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Make list, watch prices, buy in bulk to stretch budget at grocery store
By Kathleen Purvis
McClatchy Newspapers
Published on Wednesday, Mar 26, 2008
You think your food bill is up? Try shopping with Don Hinkle.
He buys six to eight gallons of milk a week. If meat is marked two-for-one, he'll buy $200 worth.
Hinkle has a lot of mouths to feed. Three teenagers, ages 19, 18 and 16, and 7-year-old triplets. ''We were afraid of losing tax deductions,'' said Hinkle, a bank information technology project manager in Weddington, N.C.
For Meredith Ritchie, having triplets means coming up with breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week for three 7-year-olds.
''Every dollar counts in the Ritchie household,'' she said.
Both Ritchie and Don Hinkle, who does the shopping for his family of eight, watch prices as closely as a schoolkid watches snow clouds.
''I've got a real math brain, so it's easy for me to keep tabs,'' Ritchie said. ''I have it in my head that I don't want to spend more than $100 a week.''
To do that, she moves her shopping around — perishables one week at a supermarket, bulk goods another week at a discount warehouse.
And she doesn't like to compromise on food for her kids. For instance, her kids eat peanut butter and jelly almost every day for lunch. But since that's their main source of protein, she looks for organic peanut butter at a good price.
And she looks for other ways to trim. The kids take lunch to school, but baggies are expensive. So she found a brand of inexpensive reusable containers — the kind with two compartments — that fit in a lunch box.
She buys large containers of organic yogurt and parcels it out. She buys pudding and gelatin snack cups in bulk.
Hinkle also moves around a lot for his shopping, but doesn't drive far for a deal, he said. ''At the price of gasoline, it quickly counters that.''
He and his wife, Laura, make lists, then adjust them for sales at the store.
''If it's not on sale, we'll wait. We can do without it, or we'll do a different vegetable or a different combination of things.''
A favorite way to stretch their food dollar: potluck night. Everything gets pulled out and put on the table.
That can mean some odd combinations. One night recently, dinner at the Hinkles was lasagna, pancakes, pork chops and pork roast with cherry sauce. But it keeps them from wasting food.
At the Ritchies', budget dinner is often breakfast. Meredith Ritchie watches sales on bacon and when it hits two-for-one, she'll buy 20 packs and freeze it.
Both the Hinkles and Ritchies say a key to scooping up sales is storage. The Ritchies have two refrigerators. The Hinkles have two refrigerators and a deep freezer.
10 WAYS TO SAVE BIG ON GROCERIES
1. Put an erasable board on every refrigerator and freezer to keep track of what you have and need to use.
2. Visit international markets. Things like rice, spices and produce often are much cheaper.
3. Eat a meat-free meal at least once a week.
4. Make a price list of things you use a lot and take it to the store so you'll know when prices go down - or up
5. Make a weekly meal plan and a shopping list, then stick to them.
6. Never shop hungry.
7. Set up one week a month as Use-It-Up week: Plan all your meals using only wheat you already have.
8. Don't throw away stale bread (unless it's moldy). Grate it into crumbs in a food processor, then freeze. Or butter leftover hamburger and hot dog buns, sprinkle with garlic powder, broil and serve with pasta dishes. Cut French or Italian bread into cubes, toss with olive oil, season and bake into croutons.
9. Use every bit of leftover food. Grate several kinds of leftover cheese and melt with skim milk over low heat to make cheese sauce. Or grate and freeze to make a cheese mixture for topping dishes. Cut up leftover bakes potatoes and add to scrambled eggs for breakfast or saute with diced leftover meat and vegetables for hash.
10. Keep a plastic container with a tight lid in the freezer for storing leftover vegetables an the cooking water. Save them until the next time you make soup.
You think your food bill is up? Try shopping with Don Hinkle.
Get the full article here.
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