Grocery

[cfred]

I serve breakfast too and cater to vegetarian, vegan, gluten and egg free diets. I manage to stay around the $8000 mark by watching grocery store websites like a hawk. As soon as the weekly flyers come out on line, I check them all over and buy most things on special - gear my next week's menu on that. The following week's menu is based on what's left over from the previous shop and I top up if I need to. Trying sooooo hard to eliminate as much wasted as I can.

I get very, very excited when toilet paper goes on sale. I currently have around 200 double roles in my garage storage because they went on for 30 double roles for $12! I KNOW....Excellent!!! !!

Jeez that's sad, isn't it.....

[Inspired by Reggio]

Oh wish I had the storage space to stock up on sales like that ... I already have to shop 2 sometimes 3 times a week cause my fridge cannot hold all fresh fruit or veggies we eat in one shop

[cfred]

Have you tried keeping some of the fruit out of the fridge? I have the teensiest of kitchens (not exaggerating) with an apartment sized fridge. I can still manage to keep it down to once per week-week and a half. I have a big red bowl to keep my apples, citrus fruits, avocados, bananas, pears, pineapple, etc in. When you do the next shop, if anything's left, put the old stuff in the fridge, and fill bowl with new stuff. Of course, more perishable stuff like grapes always has to be refrigerated, but you could easily free up some of that space.

[Momof4]

Cfred, I also have a teeny tiny kitchen. I bought one of those two tiered hanging wrought iron baskets to hold fruit and I put shelves on the wall and a bookshelf against one wall to act as a pantry. I have an apartment sized fridge/freezer which makes it even worse.

I go grocery shopping with a good friend every Monday to stock up for our daycares and every time she's buying a lot of packages of chicken on sale for example she offers to freeze a bunch for me too but I just can't ask her to do that. I lose out on saving a lot of money that way too.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Have you tried keeping some of the fruit out of the fridge? ...

LOL I do keep some out ~ bananas, avocado, oranges, tomatoes but I admit that I cannot eat the other fruit 'room temperature' myself and therefore serve everyone the same way I prefer it

[cfred]

It might be worth your while to get a chest freezer if you have somewhere, either in your garage or basement to plug it in. I've got a big one that I've had for probably pushing 20yrs. I LOVE it! I make big batches of spaghetti sauce, chili, muffins....oodles of stuff and store it up. You'll make your money back in the end because of those great deals. When cereal, crackers, margarine and the like go on special, I buy tonnes and freeze them. I bought margarine 8 months ago when it went on for $1 and we still have oodles. No Frills is my best friend Even a small cube freezer would allow you to take advantage of meat specials and do a lot of freezing when ingredients go on sale.

I'm totally ready for the apocalypse....we have enough stuff for months!

[Momof4]

we all know where to go for the apocalypse now. Too funny!