Saving Money on Food

I've seen food costs on some items jump 15% and on others jump as much as 80%. How can we eat well and cope with these ever rising costs? Believe it or not it can be done. And it doens't mean eating gruel and going hungry. It can be done by eating name brands and quality items and plenty of them. It doesn't mean starving yourself and only eating store brands and things you can't stand. I'll be doing a series of articles about cutting food costs in lots of different ways.

I have a friend who is a master of couponing and over the years I've learned from him how to use coupons to get the most out of them. He eats three meals a day (and he really eats), he stays away from processed foods (practically no white flour, white sugar or white rice) and he eats a very healthy diet. His big splurge in the not so healthy line is ice cream. I've known him to get premium ice cream (Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's) for 28 cents a pint, frozen fish for 18 cents a pound and yogurts for 10 cents each.

1. Don't buy generic items (store brands). This may seem counterintuitive but there are no coupons for store brands.

2. Wait for sales for the coupon items. Combining the coupon with a sale can work wonders.

3. If you can, wait for the double or triple coupon weeks. If you can get a coupon tripled you get an amazing discount. If the item is also on sale you can get it for practically nothing. Hence premium ice cream for 28 cents a pint.

4. By an extra Sunday paper if it has coupons that are good for you. You can save a lot more than the cost of the paper by doing this.

5. See if you can find people who either don't clip coupons or don't clip the same ones that you do and get their coupon sheets.

6. Buy in bulk when there are sales.

7. Use your freezer for the fresh foods you buy in bulk.

8. Get the store discount cards.

9. If there is a special that says limit of four don't let that stop you. Go out and come back in for a second round of buying the item.