My grocery bill is steadily climbing and I am not sure what to do. I make too much for SNAP. Any tips or tricks? It’s just me in my household, so would buying in bulk be worth it?
Edit: I want to thank everyone for their responses. I have a lot to think about.
Two meal per day, and i work manual labour. It take too much time for me to cook dinner after coming home and loafing about, and it kinda expensive to eat out. So for most dinner i skip it. Then sometime i bought precooked stuff like roasted or fried chicken(in bulk, a la carte) or bun, then freeze it. Just reheat and that’s a meal. I also eat less.
Also buy store brand if possible, it’s cheaper.
Food pantry. It’ll be full of stuff that’s grocery overstock or about to expire. You’ll have to toss some fresh fruit and veg that’s gone off, and the breads will mold in a day or two, but otherwise it’s the same stuff that’s on the shelves at the store, just a more limited selection.
Not sure if it’ll help, but I don’t think soylent prices have gone up. At least not in Canada.
I usually only have it for breakfast and lunch especially to avoid those shitty factory burritos.
This book is useful (and free, but you have to register for a newsletter): https://leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap-2/
As for buying in bulk: as long as you think you’ll use it all before it expires, it’s good.
Also, go to the store as rarely as possible – at least that worked for me. I spend a lot less if I buy groceries once a week than if I do it several times a week.
Multiple stores. Stopped buying certain things. Only buying stuff on sale in bulk. No full price. Soon, I’ll probably be making bread at home.
https://thecafesucrefarine.com/ridiculously-easy-focaccia-bread/
Incredible recipe and truly simple, you can save on the oil and skip the drizzle over the top and it will still come out nice.
Thanks friend!
if you are eating Out/take out i would probably stop, since its excessively expensive if done over a month/per month, although im not in a situation where food is costly. discount stores like grocery outlet, but the trick is eating the perishable as soon as possible, the ambient stuff you can save for much later especially things like beans and rice. as for veggies i usually buy coleslaw in those bags, since you can a little while before eating it, but fresh veggies often spoils quickly.
buying in bulk isnt useful if it expires too fast, unless you are buying things like canned goods.
What’s your personal situation? For me I’ve got good freezer space, so a slow cooker and a bunch of freezer safe containers made for a really good investment. A slow cooker lets you use a lot of cheaper cuts of meat like beef chuck and chicken thighs, as well as making the cooking of beans and stews much easier. But it does tend to make larger portions then I need at a go, so I need to food prep and freeze a lot of stuff. On the other hand that allows me to buy in bulk, cook it all up and then freeze it. I tend to have like four to eight copies of a dozen different meals in our freezer so that does take up a lot of space.
Living abroad is very comfortable and means an instant, massive reduction in cost of living. if prices get too crazy or you’re interested in the idea of living abroad, feel free to reach out or head over to Travel.
Loss of appetite do to depression
No joke, I’ve been on GLP-1 medication for two years, so I don’t need to buy many groceries at all 🤷🏼♀️ Even paying for the medication out-of-pocket ($100/month) costs less than groceries.
I actually was just on the Wegovy pill. Had to stop because I couldn’t afford it anymore. Lost 15 pounds and have now put 7 back on. Fuck!
There are less expensive GLP-1’s out there! ♥️ I will never be able to live without it again, that is I’ll never be able to maintain my weight this low for this long amount of time without it. And again the savings on groceries is notable!
How do you get it so cheaply?
I’m an old guy. I usually go to my local grocery store when the kids get out from school for lunch. It gets really crowded in there and everyone is looking at the kids with suspicion while I’m shoving cans of beans and lunchmeat into my haversack.
So shoplifting?
Also “old guy”, you have kids in school, how old could you be?
He never said they were his kids. He just uses the local school to provide cover and plausible deniability.
Also taking food isn’t theft or shoplifting.
He never said they were his kids. He just uses the local school to provide cover and plausible deniability.
Ah now I get it. 😄
Also taking food isn’t theft or shoplifting.
Uh, what? What is it then? It ain’t legal for sure.
Legal \= Moral
Many laws are ok (don’t drive without the seatbelt on) but you need to think it out yourself.
I already got my answer. It is shoplifting. I was just wondering what crime it was, technically speaking.
If you see someone taking food, no you didn’t.
Grow some basic empathy.
I don’t care if someone takes food.
I want to know what crime it is if it isn’t shoplifting or theft.
i worked at a chain store,w here the shoplifting was so pervasive the store had to permanently scuttled down, basically we were forbidden to even mention it to anyone til much later, granted its mostly done by tweakers, meth heads crackheads.
Shoplifting not okay in every instance, clearly. 😞
If you want to go by the letter of the extremely immoral laws that govern our society it would be shoplifting. Calling it that allows people with no empathy to pass judgement and kick a victim of their precious system, while they are down.
It shouldn’t be a crime. It should be a crime to starve someone by underpayment of wages.
Why can’t both be crimes? There can be two wrongs in this equation. You shouldn’t just take things. But you should also be able to afford to live if you have work, and also if you can’t work. A society has failed you if you can’t. Agreed.
To be perfectly clear, I care not one whit about legality. It was illegal to harbor Jews, Homosexuals, and Neurodivergent people in Germany in 1937-1945. It is currently illegal in places to give people who are waiting, for hours in the hot sun, to vote water bottles. It is illegal in places to give food to people experiencing homelessness. Not one of those laws has a shred of moral backing.
Jeez. I agree, but I wasn’t going all that deep. I meant it isn’t morally right, of course, and also not legal, so I was wondering what crime it is if not theft or shoplifting?
If he wasn’t paid enough during his life to afford food, the morally wrong decision wasn’t his.
Not everyone is a victim. Many are, but assuming someone is “morally right” to just take food without paying for it is also passing judgement. They could just be not willing to pay. A kleptomaniac e.g.
The only thing we can say is that we don’t know until we know them and their life.
I miss my brother. That’s something he would have done. Lol
I have a farm share (CSA). At the start of the year, you pay up front for a share; in return, you get boxes of veggies during the season. Since the farmer is paid up front, they don’t need to borrow money from the bank and hope for a decent harvest to repay the loan, so there’s less pressure on them: they know their farm will still be around next year. And you get boxes of veggies that were picked within the past 24 hours, so they’re all incredibly fresh. You’ll get some stuff you can find in the grocery store (ex: roma tomatoes, bell peppers) but since all the middlemen have been cut out, they last a long time (I’ve had heads of lettuce last like a month); and you’ll get some that’s either heirloom varieties (too fragile for handling by the supply chain feeding grocery stores) or unusual (ex: pawpaws, ground cherries).
I’m going to say up front that a farm share isn’t for everyone; it takes some adjustment and a bit of work to make it work well, but for me it’s worth it. I’ll note that I’m single (so it all falls on me) and vegetarian (so I can sometimes eat a lot of veggies).
Each farm chooses how to operate, so I can only speak in generalities. To accommodate different family sizes, some farms offer boxes of different sizes/prices; others offer a half-share, so instead of getting a box every week for 20-26 weeks, you get a box for 10-13 weeks (you choose which weeks you want a box). You can also find a friend to split the cost and content of a share, either splitting each box, or alternating pickup weeks.
Some farms will pre-pack the boxes for you; others will put the veggies on a table and let you choose among them; for example, this week’s share might be something like “choose 3 zucchinis/eggplants; choose 2 lbs of a bunch of different types of tomatoes; choose 4 varieties of hot peppers”, etc. Some farms you have to pick up at the farm itself; other farms have distribution points in outlying areas, will let you pick up at local farmers markets, or have home delivery for an additional fee. Some farms have work shares: instead of paying for a share, you can choose to work like 4 hours a week during the season and get a box of veggies each week in return. Most farms have pick-your-own availability for veggies that may not be to everyone’s taste (okra, herbs), where some people may want extras (tomatoes, peppers, beans), or where personal taste is important (flowers).
I’ve been with a bunch of different farms over the years (I’ve moved several times; and sometimes I’ve joined a farm that isn’t a great fit for me). For the past couple years, I’ve been getting my own box instead of splitting a share, and I’ve opted to get a 10-week share (I choose the weeks). One thing I like with the 10-week share is that I’m not facing fresh veggies to work with every week; sometimes a weekly share can seem overwhelming!
Most people make some adaptations to make a CSA work for them. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally come up with a set a recipes for stuff that I like, that uses the veggies I tend to get, much of which stores well; and I have a pattern of processing that works for me:
Each week, the farm sends out an email ahead of time, letting you know what’s in season and sometimes with a rough idea of how much to expect (“this’ll be the last week for blackberries, but we have lots of tomatoes!”); that helps me plan what to do ahead of time.
On weeks that I have a share, I go to the farm, do the PYO (it’s included in my share, and my starving Irish ancestors would be upset if I didn’t get them!), and choose the veggies for my box. When I get home, I wash everything, then sit in front of the tv, watching my guilty-pleasure shows and processing the veggies - as applicable, I trim, peel, slice, dice, mince, etc. As I finish each veggie, it goes into a sealed bowl or a Ziploc and goes into the fridge. I also have a spare bowl for scraps - ends and peels of onions and carrots, trimmings from peppers and leeks, etc. Those join other scraps in a big Ziploc in the freezer; when I have enough scraps, I use it to make veggie stock. And there’s another bowl for stuff I can’t use, that either goes in the garbage or a compost pile (I’ve stopped composting in recent years).
On Saturday, I spend a couple hours cooking, usually 2-3 big dishes or 4-5 smaller ones - it depends on my mood and what’s in season. Then half the food gets portion-sized and frozen; the other half gets eaten over the week or so following. While cooking, I may pickle some veggies. Pickling is easy: you put your chosen veggies and spices in a jar, heat up your pickling brine, pour the brine over the veggies, and seal the jar. During a season, I may pickle dilly beans, beets, giardinieri, garlic, onions, cucumbers, etc; I may eat them out of the jar or use them as ingredients in future dishes.
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On Sunday night, I sit in front of the tv, once again watching guilty-pleasure shows, and I use whatever veggies are left over to make salads. Each week I try for a mix of styles so I don’t get bored: for a couple salads I may toss in some nuts and berries or apple pieces to make it a bit sweet, while others I’ll put in extra peppers or onions to give it some zing. Any lettuce goes on top so it doesn’t get soggy over the week; crunchy stuff like croutons goes in a snack Ziploc on the side so it stays crunchy (ziplocs get rinsed and reused every week, and some recycled year to year). Dressing goes in an old pill bottle along the side. I make ten salads: one for each lunch and dinner for the week.
In front of Sunday night’s tv, I’ll also make little veggie snack-packs: veggies in a Ziploc (add a little water to keep them fresh), some of them with an old pill bottle of dressing or dip on the side After I’ve finished, any veggies that haven’t been used cooking, salads or snack-packs, they get frozen to be used in future meals.
Herbs tend to come in small bunches during the season and it can be annoying to process small amounts each time. I’ve settled on cleaning and chopping them up each week (in front of Friday nights tv), then freezing them. At the end of the season, I’ll take them out of the freezer and dry them and add them to my spice cabinet.
Once or twice a year, I’ll spend a couple hours making freezer jam, which is insanely simple: mash the berries, add sugar and pectin, stir, put in containers, leave them on the counter for a day, then move to the freezer. I can use the jam for sandwiches, cake filling, topping for pancakes and waffles, or give them out as stocking stuffers over the holidays.
And once a year during high tomato season, I’ll spend a Saturday afternoon processing tomato: I’ll make and can some salsa, make and freeze some marinara, boil down a bunch of tomatoes into tomato paste (freeze them in ice cube trays, then move them to ziplocs; you can use them as-is or dilute them into soup, sauce or puree).
How much time is all this? I find it helps to reframe things and count them toward other goals or desires. The hour I spend doing PYO on alternate weeks isn’t “farm-share time”, it’s counted toward my weekly exercise goals. Time in front of the tv isn’t counted either, as I’m catching up on guilty-pleasure tv (without the guilt, since I’m actually working, lol). The couple hours batch-cooking on alternate Saturdays, I would likely to have been batch-cooking anyway. That really leaves like 1.5 to 2 Saturdays each year, where I’m making jam, making and canning salsa, etc.
Price-wise, I’m paying $400 a year for a ten-week share, but again I re-frame it: I eat the fresh meals over the summer and fall and the frozen meals over the winter and spring, plus there’s also whatever I’ve pickled, canned, jammed or frozen. For me, it’s really a year-round benefit that works out to about $7.70 per week for farm-fresh (often organic) ingredients and homemade meals spiced to my personal tastes. It provides over half the food I eat each year, which means the rest of my food budget stretches further. And I’m eating healthy foods, not highly-processed stuff.
For me, the key has been coming up with a set of recipes for the ingredients I’ll get, for dishes that I’ll enjoy, and that preserve well - usually frozen. I only have the normal freezer-on-top-of-fridge, but by the end of the season, it’s crammed with lasagna, French onion soup, eggplant Parmesan, scalloped daikon, strawberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, zucchini boats, butternut squash bread, seven-layer casserole, chili, etc.
I’ll admit this isn’t for everyone: you need to adjust your habits to what’s in season instead of what you buy from the store, you need to find recipes that work for you, you need to spend time cleaning, processing and cooking the veggies. But for the people who do adjust, it can save money.
Wow thank you for your insights. That sounds great. I realy have to look into that.
I usually struggle with finding new recepies I want to make and end up resorting to my usual rotation. Do you by any chance have a recipe that you find interesting and thats not too hard to make for a single person? Would be greatly appreciated :)
I realy have to look into that.
Try googling CSA and your county (if in the States), or CSA near your town. There’s also local harvest.org, but they don’t list everyone, and some of the ‘too far to consider’ farms will have local drop-offs.
My most recent discoveries are scalloped diakon and butternut squash bread [not entirely sure that’s the recipe I used, but I’m at work, lol].
I found butternut squash bread because last year’s harvest brought me no less than ten butternut squashes and I didn’t want to eat all of them broiled or in soup. The bread is great - it’s like zucchini bread or banana bread - light, mild, good with a bit of butter or cream cheese on top. I cooked down the squashes and froze the cooked innards, then made the bread over the winter, when I had more time (and partially because I couldn’t have fitted all the fully cooked loaves into the freezer, lol). It’s good and simple.
The second one’s a little more complicated to cook but I’m actually delighted with the scalloped diakon because I’ve been trying to find a decent daikon recipe for years and everything either makes it too noticable (I don’t actually like diakon, but I refuse to waste food) or it makes the dish bland and unappetizing. That scalloped daikon recipe makes them mild and tasty and just right for me. Daikon saves well, so my plan for diakon season this year is to just save them all up and make one large batch of scalloped daikon all at once.
I also made a really nice ground cherry tart once, but I’ve been struggling to re-find the recipe :( There are also fairly easy recipes for using display pumpkins to make pumpkin pie, which I often do: I’ll process the pumpkin and make pie filling, freeze the filling flat in a Ziploc, them unfreeze it and stick it in a pie shell for Thanksgiving or Christmas. If I’m eating with someone, I can legitimately claim it’s a pie made literally from scratch.
If anyone has questions, I’m happy to answer!
CSA is great and ethical consumption, and I am thinking about getting one from my local community farm. The only obstacle is that I need to drive there and that is annoying.
That being said, from my personal experience, CSA will be more expensive than big box stores.
CSA will be more expensive than big box stores.
Probably, yeah, and I don’t want to minimize that. However, chances are also that the food is either more unique (heirloom varieties that taste better but either don’t travel well or “looked ugly”), or it’s fresher and will last longer (because they’re not being sent to a sort-and-pack facility, put in a warehouse, sent to a regional warehouse, a local warehouse, and then the back of a store).
I also like that it forces me to eat more vegetables than I would in my ‘normal’ diet.
Looking for the silver lining, if you’ve needed to lose some weight, now is a good time. I’m looking at it this way: I’m not short on food, I’m keeping temptation out of the house.
Stealing/grifting from the conservatives who caused it.
Aldi and Lidl.
Look for red 50% off stickers at Aldi (US). You can freeze meat and save for later
Costco too
Costco really only makes sense with a family or group. Buying in bulk isn’t necessarily better for a single person, especially given that any impulse buys are more expensive at Costco
You can coordinate splits with Costco members.
But beware, Aldi’s Greek yogurt (for example) is actually cheaper than Costco’s, $/oz (at least when I last compared). Costco is not always cheaper; if you really wanna save, you have to do the math relative to what local stores are available.
That makes sense
If it is freezable, it is fine (rotisserie chicken, for example).
I also make them into preservable forms, like I made little jar of scallion oil from a giant bag of scallion and they last years in the fridge. Ginger and garlic works as well.
You can also cook produces and store in the fridge, they will last longer, although not forever. For example, mushrooms, cabbage, etc.
