Are you on the Recession Diet?

[sweeps]

Stung by rising gasoline and food prices, Americans are finding creative ways to cut costs on routine items like groceries and clothing, forcing retailers, restaurants and manufacturers to decode the tastes of a suddenly thrifty public.

NYT Article

[LuxLiving]

Shoot we've been on it for years! I've been doing that surreptitious thing w/foodstuffs for ages.

[maat55]

We went from busting a 125 per week grocery budget for two, to 309 for this month. But, this does not count any cheating my wife has done on the side. Still, it is significant.

[Ima saver]

We have been on this "diet" for most of our lives!!

[JBinKC]

I must admit the quality of my diet has deteriorated and so has my weight thanks to eating more high glycemic cheap foods. I am eating more processed foods like pasta, not eating as many fresh foods as I used to in the past and after shunning them for a few years I am back to eating potatoes again.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Well, uh, I cooked a pound of black eyed peas this week and then restocked with 2 pounds of black eyed peas ($0.88/lb) plus and 2 pounds of lentils (0.68/lb). Does that sound like I've changed my ways? No, really, we eat a lot of peasant food anyway. But we also eat a nice share of more expensive foods, too. I don't think we've changed our spending habits yet. We were already careful--- what with being savingadvice type people.

[My English Castle]

I have noticed lots of folks doing more careful shopping. And yesterday the butcher and shoppers were having an argument about how many sale sirloins people bought. My old ideas of what's a good price may have to be adjusted. About once every six weeks I could get Ragu or Prego for $1, but I wonder if that's becoming a misty memory like $3 gas...

[disneysteve]

We have always been rather frugal, but we are definitely watching things more closely lately. I've switched to a few more store brands than before and we're making more of an effort to take advantage of good sales and coupons, something we had gotten lax about for a while. We're also doing more home cooking, which is good for both our budget and our waistlines.

[stressedmama]

While my husband and I are also very frugal with our money, we too have changed our habits in the past couple of weeks. I buy only a couple of name brand items like Tide and Prego Sauce, but have switched to cheaper store brands that are half the cost.

I also shop at Aldi and have noticed that it always busy no matter what time of the day you go now.

While we have kept our eating out budget the same, we seem to be going to "cheaper" restaurants so we can enjoy going out more frequently.