Smart shopping

I am the wife of an MD/PhD student who earns a small stipend and a stay-at-home-mother of two small children. According to the US government standards, we are considered to be below the poverty line but I think we live quite comfortably, eat very well, and the only current debt we have is our home mortgage. We shop quite frugally and manage to stretch our dollars quite far!

If it’s alright, I’d like to pass some of my frugal grocery shopping tips on to you. You can also learn more by just Googling for more frugal shopping and even frugal cooking tips. Lots of people write blogs and websites devoted to shopping on tight budgets. Heck! I’m still learning and I'd love to hear from others what sort of money-saving techniques you use when grocery shopping as well as favorite blogs on the subject!

Price per ounce – shop with a calculator to figure out which package of vegetables will give you the most for your money. Sometimes, beggars can’t be choosers and one must buy the store-brand if it’s the cheapest. Some store-brands are even better than the name-brand!

Shop for sales and keep track of prices with a small notebook in your purse so you can record what a good price is when you come across it. Look at the store ads, clip coupons. Stock up on things to keep in your pantry you know you use often rather than waiting till you run out. Peanut butter on sale? Stock up if you eat it often. Mayonnaise? Pickles? Cereal? We're also in the market for a chest freezer so we can stock up on awesome priced frozen vegetables and meat.

Buy some items in bulk – dried beans, brown rice, sugar, flour, oatmeal, etc. It’s intimidating but a big bag of brown rice is a smarter choice than little boxes of minute rice and stores well in five-gallon buckets in my food storage room. Brown rice is also healthier and fills you up more than white rice. And you don’t have to be a family of four or more just to buy in bulk. Even my husband did it when he was a bachelor!

Food storage – Yes, I’m LDS. I grew up learning about food storage. It’s not just about being prepared for a natural disaster or job loss but stocking up on things you eat when on sale to easily have on hand. I stock up on canned food, boxed cereal, etc. Anything that has a good shelf life and that we eat often, I’ll buy when I can. I’ve also learned from my mother’s mistake of buying red wheat that she never could really use. Don't buy in bulk what you just won't eat!

My laundry/food storage room

Make dinners from scratch – I must confess that Stouffers lasagna is quite tasty but it’s expensive and actually not all that healthy (too much cheese also gives my nursing infant painful gas, anyway). I can also make a bigger pan of healthier lasagna for less than those frozen meals cost. Left overs are also just fine in our house. My husband made a huge batch of chili this weekend in our stockpot. He doesn’t mind eating it for lunch almost every day this week. And no, he’s not that gassy because his body is used to eating beans and able to digest them. (Besides, if you know anything about my sense of humor, I think farts are funny!)

Gardening – I can’t talk about this one but someday, I’ll find my green thumbs and figure out how to cultivate a garden of fresh fruits and veggies and learn how to preserve them for the winter months.

The list can go on and perhaps I'll write again in the future about smart shopping but this is what I've come up with in just one morning while my daughter watches some Cailou.