tickled.: budget shopping

{are y'all ready for a SUPER long post? apologies in advance.}

So a lot of y'all asked how in the world I went to the grocery store for 30 bucks ... I decided it might be a good idea to do a post dedicated to budget cooking & grocery shopping ...

Now y'all my $30 trip was no easy task ... Mostly because I am SUCH convenience shopper, but I'm trying to change my ways ... So here we are. :)

So the first thing that I did was ~~stare at~~ search my pantry, fridge and freezer for things that I had on hand. I'm not sure about y'all but I am TERRIBLE about not doing this before going to the store and I end up with a TON of multiples.

If only mine was this organized ...

After I figured out what I had, I started making a preliminary menu for the week (or in my case 2) then I started searching the sale circulars for local stores ... This was one of the most time-consuming parts of the day.

After doing this, and altering my menu some ... I set out to do the ACTUAL shopping ... And y'all this consisted of going to THREE different stores!

While shopping, I took $30 cash with me and resolved to NOT spend any more than this ... I really think that this helped to cut down on the impulse buys (magazines, snacks, sweets, sodas).

Now for some tips I found on the WWW:

~ MAKE A LIST & STICK TO IT! This is probably the most important .. Impulse buys really add up. If you do your research on what's on sale, make a list & stick to it, you will save lots of dough in the checkout line!

~ Buy only produce that's in season. This means planning meals around what's actually in season, which isn't always easy but definitely less $$. I also buy a lot of frozen veggies because they have all the same nutritional values as fresh and none of the sodium that canned veggies have.

~ Learn to use leftovers. I'm NOT fan of leftovers but over the past several months have become a lot better at 're-purposing' food. For example, I made grilled chicken one night and with the leftovers I made pulled BBQ chicken samis (one of our favs).

~ Don't buy 'convenient' food. It seems so much easier to buy the already cut & washed veggies or an already cooked rotesserie chicken, but it's not always the cheapest route. It just takes a little extra time to do these things yourself and can save a lot of MOOOOOlah!

~ Going meatless one day a week can really cut down on food costs too ... I don't mind this at all, but for my meat & potatoes guy ... not so much! So we don't usually follow this! :)

~ Speaking of meatless, beans & eggs are great, inexpensive ways to get your protein in!

Ok now for some REALLY tasty and REALLY inexpensive recipes!