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Thrifty Thursday: 10 Easy, Money-Saving Grocery Swaps

10 Ways to Save on Your Grocery Bill

      Looking for ways to save money on groceries? Here are some easy swaps that can help you shave some dollars off your grocery bill, even if you just do one or two!
     1. Buy 70% percent ground beef, instead of 85, 90 or 93% ground beef. Why? When you cook the ground beef, most of the fat cooks out anyway, and you can save up to $1/lb, depending on what you currently buy. 
     What I do is place the cooked beef in a collander over a bowl (to collect the grease). Allow it to sit about 5 minutes, remove the bowl and give the beef a quick rinse to get rid of any grease still sticking to the meat. Bonus: Keep the grease (called tallow) for cooking grease later.     2. Buy frozen fruits and veggies instead of fresh. If you are purchasing fruit for mix-ins, smoothies or anything or to cook, frozen is a great option. Frozen produce is picked at its peak, will stay until you’re ready to use it and is generally cheaper than fresh. Of course, if you’re wanting to eat plain fresh fruit, still get some!
    3. Buy and cut your own regular carrots instead of buying “baby” carrots. Baby carrots are simply full size carrots that have been cut into finger sized pieces. And you pay for the convenience, as baby carrots are more expensive per pound. And if you object to having your produce washed with chlorine, that’s another reason to stick to full-sized. This goes for pre-sliced apples too.
    4. Purchase meat and cheese from the deli instead of pre-pakaged. If you price compare pound per pound, you will find you’re actually paying even more for prepackaged lunch meat. Plus, you can buy as much or as little as you like and fresh cut tastes better! 
     Of course, both types of lunch meat contain nitrates. So to save a little more money and spare yourself the nitrates, just cook your own piece of chicken/ham/turkey and use it for sandwiches. You won’t get the same texture, but you can spare yourself the nitrates. 
    5. Buy a canister of rolled oats instead of instant oatmeal. It doesn’t take much longer to make and you can add your own mix-ins and it tastes better. And you pay more for the “convenience” of instant oats.
    6. If you’re a salmon eater, buy it canned. It is cheaper than fresh and better than farm-raised. 
    7. Instead of individual cheese sticks/cubes, buy a block of cheese and cut it into sticks or cubes yourself. It is cheaper per ounce and only takes a few minutes if you do it at once.
    8. If you buy “lunchable” snack kits, make you’re own by cutting your own meats and cheeses, and some crackers. Even if you choose healthier options, the overall cost per “meal” is lower. 
    9. Instead of buying 100 calorie packs of any kind, buy the regular sized package and divide it up yourself. You can wash and reuse plastic storage bags, or invest in some reusable ones. 
     10. Buy Generic. Sometimes a name brand may be a better quality product. But for many things, especially basics like milk, sugar and frozen veggies, the quality is virtually the same (unless you buy organic). 
     We’ve also found that we like certain stores’ brand of cereal and other things better than other stores’. But when you do opt to pay that extra 20-50 cents for the name brand, make sure it’s something that really tastes better to you. Because that change adds up!


8 Comments

  1. So many great tips!! Now to convince hubby that we don’t need all the expensive luxury items!! I swear shopping with him is the worst!!

  2. Wow! Never thought about the ground beef thing! Great ideas… In gonna definitely try this next time I shop to see how much I can save!
    Thank you;-)

  3. We save bacon grease and the fat from cooking carnitas for all kinds of cooking applications. We eat old fashioned oatmeal several times a week for breakfast. Now that eggs are so high it is the cheapest hearty breakfast I can come up with.

  4. Thanks for the great tips. We already do a couple of these, but I never thought of the canned salmon or oatmeal.

  5. I love some of these ideas. Im always looking for ways to cut my grocery bill. The biggest way for me to save money is to leave my husband at home while shopping 🙂

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