Grocery Shopping on a Budget
Many seniors find that their grocery shopping can cost more, even though many seniors eat less as they age. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here are a number of suggestions to cut that grocery bill to a manageable level—especially if you’re on a budget:
- Read the price-per-ounce tags/labels on the grocery shelves – especially in the canned goods area of your store. Do not buy the smaller size of canned food. You will see that the ounce-per-price on the shelves show that you are paying a whole lot more for a whole lot less. Instead, buy a regular can or even a larger can (again, compare the price-per-ounce labels). When you get home with your larger cans, separate them into the portion of sizes you would regularly eat. If you plan to eat the whole can throughout a week, they will keep just fine in your refrigerator or pantry. If you cannot eat everything in a week, put the extra servings in name-brand freezer bags* and freeze them. You can either pre-plan your meals and thaw them out prior to cooking them or just break them up, while frozen, and cook them from their frozen state.
- Sometimes the generic foods, which usually cost less, taste just as good as the name-brand foods. Taste test yourself by purchasing a generic brand and compare it to a name brand.
- Sometimes, Mom and Pop grocery stores have one day a week, where they offer a senior citizen discount. Take advantage of that!
- Shop with a friend or two. Many seniors are widows or widowers so it makes money sense to shop together. Utilizing the suggestions in the first section of this article, buy the larger portions and then split them up per servings amongst you and your friends. You’re also splitting up your grocery bill, at the same time.
- Shopping with friends doesn’t have to be just for food, either. Especially if you’re on a fixed budget. For instance, you and few of your friends have dentures and need a cleaning agent to soak them in each night. Buy a big box of those agents and split them up, while splitting up the costs, too.
- Shop at discount warehouse stores, especially at lunch or supper time. This is a really simple way to get a meal “out” without breaking your budget. Get a shopping cart and start putting items in it – you do not necessarily plan to buy the items, but you want it to look like you’re really shopping. Then go through each section of the store near the food items. The stores have taste-tests in a lot of places – take advantage of that free food! Continue to put edibles in your cart but cruise around all of the taste testers so you get a wide range of food (and sometimes wine!) that is sure to fill you up. Don’t pick up freezer or cold items and put in your cart and if you have no plans to purchase what’s in your cart, just abandon it in the store. Do not go every day, but once a week to one or more of these stores will fill you up and leave you quite satisfied with your no money from your wallet!
- Buying quality meat can be a huge budget buster. Refer back to the first entry on this list to find ways to purchase meat that falls within your budget.
- Plan a cooking day with friends. One day a week, you and your friends get together to just cook and enjoy each other’s company. You can bring the foods that you have already portioned out or you and your friends can each bring the recipe and foods for one dish each. Once you’ve cooked however many meals together as you choose, split them up amongst the participants. At the end of the day, you will have leftovers for a week to eat or pop into your freezer.
- Look for grocery store bargains. Bananas is a good example. Most grocery stores have the pretty green or yellow bananas for sale in the produce aisle. But what happens when the bananas start to turn brown? They package them up and sell them at a cannot-beat-it discount. Bananas freeze just fine and are a great addition to receipes such as banana bread, banana-flavored sponge cake, etc. Put however many bananas your recipe calls for in a name-brand freezer* bag, with the skins on, then plop them in your freezer. When you want to make a recipe that calls for bananas, take them out of the freezer and put them in the refrigerator to thaw out for 24-hours. Remove the peels and smash the bananas so they are ready for you to bake with!
- Use a food dehydrator. This is a one-time purchase, if you take good care of it, so you’ll be saving money each time you use it – enough to recapture the cost of the dehydrator. Then freeze dry your food. SO many fruits, vegetables and even meats can be frozen then reconstituted later. Some you may not even want to reconstitute – such as apples or bananas. You can save these and eat them as a fruit snack. You don’t have to refrigerate the food once it’s dehydrated. Store it in a name-brand plastic* bag, label it with the food item and date, and store in a dry pantry or cupboard.
- Waste not, want not. When purchasing meat, compare the prices of meat with and without bones in them. Most of the time, the packages with bones in them are discounted from the meats they cut off the bone. Once home, cut and portion your meat as mentioned above and then throw the bones and/or fat (if you cut some of it off the portions) in a a name-brand freezer* bag and freeze them. Look in the recipe section of this website to find out how to make soup broth and/or stock.
- If you like to dine out, occasionally, do it at lunch and not at supper. A lot of seniors eat their heavy meal at lunch, anyway. The prices are better at restaurants for a lunch crowd than a supper crowd.
- Perhaps you like a certain sandwich at a restaurant but don’t want to pay for a whole meal. Buy the sandwich to go, then cut up your portions (if any) and refrigerate the ones you are not eating immediately. Then, pair your sandwich with the sides of choice from your own freezer, refrigerator and/or pantry and enjoy that sandwich on your terms!
*Non-name brand plastic bags contain a lot of salt. Name brand plastic bags contain less salt. Try a test for yourself to see if the different bags change the taste of your food.
