I prepare my list from dinner plans and from the on-line ads for the store. I have to plan for about 3 weeks of meals at a time and don't have a lot of space for storage, so, no, I don't over buy.

is a tape loop in my mother's voice I've never bothered to delete. It's served me well over the years.

The only way I'd have gone for those 6 borderline avocados is if there had been a potluck at work, then they'd have been guacamole.

Avocados don't freeze well and don't keep long, even laced with quarts of lime juice. They have to be gobbled down in a set period.

Now six boxes of slightly mushy strawberries would have been different. Those can be made into things that do keep.

Seriously though, I won't pass up a good bargain and I am guilty of over buying. After years though I have found the solution...

Take a week or two out of the month and buy nothing but just the perishables that you really really need and don't have on hand.

I shop the weekly sales and buy loss leaders and things that are on sale then I plan meals around that and what I have on hand. You need to use what's in your pantry and freezer. This way you can continue to shop for what is on sale in the future.

I have a large walk in pantry so I take a brief visual inventory every month so I am familiar with what I have. I realized things were going a little awry when I found I had 3 bottles of Korean Barbecue Sauce. It inspired me to curtail my visits to the grocer.

So I would have purchased the avocados and would have made guacamole for a Mexican themed dinner. I would have given extras to a neighbor or used them with eggs or on sandwiches the next day. I love avocados in potato salad, egg salad or tuna salad or even in a big green greek salad.

So look for creative uses for those sale items...But USE them!

OH! I just remembered...Avocados make a great facial or hair treatment!

I'll have to look for it. If I find it, I'll post it.

I shop mainly by sales, too. However, there are certain things I will get that are not on my list, if they are on some great clearance. Avocados are one of them. I wind up having to revamp any menu plans I had going in.

Organic ones generally cost about $1 each.

My MO:

- Shop the specials and make a list
- Use the list for what's needed, either specific meals or general kitchen stocks
- Don't cruise the aisles
- Get in and get out

Generally I walk to the store, so that limits my buying to what I can carry. When I have transportation I go for the bulk staples that are a good deal and have a long "shelf life" -
paper products, canned goods, frozen items, etc.

Plus, I don't really like shopping so that's been a good motivator for me.

week. So I can start planning a day ahead. We don't have a lot of storage space but I cannot physically lug home a humongous amount of canned items anyway.

Since the mfr's coupons that we get with our newspapers mirror what is on sale that week, I often get the sale plus coupon and that thrills me the most.

So other than careful planning, sticking to the list and using coupons, we don't do much else. Except stop buying certain items. Things I have given up: chewing gum, seltzers, supplements that my doc says I don't need. Of course, this doesn't offset the rise in food prices...I feel it is kind of a losing game...

When I see that kind of bargain on avocados, I cannot pass it up. I usually wind up making something like chilled avocado soup with them. Right now, I'm trying to figure out what I will do with 16 oz. of "baby" portabello mushrooms, which have been on a great deal at Aldi this week. I will probably saute them with some of the bell peppers I got, also at a price I couldn't pass up at Aldi. Or, I'll make mushroom soup.

Of course you need to have the shallots, butter and wine on hand....

But if you can find a great deal on mushrooms it's nice to have this in the freezer...


http://cookingfortwo.about.com/od/ingredients/r/duxelles.htm

Last edited Tue Feb 28, 2012, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

I have a fridge of impulse mushrooms and green peppers from aldis too!

I'm probably the worst of anyone in this thread. Last week I had the husband asking me "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH 40 BOXES OF CEREAL?!!!
Me: They were a dollar a box on sale with a $5 off 5 boxes coupon, you go through a box a week. Now you have cereal for 40 weeks.

Other epic purchases I'm made: 60 pounds of chicken legs at 25 cents/lb, 5 turkeys when they were 29 cents/lb at thanksgiving ... and I'm all over the marked down produce even when it means I have to eat 3 squashes a day for 5 days in a row. If there's a deal I'm all over it.

I jump all over deals, too. But, I don't have a freezer, so I can't take advantage of the kinds of turkey and chicken deals of which you do. I also live alone. The great thing about this group is that there are always ideas and recipes. Somebody mentioned making a quiche with yogurt. Well, along with the shrooms and peppers, I also got deals on plain Greek yogurt and eggs and cheese. Guess what I'll be making, minus the crust. I was going to make pepper and egg sandwiches, but this works even better. I can wrap a chunk of it in one of those closeout bargain low-carb tortillas I got a while back, and have a breakfast burrito.

...and I think you are really good at it, denn. It feels good to have full cupboards of food and the things a household really needs. It almost feels like a genetic imperative for me. Perhaps that comes from my grandparents who homesteaded on the Saskatchewan prairie in the early 1900s. I can only imagine how my grandmother -- who was a bookish, smallish woman -- was able to stock the cupboards for the long, long winter, or manage when a crop was eaten by grasshoppers. Maybe that's what makes me WANT to provision.

I don't live like that now, though. I don't have a lot of food storage area, and I shop nearly every day, buying specials and markdowns often. I generally have one or two suppers ahead. Otherwise it's same-day meal planning.

I'm bothered by the fact that you got in "trouble" for doing what is a household skill, Denn.

My parents were born during it. My grandma lived nearby, and between her influence and my parents', I have this disposition to "stock up" via sales and coupons. Without that, I don't know if I could survive this seemingly never-ending bout of unemployment. And, it surprises me that more people don't stock up as best they can. Especially given all the warnings about being prepared for disasters. And, even more so with the warnings that food prices will be increasing.

but when it comes to the crunch, I end up feeding a lot of them to my chickens. My daughter says this is still waste, since the chickens are happy with chicken feed and pasture and the vegetables were trucked in.

I shop from a list and try not to stray unless it's something I know I'll use or I'm low on and it'a super deal.

There was a deal last week on strawberries and bought 4 containers. Washed and cut 3, then tossed them in the freezer for smoothies.

I scan all the grocery fliers and check my "To Get" list to coordinate where the specials are before I head out. If I see an unadvertised special I'll buy it if I can freeze it or use it in the next few days. Otherwise, I pass.

I plan pretty carefully to avoid waste. For nights when I am at a meeting or don't feel like cooking, there are plenty of meals frozen from larger batched for DH to reheat.

So I really don't buy huge quantities of any one item.

I dig through cookbooks & magazines, pick out recipes and make my list.

...ends up in the compost. Unless it contains cheese or eggs (meat isn't an issue), that which is no longer usable is compost bait.

We dehydrate a lot of "good deal" foods when we know it is too much to eat before it goes bad. We use it all year long, and into subsequent years as well. Growing your own food gives you an appreciation of it that most people can't comprehend.

sounds like a big batch of guacamole to me! yum!

It had a heavy guac layer in there, about 2 inches thick.

Alas, I won't get in trouble today, the only thing on the Meijer discount rack was bananas for 33 cents a lb. I didn't need any bananas today.

Bananas freeze beautifully and make a wonderful Smoothie or Non Fat One Ingredient Banana "ice cream"

http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2011/08/19/one-ingredient-banana-ice-cream/

you need an elephant AND you have a penny.

but i do it. and every time i cook a big meal, there are no kids to be found. but cook a small meal, and a hoard of boy will appear as if by magic.
i am getting some chickens soon, and at least they will turn my shopping mistakes into eggs and meat.

As horrendous as those years were in some ways, I do miss the hungry horde.

they aren't teenagers any more, tho, and they need to get jobs!