As school comes back in session, I’m sure a lot of you are stocking your pantry (If you aren’t in a dorm). I know it’s easy and quick to buy frozen dinners or order pizza, but that can get really expensive over time — and pretty unhealthy. It all adds up, and all of a sudden your food budget for the month is done for, and the month is only half way over.
Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve gotten really good at grocery shopping. I use coupons like crazy and instead of buying frozen meals, I usually try to make whatever I can from scratch. It’s much cheaper, healthier and more fun. It can be a little more time consuming, but totally worth it in the end. I usually come in under budget, with enough food to feed me for weeks. So here are 6 ways to make the most of your food budget. You would be surprised how much you can get at the grocery store for the price of that delivery pizza!
[via Izismile]
Do you find this helpful? How often do you go grocery shopping?
sunflower / 314 posts
@Nikita Bedard@facebook - that’s a good point. But still a $6 bag of tilapia will feed you a lot more times than a pizza.
sunflower / 314 posts
@Nikita Bedard@facebook - even if food prices go up, it is still a better bargain.
rose / 759 posts
Coupons + weekly sales. I always get what’s on sale and work with that.
hydrangea / 58 posts
A lot of the stuff she has featured are “Great Value” products. That is the Sam’s or Walmart brand where I live and most of it really is about that cheap, especially when they honor competing prices and all manufacturer’s coupons. We eat breakfast and lunch at work so the only meal I have to be concerned about is dinner. Our grocery stores offer a “5 for $20″ deal on family sized meats and that means for around $50 dollars a week, maybe less if I buy instant potato mixes instead of a bag of potatoes, I can feed us dinner every night. On top of that, it’s usually healthy and well balanced. You can’t eat out every night on that unless you’re eating the $1 menu.
guest
well, I refuse to shop at Walmart. But I also like to save money on groceries/food so I do go to the supermarket a lot in Chicago. They have online coupons and savings so I use coupons that I clip + a combination of online coupons and weekly specials to get stuff dirt cheap.
guest
Thank you for posting this. Take out food is just garbage. I bought a huge tub of good quality ice cream today for what it cost me to get one cone two days ago. Last night dinner cost $44 for two ppl. At home it would have been FAR FAR less. I try to get this through to every guy I date because they work long hours and have nothing to show for it when they spend all their money on food and driving to get food.
guest
Another thing that’s great is buying “old” products. If you freeze them or eat them right away, that’s fine. At my local market, the stuff the put on sale is usually fine for days and I only buy their on sale produce and meat.
guest
It’s helpful to see it really laid out like that, but I don’t shop at Wal-Mart (on principle) and I see many of the items shown are Wal-Mart’s store brand. Also, the sizes are a little questionable (like buying chicken 1lb at a time?).
guest
I know the grocery store near my college was a bit pricier than the
average grocery store, but even on sale, a lot of the things I buy
mentioned on here are underpriced. Bananas were 69 cents on sale, pound
of carrots were 2.50 on sale. I agree with the spirit of the post, but I think the execution is questionable. I was expecting tips, which some could derive of these pictures, so here are my tips, things that have helped me to make most of my grocery budget: Try to always buy fresh fruits and veggies in season and on sale, try to buy everything on sale if you can (stock up if you have the funds, space, and its nonperishable, which I do with pastaroni when it’s 10/$10), buy store brand, use coupons. Try to resist pre-prepared freezer foods and buy and make your own meals. Eat meat less often (the grocery bill saw a spike for the couple of months I was making sandwiches with deli meat for lunch). Don’t buy snacks that aren’t going to satisfy your hunger in any way.
dahlia / 2942 posts
Interesting, but I think not accurate enough. Message is still the same though. And why on Lovelyish?…This question never gets answered.