Cutting Food Expenses

So I am doing my best with rising food prices to hold the line at our $400 per month budget for groceries. I hit Costco today to stock up on some things, and almost $200 lighter of purse I left, stocked up with milk, bread, eggs, beef, chicken, and other assorted items that make Mommy & Daddy happy when they don't have to cook a labor intensive breakfast (frozen flaxseed waffles) or can enjoy some caffeine (Diet Coke, unfortunately NOT a necessity despite DH's protests to the contrary). I also stocked up on bread, due to the rise in wheat prices. I think I have enough now to last us for about 5 months, so that's a good thing.

While I was packaging our ground beef for freezing, I started another little experiment in frugality. Normally we buy the flat of ground beef that is shaped like patties, and then we portion it out into freezer bags, 1 and 1/3 patty per bag. Today, however, I did most of them as a mere 1 patty per bag...just that little bit less, but something we can probably live with in terms of our recipes. Beef is not getting any cheaper--I paid $18.83 today for that flat, which works out to $1.18 per patty. By doing only three bags the usual "1 & 1/3" way, I saved $3.54, and in a pretty painless way. I can bet we won't notice the difference in our meat sauce or tacos.

Likewise I applied $12 in coupons to the total. Not much, but it helps. And I refused the temptation to buy products I wouldn't normally buy just because we had a coupon for them. You have to be careful with those coupons--sometimes the generic Kirkland brand is still the better buy when you factor in cost per use, or how many uses per bottle. That's why I have yet to buy any of the name brand dishwasher detergents from Costco, even with the coupons they keep mailing us. The Kirkland brand is still the better value for our dollars, so that's what we buy.

Now I have to investigate whether it's really cheaper to buy whole chickens for the breastmeat and throw out the rest. I read a blog that said it is cheaper to buy a whole turkey, roast it, and cut off the breasts and throw out the rest (if you like), than to buy turkey breasts already cut off the bone and deskinned. If the same is true for turkey, I am going to buy more whole chickens when I see them on sale. At that kind of price break, I am willing to do the work of cutting off the breast meat and deskinning it! Let me see, the last time I bought roasting chickens they were 68 cents per pound...average price was about $3.50 per chicken. So that would be $1.75 per breast, if you threw everything else away. The last time I checked, our frozen chicken breasts are $2.46 per pound. So all depends on how much those breasts weigh...but I could see how those chicken breasts from the whole chicken might be cheaper! I will have to investigate this further, and also figure out if we would actually use the rest of the chicken. Even to make chicken stock, which is something we use on occasion. I just need a bigger freezer, haha!

Anyway, just my ramblings on saving money on food bills for the day. I'm sure I will continue to find new ways to be LBYM as the weeks progress. In fact I will probably go to Goodwill soon to seek a new Easter dress...more on that to come!