Since Winco has no ads, you just have to go and know your prices.
Eggs, 18 count 1.44. 18 eggs were less than 1.5 times the cost of a dozen. Since I suspect the cost of eggs to go up, at least maybe I can suspend the sticker shock a little of o keep a supply.
Green grapes,.99. They looked really bog and fresh,
Gala apples. .99. Some of,the, had pimctire spots . You have to pick through.
Whole wheat bread 1.60
Winco green chilies - mild. .58 - far cheaper than any other store. - like about a dollar .
Diced tomatoes - .58. I'd rather lay fifty cents, but far cheaper than 1.59. After cleaning the pantry, I discovered we were running short. I rearranged the pantry and made room for more on the shelf and purged some of the beans.
Bottle of lemon juice - 2.14. - by far the cheapest way to get lemon juice. Lemons are expensive and don't look that great.
Winco coffee - 5.48 - cheapest price around. We are not coffee snobs, as you can tell.
Chicken noodle soup. .75. Less coupons for .40 off three.
Credit for bags .18.
Total 21.6
Cantaloupe continues to be cheap by the pound.
Steak was also very reasonable.
Sour cream and cottage cheese were pennies different than Fred Meyer sale price .
Canned veggies were 58
On another note. I took some inventory and cleaned the pantry. Thing were just put in there and I like things in the pantry and fridge grouped together. It keeps you from thinking you are out of something and then finding another one in the back corner.
It told me we have plenty of whole black olives, and not enough of tomatoes. I reduced the amount of canned beans. I am going to using dry beans since I discovered I can cook them without soaking in
the pressure cooker for as little as a cup that makes three cups. By rearranging and organizing I got almost everything off the floor and room for canisters of dried beans. I still want cans for emergencies and times when I don't have an hour to cook beans. It only takes 28 minutes, but it has to have time to come to pressure, and time to release pressure. Beans need to release on their own and not be nudged into it!
Before the pressure cooker. I would have not cooked beans, it is to time consuming to cook a cup of beans from scratch and we can't use a whole stock lot of beans before they go bad. Beans and rice
have a very short fridge life. I'm not going to compromise my family's health to save ten cents and I don't want to waste and throw out.
A serving of rice costs .03 and a serving of beans cost .04. I get beans at grocery outlet. The price seems to be going up and Kroger barely carries them. They are close to .90 at Wimco a pound and I can still get beans for 1.00 for a pound and a half. That's down from two pounds earlier im the year.
They are cheaper at Costco in bulk but we can't use a enormous bag of beans. I do get bulk rice at Costco. We use a lot of rice and it doesn't go bad.
I spend average of seventy five dollars a week. Basically for three of us, The USDA stats for my husband and I is closer to a hundred. That is for food eaten at home, I spend seventy five and stock. I do that by never paying full price for food. In fact, I usually pay 50 percent less or more.
We aren't on snap, but we eat for less than snap. I, not going to tell you that I snap my fingers and food appears in the pantry, catalogued and ready to eat. I spent an hour yesterday printing 2 sets of coupons. That would have been a lot less time , but my computer wouldn't cooperate, it kept hanging and Internet explorer kept quitting . That will be about it for couponing. I will glance at the inserts and file them. Favado at a quick glance before shopping will tell me if there is a coupon on something on my list. Ibotta will tell me of something I bought has a rebate.
I balance my time by spending more time planning and shopping, and less time cooking, there are many ways you can cook scratch, without standing in your feet for hours.
If you have something you want addressed on the blog, please feel free to comment.
Groceries on the cheap is looking at the "put the meal on the table train" from a different perspectives.
The emphasis is on purchasing good shelf stable or frozen food for a RBP in quantity - enough to last you until it goes on sale again or to keep a controlled non-perishable stock of the things you use on a weekly basis.
This means that instead of shopping daily or weekly for just the things you need to cook your meals for the week. You go to two stores and buy :
1) a protein that is a RBP - enough to make that meal for a month or for x number of days. (I.e.: if you eat it once a week, buy enough for 4 meals.)
2) produce and dairy you will need to fill in the meals for the week.
3) a stock item, if you need to and it is on a RBP - enough to fill in to your self imposed stock level.
You often are paying 1/2 price for your food. This allows you to put well-balanced meals on the table consistently on a four dollar a day per person budget. You spend more time on the locomotive ( planning and shopping ) end of the train, and less time in the caboose ( kitchen )by cooking more efficiently.
Four dollars a day is the target amount for people on snap. My premise is that of you can do it on 4 dollars a day, spending more is not hard.
