I think it's time. We all need to start doing this. According the Wall Street Journal the food "sticker price shock" is about to hit. So let's keep eating well and share the tips.
I'll start:people.tribe.net/blingayez...e51381bb41
What are your favorite websites and tips?
I'll start:people.tribe.net/blingayez...e51381bb41
What are your favorite websites and tips?
posted by:
|
Fresno
|
-
We re working on a big backyard garden with tomatoes, cucumbers,
lettuce, radishes, turnips, peppers, and later we re adding corn and
some other veges. We also have our own egg laying hens. We got
them free off Craigs List, and we get three eggs a day, give or take.
It costs us about 10 a month in chicken feed and they're super easy
to take care of them. We re also going to buy certain things in bulk
and keep revolving our supply, things like rice, beans, flour etc...
Also buy things on sale and freeze the excess. More ideas to come.
Vixxen -
-
I sneak the stickers off organic veggies so I only have to pay regular veggie prices
-
-
My sister-in-law works for this website:
www.thegrocerygame.com/
People from all over the country go through and figure out the best grocery deals in each state. I don't know how much it costs to subscribe, but I think people can save a lot of money this way. Plus, you don't have to spend time clipping coupons.
(really, I'm not advertising for this company, I just think its a good idea). -
-
<My sister-in-law works for this website:
www.thegrocerygame.com/>
I'd love to use that site, but they need to come up with some more competitive stores than Vons in California. Vons is now owned by Safeway -- not exactly the bargain chain. I'd say they need to include stores such as Food Maxx, Foods Co. and Food 4 Less. That's where the real savings are.
-
-
I sneak the stickers off organic veggies so I only have to pay regular veggie prices<<
I work in a produce department. We know when you do that, and we usually have security watching you so as to develop a pattern and then we call you on it.
Switching stickers messes with inventory, screws up our order and pretty much ends with produce getting thrown out cause inventory says we have this much of something when actually we have less or more of something in real life. The organic farmers ( many of them small farms who struggle month to month with bills just like regular folk do) ) don't get paid correctly cause of this. Our margin goes on, food gets wasted and prices go up in consequence eventually.
So , I really got to ask you is it worth that twenty or so cents you may have saved on that broccoli?
This is a bit of a peeve of mine, by the way. -
-
Ditto on the sentiment! I no longer work in retail, but I can see how swapping stickers to pay less really screws with a lot of things. If there's less demand for organic produce at a store then the price can and will go up. If people fake what they have then it only allows management to look at sales reports and either cut the supply of organic produce because of the seemingly low demand or to raise the price. Sorry, but this is not ethical to me. It's like people I see at my work (a non-profit hospital) lying about their food and getting charged lower prices (they cover their plate, a common practice for people taking their food back to clinic). Shame on you.
-
-
OMG!!!!!! i LoVE www.grocerygame.com!!! I used to get hives when I had to go to the grocery....I hated it that bad. I joined and now I cannot wait to go.....you have to cherry pick for better foods, but it is so worth it...
if anyone does sign up use my email.....you get credit for free months...kpss64@hotmail.com
hopefully me giving my email will not offend anyone......
happy grocerying!!! -
-
Yay! I'm so glad someone on here likes it too. I think its a great idea.
Here is a link to an interview my step-sister did. (I know I said sister-in-law before, but I meant my step-sister. I get confused.)
media.vmsnews.com/Monitorin...001391555/
(I think its the third one down).
-
-
-
-
-
-
We have a very large garden (also thinking of getting chickens, just have to run it by the neighbors and landlady first). For the other things that we need that we can't grow we shop at TJs. Shopping there has SERIOUSLY cut our grocery bill down.
Oh and we always make a list. We go through our cookbooks and recipes and pick out which recipes we want to use for the week. We make a list and then stick to the list. Not only does it cut down our bill but it also cuts down the time we spend shopping. -
-
<<is it worth that twenty or so cents you may have saved on that broccoli? >>
I agree it's wrong to swap stickers, but the diff between organic and commercial broccoli is way more than 20cents, it's more like 2 or 3 bucks a bunch. -
-
Why does that make it ok? You can buy a Mercedes or you can buy a Ford. Switching the nameplate doesn't make what's under the engine any different.
Organic farmers work damn hard, spending 3 years to get to the point where they can finally sell their product as organic. Conventional farmers work hard too, but they have chemicals in their toolbox they can use to battle bugs and weeds, where more likely than not the organic farmers have to either deal with smaller yields when issues with weeds and bugs arise.
Enough with the rant.
I joined a CSA. I figure the biweekly cost of certified organic produce is $25, making my weekly produce cost $12.50. I've got more produce than I can eat before the next delivery. I think it's a great deal. -
-
Does anyone remember the time when there were no stickers on organic produce? Checkers used to ask. Not only was it nice to know I was trusted to be an honest person, but I also didnt have to deal with inorganic stickum on my organic produce.
-
-
Soooz, We sell conventional broccoli for around 1.69 - 1.79 a pound right now and organic broccoli is 1.99 a lb. Not that much more of a difference.
Organic produce is actually lowering in price in many areas due to more people buying it and more farmers seeing it is possible to farm organically and get their crop sold. In the ten years I have been in the industry, I have seen organic prices plummet a lot.
Next thing up is tattoing the fruit and veggies with the codes and plu numbers, so you cant' STEAL organic produce for conventional prices. I dont know how they are planning to do this, but it will be organic and safe to eat. No more stickers!!
-
-
well... one could always genitcly modify the organic produce to do something nifty, like be biolumiescent....
that way you could tell the organic from the not, conventional is irradiated, the organic glows in the dark!
;)
-
-
-
-
-
-
I really wish we had a yard and could garden, especially since I have three very spoiled house rabbits who get fresh organic greens daily. I am hoping to grow some herbs for them though.
My biggest money saver is to stock up on non-perishables (or perishables with a long freshness date) when they go on sale. i really hate buying stuff for full price when I know it was $2 less the week before. when the weekly supermarket ads come I check them to figure out which stores are worth going to that week.
Farmer's markets here are often less than regular supermarkets for superior quality produce too. We also have a grocery outlet and I have been surprised to see some products by Amy's and other healthier brands there. but like anything, reading the labels is always a good idea. -
-
Do you have a patio or even a window pane. Sevina? You'd be surprised what you can grow in containers and such like. And its fun too!
-
-
Elaine, maybe the price differential is that small in your area, in NYC, it's much greater.
-
-
You know, I thought about that after I posted my response to your post, and I think you are right.
I am in Portland, Oregon. We do have some easy access to a lot of local produce and from Washington and California..
So yeah, where you live in the country probably has a fair amount to do with the prices you pay for fruit and veggies.
So there ya go. I apologize for not thinking that one through.
-
Soooz, I regularly read a blog written by someone who lives in Brooklyn and she does a cost calculator after after every recipe and sometimes her prices for produce is cheaper than Seattle (at least that's what it seems like). For over the last year she's been blogging her experience of not eating out while living in NYC (she recently moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn this winter) and I believe she buys purely organic produce. Take a look: noteatingoutinny.com/
-
-
-
-
if you have a Big Lots in your area, you might want to check it out. they have a mini grocery store that often has well-known organic food brands at a fraction of the price. the inventory is always changing, so i go once a week to check it out. there are also standard brands as well. i have a love of ocean spray cranberry sauce, which has gone to over a dollar a can in regular stores.. at big lots its been 33 cents now for a while! [the labels are on upsidedown. i can live with that]. big lots was a real find to me. i'd never been in the store til about 6 months ago, cause i thought it was just full of cheap plastic stuff i didnt need made in china producing lots of pollution by underpaid workers, then shipped halfway round the world to break in a month and be in my landfill for the next 1000 years [well, there's my pet peeve!].
-
-
"I sneak the stickers off organic veggies so I only have to pay regular veggie prices"
Theft is theft, yes its petty but still theft. Who do you think pays for it in the end? -
-
i keep a big garden. This year's garden is twice as big as last year's. I grow everything from seed. Its cheaper and I've found the transplants in my area are kinda fragile. I haven't bought a can of tomatoes in nearly two years. A lot of what we grow will do well in a container: potatoes, tomatoes, peas, lettuces and spinach. Cantaloupes can be trained up a trellis so they take less space.
Its good exercise and I've learned that summer comes whether I plant or not.
-
-
I *love* Big Lots for food. And yes I agree with the China thing. No one explains that better than Annie Leonard in "The Story of Stuff"
www.storyofstuff.com/
I haven't shopped the Big Box stores for a few years now, in fact I've pretty much given up on buying new *stuff* altogether. Thrift stores are the bomb! Yard sales rule!
Back to food though -- I have pretty much no yard and what I have is in shade except for early evening. My windows get only indirect sun. What can I grow there? -
-
>-- I have pretty much no yard and what I have is in shade except for early evening. My windows get only indirect sun. What can I grow there?
Answer: mushrooms!
And the Oyster mushrooms will help you recycle your compost pile, or even old newspaper & coffee grounds :P
fungi.com/kits/indoor.html
-
-
Our Big Lots was recently pushed out by yet another Whole Foods :(
Yes, I like some of the WF items, but Trader Joe's covers most of my needs for less, including some organic, and there were already 2 WF's within 2 miles of here.
Oh well, I can still walk to the 99 cents store, and bike to Trader Joe's, Co-opportunity, and 3 or 4 farmer's markets...
It kind of becomes a trade-off of food prep vs. work on other stuff though.
That's where the "lazy people" part comes back in, ya? ;P
-
-
Why would we want to cheat someone, whether it be the grocer (even if it's a big chain - it's still people) or the farmer? ESPECIALLY organic farmers, who work so hard to ensure the safety of our food.
If you want organic and can't afford it, you can grow your own, or maybe find it cheaper at a farmer's market. Or maybe a coop garden? We have community gardens in our community. Maybe you could check into something like that, Tamara?
I've been shopping a lot more at Grocery Outlet. They have lots of organic stuff there, and I can save up to 50% on what I buy.
-
well... we went to the Farmer's market yesterday and if that's any indication we're in trouble. It was outrageously expensive-- $7 for a quart of cherries, $1 an onion (large and sweet but wow!) But there were still some bargains -- $2 for a nice bundle of asparagus, $2 for a huge bag of spring mix. And some prices were competitive $12/lb of artisan roasted coffee, $3 for a 1.5 lb brownie.
It isn't something we do all the time but we will do it at least once a month.
The star of the foray: Red Russian Kale. I'll be serving steamed organic baby carrots and baby squash on a bed of this. num num! -
-
To tangent on coffee, I buy woman-owned/fair trade/organic coffee from Grounds for Change (groundsforchange.com). I buy in 5 lb bulk sizes to reduce shipping and the cost works out to about $10/lb. I don't mind the premium for coffee when my purchase benefits people and the environment, but the smallest possible premium is preferable. There are less expensive organic coffee blends out there but I haven't seen less expensive fair trade and women-owned.
I picked up a bag at an organic trade show once with this quote, "Organic food is expensive, but have you priced cancer lately?" Somebody famous in the organic movement said that. I think it helps put things into perspective. -
-
My local grocer has recently traded in the old bulk coffee for Cameron Coffee.
www.cameronscoffee.ca/OurCoffees.htm
Better...the free trade organic sumatra version they sell in bulk is only $6.99/lb! I sooo did the happy dance. We were paying ~$12 at the local coffee place for a similar product and doing coffee rationing.
-
Agreed. Sometimes fair trade is preferable to saving a few cents or even a couple of bucks. My SigOther gets his coffee from an independent roaster at the local organic farmers' market. We haven't asked him if he buys free trade, but I will next Saturday.
We also like the fair trade cocoa products. Target carries a few but they are definitely in the "treat" category.
-
-
-
I garden, shop at cosco with others and split stuff up, I buy cheeze in bulk and then shred it in my food processor and freeze the rest, freeze milk, yougurt, buy lots in bulk and buy produce as needed. I plan my meals well and don't make too much but make enough for lunch at work
-
-
Anyone who gardens isn't lazy. Ask me. I've attempted to do it many times with mixed results.
-
-
we buy a quarter of beef once a year from a friend of mine who raises black angus. they are on pasture & she raises her own corn & hay for them too. cheaper than buying from the grocery(and no, she doesn't cut me a deal, it is her business after all!). but we also have a deep freezer to store it in.
also, at farmers markets, if you are willing to take what's picked over, the vendors are usually happy to cut you a deal at closing time or if you buy in bulk. just ask....bartering is fun....
-
-
