Comments on: Supermarket Sunday: What’s Your Strategy?

By: Heike

Heike — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:36:38 +0000

In your weekly budget is there the money included that you spend in restaurants or for buying lunch? If not, how about bringing your own lunch to work? You might have to increase your grocery budget but all in all you’ll spend less total.
Another way that helped us to save money on groceries is buying local in season things and also check out Mexican or Armenian supermarkets. They offer fresh produce at very low prices. We buy eggs and meats organic (sometimes even greens) and we mostly buy that at Fresh and Easy, which carries a lot of organic stuff in general!! Maybe not fancy new ideas but that is what helped us a lot!
Cheers!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:28:16 +0000

ok, well I can’t offer much in the way of grocery shopping or budgeting advice- considering we don’t have any of the above mentioned grocery stores and our budget is in Queztales…BUT have you heard of this book/blog? http://www.dinneralovestory.com/ I have been reading the book and I believe it reminds you why meal planning, dinner making and family are so worth it. It’s a cookbook, but more feels more like you’re listening to a good friend share her secrets of what worked and what didn’t work while you watch her make dinner. Definitely recommended it. (I mean maybe it could even count in the weekly grocery budget : )

By: erin

erin — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:44:39 +0000

I have recently started doing the bulk of our shopping at Trader Joe’s and I’m finding that I am saving money shopping there vs. other grocery stores. I still have to make a run into Target for items that TJ’s doesn’t carry, but it seems to be worth the trip. My average weekly bill for our family is about $100 — sometimes I can even stretch our groceries for a week and a half and that includes organic produce, milk, and eggs. We are trying to cut back on eating out (we are kind of making it like a game for ourselves!) and eating at home more. Meal planning has really helped me to stay organized, but I still have to try hard to stick to my list . . . not sure how we came home this weekend with chocolate-covered popcorn and coconut bon-bons?? (oh, wait, I remember, that was my husband!).

By: kelsey

kelsey — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:58:36 +0000

meal planning is my least favorite thing in life. we usually only need about 2 meals a week because there are always leftovers and tuesday is Bible study (the host cooks). but i still hate it! so i am all-ears to what you’re learning!

By: lb

lb — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:52:35 +0000

this is so up my alley right now. we’re even meeting with a financial guy from our church tomorrow! we just got a car thanks to our other one giving out so we’re on a kick of what I like to call “cheap months..” I do have organic chicken from costco, organic ground beef from costco, and organic milk and some organic frozen veggies going, but really I see us eating a lot of tuna melts, egg salad, pancakes for dinner, and BLT’s in the coming weeks. We’ll probably lose some weight too. This all makes sense for why my blog hasn’t had so many recipes on it recently, eh?! Reality hits..:)

By: Lindsay M

Lindsay M — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 06:13:10 +0000

So I have some room to grow in reducing the grocery budget, but I highly recommend http://www.emeals.com. I first heard about it on Dave Ramsey’s radio show and have been using it for about 9 months now. It’s $5/month and saves me SO much time in meal planning and list making. They have a lot of options for the type of meal plan that works for your family. Josh and I use the Low Fat Family Menu at Any Store. It gives us seven meals for a week. I then look at our upcoming week and how many meals we’ll most likely be doing at home. It usually averages about 5x week that we eat at home. Because it’s family size, we then use the leftovers for lunches or a leftover meal. When I go out for shopping, my three stops are a local produce market, Trader Joe’s and then Fresh and Easy (to pick up whatever the other two didn’t have.) I spend between $85-100 each week. I’m sure I could get better with coupons and watching prices, but right now this method and budget works for us.

By: san

san — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:30:22 +0000

It’s definitely hard. I guess, if we would reduce our meat consumption (we only have about 1-2 days without meat) and avoid the occasional splurges, I could bring it down a bit, but I don’t think it’d go below $120.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:50:49 +0000

We love the Dave Ramsey cash system, so high five for trying it out! We have a budget of $140-$160 a month and meal plan the entire month at a time. We have found, though, that we will need to modify this a bit more seeing as I’m eating more and soon we’ll have SaraBeth to feed, and we’d like to buy a little more fresh fruit later in the month, as well. We’ll probably divide our budget to include two shopping trips a month. We’ll see, though. We typically shop at Winco (if you have never tried Winco you need to check them out. Their bulk bins alone are worth the time), we get a few things at Trader Joe’s, Sprouts (just their deals on some fruits and veggies), and Costco. Our household items (shampoo, kleenex, etc.) are on a separate budget.
We use our crock pot a lot and get multiple nights worth of meals that we can freeze to use later on. We also do try to make enough for leftovers at least with one meal a week. We do use coupons as we find them and try to search for deals before shopping. You should check out: http://thekrazycouponlady.com/print-coupons/ and http://www.couponmom.com/login.php if you haven’t seen these websites already.
We don’t buy organic, which I know is important to some, so I’m sure that would affect the cost of things if it is a priority.
I like the idea of creating a spreadsheet to keep track of prices, but have not been that disciplined yet. Maybe now that we’ll have a baby I can tackle that.
I’m looking forward to hearing about what works for you. I’m always looking for new ways to save!

By: Anna

Anna — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:18:49 +0000

As you know, the options in SB are more limited (ie we don’t have a Target, a Walmart or any other basic convenience), and I think food is slightly more expensive here. We did a CSA for about 3 yrs and it was great for the most part. However, it was hard during the winter because we got SO MUCH SQUASH and not really enough other veggies to balance it out, so I was still buying produce at the store. We cut out the CSA, and now I’m actually saving money at the farmer’s market. I’ve done my research there and really only shop at 3-4 vendors. We eat a massive amount of produce and very little meat, so when it was the 2 of us we were coming in at about $85/week. Now that there are three of us and I’m buying more chicken/fish our bill is more like $110-120.

I follow the dirty dozen and clean 15 for fruits and veggies: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/100-days-on-a-budget/ and all of our fish/chicken/eggs are organic/free-range/etc which is a little pricier (unfortunately)

For budgeting and meal planning I’ve found this blog to be PHENOMENAL! If I were more diligent about making more things from total scratch, I would probably benefit more from this blog then I do. http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/100-days-on-a-budget/

Love that you’re blogging about this – such a good conversation to start!

By: Lesley

Lesley — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:01:41 +0000

Ash: I love spreadsheets. This is why we are friends. I think we need to sit down with Anna Q and have a little brainstorming sesh. I agree–if you take grocery shopping seriously it does take SOOOO much time. I’ve wondered if it’s worth it, or if I should just put that time into writing where I could make the same money I’d be saving.

San: Sticking to $70 has been nearly impossible. We eat everything we buy with little left in the fridge, and we’ll usually eat out at least one dinner and a few lunches. I’d say that $90-$100 is probably more reasonable for us based on what we purchase and what friends have told us they can spend. It’s so hard, right?