, market is a walking distance from home, about a kilometer and a half. To cut the expenses, the snack allocation is omitted, and we only buy those things which are really important.

Well I can't do coupons here as I do better @ Aldi's rather than a regular store tpically and only one store here doubles and there are plenty of rules that just don't make it worth my wild unless it's a really good deal (ie cheaper than Aldi's prices). I also stock up on scratch'n dents and items I find on the cusp of exp. A local grocery store knocks down the prices on their fresh meats by 50% a day or so before exp and I'll grab what I can that's on special & that I have the room in the freezer for. I'll be getting a deep freezer soon from one of hubby's co-workers, as he is moving and has no where to put it and I've been begging hubby for one.\

Much like you. I also shop at items for some things that I know cost a lot less there. I also shop for meat on Wednesday mornings, that when a lot of stores mark their meat down to get rid of it so they can get set for their sales on Thursday. Sam's Club has amazingly cheap meat on Wednesdays and sometimes on Tuesdays. Knowing what days your stores mark down their meat is a wise thing to do.

I buy flour and sugar and other food that can be stored for long when they are on sale. The same for meat, chicken abd fish. I cook tomatosause from canned tomatoes and herbs, carrots and onion and freeze. I bake most bread myself and buy vegetables that are in season - like carrots in the fall and so on. This year we've decided not to buy any candy and the kids have agreed - we have three so it will make a difference. I enter online competitions for food and stuff for the home, like washing powder, hugien utensils and all sort of stuff we'll need (and not need - since I use them as gifts for birthdays). I'm also a member of sites where I get vouchers for being active and I can use them for shopping food. That helps out a lot. We still buy fresh fruit and it's expensive - but since we save on the other stuff there is room for that. Eating fruit is important to us :) I wish there were more coupons here in Sweden, but it's not!

I use very few canned goods and never buy soft drinks in cans. I think they are detrimental for a person's health. When canned tomatoes, kidney beans or chick peas go on sale I check the expiry dates and if they last a while I buy a few cans. I also buy meat when it is on special and freeze it in portions. Other than that I try and use seasonal products as much as I can. Cabbage, turnips beets, carrots all kinds of squashes and apples in the winter. Berries in the summer and plums, apples, pears and melons in the fall. I seldom use coupons since I find generic products are often cheaper than name brands even with coupons. I was brought up very frugally and have never lost the habit and respect for food. I love good and healthy fresh food but these days it is hard work to make the money last.

We buy in bulk too, along with I never buy any kind of tomato based sauces, I make them all and freeze them. Next year I'm hoping to have a garden and grow our own so that I can can it. We have a chest freezer, a stand-up one and the one above the fridge and they are all full. I also had my husband build a pantry and it is also full. Buy buying in bulk I find that you can save quite a lot of money. I have a dehydrator and we use that in the summer months and do a lot of veggies, I also have a seal a meal which is used off and on, more in the summer months. I don't use many coupons as they are normally for brand name and normally even with the coupon store brands are cheaper. Our most costly item is milk with 3 kids in the house it goes rather fast, to bad we didn't have a cow! lol

I try to only buy items that are on sale and figure out my meals from that. I always try to keep the main staples in the house such as rice, potatoes, beans and sauces. I clip coupons as well and try to buy meats in bulk. I really do not buy junk food or soda too much.. Once in a while I will indulge. But by cutting that out, that saves a bundle right there. Buying frozen juices is a great way to save as well.. most times by half the cost. In these trying times, we are all looking for ways to save.

Sounds good! If there is a bulk store in your area you can often save by buying there , plus help the environment by saving on Packaging. Don't buy prepared foods such as instant potatoes, oatmeal, and powdered milk. These convenience foods are nutritionally reduced. Each time they are cooked and or processed they lose some food value, and extra costs are added. Get in the habit of cooking your oatmeal porridge from uncooked oats, this is better nutritionally and much cheaper as well. Soft Drinks are very unhealthy, they contain caffeine sugars and acids that add to obesety and promote disease. If you can't drink water or milk try unsweetened fruit juices. Carbonated Drinks, deep fried potatoes, are health destroying habits that add to health care costs as well as driving up your weekly food bill.

I have been doing what is new for you for decades. I not only buy in bulk but in bulk when it is on sale. I don't belong to Costco or places like that because the supermarket sale prices are better and you don't have to pay a membership fee. Years ago I stocked up on canned salmon for a $1 a can and have now run out of that cheap stuff as of last October with the last can I used of the $1 stuff having my purchase date of some time in 2005. Now the sale price is much higher and I wish I had found a way to stock up on even more of the $1 stuff. Of course I have been using coupons for decades, too.

It's nice to buy food in bulk when you have lots of space. Unfortunately, we don't. I'd love to stock up, but most of the time it really can't fit in our fridge or pantry. So we end up having to go to the grocery at least once a week. I think that going to different stores to check out the prices of goods is also a wise thing to do because sometimes something will be selling at a lower price somewhere.

well what i do is i save up on coupons and i scan through store paper for sales P.S.::: i like to go back twice a day when theres a limit

1. Buy in bulk when items on sales 2. Cut down on non-essential, including my favourite chocolate. This really takes a lot of self-control. 3. No soft drinks, no canned drinks, no milk, buy tea leaves instead 4. Buy frozen instead of fresh products 5. use lesser cleaning solutions for house cleaning

My partner and I have been doing this for years now. We only shop every couple of months and buy what we need within our set budget and never spend more than we have allocated. We go to a large town near where we live, check out all the specials and prices at 4 supermarkets and then buy items from all of them based on the cheapest price. However we also make an organic farm so we make our own jams, preserves and sauces plus we dehydrate many things we grow and also freeze vegetables when they are in season. We also grow our own herbs and dry some plus use them fresh if they ae available of course. We have a freezer and also a cool room as well as the large pantry, so we can keep things for a long time. Also we never go shopping without a list and whatever is on the list is what comes first. If we don't have enough money, then we out things back and if we have more money, then we might stock up on a few more non-perishables. To make sure we do not overspend, we take so much money out of the bank and that is what we use. So it is cash for us when we do these shopping trips and it is what I recommend everyone does. That way you cannot overspend.

I hardly ever use coupons because most of them are for foods I would never buy. If you want to save real money, do your own cooking instead of eating prepared foods, cut out the junk foods like soft drinks, and eat less meat. Ethnic cookbooks have lots of recipes for nourishing foods that don't require large amounts of meat, and doing your own cooking ensures that you know what is going into your mouth and the mouths of your family.

I make everything from scratch. I can make dozens of cookies for what they charge for a small package. I also make a lot of soups , huge amounts and then freeze some up in individual bowls and we can eat it later , I SOMETIMES use coupons, I have found that I save more if I do not focus on coupons because most stuff that the coupons are for is high priced stuff and I can get it cheaper if I buy it in the white label than if I use the coupon, I stick to a list,

I, too, stock up on things when on sale or BOGO . It is amazing the different recipes you can come up with when yo have 10 jars of pasta sauce. I try to make double meals so I can freeze one for later. This works especially well if you have something that is close to an expiration date. I have been thinking of looking into the Angel Ministries the your first responder. 3 or 4 boxes might get through a month off the price of what I spend in groceries in one week.