Feed the family

[Bob]

Even if there are only two in your family, groceries are high.
What do you guys do to eat good food, healthy food, all week?

I try to prepare three things for dinner each day and two of those things enough to have a day or two later.

[Tsavodiner]

I'm the very devil with salsas and spaghetti sauces; I'll buy the day-over meats, particularly pork chops, at the market and sautee' the stew out of things!

Food Lion also discounts their packaged meats, if you can find a Food Lion anymore.

[ssmynkint]

I try to prepare three things for dinner each day and two of those things enough to have a day or two later.

That's the idea. Buy in "bulk" when you can (Costco, etc). Spend a day cooking-off what you bought into different soups, stews, braises, sauces for pasta, etc. Freeze it (bags work for shorter term-freezer bags only-but "canning" in the ol' ball jars is better-greater safety by putting hot dish into boiled jar & sealing.
Most things will keep for months with minor deterioration in quality.
It can be well worth buying a small freezer (I'd suggest an upright) to be able to always have a stock of meals on hand.

Buying day-over meats is smart too, as long as you cook it off immediately. Buying larger cuts is usually a bit cheaper, and you can break it down to serve various purposes.

[Kordax]

Try gardening & canning; works for me & it's VERY cost-effective ....

[JC]

There's just the one of me ATM and that's 'spensive enough. I feel for the guys with little mouths to feed!

I don't buy anything unless it's on sale. Don't buy any "kits" unless it's just a great deal. Otherwise everything is from scratch. Split everything up between Bi-Lo and Foodlion.
BiLo is great for discounting meats and dairy (biscuits, cheese..) a few days before expiration. I pay extra close attention for weekly sales of dairy and meats. Once you combine the in-store expired coupons with the sale price, it's practically free. For instance, picked up some sandwich meat yesterday. Normal price was $10, sale price was $5 (buy 1 get 1) and I dug around to find the packs that are almost out of date which had $3 off coupons attached. Then used an old fashioned printed $1 oiff coupon at check out. Final price was a dollar for a $10 pack of meat.
I've also found that you can ask the meat dept. guys to discount meat that's getting close to expiration.

[gridbug]

Dittos to Kordax

I am getting better at gardening all the time. Now I feed myself when crops are in season, soon I'll can a lot to feed me the rest of the time.

[rstewart]

Hard to beat going and picking a fresh tomato and eating it! Beats hell outta trying to eat the "plastic" tomato's sold in most grocery stores.

[Bob]

great ideas!! I need to pay more attention at the grocery concerning day out and coupons.

I'm just starting gardening this year and I'm not going crazy. just planted tomatoes, bell peppers, Jalapeno, cayenne, and I bought all (one of each) the seed packs that said "hot pepper" at the big box store.

The peppers I plan to use in pepper sauce and dried bunches as gifts next Christmas.