thrifty thursday

Another thrifty tip is simply eat less meat. Meat is one of the most expensive things to buy, so if you cut down on meat consumption, you can cut your grocery bill WAY down.

Confession: this is not something we do a lot of, because we are a meat & potatoes kind of family. But we do eat a few meat’less meals here and there. There are a TON of vegetarian recipes out there that are really yummy. Also, if you grow your own garden, you can get away with buying very little.

I’ve touched on stockpiling before, so if you must eat meat, then it’s best to buy in bulk.

Also, if you eat a lot of chicken, it’s usually cheaper to buy a whole chicken.

This will totally gross out my brother, because he doesn’t like pulling chicken away from the bones, but if you buy a cut up fryer, boil it for about 45 mins, let it cool, and then take the meat off, you’ll usually end up with somewhere around 6-7 cups of chicken. If you’re worried about the skin, it slides right off.

You can freeze it into 2-cup increments and use for all kinds of things: chicken salad, chicken quesadillas/fajitas/tacos, chicken stir fry, ad nauseum. I like using the whole chicken, because I prefer dark meat while Ken likes white meat. And again, it’s cheaper.

But if you find boneless breasts for $1.99/lb, grab as many of those as you can! It doesn’t happen often around here.

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I kind of forgot about Thrifty Thursday the past couple of weeks, but I’ve already made a list of more topics, and I’ve added TT to my moleskine calendar so I don’t forget.

Today, we’re going to talk about stockpiling. Before we started this whole being poor thing, I never understood stockpiling. I mean, if you don’t have a lot of money, why would you spend more money? But that’s where I was WRONG. We stockpile by buying ONLY things that we will use, and we always wait for very good sales – like buy one get one free (BOGO).

Our closest and favorite grocery store is Publix, and they have a long list of BOGO products every week. I start there.

Then, I move onto list-worthy sale items – like 10 for $10 Campbell’s soups or 3 for $11 Coke/Pepsi 12-packs.

And then, I look at meats. Meats can always be frozen, so I stock up when the prices are really good – like $1.99/lb.

Finally, I go through my coupons and see if I can find a coupon for anything that’s BOGO or on sale for an even bigger price break. That’s when I really go crazy stocking up. ;) For instance, last week, Publix had Post cereal BOGO and then I had a coupon for $1 off 2 boxes – so I ended up getting 4 boxes of cereal for about $3. I would have gotten more, but there was a 4-box limit.

In the end, the only way that stockpiling works is if you stockpile items that you will definitely use. So if I get 10 cans of Campbell’s soups for $1/each this week, then I won’t have to buy them next week for $1.50/each when I actually need them. I can always use Campbell’s soups, so it saves money in the long run.

Unlike the can of sardines Ken bought because it was only 50 cents. :::shakes head:::

So you’ve started stockpiling … where do you put it?

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I don’t know if many of my newer blog readers (hi!!!) know the full story, but my husband left his computer programming job last March to start his own business. The stress level at his old job was insanely high, and he was working around the clock. So he currently owns SLB Development and then also teaches a couple of classes at ECPI College of Technology. He is definitely home more often, but we have had to make some serious changes to offset the loss of income. So I thought I’d start a weekly post sharing ways that we’ve saved money.

One of the big changes is in our grocery bill. We used to spend about $150/week on groceries, but ever since we started using coupons, shopping sales, and getting a lot of our groceries at places like Dollar Tree and Aldi, I can get by on about $75/week or less.

Now, you do have to pay attention to prices, because it’s not always cheaper to buy what you think is a good deal. For instance, I noticed Dollar Tree had stick margarine for $1, but I can usually get it on sale for $0.79 – and since it’s freezable, I stock up.

Which brings me to another thing we do to save money – stock up on sale or coupon items that can be shelved or frozen.

We have a shelving unit in our garage for canned goods and juice, and then we have a separate freezer for meats and frozen items, like pizza. For instance, I ended up getting a TON of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99/lb the other day – we eat chicken at least 3x’s a week, so that was a great deal.

The plus of stocking up is that you rarely have nights where you have nothing to eat. There’s always something I can make, even if it’s just soup.

I actually have not gotten into the CVS Game or The Grocery Game, but what we’ve done so far has made a huge difference.

So what are ways that YOU save money on groceries?

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