I recently shared an article on my Facebook page about some celebrities who were doing the Food Stamp Challenge. In this article it talked about how each member of the family would be allotted $31 per week. Right now we have 4 people living here full time and 1 that comes every other weekend and 3 more who eat here occasionally. So for my full time family members we would be allotted $124 a week to spend on groceries. This is more then I spend on average anyway. After I shared this article on Facebook, there were several comments about how I could do this and what we are eating. There were also several comments from people who thought they could probably do it if they had too. This got me to thinking about what it is I/we do to save money on groceries and keep our food bill low.
1. I plan our meals and we cook at home often.
2. I shop sales and try to buy ahead as much as I can.
3. We have a deep freeze that we use to put said purchases from # 2 in.
4. My husband makes our own spaghetti sauce.
5. We rarely buy frozen pizzas. My husband makes our own pizza dough and pizza sauce.
6. I never buy frozen dinners such as lasagna. I always make ours and sometimes double up and put one in the freezer.
7. We cook with dried beans and I make a big batch and freeze what ever we will not be using that day for later use.
8. I shop more then one store and always check sale flyer's. If I don't get a certain stores sale flyer in the mail or newspaper then I check it online
9. We use cloth napkins
10. We use rags for cleaning and rarely buy paper towels but do have some in the house.
11. I make most of our cleaning products.
12. I make my own laundry soap
13. I make my own "dryer sheets"
14. I play the "drug store game" and use coupons for most of our personal care items.
15. We use real plates, glasses and silverware to eat with. The only time I buy disposable is if we are having a party.
16. When we do have parties we try to make them potlucks. Which every one seems to enjoy.
17. I do buy the occasional 24 pack of soda but for the most part we drink water, tea, lemonade or milk
18. We have meatless meals at least every other week
19. I rarely buy cereal. If I do it is usually a treat.
20. I rarely buy soup in a can. I make homemade soups all winter long using alot of our leftovers and then freeze them into individual portions for my husband to take to work.
I am sure that I could list more things we do but this is good for now. One of these days I will have to do a list of everything we now make homemade instead of purchasing. I believe alot of us frugal bloggers do many of the same things I have listed here but perhaps this will help someone who is not yet jumped on the frugal band wagon :)
I am linking this post up to here :)
