# Cheap grocery scheme



## Ponderling

No, these ideas are not for everyone. They works well for us, though, and have in one variation or other for many years. 

The first one is a killer turn off for many - we buy and mix up and drink only powdered sklm milk. 
If you mix it up and let it stand for at least a day in the fridge it is ok. Mixed from reverse osmosis water helps too.
No , not the same taste as fresh milk, but it works. Drank just after mixing it is just plain gross. 
We got onto this many years ago when we discovered that a 'come home late and drink all of the milk' housemate would not drink our powdered milk that we had left after mixing it in desperation one day for breakfast cereal use. Until that point we used powdered only in the bread machine.

The second key frugal point is to use an automated bread maker regularly. Our makes all of our bread. No need for milk or bread from the store mid-week, so no impulse purchases. Nicer fresher multi grain bread possible with this thing than we can afford to buy in any store. Actally we are on the third one in 20 years. We pre-buy replacements at garage sales. They are not made to be used over the long term 2-3 times a week. If store bought bread is on sale, we occasionally buy it to make freech toast as a treat weekend breakfast.

Third frugal tool is to plan meals a week in advance, looking at other events to tie things together. 
So, for example Monday and Thursdays in all but the summer we get home from work around 5:30 and need to be out again to Cubs ans Scouts by 6:15pm.
So that meal has to either be microwaved left overs, or cooking and ready in the crock pot. Yes crock pot. It is not just a 70's wonder machine. It is still relevant today.

Once meal nights we can cook on and meals needing left overs are known we plot what we have in the house to fill out meals to be cooked for the week.
Freezer, fridge and pantry are looked over towards what one of the two dozen or so standard meal variations we cook around needs in the way of missing ingredients.

Then scan the grocery fliers and go to the place with the most useful deals combined with the best everyday prices, if possible.
Second place for deals if worth it. I do not drive all over town for every last flier deal. 
If a deal is found for what you normally use, stock up. Last week Sobeys, not my normal go to store's deal was boneless skinless chicken breast for $8.80/kg. I went in and spent $60 on that alone. Boneless chicken on the meat content basis is worth bone in chicken almost always at at least two times the price per kg. 

Do not be afraid of reduced price short dated meat if the cut is one you would normally buy, or it brings a premium product to a price comparable to what you would normally buy.
Cook it in the next day or so as a substitute to the planned meal meat, or freeze the meat right away and cook from frozen quickly later on.

Plan fresh produce consumption throughout the week intelligently. Sprouts, etc eat early on. Hardier fare like carrots and apples, etc will last to the end of the week.

Make big batches with an intention of putting some of it up for use later. Do this when ingredients are fresh and in season. The are often cheaper then as well.
Either freeze it , or as we do, can it in jars. We store our canning efforts in our basement cold room. 

Big batch cooking takes much less time than many smaller batches. For instance I make a meat tomato spices and veg pasta sauce I used to make it 6l at a time.
Then an estate sale brought a 14l pot my way for the right price, and now it is made in 12l batches.
The usually is enough that I make a big batch at the end of the summer from fresh market tomatoes, and a smaller batch in the spring when we run low, using canned tomatoes stored up from when thy wento on sale and they were stockpiled.

Lunches for the week are assembled all at once, usually on Sunday morning, and stored in one of the crisper drawers of the fridge.
This means perhaps one hour's effort, but that guarantees that every one can brown bag it every day of the week, with no excuse that there was not time to make a lunch up on one morning or other. 

I am open to any commentary on this. 

A lot of these ideas sprang out of a read over 20 years ago of "The Tighwad Gazette". It is a good, if dated, read even today. Amusing to see how people swapped info before the web is one observation, but many good ideas still. 

I know not all of these ideas are main stream, but combined, they feed our family of 4 ( two middle aged adults and two pre teen boys) for about $5000 a year.
Another about $1200 a year is spent dining away from home, usually mostly while we are on vacation.


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## Addy

We spend too much on groceries. We shop at least once a month at Costco, which is a grocery budget killer machine. My goal is to ween ourselves off Costco and stick to scanning the flyers and making meals for that week out of what is on sale or on clearance; I too buy marked down meat and either use it asap or freezer it for later use as well as marked down veggies (some stores are much better than others, one local store only marks down produce once it's moldy. Gross. Most stores mark down veggies as soon as they get a new batch in, and most of them are still very useable. I also freeze marked down veggies such as bell peppers (I wash them and cut them up for later use in casseroles, stir fries and omlettes/frittatas).


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## none

Ponderling said:


> No, these ideas are not for everyone. They works well for us, though, and have in one variation or other for many years.
> 
> Do not be afraid of reduced price short dated meat if the cut is one you would normally buy, or it brings a premium product to a price comparable to what you would normally buy.
> Cook it in the next day or so as a substitute to the planned meal meat, or freeze the meat right away and cook from frozen quickly later on.


Don't be afraid? GO FOR IT! Those last day of sale steaks are actually the best ones in the grocery store. Aging meat is a lost art.

Take a look at this: At the top are some wet/dry aged steaks 2 MONTHS past their due date. The lower is a fresh one. The aged ones were much much better and would retail for about $60 each.


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## andrewf

Aging meat has to be done dry, not in plastic wrapped containers. Dry aging beef is something that has to be done carefully.


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## none

That's not correct. There is a difference between wet aging and dry again. The steaks on the upper left are wet aged for 35 days (14 pound rib-eye from costco in cryvac) and then 32 days uncovered just sitting in the fridge.

The temperature in the fridge was 2oC - nothing really grows at that temp and once the meat is uncovered the outside is also dry enough that nothing grows. 

The nose knows.

Check this out: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/04/dry-vs-wet-a-butchers-guide-to-aging-meat/38505/

Here is the whole thing prior to hacking:


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## financialnoob

Does baking bread actually save money? I always thought of it as a great thing to do for fresh bread flavour, but not necessarily as a cost-saving measure.

As for dry-aging, this is an interesting article on the subject of home aging. This guy is a total food science nerd and earlier wrote an article about how it wouldn't be possible to dry age at home, but he's since changed his mind with further testing. However, wet aging seems to have very limited results and doesn't change much after the first week or so.

The Food Lab's Complete Guide to Dry-Aging Beef at Home

As for savings, the easiest way to save some cash if you're not doing it already is plan meals around the flyer sale items each week. If you're not picky, you can easily save 20 to 50% off the cost of meat. Boneless skinless chicken breasts often sell for $7 to $9/lb, but appear on sale for $4/lb regularly. Even better, if you live near some ethnic neighbourhoods, check out their grocery stores. For example, the PAT in Koreatown at Christie and Bloor has boneless skinless chicken breasts for $4/lb all the time, the same price as the sale price for most big grocery chains.


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## none

Yeah, his first off it was obvious he didn't know what he was doing. He spouts science but (being in the sciences myself) a fun saying I have is: "hundreds of hours of field work will save you hours in the library".

it would have benefited the guy to actually do some research. A literature review is always a precursor to doing good science.

Anyway, it works and it's pretty good and unique. Also, salt cod, pancetta, bacon, pastrami, all super cheap (and extra good) to make yourself at home.


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## Spudd

financialnoob said:


> Does baking bread actually save money? I always thought of it as a great thing to do for fresh bread flavour, but not necessarily as a cost-saving measure.


My husband got really into it and calculated the cost per loaf. His homemade bread is about $1 per loaf (I want to say 75 cents but I don't recall exactly so let's round up). Store-bought bread is a minimum of $2/loaf nowadays. So yeah, it does save money as long as you don't include the value of your time. He enjoys it, so it's worth it to him (he also prefers his own bread over store bread).


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## financialnoob

none said:


> Yeah, his first off it was obvious he didn't know what he was doing. He spouts science but (being in the sciences myself) a fun saying I have is: "hundreds of hours of field work will save you hours in the library".
> 
> it would have benefited the guy to actually do some research. A literature review is always a precursor to doing good science.
> 
> Anyway, it works and it's pretty good and unique. Also, salt cod, pancetta, bacon, pastrami, all super cheap (and extra good) to make yourself at home.


The science makes sense and the guy isn't disputing dry aging. He's also not disputing wet aging has a different taste or texture, just that it's not as wide-ranging as dry-aging, which is consistent with what most "experts" say anyways. 

He's also done some really good testing to debunk common myths about steaks needing to be salted right before grilling or not tossing frequently or not using forks to puncture the meat. 

Spudd: Does that factor in the cost of hardware/energy as well? Just curious. I guess because we don't have kids and don't eat a ton, we go through a loaf maybe every two weeks, not sure about the cost implications but I love the idea of fresh bread though! :encouragement:

One other thing on the grocery store front: it seems good cheese is significantly more expensive than at cheese shops. While the bricks of Cracker Barrel or Black Diamond cheddar are on sale a lot, for fresh cheese, cheese shops are usually a lot cheaper. Global in Kensington has saved me a lot of money over the years.


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## Ponderling

Spudd said:


> My husband got really into it and calculated the cost per loaf. His homemade bread is about $1 per loaf (I want to say 75 cents but I don't recall exactly so let's round up). Store-bought bread is a minimum of $2/loaf nowadays. So yeah, it does save money as long as you don't include the value of your time. He enjoys it, so it's worth it to him (he also prefers his own bread over store bread).


Well, I carefully buy discounted bread machine yeast when I find it on sale. 

I also lucked out an an auction. A bin of 5- 50lb laminated kraft paper and plastic industrial sized food packs. No labels visible- one smelled like cheese to me so I bid. $2 won it.

So I ended up with 100 lbs of dry makes scalloped potatoes powder mix. We now use it in with eggs and all sorts of cooking thing.

The other 150lbs were biscuit mix. Like bisquick without the rising agent. Just add yeast for biscuit, or add in 1.5cups per 4 cup loaf of bread from the bread machine, cut the sugar and oil a bit and away you go saving on the cost of flour. .


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## cash

OP, what kind of meals are you making? How many cals a day are being consumed? Do you ever make stuff like bread yourself? Grow fruit or veg?


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## Spudd

Financialnoob - The cost is just for ingredients, no hardware or energy costs. Energy would be too hard to calculate, plus it's probably extremely minimal. And the hardware was free. We got the bread machine as a hand-me-down from my parents (they weren't using it anymore).


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## Ponderling

Usually our meals are a combo of something from fresh ingredients on the weekend from grocery store buys, and mid week something canned in a jar pulled from the cold celler or package from the freezer prepared in advance. 

Don't have the time to make bread myself by hand; Biscuits on the weekend once in a while, with an hour of rising then bake 20 min or so.

Quick breads for lunches or mid morning snack at work/school during the week - raisin bran muffins, corn meal muffins, applesauce spice loafs, etc. All staples from the good old reliable Five Roses Flour cook book. Google it - once a huge following in this country. 

Fresh veg in season or trucked in most of the time.

We grow our own green beans, cuckes, leaf lettuce and slicing tomates and a few herbs in the variation of a square foot garden in the back yard. Last summer's crop was poor though - too dry, and we were away mid summer for 2 weeks and thing suffered. Have black berry canes sprouting along the fence, that get picked in the early summer to be stored and ultimately turned into a tasty jelly.

Usually pick strawberries. 
Have a mature apple tree, that I leave alone mostly, and just pick up drops. 
Store drops until enough to fill a pot and then simmer and wind though the tomato mill to make apple sauce which we can, or dry in dehydrator to make fruit roll ups. made about 20L of apple sauce that was canned which is a few years worth noew that kids are bigger, an the same agian that made a few months worth of school and summer day camp lunches. The roll up store very compactly cut into sectors in the frieezer.

Swap the apple sauce and fruit roll ups with others at the office who have pear, plum and cherry trees that bear lots of surplus fruit. Buy blueberries and peaches at the market.
A lot of the fruit gets canned in an extra light syrup and put up, to be pulled later in the fall winter and spring to be stirred into plain yohgurt for breakfasts and lunches. 

Buy corn in season, and usually can about 5 dozen cobs worth - cut the corn from the cobs, and presure cook them. Very tasty treat veg in mid winter, remebering the summer fresh corn on the cob.

Buy roma tomatoes in season, a couple of bushels worth , blanch and wind though a hand cranked tomato mill, and then lightly reduce it and store into 1L jars and can them. Make about 30-45l at a shot over a 2-3 day effort. Usaully lasts us almost 2 years.

Make a pasta sauce with a mix of ground bef and TVP, and can it, less the tomato sauce. Uses up a lot of slicing tomatoes when there is a surplus in the fall, or from canned tomatoes, usually twice a year. Cans for a long time due to the meat, so the lightly processed tomatoe sauce paired later brings the fresh taste back to the pairing.

Make a chili with ground beef anf TVP. Start with dry kidney beans bought cheap and pressure cook say on Thursday night, then get the chill cooking on Sat am. Makes usually 7 1l jars canned,and a few litres eaten stored fesh in the fridge. 

Make own baked beans in tomato and brown sugar, and a pound of bacon bought on sale and diced in. Yes beans with real bacon. Usually again 7-1L jars put up and a few litres eaten fresh stored in the fridge from a making.

Make own thick veg stew, mix of presaoked pot or pearl barley, and lentil,s, sauteed sliced onion, spices, and whatever diced veg needs to be consumed from the fridge, or a bag of frozen veg. Again, makes batches of 7-1l in the canner at a time - typically make 21 or so jars in a weekend session that lasts a few years or more.

Make a lot of our own relishes, chutneys and salsa when the tomatoes, onions a sweet peppers are fresh. A bushel of green pepper cost less in th late market season than two do in the winter, it seems. Some years will dice and freeze green peppers, then pull from the zip lock in the frezer as recipes need them. 

Cook home made burger with onoins, relishes, and spices mixed in when the summer grilling season is upon us.


Likely eat about 2500 or so calories in a day. The usual dinner meat rule is that it should be smaller that a deck of cards per person. 

Currently we are redoing a Curves diet we did last year that is well under 2500 a day to prune back a bit from Christmas overeating at social events. 

Our 14sf fridge is a little stuffed with fresh stuff as a result, so it is a bit search and destroy to find stuff early in the week in there if you were not the one that put the grocery shopping away.


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## blueeyetea

Some of the tips that Ponderling relates to is what I like to call “pantry” cooking. In the long run, this system of grocery shopping is much, much cheaper because you buy most of your groceries on sale. It also has the advantage that you’re never stuck without anything to eat in the house, which cuts down considerably on impulse dining out. I’ve taken Ponderling’s thought and organized them in the steps you’d proceed. 

Building your pantry:
1. Make a list of popular meals and favourite recipes at your house and start watching for sales on these ingredients. 

2. Stockpile ingredients when they come on sale. This is where you start watching the weekly flyers and you buy multiple meals worth of ingredients. Ideally, you’d buy enough to last you until the next sale (more detail in item #3). A favourite dish needs 1 pound of chicken breasts, and they come on sale at $2.99 a pound, you buy 10 pounds worth and store in your freezer in packages of one pound. 

Just to illustrate the savings, chicken breasts can be on sale for $2.99 (usually a loss leader), but they go up in price all the way to $7.99 depending on the week. Wouldn’t you rather save that extra $5 for something else?

Meat, pasta, dried beans, canned goods, frozen fruits and vegetables, dairy and condiments all come on sale at regular intervals. That’s when you want to buy them to keep foods costs low.

3. Keep a price book. Sales run in cycles, so if you keep track of prices and the sales, you’ll eventually be able to predict that canned tomatoes come on sale every 2 months, so you buy two months worth. The aim is to keep stockpile just enough until the next sale. 

4. Be mindful of seasons. If you like beef stew, don’t buy a year’s worth of stew meat unless you like cooking and eating beef stew in the summer. Our tastes change with the seasons, and so do the sales. Holidays like Christmas and Easter bring on their own sales. 

Meal planning from the pantry:

1. Plan the meals you’ll be cooking by what you already have in your pantry, i.e. freezer, refrigerator, cupboard, and in the summer, what’s in your garden. For example, you have chicken breasts in the freezer, then Chicken Cordon Bleu will be part of your meal plan. 

2. Build your grocery list by adding ingredients you’ll need to finish your meals along with the perishables you can’t stock up on, like fruits and vegetables. Add slices of ham and swiss cheese to your grocery list because you don’t have them on hand to finish the Chicken Cordon Bleu you decided on in the previous step. 

3. Shopping for perishables: as much as you can, buy fruits and vegetables when they’re on sale and in season. Having said that, for vegetables especially, paying full price isn’t near as expensive as if you were buying meat. 

4. This is another component that could become part of your “pantry” cooking. The only difference is this method also has the added benefit of investing your time up front to do all the cooking at once, which frees up time at meal time. When you make your weekly plan, instead of thinking in terms of what ingredients you have on hand, it turns out you’ll have meals instead.


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## blueeyetea

Ponderling said:


> Lunches for the week are assembled all at once, usually on Sunday morning, and stored in one of the crisper drawers of the fridge.
> This means perhaps one hour's effort, but that guarantees that every one can brown bag it every day of the week, with no excuse that there was not time to make a lunch up on one morning or other.


If you like to eat sandwiches, you can also assemble the sandwiches (minus mayonnaise) at once and place them in the freezer. Every morning, you pull one out and add to your lunch. By lunchtime, it will be defrosted and taste as fresh as if you made it that morning.


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## andrewf

No soggyness issues?


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## blin10

no offense but after reading this thread I feel like I'm on a homeless forum... making your own bread for $1 instead of buying it for $2? are you kidding me? too much time on your hands lol


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## none

blin10 said:


> too much time on your hands lol


...says the guy surfing an internet forum...


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## MoneyGal

I have this amazing scheme for reducing my grocery bill down by up to 30% from the average spending for a household of my size: _I don't waste food_. 

I have zero interest in drinking powdered milk (or milk of any kind), buying in bulk and freezing, or making my own bread. (But to each their own, I've certainly gone through phases of making my own yogourt and bread and I've read every edition of The Tightwad Gazette and still regularly refer to some of her concepts in my own thinking about money.) 

Here's a great article on "food clutter" that flew by in my Facebook feed this week: http://www.365lessthings.com/cindys...ampaign=Feed:+365LessThings+(365+Less+Things)


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## RBull

^Bingo. We do the same as far as no food wastage. I can't recall the last time we had to throw anything out. Buying fresh, eating left overs, and buying what you like/and is healthy in proper volume is key.


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## Itchy54

When I was young my parents used to mix whole milk with powdered milk--TERRIBLE MEMORY.
I rarely buy or drink milk. Water is good.....as I am allergic to wheat and gluten I just don't do cereal, so who needs milk.
Using everything you buy is the best...good point MGal. I never throw anything away. 
I watch for sales, stock up when required and buy all my meat from the local university--they have a great meat cutting course and have a store open once a week...all local, hormone free and the prices are good.
My food is veggies and meat....very few grains (so many grains make me sick).....nuts, nut butters and coconut oil...

Thanks everyone for posting your ideas.


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## Jungle

Impressive. Last year we spent $2400 on grocery, two people. I do all the things listed above too.


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## Spudd

Wow, Jungle, that's amazing. I thought we were pretty frugal in the grocery department and we spent $4000 last year.


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## lonewolf

I dont have a cell phone & not up to date with alot of modern technology but I have heard there is a free app where the phone is used to scan the sticker on a product & it will tell you where that product is cheaper in your area. Might come in hand comparison shopping for groceries.

Cereals are expensive & often not healthy cooking oats is a lot cheaper & most of the time healthier.
Whole grain brown rice is about the best bang for the buck for reducing the food bill while keeping it healthy.


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## johnvan

+1 for not wasting food. My wife and I have really changed our habits in the past few months. Meal planning and using everything with planned "leftover meals" has really made a huge difference.

Another big help for us was a new rule "no mid-week grocery store stops" We found we were often stopping to grab something we had run out of in the middle of the week, stopping for milk would often cost $30-$50 with a bunch of extras we would inevitably throw in. Then at the end of the week we would throw away a ton of stuff.

Now we plan our week out perfectly, one grocery day, no wastage and no mid week stops.


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## randomthoughts

I shop the flyers, and will pay for quality... that keeps my food bill down to about $200/month - which is kind of a lot for one person but includes all the personal care items that I buy in the grocery - and a fair amount of steak (a couple times a week - Costco) and lobster (when it goes for $8/lb or less).

I'm lucky in that all the stores, including Costco, are within a 5 minute radius of my house. I'll pricematch for one or two items, just to save some time.

I'm not sure about boneless... it has to be a really good sale. Superstore has skinless chicken breasts on sale this week for $2/lb. a) meat cooked on the bone tastes better b) it's 5 seconds of work to debone a breast if desired, in which case c) the bones can be used for soup - saving me a couple of bucks for a box of chicken stock. (Frugality note: I used to try to save cooked chicken bones in the freezer when I was really frugal, strictly for personal stock, but it's too much hassle.)

Thighs, I would consider - there's a higher bone to meat ratio and it's a pain to debone due to the mix of muscles. I kind of like skin and thigh meat, too. But $2/lb for skinless was too good to pass up and made great sandwiches.


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## HaroldCrump

Ponderling said:


> The first one is a killer turn off for many - we buy and mix up and drink only powdered sklm milk.


Powdered skim milk is one of the worst, additive laden, chemical laden things you can eat/drink.
It is better to skip milk completely rather than consume a Franken-food like powdered milk.
I don't think you will miss out on any nutrients if you stopped eating this stuff.


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## blueeyetea

andrewf said:


> No soggyness issues?


Not at all, as long as you don't pack your sandwiches with lettuce or tomatoes.


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## blueeyetea

HaroldCrump said:


> Powdered skim milk is one of the worst, additive laden, chemical laden things you can eat/drink.


I was curious, so I looked it up on the Carnation site. Ingredients are: powdered skim milk, plus the addition of vitamin A and D. Doesn't sound any worse than regular milk.


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## Guigz

blin10 said:


> no offense but after reading this thread I feel like I'm on a homeless forum... making your own bread for $1 instead of buying it for $2? are you kidding me? too much time on your hands lol


Ya, JEEZ, who would want a 100% ROI if you have to actually do anything?! :stupid:

Besides, the way I calculated it, making a 3 Lbs loaf of plain bread costs between 60-80 cents (depending on ingredients) compared to the 1 lbs loaf that you can buy at the store for 2-4$. So really you are talking about a 4 digit return on investment. And it takes a whopping 3 minutes to dump the ingredients in the breadmaker and let it do its thing. 

If you consider the time that it takes, it makes for a pretty high hourly wage.


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## BlackThursday

HaroldCrump said:


> Powdered skim milk is one of the worst, additive laden, chemical laden things you can eat/drink.
> It is better to skip milk completely rather than consume a Franken-food like powdered milk.
> I don't think you will miss out on any nutrients if you stopped eating this stuff.


You are talking about milk alternative not true powdered milk which is essentially..milk that has been concentrated and heated.


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## Jungle

I have mixed feelings about baking bread. It does take about 3.5 hours to make and consumes electricity. 
I got one of those black and decker bread makers for Christmas 50% off, it was $49.99+ tax. 
I got a 10kg flour for 6.99 on sale. The yiest was about 3.49 if I recall. I shopped two supermarkets to get the lowest price. 
The powered milk required is very expensive too. I started a list to see how many loafs of bread I can make. Problem is, the bread goes stale after a few days. 
Right now I have been getting bread on sale for 1.50, 1.77 and 1.99 loaf. Someone always has it on sale and I just pricematch with the flyer.

Right now we are averging under $200 month for two people, but this will go up in the summer as I like to BBQ meat, which is more expensive. Everything is bought on sale, including hot dogs, ground beef, pork and steaks. If it's not on sale, we don't buy it.


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## none

For all you bread makers - try this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=0


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## Plugging Along

HaroldCrump said:


> Powdered skim milk is one of the worst, additive laden, chemical laden things you can eat/drink.
> It is better to skip milk completely rather than consume a Franken-food like powdered milk.
> I don't think you will miss out on any nutrients if you stopped eating this stuff.


I am not quite sure what kind of milk you are referring to, but the skim milk powder I have is pretty much dehydrated milk. This is what a lot of food banks ask for as it keeps well, and is quite nutritious. 

I hate drinking it, and found that it was almos he same price as regular milk once reconstituted. I use It for cooking


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## Plugging Along

I found that we used all the tips above plus more when we had to, and had the time. 

I found that I could bake bread for about $.70 a loaf not including electricity. His was based on buying super cheap items in bulk such as yesterday and flour. In order to not include electricity, I would plan to bake my main meal or other items at the same time. I stopped baking bread when I found a discount bakery that had coupons where I was getting bread for $0.34 a loaf, and these were it the day olds, but the whole grains. 

They stopped that a while ago, but an get recent dated bread, buns, wraps, bagels, etc for under $1 and. Will freeze it.

We were able to get our groceries to about $400/ month for 5 people, but that was a lot of work. No waste was a huge one, bought nothing unless it was on sale, price match, coupons, doubled with store promos, bulk buying, almost everything from scratch cooking. 

It was really interested the tips I learned. I found out you could make a lot of substitutions which I never thought about. Made our own sauces, brown sugar, egg substitutes for baking, colored sugar for decorating, own Easter Dying kits, baby wipes from paper towels, moisturizers, etc. I was quite amazed at how many thing we could make on our own if we put our mind to it.


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## Ponderling

Thanks to all for the commentary on this thread to date.

I know doing all of this food frugality this puts me far outside of the mainstream.

Preparing your own food from scratch takes time, which for me gives a break from things like housework, readung, overseeing homework, etc.
It does not cut into my leisure shopping time, or going to the movies, clubs/bars etc which I judge a lot of my co-workers seem to do with their liesure time. 

The money saved has allowed us to pay off our mortgage years ahead of our peers and build investments with a goal of pulling the pin on the rat race years earlier than they are likely able to dream of.


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## andrewf

I'm all for being sensible in spending habits, but I have to wonder whether the law of diminishing returns applies well before you start baking bread to save money (better quality bread is a different issue).

Saving thousands on MERs every year by using low cost funds? Absolutely.
Saving hundreds by spending a few hours shopping around for insurance? Good ROI.
Spending hours and hours gathering coupons, driving to multiple stores and price matching to save $10/wk? You lost me... I can't get excited about saving 50 cents on peanut butter.


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## brad

I agree with andrewf. Added up over a year you can save hundreds of dollars this way, but it's not high on the "bang for your [saved] buck" list. It doesn't meant they're not worth pursuing; every dollar helps, but you do have to look at the investment of time and effort to see whether it's worth it to you.

For me it boils down to the jobs I want my dollars to do. If there's something I'd really rather spend or save my money on than food, then it makes sense for me to spend as little as possible on food so I can free up those dollars to do something else. I make my own bread, but it's because it's so easy (7 minutes of my attention) and the results are better than what I get from my local artisanal bakery, not because it's cheaper. Other than that, saving money on food is not a big priority for me.

I knew a guy who would drive around town to find the cheapest gas stations whenever he needed gas. Several times he ran out of gas in the process and had to have his car towed (and with fuel injection, running out of gas is not always as trivial as when your lawnmower runs out of gas). He spent more on those towing incidents than he saved in 20 years of comparison shopping, a true case of penny-wise, pound foolish.


----------



## HaroldCrump

blueeyetea said:


> I was curious, so I looked it up on the Carnation site. Ingredients are: powdered skim milk, plus the addition of vitamin A and D. Doesn't sound any worse than regular milk.





BlackThursday said:


> You are talking about milk alternative not true powdered milk which is essentially..milk that has been concentrated and heated.


Nope, I was talking about powdered milk, esp. the kind that is added to skim milk.
You can't go by the list of ingredients only - it is the _process_ by which the powdered milk is created that is important, not the ingredient itself.

The current industrialized, mass production of powdered milk is done through high pressure blowing.
It creates nitrates.
In some cases, it hydrolyzes the milk proteins, which forms trace amounts of MSG in the powdered milk.
Also, carrageenan is often added to powdered milk, which creates free glutamic acid as well.

All that aside, almost all dry dairy products (incl. those used to make mass produced processed cheeses like Kraft cheese), these days are not sourced locally, but obtained from abroad.
For instance, a lot of the milk solids and whey protein these days is imported from China.
And we all know what a great track record China has for dairy products.

If the milk used to make the powder were sourced locally, it would be a different matter.
But our labeling laws allow such products to be labeled as "Product of Canada" or "Product of US", even through the base ingredients have been sourced from abroad.

Anyhow, there are far too many reasons to stay away from engineered products like powdered milk.
Given that powdered milk contains all synthetic vitamin A and D (because the real vitamin A and D has been lost in the high heat processing), I see no reason to consume these things.

If saving money is the goal, simply stop consuming milk - in liquid or powdered form.
All of those nutrients can be obtained elsewhere.


----------



## humble_pie

plugging i was hoping you'd turn up.

if you look, you will see that ponderling is a project manager like yourself & an engineer as well.

there we go, plug & pon the hyper-efficient project managers, turning food prep into efficient quasi-institutional bulk procedures each:

i know i know U are both wondrously capable & i sincerely believe that the final dishes on the table must be to die for.

but my dna insists that i go to market often & forage just for this morning's arugula, basil plant, mushrooms, bio eggs & other choice items ...


----------



## HaroldCrump

Plugging Along said:


> I am not quite sure what kind of milk you are referring to, but the skim milk powder I have is pretty much dehydrated milk. This is what a lot of food banks ask for as it keeps well, and is quite nutritious.


It is not nutritious in any way.
The only three nutrients it contains are vitamins A and D (both synthetic forms) and calcium.
However, that calcium comes bonded with nitrates and glutamic acid.

I can understand that food banks prefer to get skim milk powder because of its infinite shelf life, but that does mean that it is "nutritious".


----------



## 6811

Anyone know why powdered milk is an ingredient for making bread? 

When I got my B&D bread making machine I checked out the local grocery store and couldn't find any so I've just been substituting whole milk for a portion of the water in the recipe. The bread is delicious, but I don't know what I'm missing. :concern:


----------



## humble_pie

harold btw what kind of milk would you recommend?

a few years ago my (radical/advanced) nutrition prof would only hear of goats' milk from an approved bio farm. That meant cheese as well. Oh, the cost.


----------



## brad

6811 said:


> Anyone know why powdered milk is an ingredient for making bread?
> 
> When I got my B&D bread making machine I checked out the local grocery store and couldn't find any so I've just been substituting whole milk for a portion of the water in the recipe. The bread is delicious, but I don't know what I'm missing. :concern:


I don't use any milk in my bread recipe: just flour, water, salt, and yeast. It tastes great! No milk, sugar, or anything else needed. I think some bread recipes use milk to give the yeast something to feed on, perhaps (same goes for sugar). I can always tell when there's sugar or milk in the commercial loaves we occasionally buy because they brown or burn faster in the toaster.


----------



## HaroldCrump

humble_pie said:


> harold btw what kind of milk would you recommend?


Unless one can obtain carefully extracted raw milk from a cow share, the best commercial alternative is organic, _non homogenized_ full fat milk.
It is indeed available from health food stores, and is now slowly starting to appear in high end regular chain grocery stores such as Longos.

Non homogenized is usually slightly more expensive than regular organic milk because of the shorter shelf life, but is well worth it.

I see no reason to drink gallons and gallons of milk every week, so the cost can be kept contained by consuming smaller amounts of higher quality milk.



> a few years ago my (radical/advanced) nutrition prof would only hear of goats' milk from an approved bio farm. That meant cheese as well. Oh, the cost.


Yes, indeed the cost !
Goat milk is easier to digest than bovine milk, but the smell turns some people off.
In some south Asian countries, it is common to have buffalo milk rather than cow milk.
It is supposed to be creamier and tastier.
Unfortunately, it is not available here (or in the US) at all.

Goat milk cheeses are tastier too, perhaps because they are prepared fresh on the farm rather than mass produced abroad and shipped thousands of miles.


----------



## Plugging Along

andrewf said:


> I'm all for being sensible in spending habits, but I have to wonder whether the law of diminishing returns applies well before you start baking bread to save money (better quality bread is a different issue).
> 
> Saving thousands on MERs every year by using low cost funds? Absolutely.
> Saving hundreds by spending a few hours shopping around for insurance? Good ROI.
> Spending hours and hours gathering coupons, driving to multiple stores and price matching to save $10/wk? You lost me... I can't get excited about saving 50 cents on peanut butter.


I think it really comes down to what works for you. I was finding that I reduced my groceries for 4 people from $1100 per month to $450 for five people. I also realize that's two big extremes, but the savings were in the thousands per year. Now, I am somewhere in between as I don't send the same amount of time hunting the super deals. However, I did develop habits that still save me a few hundred a month. It takes me about 30 minutes max a week, so about $150+ an hour pay. I look at the flyers, make a list of what's on sale and where, have the flyers read for price match, stock up where really cheap, and do a quick coupon search when I walk into the store. The longest thing that took me to figure out is what where goo price points, now that I know, if I see a good price point I will buy a lot. I also know what my consumption level is min my house, and how often things go on sale, so I have a food 'kanban' system going. 




humble_pie said:


> plugging i was hoping you'd turn up.
> 
> if you look, you will see that ponderling is a project manager like yourself & an engineer as well.
> 
> there we go, plug & pon the hyper-efficient project managers, turning food prep into efficient quasi-institutional bulk procedures each:
> 
> i know i know U are both wondrously capable & i sincerely believe that the final dishes on the table must be to die for.
> 
> but my dna insists that i go to market often & forage just for this morning's arugula, basil plant, mushrooms, bio eggs & other choice items ...


I am a project manager, and run my food cooking like projects, but not an engineer. I don't know if it counts that my specialty is continuous improvement and process design. I just don't have the time with two little ones to go everyday, though I did love that when I lived in New York, checking out the little shops, and buying for the day. Now, if I do that someone may go hungry.

Instead, our nanny went on vacation for a month, leaving us with the tight schedules and no one to help prep. So I prepped thirtyish freezer meals, and also made sure that I had food planned for our ski vacation at the cabin. Right now, I watching my oldest race down the hill, and I have there healthy lunches or homemade Greek dips, veggies, fruits, soup, cheese and many snack foods in ready for when they are down for lunch. Probably $10 for the family instead of $40 for the crap hill food. We have been on the hill for 5 days, so I am happy with my frugality. My spouse did break down and buy a coffee because we forgot to pack a thermos. 

For dinner I had ribs last night ready right after a day of skiing, and a long dip in the hot springs. Tonight is pickerel my friend caught with local veggies I picked on the first day, and Israeli couscous. We prepped everything, so all we have to do is cook it up. Definately not as fresh or yummy as yours, but I feel good that I have my family well feed and we saved a bunch of money




HaroldCrump said:


> Nope, I was talking about powdered milk, esp. the kind that is added to skim milk.
> You can't go by the list of ingredients only - it is the _process_ by which the powdered milk is created that is important, not the ingredient itself.
> 
> The current industrialized, mass production of powdered milk is done through high pressure blowing.
> It creates nitrates.
> In some cases, it hydrolyzes the milk proteins, which forms trace amounts of MSG in the powdered milk.
> Also, carrageenan is often added to powdered milk, which creates free glutamic acid as well.
> 
> All that aside, almost all dry dairy products (incl. those used to make mass produced processed cheeses like Kraft cheese), these days are not sourced locally, but obtained from abroad.
> For instance, a lot of the milk solids and whey protein these days is imported from China.
> And we all know what a great track record China has for dairy products.
> 
> If the milk used to make the powder were sourced locally, it would be a different matter.
> But our labeling laws allow such products to be labeled as "Product of Canada" or "Product of US", even through the base ingredients have been sourced from abroad.
> 
> Anyhow, there are far too many reasons to stay away from engineered products like powdered milk.
> Given that powdered milk contains all synthetic vitamin A and D (because the real vitamin A and D has been lost in the high heat processing), I see no reason to consume these things.
> 
> If saving money is the goal, simply stop consuming milk - in liquid or powdered form.
> All of those nutrients can be obtained elsewhere.


I had no idea. I am not too concerned, as we use it only for baking, but not drinking milk is really not an option I see for my two young kids.


----------



## humble_pie

hey harold thanks for the great info & suggestions.

your discussion of preserved milk products resonated w me because over the xmas holidays i'd bought several cans of condensed & evaporated milk to do a large baking.

the baking didn't get done as much as planned so ended up using the canned milk mostly in hot chocolate drinks.

it had immediately crossed my mind that those canned Carnations & Eagles had to be mostly milk base preparations from china. I remembered the melamine poisoning. I looked carefully at the labels on the cans but there was no indication whatsoever that any ingredients had been sourced from asia.

on a related issue, i've recently read that most packaged & fresh fruit juices (unless specifically stated that 100% from florida) are made from fruit juice concentrates and/or powders or gels also shipped from china. Even when the packaging gives a _pure laine_ local name like Rougemont, nevertheless at the rougement factories they are using some fruit juice bases from asia.


----------



## Guigz

andrewf said:


> I'm all for being sensible in spending habits, but I have to wonder whether the law of diminishing returns applies well before you start baking bread to save money (better quality bread is a different issue).


The law of diminishing returns functions differently when you apply it to a situation where you are talking about reducing expenses. 

As your expenses approach zero, the yield of each dollar saved will tend towards infinity. 

For example, If you spend 100,000$ per year, it might not make much sense to make your own soap to save 100$ per year. However, the answer might be different if you only spend 10,000$ or 5,000$ per year.


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## andrewf

You have to assign some reasonable value to your leisure time. And if you don't value it, you might as well work more.


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## Four Pillars

I'm definitely on the side that says focus on making more money rather than save pennies with time-consuming chores.

That said, baking bread can be more of a hobby. My wife likes baking bread once in a while and she comes up with some pretty interesting recipes which are quite enjoyable to eat.


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## andrewf

I don't think baking bread is a bad idea, as long as you're doing it for the right reasons. I think it's questionable to do it solely to save money...


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## Four Pillars

andrewf said:


> I don't think baking bread is a bad idea, as long as you're doing it for the right reasons. I think it's questionable to do it solely to save money...


Well, some people like playing "Little house on the prairie".


----------



## Guigz

Four Pillars said:


> time-consuming chores.


Isn't that what work is? :chuncky:

While we bake our own bread for several reasons other than saving money, the saving money part is actually quite significant. Especially given how quick and painless baking bread is.

Since we started baking our own bread, our food expenditure went down 30-50$ per month. We consume a surprising amount of bread. With toasts for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch, a loaf of bread is used pretty fast.

Maybe baking bread is not right for you, but don't dismiss it simply because it *sounds* like work.


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## HaroldCrump

humble_pie said:


> it had immediately crossed my mind that those canned Carnations & Eagles had to be mostly milk base preparations from china. I remembered the melamine poisoning. I looked carefully at the labels on the cans but there was no indication whatsoever that any ingredients had been sourced from asia.


The Health Canada labeling rules allows such products to be labeled as "Canadian".
The milk by-products industry is a huge one.
This includes anything labeled as "modified milk ingredients", "whey", "milk protein isolate", etc.

The dairy processing industry figured out that milk is far more profitable when separated into its various parts than as a whole item.
When sold as a whole item (the liquid drinking milk), it is a tightly controlled, regulated market with inelastic prices and limited profit margins.

But, when separated, the profit potential multiplies to the stratosphere.
The fat is separated to create fresh cheeses (those are the first cycle premium products), and then de-composed using high pressure and oxidation for use in other purposes.
Similarly the casein proteins are separated and sold (that is where the modified milk ingredients labeling comes from).

After several rounds of processing, all that is left is the skim milk - which is then sold _at the same price_ as a "healthy" alternative to whole milk.

Anyhow, the little secret in the milk & cheese industry these days is that virtually any kind of processed cheese (such as cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey jack, American) is made with imported, dried milk ingredients.

It is better to stick to fresh cheeses only guaranteed to be made locally in Ontario and Quebec.
Or, with authentic imported European cheeses such as Blue, Brie, Camembert, Roquefort, etc.

The other aspect of consuming milk is that I believe cultured milk is almost always better than any form of commercial milk.
I mean culturing milk using kefir, piima, or yogurt cultures.



> on a related issue, i've recently read that most packaged & fresh fruit juices (unless specifically stated that 100% from florida) are made from fruit juice concentrates and/or powders or gels also shipped from china. Even when the packaging gives a _pure laine_ local name like Rougemont, nevertheless at the rougement factories they are using some fruit juice bases from asia.


Yes, the fruit juice process is just as industrialized as milk.


----------



## Plugging Along

andrewf said:


> You have to assign some reasonable value to your leisure time. And if you don't value it, you might as well work more.


I actually found a way to make bread that gave me more leisure time. I would make large batches of dough, rise them twice, and then shape them, and freeze individual. All I did was just take our of the freezer and bake in the morning. For us, we saved mney because we go through phases where we will eat not much bread, and as you have more importantly I ge fresh bread without having to rush to the store. 

It's is actually a hobbie of mine to find ways to make running a house cheaper, more efficiently and still get a higher quality. It allows me to spend more time with the kids.




Four Pillars said:


> Well, some people like playing "Little house on the prairie".



Lol. That's reall funny, it is exactl wha my 7 yr old calls it when we do things manually, like the old days she says, like the Laura from little house.... :tongue-new:

I remember as a kid, doing a lot of these manual things to save money with my parents. I hated it back then, thinking we should just buy it from the store. Now, am really glad that I learned these things and whole that my kids will too.


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## Ponderling

humble_pie;but my dna insists that i go to market often & forage just for this morning's arugula said:


> My work morining is usually spent planning what needs to get in process so things will flow smoothly three days from now, and a brief peek at what needs to start to be put in motion so things will be ready when we are likely to need them three or more weeks from now.
> 
> I am not quite so uptight on the home front, but there is always a look ahead to see which evenings need plnanned left overs, and which ones we can cook on.


----------



## Plugging Along

Ponderling. I think I love u. 

I do almost the same thing, except at the wee nights, In the mornings I am getting the kids ready.


----------



## thebomb

I got to tell ya, I tried (albeit half-heartitly) to follow a $400 monthly food budget for the two of us (husband and I) and just couldnt do it. Obviously I didnt try hard enough, but I am ok with it. This area of my budget is my one guilty pleasure. I seem to consistantly spend around $500-550 a month. Lots of fruit, lots of veggies. The only think I am thinking might get me back on 'budget' is the fact that I'm due with our first in September. So money willl be a little tighter. Even then, if I dont pare it down, thats fine with me.


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## Ponderling

The way to get grocery cost under control is to take same cash plus $150 for baby needs. You will soon find yourself paring back on your own spending getting kid supplies. The only way around this is full breast feeding, and cloth diapers. 

On the breast feeding front we made if to two months with son 1, and three weeks with son 2. Both moved to formula - were too slow to grow on just mom. No howls of derision, please. We both are happy with the outcomes, and know that breats feed kids plump up a bit slower. 

We made it to a cloth diaper service for 4 months of son 1, and then got tired of the number of diapers changed. I do not want to think of the economics of washing a newborns cloth diaper load at home.


----------



## tiffbou2

*on diapers...*



Ponderling said:


> The way to get grocery cost under control is to take same cash plus $150 for baby needs. You will soon find yourself paring back on your own spending getting kid supplies. The only way around this is full breast feeding, and cloth diapers.
> 
> On the breast feeding front we made if to two months with son 1, and three weeks with son 2. Both moved to formula - were too slow to grow on just mom. No howls of derision, please. We both are happy with the outcomes, and know that breats feed kids plump up a bit slower.
> 
> We made it to a cloth diaper service for 4 months of son 1, and then got tired of the number of diapers changed. I do not want to think of the economics of washing a newborns cloth diaper load at home.


I need to reign in grocery spending. We spend $800/month for a family of four. We almost never eat out though, and enjoy cooking nice meals at home. BUT I rocked frugality when my kids were little. I sewed my own diapers out of fleece, lined with automotive towels from Canadian Tire (most absorbent thing that worked for me). A friend of mine knitted me some diaper covers and I bought other inexpensive plastic covers. I did buy some all-in-one diapers, but managed to sell them on a site called diaperswappers.com for more than half what I paid - a site which has great tips on cloth diapering for anyone interested. I also made my own wipes out of fleece scraps.


----------



## colossk

tiffbou2 said:


> I need to reign in grocery spending. We spend $800/month for a family of four. We almost never eat out though, and enjoy cooking nice meals at home.


We spend about $1300/month for a family of 5. June 1st I made a real effort to reign in our grocery spending and managed to get it down to $150 week for the past 5 weeks about (about $675/month at this rate) It took surprisingly little effort.

We did the following:

Cut out the waste and ate leftovers(This was a really big deal. The amount of food we wasted was huge)
Planned our meals a week ahead
Spent 10 minutes going thru the fliers each week and buying things on sale and stocking up on them
Cut out the snack foods considerably. 
Started going to the grocery store once a week, instead of 4-5 a week.
Stopped buying out of season fruit

These few things have saved us $600-700 month with very little effort


----------



## tiffbou2

colossk said:


> We spend about $1300/month for a family of 5. June 1st I made a real effort to reign in our grocery spending and managed to get it down to $150 week for the past 5 weeks about (about $675/month at this rate) It took surprisingly little effort.
> 
> We did the following:
> 
> Cut out the waste and ate leftovers(This was a really big deal. The amount of food we wasted was huge)
> Planned our meals a week ahead
> Spent 10 minutes going thru the fliers each week and buying things on sale and stocking up on them
> Cut out the snack foods considerably.
> Started going to the grocery store once a week, instead of 4-5 a week.
> Stopped buying out of season fruit
> 
> These few things have saved us $600-700 month with very little effort


Thanks for the great tips. I know that we don't do well with the leftover thing. Definitely something to work on. I do meal plan and flyer shop most of the times, but not always. When I do take the time to do those things, I notice a change for the better in our grocery bills. I just get a little lazy about it sometimes! 

One thing that drive my grocery bills up, I swear to goodness, is my husband. He loves his expensive cuts of meat and if I don't buy them, he will. Now he wants to go to organic meats at $10.99/lb for chicken breast. If there isn't something in the fridge to his liking to take to lunch, he'll buy his lunch, so I try and make sure I've got a wide variety of lunch foods for him. I don't get it at all. He grew up dirt poor and had the cheapest and most frugal of meals every day of his childhood. I thought frugality would have rubbed off on him, but maybe he's making up for it now?


----------



## canabiz

The guy paying for his groceries in the checkout ahead of me at the Real Canadian Superstore (RCSS) yesterday had all the flyers from major grocery stores (Metro, WalMart, Food Basics, FreshCo, Sobey's) and he price-matched every single item!

It took quite a while and I am normally a pretty patient guy and appreciate his frugality but I believe there's a time and place for everything. I didn't have any appointment after grocery so I had no problem waiting for him to finish his job but others may not be so patient. 

It's fine and dandy to price match anything you like, after all I applaud you for remaining cost-conscious and saving money in the process but I believe you should do that at a quiet time (or at the customer service desk), not at 10 a.m. with people and carts lining up behind you, blocking traffic as well.

My 2 cents.


----------



## colossk

canabiz said:


> It's fine and dandy to price match anything you like, after all I applaud you for remaining cost-conscious and saving money in the process but I believe you should do that at a quiet time (or at the customer service desk), not at 10 a.m. with people and carts lining up behind you, blocking traffic as well.
> 
> My 2 cents.


Customer Service desk won't take you when you have a cart full of items and some people can just not make it during the quiet time. Not everyone works a 9-5 Weekends off and have the ability to go during "quiet times"


----------



## canabiz

colossk said:


> Customer Service desk won't take you when you have a cart full of items and some people can just not make it during the quiet time. Not everyone works a 9-5 Weekends off and have the ability to go during "quiet times"


Maybe he should have planned better and grabbed the sale items at other locations instead of making people wait for him. I could understand price-matching a few items but to do so with a full cart is something else.

I have no doubt this is not the first time he has done this as he was telling the cashier he's trying to save some gas.

Where do you draw the line?


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## Hawkdog

I use my crock pot all the time in the winter! mostly for roasts! Turn it on before work and dinner is ready when you get home!

We have a bread maker, but we don't use it very often. Really trying to cut down on wheat. We used to make buns all the time.
When we do buy bread its generally a baguette or french bread which is usually pretty cheap.

Garden season is upon us, got our first zucchini on the weekend, gonna BBQ it up tonight!!


----------



## MoneyGal

Crockpot is also great in SUMMER as it does not heat up the kitchen!


----------



## none

canabiz said:


> Maybe he should have planned better and grabbed the sale items at other locations instead of making people wait for him. I could understand price-matching a few items but to do so with a full cart is something else.
> 
> I have no doubt this is not the first time he has done this as he was telling the cashier he's trying to save some gas.
> 
> Where do you draw the line?


This is not the fault of the customer but rather the store for having insufficient staff.


----------



## Ponderling

MoneyGal said:


> Crockpot is also great in SUMMER as it does not heat up the kitchen!


I actually run mine plugged in while sitting on the picnic table, if the day is to be nice, or tuck it onto a work bench in the gagrage if rain is in the offing. Anyting than have the A/C fighting to cool the house in peak rate time after work.


----------



## andrewf

The polite thing to do when price matching is to warn people in line behind you that you may be a while. I always keep an eye out for the people with the big carts and the stack of flyers with them. But usually I use the self-checkouts. I love not getting stuck behind idiot customers. The downside is that sometimes you have several people with huge baskets tying up the self checkouts, while in addition having no idea how they work. Painful to watch when you're just trying to get in and out with 5 - 10 items.


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## cainvest

none said:


> This is not the fault of the customer but rather the store for having insufficient staff.


Totally agree ... may not even be insufficient staff but ones that are not trained well enough to call from someone else to open another checkout. 1 out of 10 times I will see a manager open another checkout.


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## Hawkdog

MoneyGal said:


> Crockpot is also great in SUMMER as it does not heat up the kitchen!


Either does the BBQ!!


----------



## Ponderling

I have been using the cooler than usual early August GTA weather to move ahead with some of my normally September activities. 
Good inexpensive green peppers at the moment , and big meat mark downs following a mega rain storm caused power failure at the supermarket helped bring it forward as well.

Last weekend a big cook up of spagetti sauce. Actually we make it with the tomato sauce separate, since presure canning to safely put by the meat in the sauce kills some of the tomato flavour.

So now 8 800mL jars of pasta sauce in the cold cellar, and three in the fridge since I can only fit 8 jars in the canner at one run. 

Yesterday a cook up of a batch of what we call 'chili sauce' - a pickelled spiced condiment mix of celery, green pepper, onoin and stewed tomatoes. 
So now 10-500mL jars done, and a second batch 90% ready to go once I grab a few more tomatoes at the market over the week end.

The cold cellar is gradually filling - I made barley lentil soup stock last month, and chili and baked beans in late May. 

Jams stocks are building up again too - Lots of strawberry variants from this years bumper pick of great berries, and a whack in the frezer to process as other fruits come in fresh in a few weeks.


----------



## randomthoughts

I don't mind people price matching, but personally, I only bother if it's a significant savings - go to the store with the most sales and price match the odd item.


----------



## sprocket1200

Spudd said:


> My husband got really into it and calculated the cost per loaf. His homemade bread is about $1 per loaf (I want to say 75 cents but I don't recall exactly so let's round up). Store-bought bread is a minimum of $2/loaf nowadays. So yeah, it does save money as long as you don't include the value of your time. He enjoys it, so it's worth it to him (he also prefers his own bread over store bread).


We get our bakery return bread for 25 to 50 cents per loaf. Save at least $600 annually!


----------



## Ponderling

Might gross out some, but... 
My wife's fitness club is next to a sandwich shop that makes all product on big kaiser style rolls. They do not open on Sundays. 
We have discovered that on long weekends after Saturday night they toss all of their on hand bread stocks into their dumpster.

We deliberately go to the back parking lot and dumpster dive at about 6pm Saturday night. The typical well wrapped haul is about 60 buns.
We slice the middle out for toasting, and keep the slinned down outsides frozen in lots of 4 per zip lock bag in the freezer. 

We have not had to buy burger buns all summer long, and only have made bread in the bread machine about half as often as is usual for us.


----------



## Hawkdog

Ponderling said:


> Might gross out some, but...
> My wife's fitness club is next to a sandwich shop that makes all product on big kaiser style rolls. They do not open on Sundays.
> We have discovered that on long weekends after Saturday night they toss all of their on hand bread stocks into their dumpster.
> 
> We deliberately go to the back parking lot and dumpster dive at about 6pm Saturday night. The typical well wrapped haul is about 60 buns.
> We slice the middle out for toasting, and keep the slinned down outsides frozen in lots of 4 per zip lock bag in the freezer.
> 
> We have not had to buy burger buns all summer long, and only have made bread in the bread machine about half as often as is usual for us.



If its well wrapped I am not grossed out (although my wife would divorce me i tried to feed her dumpster food), my question is if you are actually paying for a fitness club why are you trying to save a few bucks on buns? And have you approached the sandwich shop to ask them if you could have it before they throw it out? Its sad they would throw it out when there is likely a soup kitchen that would be happy to take the buns as a donation.


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## Ponderling

The rate I pay for these sort of nice buns in a grocery store means that a haul of 60 make them worth about $26 to me. 
Which is a bit more than half of what my wife pays per month for the fitness club that she attends regualrly - like on average 7 half hour slots a week.

I don't consider this club to be pricey when she incorporates it into her daily routine and goes regularly. Each vist averages at about $1.7


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## Hawkdog

Ponderling said:


> The rate I pay for these sort of nice buns in a grocery store means that a haul of 60 make them worth about $26 to me.
> Which is a bit more than half of what my wife pays per month for the fitness club that she attends regualrly - like on average 7 half hour slots a week.
> 
> I don't consider this club to be pricey when she incorporates it into her daily routine and goes regularly. Each vist averages at about $1.7


Its not pricey from what you say, but either are burger buns. What are you saving, like 2 bucks a meal? or a buck? And you are giving up having fresh buns made the same day? 
I am just curious at your thought process that's all, everyone has their way/priorities. I find it fascinating that you would pay to go to a gym but get your food out of a dumpster.


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## Ponderling

One of the biggest ways that I have gotten us where we are today is to look at the price of all sorts of mundane things. They do add up. 

Powdered milk i think I mentioned here way back in the post. It is almost the same price as fresh milk. We buy 5 makes 25L bags at a time when we are otherwise grocery shopping at No Frills.

Then combined with bake at home bread machine, we don't have the need to get tempted in the grocery store or convenience store two to three times a week. 

I know a lot of this drives people crazy, but when you have lived this way for nay decades on end now, the incremental amounts saved, and then invested do bear fruit.


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## Ag Driver

Ponderling said:


> The rate I pay for these sort of nice buns in a grocery store means that a haul of 60 make them worth about $26 to me.
> Which is a bit more than half of what my wife pays per month for the fitness club that she attends regualrly - like on average 7 half hour slots a week.
> 
> I don't consider this club to be pricey when she incorporates it into her daily routine and goes regularly. Each vist averages at about $1.7


Cut down on the carbs and you wouldn't need to go to the gym!  $avings in memberships AND bread!


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## Hawkdog

Fair enough. I was just curious. I seen something similar but more extreme on an episode of extreme cheapskates. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11c4LRomkSo



Ponderling said:


> One of the biggest ways that I have gotten us where we are today is to look at the price of all sorts of mundane things. They do add up.
> 
> Powdered milk i think I mentioned here way back in the post. It is almost the same price as fresh milk. We buy 5 makes 25L bags at a time when we are otherwise grocery shopping at No Frills.
> 
> Then combined with bake at home bread machine, we don't have the need to get tempted in the grocery store or convenience store two to three times a week.
> 
> I know a lot of this drives people crazy, but when you have lived this way for nay decades on end now, the incremental amounts saved, and then invested do bear fruit.


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## sprocket1200

New record of 20cents per loaf in Australia ( where food is 2-10 times the prices in Canada).

Saving enough on bread to travel internationally, priceless!!


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## Hawkdog

sprocket1200 said:


> New record of 20cents per loaf in Australia ( where food is 2-10 times the prices in Canada).
> 
> Saving enough on bread to travel internationally, priceless!!


Food is definitely more expensive down under.
I was shocked during our visit to New Zealand last year that I could buy imported avocados cheaper in Safeway in Central BC,
than in a grocery store 50 miles from where there are grown. That is just one example, cheese was also very pricey.


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## ilovebees

Not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but there is an iPhone app called "ReeBee" that updates weekly and displays all the flyers from your postal code. For stores that do ad match, and for your own personal flyer viewing/deal planning, I find it very useful. It's a free app.


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## Ponderling

Getting ALL the flyers from my postal code on a 'smart phone' sounds more like cloaked advertising than savings to me.

We live in a well flyered neighbourhood. 
I think from doing the math with the published flyer numbers from the skinny paper that wraps the flyers that we get about 1200 a year. 

Usually we throw out all but the three discount supermarkets, sdm, and ctc. 
It does help that we are over 45, and have bought just about all of the things we think we require to live our lives. 

We have come to the conclusion that buying more stuff now for us just increases the 'noise' level in our life.
If we find a new thing that looks appealing, it is usually from seeing at some friend or other's home. 
Not living on the edge by being the first to buy new stuff saves a lot of money.


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## underemployedactor

I'm down with the bread machine crew. Just got my first one (at the good will, 5 bucks but missing a paddle which I sourced from some Scarberian parts supplier for 3 more bucks) a couple of weeks ago and I am sold. Here at chez moi, bread burn was in the neighbourhood of 3 loaves per week. Bulk store has a dizzying amount of bread machine flours and other adjuncts and it takes a maximum of 5 minutes to load the cockpit with ingredients, snap down the canopy and turn the thing on. I was concerned about energy usage, some inquiries yielded that my particular garden variety machine uses 1/3 of a KWH per standard 3hour bread loaf, so about 3cents per loaf. BAsic loaf costs about 50 cents in Bulk store ingredients. Also I never use the powdered milk that most recipes call for, but use whole milk. 1/2 cup whole subs for 2 tbsp powdered (pardon my Imperial) just cut down the water by a quarter cup. Even with all the pricey adjuncts you may wish to add it is still cheaper and infinitely superior to that disgusting Dempsters air bread stocked at my local groceria.
Anway I highly recommend and would also remark that bread makers have come a long way in a short time. The bread machine bread I remember from not so many years ago resembled a tubular steamed bun, sticky and doughy. Not so any more.


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## andrewf

My parents had a breakmaker that made enormous vertical loaves 6 or 8 inches square, not really practical for sandwiches or anything useful.

I could see a horizontal (ie, loaf shaped) breakmaker being more useful.


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## Retired Peasant

We use the bread machine too. I don't use milk in mine at all (just water)- tastes fine. I love having the fresh bread; lots of opportunity to try various types of loaves.

Ours is a 1 lb vertical loaf type - we just turn it sideways and have round slices of bread for our sandwiches.


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## Taraz

A few easy ones:

-*Bulk:* Buy direct from farmers or buy in bulk (from local producers if they're cheaper). For instance, you can buy half a cow, half a pig, etc. It gets even cheaper if you learn how to cut the meat yourself. Also, they have a grain processing plant near me where you can buy oatmeal in bulk. Oatmeal is cheap to begin with, but it's even cheaper direct from the plant. With free apples, cheap oatmeal, and bulk cinnamon, I'd wager my morning oatmeal costs less than 50 cents.

-*Free:* Offer to pick someone's fruit (apples, pears, etc.) - most people have more than they will use, and you can freeze sliced apples for pie or convenient apple cinnamon oatmeal later on. Offer to work for product for a few days at a small local farm in the summer, or at harvest time; it's fun, and they're usually understaffed.

-*Frozen: *For veggies, I find that using frozen, precut, mixed veggies and steaming them in a microwave steamer is cheap, convenient, and healthy. Frozen meat can sometimes be a good deal too. Freezing shredded cheese makes it last longer, and doesn't change the quality if you're melting it anyways.

-If you're making bread all the time, and you like sourdough, you can make that and save on yeast. (Personally I'm too lazy.)


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## dave2012

My wife is a pro at saving money on ridiculously expensive groceries. She just went out today so lets see how she did...

Payed the cashier at Super Store $150. Saved $35 with flyers and price matching.

Lots of stores (including) Super Store price match. She takes flyers from Food Basics, No Frills, Farm Boy, Walmart, drug stores, Cdn Tire etc and gets those discounts at Super Store. No need to drive around wasting gas to save on various items at different stores.

Note they will even price match meats! (you have them reprice the meat at the meat counter).

For Halloween they had big pumpkins on sale for $3.99. We took home 7 big boys for $.88 each.

Today she bought 48 rolls of 'TP' :02.47 -tranquillity: which were $18.80, but she only paid $7.47.

She says most people don't have a clue how much you can save just by spending 15 minutes a week organizing your weekly groceries / coupons. She has on occassion offered the flyers to a shopper behind. Some are grateful, others look at her shocked as if to say... "No way! I want to pay full price!".

We are in the US quite a bit and take advantage of the Price Chopper card discounts. Doesn't take more than a few trips to not only save a bundle with the card on groceries, but you also get big discounts on gas! I have $.40 cents a gallon to use on our next trip (good for 20gal so that is $8 savings on my next fillup).


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## dave2012

Will try this post again...

My wife is a pro at saving money on ridiculously expensive groceries. She just went out today so lets see how she did...

Payed the cashier at Super Store $150. Saved $35 with flyers and price matching.

Lots of stores (including) Super Store price match. She takes flyers from Food Basics, No Frills, Farm Boy, Walmart, drug stores, Cdn Tire etc and gets those discounts at Super Store. No need to drive around wasting gas to save on various items at different stores.

Note they will even price match meats! (you have them reprice the meat at the meat counter).

For Halloween they had big pumpkins on sale for $3.99. We took home 7 big boys for $.88 each.

Today she bought 48 rolls of 'TP' :02.47 -tranquillity: which were $18.80, but she only paid $7.47.

She says most people don't have a clue how much you can save just by spending 15 minutes a week organizing your weekly groceries / coupons. She has on occassion offered the flyers to a shopper behind. Some are grateful, others look at her shocked as if to say... "No way! I want to pay full price!".

We are in the US quite a bit and take advantage of the Price Chopper card discounts. Doesn't take more than a few trips to not only save a bundle with the card on groceries, but you also get big discounts on gas! I have $.40 cents a gallon to use on our next trip (good for 20gal so that is $8 savings on my next fillup).


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## dave2012

Will try this post yet another time (lots of database errors!)...

My wife is a pro at saving money on ridiculously expensive groceries. She just went out today so lets see how she did...

Payed the cashier at Super Store $150. Saved $35 with flyers and price matching.

Lots of stores (including) Super Store price match. She takes flyers from Food Basics, No Frills, Farm Boy, Walmart, drug stores, Cdn Tire etc and gets those discounts at Super Store. No need to drive around wasting gas to save on various items at different stores.

Note they will even price match meats! (you have them reprice the meat at the meat counter).

For Halloween they had big pumpkins on sale for $3.99. We took home 7 big boys for $.88 each.

Today she bought 48 rolls of 'TP' :02.47 -tranquillity: which were $18.80, but she only paid $7.47.

She says most people don't have a clue how much you can save just by spending 15 minutes a week organizing your weekly groceries / coupons. She has on occassion offered the flyers to a shopper behind. Some are grateful, others look at her shocked as if to say... "No way! I want to pay full price!".

We are in the US quite a bit and take advantage of the Price Chopper card discounts. Doesn't take more than a few trips to not only save a bundle with the card on groceries, but you also get big discounts on gas! I have $.40 cents a gallon to use on our next trip (good for 20gal so that is $8 savings on my next fillup).


----------



## dave2012

Will try this post yet another time (lots of database errors!)...

My wife is a pro at saving money on ridiculously expensive groceries. She just went out today so lets see how she did...

Payed the cashier at Super Store $150. Saved $35 with flyers and price matching.

Lots of stores (including) Super Store price match. She takes flyers from Food Basics, No Frills, Farm Boy, Walmart, drug stores, Cdn Tire etc and gets those discounts at Super Store. No need to drive around wasting gas to save on various items at different stores.

Note they will even price match meats! (you have them reprice the meat at the meat counter).

For Halloween they had big pumpkins on sale for $3.99. We took home 7 big boys for $.88 each.

Today she bought 48 rolls of 'TP' :02.47 -tranquillity: which were $18.80, but she only paid $7.47.

She says most people don't have a clue how much you can save just by spending 15 minutes a week organizing your weekly groceries / coupons. She has on occassion offered the flyers to a shopper behind. Some are grateful, others look at her shocked as if to say... "No way! I want to pay full price!".

We are in the US quite a bit and take advantage of the Price Chopper card discounts. Doesn't take more than a few trips to not only save a bundle with the card on groceries, but you also get big discounts on gas! I have $.40 cents a gallon to use on our next trip (good for 20gal so that is $8 savings on my next fillup).


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