Monday May 12th, 2008
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5 Ways to Save on Groceries
Posted by Jessica Harlan on May 6, 2008 - 9:51pm.
Lately, it seems that not a week goes by without more scary news about the rising cost of food. Food prices increased at a compound annual rate of nearly 5 percent over a three-month period ending in February, and nearly every staple ingredient has experienced significant increases: eggs are about 38 percent more per dozen, and loaves of bread cost about 19 percent more. The issue seems so complicated; part of the increase is because investors are suddenly interested in commodities like wheat, corn and soy, which is driving up the prices of these goods, while an increase in ethanol use is also diverting agricultural yields away from the food supply chain. The decrease of available corn and wheat crops means it's more expensive to raise animals that eat them, such as chickens and turkeys. What's more, increasing oil prices mean production and transportation of food items costs more.
All of this means I'm forced to pay $6.00 a gallon for organic whole milk for my toddler, my weekly grocery bills are through the roof, and my work as a recipe developer is netting me less profit.
But even if you're already fairly frugal when it comes to food shopping, there are changes you can make to your grocery-shopping habits to minimize the impact of new higher prices. Here are a few ideas.
- Decide What's Important. If drinking organic milk, buying fair-trade coffee, or indulging in a weekly purchase of fancy artisanal cheese is important to you, then don't beat yourself up about the expense. Instead, find other areas in which to cut costs—maybe the store brand of canned tomatoes will be just as good, or you can drink water or tea at breakfast instead of pricey orange juice.
- Join a Warehouse Club. It requires an investment (usually around $50 a year) up front, but warehouse clubs like Costco can save you money in the long run, as long as you shop wisely and use everything you buy. I find that Costco has many organic brands that I like, such as Kashi cereals and Stonyfield Farms yogurts. If you have a vacuum sealer, you can portion out big purchases of freezable items, such as fish fillets or ground turkey.
- Buy in Bulk at a Natural Food Store. With reports of rice shortages and flour shortages in some parts of the country, these staples are sure to continue to skyrocket in price. Invest in a sturdy set of plastic or glass canisters and buy your flour, oats, rices, and other staples at your local natural food store. You'll save money and conserve resources otherwise wasted on packging and extra transportation and production costs. In particular, I find buying a big bag of rolled oats is less than $2, significantly less than I would pay for one of those cylindrical tubs of Quaker Oats.
- Clip Coupons. I often have the best intentions when it comes to coupons, I'll diligently save them in a drawer in my kitchen... and then promptly forget them until 6 months later, when they've long expired. But all of those $0.50 discounts add up, so I'm going to start sifting through my coupon drawer before every shopping visit. The trick is to only clip coupons for brands and products you'd buy anyway. Otherwise those coupons are likely to end up costing you more than they're saving.
- Plan Ahead. I try to spend a little time every weekend planning out my family's meals and making up a shopping list. I'll go through the refrigerator and freezer to see if there are any leftovers or frozen ingredients I can incorporate into a meal or two, and I'll also try to buy ingredients that can be used in both meals, or that can make a larger quantity that I can freeze for a meal later in the month, or to eat as leftovers at lunchtime. Careful planning will cut down on the every-other-day trip to the grocery store that can often become a habit, and you can also give yourself time to think of less-expensive meals you can prepare, rather than wasting money on expensive prepared foods or take-out.
What are some ways that you keep your food budget in check?
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I find that careful food planning is important in making sure that you shop for only what you need, and do not waste what you buy. I'll typically go shopping for 2 weeks at a time and plan around 8 dinners for that time period. I make a list of everything I'll need, and if one menu will not use the entirety of a certain ingrediant (for example, a certain kind of fresh herb or cheese), I'll plan something else that will.
Additionally, there are a few things I'll make with any leftover bits of produce, so that nothing gets wasted. You can add pretty much any veggie to store-bought tomato sauce to make a pasta dish that ends up being more nutritious than if you made it plain. Also, I'll save leftover rice whenever I make it in a bag in the freezer, and you can stir-fry leftover veggies and this rice with any other kind of meat or tofu or whatever else you have around with soy sauce, sesame oil, and whatever other spices and flavorings you like to make a nice fried-rice dish. By the end of the 2 weeks, my pantry and fridge are completely empty, but hardly anything I initially bought was wasted.
I will also periodically check my pantry and freezer for random items that have been hanging around for a while and plan menus to incorporate them, to further ensure that everything I buy gets used.
I have a local farmers market where the produce prices are much less (maybe 15 - 20%) less than at the regular grocery store. I buy a lot of produce, so shopping here for that can end up saving quite a bit. It takes more time to do this, however, because they do not sell some of the regular, non-produce stuff that a grocery store does, so I have to make 2 trips. But it's worth the extra time to save the amount of money this extra trip saves!