Budget Talk: Groceries

One of my household responsibilities has always been meal planning and grocery shopping. I enjoy both, and left to his own devices, Brandon would come home with a car full of brand names, ice cream, and Tater Tots. We're lucky not to have an extremely tight food budget at the moment, so I don't need to be crazy cheap with the meals I make for us.

One thing that never particularly worked for me was couponing. I tried my hand at it a bit when we still got the Sunday paper, but the coupons in the paper are pretty worthless. They're all for brand name items and processed, unhealthy foods. Generally, even if I wanted to buy the item, the store brand was considerably cheaper. Now, the only coupons I use are the store-specific coupons that Ralphs sends me in the mail. This helps me save maybe $5 or so on a good week. In addition, I get online and look at the weekly ad and try to plan meals around sale items, which also cuts down on the total weekly bill.

Recently they sent me four $10 coupons to entice me to remain a Ralphs shopper since my closest Ralphs recently closed. No problem there -- I've tried to shop at both Albertsons and Vons and hated it. I've gotten my groceries at Ralphs for the entire decade that I've been responsible for my own groceries -- it's the only chain where I know how to easily find everything I am looking for. In other grocery stores, I just wander the aisles like a spaced-out lunatic, bouncing back and forth a dozen times until I manage to find everything on the list. When you shop at the same grocery store, you get to know the sales and how to work the rewards system also, which helps to save a little more.

We buy most of our meat and household products at Costco. We invested in a deep-freezer for the garage about a year ago, which is nice because we can stock up there once a month and then I rarely have to buy any meat at the regular grocery store. I also find that we save money by getting the following at Costco: diapers, wipes, shampoo, soap, dishwasher and laundry soap, paper products, toothpaste, contact solution, coffee, cereal, and cheese. It's also great for when you throw a party. I never get produce there, though, because we don't go through it quickly enough.

Most of our produce comes from our weekly CSA (community-supported agriculture) box. We use Abundant Harvest Organics. This allows us to eat good quality organic produce, but it's also seasonal. Winter is the worst, week after week of turnips, radishes, and squash. We only get one every other week in the winter and fall, and bump it up to weekly in the spring and summer when we like the produce better. This costs slightly more than I was spending on produce at the store, by about $5 weekly, but I think it's worth it. Especially now that I use the produce to make baby food for Lucas.

Some weeks are tighter than others, but I enjoy the challenge of groceries and meal planning. Plus, Lucas adores the grocery store so it's a fun outing for us on Saturday so Brandon can have a little time to himself.

If you got through all that, here's a photo of Lucas's first trip to the store when he was about 6 months old.