Grocery budget

[MonkeyMama]

Do you guys find using coupons useful? I'm trying to be convinced into if sifting through them is actually worth the time and effort if we already look to save via sales and what not.

Not really. We use coupons, but are very lazy coupon users. Though I personally try not to shop for things like deoderant or toothpaste without a coupon (I am more of a name brand shopper with the non-food stuff). Target regularly gives us $5 back if we buy cat food and cat litter together, stuff like that. So we take advantage of coupons, for sure, but more just flip through the ads in the mail, and see if any of them are useful to us. Probably most the coupons we use are targeted ones we got with our last purchase. I think most our savings comes from shopping around, knowing which stores have better prices on which items, and shopping around sales. Secondarily, we squeeze a little more out with coupons.

[feh]

We spend roughly $600/month for a family of three. We only eat out 2-3 times per month, and my wife cooks meals. At the same time, we don't actively try to minimize our grocery bill.

[hamchan]

We budget 100 a week for two adults, and 125 a week when my teenage daughter is here. We could probably get it down by $10-15 a week if we cut out diet soda, Crystal Light, and occasional cartons of ice cream, but I would hate to go lower than that. We only eat meat (chicken breast) twice a week and the rest of the time it's beans, lentils, or tofu. We also tend to stick to produce that is on sale, reduced for quick sale, or normally cheap anyway.

Part of the issue driving up expenses is that if I need something for a recipe, like say ketchup or tomato sauce, we have to get the low sodium or no salt added version. There is almost always just one brand and size available, and it's pretty much never on sale. I have to cook a lot from scratch too, which is time consuming and all those separate ingredients add up. It's often cheaper to buy prepared foods on loss leader than it is to make them from scratch, but because of the sodium content that is not an option. DH has bad kidneys.

[ATPerez]

Oh geez. I thought I was doing good with $200 for a month for two people, split $100 per person.

I only buy loss leader meats (mainly chicken and cheap cuts of pork), stock up on cheap things like pasta when it's on sale, buy lots of fresh veggies, and coupon. What am I doing wrong?

Maybe it's because I've got a decently stocked pantry and freezer. It would be interesting to see how long we could go with eating what we have. But if I try to make a simple meal of "rice and beans" my boyfriend will want to go out to dinner instead.

Oh and I coupon because I love getting a good deal. I really only spend money on bills, food, and rent, so I get excited about shopping and saving at the grocery store.

I also forgot to add that we don't drink a lot of calories. Mostly drink water. I always notice this very much when friends gawk at our food budget. Well, they are drinking coffee, soda, juice, milk and alcohol with every single meal. We buy most these drinks, but maybe only once a month on the soda and juice. We aren't big milk drinkers, but we buy for cooking and cereal. You can certainly enjoy these things in moderation while mostly drinking water with your meals.

I totally agree! I don't understand it. My boyfriend buys juice, sparkling water, pellegrino sodas, coffee, wine, beer, hard alcohol, and lately energy drinks! He drinks so many things! I drink water constantly, a little bit of wine after dinner, and... beer. Love my beer.

[marvholly]

I am a single. I spend about $105/month ($25/week). That is EVERYTHING I consume, cat food & litter, cleaning supplies, paper goods and personal care stuff. I almost ALWAYS only shop the perimeter of the store (produce, dairy, meat). I do have several fruit/veg markets & 2 independent (local only) stores often w/ MUCH better prices than natl chains. I do use coupons but MUCH less than I did even 5 years ago. Most coupons are for personal care & cat stuff. I seldom drink soda but do drink coffee 2-3x/day.

I find I am buying more & more at Aldi & the dollar store. So far I have found only 1 item at each I do NOT like.

Part of the cost of this stuff is dependent on where yu live. HCOL areas (metro NYC, LA, metro Chicago.....) are WAAAY more $$$ than LCOL towns/areas.

[Anton James]

food glorious food

I love food but am uk based so it is not easy to find great food here!

Aldi, Lidl etc are good, cheap and cheerful maybe but they do better than the big chains like tesco etc here. A shop of £100 at tesco could be got for around £70 in these stores.

there you are, if you are in the uk theres is a saving for you right there.

[Anton James]

uk food

I should not really diss uk food but having sampled delights from all over the world I can say that anything 'fresh' in the uk is not really fresh at all, apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, cabbage, cauli, carrots etc all seem to have been nuked prior to sale in an effort to kill all bugs and remove all taste.

If that doesn't work I think they cover it all in chemical too to make sure of the job!

atb
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