Food Saving Strategies

If you're trying to save money on food you should be buying food at the lowest possible price. Figure out the prices you're willing to pay and watch the sales to see if you can get it even lower. Then stock up! 
When the grocery store is selling pasta for $1.00 per box you'll have a nice warm feeling when you're eating the pasta you stocked up on when it was 50¢ per box. 
Rotate your food to keep the older food in the front where it will be used first. When I bought pasta at 50¢ per box, I took all the pasta out of my cabinet and put the new pasta in the back and the older pasta in the front. That way I would use the older pasta first, not let any go to waste, thus saving money.  
Base your meals around those inexpensive items like pasta, beans, and rice. Buy generic or store brand. Shop with a list to avoid impulse buys (but don't avoid any items on sale/clearance, yellow sticker)
Buy what is on sale and in bulk and then shop and cook from what you have on hand. You will always have food to eat that you didn't pay full price for. Invest in a chest freezer, so you have a place to store items you find on sale.
Planning ahead because you're organized can be made easier by keeping track of what you have and making a plan. 
Eliminate waste - run your kitchen like a well oiled machine. Keep track of what you have on hand and use it up before it expires. You've spent time and money on your food, don't let it go to waste now. Treat your food inventory and cooking and planning like a business. 
Make yourself accountable. Track your food spending money and identify any problem areas. Do the same thing with your leftovers and ensure there is no waste. 
Shop at Multiple Stores - We shop at different stores to get the best possible price on our food. We peruse the store ads and make a list and then we shop the stores as we run errands. If I'm picking up an RX at Food City then I'll get their deals, same with Publix. 
Shop the discount grocery stores. Our area includes United Grocery Outlet, Fresh & Low, Dollar Tree, Save A Lot, and Aldi. 
Just some thoughts this morning to help save money on food. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

My Frugal Week

Hopefully you've all had a good week. I know I did even though I was bone weary tired at the end of it. 

I worked every day this week except for Monday. 

On Wednesday, I checked out the grocery store sale ads and made a list of items I will be picking up today. If I didn't do this, I would have no idea of what was on sale this week. If I just went to one store and bought everything I needed there I would not save as much money as I do now. Saving money takes planning and this is one way I do it. 

I'm definitely going to pick up eggs at Save A Lot today for 99¢.

While shopping at Walmart the other day, I found a cheaper source of body wash. They are selling the 12 ounce bottle of Ivory for 97¢ without any coupons. I know a bar of soap is cheaper, but I like time savings I get with the body wash and it doesn't leave any residue/soap scum in the bathtub/shower. A win ~ win situation to me. 

I ate out one time this week. I was called at the very last minute to sub for a teacher and did not have time to make a lunch, so I ate out in the school cafeteria, $3.00. I'm going to have to make a lunch that I can grab when I am pressed for time like that in the future. All other lunches came from home this week. 

On Wednesday, I rescued a Xerox copy paper wrapper from a teacher's garbage can. These are nice wrappers as they are lined with something that makes them thick and durable. I will be using this inside out to mail a book in for Paper Back Swap, which will save me the cost of a new mailer. 

I am loving the cooler weather this month. As a result, we were able to use the air conditioner less this week. We should see the results on next month's electric bill. 

I love the old tv show, American Dreams. They brought out the first season on DVD a few years ago, but never did bring out the other seasons. Now someone is offering the entire series online for $29.95. I've always wanted to rewatch seasons one and two, but have been unable to until now. I found all of them on Youtube in the last month. Savings equals $29.95  

We have to be very careful with our data plan as we do not have unlimited Internet except for certain times of the day. 

I've been looking at several different exercise videos on Amazon for a while now, but wasn't ready to part with the money for them. 

Recently I found a website that allows me to download videos from Youtube onto my computer, so I can watch them anytime. 

This has the potential to save me a lot of money in the future. 

Here is a link to the website:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001002.htm

We also convert Youtube videos to MP3 files to be able to listen to some of our favorite songs without using additional data on our Internet plan. 

This is a money saver for us as well. 

Here is a link to that website:

http://www.youtube-mp3.org/

 Dinners this week included:

Sunday ~ Smoked Sausage, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli
Monday ~ Cheese Quesadillas, Seasoned Fries, Asian Slaw 
Tuesday ~ Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Peas
Wednesday ~Chicken, Fried Potatoes, Greens
Thursday ~ Spaghetti and Garlic Bread
Friday ~ Loaded Baked Potatoes

That is our week in a nutshell. I hope you've had a good week. I would love to hear about it in the comment section.  :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Second Frugal Week of February

What a week we had here! School was called off for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to the winter mix of weather here. We were/are on Winter Break Friday, Monday and Tuesday, so no school here for over a week. I missed out on several days of working as a result. 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were no spending any money days.

Thursday was bill paying day and all bills were paid online to save on postage. 

Friday was spent in town doing our big monthly stock up at the grocery stores. I spent a total of $202.77, used 82 coupons, which saved me $116.40 and does not even include the $50.00 savings at Food Lion for the sale on Powerades.  

Here is a breakdown of items we bought:

Family Dollar

Suave Shampoo - Same deal as last week. I had a $1.00 of coupon, so I only had to pay the 10¢ sales tax. 

Cooke's

Cheese, frozen dinners, cat treats, and 40 pounds of potatoes ($7.98 or 20¢ a pound). I found 14 bags of cat treats in the Crash & Burn cart for 90¢ each, and I had coupons for them, so I paid 40¢ each for them. 

Save a Lot

Eggs are/were on sale this week for 99¢ a dozen, so we stocked up and bought 8 cartons. We also used a $1.00 off coupon to score a free bag of salad. 

Aldi

5 bags of onions

Food Lion

I went on Friday to score the deal on Powerades. And then on Saturday I found some coupons to use, so after my daughter's volunteer hours were done, we went back to get more. In the end I bought 75 Powerades for my pantry for 20¢ each. This definitely beats her wanting to stop at the gas station on the way to school in the morning for a drink for $1.89. There are only 68 school days left this year, so she is all set. 

I also scored 16 FREE cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. As I mentioned in this post the kiosk was printing out coupons for $1.00 off 2 Campbell's soup and they had them on sale for 50¢ each. Customers are only allowed to print one coupon sheet per day, but people tend to abandon these coupon sheets in their cart, so we picked up several that way. We also bought cereal, soup, diced tomatoes, and honey mustard here. 

Bi-Lo

Bi-Lo had their awesome cereal deal again this week. You buy 6 boxes of cereal and get a free gallon of orange juice. We had numerous coupons for the cereal and at least one of them was buy one get one free. We bought two of these deals and combined with the cereal deal at Food Lion, we ended up with 22 boxes of cereal. My family has gone through a lot of cereal this winter for some reason, so I was very glad to be able to purchase all of these.  

I also bought sugar, bagels, shampoo, and yogurt here. 

Publix

Some of my greatest deals came from Publix on this shopping trip. I used to shop at Walmart so much, but in the last two years I've realized that I can find better prices at the grocery stores and when I combine them with sales and the double coupons that Publix offers, I buy very little from Walmart now. 

Items here included cream cheese, oranges, fish, tea bags, Knorr rice packages, Kotex, Stayfree, ham, olives, beans, sour cream, salt, rice, butter, yogurt, tartar sauce, Alleve, peas and carrots, and chocolate milk (had coupons!).

I bought 18 bags of the Knorr rice for 14¢ each after sale and coupons.

Four boxes of Lipton tea bags were $1.12 each after sale and coupons. 

Four boxes of 40 count Alleve were 49¢ each after sale and coupons. 

Walmart sells my brand of Stayfree for $4.97, which I buy regularly. Publix sells the same package for $4.09, but with coupons I was able to get two bags for $4.09, which blows Walmart's price out of the water! 

It was a terrific shopping day and these are the things we got that were completely free: 

In the end I bought $369.17 worth of groceries for $202.77 and now the bulk of my grocery shopping is done for the month. All I will need to buy is milk and bread and some fresh produce. 

Other things we did this week to save money include:

Tuesday I entered My Coke Rewards points into my computer. A chore I dislike a great deal, but I do it for the free diet coke 12 packs for my Mother who is on a limited budget.

On Saturday we both had our hair cut and used a coupon for that as well. 

We rented a movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, with a free rental code from Redbox. CouponDad.net regularly has free rental codes on his blog. 

Breakfasts this week consisted of oatmeal, leftovers, scrambled eggs and toast, toast with butter and jelly, cream cheese with bagels, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Dinners were:

Monday: Baked Potatoes stuffed with Vegetable Chili
Tuesday: Hot Dogs & Tator Tots
Wednesday: Salisbury Steak, Beefy Mushroom Barley, Corn
Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Broccoli
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Grilled Chicken, Mexican Rice, Steamed Carrots
Sunday: Pinto Beans, Collard Greens, Cornbread

That's our our week went, how was your week?

How did you save money in your home this week?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Save a Lot Smart Shopper Club

Save A Lot food store is now offering a Smart Shopper Club coupon program. You can go here to sign up and receive a coupon for $5 off any $25 purchase. 

Save a Lot has prices comparable to Aldi, so it is definitely pays to shop here for savings on your grocery budget, and what a great incentive to get customers into the store. The website says to join the Save-A-Lot Smart Shopper Club for all the coupons, discounts and specials Save-A-Lot has to offer. 

If you invite your friends to join the Smart Shopper Club you can get a $5.00 coupon for each friend who joins with a maximum of 5 referrals.

Go here to sign up: Save a Lot Smart Shopper Club