Saving Money on Groceries

Well, I try to blog everyday, but I’ve been at a loss as to what to blog about, and after talking with my mom this morning, she suggested I share some of my money saving grocery shopping tips.

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and as we get further on in the month, our meals get more and more creative. I’ll start it out by sharing my beef stock recipe. I don’t know if you could call it mine. It’s different every time, and I rarely measure anything, and often just go by what I have on hand. Don’t make it complicated. Beef stock is a yummy version of beef broth that can be used in soups and sauces, etc. The main difference between a stock and a broth is a stock has many more flavors in it as it uses vegetables and such in the mix.

Yum…this is the pot I had going last night. I needed the stove top space, and since my pots can go in the oven, I just had it continue simmering in there.

Gretchen’s Beef Stock

Get your biggest pot, and put in a few beef bones from the grocery store. They are often labeled soup bones, and very cheap. Then wash but don’t peel carrots. Chop them up into chunks, and plop them in. I do about 3-4 carrots in my pot. Then do about the same amount of celery if you have it. You’ll want at least 2 onions, coarsely chopped. If I have more, I’ll put in more, but I like at least 2. Put all the papery peelings in the pot and everything. You’ll want to do the same for about 2 heads of garlic. Paper stuff and all. If any part of these vegis are rotten or dirty, discard. Otherwise, stick every part of them in. Then add some spices. I like to put a couple teaspoons of whole peppercorns, and sea salt. Sea salt is the best for stocks. Then I’ll put a small handful of twigs of fresh thyme from my thyme plant, and a few bay leaves. If you have parsley, throw some of that in too. You could add really anything you particularly like after that. Some spices that I don’t use that you could are basil, chili or maybe even mustard seeds. I don’t know…whatever you like. I just like to keep my stock multipurpose. I can always add different spices to whatever it is being put in.

Then fill the rest of the pot with water, and let it simmer for at least 3 hours. Let cool, and strain everything out, so you just have the stock (liquid) left. I then divide the stock into 1 cup portions in Ziploc baggies, and freeze. Sometimes, if I’m really trying to stretch it, I’ll save those vegis etc. that I just boiled, fill the pot with water again, and try to get some more stock out of them. If the stock turns out lighter than I like second time around, then after I strain, I’ll put the liquid back on the stove and boil it down to a color I like.

If the vegis remaining have any flavor it it left at all, you did not use it enough. You’ll want to throw out everything that you strain out because it’s tasteless. If you are tempted to eat them–you didn’t used them enough. That’s just my cheap, ahem… I mean thrifty opinion.

You can do the same thing for Chicken broth by using chicken bones instead of beef bones. Sometimes when I cook up a whole chicken, I just don’t clean the bones as good as I should, and throw it in the pot with some vegis for chicken stock.

Just beware. My family CAN tell the difference between the store bought stock and homemade stock pretty easily. Knut always frowns when I use the most expensive stock I can find at the store in a soup. He sighs and says “You used the store bought stuff again…it’s just not as good…”

Other grocery tips:
Other than making my own stocks, I garden, which saves money on vegetables. As far as everything else, besides buying in bulk, like I addressed in other posts, I rarely use coupons. Instead, I buy generic. For most things, that is. I find there is rarely a difference. I do buy brand name Oreos when I splerge on them. When we splurge on pop too, which I’ll address later. I find that when I got nuts on the coupons, my grocery bill shoots way up. It’s because I’m buying stuff I don’t need because I have a coupon. It’s called marketing, people.

Make a list at home of everything you need, and stick to it like crazy when you get to the store. You’ll be shocked at how much money you’ll save.

We also nix most junk food. We usually only have Diet Coke for Knut during busy farm times, but other than that, we rarely have pop in the house. We rarely buy chips, but instead buy nuts or pop popcorn fresh when we need something salty and crunchy. And we don’t do the microwave popcorn anymore, but buy a big bag of kernels, and pop it up in a popper. Way cheaper. (Well, nuts aren’t really cheaper, but they’re much healthier.)

We buy the cereal in bags, and pour it into those Tupperware things for cereal. Although, I encourage everyone to eat oatmeal as much as I can because #1 it’s more healthy, #2 it’s so much cheaper, and #3 everyone in my family loves oatmeal, if it has brown sugar crumbled on top of it. Yum! And buying a canister of oatmeal is about half as cheap as getting the pre-seasoned little packets. I used to buy those until I did the math and found out I was spending at least 2 times as much, and have you seen how much sugar they put in those little packets? Wow! Knut thinks I use a lot of sugar, but it doesn’t even compare to how much is in the little oatmeal packets.

Knut usually makes eggs with a ton of vegis in it in the morning for his South Beach diet thingy. If he has oatmeal, it has to be the old-fashioned kind.

We don’t buy a lot of juice, or use Koolaid. Sometimes as a special treat. I’m not against either of those on any level. I just don’t think they’re the best use of our grocery money. Instead, we spend our money on actual fruit, which, again is healthier, and cheaper. Kids can have a cup of juice and get their daily value of fruit and sugar in one cup. But then they’re still hungry! However, if they eat a whole apple, they have their fruit, their sugar, and their snack all rolled into one. A glass of water on the side is even better. It’s funny how cheaper and healthier hold hands a lot.

We still have desserts, but try to go for homemade ones as often as possible. We get apples and rhubarb for free, so we take advantage of that. However, as much as Knut likes things like brownies homemade, often the box mixes of those on sale are cheaper to make in the long run. (although maybe not as tasty.) But even that will be cheaper than buying brownies ready made.

Another huge money saver for us has been our bread maker. I think I priced it out, and every loaf of bread on our bread maker costs us about $1. Try finding a great loaf of bread for that at the store. The really nice ones are usually around $4! That was an awesome birthday present for me one year. I did used to make my bread in the oven before, but if I ran out of time I’d pick up some bread at the store. It never tasted as good, and everyone, including me, would complain. With the bread maker, I have no time excuse.

I’m not saying that I never buy anything pre-made, or get my kids the classic junk food that’s out there. Our kids aren’t forbidden from those things, but we try to keep those things for special occasions, like road trips. You wouldn’t believe the amount of junk food that we consume on a road trip. It’s just not a lifestyle for us to have wheat thins and licorice on hand on any given day.

So what do we eat for snacks? Like I said, popcorn, nuts, and then there’s banana bread or apple bread, fruit, slices of cheese with crackers, left over desserts, no-bake cookies, regular cookies with lots of milk on the side. We usually have ice cream from those big buckets that are from local dairies and really yummy on hand. Once or twice a month I suppose I’ll have to admit you can find a box of Little Debbies or Oreos in our house. But normally not that often, and I hide it from the rest of the family. Knut is nice enough to share. I’m not. Wait, it’s not Monday. I shouldn’t be confessing.

If you have any other tips, feel free to leave it in the comments! With everyone tightening their belts these days, we all could use them! So what is your favorite money saving grocery tip?