Ontario Grocery Deals?

[Disney Ontario]

Hi. I was just wandering where you all find the best prices for groceries?We want to start saving for our States long weekend trip in July and also for Disney next March. I wish I knew how to divide our money on Fridays like on"Till Debt Do Us Part" show. I want our family to do a weekly meal/food plan to see if it also helps.

 

[disneynovic]

Most frugal or time-crunched people wouldn't agree with my shopping habits, but I can make it work. I shop several different grocery chains depending on what is on sale, and where I will be for the week. For example, yesterday I was in Newmarket, so I shopped the loss leaders at Price Choppers and in the evening I was in Sutton, so I quickly stopped in for their deals at Sobeys(they had great snacks and pop on sale, so I buy as much as I can). Next week when we run out of fruit and milk, I will shop at Food Basics, as they also have some deals, but are things I don't need right away. We are a family of six, two teenagers a 7 and 1 year old, and we spent approximately $100 a week. I do ALOT of homecooking, very little is convenience food(except when I find a great deal ie Choppers had Yogo rollups for $1), and I do usually have a meal plan for the week simply because we are so busy in the evenings with kids activities. I like having a plan, because then I don't have to think about what is for dinner that night, I just check the calendar.

One thing I've done to help save for our trip is get everyone in the habit of turning off the lights, computers, xbox etc and unpluging things not in use. We had a HUGE hydro bill for Feb. and I told the kids we can't go away if this bill doesn't go down. So far it's really working.

There is a lady on here who uses alot of Airmiles to get things for Disney/Orlando. I've been checking into every loyalty program we are a part of to see what else we can get. So far I have Universal tickets for 4 adults from Airmiles, hotel rooms for the way down (2 needed) thru Starwood, hotel room for back (1 needed) thru Aeroplan and a $10 Pizza Hut card good in the US. The more deals I can find, the more often I can convince DH to go away

Good luck with your saving,
Deb

 

[DearDaisyinDurham]

Wow Deb! That was a lot of great advice!
We do the same, we have lots of stores to choose from so are lucky to be able to get the really awesome sale items in bulk.

To the OP, there is a website called Saving Dinner, you can get menus and shopping lists for the week. If you want to save $$, you can get one or more of Leanne Ely's books from the library, she also has a free newsletter you can sign up for that gives recipes, etc. One thing I did when I first moved here and couldn't work (waiting for residency) was to check out the frugal zealot books from the library, think the title was thrifty gazette, I will double check that.

Good luck!
xoxoxoxo

 

[Debbie]

Shopping
We go through the ads when they come on Friday/Saturday and I plan what we are going to have for the week. I write the 'meal' on the calendar. That doesn't mean that I have to have it, but it sure is nice to have a guide for the day. We tend to shop No Frills, Price-Chopper, and Real Canadian Superstore. I only ever buy the specials at A&P. We shop Shoppers Drug Mart or Costco for cheap(er) milk. Giant Tiger has some decent food prices, too. It depends on what you are buying. I also do an M&M Meatshops run every couple of months. On Sundays, our local Foodland has their meats that are coming up to date on sale, so it is a tradition that on the way home from Church DDs and I go "meat shopping".

I try to make a game out of how much we spend each week, but DH always seems to go over. With all our running around for the girls, we plan our grocery trips at all times. DH makes the list....and I cut it!

We have the reusable bags and a Zehrs "green box", that we always have in the trunk, so we don't buy bags at the no frill type grocery stores. In the summer, I take along my cooler to pop cold things into, too.

One thing that we've been doing to keep us on track is to buy gift cards/certificates from the 2 stores that we use. That gives us a "limited" amount to aim towards, and supports the girls' music program at the same time. (They come in handy when DS23 is out of food, too, since I can hand him a card and say.....shop to your heart's content, just keep it under $50).

Meals
We do breakfast for dinner-omelet, scrambled eggs etc- at least once a week. Our schedule is crazy, so at least once a week it is soup and/or grilled cheese sandwiches (depends on how hungry we are). If hamburger is on sale, I'll buy enough to make 1 or 2 meatloaves (is that a word? ), and some meatballs for pasta. My girls love pasta, so we have that once (or twice) a week, too. The girls won't eat cooked veggies, so I have frozen for DH and myself. We always have fresh vegetables cut up and in the fridge, and DH insists on buying the packaged salad. I've tried to explain that a nice big romain can be cut up easily, but . . . .

Other
I, too, am being more vigilant in the turning off of the computer and peripherals when I am not using them. Over the winter, the daytime temp in the house was 66ºF, and DH (who is a home guy) wears a sweater. We do move it up as we get home from work/school. I use Quicken to budget and track the finances. I have several "accounts" so that I can stay ahead. When I get paid, I transfer to the phantom accounts, money for utilities, household, vehicle, and Disney savings. Quicken does it automatically, and I don't even look at the amount in the bank. I just track the amount in Quicken. I update at least every other day, paying bills online. We tend to overthink every purchase. Right now, we are deciding on flooring for the main level. Who knows when we will finally make that decision? Oh, and I have those Tightwad Gazette books. I read them every couple of years to get back on track.

 

[cheap-dude]

check out GrocerySavings.ca
It has a list of grocery flyer links for all of the grocery stores in Canada. You can compare grocery flyer prices between these grocery stores: no frills, food basics, price chopper and loblaws. There is also a price book for you to keep track of your own purchases and you can also see what other's have paid for their groceries. If you're unfamiliar with grocery store locations in Ontario, there is a map of the grocery stores showing you the hours of operation, available services, contact information and how much gas it will cost you.

 

[Thumper_ehhhhh]

We always keep a eye on the fliers. We have all the major stores close so it's not a biggie getting to any of them. When we see dollar days on at no frills we stock up. The best way I was able to save money is every single toonie I got I put in a jar. I saved everyone for almost a year before we went to Disney last time. It paid for our fuel as we drove down and back. We even had extra left for other stuff. I never even noticed 4 to 6 toonies a week being put aside. But boy do they add up quick.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

My family is mostly vegan (one son eats meat sometimes but really only when he goes out) so we buy a lot of fruits and vegetables, and I can often get good prices (and good quality) at the Farmer's Market. I live in Guelph, where we have a good one every Saturday morning, and I'm only about 20 minutes from the huge Farmer's Market in St. Jacobs, so we go there fairly often, too.

One tip - if you go later, just before the Market is closing, you can often get some great deals. In St. Jacob's, for example, the Stone Crock bakery has a booth and when it's closing time they will gather up all the remaining baked goods in baskets and sell you the entire basketful (which might contain a couple loaves of bread, two bags of buns, some muffins, danish, and breadsticks) for a couple of dollars. Same deal with most of the farmers selling produce - they'd rather give it to you cheaply than take it home, because it won't last until next week. I've also seen the butchers at St. Jacob's offer deals on the meat - half price, or things like buy 4 steaks and they'll throw in 4 chicken breasts. So while you get the best selection going early, going late saves money!

Teresa