Thank you for sharing the link to the story about the family of 7 and their new frugal ways. I hope they can continue their frugal shopping and meal planning. I wonder if they will do a follow up story about them in a few months. If you happen to see it, please post the link.

I saw Jessica Seinfeld on a morning show not too long ago and she was wonderful! I love to puree veggies and add them to the kids foods. We also puree alot of fruit for smoothies and they love their “milkshakes” with fruit, yogurt and milk. We used to put pureed fresh spinach in pizza sauce and they didn’t know it was there until they saw me do it once. They liked the taste so much that now I don’t even have to puree it, I just cut it in to small pieces. We also add flax seed to alot of foods and it adds such a nice nutty flavor that they don’t know it’s there.

It sounds like your children have delicious and healthy lunches. Thanks for sharing their typical menu.

Great job on the $300 per month grocery budget. I recently worked with a woman who has been spending $1500 per month on groceries for a family of 6! She was amazed at the savings I had just from buying sale items and using coupons on sale items. I can’t wait to see how much she is able to cut her grocery bill in the coming weeks.

Thanks again for sharing and keep up the great saving!

Faye

You are definitely off to a great start. There are lots of people who spend MUCH more than $300 per month for a family of 4. Hopefully you will find lots of new tips and techniques in my upcoming monthly articles. If you are not already buying most of your bath and body products (toothpaste, shampoo, razors, depderant…) at drug stores like CVS and Walgreens, I highly recommend you reconsider. By using their rebate programs, we barely pay anything at all for those types of items. Check out http://www.hotcouponworld.com and read the CVS for beginners thread to learn all you can about CVS’s ECB (Extra Care Bucks) program. Walgreens Easy Saver rebate monthly catalog has fantastic savings each month as well. Thanks for posting and please let me know how it is going each month!
Faye

I appreciate your willingness to share your situation. I have worked with many single moms who had never seriously considered couponing but knew they wanted to save more money at the grocery store. You will be happy to know that buying large containers of products in bulk (like those found at warehouse clubs) is not always the best money saving technique. I find that smaller containers, that can be openned when needed, are usually less expensive when purchased at grocers who run great sales, take coupons and ideally double those coupons. It is also easier to store smaller containers of non-perishables, canned goods, & paper prodcuts than it is to store the 800 count container of granola bars!

What I have found is that in order to start seeing a real difference in the grocery budget, most people need to employ a number of techniques including couponing, meal planning, some stocking up (but only as much as you can store and use before expiration dates) and flexibility. By flexibility, I mean the willingness to shop at more than one store for your groceries to get the best buys and the willignness to try new brands. You don’t need to shop at every store, but no one store can offer all the nest buys.

Regarding coupons, you don’t have to get the psper yourself to get coupons. Start a coupon trading box at the breakroom at work, ask your friends and neighbors to keep their coupon supplements for you, print coupons from the internet at sites like http://www.coupons.com and http://www.smartsource.com. There are even coupons for fruits and veggies including canned and frozen produce.

We eat plenty of fruits and veggies year round on our budget. Many are fresh, some are frozen. Because I pay so little for other items on my grocery list (such as canned goods, pasta, rice, cheese, hummus, bread products, etc), the majority of my food budget tends to be for produce and the little amount of meat we eat. In the summer months we grow a garden providing tomatoes, cukes and more. To supplement, I buy from local produce stands that sell produce much less expensively than the grocery stores (and it tastes so much fresher). I also buy in-season produce as much as possible all year round. In the spring, we eat alot of strawberries and freeze some for future months while they are a fabulous price in the spring. In the fall, we eat more apples and right now we are enjoying citrus fruits. Many stores offer a “ripe” produce section with fruits and veggies that are marked down because they are ready to eat that day or the next. I often buy bananas for 25 cents a pound in the ripe section of my local store and we eat them in smoothies that day and I make banana bread with the rest.

My freezer has many bags of Birds Eye Steamfresh veggies and Green Giant boxed veggies that were at least 80% off using sales and coupons. These are excellent sources of the same nutrients you find in fresh produce, but can be stored long term and often cost a fraction of the price of fresh produce when bought on sale with coupons. Just last week, I purchased Green Giant boxed spinach and boxed sugar snap peas at no cost – FREE. The regular price of the veggies is $1.99. They were on sale BOGO (buy one get one free). I had manufacturer coupons for 50 cents off one box that I found on E-bay. The coupons were doubled to $1 so the product was free. I made some delicious spinach enchiladas this week with one of the boxes and even my 8 year old loved them.

I could go on and on but I need to take the blueberry bread out of the oven – Yum!

I hope this helps!

Faye

It sounds like you are doing alot of the right things to keep your grocery budget under control. I am sorry your son has the milk-protein allergy (and that the best forumla for him is soooo expensive!). You have probably already contacted the manufacturer of your son’s formula for coupons, but if not, I highly recommend you give them a call or send them a letter. I have found that many manufacturer’s will send coupons regularly to those who request them, especially when their product is required because of a medical issue.

Do any of the stores in your area double coupons? I have found that for nearly every item we use coupons on, if I wait for a sale at the stores that double coupons (which are the nicer stores in my area including Harris Teeter and Lowe’s Foods), I can buy the name brand products less expensively than the generic at big-box stores including Walmart. I only shop at the big box and warehouse stores a couple times a year now because they are more expensive than the stores that double coupons and offer good sales. If you don’t have any stores in your area that double coupons, then your best bet is to make sure you are coupling sales and coupons and stocking up when the items you use are at their best price.

I also recommend you take advantage of drug store rebates for non-food bath and body products such as toothpaste, shampoo, shaving needs, etc. Thsoe items really eat up a budget but can actually be purchased at almost no cost at many drug stores. With rebates, most of those items end up costing a small fraction of the retail cost. For more information on drug store deals out there, read the article I have published here on CLever Parents titled, “Fabulous Drug Store Deals.”

Thanks again for sharing and keep up the great work!

Faye

Faye Prosser
http://www.smartspendingresources.com