Someone asked me where I shopped for my groceries. To their surprise I shopped at more than one grocery store. They were even more surprised that I go to places like Costco, Winnco, & Sprouts. Well I had to explain why. We probably go grocery once a week and sometimes a 2nd short trip just to pick up things we forgot (things like milk, eggs that we ran out of).
In general we go to Costco once a month, Winnco 2x a month, and Sprouts 2x a month. Why the flippity flop? I watch for sales at each of these stores. Winnco doesn’t give out a sales catalog but their prices are generally lower so that is where we do our biggest variety of groceries. At Costco we basically buy things that are on sale, and their meats. We also use Costco for office supplies. At Sprouts we shop usually for produce (they generally have a pretty good selection of rock bottom priced produce to lure you in) and sometimes if they have a meat we like on sale we stock up. For the two of us we spend roughly $250-$300 on food.
$250-$300 isn’t too bad to spend for two people for a month. I’m sure we can save even more but there are things we like to buy because we enjoy them. I don’t coupon as much I use to but we save money by:
(1) Sticking to fresh produce
(2) Buying what’s on sale/ in season
(3) Having enough meals planned for the week using what we have
(4) being versatile with what we have left (We love leftovers)
(5) Treating ourselves to a few grocery items (Ours are pot stickers, and ice cream, and chips) if they are priced right.
(6) We RARELY eat/buy microwavable food
As for bakes goods, my husband is a baker so he makes most of our baked goods. I may still buy things like sandwich bread, and bagels but things likes cookies, muffins, etc is made by him. I’m sure we could save money in other ways. Like we could eat less. We both can lose a few pounds but we love food.
Tagged: cheap food, food savings, groceries, money, Saving money, saving on food
Your approach makes total sense. We used to coupon a lot more too, but have switched to more healthy fresh stuff like you have.
I am addicted to Costco!