Hellobee Boards

We spend too much on food- groceries and eating out. Over the last 30 days I have been extremely wasteful. I had to throw out fruit and meat I didn't get around to making/ eating fast enough. Meal planning could probably help us.

@jhd: I wish we could make a game out of it, like do a weekly grocery bill comparison and see who made it through the week with the lowest receipts added up. I go a few times a week for groceries depending on the week's meal plan.

@cmomma17: I didn't read the entire thread, but wanted to chime in that I've been working on a price book too. I bought a dollar store address book so I can look up by B- beans (etc.). Do you price check to Amazon? Their beans were half the price of any I could get at my local stores. I double check there for everything, I have 3 types of flour, 4 types of beans, larabars, our dog's food, and prunes/raisins for LO on subscribe & save!

@cmomma17: Honestly, I hear you on the time thing, and where I used to pore over ads, price match and compare between 3 stores, etc. now I shop my main grocery store, and price compare to Amazon. We try to do mainly whole foods, organic on what I think makes sense, which makes it hard because the "health market" side of our store doesn't follow a sale cycle.

Other ideas -- my store will give a 10% discount if you buy a "unit's" worth (i.e. 6 things of yogurt). This makes sense for some things!

We decided to only do local meat for non-monetary reasons, but turns out it's the same cost if not cheaper. Not sure if that's true, or true for you with the amount of meat you buy or don't buy for DH, but worth checking out. I used my first whole chicken (instead of just buying chicken breast) last month and it was easier than I thought it would be.

We spend an avg of $80 a week on groceries for 2 adults and a baby, and I still want to lower it! Going to be checking out Aldi to compare prices. I am also one who keeps a mental price book for the things I always get and refuse to but chicken breast and ground beef for over 1.99/lb.

@jhd: how do you separate it out? Do you spend time subtracting the household items?

@locavore_mama: for a while if i bought household items i would have the cashier ring those items up in a separate transaction. now i just calculate those totals after the fact from the receipt total. (it helps if you try to group the food items all together and then the household items towards the beginning or end of the transactions, but sometimes cashiers ring things up in odd orders! ) we use YNAB and you can split categories for a single transaction so i just tell DH "today's walmart trip was $47 but $17 was household" for example...or i write it on a post it note and stick it to the receipt for when he does the budget. sorry for the long answer. hope that makes sense!

@locavore_mama: yes you do. So I figure it up & tell DH $x was household & remainder was food. YNAB seriously is the best. DH enjoys budget stuff so I let him handle it but it's really very easy to use & it has helped us so much!

One thing that helped me is to NOT have a pre-determined list before going to the store...except the essentials-which we just mainly buy at Costco.. Then meal plan on the spot around what is on sale at the grocery store. They always have a couple fruits and a couple veggies on sale, one type of meat etc and they just rotate it. This is for people who don't like to study the ads.

@locavore_mama: I should've specified; it's cheaper than store bought organic meat Which wasn't why we switched, but still a nice perk. Nowhere near cheaper than conventional/store brand meat!!

@luckypenny: I hear you!! I posted a few things higher up that might apply. I also add grains in with meat - like amaranth in with tacos (and beans) or bulgur in a soup. It stretches it into at least one more portion on the cheap!

I'm in! I have been working on this for a couple months but you can alway do better right? My big thing is shopping the sales, specifically meat. Our food budget goes to meat, my husband MUST have a meat with every meal or he considers it a "snack."

I have stopped being picky about brands (for the most part) and will buy store brands when cheaper. ALTHOUGH still checking the name brand because sometimes the sale on that is cheaper! I grocery shop everything but meat at Target, so between the 5% with my Red card & Cartwheel I save a nice chunk of change.