Wow, the grocery survey...

Witch Child

What an eye opener! It seems that a lot of folks really spend some amazing cash on food.

Our family of five spends $50-$60/week. I don't skimp on quality at all, we eat well! I have finally decided after watching so many raw veggies go to waste since Tris was born to get our salad at the salad bar at our local health food store. This has added about about $3/week but we are getting a huge variety of fresh veggies and none is going to waste now.

Yerusalem, I don't have teenagers, so my hat is off to you! I have heard the legends of teenage appetites.

Saving money on groceries means really paying attention to a whole lot of factors including the preferences of all the folks in your household, their nutritional needs, food allergies, sales etc etc. We shop at three different stores, it takes about 1 hour each week. I spend about 1 more hour planning the menu while consulting the sale flyers etc.

If folks want to save money on their food bills there are some excellent books that taught me an awful lot.

~Witch

cruzanheart

Pass 'em on, Witch Child! Our food budget needs all the help it can get!

Nina

larc

When all three of our children were at home, we saved a lot by using coupons. Our store gives double off up to a dollar, and I figured we saved 20 dollars a week, which is a thousand dollars a year. Now that there are only the two of us at home, we splurg more than we did back in those days, and we eat out more. If we had to, though, we could live pretty inexpensively, and not really sacrifice that much.

SYN

Why don't y'all just have one of these? They're crunchy!

Witch Child

Hi Cruzaheart,

I'm glad if I can help. The first book that helped me was "The Tightwad Gazzette;" by Amy Dacyzyn. It is an amazing book. It has money saving ideas from all over the place, plenty that I don't use but many that have helped my family get through rough times unscathed and that have helped us actually save money in a savings account during good times. Another good book that might help... if you can find it, is "The New Cookbook for Poor Poets and Others;" by Ann Rogers. I have never read such an entertaining cookbook. The philosophy of the book is to have good food that doesn't leave one feeling deprived or hungry but to save money and stretch the budget. I have tried a lot of the recipes and they come out really well. Several were HUGE hits with the family and have become favorites.

There were other books that have helped me a lot too. Let me know what you think of these two after you've had a chance to read them.

~Witch

Witch Child

SYN,

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!! Yucky. You are a riot.

~Witch

Country Girl

A few other ideas I've tried using to save $:

Turkey as a substitute for hamburger.

Use unprocessed ingredients as often as possible. Take a day per month to make up large batches of favorite foods and freeze in dinner size plastic packets.

Use fruits and veggies that are in season. Buy large quantities and freeze if a special sale comes up.

Grow an herb garden in containers on the patio, and use instead of salt and butter.

Buy in bulk such things as rice, flour, beans, dried fruits and nuts.

Coupons, of course.

Scratch and dent markets. =)

CG

Scarlet

I don't know where you guys shop but I spend more on two people than you guys do on a whole family. I average $100-125 a week . I don't use ground beef but I only buy very lean meats and lean ground turkey. I will have to look at your ideas. I don't find alot of coupons I can use so I just don't use them.

Witch Child

same here with the coupons, Scarlet. I use them very rarely.

~Witch

Xander

I was gonna say....I mean, DAMN for a family of 5? Yikes!

I don't know where you guys shop but I spend more on two people than you guys do on a whole family. I average $100-125 a week

That's much more in line with our costs.

Course, the wife and I only shop at organic food stores, and her diet is strictly vegetarian, so that drives the cost up a lot. No 'cheap' processed foods, and she won't buy things with any of the 20 or so oils or ingredients suspected of causing cancers or whatnot.

Also, that overhead usually includes 2-3 bottles of wine a week, as well. (I should note neither of us are even slightly overweight, and we only really eat one 'meal' a day, it's just the type of food that makes the cost so high)

Edited by - Xander on 27 January 2003 15:12:15

Wow, the grocery survey...

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