Need suggestions for lowering my grocery bill

[wonderwoman]

I spend about $400 on groceries just for myself. Plus I eat out a lot too. I want to save money on groceries but I dislike the idea of using coupons. What other ways can I save? I already go to Walmart... I'm tired of these bloggers saying one person can eat on $150/month. I don't see how.

[disneysteve]

I spend about $400 on groceries just for myself. Plus I eat out a lot too. I want to save money on groceries but I dislike the idea of using coupons. What other ways can I save? I already go to Walmart... I'm tired of these bloggers saying one person can eat on $150/month. I don't see how.

Forget coupons. They are for expensive brand name convenience items. That said, with a sale and a coupon, they can occasionally work out to be a better deal than a store brand alternative but most of the time they are not.

Focus on avoiding convenience foods and doing most cooking from scratch. It is far healthier and far cheaper. Buy store brands whenever possible.

Can you knock $400 down to $150? Probably not, but you could certainly knock it down to $300 as a starting goal and then keep chipping away from there. That's $10/day which is certainly doable, and that doesn't even include anything you spend eating out. If you can start cooking more, shopping smarter, and eating out less, you can probably save a couple hundred dollars per month.

[Fishindude77]

A few ideas:

• Do a better job meal planning.
• Make things from scratch rather than pre-made.
• Use leftovers for lunches, etc.
• Have a large freezer for storage.
• Buy things like meat when on sale in larger quantities, then re-package and freeze for future.
• Replace pop and bottled drinks with lemonade, iced tea, etc.
• Grow a garden, use the harvest and can or freeze the excess.
• Don't buy bottled water.

[snafu]

Eating out is very expensive and compounded by too much fat, sugar, salt and unpronounceable chemicals. It's hard to cook for one and stay on budget. Your #1 advantage is 'batch' cooking which means creating meals to freeze, heat and eat both for take away lunch and a dinner. Pick 5 favourite entrees for example. Plan to spend 3 hours Sunday morning to prep and cook 5 meals. Perhaps baked chicken breast + plan-over, pork chop+ casserole, ground beef meatloaf and meatballs, shrimp or salmon meal, vegetarian meal, butternut squash & apple soup + side dishes for example.

Which root vegetables will you eat? [potato, carrot, parsnip, rutabaga, sweet potato, turnip, yam]. What side dishes do you like? Pasta, rice, Quinoa, Kasha, Couscous, beans? Bagged frozen vegetables are most practical since you only make the amount you'll eat for each meal with no waste. Likewise bagged chef salad, coleslaw, spinach salad, broccoli slaw if carefully handled in zip bags can be rotated over a week doing double duty as stir fry veggies.

If cooking seems foreign, try www.cooks.com on your computer and add 'potato' to the search bar. You'll have dozens of variation to chose based on ingredients/items on hand. A baked potato takes 3 minutes in a microwave, cut open, squeeze sides together and heap on whatever leftovers are in the fridge. You can add Ranch dressing or whatever sauce you prefer to have a 'plan-over.' Most grocery stores stock a multitude of pasta shapes. It takes 8-12 minutes to cook pasta in boiling water, I read there are 72 common shapes. Pick the sauce you like, easy peasy to dump ingredients in your crockpot and cook 4 hr high or 6 hours low. When cooled, portion into either small zip boxes and freeze or even extra ice cube trays to freeze. Dump those into a labelled ziplock bag.

This is probably more info than wanted easy to demonstrate but wordy

You will need a crock pot/slo cooker, available at Goodwill or any Thrift store for $ 10. or less, a box of Ziplock sandwich sz bags, Ziplock, square, 1 cup sz food storage boxes, Zip boxes extra small for sauces as these stack well in fridge freezer and tote food to work or events.

[scfr]

Do you ever throw food away because it gets old before it gets eaten? If so, then start by inventorying what you already have on hand and make a plan to use that up.

Are there any grocery items you buy that have little or no nutritional value (soft drinks, prepared snacks, etc)? If so, either eliminate them or look for less expensive (and maybe healthier) alternatives.

What items make up the largest share of your grocery budget? Finding less expensive alternatives for those will give you the most immediate results in terms of savings.

[AnotherReader]

A food budget of $150 for a single person is very easy to maintain, if you cook everything yourself. All the above suggestions posted above will help you achieve that number with room to spare, including the kitchen needs such as dish detergent, paper towels and sponges.

[riverwed070707]

I just love the search function here. I feel its highly under used. Even the old stuff is good stuff.

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1059188

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1059186

[FLA]

I almost always try a generic before going for the name brand (unless name brand is on sale and cheaper, duh!), they've mostly been fine. My grocery stores take them back and give you like 10% or something, IDK, I don't take them back.

Do you have Aldi's? A lot of people rave about that.
I try to buy BJs own generics when they have a coupon as well, can get super cheap paper products but the generic coupons aren't that often. I buy generic BJs vats of generic tylenol and multivitamins, calcium, I haven't seen them cheaper anywhere else yet. I never buy paper goods or HBA items at the grocery.

do you like to cook? I admit, I really don't love it, the thought of making a freezerful of meals to last a month sounds complicated, I am not someone who looks for new recipes. When the kids aren't here, I'm happy with cheerios for dinner. I want to save on groceries too, it's those next steps that overwhelm me, I cannot imagine coordinating things correctly so I can shop for all the right ingredients, I cook for 6 hrs and have a month of meals. I admire those that do.

How about some crock pot meals? Those are super easy and just freeze the leftovers.

[wonderwoman]

Eating out is very expensive and compounded by too much fat, sugar, salt and unpronounceable chemicals. It's hard to cook for one and stay on budget. Your #1 advantage is 'batch' cooking which means creating meals to freeze, heat and eat both for take away lunch and a dinner. Pick 5 favourite entrees for example. Plan to spend 3 hours Sunday morning to prep and cook 5 meals. Perhaps baked chicken breast + plan-over, pork chop+ casserole, ground beef meatloaf and meatballs, shrimp or salmon meal, vegetarian meal, butternut squash & apple soup + side dishes for example.

Which root vegetables will you eat? [potato, carrot, parsnip, rutabaga, sweet potato, turnip, yam]. What side dishes do you like? Pasta, rice, Quinoa, Kasha, Couscous, beans? Bagged frozen vegetables are most practical since you only make the amount you'll eat for each meal with no waste. Likewise bagged chef salad, coleslaw, spinach salad, broccoli slaw if carefully handled in zip bags can be rotated over a week doing double duty as stir fry veggies.

If cooking seems foreign, try cooks. com on your computer and add 'potato' to the search bar. You'll have dozens of variation to chose based on ingredients/items on hand. A baked potato takes 3 minutes in a microwave, cut open, squeeze sides together and heap on whatever leftovers are in the fridge. You can add Ranch dressing or whatever sauce you prefer to have a 'plan-over.' Most grocery stores stock a multitude of pasta shapes. It takes 8-12 minutes to cook pasta in boiling water, I read there are 72 common shapes. Pick the sauce you like, easy peasy to dump ingredients in your crockpot and cook 4 hr high or 6 hours low. When cooled, portion into either small zip boxes and freeze or even extra ice cube trays to freeze. Dump those into a labelled ziplock bag.

This is probably more info than wanted easy to demonstrate but wordy

You will need a crock pot/slo cooker, available at Goodwill or any Thrift store for $ 10. or less, a box of Ziplock sandwich sz bags, Ziplock, square, 1 cup sz food storage boxes, Zip boxes extra small for sauces as these stack well in fridge freezer and tote food to work or events.

I had never heard of plan-overs. I'll start trying this on Sunday's. Hopefully it works out.

And to address other peoples comments... I won't go the coupon route. Thanks, disneysteve. I'll watch what I throw out a little better. It's just hard because you buy fresh foot, then if you go out of town or whatever, boom it's gone bad.

[disneysteve]

you buy fresh foot, then if you go out of town or whatever, boom it's gone bad.

Do you often go out of town unexpectedly? If so, I could see that being a problem. I know some people have jobs that require travel, often on short notice. If that's the case for you, then limiting your stock of perishables would be important to minimize waste.

[FLA]

The embedded links aren't showing up. Just follow the paragraph of instructions and you can get a crock pot new for $31. It's 6 qts, I like that size. The savings codes are in the paragraph, You can always stick to finding a used one.

http://www.bradsdeals.com/newest-deals?TID=1329299-2015-08-25-12-00-e-1-email-32541440&emailid=32541440&d=082515&utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=bradsdeals.232985he

his Hamilton Beach 6qt Wrap & Serve Slow Cooker drops from $67 to $31.49 with code AUG25SAVE30 at Bon-Ton.com. Plus, shipping is free with code FREESHIP25 making this the best price we have seen by at least $9. This slow cooker features 3 cooking modes (warm, low and high). It comes with 5 unique wraps that can be changed out depending on the occasion. These include 1-red with white snowflakes, 1 patriotic with red and white stripes and blue stars, 1 football themed, 1 blue and white chevron and 1 birthday candle. Sales tax is charged in most states.

[snafu]

If you travel a lot, your fridge freezer, box of Ziplock sandwich size bags & Sharpies can save huge sums. Make it a point of conscience to always slice, bag and label all cooked, baked, roasted, braised poultry, beef, pork, lamb, fish in serving sized portions. There are 'portion bags' if you prefer to use as helper for zip bags. Easy to use slo cooker to create stew or soup with a can of tomatoes, water + cooked meat + whatever vegetables might be wilted, waiting in the fridge.

Adding Worcestershire, soy or bullion cube of choice and cook 4 hrs or overnight. In AM load solids into labelled bags, broth/liquid into a measure cup for efficient pour into bag & carefully squeeze out air. Freeze lying flat. Merely cut open bag and let content slide into a pot to be brought up to your ideal temperature on stove top, ready to eat in under 10 minutes on return.

[John Doe]

There's some good advice given so far. I will just reinforce: make meals from scratch, never buy pre-made meals, save leftovers, never waste food, never buy junk like soft drinks, never eat out. I disagree with coupons or bulk frozen foods. Studies have shown that bulk food purchasing doesn't save money because much of the food goes to waste. Buy only what you need. Buy only what you will eat in the next few days. Never buy more if you can find something on your shelves. If you have more food stocked than can easily look through, then you have too much. Don't drive around to every store in town trying to save a few cents on this item or that. Don't eat garbage processed foods.

Start with basic staples. Think raw sacks of rice. Think raw potatoes or generic boxes of dried potatoes. Think cheap pasta noodles. Think cheap whole bread. Think cheap tubs of dried oats. In the produce section, you can find raw potatoes, plantains, yucca, sweet potatoes, and other starches. Get raw mushrooms.

Then expand into your secondary ingredients. Think cheap cans of unsalted beans. Think cheap bags of dry beans. Think cheap cans of unsalted tuna. Think jars of natural peanut butter. Think cheap jars of tomato sauce. Think blocks of cheese. Think jars of wheat germ. Think cheap tubs of plain yogurt. Think cheap cans of olives.

Then carefully pick fruits and vegetables. Think raw onions, garlic, grapes, spinach, carrots, and leafy greens. In season, pick cheap apples, oranges, peaches, pears, etc. Bananas are always cheap.

Never waste food. Never buy stuff you won't eat. Don't buy more until you've cleared out your pantry. Combine things. Eat things raw. Invent your own dishes. Who says rice and tomato sauce isn't a dish? Who says potatoes and tomato sauce isn't a dish? You don't need a recipe book. You don't need cooking skills. You don't need fancy cooking equipment. You can pretty much boil or bake anything in a microwave or toaster oven so that it's edible.

[FLA]

if you go away unexpectedly often, how about frozen veggies instead of fresh? I remember reading in Consumer Reports that frozen have just as good nutritional value because they are frozen at their peak. When my kids were younger, lots of my vegetables would go bad, I was overbuying because it felt really important to give them the best, "Would you like more broccoli rabe?" did not fly with 6 and 8 yr olds, which left a pound all for me! I read that article and started buying generic frozen on sale and bought the actual amount and kind of produce we would eat fresh. The frozen are usually cheaper.

I have a feeling I'm gonna get flamed for this and should probably try to find an article that backs me up, meh, just flame away, lol

[Cristen Wyght]

I rarely eat out because it's so expensive. It's cheaper to make my meals instead.
Make a list before you go grocery shopping and make sure you're full before you shop.