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 ~

Frugal Weekend #1 July 2017

On Saturday we went to the 50% off Goodwill sale. 

Here is a list of the things we bought:
- One flat sheet and two pillowcases - pictured above - $1.00 - A River Runs thru It DVD - $1.00 - It's Complicated DVD - $1.00 - Magnetic Hall Passes for school - 50¢ - Two Liz Claiborne HUGE towels - $1.50 each - Brand new Dirt Devil handheld vacuum - $5.00
While we were in Chattanooga on Saturday we stopped at Sam's Club and picked up a container of chives and one onion powder as we were out of both of them. We also picked up two ten pounds bags of gold potatoes and one package of black grapes. Total spent was $28.
We also stopped at Aldi and picked up three cantaloupes, which were on sale for 99¢, and one package of strawberries, also on sale for 99¢.

This weekend I made one pad for my daughter. This fabric came from Hobby Lobby and was on clearance for $4.00 a yard. I just love this fabric.

I bought this flannel sheet at a church yard sale for $1.00 a couple of weeks ago. I decided to cut it up into 9 x 9 squares and make some flannel cloth wipes with it. 

I made these double sided and was able to get 39 squares out of it, which made 19 cloth wipes, which made them 5¢ each. 

Other frugal things that happened this weekend include:

- I earned another $5.00 Amazon gift card from Microsoft Rewards. 

- On Sunday we had a mystery shop for pizza, which we will be reimbursed for later. 

How was your weekend?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

My Frugal Week

Thanks to a sale at Walgreen's and several valuable coupons, we are now stocked up on 15 bottles of Purex laundry detergent with Clorox. 

My daughter did this deal for us and combined coupons from Coupons.com, which also reset, along with Walgreen's reward points. She used $10 worth of her Walgreen's reward points, so the majority of the laundry detergent was free to us. 

The sale is going on through Sunday. 

There are several sales going on this week, which I hope to take advantage of, which include:

Aldi
Eggs 69¢ (limit 4)
Red Onions 99¢ (2 lb. bag)

Publix
Raisin Bran B1G1F + doubled coupon - $1.45 box

Piggly Wiggly
Ground Beef $1.99/lb. (wow!)

Kroger
Milk - 1/2 gallon - $1.00

Any good deals going on where you live?

Thank you for reading,
Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~
Earn with Swagbucks

Wednesday

On Monday after school/work I ran to Walmart for some items. There were several things, like eggs, that I looked at, priced at $2.79, and then left on the shelf because the price was much higher than I have been paying at other stores. I'll just wait until I am somewhere else that has them cheaper. 
For those of you that are still having to pay high prices for eggs, I found the following chart from Ordinary Vegan that you may appreciate. 

One of the reasons I went to town was to get carrots from Aldi. They had carrots on sale this week priced at two pounds for 59¢ each, so I stocked up and bought ten bags. 

After we came home Monday, I heated up two of the Salmon Patty plates I made up on Sunday. It gave me a good feeling to know that we ate food here that did not cost me any additional money. 

Dinner on Tuesday was Cheese Enchiladas, which is one of my daughter's favorite things to order whenever we eat Mexican food. These were super cheap to make too. 

My friend gave some string cheese (free) she wasn't using, so I decided to take some corn tortillas (60¢) and wrap them up, cover them in enchilada sauce ($1.18), and made cheese enchiladas. 

I made twenty of them  in all and they cost under $2.00 for the whole batch.  Even if you had to pay regular price for the string cheese, this would be an affordable dinner. 
On Wednesday I went to Fresh and Low and I'm glad I did. They had the reduced rack of produce out. 

I was able to get one bag of cucumbers, one bag of colored peppers with an avocado inside, and one bag with two pints of blueberries in it! All of these were $1.00 each, which was such a great deal.

I also picked up  sour cream ($1.29), bread ($1.00), 3 baking potatoes ($2.02 or 67¢ each), 2 bottles of Italian dressing on mark down (99¢ each), pepperoni ($2.50), mozzarella cheese ($7.76),  and eggs ($1.59 each). I'm glad I did not buy the eggs at Walmart for $2.79 on Monday. 
These things that I do to save money are not magical or even new for that matter, but they save me money when I do them consistently. 
Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~

Earn with Swagbucks

Saturday Update ~ 9-12-15

This past week I ended up working three days and have three days scheduled for next week as well. I actually missed a call to sub on Thursday because I was away from my phone for about a minute, which was disappointing. I spent Friday night and Saturday doing the usual chores and errands for the week. Cleaning, laundry, garbage, et cetera. Here are some other things that went on this week:

Grocery Shopping

On Thursday since I wasn't subbing, I went to town to do some grocery shopping. I've already made a post about what I bought at Food City, but that was not the only place I shopped that day. I also went to Cooke's because they have the best Crash & Burn section in town these days. 

Cooke's had Red Gold Chili Beans in the C&B section for 45¢ each. Now I normally cook my beans from dried beans, but chili beans are one of the few canned beans I will buy because they have a lovely sauce with them that thickens my chili. And if I can find them on sale, all the better. Finding these for 45¢ was a great deal! I bought 24 cans, which is enough to last me quite a while. 

Another place I stopped at was Aldi because they have two pound bags of carrots on sale this week for 49¢, which is another great price! I bought eight bags of carrots along with one bag of red onions for 99¢. While I was at Cooke's I also bought two - three pound bags of yellow onions for $1.49. I have not been able to find them lately for 99¢, so this was the best deal and I have been out for a couple of weeks. Once I got home they went into pantyhose and were placed in the pantry. I do this so the air circulates around them, which helps them last longer and saves money.  

Free Food

My friend that gives me free food from time to time gave me 15 packages of a store brand macaroni and cheese dinner. Since we do not care for these very much, I took the macaroni out of the boxes and put it into a large plastic container. We were completely out of elbow macaroni, so this was perfect. I figured this would be a good way to use this up into things we like and will eat. Here is a photo of the container with the 15 pounds of macaroni inside. 

Target Clearance Find

I found this griddle on clearance at Target last spring for $18.16, which was marked down from $25.99. I finally pulled it out of the box one day this week when we were ravenous after school. I wanted something I could make quickly and this fit the bill. I made several grilled cheese sandwiches in about half the time it would have taken in a skillet on the stove. The next day I used it to fry canned potatoes and hot dogs. I even grilled the buns on the griddle. 

Twice this week we had hamburgers for dinner. I found a package of Angus beef patties marked down on Thursday, so I made hamburgers for dinner on Thursday and Friday night. On Friday I made fried potatoes to go with them. 

Freebies 

This week in the mail I received a free sample of Nivea lotion and a free tire gauge from Skoll. 

How was your week? 

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

A New Month

Wednesday started a new month as we turned our calendars to October 1st. A brand new month and a chance to start over again and see if we can do better this month than we did last month. 

This is an older clip from YouTube, but one of my favorites. It is an interview with Amy Dacyczyn, author of the Tightwad Gazette. I like this video because Amy talks about how small things add up. 

She says it is never too late to start learning tightwad ways. To start, simply write down the items you spend money on, no matter how small. The little things, she says, is where you are losing your money. Writing it down and adding it up at the end of the month can be a very eye opening experience. 





I kept track of my spending in September, which is something I don't always do diligently, but I did last month and found I had spent $334.22 on food for three adults. I'd like to see if I can do better in October, so I'm keeping a diligent track of my spending again this month to see if I can find areas to improve. 

On Thursday I stopped at three grocery stores for sale items. 

The first stop was IGA where I bought five dozen eggs, which were on sale for 89¢ a dozen. I also bought one, two pound bag of onions for $1.00, four large cans of Chili Mix on markdown for $1.00, and a dozen cans of mixed vegetables, which were on mark down for 59¢ each. Total Spent was $16.53. 

My second stop was at Aldi where I went for carrots and onions. Carrots were 49¢ for two pound bags, and sweet onions were 99¢ for a two pound bag. I bought four bags of the carrots, and two bags of the onions and spent a total of $3.94. 

This is such a great price for carrots! I can cook these in my electric pressure cooker in minutes and have a very affordable side dish for dinner. And other people obviously thought the same thing as they were almost gone when I got there and it was only the second day of the sale. 

My third stop was the Bargain Barn/United Grocery Outlet. They were advertising cheese loaf for $1.99. We went to see exactly what this was. Turns out it was the sixteen ounce box of 2% Velveeta. I have had this on my grocery list to make my sister's potato soup, but it has been too expensive to buy, so I just did without, making other dinner choices, until now. 

Today though, I bought two boxes and paid $3.98 for both, which is much cheaper than they $6.99 they want for it in the regular grocery store. I also wanted to check out the cream cheese they were advertising for $1.00. Turns out it was the Philadelphia cream cheese in the assorted flavors. I picked up two honey flavored ones for the cinnamon raisin bread I picked up last week. 

This week, I also made a monthly menu for October. It is very basic and does not have very much meat listed in there. As I find any meat bargains this month, I can add them to the menu. 

What I've Been Reading this Week

I stumbled across a new blog this week called Living Stingy. The author, Robert Bell, is a patent attorney living in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Some people may find his views on smart phones, cable tv, and fancy cars harsh, but he makes an excellent point about how these are choices that can keep us chained to a lifestyle of having to work just to pay for such things.  I really enjoyed reading his viewpoint on the topic and hope you do as well. 

This week I have scrutinized prices and shopped carefully. I'm keeping careful track of my spending and we are living better lives with less money as a result. I wish the same for you.  :) 

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”

Good Deal Alert: Onions

Aldi has onions on sale this week in the 3 pound bag for 99¢. 

The last time I stocked up on this sale was back on October 22, 2013. 

You can read my post about it here. 

I have one onion left from that sale, so the timing for this sale is perfect for me. 

I bought 5 pounds this time hoping to make it to the next sale on onions. 

In my last post, reader Mama P asked me the following question,

"Does putting them in those pantyhose knots really extend the life of the onion? I'm so tired of my onions going bad so quickly."

At that time, I told her this was the first time I was trying this storage solution and that I would have to get back to her and let her know. 

Out of all 28 onions, I did have one with a bad spot inside of it, but I cut around it and used the onion anyway. 

I think having the onions exposed to the air around them helped to preserve each one until I was able to use it. In the past I've had an onion go bad and then the ones next to it go bad as well because they were right next to it. I did not experience that with this batch of onions, so I will definitely be storing my onions this way in the future. 

While I was shopping it seemed like everyone had onions in their shopping cart, lol. This is a great deal and hopefully you'll be able to get in on this one. :)

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

Good Deal Alert: Aldi Coupon

Here is a coupon good for Aldi for $10.00 off a $40.00 minimum purchase. 

Good at all Aldi store locations. 

Here is a link to the coupon where you can print this for yourself: 

Aldi $10 off $40.00 coupon

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Great Deal on Onions

Sweet deal at Aldi this week on onions. They have the 3 pound bags of onions on sale for 99¢. 

I bought four bags or 12 pounds of onions, which cost me $3.96. There were 28 onions in the 12 pounds of onions, which makes them 14¢ each or 33¢ per pound.  

I put them in an old pair of pantyhose and tied off each one. Here is the finished product. 

And here they are hanging in the pantry. 

They should last me a good, long time and I'm hoping at least a couple of months. 

I love getting a good bargain and feeding my family with food bought at the lowest price possible while still maintaining a healthy diet. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Aldi

 Aldi has another great sale on produce this week, so I stopped in there this week to take advantage of the deals. 

I bought the following:

2 - five pound bags of baking potatoes - 99¢ each
2 - three pound bags of sweet potatoes - 79¢ each
2 - three pound bags of onions - 99¢ each
2 pineapples - 99¢ each

Total came to  $7.52 or $7.92 with tax.

There are 8 baking potatoes in each of the bags, which makes them 12¢ per potato. We will have several baked potato nights here, which will  make for some very inexpensive meals. 

This deal is good through Tuesday, April 2, 2013.
 
Belinda
© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”