How to Save on Groceries in Hard Times

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Shopping

Set up a budget for your food costs. Separate your groceries expenses from eating out costs if possible, with different categories for each. Your grocery budget should be a reasonable amount, but try to err on the side of spending less on food rather than more each week or month.
Step 2

A list

Make a list and follow it. This tip goes along with tip # 1. When you've finished making your budget, then you know how much you can spend that week, or that month, on food. You can now write out a grocery list. There's no point making your list before you know how much you have to spend because, if you're like me, you will buy more than you can afford to without a budget to keep you on track.

A list for groceries is simply the things you need, or will be needing soon, written down so you can remember them. You can get fancy and print out a detailed grocery list from some of the online sites that have these, but I like to keep it simple and just write down what I need. As a serious recycler and reuser, I try to write my lists on the backs of paper that would otherwise get thrown away. Junk mail envelopes and letters are good for this.

Start with the most important things you need to buy for your kitchen and then keep adding to your list until you have all the items you need written down.

When you actually purchase your groceries, you will be able to look at the items on the bottom of your list and know they can be left off, if need be, when you have spent all the money in your budget for the week. Then, don't forget to add these items you didn't get this shopping trip to the next weeks list.

I tend to keep a running total of what I've spent on my grocery list too, writing prices down as items go in the cart. That way there are no huge surprises at the checkout stand.
Step 3

Vegetables

Substitute for high cost foods. This tip means that instead of buying steak, you buy hamburger, or you go meatless for a few meals, or even vegetarian for a bit (or for good); if you just can't afford the high cost of meat anymore. Meat isn't the only high-cost item of course, but you get the idea.

Instead of higher cost items, purchase the store or generic brand. Buy bread at the thrift bakery, or in the day old bread bin.

Buy the least expensive fruits or vegetables, the ones in season preferably, and grown locally if you can. It's expensive to ship food thousands of miles, and you the consumer pay the costs for doing this.
Step 4

Buy in bulk

Buy in bulk and stock up. I have a pantry, and believe everyone should. Emergencies happen to everyone and some of those emergencies mean we can't pay our bills or buy food. Losing your job without being prepared, or an unexpected illness or accident, can play havoc with the most careful grocery shopper, so plan ahead.

Buy basic supplies, like rice, beans and other legumes, pasta, and oatmeal in bulk. Store properly so this food is not wasted, Buy canned foods in bulk too. I know there are drawbacks to canned foods, but personally I'd rather have some cans of food in my pantry, and be able to eat if some emergency happens, than turn my nose up at canned foods.
Step 5

Cook from scratch

Cook more things from scratch. We pay a premium for convenience foods, and if you can't afford to any longer, then make your own mixes, and prepare meals ahead and freeze them so you can pull a lunch or dinner from your freezer when you don't feel up to cooking.

Yes it takes more time to cook from scratch but if your grocery bill is really high and you need to budget, then cooking more meals from scratch will really help you to do that.
Step 6

Stir-fried meal

Don't waste food. It should be obvious that food that gets thrown away in the garbage is money down the drain. An estimated thirty percent of all the food purchased in the United States gets thrown away. So, if a person spent $100.00 at the store, they threw away about $33.00 worth of that food.

If you are guilty of this wasteful, and very expensive, practice you need to look at how you might use up all of the food that you buy, and how to stop wasting it.

For example, you would use up leftovers, perhaps in next days lunch. You'd eat fruits and vegetables before they went bad, and you'd eat food in boxes and bags before they went stale, etc.

You'd freeze meats and other foods you won't be using right away, and you'd use the food in your freezer before it gets freezer burned. Also, you'd probably have a regular clean out of all the leftovers in your refrigerator and use them up in some other dish.

Maybe you are scraping a lot of foods off of dinner plates and into the garbage? Is so, let everyone choose for themselves how much food they want, and try to make sure they eat it. Don't overfill the plates of children especially. Childhood obesity is a huge problem and kids will eat when they are hungry so try not to worry if they take less on their plates than you expect.
Step 7

Grow a garden

Grow your own food, and eat the produce when fresh. Or learn how to can and preserve it. Gardening is big right now and as food prices rise I think many more of us will be growing things in a backyard or balcony garden.

There are a lot of books on the subject in your local library if you are new to gardening, and/or canning and preserving. So read up on it and make plans for your own garden. There is also information online, about canning, preserving, and gardening, so educate yourself and grow a garden.