With the crazy instability of the economy these days, nearly everyone has a frugal grocery budget as they struggle to cut expenses where they can. Those of us who are strong believers in building a pantry tend to pay particular attention to the variations of the prices of specific foods since we strive to purchase items for our pantry when they are at their lowest points.
Those of us who are strong believers in building a pantry tend to pay particular attention to the variations of the prices of specific foods since we strive to purchase items for our pantry when they are at their lowest points. (You can learn more about shopping to build a pantry here.) By purchasing food at the lowest price in the cycle, your family can enjoy items at yesterday’s prices while everyone else is paying far more for the same item at today’s prices.
A great way to track the change in food costs is through the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each month, the BLS tracks the price variations of commonly purchased food items. Lately, we’ve seen a pretty dramatic increase in the costs of 10 particular foods since this time last year.
The Price of These 10 Foods Has Skyrocketed in the Past Year
Here’s the list of foods that, unless purchased wisely (or better yet, homegrown when possible) could blow your frugal grocery budget.
- Strawberries: up 22.1%
- Apples: up 16.4%
- Lemons: up 15.2%
- Grapes: up 13.7%
- Tomatoes: up 13.2%
- Rice: up 6.1%
- Potato Chips: up 5% (no better time than the present to give up nutritionless snacks!)
- Peanut Butter: up 4.1%
- Frozen Orange Juice: up 3%
- Bacon: up 2.5%
(Hat tip to Money and Career Cheat Sheet)
And if you are particular about where your food comes from, the organic versions of these foods cost even more. (Check out this year’s list of the most pesticide-laden foods at the store – quite a few of them appear on the list of foods with rising prices!) For example, at my local grocery store, organic apples are more than double the price per pound of conventionally grown apples – and I live where apples are grown!
What does this mean in actual dollars and cents?
Well, when you look at the items one by one, it doesn’t seem like a dramatic increase. However, if you look at them by the cart full, or moreover, during the course of a year, it could really add up.
Let’s take apples, for example. A large apple has increased in price by about 20 cents. If you were to eat an apple a day, over the course of the year, you’d pay an additional $73 over the course of the year for your apple. If all of the members of a family of 4 imbibed in the apple a day habit, that adds up to $292 for the lunchbox snack.
Of course, I’m not telling you that you must eschew apples for the entire year.
How to get the most bang for your grocery bucks
For these (or any other foods) that you buy at the grocery store, it’s important to be aware that the prices will fluctuate. You need to pay attention to the price of food over the course of the year to really do this effectively, but starting a price book can help you immensely in your search to buy items when their prices are the lowest. (My book, The Pantry Primer, gives detailed instructions on tracking prices.)
Let’s go back to apples. If you buy them out of season, you’re going to pay the highest price of the year. However, if you buy them in season, the price will go down.
Better yet, if you buy them in season and store/preserve them to enjoy when the prices are at their peaks, then you will pay that lowest price all year long. You might store them in a root cellar, can some applesauce and apple pie filling, and dehydrate some slices for a crunchy snack. Our family spends at least two weeks processing apples to eat during the off-season. (Here’s an article from last year’s apple season that explains exactly how we make the most of several bushels of apples.)
Frugality is a survival skill
With the current economic instability, your ability to thrive on less is a survival skill that is just as important as being able to start a fire in the middle of a rainstorm with two sticks and a pile of leaves. As prices go up and employment goes down, something has to give, and that is most likely going to be your budget.
Learn now how to make the most of the money you have by using self-reliance skills and common sense to reduce your expenses.
These books can help you to learn a new way of looking at thrift and your frugal grocery budget.
- The Complete Tightwad Gazette (my favorite book on the planet)
- The Pantry Primer: How to Build a Whole Foods Pantry on a Half Price Budget
- Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America’s Cheapest Family
- A Cabin Full of Food
- Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression
- My Thrifty Solutions Pinterest board is constantly updated with thousands of links to money-saving resources.
What are your favorite grocery budgeting tips? Please share them in the comments below.
The Florida orange crop, mainly used for juice, is appreciably lower this year than last – look for even higher prices. On the other hand, juice is not a good food as it is mainly sugar, even tho it’s natural from the fruit, with little else. Forget about adding another can of water to further dilute it, eat the whole fruit instead. Drink water if you need a beverage.
Peanut butter – buy natural peanut butter. That is, peanut butter made from peanuts and maybe a little salt. Why pay for added ingredients including sugar?
It seems every time I go to the grocery store the prices are higher. I rarely buy chips except as a special treat when on sale. I buy rice, beans, and flour in bulk. I buy 15 pound bags of potatoes. You can make baked, mashed, hash browned, and oven fried. I even fry left-over mashed potatoes to have with eggs the next morning. We eat potatoes frequently. I don’t eat meat or drink fruit juices. I don’t eat tomatoes in the winter but eat them in the summer and fall because I grow my own along with pole beans, salad greens, kale, onions, radishes. carrots, peppers (not very successful), and herbs. I started growing nectarines and blueberries and plan to grow strawberries (Not successful in the past but willing to try again. Ear wigs and ants destroyed them.)and plant apple trees. Apples are ridiculously expensive. In my area, they are $4 to $5 for a 3 pound bag and even higher for organic. Now I notice the bags of apples starting to come in 2 pound bags for $4. What happened to 5 pound bags? 5 pound bags would sell for $8 to $10. That price tag would scare most people. I still buy peanut butter (Walmart natural brand) for $3.32 for 26.5 ounces. Still a bargain. I try to buy lemons in bags. Right now I can get 5 pounds for $3 at Raley’s. As you said, try to eat in season. Many times I just buy what is on sale or in season. Apples are not, so no apples until August.
Try adding some Epsom salts when transplanting tomatoes and peppers in the garden. When digging the hole to transplant, I scoop in about 1/2 cup of the Epsom salts. Since I started adding that to peppers, they have well.
I have never planted kale. Is it difficult to grow?
Donna – Walmart Natural PB is only 90% peanuts, what is the other 10%?
Food prices continue to go up at grocery stores in our area. I have noticed the price of beef has increased a lot in the past year – everything from ground beef, a pot roast to steak.
I also try to shop sales and produce in season to save money. We eat fresh produce from the garden in the summer.
If anyone has any favorite squash recipes, please share. Squash grows really well in the garden.
KYMom – I grow Kale here in SW FL. Because I like it as baby kale I plant it about every 4 weeks, let it grow for about 6 weeks and harvest. I plant in containers as our ‘soil’ is sand. Mainly I use it fresh in salads cut in chiffonade strips, or cut in larger pieces and steam with onions, garlic and when done a squirt of lemon or dash of vinegar. Also check recipes for kale soup, I know there is one out there for a Portuguese sausage soup. I eat a whole food, plant based diet for health reasons so I don’t have any recipes for meat,poultry,fish, dairy, eggs.
Squash – mine gets eaten by squash borers usually, however, when I do get a good harvest if I can’t use it fresh, I peel, or not, and puree it in a blender. Then package it in 1 cup measures and freeze. It’s good to add to soup, meatloaf, make muffins or cake or pie – recipes can be found on line.
Fresh uses: zucchini pancakes or fritters, thinly sliced lengthwise and use instead of lasagna noodles, add to slaw, and halved or quartered, seasoning of choice and grill.
KY Mom up here on the Canadian prairies kale is very easy to grow. I never used to grow it but since I’ve started I am amazed at how easy. Just plant the seed & wait for it to appear. The cabbage moth likes it so you either have to dust it or eat it holey. I like it chopped very fine, fried lightly & mashed into potatoes. My daughter likes it in smoothies. Neither of these ways care about a few holes. Something important to us is it is very frost hardy. Since we get our 1st frost about the end of the 1st week in Sept. Last year I was still picking into Oct after several frosts. You might have different challenges than I do living in a warmer climate.
Kale is one of the easiest crops to grow. Just to seed outdoors next to radishes, a good companion for kale. Radishes are another easy to grow crop.
Bellen, I didn’t know Walmart PB is 90 percent peanuts. I guess the rest is palm oil and sugar. Probably what makes it smooth and slightly sweet. My daughter eats most of it. I like to make my own nut butter from almonds, walnuts, and PB in equal amounts. There is 3 grams of sugar per 2 tablespoons. Not a lot but if you are trying to avoid sugar….
Bananas are relatively inexpensive. They used to take forever to go from green to become ripe and sweet, then it seemed almost impossible to eat them before they turned brown and started attracting fruit flies. I wasted a lot of money this way. I had a little added time by putting them in the fridge when they ripened, But only a day or two. Then I started freezing them.
I buy gallon sized freezer bags from Costco. I buy bananas by the bunch and let them ripen. As soon as they ripen, I take a freezer bag, turn it back so the top stays clean and it stays open, peel a banana and break it in half until all the bananas are in the bag. Then freeze the bag(s) of bananas. I now use these to make smoothies with my Vitamix. Any blender will do. Other fresh fruit can likewise be frozen. This also eliminates the need for ice. I sometimes use fresh milk which is cold, but also powered milk and water at room temperature.
Another waste of money is when one over ripened fruit contaminates the rest. So I empty out bags of potatoes, apples, baskets of berries and either eat or throw away very ripe or rotten fruit or potatoes.
Another way to cut down on waste is to shuffle thru the drawers in your fridge often. It is easy to forget what you put into a drawer.
My best way to save on waste is to make it a habit to clean the inside of the fridge once a week. Do this before going grocery shopping. It gives you a chance to make room for new purchases, and prevents mistakes of duplication. It also insures that all your food is fresh. And because you do it on a kind of schedule, it will never really get dirty. After a while it becomes so routine, you’ll find the job is done before you even realize you’re working.
All of this is so basic that experienced homemakers may wonder why I bothered to write this up. I wrote this for the young, for bachelor types, and domestically challenged professional types. I hope it helps a little.
Recipe for morning banana smoothie:
Frozen banana (2 halves)
2 to 4 fresh eggs raw organic
Organic milk
Real vanilla extract
Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 teaspoon sugar and/or 1/2 teaspoon honey
Additional fruit (dried cranberries, dried or fresh blueberries)
Instant coffee (if you like that extra caffeine kick)
1/4 cup of hemp protein
Pinch of sea salt
If you prefer use powdered milk and filtered water
BLEND and drink . Be careful this will give you more energy than you’ll know what to do with.
That sounds delicious! We’re gong to give it a try. 🙂
The least expensive, and most rewarding way to save money, yet still eat well is to grow the food yourself. Even balconies, and patios, will work. Or even indoors. Start out easy, by growing herbs, in your kitchen. Then branch out from there, to other easy growing plants, like tomatoes, carrots, and greens. As you gain in confidence, you can expand the types of fruits, and vegetables, that you grow. Use heirloom seeds, not hybrids, and no GMO’s. Stay away from pesticides too. There are organic ways to control pest. You’ll realize you haven’t been eating well, when you start eating freshly picked, from your own plants. The difference is amazing.