Sorry to hear of your family being raveged by the Obama economic recovery. We are currently a single paycheck family ourselves. It’s a good thing that we love rice, beans and potatos. Coupons and BOGOs are big with us this year, too. And we have the luxury of being able to shop several grocery stores, so that we can compare prices to our advantage.
Thanks! You’re right about rice, beans, and potatoes. They are great budget stretchers that you can use hand in hand with store loss leader items, sales, coupons, etc. I have also found eggs to be a great budget stretcher since they often go on sale here for 99 cents a dozen. I stock up when they do and then can use them for breakfast for dinner nights, extra baking, etc.
I am still not as good at using coupons as those on the extreme coupon show, but I manage to get on average about 30% off of each grocery purchase due to coupons and store discounts.
Overall, I have managed to cut our grocery bill by 57% from our prior level buy sticking to basics, cooking most things from scratch, preparing budget conscious meals using lower cost items, and the use of discounts and coupons, etc. I was already a budget conscious shopper before all of this happened and used most of these techniques before I started, but not to the same extent that I am today.
Even with the reduction in our monthly grocery expense I have managed to increase our stores of canned goods, frozen items, and foods that keep long term like rice, dry beans, sugar, honey, salt, etc.