When cooking, you probably do as we do. You have a bunch of dried spices that you use. It’s a lot easier than always making sure you have fresh, plus it’s a whole lot cheaper!!
Sometimes dried herbs won’t do though. For example, when I’m making bruschetta, I need to have fresh basil. Using the basil from my spice rack just doesn’t cut it. The problem is that it can be very expensive to buy fresh herbs and spices. Also, many times you have to buy a large quantity, even if you only want to use a little bit.
This is where an indoor herb garden comes in. You can easily plant a bunch of different herbs in front of one windowsill. This way you don’t have to worry about weather, since it’s indoors. You can have fresh herbs in the middle of the winter…without having to pay a dime!
You will also always have fresh herbs. You won’t have to run to the store just to get one or two spices for a dish you’re making. You won’t have to spend money to get these nice fresh herbs when they are off season.
Also, food tastes better when you use fresh herbs! You’ll also end up saving a lot of money by doing this.
Herbs are very easy to grow, so you won’t have a problem even if you don’t have a green thumb. I have grown quite a few herbs outside - such a basil and chives, and they grew like weeds. It was great all summer to have the fresh spices to use when I was cooking. Of course now that it’s the middle of winter, I miss it. I am thinking about starting an indoor herb garden myself!
When you hear about “coupon queens” going to the grocery store and getting hundreds of items for $1.23, the first thing that might come to your head is that it’s all junk food. You might think that the healthy stuff never goes on sale, never has coupons, and is never cheap.
The good news is, if you thought that, you’d be wrong! While yes, it is a lot easier to eat cheaply if you don’t mind eating more “junk” food, it is very possible. You just need to spend a little extra time figuring it out.
It is true that most of the coupons out there are for prepackaged foods, things higher in calories, and maybe not so high in nutrition. And it is very, very easy to get those foods for free or almost free when they go on sale, using a coupon.
But…if you’re someone who wants to eat mostly vegetables and fruits, or organic foods, it’s still not a problem. Here are 5 ways you can eat healthy without spending a lot of money:
1. Eat fruits and vegetables that are in season. The prices of fruits and veggies that are in season will be a lot less than when they are not. For example, in the middle of summer, green peppers can be as low as .49c a pound. Corn can be 12 ears for $1. In the middle of the winter however, those green peppers can be over $2 a pound, and just 2 or 3 fresh ears of corn will be $2 or more. In the fall, apples will be a lot less expensive than it is during the rest of the year. As you can see, if you eat what’s in season, you’ll save a LOT of money!
2. Shop the circular. Even in the middle of winter when you don’t think any fruits or vegetables will be cheap, they do put some on sale each week in the circular to get you into the store. So take a look at those. Just last week we had cherries in the circular for $1.99 a pound, which is a great price for the middle of winter. This week they are back to $4.99 a pound, but last week we ate a lot of cherries, and didn’t have to spend a lot of money on it.
3. Look in the freezer section. When you think of “fresh” vegetables and fruits, you always think about the produce section…not the freezer section. Surprisingly enough, many of the frozen vegetables and fruits are actually fresher than the ones in the produce section. The ones there might have been sitting around for a few days - or even a week by the time it gets from where it’s grown to your store…but when they are going to freeze the fruit or veggies, it is done just a few days after it is picked.
So by picking up frozen fruits and vegetables, you will sometimes get even more nutrition from them than their fresh counterparts. Also, there are often coupons out for frozen vegetables, and there are often sales for both, making them very inexpensive…and still very tasty!
4. Get on your favorite company’s mailing lists. Yes, most of the coupons out there are for more “unhealthy” foods, but if you like something in particular, go to their website and get on their mailing list. Every so often you might receive a coupon in the mail from them! Also, sometimes the customer service center at your favorite grocery store will have sections of coupons that are specific to healthy foods, or even organic. It is possible to get coupons on your favorite healthy foods, you’ll just have to take a more active approach in getting them!
5. Comparison shop. You might have one grocery store that you use all the time, but check out the prices of some of your favorite and more expensive foods at some other nearby grocery stores. I can’t tell you how huge the difference in regular every day prices can be from one grocery store to the next. It might be worth going to a second grocery store every now and then to get certain foods that are a lot less expensive there!
If you follow these tips, you really can eat healthy for less.
Here is a video I recorded yesterday, just to show how easy it is to get a huge selection of shampoos, conditioners, soaps, toothpaste, body washes, shaving lotions, and more for free - or almost free.
I’m almost embarrassed to say that what’s shown in the video is after a lot of stuff has been used, or given away to friends and family!! The good news is except for the toothpaste, none of the rest of it will go bad. So we keep an eye on the toothpaste and won’t get too much of it so we don’t waste any…but the rest we can just keep getting if the price is right (free) and not have to worry about it.
I do have to say it’s nice to get a whole lot of shampoos etc, because it’s fun to share them. I recently got a whole bunch of the L’Oreal Vive Pro shampoo (which is usually $4.59) for free, so I had fun giving some to my sister and a friend. I am happy to share when I have a lot of stuff, since I got it all (or most) for free.
Also, just to show how much savings that is…in the video there are:
42 bottles of shampoo & conditioner (regularly $1.00 each)
29 bottles of SoftSoap body wash (regularly $3.99)
16 bottles of hand soap (Dove and SoftSoap) (regularly $2.49)
16 bottles of Gillette Complete Skin Care Shaving Lotion (regularly $3.99)
13 tubes of Colgate Total toothpaste (regularly $3.69)
9 bottles of Dove Shampoo (regularly $4.99)
+ more that I won’t even bother putting in…
That all adds up to more than $354.27. I paid less than $5.00 for it. Not too bad, right? That’s worth a few minutes each week going over coupons and the sales going on at your local store, right? You really can save money on groceries easily!
You hear it on the news all the time. So and so said you should drink more water to be healthy. They say 8 glasses a day is what everyone should be drinking, as it has many health benefits.
While I agree drinking water is better than drinking many other things (especially as far as calories go), there is an even better reason to drink more water. The savings…it’s free!
I’m not saying to give up your favorite juices, sodas, coffees or teas. But if even once a day you have a glass of water (which is free) instead of that other drink, you will save money. While one glass of juice really doesn’t sound like much money, it does add up over time.
If we assume a bottle of juice cost $3.00, and you will get 8 drinks out of it, each glass is about $0.37. If each day you were to replace that glass of juice with water, you would save $135 a year. While the cost of different drinks can vary greatly, saving over $100 a year for replacing one glass with water is incredible.
Plus, each little thing helps. Would you miss drinking that one glass of juice or soda a day? Probably not. But, that same $135 that you just saved could go towards a lot of things. It could pay for a night in a hotel room on vacation, or quite a few meals out! It could probably even pay for a few of your bills.
Think about that the next time you’re trying to decide what to drink.
If you’re like most of us, one of your biggest expenses is food. You don’t want to eat ramen noodles all week just to keep to a budget, but you don’t want to spend all of your money at the grocery store either. There are many ways to keep your grocery bill down though, and you’ll still be able to eat really well! Here are 7 ways to get you started:
1. Design your menu based on the sales circular. Each week stores will have what they call “loss leaders”. Many times the grocery stores actually lose money by selling these items at such a low price, but they do it to get you into the store, hoping you will buy a lot more to more then make up for the loss. If you plan your weekly menu based on the sales circular, you’ll mostly buy what is on sale, and you will spend a lot less money than if you had to buy things that are at full price.
2. Use coupons. I can’t tell you the amount of times I have heard people say that it isn’t worth spending all that time cutting out coupons to save a few pennies. I really don’t think people realize how much you can save with coupons! Each week in the Sunday paper, there are anywhere between 1-3 sections of coupons. They can be anywhere from .25c to over $1.00 each. Many grocery stores offer double coupons, and once in a while a store will have a promotion of triple coupons! This will make your .75c coupon be $1.50 most of the time, and even $2.25 sometimes! If you use coupons on items you find in the sales circular, you can end up getting items for free!
Of course, if you can get one item for free or for a very good price, why not get more? Many grocery stores will let you use up to 4 of the same coupon. So, get your friends and family to give you the coupons they don’t use each week. If you still want more coupons, you can go to eBay and you can get more coupons. You can’t buy coupons, but you can pay someone for the time and effort it takes them to cut them out and mail them to you. When you think of eBay you might only think of auctions, but you can also just buy an item.
So for example you can get 10 of the same coupon for something (let’s say you use a lot of cereal for example) and for .65c you can get 10 coupons giving you .75c off of each box of cereal. If you only use one of the coupons you have more then made your money back on it…and if you use all 10 coupons, if you have double coupons you will have saved $15.00 (minus the .65c). Isn’t that incredible for a few minutes of work?
3. Don’t be brand loyal - but don’t necessarily buy only store brands either! Another thing I hear a lot is that store brands are always cheaper, so they buy that and then don’t have to “waste time” cutting coupons. Well I have news for you. When an item is on sale, it can often be cheaper than a store brand! When you use a coupon on an item, it can be a LOT less expensive than a similar store brand item. Also, we all have our favorite brands on certain things…but a lot of time you can’t tell the difference. So it’s always worth trying out a different brand if the price is right. Sometimes with a coupon you can get an item for free, or very close to it. So even if it’s not what you normally buy, it can still be worth trying!
4. Keep track of prices. Just because your grocery store is having a sale on an item, it doesn’t mean that it’s a good price, and time to stock up on that item. Sometimes a grocery store will only cut the price by a few cents, and call it a “sale” item and put it in the circular. But if you know what the prices usually are, you’ll know that the item does go on sale for a lot less, so you should wait. Also, different grocery stores have different prices. So even when an item is on sale at your regular grocery store, it might still cost more than the regular price at another grocery store. If you keep track of the prices on at least a few of the items you buy regularly, you’ll soon be able to tell when it is a good time to buy something, and when you should wait for a better price.
5. Consider going to multiple stores. It sounds like a lot more work, but sometimes by going to a second grocery store during the same week, you can save a lot of money. Like mentioned above, different stores have different prices and different items on sale each week. If it’s not too far out of your way and if the prices are better on some things at a different store, it can save you a lot of money to buy the other items at a different grocery store. If you can buy the loss leaders at each store, you will end up saving a lot of money!
6. If it’s a good deal, get many. A lot of times the expiration dates of something you are buying could be weeks, months, or even years away. If you know that a sale is a very good sale (by tracking prices as noted above), then why not get a bunch of that item? That way you won’t run out and have to buy it again when it isn’t on sale - or when the sale isn’t as good. This will also help your budget in later months when you don’t have to buy any of that item since you already have a lot of it on hand…and it didn’t really break your budget at the time since you got it at such a good price.
7. Make a list. A lot of times as you go through the isles things start to look good, especially if you are hungry. You might end up throwing in a bunch of items that you didn’t plan on. Not only does this inflate your grocery bill, but also a lot of times you end up having to throw uneaten food out because you bought more than could be eaten, and certain foods went bad. If you make a list of what you need for the week and stick to it, you will notice your grocery bills will go down, and you will also have less to throw out.
If you follow the above suggestions, you will see a huge difference in your grocery bills. It’s great to be able to spend just a little bit of time and be able to save so much! Be sure to check other posts to see more tips about what’s going on at a grocery store near you and other ways to save at the grocery store.
Today was a lot of fun at Stop & Shop. The bags of Ore-Ida French Fries retailed for $3.89 each and were on sale for $2.00 each. To make it even better, if you bought $15.00 worth of them, you would get a catalina for $5.00 off your next order. Now, what’s nice about Stop & Shop is when they do this type of deal, the total is based on regular prices, not sale. So if I bought 5 bags of French Fries, I would get the catalina for my next order. This means that each bag is now only $1.00.
Stop & Shop also happily surprised me by having coupons for $1.00 off the Ore-Ida Roasted Potatoes, which meant that for each of those I bought, they were free!! I only got a few since I wasn’t sure we would like them, but my overall was 10 bags of french fries, and I spent $10.00 (I had a $3.00 catalina from last week’s Dove Deal), and have a $5.00 catalina to use for next week now! So I was very happy. I would have gotten more if I had a bigger freezer (both are completely full!)
Anyone who is interested in Dove products (specifically the shampoo and hand wash) might want to go to Stop & Shop today. They have a deal where if you spend $10.00 (before sale prices), you will get a $3.00 coupon off your next order. In most areas, 2 shampoos + 1 hand wash comes to $8.00 after sale prices, and if you have $1.00 coupons off of all 3 products, that means you’ll pay $5.00 for your order, and get a $3.00 coupon for your next order. If you get other coupons either from friends or eBay, you can do this multiple times, where each additional order will be $2.00 after the coupons, and you’ll get another $3.00 off your next order each time. I plan on doing this a bunch of times. I would have gone earlier in the week, but I needed to order more coupons, which came in today’s mail. If you miss this deal, starting tomorrow there will be a Catalina deal (where you get x off your next order when you purchase a certain amount of items) with Ore-Ida products. I’ll figure out the best deals and then post it.
ShopRite has a great Heinz promotion going on this week. If you buy 5 products (check their circular for the list or products), you’ll get a coupon for $5.00 off your next order. There are 2 deals that I think are great.
Deal 1: Buy 5 jars of Classico Pasta Sauce at $1.14 each. You can only get 2 per variety, so you’ll get to try at least 3 different kinds. The first time, you pay $5.70, and you get a $5.00 coupon for your next order. So you paid $.70 for 5 jars! You can then use that $5.00 off, and keep doing it one order after another, where the total comes to $5.70, you give them the $5.00 off coupon, and you pay $.70 for the 5 jars. I plan on getting a bunch to try!
Deal 2: Ore-Ida French Fries. Usually on sale you can get them for about $2.00 a bag. Well, they are on sale for $1.94 this week, and part of the Heinz deal. So if you buy 5, you pay $9.70, and get back $5.00, making it $4.70 for the 5 bags, or under a dollar a bag! If you have a coupon (there are .75 cents off of 2 Ore-Ida coupons available), you can pay even less!
I enjoy when grocery stores have deals like this. It lets you stock up without spending a lot of money!
It works!!! Scott went to Stop & Shop this afternoon, and this is what he purchased:
4 Edy’s Ice Cream (@2.69 each, regularly $5.39)
- a $1.00 coupon he used on 1 of the Edy’s Ice Cream
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$9.76 (The total before savings was $21.56)
and he got a coupon for a free copy of Pirates of the Caribean and the Dead Man’s Chest (in other words…the second movie!) So the ad did indeed show the wrong movie…and now for $9.76 in ice cream (which we would have bought anyway), we will be getting a free copy of the movie on Tuesday!
Last night, I went to Shoprite, and got the following for free:
14 Carolina Rice Packets
3 Zatarains Rice Pilaf
4 Boxes of Shout Stain Remover (about 20 cents each)
4 Boxes of Pop Secret
2 Suave Shampoos
2 Colgate Toothbrushes
I had a lot more coupons for things that would have been free…but of course they were out of stock. I will probably go to Pathmark or Foodtown today or tomorrow to see if I can find anything else, but I have to admit, it’s fun shopping for free!
