By , February 16, 2011 6:40 pm

The Motherload of Budget Grocery Shopping - only 50 cents a meal

I grew up living on top of a grocery store.  Literally.  My parents owned a small town Saskatchewan grocery store with living quarters upstairs.  Grocery shopping as a kid consisted of running down stairs at supper time to pick up the ingredients mom required.  Anything we wanted was always on hand.

Needless to say, after I moved out there has been a gradual evolution of my grocery shopping habits.  When I first moved in with Mike, I drove him nuts trying to buy and keep on hand anything I might feel like for supper on any given day.  After I overcame that little compulsion, I developed fairly average grocery shopping skills – I didn’t go overboard on items, but I also didn’t pay too much attention to how much something I wanted cost.

After we made the decision to travel, there was yet another evolution – budget shopping.  Pretty much everything I buy now is on sale or somehow discounted.  Take last weekend’s grocery trip for example – I took full advantage of the 10 for $10 sale at my nearest Coop Marketplace.  I loaded up on boxes of pasta, bags of perogies, frozen chicken cordon bleus, canned meat, and nearly everything else I could get my hands on for $1.00 each.  All said and done, I ended up with 111 individual meals (or 55 meals for the two of us) for only $55.  Not too shabby.

What about when we feel the need to splurge?  Not a problem – consider Valentine’s Day.  In true Frugal February fashion, we forwent the fancy meal out and splurged at home – Veal Parmesan (for $1.25 a cutlet), homemade pasta (thanks to Mike), homemade tomato sauce (using canned tomatoes that were about $1.00 a can), and chocolate lava cakes.

I even got a box of Valentine’s chocolates – post V-day at 70% off, of course.

2 Responses to “Dining on a Dime”

  1. Wow! That’s the frugalest grocery shop ever!! Good work!

  2. I just have to say one thing: love the post Valentine’s Day discount on chocolate!! Woot!

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