How much do you spend on food?

[lorihadams]

I spent $91.95 Monday night. I got nectarines (which were gone in 8 hours), red and green apples, a bag of red potatoes, 2 gallon jars of dill pickles, 2 salad dressings that will last us a month, shredded mozzerrella cheese, greek yogurt for a starter to make my own finally, celery, red peppers, carrots, 1 loaf of bread, mayo, 1 bag of tortilla chips, spaghetti sauce, oatmeal, ham steaks on sale, deli sliced ham on sale, green beans, bananas, green onions, corn on the cob, one box of honey chex, and 8 pieces of fried chicken cause I caved for dinner that night.

I managed to save almost $13 with coupons for some stuff and with the sales going on I got some good deals but this should last us for the week or so with what we have on hand.

We put 21 chickens in the freezer for around $.40/lb last november so we are set for chicken. We are almost out of ground deer meat so I'm trying to stretch that and make it last until bow season starts, and I have 2 or 3 roasts and some packs of tenderloin left too. I try to catch pork tenderloins on sale and then buy the whole tenderloins and slice them into steaks myself and that will usually give me 3-4 meals out of each one. I'll buy 2 or 3 when they go on sale. I don't buy beef. I try to catch salmon when it goes on sale but that is not very often. I would love to eat seafood more often but it's just too expensive.

I want to get a lot of tomatoes this year and can them. I don't buy canned vegetables either, we prefer frozen. I can get some of the smaller bags of frozen veggies cheaper with a coupon but it is still cheaper to buy the store brand bags when they go on special without a coupon cause the bags are bigger.

I missed the farmer's market Thursday cause the kids were at the pool and I let the time slip up on me. Our garden is just not doing well. I'm hoping to get lots of corn and I am trying to convince hubby to do some sort of cold frames or greenhouse so we can grow some lettuces for salads during colder weather.

Fruit just kills me. The prices for fruit, even things that are in season, is crazy. I try to only buy things that are in season cause they usually are cheaper that way anyway but dang, food prices have just gone nuts.

I have a friend that just bought 25 boxes of pasta for $.25 per box with her coupons and got spaghetti sauce and bbq sauce for free and her husband just looked at her and said, "we don't eat any of this stuff" Her reply was, "it was free, we do now."

 

[old fashioned]

Food is expensive and I get sticker shock every time I go to the store. I can spend between $100-$150 per week, depending on our needs at the time. Once in awhile I can spend less, like last week I only spent $46 but only bought the immediate neccessaties and trying to make do for the rest. Since our meat supply is getting kinda low we're gonna have to figure out how to restock the freezer before the prices go up again hopefully.
I buy alot more when we have a few extra bucks to stock up to carry us thru when funds are low but it seems like we're always running out of something. So our stash never lasts long.

I wish I knew how to do 'extreme couponing' by getting 100's of dollars worth of groceries for only a few bucks. Since most coupons are only good for one item for a small fraction of the price and can't be doubled, I just can't figure out how they do it.
As Lorihadams says, it's possible to get better deals on store brand stuff without coupons, in most cases.

BTW, I have spent over $100 a time or two with NO meat

 

[Veggie PAK]

I agree with old fashioned. I just can't figure out how couponers do it unless they buy things they don't normally get. I can hardly find anything on sale of the things we usually buy at the grocery store. Also, where do they get the coupons? Magazines or what?

 

[Leta]

Extreme couponing is when you get a zillion of the same inserts, cut hundreds of the same coupons, and often preorder from a store that has really good sales or doubles coupons, and you buy so much that you can resell it or donate it.

I do not do extreme couponing. I have none of the necessary motivations or options (an inside newspaper source for inserts, and/or several nearby double coupon stores, for example).

However, I have learned how to coupon effectively. Everyone has a different method, and different areas and stores have various policies, so you have to tailor it to your situation.

The basic gist of it is that, in order to beat prices on store brands (which are actually more profitable for the store than "name brands"), you clip/peel/gather/print your Qs, and organize them so that you know where everything is and kind find what you are looking for in 30 seconds. Then, you go through store circulars, and circle everything that is on sale that you will actually use. Then you match the circled sale items with your previously clipped Qs. The store sale and/or Q is a discount given by the store, and the Q discount is given by the manufacturer (and reimbursed to the store). It's your job as a savvy consumer to stack these discounts, which is how you get things for $1, free, or that render an overage in your favor.

I learned the basics from this blog, specifically the "Eating Well on $1 A Day" section. FWIW, this guy is in Silicon Valley (neighbors with AnnaRaven!).

I feel like I should point out that the guy in the blog I linked relies pretty heavily on moneymakers. I don't. I have this thing where I won't buy things that I feel are environmentally unsound, whether they make me money or not.

I cut coupons for things that we will use, period. I don't cut everything and then wait for the moneymaking sale. I prefer to save the time and space over cutting everything and potentially making money.

Because we buy from farmers, grow/pick/process our own, buy in bulk, bake, and cook from scratch, I don't clip a lot of Qs for food. My food Qs are for things like coffee, tea, juice, peanut butter, chocolate, nuts, cheese (oh how I hope for the day we move and get goats and can live on my cheese alone), and produce that we don't/can't grow, like bananas and avocados. (Yes, you can find produce Qs, they just tend to be store Qs rather than manufacturer Qs.)

About 2/3 of my Qs are for non-food grocery items. I make almost all my cleaning supplies (only buy magic erasers), laundry stuff, toiletries, etc., so for non-food, I clip for toilet paper, ziptop bags, first aid supplies/OTC meds, pet food, office supplies, automotive supplies, contact solution, and few other things.

Over the past few weeks, ziptop bags have been on sale, and since I dumpster dive for newspapers, I've gotten a bunch of good, duplicate Qs for them. I have spent exactly $20 and gotten 240 gallon and quart freezer bags. They are all good brands (Glad and Ziploc), since we have had problems with off-brand bags in the past. We freeze hundreds of quarts of food every year, so we will certainly use these, though it may take a couple of years. I have three more good Qs, so I'll go and spend another $9 and end up with 360 ziptop bags in all... and then I won't bother clipping for them for probably at least another year, maybe longer. (We do wash and reuse ziptop bags, but we have found that long term freezing requires a new bag.)

I already watched for sales cycles, so couponing felt like a pretty natural extension of that. The really nice part about it is that I am frequenting the three grocery stores and the Family Dollar that are within walking distance of my house, and I am beating big box store prices into the ground. The nearest big boxes are 15 miles away, so couponing saves me considerable time and gas.

Yesterday, I went shopping at Family Dollar and a local grocery store. My receipts said that I saved $29 and $16, respectively, by using coupons. My totals were $63 and $31, so this is not too shabby, around 30%. I bought 2 weeks worth of food and many months worth of non-food items.

 

[AnnaRaven]

Extreme couponing is when you get a zillion of the same inserts, cut hundreds of the same coupons, and often preorder from a store that has really good sales or doubles coupons, and you buy so much that you can resell it or donate it.

I do not do extreme couponing. I have none of the necessary motivations or options (an inside newspaper source for inserts, and/or several nearby double coupon stores, for example).

However, I have learned how to coupon effectively. Everyone has a different method, and different areas and stores have various policies, so you have to tailor it to your situation.

The basic gist of it is that, in order to beat prices on store brands (which are actually more profitable for the store than "name brands"), you clip/peel/gather/print your Qs, and organize them so that you know where everything is and kind find what you are looking for in 30 seconds. Then, you go through store circulars, and circle everything that is on sale that you will actually use. Then you match the circled sale items with your previously clipped Qs. The store sale and/or Q is a discount given by the store, and the Q discount is given by the manufacturer (and reimbursed to the store). It's your job as a savvy consumer to stack these discounts, which is how you get things for $1, free, or that render an overage in your favor.

I learned the basics from this blog, specifically the "Eating Well on $1 A Day" section. FWIW, this guy is in Silicon Valley (neighbors with AnnaRaven!).

I feel like I should point out that the guy in the blog I linked relies pretty heavily on moneymakers. I don't. I have this thing where I won't buy things that I feel are environmentally unsound, whether they make me money or not.

I cut coupons for things that we will use, period. I don't cut everything and then wait for the moneymaking sale. I prefer to save the time and space over cutting everything and potentially making money.

Because we buy from farmers, grow/pick/process our own, buy in bulk, bake, and cook from scratch, I don't clip a lot of Qs for food. My food Qs are for things like coffee, tea, juice, peanut butter, chocolate, nuts, cheese (oh how I hope for the day we move and get goats and can live on my cheese alone), and produce that we don't/can't grow, like bananas and avocados. (Yes, you can find produce Qs, they just tend to be store Qs rather than manufacturer Qs.)

About 2/3 of my Qs are for non-food grocery items. I make almost all my cleaning supplies (only buy magic erasers), laundry stuff, toiletries, etc., so for non-food, I clip for toilet paper, ziptop bags, first aid supplies/OTC meds, pet food, office supplies, automotive supplies, contact solution, and few other things.

Over the past few weeks, ziptop bags have been on sale, and since I dumpster dive for newspapers, I've gotten a bunch of good, duplicate Qs for them. I have spent exactly $20 and gotten 240 gallon and quart freezer bags. They are all good brands (Glad and Ziploc), since we have had problems with off-brand bags in the past. We freeze hundreds of quarts of food every year, so we will certainly use these, though it may take a couple of years. I have three more good Qs, so I'll go and spend another $9 and end up with 360 ziptop bags in all... and then I won't bother clipping for them for probably at least another year, maybe longer. (We do wash and reuse ziptop bags, but we have found that long term freezing requires a new bag.)

I already watched for sales cycles, so couponing felt like a pretty natural extension of that. The really nice part about it is that I am frequenting the three grocery stores and the Family Dollar that are within walking distance of my house, and I am beating big box store prices into the ground. The nearest big boxes are 15 miles away, so couponing saves me considerable time and gas.

Yesterday, I went shopping at Family Dollar and a local grocery store. My receipts said that I saved $29 and $16, respectively, by using coupons. My totals were $63 and $31, so this is not too shabby, around 30%. I bought 2 weeks worth of food and many months worth of non-food items.

Thanks for describing it so well. I've been getting 30-40% savings by stacking Qs and sales. And most of that for non-food stuff as well. I get an extra local Sunday paper and one from San Francisco so I have the extra inserts for coupons. THe paper goes into the compost (need more browns for it). And then focus on the stores that are within 3 blocks of my house (we have a group of them). For us, it really helps.

 

[lorihadams]

Cool, that is a really good explanation.

I need to work on the nonperishables and see if I can find some deals on stuff like the ziploc bags. I wish I could find some coupons for foodsaver stuff for when we do our chickens and deer meat. Need to make a mental note to look for that.

I decided to get an electric razor instead of doing razors anymore. I love it that I don't have to take a shower to shave anymore so if I want to go to the pool I can just whip out my rechargable shaver and take care of things without having to lather everything up. No more razor burn either. That has paid for itself ten times over. I think it was like $30.

I just wish I had more time to work at it.

 

[Veggie PAK]

When people say "stacking coupons" for an item, do they mean using multiple coupons for the same items? What stores let you do this? If they are so restrictive on coupons with all the requirements that have to be met, how can they simply let a person "stack" coupons when purchasing an item? A lot of the coupons state: "Not valid with any other offer" or "one coupon per purchase" or "one coupon per purchase per visit". How do people get around that? I must be shopping at the wrong store. Where should I be shopping to accomplish this savings?

 

[lorihadams]

That's the problem I have here too. Our one store that doubles coupons limits the number you can have per transaction. So some people will break their groceries up into separate transactions by cart and organize all their coupons to correspond to them. It takes time if you want to work around it. I have a friend that does this.

She also has lucked out on the clearance racks. Sometimes the store will accidentally order too much of something and need to get rid of it so they put it on deep discount on the clearance rack. Then she happened to have coupons that were for that item and was able to get all of them for free or little of nothing.

You can usually go online and find out the store's coupon policy or call and ask to speak to a manager to find out EXACTLY what they do and don't allow.

I lucked out and got several things on the clearance rack this past week. They had overstocked some organic olive oil, organic mustard, and pasta and I got them for about 1/3 of their original price.

 

[Leta]

"Stacking" means combining a coupon with a sale, or combining a manufacturer's coupon with a store coupon.

For example, when Kohl's sends out those 20% or 30% off coupons, you can go to the clearance rack and use the 30% of Q on those items. Another mom at therapy was telling me that they had a bunch of little girl sandals clearanced out to $5/pair, and after the 30% off Q, she paid $3.50/pair for brand new sandals.

The nearby local chain grocery here is SuperOne. They have a circular that includes coupons. Recently they had a coupon for Kool Aid packets, 12 for 50c. (I use lemon Kool Aid to make dishwasher soap. We don't drink it, I swear!) I also got a Kool Aid manufacturer Q from liking them on Facebook. The MFQ was 50c off 10 packets. So my Kool Aid was free.

The "not to be combined with other offers" thing means that you can't use an MFQ for $1 off with an MFQ that's Buy One Get One Free. The manufacturers can't control the store's sales or coupons, which is why you can combine them.

 

[Veggie PAK]

Leta, thank you for the thorough explanation. I'm going to study the "system" and see if I can capitalize on it. What did you do in Facebook to "like" them? Search for the manufacturer and go through their products? That's new to me, so I have to ask. Thanks in advance!