How are u managing with the rising cost of food

[oheoh's momma]

The cost of groceries are going up along with the cost of gas.I am struggling to manage. I am couponing , stockpiling, buying loss leaders with coupons, reducing my trips to the store, eating leftovers. But still it does not seem to be enough. How are u managing?

[Contrary Housewife]

I am being even more careful than before to buy only sale items and markdowns, although things have got out of hand lately and I need to go back to JUST buying the bare necessities.

[CrazyCat]

There is something I think called Angel ministries..where you can buy boxes of food for a certain price which is cheaper. I think you pick the stuff up at certain churches. I think that would work for you. So some internet searches on it.

[nuisance26]

~It is frightening isn't it? I'm spending 20-25% more on food now than 3 years ago. It didn't get bad for us until this year though when two of our three grocery stores closed. Now I can't cherry pick loss leaders to save. I'm struggling to stay under $300 a month when I used to regularly manage $225-250.
The only thing left to do is to accept the price of food and cut back elsewhere. ~

[Daisygirl]

It's rough here too. I've made some major, guerilla budget warfare maneuvers.

~ I only cook vegetarian. And none of those silly "fake meats" like Tofurkey. We eat beans, grains, fruits, veggies, dairy and eggs. This has cut 30-40% off my bill. A lot of people would not go for this, but it's a place I chose to make a major cut.

~ I prep meals on the weekend so I'm rarely tempted to order pizza or hit the drive-thru. This has the added benefit of letting less food go bad.

~ I'm gardening, which will hopefully pay off later this summer.

~ I'm buying local, in season produce at the Farmer's Market. You have to be careful because some stuff they sell is imported and they sell it for twice the price of the grocery stores.

~ I still stockpile - loss leaders only. If it isn't dirt cheap, I don't get it.

~ If there are no good sales, I just don't buy anything that week. It's really hard but I think this is the most important strategy of all. Out of pasta? No good sales? Have rice or polenta instead.

~ I only buy milk on a weekly basis now. I do have powdered milk to fall back on but I don't really like it much. Everything else, I can go for a good long time without shopping. I have tons of canned and frozen food in my stockpile and the basics to make many things from scratch.

~I have a goal, once the garden is producing, to cut back to $20 a week for the remainder of the summer, excluding stockpile purchases.

It ain't easy - if it was everyone would be doing it. Hang in there and be creative!

[ladytoysdream]

I dread going to any grocery store now. Sticker shock
We lost 2 stores not too long ago. I would go to the dollar store, and get what I needed there, then go next door to the grocery one. Now it is a bit farther down the road for a store. We now have a super Walmart which is the fartherst distance for me. Some bargains there, but also some higher prices on what I am looking for.

It's serious, when I don't buy potato chips for him. Not at $ 5 plus a pound. Pkg got smaller and the price keeps climbing.

He likes meat. So I try to be creative here. He may get a steak that got marked down, and the next day, it might be hot dogs. Today's meal solution, was to grab a pkg of stew meat out of the freezer so I could use up yesterdays leftovers of potatoes and carrots.

I was trying to explain to the hubby about groceries today, when he got home, but after a 10 hr day, all he wanted was his supper and the chair in front of the TV.

My plan is to utilize all the canning jars I am buying. Yesterday I got 5 dz used pints for $3.00 and today I got 5.5 dz mixed sizes of jars for $10. Recently, I bought 22 new dozen at the half price sale at Kmart. A new dozen of jars under $5 with lids are a definate bargain.

We have a garden and a flock of chickens. I just started doing a local farmers market with the eggs and some knitted hats that I make. Plan is to keep an eye out at the market for some kind of deals and or barters as the season gets into full swing.

[sunshine]

We enlarged our garden, and I'm processing the harvest in earnest. We are also experimenting with small scale aquaponics.

Meat is a condiment, not main dish.

Snacks are homemade or not at all.

We're drinking water or generic tea - no more soda, juice, etc. Milk is used mainly for cooking, or breakfast beverage.

We also eliminated boxed cereals. . . we either eat homemade cereals or other breakfast foods (made at home - not preprocessed).

[pollypurebred39]

I can not raise my grocery budget regardless of price increases. It's been a pretty rough go here as I now spend less then 1/2 of what my food budget was when I was first married almost 2 decades ago. We fall way below the $21 per person, a week the government says is required to feed yourself and these food price increases have really been a challenge. So here's what I have been doing.


~Beans and beans, lots of beans in everything. It keeps you full. I put them in baked goods, pancakes, meatballs, meatloaf, etc. And we eat a lot of bean dishes, and bean spreads, dips, etc.

~Food thrift stores & discount stores. Huge help. Just today I made 2 banana cream pies for just $2.50 a pie. It can be made even cheaper but I cheated and used premade pie crusts, a box of pudding and coolwhip. If I had made it totally from scratch it would have come out to just over 50 cents a pie. Which leads me to my next way I save money.

~I make from scratch mixes to help keep cost down. Pudding mixes, white sauce mixes, cake mixes, corn muffin mixes. muffin mix, pancake mix, etc.

~ Buying large bags of staples instead of 5# bags, If I find something on sale I'll spend almost my entire food budget on it (I'm trying to build a deep pantry) But not things like soy sauce because that would be too much to get used. At this moment I've got a good bit of rice, 25# of flour, 25# of sugar, a few cans of cocoa, 7 bottles of soy sauce, 30 boxes of low carb pasta, 25 jars of pasta sauce, 13 jars of peanut butter, 15 cans of tuna, 50# of beans & 30 cans of beets. 1 gallon of shampoo concentrate that will make 8 gallons, 6 tubes of toothpaste, feminine products, 2 bottles of hair conditioner and 4 bars of Fels-Naptha soap. Since I bought everything at discount prices I can make our money go further then just going shopping weekly and hoping that I have enough food to make it through the week. Before I started doing this there were times that I didn't eat so someone else could, or I'd spend all week being the food police dividing up food and threatening bodily harm (not really, but almost) if someone just went in and grabbed themselves something, I never would have had enough to make it and we all would have went hungry.

~My DH has a garden and we had always froze the harvest, but this year I'm learning to can and dehydrate.

~I have a wonderful MIL who brings us gifts of food and other things. She usually brings us $20 or so in food each month. She brings clothes for the kids and sometimes my DH. Sometimes cleaning supplies or a new kitchen gadget or utensil for me. And she brings me stacks of coupons which sometimes are a great help.

[krbshappy71]

I am oblivious I guess. I'm on my $150 a month budget, and sometimes I pad it with "splurge food" from my pt job but over-all my pantry is doing ok. It looks like I'm preparing for lean times: beans, pasta, rice coming out of my ears.

I am thankful, though, that I no longer have young kids at home to feed. My teen (17) is rarely home, we bought groceries together at the beginning of the month and she fixes whatever she wants from whatever is in the house. If I'm cooking something I offer it, if I made something recently and the leftovers are in the fridge I let her know, but for the most part she doesn't eat much anymore at home. She has a job, a bf, and is out and about most of the time.

I look forward, in an empty-nest-empty-pocketbook way to when I am the only one at home. I still keep things in the house for her that I would stop buying once she is gone.

[Imarachne]

Its getting harder and harder--I'm on social security and no other income so you can imagine, I'm very creative with simple foods. Its not gonna get better for a while , guys, so tighten the old belt !

[brennasmom]

* meal plan (this saves me a lot of money by not buying things I don't need)

* Bountiful Baskets - for $16.50 I get a basket of fruits and a baskets of veggies. We have only been using this for a few months but have been happy so far

* I make some things ahead and freeze (breakfast burritos, pizza pockets, burritos, etc...) Good for lunches or busy nights

* I am trying to make more bread... I would like to try to make hamburger buns but haven't gotten to it yet

* Use up leftovers

* Pack my kids lunches (and mine too!)

* Homemade refried beans are easy to make. I made a big pot and freezer in ziploc bags.

[Dancing Lotus]

If it's not rock bottom I don't get it. I have learned all sorts of swaps and substitutes. Some of them may not be our favorite option but in a pinch it will do.

I stocked up to the hilt on dried beans and use them to stretch meals by pureeing. We garden and so do people we know. The ladies at work all know Dh eats veggies so they bring him extras from their gardens. Last week we had an entire gallon of cherry tomatoes brought to use. A zucchini the size of a spaghetti squash and a dozen egg plant. Guess what we ate??

A few months ago I ended up getting two dozen boxes of free pasta so we eat pasta two nights a week. When that's gone I'll have to think of something else.

As for drinks , it's tea or water. When the kids are lucky I get lemons from my parents tree and make them lemon aid. OJ and grapefruit juice are plentiful from this winters harvest but when that runs out I'll just have to buy it but limit to the extra small glasses.

I pray that food prices do not go up anymore.

[Paws]

In the April storms, our county was among one of several that were declared disaster areas. ((Our home was damaged, but unlike many, not even near a total loss...Only about $9300 in damage.))
Since we DID sustain damage, power was out for several days, and had quite a bit of food loss in the fridge, ((thank goodness not from our freezers)), we qualified for $668 D-snap benefits...which is the same as food stamp benefits... only it's a one time pmt.
We've never been able to get any help like this before so trust me when I say...I'm extremely grateful. It has really helped out such a great deal...especially since our home owners insurance deductible is $1000.

Even with this EBT card-I STILL use coupons, comp ad, buy loss leaders, buy staples and long term storage foods for my stockpile. I meal plan, use ALL left overs, try to have a meatless meal once or twice a week, ((DH REALLY HATES these days...)), cook beans as much as I can get the family to eat, even shop at our one salvage grocery store sometimes, and make as many HM mixes as I can.

Like others, I'm trying to grow as much of my own produce as possible...but my garden is dead...we're under a pretty bad drought this year.
It's pretty lean times now a days...

[Ali Lee]

I'm..
~~making a lot more casseroles. Using & finding family favorite recipes in many blogs I read. (tried & true)
~~1 or 2 x's a week, meatless meals. Mac&cheese, vegetable spag, quiche, pancakes, french toast, eggs & bizkits, etc.
~~cut way back on pop. My dau gave me a box of different flavor tea bags. I've been adding 1 bag to a family size tea bag for making our iced tea-for a different flavor. Also, adding bottled lemon juice from Aldi's to ice h20.
~~cut back on the amt of meat in recipes
~~last but not least, when talking on the phone or whenever/whatever, just ask "what r u having 4 supper", listen & use their ideas. Sometimes you just don't know what to fix!!

[pollypurebred39]

The flavored tea is a great idea Ali Lee. I'm going to try that.