Grocery Budget and Stockpiling Tips

[Nettie]

Hi all. I'm a newbie to stockpiling. I just started to build my stockpile about a month and a half ago, because our grocery budget was becoming unaffordable. They say grocery prices may rise soon, so I had to do something.

In my house, it's only DH and I, and our two fur-babies (cats). We spend about $550 a month on groceries, sometimes more. This is crazy, as we aren't what I consider big eaters AND I coupon! This huge budget is becoming such a burden. We tried for months to only spend $400, but weren't successful, so finally increased our budget to a more realistic amount. I should also mention we hardly ever have take out (maybe once every other month, and always pack our lunches for work).

We live in a rural area, so only have one grocery store (Sobeys) and one drug store (Lawtons) to choose from. About an hour away there are more choices, but we only get there once a month or less.

My goal is to spend $200-300 a month comfortably. I have alot of work to do to get to this goal.

Over the last number of weeks I have managed to buy a years supply of alot of hygiene products that have been the big specials of the store flyer. I now have enough toothpaste, toothbrushes, laundry detergent, dish detergent, men's body wash, woman's body wash, deodorant, tampons, razor blades, shampoo/conditioner, etc to last a year. I have purchased enough paper towel and toilet paper to last a few months as well, because it went on sale quite low and I had coupons.

For food, I've started a small stockpile (for a few months) of pasta, pasta sauce, instant oatmeal, crispy mini's (used coupons), onion soup mix, etc. My goal is to stock pile 3-4 month worth when each item goes on sale for a low price. I know in order to make this stockpile useful, I can only buy what I will use or else it's a waste of money. I also know to only buy when the price is low low low, and/or have good coupons. Also that I need to rotate the pile in order to use everything before it expires.

I'm waiting for alot of other items to go on sale to have on hand. Mainly condiments (ketchup, mayo, spices), and canned food (soups, tomatoes, sauces). I plan on canning some salsa and pickles to add to the pile once my garden produce ripens.

Does any one have any tips or insight on what they stockpile and how much it has saved them? When I researched stockpiling before I started it, it said you can expect about a 25% savings on your grocery budget. I'm hoping to get more than that over time, but 25% is still alot.

I could use all the advice I can get.

Thanks in advance!

[Craiger]

Sobeys by far is not the cheapest grocery store around either which would make it more difficult for you...if you look in the food and receipes section there are a couple threads that might be helpful, one is "how much money do you spend on dinner" and the other relates to how much do you budget for groceries. Hope this helps

[Craiger]

Here's one for you...


http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/282375-...dinner-canada/

[blueeyetea]

Get yourself the book "Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with Americas Cheap: Includes So Many Innovative Strategies You Wont Have to Cut Coupons" for a lot of tips on saving on your groceries. Another good book with tips on saving on groceries, but not exclusively is "the Complete Tightwad Gazette".

Keep a pricebook so that eventually, you'll be aware of when items come on sale and you can stock up.

Make the most of your monthly trips and stockpile on specials you can get there, especially if there's more competition between stores that what you have locally for staples like meat and dairy that can be frozen.

Cook from scratch for the best value in your meals. Cook in bulk a la OMAC (Once a month cooking). Plan your meals around what you have in your pantry as opposed to planning a menu than buying the ingredients.

Hope this helps.

[hotsummer]

You can go to the supermarket to buy daily necessities as inventory, so you can save some.

[natynat]

I've found that there is no reason for me to stockpile for a year's worth of products. EVEN if the items are on sale and I have coupons, that's extra money that I still have to take out of my pocket to put towards a time a year from now. Well, maybe in a year from now I'll be rich(er) than I am now. I try to keep my stockpile of shampoos/conditioners, body washes, toothpastes etc for max 4 months in advance. I find that even if items are on sale and I have coupons for them, from time to time there will be even better offers or even FPC's which I won't have to spend ANY money on at all (every dollar counts!).

From what I understand it's just you and another person (and 2 cats). Which is the same situation as me (minus 1 cat). Our grocery bill was about $400 last year, and it's now down to $250-$280. Mind you, I live in Montreal and prices are cheaper...BUT I've been looking at some of these coupons that other provinces get, and the specials that us QC'ers never take part of...so I know that it could be possible to save. For me, I found that even though my boyfriend and I don't go out, we spend a lot of money on the nights that we invite people over. On those nights, I make sure that the other parties bring the alcohol, so that at least we don't have to buy extra $20-$40 worth of booze lol. If that's the case for you then maybe limiting these nights is an option, or even having a pot luck.

You didn't mention your cats in your post...and personally I find that their food, treats, and litter can be quite expensive. I've taken advantage of SC to get all the FPC's that I need for a years' worth of cat food for my cat. There's also MIR's being offered through World's Best Cat Litter on Facebook, as well as $5 on Purina litters. You could sign up for the Purina mykitten website if you haven't yet done so to get some FPC's/HV's. Same goes for treats...I always take advantage of the BOGO's.

[dreamcatcher1962]

You could make your own jam's & jellies as well.
If I remember correctly, I figured out the cost to make 1 bottle of jam, including the bottle, sugar, certo, lemon juice & berries was about $1.50 which is much cheaper than store bought jam/jelly even with a coupon.
Wild blackberries are out now and are free, which makes it even cheaper.
Best of luck.

[Nettie]

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone. I will keep my eye out for those books blueeyetea.

I've been reading different posts and am amazed at how low some families can keep their grocery bill. This has made me realize ours is way out of control. We go shopping once a week and buy what we need for the week. Obviously that isn't working out well for us, hence why I'm learning about stockpiling.

The only items I buy a years supply worth is cleaning and hygiene products if the price is right. Not having much competition to choose from, if I didn't buy 12 bottles of laundry detergent for $1.50 each, then after 2-3 months I'd most likely need to buy it again at full price. Prices don't seem to go as low here as what I have seen in bigger areas, or nearly as often. I don't plan on buying a years supply of food, only 3-4 months if possible, just to use as a buffer.

Yes, cat food and litter is expensive! I totally agree. I bought 4 huge bags of Purina when it went on sale of Sobeys last month, and I had a coupon. I ended up paying about $10 per bag but it will last a long long time. I buy a few bags of litter from Walmart when I am there. The large $7 bags will last about two-three weeks. My cats like to go outside during the day, so it helps with the litter $$. (We are in a rural area).

I actually have been picking wild blackberries this year. I like to make my own wine. I've always purchased a fruit wine kit, but I'm trying to collect enough blackberries to try my hand at wine making from scratch. We shall see how that turns out. lol

[DianneS]

You will find that if you start studying the flyers, and create a price book, you will soon know the lowest price points for many grocery items. It will become natural to only buy at that point, with a coupon if you have one.

I am constantly amazed by some of the things people buy rather than make. For example, I saw a post yesterday where people were excited that frozen pancakes were on sale. When my kids were small, I made big batches of pancakes, layered them between saran wrap and froze them in a large tupperware container. It costs pennies...they taste better than the ones in the box and they just need a few seconds in the microwave. I know that freezing pancakes is not high on the list for a couple with no kids, but there are many things we buy that we can make inexpensively from scratch very quickly.

If you are buying bread, consider a breadmaker. Mine ($50 on sale) paid for itself very quickly and I use it for breads, buns, pizza crust, etc. The added bonus is that there is nothing like the smell of fresh bread....and it takes only minutes to layer the ingredients and hit the "on" button....

[sweetproserpina]

Something that may help you figure out why you seem to spend so much may be to look critically at the type of food you are buying.. Do you buy boneless skinless chicken breasts, or bone-in chicken thighs (big price difference!), or steak versus ground beef, or roasts on sale. Cheese and dairy are my big spends at the grocery store- 2-4L of homo milk a week, plus cream, plus yogurt, plus butter etc adds up! When I carefully looked at my usual shopping list I could see where I needed to focus on couponing (cheese coupons!!), and areas where I could cut back or splurge on. Do you buy breakfast cereal? It can get expensive quickly- try oatmeal (from rolled oats, not those expensive little packets!) instead, or toast and an egg..

What are you comfortable making from scratch, what will give you the most savings if you make it from scratch? Do you go through a lot of yogurt? Bread? Chocolate sauce? Could you make it instead? One thing that's a no brainer for me is I mix my own seasonings from my spice cupboard instead of buying those packets of 'taco seasoning' etc. By buying bulk spices, homemade spice mixes are really cheap and I can tailor the flavour to my family.

It's so hard too, when you are in a small town with only one store. I used to live in a similar situation (it was an IGA), I would do most of my shopping there, but do a big shop once every month or two at a larger save-on-foods farther away. Don't beat yourself up about having to pay the higher prices at your local store- I figured it was worth it to support my local grocer, and they were always so helpful and friendly. It was the price I paid for living in such a nice village

[iggysbabysitter]

I love The hillbilly housewife site, where there is a menu plan using healthy and inexpensive foods, things that can stockpile well (long term storage), and homemade convenience foods. Before I started couponing I always had a stockpile of rice, dry beans, can soups, and a full freezer, and the hillbilly housewife helped me use these items more. Also, if you have time, try canning your own foods (it's so easy to make your own jam, jelly and applesauce, and no pressure canner is needed).
Youtube's prepper community is also a great wealth of info for cooking/preserving/storing/accumulating for a stockpile. I stopped buying quaker instant oatmeal, my 2 boys were needing 3 packs each to fill them up; a video showed me how to make my own instant. Much cheaper than the boxed, healthier and more filling than cold cereal.
4c rolled oats (bulk barn $.79, buy $10 worth and save $3... happens about every 2 months)
4c oat flour (put around 5c rolled oats into a food processor and run until it looks like flour)
1/2c powdered milk (horrid to drink, but great for cooking, $22 for 2kg bag)
1c brown sugar ($.79/lb @ bulk barn, buy $10 worth, save $3, usually on sale the same time as rolled oats)
1tsp salt
Mix all together, 1/2c mix + 1c water, microwave 1.5 min. My teen takes 1c mix, 1 1/2-2c water... that would have been 1/2 the box if I bought quaker instant!
Try adding 1/2 tsp jello powder to change the flavour, my kids like strawberry, hubby likes lemon (I get it in bulk packages from No Frills, 1kg for $2.99, but bulk barn should be comparable).

I came from a small town in NS, and for the longest time all we had access to was small town grocery stores that charge a higher price... so my family would often make the trek into the bigger city and do the grocery shopping (along with a lot of other shopping) once a month. We had a large freezer to help stock up on the best deals on perishable items.

When you start your food stockpile, rotation is important, and so is storage. I bought a lot of tupperware (secondhand!) and ziploc bags to help deal with ants in my first house, now it's great for stockpiling and couponing. Hamberger helper is loose in the box with a packet of seasoning, so how do you clip the coupon and go back into the store? I keep a box of ziploc in the car, and scisors to clip the box, dump the contents into a baggie, and stuff the baggie back into the box (that's how I got 100lbs of ground beef free last summer). Some of the 900g pasta bags are brittle, and my kids tear them as they move the bags around, so they get stored in a basket or bin, or they get poured into large jars. I pour cereal into large tupperware cereal boxes so I can get codes or coupons off the box (I don't lose any boxes to kids tossing them in recycling!). Now I have a trailer out at a friends camp, and I need to make sure my food there isn't just bug proof and kid proof, but mouse/squirel proof (just in case). Mason jars are good for keeping just about anything out of your food, they are cheap and can be very attractive looking. I get them for 25-50 cents at garage sales and secondhand stores. The weather stripping and a bit of plastic broke off my door last year, and a mouse got into my house... I wasn't worried about my stockpile durring the 3 days it took to catch the mouse.

I love that you have a garden. I know it's a bit late for most things to help lower the grocery budget, but spinach, kale, beets, carrots, beans, peas can all have a second planting in most of Canada, and they are very good for you. I like spinach and beet greens in salads, and sauteed beet greens and stems (and they freeze well). Don't have a green thumb? Zuchinni and potatoes are super simple. I was all over the internet looking at victory garden info.
Know your prices... I thought buying 1/2 a pig was going to be a good deal... NOT. Had I used the $125 buying my usual meat (cheap cuts, sale items and discounted) I would have had twice as much meat in my freezer. Plus the hams and bacon are fresh, not smoked, so they won't add much flavour to soup. The bonus? I asked for all the fat, too. I have 20 lbs of fat to render into lard, and should get more than 10 quarts of good lard (2c at the store is $1.70), 2 quarts of "crackling" for flavouring dishes.
I'm not sure how much I have saved in the year and a bit that I have been couponing, but I can say I have things in my home that I would never have bought before coupons... cereal was always big boxes of no name, which is ok, but now I get large boxes of kelloggs for $1/box every few months and stock up (know your stores sales rotation! When No frills puts out a kelloggs coupon buy3 save$3, you know there's going to be a $2/box sale -about every 9-12 weeks-, combine sale+coupon= $1/box). I used to buy shampoo @$6/bottle when I ran out, now I have 6 bottles I spent $1-3 each on, and they each came with an expensive razor. Knowing SCOP has been a help in my savings, too... I had to start using a spreadsheet to track my coupon/SCOP use, and I see every 3rd month is AMAZING. But I don't really see it as "saving" unless it's something I needed and would have had to pay for (I would never buy Nestea... but it was free... I don't see the $ I didn't spend on 50 cases as "savings"). I buy pasta when it's $1/900g... I got it last week @$.77/900g... I figure my "savings" are $.22/pack (even though the stores reg price is much higher). Try keeping a log of what lowest price you are willing to pay for any item you see on sale often (flour under $7, eye of round roast for $1.97/lb, 10lb beets $1.88, etc), now I have around 10 items that I will only pick up if they are free, and I no longer intend to spend any money on them (doederants, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap) and I will never buy laundry soap again (homemade laundry soap, 1tbsp/wash, less than 3 cents/load in my HE washer) and have even turned down free stuff because it's that good.

[sweetproserpina]

iggysbabysitter- I heart hillbillyhousewife! So many great recipes for making things from scratch- I use her cheesy breadsticks, chocolate sauce, and ketchup recipes all the time. Oh, and the peanut sauce recipe too! Simple and delish. I haven't perused the site lately, must go over and have a look to see what new stuff has been added!

[Autumn7]

I am in a similar situation here (just starting to build a stock pile....), so I am making notes of all the great stockpiling tips too And am definitely no expert in that department... however thanks to couponing over the last year or so I have been very fortunate when it comes to reducing my grocery bill.... I would say at least between 70% to 80% savings on grocerys (and household, personal care, etc). I know I have access to places where you can stack here in the west, so that does make it easier, but honestly a lot of the savings is simply just from matching one HV coupon to a great sale price (plus lots of FPCs). AND mostly importantly... the ONLY way I've been able to do this, and so well at it, is from trading coupons with all the great fellow SC traders on here Even when I just started out last year, and had to trade for stamps, $5 giftcards, etc, to get the coupons I was looking for, I was still saving that much!! Also I've noticed that doing an auction, for say a $20 giftcard seems like a great way to "stock up" on all the coupons you're looking for (incl. FPCs, HV, etc)... although I have not done this yet....I am sure there are plenty of folks happy to offer tips on that too! Good Luck

[Nettie]

Wow, thanks for all the info. And thanks iggsbabysitter, alot of good info.

I am using an armoir in my spare room to house my stockpile of food. I have a plastic multi drawer unit on wheels that I house my hygene products in beside it. As of lately, everything was contained neatly in these two storage units. I now have purchased more items to add to my stockpile. My stockpile is only about half stocked, and I still have more on my list to get when/if it goes on sale. I have run out of room to store it neatly.

This is my spare room where guests would sleep if they come. I would like to have all stockpile out of sight, but I want to do so in a tidy way. Does anyone have any advice? This is the only area I have to keep my stockpile, however I don't want to have to walk buy this room and see overflowing shelves in the open either since it's a bedroom. I really wish I had a pantry closet. That would make everything easier. Oh, and I tried using under-bed storage. Apparently my bedframe sits too low, as the two under bed storage containers do not fit.

Tips? What do you use? I'm thinking about getting some Rubbermaid bins and stacking them, but I'm worried it will seem sloppy. However the closet in this room is super tiny, and it currently has out suitcases, which takes up all the room.

[Nettie]

Deleted, double post.