Making the Most of Your Grocery Dollar
Food prices are on the rise again.
After the relative stability of the last ten years, this past November (latest finalized data analysis I could find) packaged food makers began increasing prices last year to cover the rising cost of raw ingredients.
Specific examples include:
- Oscar Mayer lunch meats
- Capri Sun juice pouches
- Wheat Thin crackers
- Fig Newtons
- Jolly Ranchers
- Twislers
- Natures Own breads
- Sunbeam breads
- many others.
Here are a few proactive steps you can take to increase the shelf-life of your foods and thereby stretch your grocery store dollar (as well as increasing food safety).
1. When running your errands, make the grocery store your last stop. Perishable foods should not be out of refrigeration for more than two hours when the temperature outside is more than 90 F.
2. make the refrigerated and frozen food section one of your last stops in the grocery store.
3. Refrigerate meat and poultry as soon as you get home.
4. Keep your refrigerator and freezer door closed as much as possible when putting away groceries so the food will chill rapidly.
5. Keep insulated thermal bags in your car for transporting frozen food from the market.
6. Bacteria grow best between 40 F and 140 F. So, keep your refrigerator between 32 F and 40 F.
7. 0 F and below is recommended for your freezer.
Placement Tips.
1. Don’t put eggs or milk in the refrigerator door. The temperature fluctuates more there.
2. Put raw meat or poultry on the bottom shelf the keep their juices from dripping on and contaminating other foods.
3. Avoid overfilling the refrigerator. Cool air must be allowed to circulate to keep food at the proper temperature.
4. Store fruits and vegetables in separate drawers. Fruits give off ethylene gas that shortens the shelf life of vegetables.
5. Overwrap meat and poultry packages. Heavy duty foil over the store shrink wrap can extend the useful life of our meat and poultry.
6. Go lean. Lean cuts last longer than fatty meats.
7. Freezing vegetables. Drop your vegetables in boiling water (blanching) before freezing them stops the enzyme that hastens deterioration.
8. Avoid freezer burn by eliminating as much air as possible from the food packaging.
Much of this information may be obtained from the USDA Food Safety page.
What are your tactics for increasing the range of your food dollar?
Reg Adkins writes on behavior and the human experience at (elementaltruths.blogspot.com).
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Comments
ben says on September 5th, 2006 at 8:45 am
My best tactic for saving money at the grocery store is to eat vegan: no meat, no dairy, no eggs. First, I don’t have to pay for these items, which are some of the most expensive in the store. Second, I don’t have to worry about keeping the meat cold, or getting salmonella or e.coli. Third, I can eat my food knowing that I’m not contributing to the mass suffering of thinking and feeling animals across the globe.
Seriously, my food bill went way down when I went vegetarian, and again when I went vegan. The farmer’s market provides the bulk of my food in the summer. Shopping is quick and easy, as most of it is in the produce aisle.
Veganism could be your next lifehack.
mamaloo, the doula says on September 5th, 2006 at 10:51 am
We experienced a major drop in our finances when I decided not to return to a traditional job recently (I’m building a doula business while doing a little freelance writing). So, groceries have had to become more of a science in order to make our money go farther. Here’s what we did:
1) Write out each of the standard meals we make on an index card.
2) On the back of each card, write out the shopping list to create that meal.
3) Each week, before doing groceries, decide as a family what it is we will eat, pull those cards, doouble check the ingredients against what we already have available and then compile our grocey list.
4) Add in breakfast, lunch, beverage, snack, dessert and replacement items as required.
5) Stick to the list when you shop.
We’ve literally cut our grocery bill down to almost half each week by doing this. I’m using up all the food I buy because each item has an intended purpose and I use it for that specific purpose on the appropriate day.
Before I was buying what was on sale or what struck my fancy or what I thought I might enjoy eating and would discover that I wasn’t in the mood to make it, didn’t make it within the grocery week and it would become surplus, or I wouldn’t have many of the other required ingredients.
Oh, and my main way to make groceries cheaper and healthier and my food stocks last longer: learn how to make everything from scratch. It’s ultimately cheaper to make a cake from scratch than it is to buy a mix. The same goes for stews, cookies, muffins, soups, chili, casseroles, mac and cheese…
Lisa says on September 6th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I use less processed convenience foods. Processed foods are expensive. Less processed foods are both healthier and often cheaper. For example, dry beans are *cheap* (canned beans less so), and they don’t take too long to cook in a pressure cooker. You can make a big pot of black beans, and then use them in a variety of dishes over the course of the week, or freeze batches if you can’t use them fast enough. And compare the price of a box of cereal to the cost of an equivalent amount of *bulk*-purchased oatmeal.
And meal planning is vital. When you know what you’re going to cook for dinner, then there’s less tempation to order in or eat out. Also, as mamaloo points out, you buy less unnecessary items. Though when I see a good sale on an item that I use frequently, I will stock up.
Do some price-comparison between grocery stores. They aren’t all the same. Some items are virtually identical across stores, but for others there can a wide price difference. Find the store that has the best overall prices for the kinds of foods you commonly buy.
Finally, if you like to cook ethnic foods, then shop at those stores. I find certain foods are much much cheaper at an Indian or Middle Eastern or Asian grocery store than at a conventional American grocery store.