Hey ladies, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the price of a gallon of milk, fresh produce, and everything else at the grocery store. For those of us who are still trying to pinch a penny, what are you doing to offset the cost (if anything)? I'm just paying more...I don't really know what else to do. Are you noticing the squeeze yet?

The past few weeks I've been making my own price book so I definitely have noticed prices going up. In general I have no idea how much things cost, I just buy what's on the list. My plan with the price book is to see where the best deals are and start really coordinating my shopping. And I've asked my husband to let me do all his shopping this month so I can get some visibility on what he's buying. He usually buys his own lunch and desk food. And we usually just buy toiletries and paper goods when we need them vs when there's a good deal. So hopefully we can start stockpiling some of the basics and know where and when to buy.

I've been making more things from scratch as well. Bread and chocolate syrup are regulars now. I've tried yogurt once. Muffins and pancakes for breakfast instead of cereal. The downside is that we tend to eat more of the homemade because it's so much better than store bought.

And finally, I'm trying to maximize leftovers. I've set up a few containers in my freezer: 1 for bits of veg and mains for soup/hotdish, 1 for juice for gelatin and 1 for fruits for dessert. Whenever one gets full I'm going to make something out of the contents. I also make popsicles out of whatever is handy instead of buying them. I'm on the lookout for another set of molds before summer really sets in.

Milk and fruit are killers at our house.
It's right about $4 a gallon, and we go through a gallon a day. I don't see any way around it, so I don't think about it. There is a grocery store that gives a free gallon for every 9 that you buy, so I usually get our milk there.
However, every time the girls eat an orange, I find myself thinking. "That's 50 cents!!"
They ate $6 in oranges alone in 3 days!!!!
Jenns-great idea about the price book. I have a freakish memory thing for numbers, and I can usually remember what was how much and where, but that would be much easier.
The grocery store that gives the free milk has the cheapest fruit, but it's usually not the best quality, so I don't often buy there.
There are a lot of local orchards, and we have apples coming out of our ears during harvest time, but it's harder the rest of the year.
I also tried bringing my tomato plant inside and having it year round, but it absolutely refused.
We did grow green peppers last year, but they were pretty small, and M (who likes to eat them as though they were apples) said, "Oh look, baby peppers!"

Jenns, I really should do a price book too. I think that I'll be able to remember everything, but then it gets all jumbled after a week or two.

Niki D, my goodness. A gallon a day, that's a LOT. That grocery store is an awesome find!

We have a membership at Costco, and I've been doing some price comparisons. We're getting pretty good deals. I try and buy one thing of fruit and two packages of fresh vegetables a week. I go for whatever is cheapest...but still looks good. We got a 6lb bag of tangerines for 3.50 yesterday, and red bell peppers were 5.99 for six...they are 2.50 each at walmart right now. Happy bargain hunting to all!

Mamajama, a price book is really eye opening. I'm glad I'm finally doing it.

You know, the growing season hasn't really started yet, so you may do better price wise if you buy frozen vegetables. Nutritionally, it's better than what's in the produce section because it's frozen right away. Those peppers may have been a week old by the time they reached Costco. I know Kroger runs regular sales where their frozen veggies are a buck a bag.

Niki D, 12 oranges in 3 days, that's fabulous! I wish we ate that much fruit voluntarily. Right now I'll gladly pay the cut fruit cost for melon and cantaloupe because Pidge loves the stuff. Hubs will usually eat it. I can't stand it, not even the smell, so I'll gladly pay for someone else to cut it up for me. Maybe I need to start keeping our fruit in a bowl on the dining room table instead of hidden away in the kitchen.

Ok, guys, sorry, really stupid question -- what's a price book?

We have found an Audi's store close by that has milk for $2.79 a gallon every day and bread is $0.69 a loaf. Sometimes they have a sale on bread for 10-25 cents a loaf! For generic things like milk, bread, and eggs, I don't mind buying the cheapest I can find. I get several other items there too, like $0.89 boxes of Philsbury cake mix! The same thing (EXACT SAME) was $1.40 a box at Giant Eagle. If you guys have an Audi's by your house, you may want to check it out. I'm not sure if prices vary from store to store, but it saves us a ton. We also go through a gallon of milk every day - day and a half.

What's a price book? Not a stupid question at all. I'd never heard of one either until I started reading a few money saving blogs.

Basically, it's a book of prices of the things you buy the most. Mine has columns for date, store, item, units (usually oz), full price, and price per unit. I put a (S) in the item column for a sale price. I'm tracking all the food we buy regularly plus toiletries and paper goods. I've also got a page for meat protein so I can see what is the cheapest of all the meats I buy. Then I can focus more meals there with the others as a treat.

The Get Rich Slowly blog has a good description with links to other resources and some good comments.


Let me know if you have any more questions.

Bitten has a great discussion going on how to use leftovers.

Jenns, I never thought about that aspect of frozen vegetables before. They're definitely more convenient since they don't rot in your fridge right away.

Marcia, I always forget about Aldi. I'm going to have to check them out more often.

When the boys are home from college we go through 2 gallons of milk a day.

Great topic. Well, because I prefer organic when it comes to milk, buying milk has become a killer. So I am switching out to soy milk a lot, b/c it's a bit cheaper.

Bread is also expensive b/c the only kind I will eat is Pepperidge Farm, so I just realized we are spending $40 a month on bread. Bottom line: I am going to buy a bread machine and make our own. I figure it will be healthier, too, b/c I can avoid the additives that are in supermarket breads, plus I can add more fiber/grains. A couple of my friends are already doing the bread machine thing with great success.

Third, we made a conscious decision to eat more rice. It's so cheap and we all love it. I realized it works out SO much cheaper than bread, pasta or potatoes. Canned beans mixed in make it a wonderful non-meat source of cheap protein and fiber, too.

Agree with Jenns that frozen veggies are a good buy. I also rely on frozen quite often and frozen fruits, too. For example, tiny packs of blueberries are expensive fresh, but frozen in bags are a lot cheaper! I will buy the supermarket brand bags of frozen smoothie mixes - a mixture of blueberries, boysenberries and strawberry chunks - and thaw out a little at a time as I need it.

Another thing we did was cut way back on "good" coffee - the Starbucks whole bean kind that we prefer. Even on sale it's expensive. I convinced my husband - and he VERY grudgingly agreed - to just try the big pre-ground containers of Maxwell House, which is SO much cheaper. Well, it's nowhere near as good, but we are compromising by doing a one part Starbucks-one part cheap pre-ground mixture, which tastes pretty darn good. So that's another way we've saved.

I have gotten much more careful about which fruits and veggies to buy. I am definitely buying less variety when it comes to fresh fruit - more bananas, because they are fabulously inexpensive. But when it comes to other fruits, like peaches, I buy them canned unless they are in season and going cheap.

All this makes me look like a total cheapskate. I'm not at all - we just were getting concerned about rising prices, horrified by how much we were spending on groceries each month, and figured we'd better belt-tighten. It's going to get worse in 08 before it gets better.

I usually don't like frozen fruits because strawberries in particular turn out sort of mushy, but Diane is right, frozen blueberries are great and waaaaaay cheaper than fresh.
We are very lucky that the girls like fruit so much. They always have.
Milk too, it's our favorite drink.
Our town has a great farmer's market, but I've rarely go because I'm always at work, I plan to make more of an effort to go weekly, they always have tomatoes, peppers and corn coming out of their ears. It's usually much cheaper than the store.

My best strategies are box store, clip coupons, print coupons, purchase frozen over fresh, visit the local farmers market for the 'have to have fresh', cook in large portions to freeze additional meals, bake my own bread, creative leftovers, eat smaller portions and bulk purchases when the proce is right.

Diane,

I love your ideas. Thanks for sharing. We are a household that has never really been concerned with grocery prices. Now that we have daycare to pay for, all bets are off. I find myself pinching every penny. It's nice to get some new ideas on how to strecth a buck. Thanks.

Last night we discussed having a vegie & fruit garden with the kids. They love the idea as much as we do. We are fortunate enough to have the space for a large garden so we are looking at apple trees, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, pumkins, tomatos, sweet corn and many more. We are going to start with just a couple of plants per item and see how it goes ~ we can expand next year if it works out for our schedules. I know that you can grow strawberries in containers so for those who do not have the space perhaps a container garden can help with those fresh fruit & vegies. Have a great day everyone!

Yes, I've noticed prices going up on everything also. We are a family of 6 and our food bill is ordinarily about $600-$700/mth. I cook all meals and our children take lunch to school. Milk is about $4/gal & bread has gone to $2/loaf. We go to Sams Club for large ticket items like meat, toilet paper, soap, water, bread, chips, eggs, etc..

I usually shop at WalMart Super Ctr for other menial day-to-day items and have found the prices creeping up on all things including Rx. Alot of people I hear in the aisle's are saying they shop at ShopRite for better prices on some things like produce. I may have to follow their lead since I've increased the amount of fresh fruits and vegs my famiiy eats. WalMart's 6lb bag of oranges are only $3.50. The assorted fruit has gone up though to $5.00/bag.

Since my husband is a meat and potatoes guy I prefer to buy meat at Sams since their meats are fresher, leaner and better priced per/lb.

I've been going to my recipe books more and making diff't variations of cheap dishes like chili, spaghetti, meatloaf, sausage & peppers, and using more rice, and bulk pasta that you can buy cheaply at Sams. I started buying the big cans of crushed tomatoes and bulk pasta at Sams to save money to make large pot dinners that we can eat for a few nights.

I stay away from the expensive steaks (which my husband loves) and only buy chuck sirloin which is a tender, cheaper version of top sirloin. I make pepper steak with it and he loves it. I also buy pork tenderloin which stays around $1-$2/lb in Sams and you get about 11 thick, lean steak cuts that I cut in half which makes for about 2-3 meals.

We try to cut back on eating out since it's always expensive for a family of 6. We ordinarily always stayed to Pizza, Friendly's or the Buffet (lol) so the kids could eat for discounted prices. Well that's been scaled back too.

Gotta do whatcha' gotta do to make the dollars stretch! If anyone has any great recipe ideas please post. I'm going to try making my own bread too and making more homemade muffins, cornbread, and pancakes.

wow you guys are so good - i so need to save and cut back, but how do you possibly have TIME to do a price book and coupons and all that? How much time do you think it takes? just curious!

sometimes i think maybe i do have time but get overwhelmed at the IDEA that it takes more time!

i am all for frozen veggies/fruit and pastas! i am trying to do more with beans and incorporate them since they are a very inexpensive protien (compared with meat - real or fake!) and well i just like them

are there specific categories of foods that tend to just be less expensive in general?

How long does keeping a price book take? I'm still figuring that one out. There's a recent article somewhere out there about someone who does it all in about an hour a week. (Sorry, my brain is a bit fried right now. If I run across it, I'll share.) My time investment could be somewhere around that now. It fits very nicely into little bits of time here and there. And the project is nice and portable so I can work on it while Pidge is at OT or dance or wherever. On Sundays I set aside the sale circulars and coupons from the paper. I look through the circulars for what's on sale that week. Although, sometimes I don't get to it until Saturday, in which case I'll just record the info for next time. When I shop, I bring I bring a spare peice of paper (I find that's easier than bringing the whole book) and take notes on whatever i run across. I also save the receipts so I can transfer that information over when I have some spare minutes.

All in all it's not nearly as gruesome as I thought it would be.

I find taking an hour during the week to clip coupons via the internet & paper flyers works well - typically after I have completed a meal plan & gathered my 'list' for the store. Once I have the 'list' I know what coupons to look for. I do not keep a price book, just try to stick to the list so I don't over buy or stray.

I also go to big box stores, clip coupons and avoid convenience foods (though I'm not very good at that last one!)

Blarney I like your idea of clipping coupons for the list that you've made rather than the other way around. Because like Kate said it's just about impossible to find the time to do a price book....and I've pretty much given up on the idea of coupons because it was taking way too much of my time and not saving me much money.

I've recently dramatically increased my coupon usage just by carrying my coupon book everywhere. My brilliance is stunning, I know. I don't clip many so I bought one of those little photo albums at Target. I think it cost 2 bucks, it's very thin and I can fit most coupons 2 to a page. Everyone now knows where the book is, I've got a pretty good idea of what's in there, and I always have it.

Now I've got to work on getting the price book portable. Currently it's loose pages just clipped together. I made the mistake of creating the pages first and now I've got to find the binder to fit instead of the other way around. And it does seem silly to buy a $6 address book just for the binder. So I'm mostly updating the data I already have vs collecting prices on new stuff.

But a price book really isn't that much of a time investment. If you save receipts for the week and then sit down and put it together during your tv time, it won't seem like such a chore. Or start with 10 things you want to look at prices for and then add as you get those mastered.