Plan your meals for a year, save half your grocery bill

Although i do agree you can save a lot of money if you buy bulk, in order to buy bulk you need some money in your pocket ahead of time or meals can get really boring if all you afford to buy is one kind of soup and have to eat it for 3 months. Sale shop...always. Most of what I buy is on sale but that is because I have the money to wait and buy on sale. I think you will find a lot of people who need to spend their dollars on what they are going to eat this week.

Yes, my family would be almost as cash conscious/crazy as Leslie. We have a family of 4 eat on about 150 bucks a week, or less. Many of my friends wonder how we do it. We DO shop in bulk for "staples," visit the 50% off rack every week AND do NOT buy processed foods. (Processed foods are easier and therefore much more expensive.) We eat VERY healthy (alot of salads made at home by us), (not the store bought salads) and we eat other vegetables also, mostly in the summer when they're fresh. Take note: We are not vegetarians. However, we buy meats when we see a sale. When we snack at night, it's on raw vegetables with homemade dips.
Yes, it's possible to eat cheaply, however, someone in the family (or more hopefully) must be very willing to learn how to be a cook. Out of the blue...food/cooking becomes "family oriented." Pretty cool actually.

I actively utilize coupons to help me save groceries. I make sure I combine them with flyer and instore promotion offers to get the best bang for my buck. I do like the name brand stuff over the no name, and i find using coupons and using them on those products aleady on sale a way to save much more than without. I found a new site called www.websaver.ca Just did some order to get L'oreal product. $4.00 off! WOW. A Plus on this website. every coupon I use, they (not sure if its them or the product company) donates 5Cents to charity. Nice move!

With both of us on EI this winter we got back to cooking from scratch and eating a lot more fresh vegetables and ended up really saving money on groceries. A large turnip is only 1.50 and when cooked and mashed makes enough healthy veggies for two meals. A bag of potatoes is 2 bucks and makes a whole lot more hand cut french fries than the 3 dollar bag that used to only last us two meals. A huge 10 pound bag of carrots was only 2 dollars on sale, same for onions and other traditional canadian root crop vegetables. Home made chicken nuggets are real cheap to make if you buy an inexpensive package of chicken, cut it up into bite sized pieces and make a quick breading to coat it. There are lots of recipes for this on the internet. No trans fat or chemicals either like in the packages of chicken nuggets you buy ready made (and twice as many chicken pieces for the same money). Less cholesteral, more meat, much better taste. I stay away from exotic produce as the prices are pretty high.

Also hidden taxes are huge in the grocery store. 30 years ago I worked at Kmart and EVERYTHING had a price tag and the taxable items had the price and the tx beside it so the consumer knew what was taxable and what was not. People actually put stuff back on the shelf if they saw a tx sign. Now the tx sign is on the little description code sticker on the shelves under the products. If you buy a ready cooked pizza at the deli counter at your supermarket you are paying applicable restaurant taxes on this pizza when you go thru the grocery store check out as this is not considered a grocery item but a restaurant take out item by the government. So that convenient 10 dollar hot pizza is gonna cost you at least another buck. A frozen deli style pizza that you have to cook at home is gonna only cost you the basic price. Pet foods are taxable, so are most highly developed desserts. A litre of ice cream is not taxable, a box of cookies is not taxable but go to the frozen food section and that box of dessert item of two cookies with ice cream sandwiched between them for 6.99 is taxable as it is not considered a basic food item and will really cost you over 8.00. So go for the cheap litre of ice cream and make you own cookie icecream sandwhich at home. Take a long look next time you are supermarket shopping and look for the little taxable notation on the shelving price sticker and then when you are done look at the bottom of your bill. the supermarkets list the pst and gst separately so you dont get spooked at the large amount of tax you pay. When you see 13 bucks on a hundred dollar order and think of that 4 times each month, 50 bucks or so for the sake of buying convenience foods will buy a whole lot more meat or milk. Rule of thumb, for every 10 dollar item that you see the tax symbol, round up to 11.00. Makes you really think about what you are really getting for your money. Magazines, shampoos, cleaners are all taxable too. That 8.99 cooking magazine is over 10 bucks too. Even bottled water can sometimes be taxable.

Did anyone actually click on the link to their yearly menu? A lot of the food is what I would consider junk! Hotdogs? Fritos? Hamburger helper? Come on! I for one refuse to sacrifice nutrition to save a buck.
We are actually trying to reign in our grocery budget and have figured that we can feed a family of 4 on about $550-600/month. That is with eating healthy, yummy food. Butter chicken, homemade tortillas and breads, lots of fresh veggies and beans and minimal red meat and processed garbage. If you plan a weekly menu in advance it prevents unnecessary trips to the store, reduces the "what to have for dinner" issue and helps save $$ and stress!

seems ambitious but then there's no room for ANY spontaneity or what if you don't feel like eating that meal? you end up switching meals around and then what's the point of this crazy YEAR schedule. Plan a week in advance at most....why a year?!

I switched over to buying local vegetables and meats from farmers and farmers markets and eating a local diet and cooking more. This means way less trips to the big grocery stores that do not support local, plus the more you shop at the grocery stores =the more you pick up stuff that you don't really need. I end up eating healthy and supporting local farmers at the same time!

Putting together a salad, making up a quick stir fry, steaming some veggies, and frying up some meat can be just as fast as the time it would take to cook processed food in the oven.

I looked at the yearly menu and I agree with Lisa, they are eating a lot of garbage. I wouldn't feed half that stuff to my dog. They could make more nutritious food and save more money by cutting out the convenience foods they are using (ie hamburger helper and suddenly salad). I understand what it is like to have time contraints and be tempted to use convenience foods, but my greatest discovery is the slow cooker. 15 minutes in the morning before work and you walk in the door to a wonderfull nutritious home cooked meal. Nothing better.

The slow cooker is the greatest invention ever! And I agree.... walk on by those hotdogs! :-p

One way I've found to save money (besides all the other great suggestions) is to make certain I NEVER go grocery shopping when I'm hungry! Suddenly, all that junk food looks VERY appetizing - and I know it wouldn't appeal to me at all if I'd just had lunch.

Another idea is - when you do have some spare time - make extra & freeze it. My husband & I do this even when we're travelling in our 5th wheel. So much easier to have those lovely meals pre-prepared!

I keep a price book with the unit prices of all the things I buy frequently. I have found that WalMart is rarely ever the cheapest option