Since is is shopping day for us, I thought I would expand on shopping. Fortunately, I have a stock built,because there is it a lot of things on sale this week. If you have a stock built,then you have the luxury of picking and choosing the weeks you spend more money on food. Spending the same amount buying the same things week after week, you can be caught with no money left when there IS a big sale.
Always try to match sales with coupons. Cold cereal, pasta, toothpaste, deodorant, yogurt, are notorious for having a coupon out there. There are coupons you can print on the Internet, and no, I have never heard of anyone that got pop ups or other garbage from the download of drivers on coupons.com. There are a lot of web sites out there, but they most generally still go back to coupons,com's data base.
The dollar store has Sundays papers on Sarurday and the rest of the week. Make sure of you get it on Saturday that you are getting the correct weeks paper. The first week of the month there are p and g inserts and smart source, and red plum. Also, there are red plums on the oater with the ads we get in the mail. I file them by month in file folders. When I find a matchup, I go to at month and pull the coupon. I keep a binder with dividers for the basic food groups with photo sleeves in it. The computer printable coupons go on there along with any regular coupons that I have pulled because I am going to use them. I put them, in the front pouch if the binder. I got the binder for a buck at a flea market. The dividers at the dollar store. Thos doesn't have to cost money , bit it saves at least sox dollars a week. That's over three hundred dollars a year. That is what a lot of people get for a months worth of groceries, That's more than a months pension check for us. In perspective, that's a lot of money for a lot of people.
Nothing is a bargain if you aren't going to use it. I don't "buy" anything even of ot is free that I either am going to use, or is know specifically where I can take ot where it will be wanted. I got baby food a couple of weeks ago for free. I took it to the food bank. I get toothpaste for free when it can. It goes twice a year to the women's shelter. I can think of at least half a dozen other places in the area where toothpaste would probably be welcome. It is a necessity item, and you can't buy it with snap.
This is not extreme couponing. This blog isn't extreme anything. I tend to hit middle of the road in just about everything. It has served me well.
Shopping wisely and buying just what you will eat in perishables and stocking staple items can cut your food bill in half. I know the mindset out there that if ot costs money, it doesn't save anything. But, of you pay 1.50 for something that you need and it's .50 on sale, you have spent - dollar less than you would have if you paid full price. That dollar is still in your bank account or on your EBT card.
If you never had that dollar on the forst place, it just means you eat well on what you do have and you don't have an empty cupboard at the end of the month.
No child should have to suffer the insecurity of having no food in the pantry. And, no child should have top ramen and potato chips for dinner. I can't feed the entire population. But, I can inform people how to get more bang for their buck, and how to put nutritious meals on the table with what they have. If I can feed us on less than the USDA statistics for thrifty food at home, others can too.
It takes some effort. I can only relate to the food prices in the Pacific Northwest. I have heard we were more expensive, and I have heard that we are cheaper than other parts of the country. The concepts don't change. The methodology doesn't change. The prices change, but then so does the snap allotment and the wages. It's all realitive.
That's all I have time for.
Please share. I'd like to reach as many people as I can.
Jane
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