Simply Thrifty

Groceries at Forty Dollars a Week

by Katelyn Thomas on August 30th, 2008

Kelli asked me to share how I keep my groceries at $40 a week. I have to start by saying I only have a part time kid and he isn’t in diapers anymore. When my sister and her husband and two kids lived here, the grocery budget was through the roof. Now, I just have my nephew part of the time and my brother full time to feed. I also have a stock pile of items - enough shampoo and toothpaste to last me through March 2009, etc.

That said, this is what I do:

• Plan menus in advance and check them before leaving the house for the day to make sure an ingredient doesn’t need to thaw. Once I started doing this, I saved tons of money because we didn’t have to order out at the last minute when we realized everything was still frozen.
• Use less meat. We love to make stir fry dishes that use little or no meat. We use kidney beans instead. I mentioned this dish in another post. It is soo good.
• Know when your store marks down meats so that the meat you do buy is super cheap. Our store tends to do Monday or Tuesday markdowns on meat. Once in a long while, we’ll buy an entire package of steak for $5 on clearance that has a sell by date a few days away. We immediately cook a few and repackage and freeze the rest. (Most guys I know do not willingly give up all steak!)
• Buy multiple papers to get several sets of coupons and keep careful track of ad sales so you can match the coupons to what is on sale. I get a lot of free or super cheap things this way and stretch things further with things like Walgreen’s Register Rewards.
• Grow a lot of your own produce and trade with people who grew things you didn’t. I also go up to the packing house and buy seconds really cheap that we freeze so we have peaches all winter.
• Try to avoid using expensive disposable stuff like paper towels when you can use rags. I got this tip from Money Saving Mom and made myself a big pile of cleaning rags out of an old white flannel sheet that was wearing thin. In fact, she’s also the one who inspired me to cut groceries to $40 a week and she does it with a big family.
• Once in a while, I give myself a little extra for cleaning and HBA stockpile trips. For example, this spring, there was a big sale at Walgreens and I still have plenty of dish soap, sponges and other items left from that. I would have spent more on those things in the long run if I wouldn’t have decided to break that week’s budget.

Does anyone else have tips to share?

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POSTED IN: Groceries