How can I grocery shop for a family of three for less than $100 a week???

Question

I need to cut costs, please help me with cupons, favorite stores, shopping strategies etc. It's me, my husband and 1 year old son. DH & I work full time and baby goes to home based day care so we don't need a lot of extra food for him.
THANKS!!!

Answer 1

I have a family just like yours (me, my husband and a 1 and a half year old). To cut down on grocery costs, I have a strategy. I shop at Aldi for most of my groceries. Then I go to another neighborhood grocery store for my lunch meat (so cheap! Krakus ham is $3.49 a pound!), meat and sale items only. And the rest of the stuff I can't buy anywhere else I get from Jewel-Osco who happens to ACCEPT expired coupons! I often check the Jewel-Osco sale paper and see if I have a coupon for something . I make a list and buy several items on sale with a coupon! I have saved tons shopping this way!!

Other money saving tips:

I make lunch for my husband every day, it's cheaper than eating out.
I make dinner every night too it saves money.
I don't buy a lot of snacks and soda. I splurge on one or two items like ice cream or something.
I enter sweepstakes to win free stuff. I have won scott tissues, keebler cookies, a banquet dinner (coupon), Mrs. Day Clean Day cleaning products basket worth $40, hats, candy, and more and this is within the last 4 months! If you want a referral to the sweepstakes website let me know.

Last tip: call companies and tell them if you love their products. They often send out a free or money saving coupon to people who call in with comments/feedback.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Well you certainly got a lot of helpful answers. I would just like to add the following:
1. Stay away from prepared foods. They are too expensive and contain lots of salt.
2. Look carefully at coupons before using them. Most of the time they are for expensive products. Buy no-name products for less.
3. Chicken is really versatle. Roast a whole chicken on the week-end. Use the breast meat for lunch sandwiches two or three days. Use the dark meat for one meal. Boil up the carcass with some celery and a carrot, a bay leaf and some salt and pepper. Strain, put in fridge. Next day lift of hardened fat and dicard. Now you have a pot of stock. Make some soup with it. Noodle soup, Minestrone, Lentil Soup or pea soup. Use dried legumes they are much cheaper than cans.
4. If you like beans buy a bag of dried navy beans. There is a recipe on the bag. It makes a huge pot of beans. Add a little ham if you like.
5. Go to an Asian store. You can buy a huge bag of rice for very little money. Make lots of vegetable dishes accompanied by rice.
Rice Pudding is also wonderful for dessert.
6. Buy all your spices at a bulk food store. For pennies you can get what would cost you Dollars at the grocery store. I mean, salt, pepper, paprika, curry powder, chilli powder etc. Bring the spices home put them in empty jars and label them. You can buy little spice jars at the dollar store for 50 cents or same jars from other products when they are empty.
I know you work and have a baby so there is lots of work already but if you do some cooking on the weekend it will feed you two or three days. Try to do soup and a pasta or rice dish which can be heated up the next day. Believe me it works.

Answer 3

$100 a week for three is pretty tight. I suggest if you live in a warmer climate, you can grow some veggies in your backyard. Coupons are good, get them from the local papers and internet. Discount stores are great for cutting costs and always watch what is in the big chain stores flyers for specials. Just buy those, nothing more when you go in, you will save there and can additionally with coupons on top.

Make meals last; caseroles you can do ahead on a Sunday and they can last a couple of meals. Cut out expensive beef and substitute for cheaper chicken. Don't go out for dinner and take your lunches to work. Also, that mocha at Starbucks can be expensive if you do it a few times a week.

Don't buy junk food, it isn't good for you and cost money. Focus on healthy and inexpensive. There are some cook books out there that are 'meals on a budget' type of thing you may want to check out at the library.

Answer 4

Very carefully. Lots of things that many people think are not adequate for a real meal, but which are. Peanut butter, for example, and tuna, and pasta. You don't need meat at every meal, even if you need protein every day. A good whole grained granola for breakfast, to give a variety of nutrients, and bulk. Milk with that, and frozen orange juice in the "house brand" gets you through breakfast. Then sandwiches and perhaps some fruit for lunch. Maybe veggies. A dinner centered around something fairly cheap, such as tuna noodle casserole, chicken, hot dogs and baked beans, macaroni & cheese (with bacon or ham to add protein), or spaghetti, lasagna, or meatloaf. It's not that hard if you all accept that it's going to get pretty boring. Let others invite you to their house for dinner every so often, and let that be your variety.

Answer 5

I spend no more than $30 a week on groceries for my husband and myself. (That's just human food, not soda or TP or cat food and such.) Our local supermarket is 4 blocks away and competes with Walmart's prices, or I can just go to Walmart after work since it's across the intersection from my job. So that saves on gas. The only meat I buy is from the discount meat bin at Safeway, it's everything that expires that day. So it's 30% off, plus my club card, and I throw it in the deep freeze for when we want it. We eat a lot of rice and bean based dishes, that saves on money too.

Answer 6

We do this easily for a family of four (1.5 & 3 yr old). My wife is able to stay home, so we watch everything. Plan your meals, have a list, use coupons, and shop at walmart/sams club/costco. I think it helps to take cash only and keep track of your total. We have done this and you'll quickly realize what you can do without knowing you can't use a debit/credit/check payment to cover the overage.

Hope this helps. By the way we spend about $400 a month and this includes toiletries, laundry soap, and other household non-food needs.

Answer 7

Do you have an Aldi store near you? If so they have packages of pork chops 5or6 in pack, theres 2 dinners. On the week-end you could make lasagna or something like that, enough for two meals, its very good fried the next day. Maybe a bakery outlet where you can get bread, rolls, donuts quite a bit cheaper.If you buy chicken, which is very cheap, you can do dozens of different meals with that. Hope this helps some.

Answer 8

Bulk buy, esp meat. I you buy it by the kilo, it costs much less than buying it a little at a time for each meal. Also, try eating less beef and eat more chicken breast (the cheapest, I think, at least here in Japan). 100 a week is pretty tight, but if yuou organize and make shopping lists, you should be able to stay within that amount. Good luck!

Answer 9

If you have a Sam's club, a Costco or a BJ's or any wholesale clubs around you, join them and start buying bulk meats from there. Try to spend about $120 a month on just meat. Then go to Walmart or Aldi for your canned foods,veggies, fruits, frozen foods and boxed items. Try not to spend money on juices, chips, sodas, and processed meals. Those items can add up quickly.

Answer 10

Buy store brands..that'll save you money anywhere you go. See if your sons grandparents might watch over him while you work. That'll save you alot of money right there while enriching your parents lives at the same time.

Get a cheaper ISP. If you're on broadband, then switch to dialup. If you're on aol, then switch to peoplepc. That'll save you a good chunk of change right there too. Shop around for new car insurance. I had to do that and I'm glad that I did because I ended up switching from safe auto *a junky no-name company* to state farm, saving me money and providing life insurance for my daughter that will be fully paid up by the time she is 15 *that way she can have money to borrow against, or use at her discretion, or just to never worry about buying life insurance for herself*.

If you focus too much on coupons and stuff, then you'll get burned out trying to save money just at the grocery store. My family did anyways. You have to tackle the problem of limited finances from every direction. Try to abstain from buying any new or used vehicles unless you're able to cover the entire cost upfront. Making payments on a vehicle raises your insurance rates. So it is always better to keep repairing your old beater even if you hate it than it is to go out and buy a new car to replace it.

As for the coupon thing..I don't use them. When I did I used to clip them from the sunday paper, but that didn't always work out too well since most of the coupons were for things that I wouldn't otherwise buy. Same goes for online coupon sites. The coupons just serve as a way for a store to convince you to buy a more expensive, slow moving product.

Eat more chicken and less beef. If you buy beef, buy ground beef instead of steaks. There are many dishes that you can make with ground beef that are very affordable, tasty and will feed your family for 2 or three days if you are anything like my family. Chicken is cheap too, and there are also many dishes you can make with it that are affordable. Make a yummy stew in your crockpot and that'll feed your family for 3 or four days.

Just don't get discouraged =) My family eats well and I only work part-time because I go to university full-time. Good luck!