Saturday Stories: Frugality in Florida

This isn't exactly a Saturday Story, but it doesn't fit within my normal recipe posts so I am including it as a weekend post.

I have been thinking a lot about frugality lately. When I moved from Arizona to Florida a few months ago, I had a huge sticker shock waiting for me at the grocery stores. I went from a place where milk went on sale for $1.75 a gallon to a city where a good sale was $3.25! Since then, prices of food have continued to rise along with the price of gas and everything else.

A few weeks ago, my mom called me from Arizona and asked me how much vegetable oil was here. She was in a military commissary when she called and was looking at $12 a gallon. I couldn't believe it was so expensive, so I went to my local Walmart and found it for under $6. I immediately bought a couple of gallons. Since then, I have paid attention to vegetable oil in all of the local stores. It is now $12 in most places here as well.

With food as expensive as it is and my household on a very limited budget AND five kids to feed (including four voracious teenagers), I have had to get creative in my shopping as well as in my cooking. I have searched out blogs and websites that match coupons to sales for each of the stores in my area. I-heart- Publix, Coupon Mom, and Winn Dixie on a Dime are my favorites. I get a set of coupons along with my grocery ads each week. Most weeks, I buy a Sunday paper, too. One of the Walmarts near me keeps them out all week, so I can go in on Monday or Tuesday and still get a paper.

Don't get me wrong. I am not an extreme coupon-er or anything like it. I don't spend hours that I don't have. The websites do all the work for me. My job is simply to look over the ads, decide which one has the most deals on food that my family will eat and then use the corresponding website to help me save even more money. In order to get all of the deals listed on the sites, I have found that I needed to sign up for online coupons. I print them off and then take them with my other coupons to the stores. The savings have been worth the extra effort. I love seeing the total on the sales slip say something like $53 with $57 saved.

No matter how expensive food gets, I still have a hard time spending more than $2 per pound for meat. I have found a butcher in a less affluent section of Jacksonville that offers “freezer specials” for a really reasonable price. I end up with 65 pounds of meat for $140. That includes roasts, steak, hamburger, chicken, sausage, bacon and pork chops. I have found another store that sells whole pork loins with the bones on for $1.69/pound. Those things are huge, but I get at least 5 meals out of them: 1 roast, 1 sliced roast (chops), 1 cubed pieces of trimmings, 1 ribs and 1 from the broth I make by boiling the ribs before baking them. There is also a store that offers 10 pound bags of chicken hind-quarters for $.69/pound. I recently purchased 40 pounds of chicken breasts for $1.49/pound from Zaycon Foods when they came through the area last month. So what if we don't eat gourmet cuts of meat? So what if we don't eat bigger than the recommended 3-4 ounce serving size? So what if I sometimes only use 1 pound of ground beef in a casserole?

Fresh fruit and vegetables have been a little trickier to find cheap. I simply cannot believe how expensive a simple potato has gotten! They are now sold mostly in 8 pound bags for $.79+! When I found them for $.29/pound and in 10 pound bags this week, I bought 20 pounds. Fresh produce is a must for me. In the grocery stores, I only buy what is on sale. I have, however, found a few little fruit stands that sell locally grown produce for less than the best sales. One of the weird things I have noticed is that Walmarts do not all sell produce for the same price. I live between three big stores. Each one has specials on different fruit/veggies at the same time.

By using strategies like these, I have been able to limit my spending to about $150 or less a week to feed a family of 7 (okay, 6 most of the time because my husband is out of town half of each month for work). That usually includes one treat meal of pizza, McDonalds or something else each week, too. I drive a gas guzzling Suburban, so I don't traipse all over town going to every store. I pick one a week, sometimes two if I happen to be going that way for other reasons. One week a month I spend my budgeted money at Sam's club to stock up on bigger quantities of things like butter, cheese and other staples. I am looking forward to November as the month that baking supplies go on sale.

Perhaps you aren't in a situation where you need to watch every penny. But if you are, or you want to spend less on food so you have more to spend elsewhere, investigate your local stores. Do an internet search that includes the name of your store, “coupons,” and “blog.” You may be surprised at the help you may find.

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