Saving Money On Food??? What do you do?

[saveadollardiva]

^ Thanks the advice everyone! Well my DH and I are both european so meat is big with us lol, he is a meat guy to, he can not love without it lol. I usually look to see what meat is on sale, buy alot of it, then freeze it and take it out as I need it. This has worked well. Also, I buy chicken breast when it is on sale, cut them into slices (I usually get 4-5 slices out of one breast) then I bread them, then fry them . This is great because it is not just dinner but also a nice chicken sandwhich for my DH for his lunch tomorrow.

[lecale]

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[Prairie girl]

I have a small backyard but still manage to garden in pots, a raised bed and join a community garden co-op last year. Not only does gardening save money, it's a wonderful activity to do with your children.

[saveadollardiva]

I am going to start a garden for sure! I am going to see if I can grow some tomatoes and cucumbers first...if that works then I will move on to bigger things lol. Thanks the advice everyone.

[babyluck]

Great thread to start, learned a lot myself. I have never thought of growing my own garden, I'm going to try this year, start something small, maybe green onions? Any suggestions on easy growing stuff? Thank you!

[dreamcatcher1962]

Great thread to start, learned a lot myself. I have never thought of growing my own garden, I'm going to try this year, start something small, maybe green onions? Any suggestions on easy growing stuff? Thank you!

Try beans, they are so easy to grow.
Believe it or not another thing easy to grow is garlic. Plant it this year and harvest it next year. You don't need to plant it until the fall.

[RSAS]

love these ideas everyone!
Make as much from scratch as reasonably possible. Not everyone has time/skills/energy to bake bread
If your (or hubby/kids) are not really into eating a meal of beans, add beans to your meat dishes to bulk them up. I put lentils and beans into pasta sauce. Makes my meat go further. You can also add them to meatballs, meatloaf ect. Lentils go really mushy so you can't hardly tell they are there and they are so good for you!
You can save your veggies scraps in the freezer to make veggie stock. Chicken/beef stock if you have bones.

[momof5boys]

If you don't have a large space to grow veggies, try growing tomatoes in a sunny covered spot on your patio. We always get A LOT of tomatoes this way - you do need to learn how to take off the 'suckers' because then you'll get more tomatoes. Make sure your tomato plant is growing within a tomato cage poked into the pot and keep the plant well watered and fertilized.

As for a tip to keep grocery costs down, I'll take a bag of chips (Christie Crispers ie.) and divide that bag up into smaller ziploc snack bags for the boys to take to school. This week those Crispers are on sale at Walmart for $1.25 and with the $1WUB2 coupon from Kraft, that puts the price down to .75 each. I do the same with all different kinds of snacks - pretzels, etc.

[bgheuchert]

Great thread to start, learned a lot myself. I have never thought of growing my own garden, I'm going to try this year, start something small, maybe green onions? Any suggestions on easy growing stuff? Thank you!

The easiest thing EVER EVER EVER to grow is zuchinni and summer squash, you will be putting them on people's door steps, knocking, and running away just to deal with how much those suckers will produce for you, and the blossoms are great to stuff or batter and fry too.....we love it! They are pretty darn maintnance free too

[momof5boys]

The easiest thing EVER EVER EVER to grow is zuchinni and summer squash, you will be putting them on people's door steps, knocking, and running away just to deal with how much those suckers will produce for you, and the blossoms are great to stuff or batter and fry too.....we love it! They are pretty darn maintnance free too

I really had to chuckle reading your post - we have actually done that....left zuchinni on neighbour's doorsteps b/c we had so many and they were growing to the size of baseball bats!

[marstec]

There is some very good advice on this thread on how to save money on food. I grow a garden in the summer because I like the freshness and flavor better than store-bought, a secondary reason is that it saves me money.

The one thing not mentioned is wasted food. As nice as it is to have a stockpile, only buy what you can use within a reasonable amount of time. When it comes to freezing items, especially meats, make sure to wrap them really well for the freezer. I can't tell you how much I've thrown away in the past due to freezer burn. I am getting better, though. I like to wrap individual portions in waxed paper and them put these into Ziploc freezer bags...remember to write down the contents and date.

[greencanuck]

An unusual suggestion:

I approached a local organic farm at harvest time and did a straight barter of harvesting work for fresh organic produce.
At the end of each day, you are really tired and will have a pile of organic food to process ( ie freeze, par-boil, dehydrate, can, etc.)

[frugal50]

i only buy groceries when they are on sale and make meals according to what i bought.

[abbasgirl]

The easiest thing EVER EVER EVER to grow is zuchinni and summer squash, you will be putting them on people's door steps, knocking, and running away just to deal with how much those suckers will produce for you, and the blossoms are great to stuff or batter and fry too.....we love it! They are pretty darn maintnance free too

Zuchinni is also really versatile. It freezes well and you can shred it and "hide it" in pretty much any dish as a cheap way of stretching it out.

[RSAS]

An unusual suggestion:

I approached a local organic farm at harvest time and did a straight barter of harvesting work for fresh organic produce.
At the end of each day, you are really tired and will have a pile of organic food to process ( ie freeze, par-boil, dehydrate, can, etc.)

Recently there was a small farm that advertised this on their facebook page! I thought it was a really cool idea.