[88913527]

By shopping weekly ads and couponing, and being more willing to make meals from whatever is on sale (I made my first ever pot roast last week, and it was divine) -- I've cut my food budget by 50%. Granted, I wasn't being that selective before: I used to buy things like $8.99/lb 'air chilled' chicken breasts, and now I'm buying $1.99/lb value packs. I get no complaints at the dinner table, so I'm unsure what I was paying for before. Between that and limiting meals out, I'm saving more than I thought I would.

Grocery stores are beginning to level-up their "price optimization" strategies (car insurance companies have been doing it for much longer [0]): people who work for it pay less. A box of cereal is $3.99 on the shelf; with club card and digital coupon it's $1.99. That's one item down 50%. You scale that methodology to your entire shopping trip, and your dollars go way further.

[0]: https://www.npr.org/2015/05/08/403598235/being-a-loyal-auto-...

[vba616]

I have gotten used to just not eating meat every day. I am not refraining out of ethical or health reasons, I'm just happy with tomato sauce on my spaghetti, for instance.

I've noticed that potatoes are really cheap, relatively, like under 50 cents a lb. It has assuaged my unhappiness at pasta being over $1/lb which is my mental anchor.

I do use the loyalty card and look for the things that are on sale by the largest amount, but I don't bother with coupons, because all I see are for things I don't want.

[yakak]

Pasta a little more than doubles in weight when cooked so potatoes are probably more expensive than pasta, which is usually more than rice which triples in weight when cooked.

Of course nutrition is a different matter, making potatoes or brown rice better choices than in a simple weight calculation.

[positr0n]

Mostly unrelated, but few years ago I realized that buying the $3/box pasta has a trivial impact to my food budget but it really does taste better and soak up sauce better (due to the slower extrusion process)

[bushbaba]

Depending on how you plan on cooking the chicken, air chilled would have no discernible difference. For example if you're making say pulled chicken sandwiches, you're cooking the chicken in a vat of water.... https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-deal-with-air-chilled-ch...

[seanmcdirmid]

I did this a lot for the last few years, but I just have seen those kind of deals for a few months now. At the very least, they are a lot less common than they used to be. That store brand cereal that used to go on sale for $1.99 is going on sale for $3 instead, but that’s if they are able to stock it at all (so I’m often paying full price and I’m just happy they have it).