Food stamps as a dieting tool.

[sandinista! 1,816]

Oh, Gary.

Finding your choice funny and weird doesn't mean I disagree with your right to choose.

splat, you've just been hit with GaryLogic™. not unlike when a bird flying overhead craps on your head at a picnic.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

splat, you've just been hit with GaryLogic™. not unlike when a bird flying overhead craps on your head at a picnic.

Gross, I hope it washes out.

[SMR 368]

I shot at Stop&Shop at times and rarely see meat for those prices. Maybe 73% ground beef for $2.99lb. Eggs are 1.99 dz, juice 3+ per gallon for the store brand, milk in the 3.89 gal range, sandwich meat is $4+ lb on sale, ditto for deli cheese. Some of the prices you quote are quite occasional. Stop&Shop is a fairly high priced market. I only by what is on sale there.

Again, I personally would like to see someones shopping list and prices paid for feeding 2 people for $250 and 3 for $500-600 hundred.

I don't disagree with what you are saying, depending on how you define quite occasional. I bought flank steak this week for $2.99/lb. Two weeks ago, I bought chicken breasts for $1.99/lb. On average, there is always a good priced cut of meat when I go in. Sometimes there are none; sometimes there are three. What I am suggesting is buying a lot when it's on sale. Most of the best prices are on the big packages anyways. For instance, when I see chicken breasts for $1.99/lb, I buy two of the big packages (6-7lbs each). When I get home, I break open the packages, divide them into small bags, and freeze it all (I leave one package in the fridge if I'm planning to eat it soon). That probably gives me 10 days or more of chicken breasts which I can spread over the next 1-2 months. It really takes things a while to go bad in the freezer.

I'm focusing on the meat since I think it is the single best way to keep food costs down. Obviously, if you just buy 7 different kinds of meat each week and each only enough for one meal, you are going to end up paying a lot more, both because of the small packages and because 7 kinds of meat aren't all going to be on sale.

[TBoneTX 46,261]

[...] What I am suggesting is buying a lot when it's on sale. [...]

Si, man. The local Mexican supermarket has what they call "Miercoles de Pollo" ("Chicken Wednesday"), when chicken is on sale. I got legs + thighs for 79 cents/lb., and boneless breasts for $1.99/lb. We stock up every other week. They also had "bistec ranchero" (beefsteak of some kind) for $2.99/lb., and we got a lot of that.

Pretty funny: The cashieress was ringing up my stuff, and she had a fingergraphical error and charged $178 for two mangoes instead of $1.78. I turned to the people in line behind me (presumably all Mexicans) and, mustering all my Spanish, said, "El precio de Gringo" (the Gringo price), and they all laughed. It's well-known in Latin America that there are two prices: one for natives and a higher one for gringos, si man.

[*Snowdrop* 604]

I don't disagree with what you are saying, depending on how you define quite occasional. I bought flank steak this week for $2.99/lb. Two weeks ago, I bought chicken breasts for $1.99/lb. On average, there is always a good priced cut of meat when I go in. Sometimes there are none; sometimes there are three. What I am suggesting is buying a lot when it's on sale. Most of the best prices are on the big packages anyways. For instance, when I see chicken breasts for $1.99/lb, I buy two of the big packages (6-7lbs each). When I get home, I break open the packages, divide them into small bags, and freeze it all (I leave one package in the fridge if I'm planning to eat it soon). That probably gives me 10 days or more of chicken breasts which I can spread over the next 1-2 months. It really takes things a while to go bad in the freezer.

I'm focusing on the meat since I think it is the single best way to keep food costs down. Obviously, if you just buy 7 different kinds of meat each week and each only enough for one meal, you are going to end up paying a lot more, both because of the small packages and because 7 kinds of meat aren't all going to be on sale.

We do that (bulk buy when on sale). Another thing my husband does is to check all the sell-by dates of the meat. If he finds some with that day's date on, he flags down a store employee and asks to have a discount. This nearly always works at our local Giant. He regularly gets a dollar or more off whatever he's found. We had a lot of very good value duck legs and breasts last summer using that technique.