Store Sales + Store Coupons = Getting the Most Bang for your Buck at Food Lion

I do most of my shopping these days at Food Lion in Greenville, NC. It isn't fancy. It isn't organic (most of it anyway), but it's healthy, real, and affordable food and I'm usually able to stay within my weekly $50 food budget for the two of us. 

This budget generally ONLY includes food and sometimes things like dish soap or toothpaste. I buy MOST of our other household items in bulk for super cheap from Amazon once every few months. The last time we bought toilet paper and paper towels was in December.  I also buy all of our cat food online through Amazon, again because I can get it in bulk, get it deeply discounted or at least for a comparative price, AND it's delivered. 

One way I'm able to stay within my $50 budget is buy ONLY shopping the store sales and store brands. There are a few items that are rarely on sale (like butter, eggs, and/or organic milk), but generally at least half of what I buy is on sale. Each week I check out the online sales paper for our local store. 

• Money-Saving Shopping Tip: GET to KNOW your favorite store's websites! They often have special coupons available (often customized JUST for you and your shopping habits), they ALWAYS have their current sales flyer available. They also often have great custimization tools to create your own shopping lists that can be emailed to you or your smart phone or just printed for your convenience. You can check out all of the store's coupon policies along with all the details of any current store promotions. I have become a HUGE fan of Food Lion's customer website, it has helped me tremendously each week to create my shopping list and stay within my budget. (And NO, they have NOT paid me to say that or review their store, I've just been shopping there for years, and I'm a loyal customer!) 

I create a shopping list just from the items in the flyer and then I create a weekly menu from those store sale items. Sometimes the menu isn't very exciting... but it's nearly ALWAYS healthy, real, unprocessed foods. 

Here is a breakdown of the items I bought this week (highlighted items were not on sale, just store-brand regular priced items): 

• 2 boxes Honey Nut Cheerios (on sale with MVP card = 2 for $3.98)
• 1 box Corn Chex cereal (had a .50 off coupon ON my store MVP card, that I found on the food lion website = $2.99)
• 2 small cans of tomato sauce (.64)
• 1 bag dried lentils (1.39)
• 2 cans green beans, 1 can corn, 1 can sweet peas (on sale with MVP = $1.68)
• 1 pound ground beef (on MVP sale for $3.35)
• 2 turkey drumsticks ($3.07)
• 2 whole chickens (on sale for .99/ lb. = $10.79)
• 1 head cauliflower ($2.99)
• 3 pounds sweet potatoes ($2.52)
• 1 bunch celery (on MVP sale, $1.29)
• 3 pounds yellow onions (on MVP sale, $1.79)
• 1 pound asparagus (on MVP sale, $3.77)
• 1 green pepper (.89)
• 1 pound carrots (.79)
• 1 package sliced mushrooms (on MVP sale, $1.69)
• 1 package (2 cups) shredded mozzarella cheese ($2.49)
• 1/2 gallon organic milk ($3.59)
• 2 dozen medium eggs ($2.09 per package = $4.18)
• 1 pound butter ($2.97)
• 1 package paper plates (on MVP sale, $1.99)

TOTAL with store coupons & store sales = $54.10

So it turns out with this trip, it was about half MVP store sale items and half store-brand lower priced items. My goal every week is to try to make sure to buy as many REAL food items as possible and very few processed items for the best prices I can find. Right now, I don't focus on organic foods. When we have the money for them, I definitely go for organic, but I think overall if you have a tight budget and can simply focus on whole foods, you're still doing pretty darn well! 

Cheryl's lentil dal, roast cauliflower, and baked sweet potatoes

We will use the food from this trip combined with the food in our pantry and freezer to make some of the following meals: 

• Roast chicken with lemon and artichokes or asparagus (see recipe below!)
• Cheryl's lentil dal (I used the regular lentils I found instead of red lentils, it worked fine!), with roasted cauliflower and baked sweet potatoes
• Breakfast for dinner = eggs, bacon (from freezer stash), and gluten-free pancakes
• Homemade gluten-free pizza (pg. 104, The Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook) with toppings of browned ground beef, green peppers, onions, homemade tomato sauce, and mozzarella. 
• Hamburger gravy made with remaining browned ground beef, celery, and onions and served over gluten-free, low glycemic biscuits or GF almond bread toast
• Homemade pulled turkey barbecue and homemade coleslaw (with cabbage from last week's shopping trip)
• Mushroom & Asparagus Omelettes with sliced oranges from last week's shopping trip

Slow cooked roast chicken with artichokes and lemon - see recipe from my slow cooker cookbook below!

Recipe shared courtesy of Carrie S. Forbes (myself), author of "The Everything GF Slow Cooker Cookbook"

Do you have a favorite store that you shop at consistently? 

What's your favorite thing about the store? 

Frugal Tips: Homemade Dish Soap

So why in the world would you need to make homemade dish soap when you get a bottle at just about any grocery store for less than a dollar (especially if you're buying the really cheap stuff!) Well, I guess if you were stocked up you wouldn't really need too, but this is really fun to make, SUPER easy, and still probably costs less than the cheapest dish soap you can buy. I don't make it often, but we're in the "counting pennies" stage of January and it's a snow day and I'm not willing to go out to the Dollar General just to buy dish soap because I'm out. That's a wasted trip of gas in my opinion!

AND... hubs was so interested in what I was doing he stopped to come over to see how it worked. I told him it was science and he was in. Don't ask me about the actual science. I have no idea, I just know it cleans dishes when I'm out of Mrs. Meyers or Dawn and that's good enough to me. And I actually have all the ingredients on hand (because I've been known to make lots of other homemade household cleaning items) so it's a win win in our house.

Washing soda is SLOWLY becoming easier to find (I get mine from a local ACE hardware store, but you can also buy it from amazon (because what CAN'T you get from amazon these days?), and it's really key in this recipe. It's what gives the dish soap thickness over a day or so to make it act and feel like the dish soap you're used to buying from the grocery store. Make sure not to confuse washing soda with regular baking soda, while I've used baking soda in homemade clothing detergent in it's place, it's not the same product and it does NOT work in this recipe!

Finished and cooled dish soap with a drop or two of blue food coloring (optional!)

It took less than five minutes to "cook up" this bottle of dish soap. And it's enough for at least two weeks. We made the soap different colors just by adding a drop or two of food coloring, but you can simply leave it natural and it's a light lemon yellow color. Somehow my husband seems convinced it works better if it looks like Dawn! lol... So buy some castile bar soap, some washing powder (the stuff will not go bad, it's good forever!) and next time you run out of dish soap try making your own!

I use Dr. Bronner's castile soaps. I generally keep several bar soaps on hand along with a large container or two of the peppermint liquid castile soap and the lavendar liquid castile soap. Those scents are just personal preferences and you could use any scent for dish soap. Castile soaps are crazy useful and super inexpensive (considering they are very concentrated) and will clean just about anything. I've used them for washing everything from clothes, to floors, to bathrooms, to windows, to using them in the shower when I was out of our regular shower scrub! It's a very versatile and frugal item to have on hand.  

I would say this soap works just as well as any type of  non-concentrated Mrs. Meyers or Dawn or Joy dish soap. You can play with this recipe and add additional washing soda and grated castile bar soap to the small amount of water for a more concentrated soap. Beware though, that the more soap is added, the thicker the soap will become as it sits or ages. To thin it down, simply add a bit of warm water and close the lid and shake to thin it down.

A Small Batch of Homemade Dish Soap
Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups boiling water
• 1/4 cup grated castile bar soap (I don't pack it - this also helps save money and keeps the soap from getting too thick)
• 1-2 tablespoons washing soda
• 1/4 cup liquid castile soap
• 10-20 drops essential oil (if desired)

 Directions: 

• Add grated castile soap to the boiling water. I do this right in my small stainless steel pot that I heated the water in. 
• Add the washing soda and liquid castile soap and stir to combine into a slowly thickening liquid. 
• If you are using plain castile soaps without any scent, once the soap has completely COOLED,  feel free to add 10-20 drops of your favorite essential oils such as lemon, orange, cinnamon, or mint to create your own favorite scented dish soap (you can also use this as a hand soap.)
• Pour cooled soap into a recycled plastic bottle or even a glass jar dispenser.  We've been using a ketchup bottle we washed out and re-used.

This Week's Menu - Slow Cooking on Sundays

I just started a new series on the blog entitled, "How to be gluten-free on a TIGHT budget" on my first post, I shared a recent shopping trip. We spent $42.77. 

Here's what we got: 

I know, the english muffins are NOT gf... those are hubs -- he has breakfast
"McMuffin" sandwiches every day during the week.
Those waffles though definitely ARE GF and after the BOGO sale + a coupon
they were .89 a box! :-) 

The grocery items were what I needed to make the recipes on our meal plan for this week. I've gotten into the habit of cooking on Sunday nights or Monday nights (whichever is easiest) and I cook for the entire week: breakfasts, lunches, dinners, (and what I hope to incorporate this month) afternoon snacks. 

One of the keys to cooking everything one night a week is using my slow cookers. Newer slow cookers cook hotter and faster than older ones (especially on high heat), so I can cook as many meals as I have slow cookers and in 3-4 hours they are all cooked and ready for the week ahead. 

Most of the meals I made this week are from my upcoming slow cooker cookbook! 

This Week's Menu: 

Dinner & Leftovers for lunch each day: 

• Saturday (We had a family cookout!) -- grassfed burgers, french fries, broccoli salad, cooked apples, AWESOME GF brownies (from The Essential Gluten-Free Baking Guide, Pt. 2) and ice-cream
• Sunday -- Leftovers
• Monday -- Slow cooker swedish meatballs with gravy (pg. 71 from "The Everything Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Cookbook) & gluten-free toast served with a caesar salad
• Tuesday -- Skillet meal of sauteed yellow squash, onions, carrots, and sausage
• Wednesday -- Slow cooker barbecue chicken & white beans (pg. 245 from "The Everything Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Cookbook) served with green beans and sweet potatoes
• Thursday -- Slow cooker meal of sausage & spinach quinoa (pg. 253 from "The Everything Gluten-Free Slow Cooker Cookbook) served with a green salad
• Friday, Saturday, Sunday -- weekend cooking with friends! Happy Labor Day! 

Breakfasts:

• For Carrie -- soaked oatmeal (I'll post about this soon!) with dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, and chia seeds + 1 fried egg and 1 slice bacon (made enough for each morning at work this week.) 
• For Michael -- a homemade "McMuffin" each morning -- made from one english muffin with a fried egg, 1 slice of turkey bacon, and 1 slice of cheese. He's hooked on these, but says he has a much better day when eating these than Poptarts... go figure.. lol

Check out hundreds of more menus at Org Junkie.
For specifically gluten-free menus, check out the roundup at Angela's Kitchen today!