Yesterday was the monthly Costco run. You may go to Sam's Club or one of the other mega shopping/warehouse places. These are great stores because you can buy bulk packages of prep items and put a real dent in your list of required stored food and supplies.
Here are some of the things I pick up every month at Costco. Afterward, there will be some explaination behind the purchases...
Honey - 10lbs. Two of the big containers
Oatmeal - both the 55 ct instant variety and the big Quaker boxes.
Toilet paper - big old 36 roll pack
Paper towels - same thing
Canned vegetables
Canned meat
Soap - mega pack
Tooth paste - same
Rice - 50lb bag
Honey - Grocery stores only sell containers which carry at most, 16 oz. Costco has a 5 lb container so I pick up two of those.
Oatmeal - you can get the large canisters at the grocers, but Costco has the next size up. Again, I get two of those and store them in buckets at home.
Instant oatmeal - because the kids eat it every other day and it is cheaper than the 12 ct boxes at the grocers.
Toilet paper - grocery stores carry a 12 ct package as the largest size. I have one closet in my home stuffed with paper products.
Paper towels - Paper towels are always expensive at the grocery store. I save anywhere from .10 to .25 per roll by buying the big size at Costco.
Canned vegetables/meat - Be careful with this one. Costco canned vegetables can often be nearly $1.00 per can which makes them twice as expensive as the store versions at the grocers. Canned meat is "generally" cheaper at Costco. I get the canned chicken and tuna.
Soap - the brands vary, but bar soap is always cheaper at Costco.
Toothpaste - shop carefully here as well. Drugstore CVS often has better prices with coupons than Costco.
Rice - Between Costco and the Asian supermarket, I always buy the 50lb bag at one of the two places. I never buy it at the grocers. Again, if you buy 50lbs a month and store it in buckets, you can build a one year supply of rice in just a few months.
I also buy, when I need them, batteries, shampoo, feminine products and some vitamins at Costco. They recently had 5 Hour Energy (you know, the little orange energy drinks), at 24 bottles for $35.00. The grocery sells them at $4.99 for two bottles. Do the math.
Be careful at the warehouse store because the large sizes, pallets and big carts make preppers "feel" like they are doing the right thing. But many of the products are overpriced and designed as tempting impulse buys. Finally, keep an eye out for the coupons once every two months. Many of the above products will be $2-4 cheaper with the coupon.
Showing posts with label saving money at the grocery store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saving money at the grocery store. Show all posts
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Prepare: Cooking and Food
Do you have a "every time I am at the grocery store list"?
This is a list of things you get every time you set foot in the store. It is a great way to build up your food storage.
First, set a budget, $5.00, 10.00 or 20.00. Not more than that or it will put a huge dent in your finances before you know it.
I generally go the grocery store twice a week. One day is "Big Shopping Day". That is where I fill the cart with the usual staples like meat, bread, milk, and so forth. I always use a list and always use coupons. I generally hit two or three stores before I am done. All the of stores must be within a couple of miles of home or the gas costs eats up the food savings.
Once a week, I have to go "pick up a few things". Sometimes it is something my wife needs for a meal or for baking. Other times it is more milk or bread although I try to keep three weeks of perishables on hand at all times.
When I go the store, I pick up a few things every single time.
- One 1lb bag of rice or one bag of noodles (elbow).
- Two 1lb bags of dried beans.
- Two cans of something, usually with protein like canned beans or tuna fish.
- Two cans of fruit.
- One four roll of toilet paper which ever is on sale.
All in all, I usually never spend more than seven dollars on the above. Sometimes it is a little over five.
All of these purchases go into the pantry. The rice and beans go into 5 gallon buckets in their plastic bags after they spend the night in the freezer. The cans go on the shelf.
This builds up a nice little supply of back up food with long shelf life. After a month, you have enough food for a family for three days or longer if you do it right. A year of this can mean a big dent in a month's supply of food. And it only cost about ten dollars a week. That's a fast food meal or a movie ticket.
When it comes to food, I am not a gourmet. It drives my wife bats because I eat very simply. I like bread, meat, potatoes, and little else. But I do like to cook. Cooking is a skill which all of us need before (to save money) and after (to eat, live) the SHTF. Aunt Bee is not coming over to make me a chicken dinner every night.
Because of I am all thumbs in the kitchen, I like cookbooks, the older the better, to prepare foods. New cookbooks have too much "soothing diversity and cultural awareness of foods and the sustainability they bring to persons throughout the world".
Not for me. I like a book which presumes one knows where their food came from and accepts facts such as cows and chickens are for eating.
One of my favorite cookbooks was written in the 1930's and is called French Cooking in Ten Minutes
Don't get me wrong. This is not "Filay Minyon and Snails". This is simple food, prepared quickly, for little money and with a small amount of equipment. The author based his writing on the way people lived in France in the 1930's. Most only had two burner gas or coal stoves (think Coleman stove anyone?).
The book contains recipes which take a few minutes to make and contain basic ingredients nearly everyone has at home. And the meals are filling and complete. And the author is politically incorrect by today's standards. He tells readers how to properly kill a trout ("whack its head against the side of the kitchen counter") before cooking. Why calves brains are so good cooked in butter. Why you should "stick up for yourself" and eat sausages and tuna fish for lunch if you want.
It's a great basic cooking book which can help a useless eater like me in the kitchen, or that young person you are sending off this fall to work or college. It's cheap too. A good buy in my book.
The world is heating up. I was pretty depressed last week, but feel alot better this week. I think we are about to turn the corner. Don't get me wrong. I am prepping for the worse, but I think the end game scenario is changing while we speak.
Some of the "powers that be" are working in their exit strategy now. Keep that in mind!
This is a list of things you get every time you set foot in the store. It is a great way to build up your food storage.
First, set a budget, $5.00, 10.00 or 20.00. Not more than that or it will put a huge dent in your finances before you know it.
I generally go the grocery store twice a week. One day is "Big Shopping Day". That is where I fill the cart with the usual staples like meat, bread, milk, and so forth. I always use a list and always use coupons. I generally hit two or three stores before I am done. All the of stores must be within a couple of miles of home or the gas costs eats up the food savings.
Once a week, I have to go "pick up a few things". Sometimes it is something my wife needs for a meal or for baking. Other times it is more milk or bread although I try to keep three weeks of perishables on hand at all times.
When I go the store, I pick up a few things every single time.
- One 1lb bag of rice or one bag of noodles (elbow).
- Two 1lb bags of dried beans.
- Two cans of something, usually with protein like canned beans or tuna fish.
- Two cans of fruit.
- One four roll of toilet paper which ever is on sale.
All in all, I usually never spend more than seven dollars on the above. Sometimes it is a little over five.
All of these purchases go into the pantry. The rice and beans go into 5 gallon buckets in their plastic bags after they spend the night in the freezer. The cans go on the shelf.
This builds up a nice little supply of back up food with long shelf life. After a month, you have enough food for a family for three days or longer if you do it right. A year of this can mean a big dent in a month's supply of food. And it only cost about ten dollars a week. That's a fast food meal or a movie ticket.
When it comes to food, I am not a gourmet. It drives my wife bats because I eat very simply. I like bread, meat, potatoes, and little else. But I do like to cook. Cooking is a skill which all of us need before (to save money) and after (to eat, live) the SHTF. Aunt Bee is not coming over to make me a chicken dinner every night.
Because of I am all thumbs in the kitchen, I like cookbooks, the older the better, to prepare foods. New cookbooks have too much "soothing diversity and cultural awareness of foods and the sustainability they bring to persons throughout the world".
Not for me. I like a book which presumes one knows where their food came from and accepts facts such as cows and chickens are for eating.
One of my favorite cookbooks was written in the 1930's and is called French Cooking in Ten Minutes
Don't get me wrong. This is not "Filay Minyon and Snails". This is simple food, prepared quickly, for little money and with a small amount of equipment. The author based his writing on the way people lived in France in the 1930's. Most only had two burner gas or coal stoves (think Coleman stove anyone?).
The book contains recipes which take a few minutes to make and contain basic ingredients nearly everyone has at home. And the meals are filling and complete. And the author is politically incorrect by today's standards. He tells readers how to properly kill a trout ("whack its head against the side of the kitchen counter") before cooking. Why calves brains are so good cooked in butter. Why you should "stick up for yourself" and eat sausages and tuna fish for lunch if you want.
It's a great basic cooking book which can help a useless eater like me in the kitchen, or that young person you are sending off this fall to work or college. It's cheap too. A good buy in my book.
The world is heating up. I was pretty depressed last week, but feel alot better this week. I think we are about to turn the corner. Don't get me wrong. I am prepping for the worse, but I think the end game scenario is changing while we speak.
Some of the "powers that be" are working in their exit strategy now. Keep that in mind!
Monday, March 16, 2009
SHTF: Coupons and the Garden Rush
Coupons and grocery shopping are to survivalists what taxes are to politicians; one has a hard time existing without the other.
As people who are preparing, we take advantage of any money saving means to buy extra and lots of staples for the pantry. When we shop, we always have a list, always use a cart (that's a buggy for you people in foreign lands like England, Belgium and Michigan)and follow the mantra "one is none and two is one".
So, using coupons at the grocery store saves us lots of dough. With many of us downsized or furloughed from the job, men and women who formerly spent more time in the to go line at the local restaurant are now finding themselves looking for deals in the grocery store.
Here are some hints for you first time bargain shoppers.
- Sign up for the grocery cost saver card whatever it may be. When shopping, there are two prices displayed on an item, regular purchase price and a lower "members only" purchase price. You don't get the lower price unless you have a shoppers card.
For the paranoid: Yes, the store will track your purchases. I know this because they send me plain, but good, store coupons, on things I buy regularly. Further, when my receipt prints at my grocers, I receive another receipt based upon what I bought.
If this bothers you, fill out your shoppers card with bogus information. The store does not care and won't check your ID.
- Sale flyers arrive at home on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
These flyers from the grocers are to be viewed before you go to the grocery store not while in them.
Set down at the table. For each store, note what is on sale at the grocers and what you actually eat. Note how much you have in the house and if the product is worth purchasing or storing for later.
This is the start of your grocery list.
- Coupons come in the Sunday paper.
Don't get a subscription to the paper if you can get a copy of the coupons from a friend or neighbor for free.
Clip the coupons of products you actually use or would like to store. Compare this list to the sale list you compiled earlier. Better, clip the Sunday coupons and use the sale pages the following Tuesday or Wednesday.
Note: Many stores are not accepting internet coupons any longer due to fraud. Remember that when someone wants you to sign up for "freebies" on line.
- Go to stores with double and triple coupons.
Double and triple is what you think it is - double or triple the printed savings value on the coupon. .35 off? Make it .70 o even 1.05!
Note: Most stores have limits on double and triple coupons such as .50. Others do not, so they are worth looking for.
- BOGO - Buy One Get One free
Coupon + BOGO sale generally means free + free. Keep an eye peeled for these deals.
- 10 for 10 is sometimes not a great deal
So you see a store flyer with 10 cans of Chef Boy-R-Dee for $10. What a deal right? It depends because a careful examination of other stores may show that same can goes for .88. Suddenly that deal is not so good as it would save you 1.20 to buy those same cans elsewhere.
Stores use the "many for one price" marketing technique not because it saves you money but because it moves merchandise fast.
Finally, use a grocery list and stick to it.
Too many shoppers think they can keep it in their head and save money. It won't happen. Make a list and use it religiously.
If you use a coupons, sales and a list, you can fill your pantry with lots of good food and can plan menus based upon what you have.
The Great Garden Rush.
Gardening for food is a bug everyone gets in the spring, but this year, it is more than a passing fancy.
Gardening for food may mean survival for you and your family.
First, forget all that "sustainable, community, earth, preachiness" online. Gardening for food is necessary for you and your family to save money now and guarantee a food supply later. The "community" can find their own plot of land and till it; I have mine and will trade for tools, seeds and labor under equal terms. Not so I can build a sustainable imaginary future. Bah.
I digress..
The home stores and garden centers are full of potting soil, fertilizer, seeds, seedlings, dwarf fruit trees, berry bushes and tools.
They won't be for long. In a month or so, only some measly looking tomato plants and a few oddball herbs will be left. Everyone is on board with gardening, not flowers or ornamentals, but fruit and vegetables this year.
First, plot out your yard for garden space.
Next, get to the store and start buying seedlings if the ground is ready or seeds if planting time is still a month or so away.
Then, get busy in the garden. It will take work but eating is worth it.
Remember, a garden will not magically feed a family. You will need to supplement with grains, rice, fats and oils. Buy those in bulk now.
Also, don't forget storage for fruit and vegtable after harvesting. That means drying (get a dehydrator) and canning (get those supplies now). Freezing helps too if the power is on.
Get busy in that garden before the Rush is fully underway and there is no more time!
Get your non-hybrid seeds here now!
As people who are preparing, we take advantage of any money saving means to buy extra and lots of staples for the pantry. When we shop, we always have a list, always use a cart (that's a buggy for you people in foreign lands like England, Belgium and Michigan)and follow the mantra "one is none and two is one".
So, using coupons at the grocery store saves us lots of dough. With many of us downsized or furloughed from the job, men and women who formerly spent more time in the to go line at the local restaurant are now finding themselves looking for deals in the grocery store.
Here are some hints for you first time bargain shoppers.
- Sign up for the grocery cost saver card whatever it may be. When shopping, there are two prices displayed on an item, regular purchase price and a lower "members only" purchase price. You don't get the lower price unless you have a shoppers card.
For the paranoid: Yes, the store will track your purchases. I know this because they send me plain, but good, store coupons, on things I buy regularly. Further, when my receipt prints at my grocers, I receive another receipt based upon what I bought.
If this bothers you, fill out your shoppers card with bogus information. The store does not care and won't check your ID.
- Sale flyers arrive at home on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
These flyers from the grocers are to be viewed before you go to the grocery store not while in them.
Set down at the table. For each store, note what is on sale at the grocers and what you actually eat. Note how much you have in the house and if the product is worth purchasing or storing for later.
This is the start of your grocery list.
- Coupons come in the Sunday paper.
Don't get a subscription to the paper if you can get a copy of the coupons from a friend or neighbor for free.
Clip the coupons of products you actually use or would like to store. Compare this list to the sale list you compiled earlier. Better, clip the Sunday coupons and use the sale pages the following Tuesday or Wednesday.
Note: Many stores are not accepting internet coupons any longer due to fraud. Remember that when someone wants you to sign up for "freebies" on line.
- Go to stores with double and triple coupons.
Double and triple is what you think it is - double or triple the printed savings value on the coupon. .35 off? Make it .70 o even 1.05!
Note: Most stores have limits on double and triple coupons such as .50. Others do not, so they are worth looking for.
- BOGO - Buy One Get One free
Coupon + BOGO sale generally means free + free. Keep an eye peeled for these deals.
- 10 for 10 is sometimes not a great deal
So you see a store flyer with 10 cans of Chef Boy-R-Dee for $10. What a deal right? It depends because a careful examination of other stores may show that same can goes for .88. Suddenly that deal is not so good as it would save you 1.20 to buy those same cans elsewhere.
Stores use the "many for one price" marketing technique not because it saves you money but because it moves merchandise fast.
Finally, use a grocery list and stick to it.
Too many shoppers think they can keep it in their head and save money. It won't happen. Make a list and use it religiously.
If you use a coupons, sales and a list, you can fill your pantry with lots of good food and can plan menus based upon what you have.
The Great Garden Rush.
Gardening for food is a bug everyone gets in the spring, but this year, it is more than a passing fancy.
Gardening for food may mean survival for you and your family.
First, forget all that "sustainable, community, earth, preachiness" online. Gardening for food is necessary for you and your family to save money now and guarantee a food supply later. The "community" can find their own plot of land and till it; I have mine and will trade for tools, seeds and labor under equal terms. Not so I can build a sustainable imaginary future. Bah.
I digress..
The home stores and garden centers are full of potting soil, fertilizer, seeds, seedlings, dwarf fruit trees, berry bushes and tools.
They won't be for long. In a month or so, only some measly looking tomato plants and a few oddball herbs will be left. Everyone is on board with gardening, not flowers or ornamentals, but fruit and vegetables this year.
First, plot out your yard for garden space.
Next, get to the store and start buying seedlings if the ground is ready or seeds if planting time is still a month or so away.
Then, get busy in the garden. It will take work but eating is worth it.
Remember, a garden will not magically feed a family. You will need to supplement with grains, rice, fats and oils. Buy those in bulk now.
Also, don't forget storage for fruit and vegtable after harvesting. That means drying (get a dehydrator) and canning (get those supplies now). Freezing helps too if the power is on.
Get busy in that garden before the Rush is fully underway and there is no more time!
Get your non-hybrid seeds here now!
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