Money saving idea?

[PollyPoPo]

I certainly am.  Do we want to start a new thread?   I am thinking, chicken whole, chicken breasts, ground beef,  lets pick one common lesser expensive beef (London broil?) and perhaps pork loin (not tenderloin).

Then gal milk, doz large eggs, lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes.

New thread ready.  Grocery Prices across the Country.

[Lady Neysa]

Sounds like time to move the daughter out unless she is paying rent.  Get the 2 teens a job, bbq the cats and warn the dog he may be next. Other than that I cant think of a thing other than just quit eating.  Which I am sure has no appeal what so ever.  Hope you take this in the humor that it was written. 

LOL! You are so bad!    The adult daughter does pay rent, but I still can't wait to get her out of my house!  My almost 15 yr. son isn't quite old enough to get a job yet, other than lawn mowing and stuff like that which he does do.  My 17 yr old daughter did have a job as a car hop at the local Sonic Drive In, but a couple of months ago she got a very serious chemical burn on her foot and ankle when she accidentally spilled a cleaning solution down her leg into her roller skate. She was a bit traumatized and hasn't gone back.  If anyone  is interested to hear THAT drawn out story, I'll start another topic thread.

You need some of my chicken soup...good for what ails you!  Hope you feel better soon.

Merlin, nothing beats homemade chicken soup, even when you're not sick!  Now I want some! 

I feel I'm doing some of the "right" things I should be doing...I just need to do a lot  more and be more consistent with my resolve. Side trips to the store are my downfall because it's right around the corner and I know that's a huge part of the problem. I love to cook so scratch cooking is second nature. Using generic brands, rarely eating out. etc. Every spring I plant a garden with a wide variety of veggies and herbs in two 4' by 8' raised beds. I think I need to make it bigger, because we always eat everything up. I never have enough to can or freeze, (plus always end up losing some things to pests.)  For those that have suggested slow cookers, YES, my crock pot is one of my best friends!  I don't know what I'd do without it!  I always joke you could put a shoe in there and it would get tender and tast good 

Mehan, I've often wondered about the price differences too! The extreme couponing thing...I don't know if I have the patience and dedication for it. I've  seen stories about coupon queens that have gotten hundreds of dollars of groceries and paid under $50,etc.. Then I think..it must take months of planning for a trip like that. Then I wonder, yes but where do they live? You're gonna pay alot more for food in a huge metro area  in or near a major city than you will, say, rural Alabama. Polly, that's a GREAT idea for everyone to quote prices!

Everyone has given such  great input!  Glad I started this thread! 

[raevyncait]

on some level, I really think the extreme couponing is inconsiderate to other shoppers.
Number one, if you are going to buy 25 of an item, are you REALLY going to be able to use all of those men's deoderants in your lifetime? What about someone else who also wants to buy that item, using the same coupon you've hoarded 25 of, but they can't because you've taken them all?
Number two, there are limits to how many coupons/items you can use a coupon for, and if that's the case, that means as many as 25 separate transactions for your items, do you really think that's fair to other shoppers who are not taking things to the extreme, and get in line behind you, not knowing that you are engaging in EC, thinking, "oh, that's a full basket, but it shouldn't be too bad" only to discover that in that one basket are 25 different transactions, each taking 5 minutes, instead of one transaction taking 10 minutes?
Number three, you are kvetching about the "new policies" on coupons, limiting transactions, eliminating the multiplication of them, etc., are you really so dense as to not realize that YOUR BEHAVIOR CAUSED THE CHANGES???
Number Four, do you not realize that the fact that you go in EVERY WEEK with your bazillion coupons and come out of the store with a "refund" is a valid reason for the store to increase the prices that they do have so that they aren't losing any more money than necessary.  Yeah, I know the behemoth that is WallyWorld is greedy, and whatever else, but when it comes down to them giving away product AND money on top of that product, eventually it becomes a problem
Number Five, because of EC, people who really DO need the savings that double/triple coupons provided get screwed because YOU took EXCESSIVE advantage of that policy to such an extreme that it has been eliminated completely.

Now, I do know a young woman from my church, who, with a friend, does the EC thing, but anything that their families won't use in a reasonable time gets packed into care packages for the soldiers deployed overseas, or donated to the local shelters.  I'm sure they aren't the only ones doing this, and that's a good thing. The ones I have real problems with are the ones whose product have taken over entire rooms in their houses, which, to some degree, at least in my opinion, is HOARDING behavior.   I just don't understand how you are "saving money" when you spend money on products you wouldn't normally spend it on?

/rant off

My mother couponed my whole life, when we were kids and she was feeding a family of 6, she had a lunchbox in which all of her coupons were organized by category, and they were arranged in the general layout of the commissary (we lived on base). She shopped from a specific list, on which she'd noted which items she could pull coupons for, and rarely deviated from that list. If it was something fun or a treat, like spaghettios, she didn't buy it UNLESS she had a coupon.  Once we left military life, and my parents divorced, so it was just her, my brother & me, she shopped the local grocery, and her couponing slowed down quite a bit, largely because more store brands were available and less expensive than national brands, even with a coupon.  She gave up the lunchbox organization after she picked it up out of the cart by the handle one day, not realizing it wasn't latched & her coupons went EVERYWHERE!
I coupon some, but not a whole lot, because, especially now that double/triple is gone, there's not a lot that I HAVE to get brand name, and what I do insist on is rarely in the coupon section, and when I do coupon for brand name stuff, I often buy what I would NOT have otherwise spent on, which is not a savings at all.

[crazyrennie]

Make friends with hunters if available
Venison is great-
and you can slow cook it as well-
Crazy

[Auryn]

I concur with you raevyncait 100%

just as a side note, ive lived in Florida going on 20 years now, and we never ever had the double and triple coupon days that every other state seems to have.
I never even knew that existed until I took a trip to Missouri when I was in college.

[mehan]

Thank you Raevyncait - I wanted to rant... my sentiments exactly. 

[angusmacinnes]

I know I am going to start something here but I disagree.  If I want to buy 25 of something then I will and that is one Item I wont be buying again for a long time.  It is my right to use the coupons the way the manufacture allows and the store allows.  If you get in line behind me sorry about that.  And yeah sometimes the garage looks like Walmart shelves. 

[Merlin the Elder]

I don't see much of the extreme couponing around here. I don't see how they get away with it to start with, because every coupon I see says "one per" on it. But, whatever.... If you are one of those people whose shopping habits require the monopolization of a clerk's time for 20 minutes, you should at least be considerate enough to not go to the store during peak hours.

Crazyrennie, I wish I liked venison. I've never been able to get used to the taste, and I've lived in Arkansas most of my life, and I have deer in my yard! Now, if a rampant cow comes wandering by, I can take her out with my `03-A3 Springfield with little trouble...other than the local police force.

[Captain Teague]

I will have to stop by and cook some for you, Merlin. The way I cook it people argue with me and swear I am lying, that it is not venison, it is fine beef. 


Even a couple people that swore they hated venison. 

[Lady Neysa]

I ate deer meat growing up, and I currently know a guy who hunts and keeps his freezer well stocked.  I never liked it that much as a kid, because as you know it can taste very gamey.  I've heard though, when cooked and seasoned well, it can indeed taste like beef. It's been a very long time since I've had it, but the last time I did, it was very similar to beef, not gamey at all. If you use ground venison in stews, chili, etc, it's very hard to tell the difference.

[Merlin the Elder]

I will have to stop by and cook some for you, Merlin. The way I cook it people argue with me and swear I am lying, that it is not venison, it is fine beef. 


Even a couple people that swore they hated venison. 

I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I could. I think deer are beautiful animals. I can't shoot one, but I support the hunters who do around her, because there is a tremendous overpopulation of them here. I'm serious about them being in my yard...and no, I don't live in a rural area.

I'll eat beef, because I think cows look dumber than a bag of rocks.

[angusmacinnes]

and cows are so tastey. 

I mostly shop at 2 am so no real lines to worry with.  LOL

[cowgrrl]

I don't coupon as I pretty much do all my shopping at Aldi. The prices are great!  Just remember to bring a quarter for the cart & your own bags.
Off the grocery topic but we have a large family to buy for at Christmas. I set a pretty low budget & then shop all year. I currently have 3 tshirts I bought at a local Christian store for 90% off. They're going to be my nephews birthday presents. These are $20-$25 shirts I got for about $2. Even if I have to store it for a few months I'd rather do that than pay full price.
Put on a sweater or put on a lighter weight shirt before you turn on the heater or the A/C. If I'm sitting on our couch chances are I have a blanket over my legs.
Go used before new. My son needs some new long sleeve shirts. Before I hit the mall we are headed to Platos Closet resale. The same kid also has a really hard to fit jean size (28x34) & most of his jeans come used from eBay. $25 is a lot easier to swallow than $60-$120 (I've looked!).

[Captain Teague]

Number one, if you are going to buy 25 of an item, are you REALLY going to be able to use all of those men's deoderants in your lifetime?

Depends on how many Ren Faires I attend, in full garb, in the late spring/summer/early fall. 

I guess I have been lucky. As far as I know I have never seen what seems to be called an extreme couponer save for days past when they did allow double and triple coupon days and even then it wasn't all that bad to me. And as for nowadays, all the coupons I see get used they simply scan through their purchases then scan through all the coupons in one go, save for the ones that refuse to scan.

I always either lose the coupons or hold onto them and remember them a day or two past expiration.  So now I just watch for the sale ads and we usually get pretty good prices on stuff, outright, two for one, etc. And it doesn't hurt to have a Winn-Dixe and a Publix who are constantly fighting each other on the lowest sales, either.

Like Angus, I usually do my shopping after midnight anyway. Definitely saves on crowd jostling. 

But I have three types of shoppers that annoy me no end too. The ones who can't count to ten (or twenty ) when the sign clearly says ten (or twenty ) items or less. I go pick up one or two items, I really don't want to wait while you checkout your 35 items. And FYI, 5 loaves of bread don't count as one item, k?

I smoke. And usually buy at walmart which is cheaper in this area. Which they only allow those to be sold in ONE checkout. Irks me no end to get behind not one but two or three carts loaded down, wait for them to checkout and NONE of them are buying smokes, they just don't want to walk down another 10 feet to the four other open lanes. And again I am usually there buying one or two items.

And lastly....what compels people to wait in a line to buy anything at all, not just groceries, anything, gas, movie tickets whatever...to wait in a line, get to the register and only THEN take 5 minutes looking for their cash or card? And still more....they wait till ALL of their purchases are scanned through, THEN start swiping their card and doing the pin, sig, whatever, taking another several minutes. Maybe not a lot of people know this but 95% of the machines used today, once they scan that first item, it opens the transaction and you can swipe anytime after that, do your numbers or sig and just be waiting for the final ok on the price.

/myrant off
/threadjack off

[mehan]

I don't "extreme" coupon, but I do coupon and I do stockpile.  (hey, my house is the place to get stuck in a storm - garage full of wine, coffee and ribs!).   

Shamefully sometimes it takes money to save money.  Until you can build a pantry, you are at the mercy of buying whats on sale that week.  I built a menu of about 15 go to recipes and stocked the pantry/freezer accordingly when the staples were on sale.  Now, if is isn't on sale I don't "have" to buy it. 

That being said - I learned the hard way to rotate my stock and that not everything on the shelf has an indefinite shelf life.  I use reduced fat miracle whip every day on my husbands lunch.  Oh look, on sale for 1.99 (normally 3.49), I have three coupons - yipee.  However, its takes almost three months to use a single container meaning it was a year before I opened that third jar.  It was gray, ugly and way past expiration.  (I learned that it was still usable and wouldn't kill him - but there was no convincing him of that).  Didn't exactly save much in the long run.

Barter!  There is a thriving bartering market here locally.  If you have anything to offer - its a great system.