I just can't get our food bill down...

[ummabdullah]

Hey sweetie.. since getting married to a tight wad indian guy I have been able to cut down on food loads......

you know we eat loads of chicken legs.. try to find a butcher.. he might be cheaper. What really works is that I can buy a chicken for $4 , have it cut in 8 pieces and add a jar of tomato sauce with any loved spices.. taste great and you can eat it with rice with frozen peas.

I try to buy rice in bulk. Oil.. and onions.. I buy the cheapest tomato tin jars I can find. And I never buy frozen ready made foods. Potatoes are great.. Frozen peas are good.

Oatmeal in the morning is great.. and cheaper than cereals. but so is eggs.. I make the hubby sugar eggs.. very bad for the health.

[ummabdullah]

OH YEAH definately hit the indian/ arabic/ ethnic stores.. ... even chinese..

You can get loads of rice.. and just fry an onion, then add cumin seeds and add some peas and the rice.. and cook.. delicious. and you can eat with everything.

plus semolina is a great treat for the kids.... just dry fry for about 5 min. on medium heat.. add butter and water and cook till thick..


the meat actually works out cheaper in there too ..

[markio26]

tip:
who do you know that is really frugal??? i have a neighbor who pinches a penny until it screams.. we drove by her house the other day and looked on her clothes line, and she had 3 pairs of pants drying and 3 tops.. i looked at my spouse and commented she must have been to a good garage sale.... lol.. she eats salad, white bread, she calls light bread, soups, applesauce, deer meat, fish, cheap chicken parts.. she gardens and has a herb garden at the end of her back porch.. and i think she is wealthy.. a.g. edwards manages her money for her and pays her other bills, that the local bank does not pay on epay..... anyway she told me she doesn't want to give her info out to anyone, especially on the net.. she has a computer and emails me, she has a home in az too.. her spouse was a pilot and passed away 3 yrs ago.. her mom was a wealthy painter... she is just full of frugal ways to save money... she shops at aldi's...eats a fish sandwich at mcdonald's.. with a glass of water or senior coffee...she will not pay to go out to eat.. it has to be potluck at the vfw or church.

[funnyvalentine]

call me crazy but I don't want to live this way.....

Originally Posted by markio26

tip:
who do you know that is really frugal??? i have a neighbor who pinches a penny until it screams.. we drove by her house the other day and looked on her clothes line, and she had 3 pairs of pants drying and 3 tops.. i looked at my spouse and commented she must have been to a good garage sale.... lol.. she eats salad, white bread, she calls light bread, soups, applesauce, deer meat, fish, cheap chicken parts.. she gardens and has a herb garden at the end of her back porch.. and i think she is wealthy.. a.g. edwards manages her money for her and pays her other bills, that the local bank does not pay on epay..... anyway she told me she doesn't want to give her info out to anyone, especially on the net.. she has a computer and emails me, she has a home in az too.. her spouse was a pilot and passed away 3 yrs ago.. her mom was a wealthy painter... she is just full of frugal ways to save money... she shops at aldi's...eats a fish sandwich at mcdonald's.. with a glass of water or senior coffee...she will not pay to go out to eat.. it has to be potluck at the vfw or church.

[ummabdullah]

you know since I've been saving.. I tend to add veg to my meat.. and my bill has gone down to about £80 a week with nappies and baby formula..

that would be about the same in USA of $80 cuz the price of a can of coke is £1 as the usa is $1.. the only difference is that you guys have coupons out there.

I've been only buying the cheapest stuff in the store.. and my meat and rice and that in ethnic stores..

Like a pizza.. I top with a piece of chicken cut up and some xtra cheese and ragu sauce..
then I cook pasta with 1 chicken breast fillet (larger from the butcher) and use the rest of the ragu.. I buy the really really cheap pasta noodles.. and it tastes the same.. just add a few spices.

I also boil a few eggs and make chicken salad with maynaisse (the cheap kind) and serve some bread on the side.. (the cheapest bread cost 24 cents here)

so it is definately possible..

[flash]

Originally Posted by funnyvalentine

call me crazy but I don't want to live this way.....

But if she's happy, nothing wrong with it!

[Amorphous02]

We eat out once a month, unless Dh is really unreasonable and splurges on TacoBell/McDonald..
1)The staple in most homes is bread or pasta. This generally comes to $0.58 to $1.59 an lb.. If you switch to rice, you will see that the cheapest rice works out to be $0.43/lb.
"When you buy a 20lb bag of rice, you use it!" said a thrifty mom.Its true.
2)Eggs are way better than most fast foods.
3)Buy beans, lentils green peas in bulk and soak them over night for soups, chilli.
Make your own bread and save more.
Please remember that fruit and cereals work out to be cheaper because they save time and fuel.
All this aside,
for a good analysis, you are the best judge.. You must sit down with your reciepts and discern the spending patter.
Then collect coupons.
But the most important thing that works for me is that I know that its a war, not one battle..
I fight retail stores and DH every day to bring the total down. I spend $70-$80.00 , including cleaning agents for three members, one cat and 2 newspapers.

[Saving in So Cal]

A few months ago, I was at $75 a week for 3 (DD is a toddler), not including sundries and paper goods. Now, I am about $75 for everying, with food accounting for about $50. I use most of the methods listed here, but primarily rely on couponing and modest stockpiling to keep on budget.

The only things I buy at Walmart, super or otherwise, are water and sundries for which I don't have a coupon. In my experience, they are the cheapest on these things. On food items, they tend to only be a cent or two cheaper and I can almost always do better buying loss leaders or buying at a store that doubles coupons.

Other changes I've made include reducing the amount of store bought snack foods I buy and using more store brands. I also started baking bread in the breadmaker I got for Christmas and using my crockpot more.

Of course, we're far from perfect and grocery store spending doesn't tell the whole food story. My husband still does fastfood for lunch and I drink soda, which is a waste from both a monetary and health standpoint. We'll tackle these things, too -- one step at a time.

[PrincessPerky]

Originally Posted by Saving in So Cal

-- one step at a time.

Just wanted to highlight that line

[getforfree]

I fight retail stores and DH every day to bring the total down.

I do the same thing. Recently Dh was complaining that I haven't bought any cookies for long time, so on Sunday we were in Biglots, they had 14-16oz packages for 50c each, so I told him to grub as much as he can, because I will not buy any for long time. Plus I had 20% off coupon, so each pack cost me about 40c. Not bad.

[funnyvalentine]

Hi all,
I am a buzzagent for buzzagent.com, and a couple of months ago we started "buzzing" BJ's warehouse. I hadn't been there in some time, but I have found that their prices on water are the cheapest around (actually, my contractor clued me in on that....)


The only things I buy at Walmart, super or otherwise, are water and sundries for which I don't have a coupon. In my experience, they are the cheapest on these things. On food items, they tend to only be a cent or two cheaper and I can almost always do better buying loss leaders or buying at a store that doubles coupons.

[RevGen]

I've been able to bring down our monthly food budget from $800 to $300 over the past year (family of 6 - 2 of which are teenage boys!).

I've done the following:

• I subscribe to a coupon service with a sales/deals forum
• Weekly I order the hard to get coupons from the service
• Weekly I get ~8 Sunday papers for the coupons
• I make out my grocery list based on where the sales are that match the coupons
• For the non-perishables, I stock up when they're on sale (incl pull ups)
• I shop in stores that double and triple coupons. I've found that Walmart and Target are not as cost effective as they'd like us to think. You can get really good deals, but they are few in between

Good luck!!!

[Amorphous02]

THANK YOU REVGEN.
May I request the name of the coupon service that you subscribe to?

[RevGen]

I posted the link but it was removed - I'll PM you with the info...

HAPPY SHOPPING & SAVING!!!

[Amorphous02]

Thank you so much RevGen! Saw the PM.

[greedy4chips]

Feed your family on $10 a day should be a recipe book. I think we could do it with 3 kids, but it would be tough. That means no expensive meals or very small portions of those expensive meals like steak, seafood, etc.

For giggles I will keep track of our food bill for 1 month (Sept). It will be hard because we stock up on everything from spaghetti sauce (prego $1.33 per jar sale), chicken breasts ($1.33/lb sale), cereal (8 boxes for $10 minus manufacturer coupons), hamburger ($1.88/lb we freeze in 1 lb packages).

Every week is what I call stock up sales since there is something you can buy a ton of that fits your meal menu.

[RevGen]

We do it with 4 kids and it used to be so tough! Now, it's become a habit. This was Friday's dinner:

Chicken Francese over Rice
Biscuits with Butter
Carrots

1 bag of Perdue Perfect Portions (1 1/2 lbs of seasoned chicken breast)
$8.99 - 50% off - $2 coupon = $2.50

1 Box of Cambell's Souper Bakes
$3.19 - $0.75 c/o (tripled) = $0.94

1 Pack Pillsbury Perfect Portions Biscuits
$3.19 - $0.75 c/o tripled = $0.94

1 Bag Mann's Baby Carrots
$1.99 - $0.55 c/o tripled = $0.34

5 Slammers Drinks
$1.50 - $0.50 c/o tripled = $0.00

"My Gourmet Dinner " for 6 = $4.72

[mom-from-missouri]

It also helps to buy from sources other than your grocery store. I use our local Amish bulk store, Aldi's, the day old bread store and Dollar General (At Dollar General, Little Debbie items, campbells soup and cereal are way cheaper than the local grocery store-same brands). Also, the local butcher runs specials once a month that are cheaper than the grocery store, and several local farmers sell produce, dressed chicken, pork and beef cheaper than the stores.

[cicy33]

Originally Posted by thriftymom

For our family of 3, (dd is 1yr), we usually spend about $80 per week. One thing that helped a bit was buying milk at the gas station. We are constantly filling up the tank, so once a week we buy 2 gallons of 1% for $1.99 each instead of paying $3.89 each at the grocery store- that's practically half-price! Soon, dd will be drinking whole milk- not sure how much that costs, but it's probably cheaper at the gas station too.

There is absolutely no reason to feed your baby whole milk. 2% and 1% is just as healthy. Matter of fact when I was preg with my daughter I was drinking about 3 gal a week WHOLE milk myself. love milk! Doctor asked me what I was eating cuz I was gaining weight, told him I wasn't eating much just drinking milk. He said that with the additions of the vitamin A & D in milk the lower ones are just as healthy. and to stop drinking whole milk. Very fattening. The difference was there is less heavy cream in the 1 and 2% milk.

[mom-from-missouri]

Originally Posted by cicy33

There is absolutely no reason to feed your baby whole milk. 2% and 1% is just as healthy.

Babies do need whole milk, just not the mommies!!! Babies need the extra fat that the whole milk offers for proper brain development. (one reason breast milk is so good, it is high in fat). When your dr told you that, he was refering to you, not the baby, (at least not a born baby). I used to years ago work for WIC. They have not changed their opinion on this since.