Cheap Food is Still Out There
by Katy on December 6, 2024 · 45 comments
If there’s a person out there who’s unaware of the rising cost of American groceries, I’ve yet to meet them. Whether it’s bread or the newsworthy cost of eggs, it’s getting harder and harder to feed our families on a budget. However . . . with ingenuity and a bit of luck, there are almost always bargains to be found.
My husband and I were out running errands yesterday, one of which was to pick up a few items for his upcoming work lunches/dinners. (Twelve hour shifts.) He wanted a specific item from Safeway, so I made sure to pull up their app and load any relevant e-coupons. Some of them were a no brainer, such as “$10-off a $50 purchase,” but I tapped a few others just in case. Specifically, I added a coupon for 49¢ Yoplait yogurts, as they often have a few flavors that are an additional 50% off. Sure enough, the lemon flavor yogurts boasted half-off stickers, so I grabbed six of them.
I also added e-coupons for avocados, canned cat food, milk, frozen shrimp, lunch meat and bananas.
Our son later stopped by the house after work, collapsing on the couch and complaining that he still needed to go to the store, as he’d run out of his pre-prepped work lunches. I’m always happy to share our bounty so I threw together a quick chili, a portion of which he could take to work.
It was impressively cheap with a minimal effort. Here’s why:
• I’d cooked bulk purchased black beans in the Instant Pot the day before.
• I still have multiples of the 99¢/lb sausage from a few weeks ago.
• I had pre-chopped frozen onions and celery on hand, as onions had been on sale and a neighbor gave me her leftover celery.
• I’d frozen leftover frozen canned tomatoes and enchilada sauce awhile back and added them into the mixture.
• I had bacon fat leftover from whenever we last bought bacon, which I used to sauté and flavor the onions.
• I buy our spices in bulk from Winco Foods, which means that I pay a fraction of what they’d cost to buy if I paid by the jar.
I’m fully aware that what I just described sounds like a major pain in the tuchus, (and sometimes it is) but my cheap grocery hacks are really about stocking up on loss leaders, buying in bulk, choosing basic recipes and cooking from scratch. I also take advantage of free/cheap food opportunities such as annually cooking up a free Halloween pumpkin for a year’s worth of puree, always browsing Fred Meyer’s clearance produce shelf, picking wild berries or letting a neighbor know that I’m happy to accept her bruised windfall apples. I make sure to return the favors and together we solidify our community.
I’m aware that each of us has different resources available to us, (for example there are no Aldi discount grocery stores in Oregon) but much of what I write about can be adapted for your own region. There are things I don’t do, (like garden in my deeply shady backyard) but it’s doubtful that I’ll ever stop learning new tricks. Just know that there are always alternative methods to standard grocery shopping.
Click HERE to look over the “Food Hack in Times of Trouble” blog post from a few months back. So many amazing ideas and suggestions in the comments section!
Please know that if you’re American and struggling to feed your family, you can call 211 to be connected with agencies and community organizations to help put food on your table.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
First, thanks for posting a daily inspiration. We all need it.
I’m right with you on buying bulk items. I’ve done the math and even when packaged items are on special it is till usually cheaper to buy loose from the bulk section.
Loss leaders are the best savings out there. Stock up whenever you can, even if it’s only a couple of extra items. This time of year one of our grocery stores runs stock up prices on baking supplies and I usually buy enough to last several months on the basics such as flour and sugar.
Coupons are good, too, especially for favorite brands. Still, even with a good coupon store labels are often the better buy. It definitely pays to try out a store label and compare it to a favorite brand to see how it stack up. You and your family may not notice any appreciable difference and the savings can be significant.
I am fortunate to have a “dented vegetable” store nearby and I always start my grocery shopping trip there. There are often treasures to be found and really big savings, too.
Produce savings abound, too. I save the tops of carrots and celery, parsley stems, onion and garlic skins for vegetable broth or to throw in with bones for stock. Tops from radishes can go into stir fry or steam with other greens. Brocolli stalks can be peeled and shredded for slaw or used in stir fry.
I’m with you on the bulk foods @ Winco. Today I made fresh batches of blue cheese salad dressing using my favorite skyr, homemade mayo and herbs. So much tastier than store bought and no preservatives. I also make a catalina type salad dressing so tasty and way less sugar.
I made my gf bread today, saving 7.48/loaf (oh my word).
I made a batch of pinto beans in the instapot. Those will be divided into pints and froze.
I too, go to the dented foods store first before rounding out my grocery getting day. We shop once a month. I do get the Safeway loss leaders from my niece who works p/t and is in nursing school.
Still harvesting lettuce (greenhouse), chard, kale, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and turnips in the fall garden. We turned on the heat mats for lettuces in the greenhouse during our 22-24 temps this week. All turned off now as we have milder temps.
Neighbor gave me a huge bag of lemons, leftover from a company party. I am going to save the rind and freeze the juice. Using my juicer attachment on my kitchen aid mixer. She also gave me gallon bags of leftover veggie trays, I will separate, blanch and freeze for soups.
What is your favorite GF bread recipe? Have you tried any GF sourdough methods? Thanks!
There is no bulk section of anything where I live. There is no Aldi. Dairy products are never, repeat never, marked down. Sale milk or yogurt? Does not happen, period. There are no chain grocery stories with e-coupons. There is no clearance produce.
I’m not complaining. I choose to live where I live. But groceries cost an absolute fortune and there are very few ways of bringing that total down. I do stock up when I go out of town, and I buy selected things from the hated Amazon, but the price of gas is over five bucks in my town, so driving an hour to stock up on clearance produce is not worth it.
I’m not dissing you, I’m just frustrated.
Rose, this may sound stupid but living (or doing several week long contracts) in the villages with fewer than 200 people so only a sort of corner store for all groceries and no such thing as coupons for that store, I did still manage some ways to reduce our budget (milk was $20 a gallon in some places). First was that I made it known that I would happily take excess foods, and so I frequently would get a can of this or that from the church food boxes that someone would not use but was happy not to be throwing away. Also, these were places of subsistence lifestyles, so I often got a fish or a piece of caribou or seal or whale or duck. The other thing is that I let family members who lived outside of Alaska that I could not take anything that had to be taken with me when I moved, so to please switch all gift giving to sending toilet paper. (One place that I lived for several years had a post master who thought it was the most hysterical thing he had ever seen when I’d get 5 or 6 cases of toilet paper at Christmas or during my birthday month of October. Relatives who could not bring themselves to give someone toilet paper for a gift, sent food boxes of things like cheese and, once, a case of Doritos. I didn’t like the latter but I gave them out to fellow villagers as my Christmas gifts that year.) The ice melted enough to have a barge come in once during the summer, so we’d order by bulk (cheaper than airplane orders from Fairbanks or Anchorage grocery stores) for a year’s supply of this or that. Finally, on those rare occasions when relatives flew up to visit we asked them to bring whatever canned goods they could tuck into their suitcases. (what? You don’t want to fly to Fairbanks and then get on a small plane to fly between mountain tops to land in my village? In the winter, when the sun set in November and didn’t rise again until February? When the temperature is minus 47 but the windchill brings it down to 90 below? Sissy.) I know these are not completely translatable to your situation, but even the year we spent living on a San Juan island while I got medical treatment in Seattle, we did things like make it known we took all unwanted food items or asked people going off-island to bring something back. But I would not trade my life with its grocery prices for living outside my state, so I chalk it up to being part of the cost of being here.
Thanks, pal. Um…I don’t think I could eat seal or caribou or whale, not that anyone is likely to give me any! My son will literally eat any meat though. And I swear, while I’m not a big fan of venison, I could happily eat the doe that rampages through the yard where I feed feral cats. We had a face-off the other day while I was holding a big rock and I thought, “You know….” OK, I can’t deliberately hurt an animal, and if she didn’t eat the cats’ food that I go to some trouble to buy and deliver for them, I’d admit she’s a rather lovely animal.
For some reason, your post reminded me of Betty Macdonald (admittedly one of my favorites) from “The Egg and I”:
From Mexico we moved to Placerville, Idaho, a mining camp in the mountains near Boise, where the snow was fifteen feet deep on the level in winter and Mother bought a year’s supply of food at a time. Our closest neighbor was a kind woman who had been a very successful prostitute in Alaska and wore a chain of large gold nuggets which reached below her knees. She was very fond of me, Mother says, and told everyone, to Gammy’s intense annoyance, that I was the “spitting image” of her when she was three years old. In Placerville, Mrs. Wooster (I believe that this was her name) had become a respectable married woman but evidently this palled, for Mother says she talked constantly of the “good old days.” I can feel for her because, although I have never 17been an Alaskan prostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still got very bored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after relentless day. Of course Mrs. Wooster had an extra hurdle in her path of boredom, that of the same old husband jumping into bed every night.
free online!
https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/macdonaldbetty-egg/macdonaldbetty-egg-00-h-dir/macdonaldbetty-egg-00-h.html
I would never have guessed from the movie that the original featured such anecdotes!
I certainly hear your frustration. So maybe having shift in thinking from “how do I get this cheaper” to “how can I stretch this further” might help in your situation. How do I turn this can of salmon into 4-6 salmon cakes? By adding extra stale bread or oatmeal. How do I stretch my burger? By adding lentils or oatmeal. Hearty stews and chili use up odd ingredients and are very filling. Move away from a big piece of meat as the entree to casseroles, stir fries and stews. Think small meat. When making scrambled eggs use one less egg and add a bit of water or some puréed cauliflower (it makes the eggs extra fluffy and no one can tell they are in there) or turn it into an omelet by adding bits of leftovers. Maybe check out some Depression era recipes. Sadly we are all going to have to get more creative with our cooking. But maybe try to think of it as a challenge rather than a negative.
Thanks, Julia. I actually rarely do make “piece of meat” plus sides. I prefer soups and chili, stir fries and pasta, big salads anyway. But I like the idea of seeing it as a challenge, so thanks.
Challenging will be swallowing the costs of our traditional Christmas dinner of beef Wellington. Oh well, it’s once a year. I’d happily eat turkey because I love turkey but this is one of the very few traditions my kids insist on.
Another beef Wellington fan here, also reserved for only Christmas dinner.
Quiche is the absolute furthest a few eggs and bits and bobs of veg and cheese can stretch. I’m GF and many GF crusts are at best disappointing, but a crust of overlapped thin-sliced potato brushed with olive oil or schmalz/bacon/duck fat is cheap and delicious.
This week I was given 8 pumpkins(3 people) and 4 squash that were purchased as Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations. I will cook them all. The dog will eat most of the pumpkin. The rest will be us. I will give pumpkin muffins as a thank you.
I grow a garden. We have fruit trees that require very little work. The fig trees were free cuttings from my in-laws. We have given several cuttings to friends and family. I have been gifted apple trees and blueberry plants. We also gifted our daughter and SIL apple trees. The gifts that keep giving.I barter with fellow gardeners to get food that I don’t grow. Everyone wins.
Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace always have free food. I got 40 raspberry canes free this way many years ago. I have gotten close to best buy day food too.
I speak up when people are going to toss food. I have been at many church functions where there are tons of leftovers. When asked I happily accept. Now they know I will take them and I get called and texted from events I’m not at and still get leftovers. If I can’t eat it, I will find someone who will.
Family members keep their chicken and turkey carcass for me. They don’t like to cook them but they know I will. They also keep egg shells for my dog’s food.
Hubby is usually one of the last to leave his job. He checks every Friday to see what is in the kitchen that will be tossed by the cleaners. We get fruit, bagels and muffins regularly.
I love Flashfood and Too Good To Go apps. I get food we want for a little amount of money.
I have a team of family and friends that are on the lookout for deals. When we see great ones we pounce and then share. We text and call each other to see who wants what.
I do paper coupons, digital coupons and catalinas. I do Fetch, Ibotta and Receipt Hog for rebates. I follow several coupon sites that do all the work figuring out what I need to buy to get the best deal.
I have a chest freezer(40th birthday gift) so I can stock up on sales. Turkeys were just 49¢ a pound. I got 4. 2 went right into the freezer. 2 got cooked. I have ready to eat meat now for when we get busy.
Hubby and I are willing to do the work to get good food for less such as cooking beans instead of buying canned. I make large batches of food so that I don’t have to cook 3 meals everyday.
I also made chili today, utilizing one of the cans of chipolte pepper/tomatoes bought at the clearance store earlier in the fall.
We do have Aldi, which is a huge help, but grocery stores here are stingy with the markdowns. Once in a while good things wind up on the discount rack and I mostly buy yellow-stickered meats because it’s against my religion to pay $23 for a roast that will last two meals if I pretend to not be that hungry.
Ruby, I think that many of your ways of obtaining free food are similar to mine. As you know, I’m a faithful Ollie’s shopper (in fact, I’m now a three-star general in Ollie’s Army!). I also work my local grocery outlet (and did the same with my local bakery outlet till it closed earlier this year); rock the Reduced for Quick Sale poultry and meats (except for beef, for which my annual 1/4 steer is still the best deal); and occasionally shop at Aldi.
And along with Lindsey, Marybeth, and others, I never turn down a chance at free food. This includes occasional giveaways at some of my thrift stores (though I’m careful not to abuse the privilege, since many if not most patrons are in greater need than I); the occasional curb or dumpster find in impermeable packaging; and the occasional donations of poultry carcasses and lobster shells for soup stock from neighbors (who know my habits and who get soup in return!).
Congratulations on your promotion, General. 😀 Your recent soft drink curb finds are legendary in my mind.
I have a 15% off coupon to Ollie’s that can be used only on a specified evening this month as part of their big Christmas event. I am trying to gear myself up to brave the crowd to buy cat litter and tea, and maybe some canned goods if the choices are good.
I sent my dh to the store and told him to look out for remarked down meat. There was a huge cooler of organic boneless skinless chicken breasts for $0.99 a lb for that day only. He bought 8 packs for around 20 lbs of awesome chicken! I have been feeling low in the meat department here so this really helps.
He also took advantage of the tortilla chips deal. If you bought 5 they were $1.99 per bag. We got 5 to go with my homemade canned salsa in our pantry.
The deals are not that frequent and I have decided to stock up as much as possible when I do find a great deal.
I have a very busy life which involves lots of social occasions and travel. I feel much more successful cutting cost of eating at home than when I travel to social occasions.
At Home:
Ironically I just pureed 40 pounds of persimmons picked from our tree. This was a mess and an experiment. I first tried to dehydrate but our variety is old with seeds. Can’t use a mandolin. I chunked the fruit and now have about 20 cups of puree frozen. I use it in smoothies and add it to super deal cake mixes for our breakfast bread. Include our own nuts. ( We are nut farmers.)
If I figured out the cost me doing this I was being paid about $3.00 per hour. Now that I am retired I can splurge with my time. I do not feel guilty over the years of not doing this because my job gave extra income and health insurance.
Also, I know that Sam’s club costs $49 a year. But the rotisserie chickens pay for themselves easily within a few months – as does bulk cottage cheese, excellent fruit and cheap hams after the holidays.
Travel/ Social
This week I tried a few new ideas:
I packed the aforementioned breakfast bread in the car along with nuts and home grown tangerines. We ate it in the car on a long journey. When we stopped for pee break, we bought drinks at Starbucks but not food – a big savings but still a holiday treat.
When I take my family out to dinner, I sometimes eat beforehand and just get an appetizer. Saves calories and a third of the costs.
I put a flat of Fairlife Protein milks bought at Sam’s and some cheap Larabars from Grocery Outlet in my car. If I am traveling around and get hungry I open one up instead buying a lunch or dinner. This really works in winter because they are cold.
Mary Ann – if you’re talking about the native persimmon type with the large seeds, I just saw a video in which the cook deseeded them in no time by using a food processor with a dough blade. Given how much time this used to take me… I’m in shock. I’m going to try it with the dough blade on my mixer next year.
1. I buy generics whenever I can, except for Duke’s mayo (for me) and Heinz catchup (for the husband).
2. I let it be known that we take all unwanted food. If I can’t use it, it goes to the dog’s or the neighbor’s chickens.
3. We never leave the grocery store without checking marked down meats and produce and milk areas. Before we go, I get online to see if there are coupons.
4. I volunteer at the food bank and they give us last choice on foods that will go to the pig farmer if we don’t take them (meaning they have already not been selected by people filling their own food boxes or the churches or schools that select food for their own distribution days so are likely to go bad before next week’s pickups). Usually it is bread but sometimes exotic cheeses or unpopular fruits like mangos. Everyone who does this is respectful about leaving excess for others, not scooping up all the packages of this or that.
5. I enter all receipts into the various cash back places like Fetch. It is a pain but I do it while watching something.
6. Even though we no longer live in remote villages, I continue to give food or toilet paper answers when asked by relatives or friends what I want as gifts.
7. I double my efforts because my husband is a willing participant. He has even enlisted his romeos (Retired Old Men Eating Out) to help. Once a week they meet and at the end of the meal they collect leftovers into one carry out box (a plastic container that husband brings in) for the dogs or the chickens. (These are the same guys who promised to come get me any place in the world if the husband died while we were on a trip, to help me with getting the carcass and me and my wheelchair home.)
I want to say that, as Katy and many others have illustrated, if I want the generosity of others, I have to be generous. It is the only way for community to be built. For example, at the risk of being immodest for saying it, I am a master at making babka and giant pastry stars loaded with sweet or savory fillings, so when I make one for us or a potluck, I make two and give them to people who have shared with me. Ditto for when I make pierogies for us. I have also, even though I hate having people come over for hours and hours, taught people who wanted, how to make babka or pierogies.
Toasted babka with slabs of butter and pierogies! Two of my favorite foods! I am lucky enough that my aunt makes babka every Easter – I should ask if I can make them with her next year, so thank you for the memories. My grandma was the best pierogi maker in the world.
“I want to say that, as Katy and many others have illustrated, if I want the generosity of others, I have to be generous. It is the only way for community to be built.” Truer words were never spoken, Lindsey.
Lindsay, when I began to switch to store brands a few years ago, I vowed the one thing I’d never give up is Heinz ketchup. And I LOVE ketchup! But a year ago the store brand was so much cheaper so I thought, I’ll try one bottle. I have never looked back! I could not tell the difference. (By the way, the store brand was Aldi’s; the irony is, I have an Aldi’s near me and cannot see at all what everyone raves about. I do not find it any cheaper than other grocery stores’ loss leaders, sales, etc. Except for ketchup, of course.)
I would die to have a generous pierogi lady in my circle! My husband is Polish and it’s not something I excel at.
I’ve been very lucky with food in three ways:
1) I have a steady mystery shop assignment that requires me to purchase a number of staples, so I haven’t paid for chicken, eggs, ground meat, milk, or cheddar in 2 years.
2) Partner works at a location for a CSA pickup, so he gets a free box of produce every week.
3) Even though we live in a postage stamp in a dense location, we can still grow a small (tiny) amount of produce, and we choose what we grow based on return and cost if we were to buy it. And fresh herbs! (Which we harvest and dry at the end of the season).
4) I also live where there are 4 grocery stores all within close proximity: Stop & Shop and Star (expensive, except for loss leaders), and Aldi and Market Basket. Market Basket (and the store brand) are always first choice and hard to beat the prices. MB almost always has a rack of dented vegetables, and dented everything else, which always gets checked first.
5. No food waste – I’ve gotten much better at this, but also using as much as possible, like the green leaves on a cauliflower, we always eat broccoli stalks (we don’t even peel them) roast the peels of potatoes into “chips”, or cut the stems of kale and saute them, and sometimes the dinner meal doesn’t quite go together if I see some produce needs to be used.
6. If my teaching schedule works, I can get my lunch and/or dinner at work for free. It is a culinary school, so the food tends to be very good.
7. I know enough about ingredients that I can substitute what I need with what I have (often, but not always!) and, if I’m buying certain items, like fresh cilantro, I try to menu plan several meals in a week that use it.
8. I use FlashFoods, Fetch, and Ibotta.
9. I come from a family of equally frugal people, and we also call each other if one of us finds a great deal. And we exchange bonuses – I had a lot of free laundry soap, and my dad is a huge gardener, so give and take as needed.
10. Also not hesitant to receive free food if someone isn’t going to use it.
11. If I am going to host a dinner or if I need to bring a dish to an event, I try to plan far ahead so that I have time to find the ingredients on sale.
#6 – Culinary School– A university I worked at had a small restaurant open a few days a week for the Food Science students to practice what they were learning. The price for a lunch was low, though the portion sizes seemed small, (it was jokingly referred to as the “Nibble Nook.”). However, the sizes were proportional for adult daily needs, which emphasizes that people do not always have an accurate sense of how much they need. Food labels are helpful for this. Perhaps eating large portions is a particularly American issue. Certainly eating more slowly fills a person up more quickly.
It might be worth checking out local hospital or college cafeterias as a guest. Schools might have all-you-can-eat meals. Ag departments might have food for sale.
We don’t have aldi or Winco here but there is both where my grandkids are. I try to hit one before I leave town there. Aldi is easier and less exhausting.
I went to Grocery Outlet today and got a few good deals.
We also grow a garden. The only cost is the water. Our city give free compost. I get free seeds or seedlings from the garden where I volunteer. Even with absolutely no effort this year due to many circumstances, we’re still harvesting swiss chard and collard greens from the garden. I just up-potted arugula which will grow more when the days get longer and give me an early spring harvest. The persimmons that were too blemished for the food bank came home with me on Wednesday and I made 6 cups of puree in no time at all. I bake with it instead of applesauce. Volunteers at the garden know I will accept any food offered.
I think one of my biggest money savings on food is that we eat quite simply and fairly repetitively. Things I buy in bulk: pinto beans and navy beans, GF flours, oats, regular flour, rice and sometimes sugar. Bulk places I buy from: Costco and Azure Standard https://www.azurestandard.com/?a_aid=jWb0sVFU6M
I also am watchful of leftovers, serving/using them in a timely manner or freezing them for later. My kids tease me about all the bits in the freezer, but I do use them all and I’m very thankful to pull out a cube of soup or a portion of spaghetti on a busy day.
Kara, I wish I’d thought to “up-pot” some of my arugula, and I’ll do that in the future. I had an abundant and long-lasting crop in my old Easy Washer tub, which was very satisfying for a first effort. I’ll definitely be growing it again next year.
No thanks to the @#$%!! deer, my vegetable gardening savings these days are pretty much confined to whatever I can grow in a large container–either with an old fire pit lid for a cover (as in the case of the arugula), or behind my next-door neighbor’s chain-link fence (as in the case of my cherry tomatoes). But I can still proudly say that not only am I self-sufficient in culinary herbs, but have enough to give as gifts.
A. Marie, if you’re up for it, an a-frame made of old chain link fencing (free when someone replaces) can do a *lot* against critters, and for most of the growing season, you don’t have to move it.
The key is to have the discretionary dollars to take advantage of a good deal. Freezer space too, TP, canned goods, and other non-perishables can be stored anywhere. Better half used to take lemonade to work every day. When the frozen concentrate went on sale, we’d buy a boat load as we had a freezer.
Time to watch for sales (be it sale “papers”, online coupons) is a luxury too.
Both are a bit of privilege.
Great tips everyone.
I think not being picky about food can be a money saver. Not that one should eat food they don’t like or that is unhealthy but being willing to eat things that are cheaper than alternatives. Not having a must have brand, flavor, etc.
I just cannot stand the texture of beans, and I have tried many kinds and in many recipes. Even the smell of them, promising that icky texture in my future is enough to turn my stomach. Every time I read one of Katy’s bean meals I feel a stab of embarrassment that texture is preventing me from savings, but I just can’t do it.
Same, Lindsey. Same.
Have you tried pureed in soup base? I find white beans disappear in potato leek soup, for instance.
This is a great post. I love reading everyone’s suggestions. I think stretching meat is a good way to save. I cook a lot more vegan and vegetarian meals than I ever have. Tofu is still fairly inexpensive and a good source of protein. I have an Aldi and I also shop at Costco. I buy the large bags of rice and the big box of oatmeal. I rarely buy produce but their avocados are quite a bit cheaper than at the grocery store. I often share with my mom. We go in halves on things that are too large for each of us.
Great ideas, everyone. I’ve found that we can save money and be healthier by emphasizing real food over edible food-like substances as Michael Pollan suggests. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” and “Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” We strive for non-processed and minimally packaged foods.
I’m recently retired and my income has been cut in half. My husband and I take advantage of our local senior center for their communal lunch available Monday-Friday at noon. We each pay a $3.00 donation for a nutritious gigantic meal. We usually bring home enough for another meal each. It has cut our grocery bill substantially.
I’m so glad that this is available! What a blessing.
That is a wonderful thing.
Sewfast, so nice that you can socialize and enjoy inexpensive, nutritious meals all in one.
There is a senior center near my condo in FL that offers free lunch. I went there once but the food was not to my liking. (It was like hospital food.) I tried. Also if you do not eat all of the meal you are not allowed to take the leftover home. They do have day old bread at the center most days. Sometimes I get a loaf of bread. In the spirit of giving back I donate magazines to the center and I have given them some small prizes for their Bingo games. The lady who runs the Bingo games has some type of non-healing wound on her leg as it is always wrapped. I have taken her some Kerlix gauze and some ace wraps. My dear friend’s father died & she gave me some medical supplies.
The cost of grocery items has gone up. The cost of fast food and restaurant food has gone up even more. I’m surprised more people are not cooking at home. (The drive thru at the McDonalds near me is always crowded.)
1. I learned on this site how to make broth from a chx carcass or veggie scraps.
2. I made a veggie soup yesterday from homemade broth, leftover green beans, leftover large baked potato, canned carrots, canned okra & tomatoes, leftover pasta sauce, and an onion from Aldi. The canned goods I found. I simply put the ingredients in the crockpot & simmered for 8 hours. I made some rice in another pan to pour the soup over. A filling hot meal for next to no cost.
3. I go to a bakery thrift store to buy bread. It is usually about 1$ per loaf.
4. I have taken leftovers from a school function that would be thrown away.
5. My cats are happily eating kibble I found in a dumpster. The cat food sack was damaged so it was thrown away.
6. Burned toast, molded bread, veg peels, etc I put out for the crows in my neighborhood. I hear them cawing in the morning as they wait for a handout. It keeps scraps out of the landfill and the birds seem to like them.
So much in this post to make in to habits!
If I am buying something in a larger quantity than usual, I (try to remember to) check the expiration date to see how much leeway I have. We use food beyond its best-by or sell-by date, but I will try to gain as much time as possible.
Refrigerated eggs last far beyond the date on the carton, though if I made fancy dishes, I would get fresh ones.
We use very little of it, but when we do, I dig to the back of the dairy shelves for the freshest milk. The kind doesn’t matter to us, (skim, 2%, whole). It seems the more fat–closest to whole milk– lasts the longest past its date.
(And yes, Lindsey, beans are vile).
Very inspiring post and comments.
While reading, I just cooked some lentils in the instant pot and put some black beans in a bowl to soak. I know I don’t have to soak them when using the instant pot, but I prefer to.
I’m amazed at some little things that I see people do that. I guess they don’t realize could help their food budget. Little things add up overtime. Just like calories and money lol!
Whenever I empty a jar or a can for a recipe, I try to time it so that any liquid needed in the recipe gets poured in there to switch it around and pour it into the recipe. Example when I pour a can of tomatoes into a pot of soup, I Put some of the broth in the now empty, can and swish it around.
The same can be said for the last few tablespoons of things like mustard in a bottle or jar. I’ve made salad dressing directly in the jar of Dijon mustard using the remnants in the bottle.
I save small quantities of leftovers all the time. I see others have mentioned this too. Finding ways to integrate them into another recipe makes me feel very clever.
I find focusing on the ethnic background of the food. I am managing can really help my creativity. Example, if something is Mexican or Tex Max, I look around in the fridge for anything that is typical for that type of food. Leftover tomatoes, corn, beans, green, onions, cilantro, Etc..
If something has no specific flavoring example the lentils I just cooked with some salt, they can be integrated into a lot of different types of foods. Therefore, I save my cooked lentils in small pint jar quantities in the freezer. Some might get added to taco meat, some might be added to some Italian sausage that will go in spaghetti sauce, some in an Indian cauliflower and potatoes, etc..
I used to do the extreme couponing game a decade ago. However, couponing has changed and isn’t as straight forward anymore.
I have started using aisle rebates, and social nature rebates, for full price and half price rebates on items. I usually do a few, wait to get my money reimbursed (this is all digital with websites, uploading receipts, and using paypal, so a few hoops to jump through), then after the money is reimbursed I do a handful more. By doing this I’m not out of a large amount of money, I essentially am ‘rolling’ the money like rolling extrabucks at CVS.
I also use Fetch, Ibotta, and Shopkick. I find that Shopkick has the fastest return between scanning items in store (I have a free hour on weekdays between dropping my son off at school and going to work I use), and you can also earn points by buying items with a reward value. I often find that I can get items for half off or more doing this. It took a while to get used to. With Fetch you can get giftcards but it takes a while to have enough points to get them. With Ibotta you have to have a monetary total of $20 to withdraw directly to your bank account, so quite a bit of work and planning. But last month I added another $200 of items to my groceries by doing this. A lot of them were for candy as I am stocking up on stocking stuffers for Christmas. But, I will take it. Sometimes savings in little streams is more important than one giant splash in the pond.
We do all the usual stuff (scratch cooking, pantry shopping, clearance and coupons), and lately I’ve been experimenting with sous vide to lower our meat costs, since we like steak but not at $16/lb. I have an eye of round cooking right now, a cut that is often $4-5/lb. and is tough cooked by other methods. Most of it will be lunch meat, and some will be seared to be served in steaks or stir-fry. I got a smoking Black Friday deal on the equipment a couple of years ago, and it’s more than paid for itself.
I just wanted to add that after years of working and volunteering with food access organizations: don’t assume there isn’t enough to go around. Ask! In some areas, including mine, there is a great deal of food going to waste; one of our food programs is integrated into a small farm with livestock and a serious composting program so the uneaten food isn’t landfilled. They would far rather have it taken and eaten by someone who’s not in the deepest need than have to throw it away. Look into your local programs and consider whether there is excess you can use, whether or not you feel you “deserve” it. If you like to share food with others, accessing food bank resources can make it that much easier to bulk cook to share.