<p>Anyone feeling the increase in the grocery bills lately, and if so, how are you altering your spending habits ?</p>
<p>Not the grocery bills, but the gas bill is killing me. The SUV hasn’t left the garage in 2 weeks.</p>
<p>I only buy stuff on sale. Use coupons. I bought some cheap piece of pork and threw it in the crockpot. Enough meat for at least 6 sandwiches from $5</p>
<p>I am a supermarket’s worst nightmare. I buy the loss leaders and always have coupons.</p>
<p>Now milk and bread and eggs are another story. I consider it a major coup to get a decent loaf for <$2. A half gallon of skim milk is $2 and I’m happy to see eggs for <2 when I could frequently get them for $1 before.</p>
<p>I don’t have any favorite brands. If it’s on sale and esp if I have a coupon, I like it.</p>
<p>I have driven a total of 50 miles in the past month. I work from home 3 days a week and the office (3 miles away) the other 2.</p>
<p>I can walk to shopping on the weekend. I don’t go out on the town, so my car generally only get’s driven 2 days a week (and I do any errands on the way home from the office).</p>
<p>I hear you Momneedsadvice…
I drive my daughter’s car ( Scion that costs under $ 30 to fill the tank ) while she is at college, while my Landcruiser sits gassed up in the garage…</p>
<p>That is one way I have been saving, but I have been plotting and planning my trips to both the grocery store and the BJ’s wholesale club.</p>
<p>I have noticed for the first time how much a gallon of milk, dozen.5 eggs and other staples cost. I have never been a coupon shopper since they are mostly for packaged foods I don’t buy.</p>
<p>It has become a game to me these days, and I am beginning to have flashbacks to the 70’s when the mom’s buzzed about their savings.
My God, I have not only become MY mother , but my friend’s mothers as well</p>
<p>I was thinking that when the last little bird flies out of the nest, we will stop buying stuff in bulk from Costco. Now, with the prices going up and away, I think I’ll still stop by the local Costco to load up on cheap eggs, organic milk and cheese. Fruit and meat are going to come from Costco, too. I have the Safeway “club card” which Safeway can apparently use to track my shopping habits, and they probably think I live on deli turkey, two for one organic salad packs, french bread and Lucerene dairy products only! Lots of the time a trip to Trader Joe’s yields good deals on food. Food shopping now takes more planning and a bigger headache.</p>
<p>Head Cheese is all gone. I am getting tired of Bleu Cheese. Got a deal on Halibut…13# for $6.00…miscellaneous parts unidentifiable but edible.</p>
<p>Grocery Outlet and Big Lots here.</p>
<p>Now that I moved to New York City, the grocery stores prices are insane. I now combine exercise and shopping by doing a weekly treck to Trader Joes. The savings are close to 30% or more over most other markets in the City. The 36 block round trip is good for me and they deliver if I don’t want to carry it back.</p>
<p>We have always been sale shoppers, clipped coupons and avoided prepared foods like the plague. As a result our typical weekly grocery bill is about $50. Our biggest cost is often for fresh veggies and fruits.</p>
<p>Meals the past week were pork chops piazziloi, paella, roast turkey, shrimp scampi, pasta puttanesca, chicken piccata, and garlic pork chops. All meats were in the freezer bought on sale previously at deep discounts.</p>
<p>Buy on sale, use coupons and doublers, do most of my shopping at the cheap bag-your-own-groceries store, keep processed foods to a minimum, plan menus and shop with a list… These are all things I have done all along. Now that the boys have moved out, we eat a lot less meat, too. That helps with the bills, as well as our health.</p>
<p>Lot more hamburger meat - lot less steak :(</p>
<p>I have relearned to make my own bread. It’s the no knead variety and it’s great and you know what goes into it that way. I cook from scratch usually. It is better for you and cheaper mostly. I learned years ago to walk instead of drive and buy locally since prices have been high for me for years on food and gas. I used to love grocery shopping in the states when I visited my family. I guess it isn’t so great for you now as well.</p>
<p>Now, I will add this to dream place for retirement: a place with a good growing season so I can have my own veggies in the back yard. A place with a good supply of water. A place where I can walk to the shops. ?</p>
<p>About 12 miles from my house to the nearest shop - no public transportation whatsoever (none - no bus, no train) in this part of the country so not having a car is not an option.</p>
<p>When I go home to visit my Mum in England one thing I love doing is walking to the shops - which I think she find kind of odd. Of course walking back with bags of shopping is not so much fun!! Really makes you watch how much you buy though so that is a good thing.</p>
<p>I’ve started to grow more food- also we eat vegetarian meals most days.
I think I am going to get some chickens- but I really don’t have room for a cow- :(</p>
<p>Ek, if you’ve never had chickens, get ready for some serious work. Our next door neighbor put in $50K worth of landscaping, Japanese gardens and all, and then decided that he wanted to have organic eggs for his family. He got some chickens, and there went his pricey gardens. His chickens dug up his entire yard, I was catching them in my backyard and throwing them back over the fence so the dog would not get them, and then came the rats! I will not even say how many rats got attracted by the chicken feed… So, in a nutshell - chickens are a pain in the rear. Also, check with the city codes: if you live in Seattle, you might not be allowed to keep farm animals. In my neck of the woods, on the other hand, one can keep a Sasquatch in their backyard, and the county would not care. :D</p>
<p>Yes, that is correct. Fancy yards and chickens don’t go together. Rustic farmyards and chickens who range during the day are a winning combination if you want good eggs. But you have to have land. Once we built the fanciest chicken house out of adobe blocks for the chickens nightly roosting. It’s a lot of work but you get good exercise without having to pay for a gym membership!</p>
<p>we grow some of our food…I have a countertop herb garden, and soon my husband will get the garden going.
I have noticed that cereal, milk and quite a few other things are so much less at BJ’s…the trouble is, I have to drive 20 miles to go there.
But then I can get discounted gas too !
Cat food and litter is about 1/2 price there too…
Oh and since it is allergy season, I just picked up some Zyrtek…much less than CVS !!!</p>
<p>We have friends who keep chickens in their backyard in Montclair (NJ)–doesn’t get much upscale than that. They’ve been doing so for many years.</p>
<p>For us–lots of homegrown veggies for a start. Up to this year, we belonged to a CSA, which is a great way to eat local, but now we hve a home within walking distance of farms with farmstands, so that’s the way we’ll be going. In addition to our own gardens.</p>
<p>Also, like EK, we eat meat infrequently. Other than that, just general sale watching and frugality. I adore Trader Joe’s, but it’s about 15 miles away, and it’s hard to justify too many trips that far away to shop, even with the Hybrid. Great food, though, and great prices (plus the Two (or three) buck Chuck, of course!)</p>
<p>Our move to Two/Three Buck Chuck has resulted in a major reduction in our wine bill. Still shocks me to buy three bottles of decent wine and get change back from my $10. It makes this recession much more pleasant.</p>
<p>Chickens
I was surprised to hear Amy Hagopian kept chickens- it didn’t fit with my idea of her- ( she also brought our school to national headlines re:military recruiting ) But she gives talks!
[The</a> Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2002/0120/cover.html]The”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2002/0120/cover.html)</p>
<p>I was thinking of keeping bunnies as I heard a great idea to house them over a worm bin- but chickens might be fun too- provided I have a run for them as opposed to free reign.</p>