Saving Money on Your Grocery Bill: Part 1

Last month I saved all of my receipts from my grocery trips to see how much money I saved by coupons alone, the total was $434.00! So I want to share with all of my frugal minded friends how to save LOTS of money on your groceries. First, I love coupons but I am not an "extreme" couponer. The most papers I buy are 4 at a time and that is ONLY if the coupons are REALLY good that week. Normally I buy 2 every Sunday after Church inside of Ingles. Some of my family and friends give me coupons too, and I love them even more for it ;) I do buy plenty of things without coupons, it is not realistic or healthy to buy coupon only items. You can't find many coupons for meat, produce, or milk. The biggest way to save on these things is to shop around sales. I get a lot of my families meat from my hubby and my dads deer hunting. Meal Planning is VERY important, if you don't meal plan START! It prevents wasting money and food which helps feed your family for less. For example: Plan spaggetti with salad, tacos and chilli for supper. BLT's for lunch and pancakes with bacon for breakfast in one week. You then have cheese and sour cream for the chilli and tacos, ground beef for all 3 suppers, lettuce and tomatos for your salad, BLT's and tacos. Bacon to top your salad, go on your BLT's and go with the pancakes...Plan the rest of the week the same way making all of the menu ingredients work in other meals. Plan your meals with your weekly ad paper in hand so you know what can stretch your budget the most. A trick I have with stretching ground beef: In all recipes that call for 1pound (other than tacos) reduce it to half a pound and add a veggie that works with your meal. When I make chilli I add onions. In spaggetti I add peppers and Onions. To stretch fresh milk I use evaporated milk mixed with water in cooking, baking and gravy. With produce, buy in season fresh fruits and veggies. Out of season produce is priced best in cans and frozen plus you get lots of coupons for canned and frozen produce :) I hope this helps!