Where to grocery shop

There are much better places to do your grocery shopping than a retail grocery store. The first place to check for is to see if there is a discount grocery in your area. Discount grocers offer the groceries at a discount price. There is nothing wrong with the groceries just because they are discounted. This is the way it works in the grocery business. When a truck comes in sometimes a box gets dropped, the retail grocer will not accept that box because a few of the cans may be dented. By health department laws they cannot sell dented or damaged cans and the retail grocer does not want to take the time to dort through the whole case. Instead of the case of cans going back to the warehouse, they will go to a discount grocer. The discount grocer will buy the case at a greatly reduced price, pull out the good cans and sell them much much cheaper than the retail grocer. My discount grocer sells them at about 1/2 the price of the retail grocer. They also sell meat. Meat that doesn't sell by the sell by date at the retail grocer is frozen and then taken to the discount grocer for sale. Because it is frozen it won't go bad. The date on it is a sell by date, not a gone bad date. As long as you keep it frozen until you are ready to cook it you have nothing to worry about. but I can get pork tenderloins that in the retail grocer are about 11.00 a piece for 2.00 at the discount grocer. That is a huge savings. You usually don't have a huge choice at the discount grocer, but it can still save you a ton of money. I can usually buy a whole shopping cart full of food for about 150.00 dollars. The same stuff would cost me about 300.00 at the retail grocery.

The next place to check is a restaurant supply grocer. I am not talking about Costco, or Sam's Club which are little more than large retail grocers. You can get some good deals there, but mostly you are paying retail prices. A real restaurant supply grocer will have wholesale prices and items in large quantities. I can many times get a good deal on meat and always get a good deal on sugar, flour and other staple. I always buy my yeast there as I pay 2.99 for a 1 pound brick of yeast. At the retail store I pay 4.99 for 8 oz. I also bought a large eye of round for 2.19 a pound. In the retail grocery it is currently 6.99 a pound. big savings and I got 3 roasts out of the round. That is the thing you must be willing to cut it up yourself. I also got boston butts for 89 cents a pound. I wound up cutting each butt and got 4 very large butts that will give us two meals each. Sometimes I will by the ribeye and come home and cut my own steaks from the whole piece. I am not buying steaks right now because our budget is really tight and I am stretching as far as I can. So finding a restaurant grocer can be well worth your while even if you only buy a few items there, the savings can be very large.

Buy direct
In the growing season buy directly from the farms, especially if you can find a "you pick" farm. I will post a link that will lead you to farms in your area that sell directly off the farm or have "you pick" fields. This can save you quite a lot of money. This past year my daughter and I picked blackberries, blueberries and muscadines from one farm, came home and made jam and jelly. We have enough to last about a year and it cost us about 30.00 and some time. we had a really fun day picking and saved a ton of money. Buying direct off the farm is usually always cheaper. Some farmers even sell chickens and pork in season. Just remember that family farms work around seasons and there is a season for everything. I also buy my honey from another local bee keeper. It is much cheaper and because it is local is a natural allergy med for my daughter who suffers from allergies. So that should get you started in planning your next grocery trip and where you will shop to save the most.