Cheap Tips for Grocery Shopping

1.) Plan out a menu first, with what meals you'll make on which days. Make a LOT of the meal the night you cook so you can eat on leftovers. I make a big pot of soup when I have the day off and we use the leftovers for lunches throughout the week.

2.) Weigh all the veggies you buy and keep tabs of exactly what you're spending, minus the tax. Sometimes they'll advertise grapes as beeing 2 dollars a lb., but package them in 2 lb. bags. Stores are sneaky like that. My husband carries around a notebook, pen, and calculator and writes everything down. This way, if you overspend, you can put some items back if you need to BEFORE you get to the cashier. I always feel silly asking them to take items off. This takes a lot of time, and I'm sure people think we're crazy, but we enjoy it. It kind of makes a game of everything: How cheaply can we buy groceries THIS week?

3.) Buy dry bulk items: a 1lb. bag of dried beans stretches a lot more than a few cans of beans. Beans get a lot bigger when you cook them. Yes, they can take a while to cook, but that's why there are crockpots! I love making my own refried beans and they taste SO much better than stuff from a can. I also buy a big bag of brown rice every few weeks. I used to use Boil in the Bag stuff, but you only get 4 bags of that per box, and I was spending so much money! (We got a rice cooker as a wedding gift last year, and it has saved our lives!)

4.) Things that are easy to make, make. For example, a small 6 oz. container of hummus costs over 3 dollars at Walmart. We make around 2 lbs. of hummus from a 2 dollar bag of garbanzo beans, and we already had the garlic and olive oil on hand. We don't use tahnini, but a big jar of it is only 6 dollars, and you only use a tiny amount per batch. We'll have a hummus and veggie night some weeks, and I bring some to work to give to a hummus-loving friend. We also make our own polenta instead of buying a lb. of it for 3 dollars. Corn meal is cheap!

5.) We don't ever use coupons because they're always for brand names, whereas I find it's easier to just buy store brands instead.

6.) Every once in a while, I'll slpurge on a whole chicken and make roast chicken, chicken soup, and chicken stock all in one week. I also freeze vegetable clippings per week ( there are a ton!) and make vegetable broth on Sundays.