See the details of my $200 a month grocery shopping trips and learn the things that I do to save and live well on a low budget with my family of five!
There are affiliate links in this post – please read my full disclosure policy.
Some of you have wondered where I get my printable coupons. Here are the main coupon sites that I use: Coupons.com, Ibotta, and Fetch Rewards. Manufacturer websites and Facebook pages are also great sources.
If you are new here and unfamiliar with my weekly What I Spent & Saved posts, it probably is helpful to understand a bit about how I shop. I do something called stockpile shopping. This simply means that when I see an item at rock bottom prices that I regularly use or know that I can use, I’ll buy several of it. This might seem kind of crazy, but it honestly saves me hundreds of dollars a year! Simply put, by buying 6 bags of frozen veggies when I can get them for $0.50/bag with a coupon and sale instead of paying the full price of $1.50, I save $6.00. This savings adds up pretty quickly! Want to know more about this kind of shopping?
I also buy meats and veggies in bulk. The meat I either can or freeze and then obviously have it on hand whenever I need it. I buy large quantities of fruits and veggies when they are in season and I can get them at really great prices. By canning or freezing them, I save a lot and we are able to enjoy great produce for less cost all year long. I do still buy some fresh fruits and veggies too. In fact, every 7 to 10 days I go to our local farmer’s market and get several heads of lettuce so that we can enjoy salads at least 4 times a week.
I hope that helps you make sense of some of this. I realize at first glance it can look like we eat rather strangely but I think we really eat quite well! Of course, if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments! I’ll be more than happy to try to answer them.
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It was another week where I skipped deal shopping because the deals weren’t that amazing. I also had a number of other things going on that made the week feel rather full and so that helped make the decision of whether it was worth doing the few not-so-great deals pretty easy!
Total Spent: $164.79
Total Saved with Sales: $4.74
Total Saved: $4.74
Aldi: $24.11
Saved with Sales: $4.74
I needed brown sugar, eggs and carrots, so I stopped by Aldi and was amazed to discover they had their hot dog and hamburger rolls marked down to $0.10! At first, I thought they must be expiring that day but soon realized that they had about 4 days till their expiration date, so I have no clue why they were marked so low. But I decided to buy several bags to freeze and pull out whenever I need them. Truth is, I rarely buy hot dog and hamburger rolls because we prefer whole wheat rolls. Since I rarely get them made and they are typically so expensive to buy, the occasional times that we eat hot dogs and hamburgers, we often end up just using my regular whole wheat bread. But when we have guests I like to use real rolls, so these will be perfect for those times.
And of course, when I’m at Aldi, I almost always end up thinking of other things that I’ll be needing soon too as you can see here.
BOUGHT:
- napkins $1.49
- Basmati rice $2.99
- mayo $1.89
- 4 Great Northern beans $0.59 each
- carrots $0.99
- Ranch dressing $1.29
- 4 brown sugar $1.19 each
- 2 black beans $0.59 each
- 2 corn chips $0.89
- Kettle chips $1.79
- 2 eggs $1.45 each
- 4 hamburger buns $0.10 each
- 2 hot dog buns $0.10 each
Sharp Shopper: $12.88
I was driving right by this local discount grocery store and decided to stop and see if I could find any deals on meat and cheese. I didn’t find any cheese but I did pretty well on meat! I was especially excited to find “healthy” lunch meat for just $2.00/lb. It has no nitrates or preservatives and the meat is from animals who were never given any antibiotics or hormones. I decided to really stock up on it since I don’t often find that kind of lunch meat for a good price and also because I think we’ll be eating more sandwiches for lunches this summer. Lunchmeat freezes really well which is quite handy!
The bacon was a really good price too and while we don’t eat much bacon around here because it is often so expensive, we all love it. But then, I guess it’s a rare person who doesn’t have a thing for bacon!
BOUGHT:
- bacon $1.99
- 11 lunch meat 8 oz. $0.99 each
CENTERVILLE BULK FOOD: $13.02
BOUGHT:
- Muenster cheese $2.19/lb. $4.34 total
- red potatoes $0.60/lb.
- apples $0.69/lb.
Misc.: $114.78
- $4.78
My mom-in-law and sisters-in-law helped me do about 95 lbs. of strawberries to put in the freezer. I like to lightly sweeten them before I freeze them, but totally forgot to take sugar with me! (We were doing the berries at my in-law’s house.) Thankfully, my dad-in-law was out doing some running and was able to stop and buy us some. It was a bit pricier than what I typically pay, but not incredibly much and there wasn’t much I could do at that point anyway! 🙂 (I can often get it with coupons for $1.50, sometimes even less.) - $110.00
I bought 110 lb. of fresh strawberries from a local strawberry farm for $1.00.lb. Yes, I know that is a lot of strawberries. 🙂 My husband’s family eats cake and other similar desserts with crushed strawberries on top. And while my man can eat those things when they aren’t topped with strawberries, he really prefers them the way he grew up eating them and our children love their cake with strawberries too. I still haven’t fallen in love with the combo, but enjoy the crushed berries in smoothies and I also make a frozen fruit mix of strawberries, peaches and blueberries that we all think is delicious. And of course, we enjoyed a bunch of these fresh by themselves and in strawberry pie and over shortcake. Mmmm! I never could do this without the help of someone else, because it is a lot of work! My mom-in-law typically helps me each year along with some of my husband’s siblings that still live at home. It still is a lot of work (we need to pick the berries too), but it makes it so much easier and is way more fun too! 🙂 Oh and this year it was fun because they helped me one day and then I helped them yesterday when they did strawberries for themselves. I’m so grateful for family that can help each other like that!
Katy
Love your site! I do this, but we have a rationing problem, ie it doesn’t really last all year. A friend tipped me off to the owner of a CSA who was going on vacation and said I could pick as many strawberries as were ripe and I wanted. I probably got 50 lbs. I made jam and we just ate the rest, pretty much every night with dinner, and every morning on yogurt. The jam was gone by September 🙁 I have the same problem with pickles being eaten up by November…
Off topic, but do you have experience freezing eggs? Our area Walgreens has a 1.29 sale on eggs and I’ve heard you can freeze them in ice cubes to use for scrambling.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Oh, that is awesome that you were able to pick as much as you wanted! We always eat a lot of fresh strawberries when they are available too. I figure we only get to enjoy them that way once a year so we’ll do it right when we can! 🙂
I tend to do the opposite when it comes to rationing. I hate running out of things and so go to the other extreme and will get down to the last couple jars/boxes and just not eat them. Drives my husband crazy! I’m trying to get better about it and make myself go ahead and eat them and just be out, but for some reason it’s strangely hard for me.
No, I have never frozen eggs, although I recently read about someone who did it. I’ve been thinking I might try it next time I can get eggs inexpensively. If you try it, let me know how it works for you!
Kristia @ Family Balance Sheet
holy moly, $1 a pound! That price might be worth the drive. Although I think I paid about $1.66/lb at my upick patch. Were you sick of strawberries when you were done processing 100 pounds?
ThriftyFrugalMom
Well, till you paid for the gas, it probably would come to about $1.66/lb. right? 🙂 And I wasn’t too sick of strawberries when we were done, but that was probably because I was doing them with my mom-in-law and sisters-in-law so it was kind of fun. Had I been doing them all by myself? Well, pretty sure that would have been another story! 😉
Will
Great post! You’re killin’ it! I can’t get over 110 pounds of strawberries. I’m surprised they didn’t sell you them by the bushel haha.
ThriftyFrugalMom
I know, right? 🙂 In actuality, we will probably have some left over by the time strawberry season rolls around next year. But since it worked out so nicely to get them that cheap and to have help with them this year, I decided to go big or go home.
Lauren
What strawberry farm did you visit?
ThriftyFrugalMom
It’s an Amish farm over towards Honey Brook. If you would like, I can get the phone number from my mother-in-law. Their price is $1.25/lb if you get less than 25 lbs., which is still a great price! They also sell already picked berries, although I have no idea what they charge for them.
Lauren
I would love the phone number! I just told my husband that I would love to get into canning. It seems very time consuming but worth it. I just hope I don’t bite off more than I can chew! I have to still look into the whole canning process, because I’m not fully sure where to start.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Lauren, I sent you an email with more details. 🙂
Monica
I was like, the sales weren’t that great but she spent $165?! What is going on over there? The berries explains it all. Frankly, any berries you don’t have to pick yourself are a bargain, but that really was a great price. Enjoy them!
ThriftyFrugalMom
I know, Monica, I kind of felt shocked when I typed those numbers in and there was nothing to put under “Saved with Coupons” and basically nothing under “Saved with Sales”. Let’s just say that I’m glad every week isn’t like this week as far as the amount I spend! 🙂
I should clarify that we did have to pick the berries, or rather my mom-in-law and sisters-in-law picked them. I was going to join them but long story short, due to rainy weather, it ended up being smarter for me to just go straight to their house and get working at the berries.