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5 Tips to Save on Groceries This Year

March 21, 2022 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Tips to Save on Groceries

The price of groceries recently! Ouch. In the last few months, I’ve been shopping the same way I typically do, and yet, my grocery bill for my family of five has increased several hundred dollars, and my freezer and pantry are emptier. Enough is enough. The food prices are rising rapidly, but I’m utilizing these tips to save on groceries this year.

Prices Will Be High for Awhile

Prices will be high for a while because of supply chain issues due to the pandemic and the current war in Ukraine. However, if you’re willing to change your behavior and preferences, you can save on groceries this year, even with the market instability.

5 Tips to Save on Groceries This Year

Change Your Menu

Our family makes every meal at home, and we don’t eat extravagantly. However, I’m looking at changing our menu. We’re gluten-free and dairy-free. That means staples for most people, like bread, cost us significantly more to buy gluten-free. During this time, I’m limiting how much bread we use and instead am switching to naturally gluten-free carbs that are cheaper such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rice.

I’ve also searched the Internet for low-cost meals. Many bean-based recipes appear, but my family doesn’t want to eat beans several times a week.

Instead, I look two different places.

Depression-Era Recipes

For Depression-era recipes, I love the YouTube channel, Great Depression Cooking. Clara, the host, shares stories about her life and frugal recipes her family ate during the Great Depression.

Frugal Recipes Around the World

Tips to Save on Groceries

To make meals more interesting, I’ve prepared frugal meals from different countries. Some of our favorites include Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes with cabbage), Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake), and Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish omelet with potatoes and onions).

Use Less Meat & Fish

Part of our strategy to change the menu involves using less meat. Sometimes we have meat-based meals, but I’m currently trying to avoid having those regularly.

Find Meals with Reduced Meat

Instead of meat-based meals, I’m trying to make meals that center around vegetables and starches with some meat. When I do that, I can use less meat. For instance, when I make spaghetti, I add about six ounces of cooked ground beef. That half pound of meat is cheaper than using an entire pound for our family of five. I also look for soups and chilis that require a half-pound of meat or less.

Buy Cheaper Cuts

We enjoy roasts and steaks when we buy ¼ side of beef, but we haven’t purchased beef that way in over two years, so we’re only eating ground beef, which is the cheapest form of beef we can find.

Likewise, I still want to have fish in our diet, but I have found cheaper ways to buy it. I can buy cod pieces at Trader Joe’s for $4.49 per pound. Whole fillets cost approximately $10 a pound, so I buy cod pieces and make fish cakes instead of serving fillets to my family. We’re getting the benefits of eating fish at a much lower price.

Allocate Some Money to Stocking Up

One of the best ways to lower your grocery budget is to save some money each week to stock up on sales. Let’s say you have $150 a week to spend on groceries. You might use $120 to buy your weekly groceries and reserve the additional $30 to stock up on items that are on sale.

Maybe you find a clearance sale on ground beef marked down to $2.99 a pound instead of the regular price of $6.99 per pound. If there are ten packages available, you might buy all 10 for $29.99 total. (This is a deal I found two weeks ago, and I snatched up all ten. I promptly went home and made ten meals. Most of the meals are in the freezer now, so we can eat them in the next few months, saving us money on our upcoming grocery trips.)

Some weeks you may not find any good sales. That is okay. Let that $30 rollover, so the next week you have $60 to use for stock-up buys. Then, when you find a good sale, you can take advantage of it without wrecking your grocery budget.

Try Reverse Meal Planning

Some people carry this idea further by reverse meal planning. Instead of going to the grocery store with a list of items you need to buy, you go to the grocery store and look for food on sale or clearance and try to buy only those items.

Then, when you get home, you make a meal plan based on the items you already have. If you bought cheese at a discounted price, and you have ham from a sale two weeks ago, you might combine the two together with potatoes and milk to make scalloped potatoes for your family.

If you’re creative and can think of ways to use different foods, reverse meal planning can help you keep your budget low even when food prices are high.

I use this strategy, but only for a few meals a week. I’m not creative enough to plan all our meals this way, especially with our dietary restrictions.

Order Online

5 Tips to Save on Groceries

Another option is to order your groceries online. Some people love ordering this way because they limit their impulse buys. You only order what you need, so you can stick to your grocery budget.

I do sometimes place online orders, but our local grocery store is often out of the items that I order. Therefore, I only place online orders about twice a month. I like to go into the store to find discounted and clearance items, which I can’t do when I shop online.

However, by using both online shopping and going to the store on alternate weeks, I can save money.

Final Thoughts

The cost of groceries is high, but I’m hoping by regularly using these five tips to save on groceries this year, I can avoid going over budget.

How are you fighting the high price of groceries?

Read More

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

Living on a Tight Budget: Should Groceries Be the First Place You Cut?

Even More Ways to Save on Groceries

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in Arizona where she dislikes the summer heat but loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Frugality, Saving Tagged With: food, frugal groceries, groceries, grocery budget, recipes

Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

May 24, 2021 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

In our family, we’re gluten free and dairy free due to food intolerances. Although we’ve been this way for about 10 years now, when we first eliminated gluten and dairy from our diets, I was shocked by how much gluten and dairy alternatives cost. Thankfully, in the years since, we’ve found good alternative markets to buy our specialty foods.

Save Before You Shop

Of course, if your grocery budget is tight and you’re on a special diet, the first way to save is to make meals that naturally don’t require substitutions. For instance, stir fries are meals that don’t require any gluten or dairy substitutes (except the soy sauce). An All-American meal of meat, potatoes, and a veggie is another one. Try to make the bulk of your meals the kind that don’t require any substitutions.

Having said that, sometimes you just want meals as close to what you used to have as possible.

Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

Azure Standard

Good Alternative Markets for Buying Specialty Foods
Photo by Alex Motoc on Unsplash

Azure Standard is a family run health food store that delivers food throughout the United States. You can buy food in bulk at significantly discounted prices.  (For instance, we buy gluten free oatmeal in 50 pound bags for $62, which is a price I can never match per pound in the grocery store.) In addition, each month, Azure has different items on sale.

Their trucks deliver once a month at places called drops where several people help unload the truck and then pick up their individual orders.

Vitacost

Vitacost is an online retailer that sells both vitamins and supplements as well as food. They have a large specialty food section, whether you’re looking for dairy free, gluten free, vegan, soy free, Keto, Paleo, or many others.

If you place a $50 order or larger, shipping is free. In addition, if you sign up for their mailing list, they will frequently send discount codes, often for 15 to 20 percent off.

Again, when I use their discount codes, I find the prices lower than I can get at local grocery stores. Plus, you can’t beat the convenience of having food delivered right to your door.

Thrive Market

Thrive Market does have a fee of $5 per month, but the people who use the service say the fee is worthwhile, especially since shipping is free if you buy $49 or more in an order.

This online retailer has more choices than VitaCost, and your order is delivered right to your door. However, like Vitacost, there is no fresh produce available.  (You can get fresh and frozen produce from Azure.  Azure’s organic frozen berries are much cheaper than you can find in stores!)

If you’re not sure about paying the monthly fee, you can try Thrive Market for free for 30 days and cancel if you find it isn’t what you’re looking for.

Final Thoughts

If you have dietary restrictions, you may be frustrated because you can’t find the foods you need at a traditional grocery store. However, these three alternative markets for buying specialty foods will likely have what you need. I use a combination of all three throughout the year.

Read More

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Healthy Foods to Buy When Broke

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MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in Arizona where she dislikes the summer heat but loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: Frugality, Saving Tagged With: frugal groceries, grocery shopping, special diets

Cheap Foods to Buy When Broke

November 30, 2020 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Cheap Foods to Buy When Broke

Whether it’s nearly the end of the month and you’re out of cash, or you’ve just lost your job or you had a large expense this month, we all have times when we have to nourish our bodies for as little money as possible.  Luckily, there are many cheap foods to buy when you’re broke that are also nutrient power houses.

Cheap Foods to Buy When Broke

To get the most nutrition from limited money, you’ll want to first focus on fruits and vegetables.

Vegetables

There are many basic vegetables to choose from:

Carrots

Carrots are so versatile!  You can eat them raw or use them in soups and stir frys.

Cabbage

One head of cabbage can stretch, and stretch, and stretch and be used many ways.  Just recently, our family of five had a head of cabbage to use.  The first night, we made cabbage beef soup; it fed us all, plus there were leftovers.  The second night, we had skillet kielbasa and cabbage, and again, there were leftovers.

You’ll find plenty of recipes for cabbage.  Consider looking for recipes from other countries, too, as cabbage is a staple in the cuisine of many countries.

Fruits

While fruits like grapes, blueberries, and strawberries are delicious, they’re not affordable when they’re not in season.  Instead, focus on fruits that are affordable in any season.

Bananas

Bananas are quite filling and cheap.  You can eat them plain, or blend them up and use them as mock ice cream.

Apples

Cheap Foods to Buy When Broke
Photo by Sarah Gualtieri on Unsplash

Apples are in season for quite a long time and can often be found for less than $1 a pound.  I like these because of their nutritional value and because they can be eaten as a fruit, or used in a meal, or baked for a dessert.

Starches

When you’re on a budget, you need foods that are filling.  After fruits and vegetables, your next priority should be starches.

Potatoes

Potatoes are almost always a reasonably priced food.  Add them to meals to bulk up the content.  (One of our favorite breakfasts is diced, cooked potatoes mixed with a little cheese and scrambled eggs.)

Oatmeal

Oatmeal makes a great, filling breakfast for just pennies.  Stir in some protein powder or jam for a little extra flavor.

Oatmeal can also be used in muffins and ground up in a food processor and used as a substitute or supplement to flour in baked goods.

Flour

The price of flour can’t be beat per pound.  Use it to make homemade breads, rolls, desserts, etc.  You can also use flour as a thickener to homemade sauces and gravies.

Rice

Rice is also versatile and can be used for a side dish, dessert, or breakfast.  When rice is combined with beans, it is the ultimate frugal meal.

Protein

Protein will help satiate you longer, stretching the length of time you feel full, so hopefully you’ll need fewer in between snacks.

Dry Beans

A pound of dry beans costs between $1 and $2 per pound and can likely be used for several meals.  Use beans in soups, casseroles, and dips like hummus.  You can even use beans in desserts like black bean brownies.  (Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.  They’re delicious!)

Chicken

Chicken is a great animal protein that can be frugal if you buy it on sale or on the bone.  We usually try to use our animal protein as a supplement to a meal, not the main focus of the meal.  Try dishes like fried rice with some shredded chicken or chicken pot pie to complement all of the vegetables in the meal.

Don’t forget to take the bones and turn them into a homemade broth to use for future meals.  (We freeze our broth in ice cube trays for future use.)

Final Thoughts

If you’re on a tight grocery budget, remember that if you choose the most frugal food options, you can still eat healthy, nutritious, and filling foods.

Read More

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

5 Strategies to Make Food at Home If You Hate Cooking

Save Money on the Grocery Budget by Reducing Food Waste

MelissaB
MelissaB

Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in Arizona where she dislikes the summer heat but loves the natural beauty of the area.

www.momsplans.com/

Filed Under: budget, Frugality, Saving Tagged With: frugal food, frugal groceries, frugal kitchen, frugal produce, groceries, grocery budget, grocery shopping

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