What do you eat more of to save money?

My shopping usually is dictated by what’s on sale. I try to avoid buying pre-processed foods like pizza pockets. Turkey is usually a good deal. You can get it for relatively cheap. Vegetables used to be the way to go but the prices on those have gone skyrocketing along with everything else.

Another thing we do is to dehydrate or can foods. When we find things like frozen vegetables on sale for BOGO (Buy One, Get One free), we will stock up, putting some in the freezer and putting some in to be dehydrated. Find a great price on beef or chicken or pork and buy 2 or 3, one for freezer, the rest for canning. Doing this has allowed us to stock up on food at really great sale prices and then live on it when the prices are not that great.

Oh! other things you can do: don’t buy soda. You can usually find store brand seltzer water on sale. Powerade is lower in sugar than soda and costs a lot less. If you are a water drinker, most Walmarts have a dispenser that puts out purified, RO (reverse osmosis) water at $0.46/gal. We got 4 3-gallon bottles that we refill all the time. We have another one that has a tap on it and we put that on the counter. Always water available that has no chemicals in it.

Beans instead of meat

@seawulf575 You might want to research canning some meat. It lasts longer than freezing. I’ve not tried it yet. I have a friend who has a family of 8. There’s 5 teen boys, a toddler & 2 adults. She’s very proficient with dehydrating & canning. She cans most of her meats now…only freezing certain cuts.

@RedDeerGuy1 I tend to eat a LOT more potatoes when things are tight. I find them to be more filling & I don’t get as hungry as fast so I eat less.

Porridge instead of sugary processed breakfast cereals.
Tapwater that is bright and cold rather than anything sweet dark and bottled.
Food I cook myself from basic ingredients rather than processed food.
Occasional baked beans on toast. Easy made and incredibly cheap.

I eat more of these foods because I like them and they are healthy. Saving money is a bonus.

Chicken instead of beef or fish. Plus, I love chicken anyway.

Cereal for dinner. Either to save money or I just can’t be bothered to cook.

@LadyMarissa Yep, I mentioned canning meats. When we buy, we usually freeze what we think we might want relatively soon and then can the rest. Our spare bedroom has been turned into a miniature grocery store.

Oh! I forgot! Rice. Gotta have rice. Cheap, filling, and can stretch expensive meats a country mile!

@RedDeerGuy1 I think it might be a good idea to do a Google search for “eating on a budget” or “eating cheaply”.

Eggs are a cheap protein, rice & beans too and rotisserie chicken (is some times cheaper than buying a cooking your own).

@Hawaii_Jake that doesn’t work for me because I have to watch my carbs. Plus, I’m not crazy about beans in general. But since I have to watch my protein intake as well (kidney disease), I try and only have protein once a day. I mean, I still need some.

One thing I do is I don’t buy prepackaged fruit and vegetables. And that’s a good idea anyway because so much package stuff ends up being recalled for E coli or whatever. So instead of prepackaged cantaloupe, I try and buy a cantaloupe and cut it myself, etc. It’s a lot cheaper too.

@Tropical_Willie there’s so much stuff you can do with a rotisserie chicken too! I’m not even that great a cook but one time I got one and cut all the meat off. Then I cut up a pepper and an onion and sauteed those. Put some tortillas on a tray in the oven with some cheese and heated them up for a few minutes, then took them out and added the meat and the veggies with some salsa! It was so good and I got a couple meals out of it.

Children, says Baba Yaga.

Me, string beans and rotisserie chicken. Plus food in my Boss’ office fridge.

Carrots. They’re inexpensive, filling, healthy and provide a satisfying crunch. Unfortunately, they get caught in my teeth. You can’t have everything, I guess.

Like @seawulf575 said, rice! Very versatile.

@flutherother, I’ve never heard of baked beans on toast, but it sounds good so I’m going to try it.

Eggs, tuna salad sandwiches, any kind of egg sandwiches, rice with shredded cheddar and corn, SOUP! I love soup!
All I drink is 1%milk and water, o.j. now and then.

My own vegetables that grow in my garden.

One way to stretch meat is to make chili with it. It doesn’t take a whole lot of ground beef or turkey to make a huge pot of chili. Stew is another idea.

Processed foods tend to be expensive. Fresh can be expensive, too, but if you shop for sales as suggested by @seawulf575 that will help. Sometimes I buy things that I don’t need, if they’re on sale, just because I anticipate that I will be using them soon, for example eggs and butter.

I actually eat less of things to save money.

Instead of chips, which I love, I get nothing.
Instead of soda, which I love, I get nothing.

Not that I never buy these things, but if I’m conserving, I just actively cut back,

Gotta shout out that a good CSA shouldn’t break the bank for just vegetables, and that you can save a lot on meat by buying whole or partial animal shares.

(And yes, to whomever said it, canning is a fine way to preserve meat, provided you have a pressure canner, but ugh. The quality is whack. Even professionally canned meats are found in the “bachelor chow” aisle.)

@Smashley I used to buy meats in bulk and you can get them cheaper. But you have to have the storage space. At the time I had a 6’ long chest freezer and would buy a whole hog or half a cow and get it at significantly cheaper prices per pound that I could get anywhere else. But sometimes I’d get some strange looking beasts. One whole hog I bought came with 4 ears, 2 snouts, 5 feet and 3 tails.