I shop for my regular food about once a month. The produce is purchased every 2 weeks and milk once a week. I think I could get by with buying the milk every 2 weeks, but my fridge is completely crammed with produce right now and I couldn't fit enough milk in to last us 2 weeks right now. I have a family of 7 and am only spending $120 for groceries for the entire month!
Here's what we do:
1. We joined a local co-op for our fruits and veggies. For $15 we get plenty of fruits and veggies to last 2 weeks. The one in my area is
www.bountifulbaskets.org. If this is something that has a participating location near you, DO IT! The same amount of fruit and veg at the store would cost me around $40. It's fantastic stuff and I get tons of it for hardly anything.
2. We have family members that raise beef cows and we have the opportunity to buy it for their cost, which is around $1.60/lb for the entire cow. This is a pretty good price for ground beef, but considering that we also bought filet minion, ribeye steaks, etc. for $1.60/ lb, it's a fantastic deal. We bought an entire cow 2 months ago, so this month I don't have to buy any beef. We have very large freezers in our basement.
3. We have chickens that lay eggs. Chickens are the easiest animals in the world to take care of. I think our fish are harder to take care of than the chickens. If you let them free range, they don't cost very much to feed, their eggs are better for you, and the animals are healthier. We have 9 chickens and get around 6 eggs a day.
4. I bake my own bread products. This includes: bread, hot dog/hamburger buns, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, etc. That's one less thing I have to buy and it tastes so much better when it's home made. It's really not that hard. I also am able to control the ingredients in the bread. I prefer whole wheat bread, but what our local store calls whole wheat is white bread with a little wheat, some chemicals, and food coloring. Gross stuff. It also costs around $4 a loaf. I can make it for around $0.50.
5. I stock up when things go on sale. We have case lot sales where I live where if you buy the entire case of the products (usually canned goods and baking supplies) it's around 1/2 price.
6. We garden. If you garden correctly, you should only be buying your seeds for one year. After that, you can use seeds from the previous year's garden to plant the next year. That makes your produce during gardening time practically free.
7. I can and preserve produce that I have gotten from the garden, or our local food co-op before it goes bad. Yesterday, we canned tomatoes. Tomatoes were free from the garden. We bought the jars years ago and just keep reusing them. I got too many peaches from our co-op a couple of weeks ago. Instead of throwing them out, we pealed, sliced, and froze them. They are great in smoothies and peach cobblers this way. We also had too many pears to eat all at once. The pears got made into fruit roll-ups and dried slices for healthy snacks.
What we do won't work for everyone, but it is very possible to keep a very low grocery store budget without feeling like you are going without. We eat extermely well.
Shocking isn't it! Now this does include all meals for my family of four and all eating out. But....with the amount of food in my house it's crazy. My goal for today is less than $500. I'll let you guys know. We are also planning on eating out on grocery shopping day, I have built it into the budget, along with one other eating out night and one pizza night. I work a full time job, I telecommute from home, so eating out is something we do sometimes but I really want to keep a handle on it. Also we like to eat out as a form of entertainment, so the one night I have scheduled will be a nicer sort of place, probably italian or something and the pizza night is just when I know I will be too tired to face the kitchen.
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