How do you save money on groceries and what is your weekly spend on it ?.

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Same here @Tank-Girl our budget does vary too as we are still building up supplies here and increasing our food storage. Mainly this month we are stocking up more on staples such as powdered milk, cocoa and tinned fruits. Some months it will be high as I have found a lot of specials and topped up supplies further. This month we are under so may stock up on some more supplies.
 
Sewingcreations15 said:
Same here @Tank-Girl our budget does vary too as we are still building up supplies here and increasing our food storage. Mainly this month we are stocking up more on staples such as powdered milk, cocoa and tinned fruits. Some months it will be high as I have found a lot of specials and topped up supplies further. This month we are under so may stock up on some more supplies.
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The same happens here for us. Its getting to the time of year that the grocery stores will be having sales on canned foods and soups ( they even say "stock up for the winter" in their ads). And near holiday(s) time they'll have baking supplies on sale ( thats when I get my nuts supply so I can freeze them for the year). Right now they're pushing fast and easy meals because school ( and after school events) will be starting on the 20th here. Things like cereals, lunch meats,microwavable meals, frozen breakfast foods.
All things we don't eat lol

You have to keep track and then make the most of the sales
 
WVDragonlady said:
The same happens here for us. Its getting to the time of year that the grocery stores will be having sales on canned foods and soups ( they even say "stock up for the winter" in their ads). And near holiday(s) time they'll have baking supplies on sale ( thats when I get my nuts supply so I can freeze them for the year). Right now they're pushing fast and easy meals because school ( and after school events) will be starting on the 20th here. Things like cereals, lunch meats,microwavable meals, frozen breakfast foods.
All things we don't eat lol

You have to keep track and then make the most of the sales
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Yep, me either, but so much of America does.
 
@WVDragonlady we have that here specials galore on reheat meals and usually expensive brand products which when reduced are still dearer than the generic brands we buy usually which are the same quality from what we found.

We unfortunately here in Australia never have specials on staples so to beat that I use our 5% off voucher with our roadside assist club. We do get a lot of specials on beauty, toothpaste and health product sales. For produce as we haven't got our gardens up and running I look for clearance sales on those and bread rolls and the like if we are busy and don't get time to bake our own.
 
We save by buying sales and getting enough to last till the next sale. Putting a weekly amount on it is hard as there is the monthly Costco visit along with the Saturday Market in season. Carr's (Kroger) has a $5 Friday that the wife likes to hit and really can come up with excellent prices.
 
My wife has some kind of app on her tablet that allows her to scan in her grocery story receipts and then she gets 'cash back' on anything covered by a coupon if she had one or not. I presume the company gets a portion and she gets a portion. But she uses it each and every week so there must be something to it. I believe it is called Checkout 51. She also uses something called Ibotta where she has to watch a product demo video for like 45 seconds and then she gets a $1 off coupon for that product, and other stuff like that. Not really my ball game but she once told me she makes/saves $30-50 a month using her apps.

Our weekly grocery budget runs around $300-350.
 
@Caribou we do that too buy until the next sale but sales are few and far between here and we have no regular cycle that I see so we buy a years worth if we can afford it in the budget. Winter time we usually have sales on tinned soups I noticed and about July/August on personal care items. We shop between two different supermarkets and I look at sales brochures to see if they have anything we need to top up on.

@Sentry18 as you have a few children (not sure how many) that is pretty good as they eat like horses from what I remember especially the boys who vacuum food out of the pantry with the sheer vacuum of their mouths and hunger without opening it. Your wife sounds like she is doing a fantastic job of saving on groceries. My sons were 6'1" and 6'2" at 12 and 13 and it was a truly scary experience to see how much they could eat.
 
According to your chart on the thrifty plan I should be spending $38.10 but actually I spend $20 every two weeks for milk, fresh produce.
My big stock up day I spend maybe $75-$100 monthly.
I have list( don't buy anything not on list), coupons on phone and in hand, associate discount card.
I scan all grocery ads in my area, shop where I can get the best price.
I save till I get enough to purchase meat bundles for the freezer.
Butcher cuts everything down to portion size for me most of the time.
After he cuts down things if I feel it needs cut down again into better portion size for me, then I do it at home.
Beginning to fill up the freezer this next month. Will need meat, beef, chicken, pork.
Cost will be approx. $250 total.
Will have enough meat for 250 meals approx.
My cousins gives me eggs.
I save to buy with cash in hand, don't like to put anything on credit card.
Gas for Fiat is $20 monthly.
 
Sounds like you are very thrifty with your purchasing and get the best value for your money @MoBookworm1957, that is fantastic.

Comparing where we live our grocery prices are similar to Hawaii (2.69% higher than us) over there so our spend should be around US $695.90 per month where as ours is around $340 Australian dollars per month or $230.52 USD. I notice that some USDA plans are quite generous really in their expected expenditure. I know most two person families spend a lot more than we do on groceries so I suppose we could be classed as thrifty here.
 
Sewingcreations15 said:
@Sentry18 as you have a few children (not sure how many) that is pretty good as they eat like horses from what I remember especially the boys who vacuum food out of the pantry with the sheer vacuum of their mouths and hunger without opening it. Your wife sounds like she is doing a fantastic job of saving on groceries. My sons were 6'1" and 6'2" at 12 and 13 and it was a truly scary experience to see how much they could eat.
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I bet they were serious eaters! I know I was when I was a 6' 190lb 13 year old.

My wife is indeed on top of things, especially when it comes to saving money. We are also part of a produce club where a truck shows up every Saturday morning and she stands in line to collect a large box of local and regionally grown mixed fruits and vegetables. You never know what we are going to get, but the cost is very low compared to the grocery store of farmer's market and the quality is normally high. Plus it has broadened our horizons more than once. She also spent most of last Saturday in the basement with a gaggle of little girls (some ours, some the daughter's of area farmers we know) making dozens and dozens of something called scrunchies. Which apparently go in their hair. It was a day of sewing, learning new skills, daycare, and fun in exchange for a whole pile of fresh eggs and jars of real honey. Not sure that was the intent, but it was the result.
 
Sentry18 said:
My wife has some kind of app on her tablet that allows her to scan in her grocery story receipts and then she gets 'cash back' on anything covered by a coupon if she had one or not. I presume the company gets a portion and she gets a portion. But she uses it each and every week so there must be something to it. I believe it is called Checkout 51. She also uses something called Ibotta where she has to watch a product demo video for like 45 seconds and then she gets a $1 off coupon for that product, and other stuff like that. Not really my ball game but she once told me she makes/saves $30-50 a month using her apps.

Our weekly grocery budget runs around $300-350.
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My youngest had an app like that. She scans every receipt we get. Even gas ones.
 
DW shops sale & reduce produce that is still good, ripe banana, if we do not eat them before they are over ripe, she makes banana bread with them.
Got ripe bananas for 0.39 cents lb. this week, they still had green stems.
Home made almond milk instead of buying cows milk.
 
Joel,
Since you use home made almond milk perhaps you would share how you milk an almond. I could never see where to grab and squeeze. ;)
 
Out of curiosity is anyone else keeping their receipts?
I am so I can compare prices next year since I don't deviate very much from what I buy regularly. I want to see how and if the crop losses this year will do to food prices next year and afterwards
 
WVDragonlady said:
Out of curiosity is anyone else keeping their receipts?
I am so I can compare prices next year since I don't deviate very much from what I buy regularly. I want to see how and if the crop losses this year will do to food prices next year and afterwards
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DragonLady, also I heard lots of livestock was culled because of the floods too. Rumor is meat will soon rise quite a bit.
I'd like to buy some meat to can before this happens.
 
joel said:
DW shops sale & reduce produce that is still good, ripe banana, if we do not eat them before they are over ripe, she makes banana bread with them.
Got ripe bananas for 0.39 cents lb. this week, they still had green stems.
Home made almond milk instead of buying cows milk.
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Other than occasional buttermilk we quit milk 25 years ago. Use almond,coconut and soy milks. We still buy ice cream though and real butter.
 
DW grinds the nuts up & add water, let it stand for X number of hours & sreen though chesse cloth.
You can do this with different nuts, grind & add water, let stand, then screened.
Most have less fat & more nutrition then animal milks.
I use cream or milk in my coffee when I am out & about, but nut milk at home.
 
joel said:
DW grinds the nuts up & add water, let it stand for X number of hours & sreen though chesse cloth.
You can do this with different nuts, grind & add water, let stand, then screened.
Most have less fat & more nutrition then animal milks.
I use cream or milk in my coffee when I am out & about, but nut milk at home.
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Good idea Joel thanks. And yes imo nut milks are full of vitamins and minerals more so than dairy.
 
Joel sounds like your wife does a wonderful job and you can also peel and freeze bananas to use in banana cakes and muffins and the like. One of my favourite desserts is mashed banana, whipped cream with a tad of caster sugar or honey and you can dress it with crushed nuts. It is called a banana cream dessert but it is rich so a little goes a long way. I will have to try nut milk just to see what it tastes like.

@WVDragonlady I keep receipts too. I have noticed that since the floods in Townsville killed a lot of cattle and the drought started here that regular minced beef (hamburger) has gone up from $8kg to $10 kg a $2 kg price rise, sausages 1.8kg went up from $8 per 1.8 kg to $10 per 1.8kg, 500g butter went up from $3.59 to $5.15 and back down recently to $5.00, cream also went up in price by .20c per 600ml, eggs up in price by .35 c per dozen, plain flour up 10c per kg, rolled oats up a little in price,baking chocolate chips up .11c per 500g, fresh vegetables also soared in price but came back down recently. These are what I noticed and other meats have risen in prices too.

What stayed pretty much static in price was rice, powdered milk, sugar both white, raw and brown.

This might give others some products to stock up and prepare on as we had floods and droughts hit here in Australia before you did over there.
 
Terri9630 said:
My youngest had an app like that. She scans every receipt we get. Even gas ones.
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Yesterday we had groceries delivered from 2 different stores because my wife is a skilled sale/price hunter. Then she spent like 5 minutes scanning in receipts and another 5 minutes scanning in QR codes and UPC codes on her iPhone. She said she made back $14.25 and will also get numerous coupons in the mail sometime this week.
 
That is a really good saving @Sentry18 and it sounds like your wife is really skilled at bargain hunting. Over the course of a year all the small savings add up to big ones especially if you have a larger family.

I got next months grocery shopping e-gift cards from our roadside assist club saving us 5% on face value or a free $13.89 of groceries.
 
WVDragonlady said:
Out of curiosity is anyone else keeping their receipts?
I am so I can compare prices next year since I don't deviate very much from what I buy regularly. I want to see how and if the crop losses this year will do to food prices next year and afterwards
Click to expand...

I keep receipts and I also wrote how much it cost on the jar, can or packaging with a sharpie when I put away in the pantry.
I also have what I call a buy price.
For rice it's .14cemts per 100 grams.
For toilet paper it is under .24cents per 100 sheets etc.
 
i already do 2 things to save when i shop.1st is.i buy great vaule items instead of brand names,when ever possible. every time i do my primary shopping.the other is.i buy my milk and bread at the local dollar general seeing how they have the lowest prices on both.

and there's a 3rd thing ii'll start doing tomorrow. i have the walmart app.i can go into it and check out their sale ad's.for anything i need.
 
The ink on my receipts seems to fade quickly. No one else has had that happening?
I watch for sale prices on meat, buy more than what I need, freeze some. I don't have a stand alone freezer, just the side by side to the refrigerator. I think it has helped.
Prices on frozen berries are better than fresh.
Local grocery, Brookshire's, sells store brand loaf of wheat bread for $1.25. That was a shock. While wally world's cheapest wheat bread prices are rarely below $2.50.
Should start baking my own again.
 
@Patchouli it does help a great deal to price check on any groceries we buy as prices vary widely, at least here, and you can save a heck of a lot of money by doing so. Frozen berries are far cheaper than fresh here too and when I see them come on sale I buy a few for making pies, just to have some for desserts and to make jams with.
 
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