Great Post at The Simple Dollar

A few days ago, Trent Lott of the Simple dollar wrote about grocery store flyers and sales. I liked the article a lot. I never knew that manufacturers pay for placement of their products in the flyers. I have often wondered why they decided to print something as a sale when the every day price was the same as the "sale" price. Now I know.

Today, a friend of mine at work, stopped by my desk at work as I was perusing the Pathmark grocery store flyer. They no longer have Pathmark in the Baltimore area and she was excited to see that it still was a surviving grocery store chain. She told me that she liked to shop there because they had such great deals. I have to agree with her. I usually shop at 2-3 stores each week to pick up their loss leaders and cheap items (I won't say sale priced items since I learned not everything is a sale!). Lately, I have just been shopping at one of the two Pathmarks in Newark, DE. I also shop at a warehouse club every 2 weeks and, in summer, I buy fresh fruits and vegetables at a farm stand. I highly recommend the Pathmark. In general, they have very good prices on their sale items.

This has given me the idea of doing several posts on how I grocery shop. Whenever I give my Frugal Living presentation, many people are shocked at how little I spend on groceries every month. I have 2 teen aged girls and 1 teen aged boy plus my husband and myself to shop for. I spend an average of $575-600 a month on food for all of us. The USDA has a wonderful chart on how much people spend on food. Click on the latest month available and add up how much your family eats per week. Then find your plan - thrifty, low-cost, moderate cost or liberal. According to the chart, if we ate on the thrifty plan, we should be spending $733.20. Our food costs come in at least $133.20 under the USDA least expensive plan. How do I do this? Stay tuned and find out how!