hoppyhoppyhippo
Well-Known Member
Well as a semi savvy shopper these are my rules.
1. Learn to ready the small panels of products the price per pound/quart/gallon whatever. You may easily find store bought brands are not cheaper than brand names and other times they may be. And to be 100% honest, if store brand ketchup is 35 cents a quart and Heinz is 37 I'm buying Heinz and keeping it.
2. If on sale, stock up on non-perishables. Or I should say takes a long time to perishable. Mustard and Canned Tomatoes are great examples of this. They have shelf lives of over a year at least. Whenever a grocery store around me drops Guldens to 88 cents a bottle I pickup 5 or more so I have enough mustard to last me 6 months or so. Canned tomatoes, every year shoprite runs sales on Tuturosa (sp) canned tomatoes 27 oz cans 12 for like 7 dollars. I get 12, and they last.
3. This one is hard for me to follow because of limited freezer space but I try to. As someone who often has a smoothie for breakfast, I have a lot of frozen fruit in my freezer on a given week. Frozen fruit isn't too expensive compared to offseason fruit (strawberries usually run around 2 bucks a pound for example) but some things are horrible. Like Blueberries. Frozen Blueberries almost always seem to run 3+ bucks a pound. So what I do is every year during Blueberry season in NJ, I stock up on blueberries. First I love blueberries I can down a pound of them without thinking (until I wind up regrettign it a little later when things move a little quicker) second is I love smoothies. Some grocery stores have deals where you can get a whole flat of blueberries (9 pounds I believe) for like 6 or 7 dollars. So I buy several flats. This year I'm gonna add one more to make a blueberry mead, but last year I bought 2, one to eat, and one to freeze. My family all also buy the same and we usually just enjoy snacking on them.
3. If you can spend a little more to support your local farms. Sometimes not the ultimate money saver (especially for meats) but fi you have a little wiggle room for your budget the end product you get is so much better. For example we just bought this hot italian sausage for 5 bucks a pound, a good buck or 2 more than say Johnsonville or store brand sausage, but the quality was out of this world different. Next time I go back I'm buying their breakfast sausage even if it's 3 bucks more than what I usually pay for on sale bulk sausage.
I have many more tips, but unfortunately most involve lots of coupons and having enough money to afford to have a massive shopping day every 2 months, which I don't now so I'm a little rusty.
1. Learn to ready the small panels of products the price per pound/quart/gallon whatever. You may easily find store bought brands are not cheaper than brand names and other times they may be. And to be 100% honest, if store brand ketchup is 35 cents a quart and Heinz is 37 I'm buying Heinz and keeping it.
2. If on sale, stock up on non-perishables. Or I should say takes a long time to perishable. Mustard and Canned Tomatoes are great examples of this. They have shelf lives of over a year at least. Whenever a grocery store around me drops Guldens to 88 cents a bottle I pickup 5 or more so I have enough mustard to last me 6 months or so. Canned tomatoes, every year shoprite runs sales on Tuturosa (sp) canned tomatoes 27 oz cans 12 for like 7 dollars. I get 12, and they last.
3. This one is hard for me to follow because of limited freezer space but I try to. As someone who often has a smoothie for breakfast, I have a lot of frozen fruit in my freezer on a given week. Frozen fruit isn't too expensive compared to offseason fruit (strawberries usually run around 2 bucks a pound for example) but some things are horrible. Like Blueberries. Frozen Blueberries almost always seem to run 3+ bucks a pound. So what I do is every year during Blueberry season in NJ, I stock up on blueberries. First I love blueberries I can down a pound of them without thinking (until I wind up regrettign it a little later when things move a little quicker) second is I love smoothies. Some grocery stores have deals where you can get a whole flat of blueberries (9 pounds I believe) for like 6 or 7 dollars. So I buy several flats. This year I'm gonna add one more to make a blueberry mead, but last year I bought 2, one to eat, and one to freeze. My family all also buy the same and we usually just enjoy snacking on them.
3. If you can spend a little more to support your local farms. Sometimes not the ultimate money saver (especially for meats) but fi you have a little wiggle room for your budget the end product you get is so much better. For example we just bought this hot italian sausage for 5 bucks a pound, a good buck or 2 more than say Johnsonville or store brand sausage, but the quality was out of this world different. Next time I go back I'm buying their breakfast sausage even if it's 3 bucks more than what I usually pay for on sale bulk sausage.
I have many more tips, but unfortunately most involve lots of coupons and having enough money to afford to have a massive shopping day every 2 months, which I don't now so I'm a little rusty.