Recently, a friend asked me how we keep our grocery bill so low. To be honest, if you average it out across the entire year, I don't know exactly what it is. But, our weekly bill tends to be around $60 for our family of 3 (DC isn't eating enough to count as a person yet). I thought I'd share how grocery shopping works at our house and maybe some of it will appeal to others.
1) We buy all of our chicken through a CSA at a local farm. Starting in the spring, we pick up around 9 chickens every few weeks, for an end total of 52 chickens. They aren't a savings over conventional chicken, but they are on par for organic chicken. It's worth a little extra to me to see my food during its life and support local agriculture. We also bought eggs in bulk from them all summer.
2) This year, Himself was persuaded to buy boxes and boxes of beef and seafood off of a truck. In the future, we will be buying shares of pork/beef instead and we usually buy salmon and mahi mahi in bulk at Costco.
I have been planning all of my weekly menus around the above proteins, which means that I hardly ever have to buy meat at the grocery store. The money is already spent. So, here's my next big secret. This one is the actual money saver.
I pay for a personal shopper. Really, this is a money saver. Harris Teeter has personal shoppers and grocery pickup. I put in my order online and can pick it up a few hours later, or schedule a pickup up to six days out. Yes, there's a fee: $4.95 if you pay per pickup, $16.95 if you pay monthly, or $99.95 if you pay annually. How does this save me money?
- I can take my time to price compare and all of the prices are right there, easy to see.
- I know I could use the weekly flyer to browse the store, but it's just too much when I'm with the kids. Online, I can click the things in the weekly flyer that we use. I can also click to see all the items on sale in each department so I can stock up on the things we use the most.
- Being able to see a running total helps me keep track.
- It eliminates impulse purchases.
- I'm never shopping while hungry.
- If they are out of something I ordered, they give me the more expensive option for the same price. For example, I recently ordered a gallon of whole milk. Given the recent weather, they were out of gallons of milk. They gave me two half gallon containers for the price of the gallon.
- Sometimes they throw in extras. I ordered one pumpkin at Halloween and they gave me five. I end up with free extra produce sometimes too.
I estimate that I save at least the fee just by avoiding impulse buys. If Himself picks up the grocery order on his way home from work, I don't even have to add in gas costs (a big deal when you live 10 miles from the grocery store).
And finally, I save money by a few tricks at home.
-When I cook one of those fancy chickens, I always always always make chicken stock. I throw the whole carcass in the crockpot. Meanwhile, whenever I use carrots, onions, or celery, I keep the scraps in the freezer. When I make stock, I add in those scraps that would otherwise have gone to waste. That means that my chicken stock is practically free.
-I make my own yogurt. It's not cheaper than conventional yogurt but it breaks even on some brands of organic yogurt and it's much tastier.
-We garden extensively most summers.
-Menu planning. I always check the pantry, fridge, and freezer before planning and do my best to stick to it each week. This week, I had plenty of room in the grocery budget to stock up on things because I needed to buy hardly any ingredients for our actual dinners.
That's all I can think of right now. What about you?
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