On Jun 22, 4:21*pm, George Shirley > wrote:

> One thing I've done for years is to buy the store brand of canned
> whatever, usually they will stock canned goods with a prominent label,
> "No Salt Added."

We buy practically zero canned foods other than tomatoes for sauce.
Black beans if we're going to make burritos or something. Evaporated
milk for quiche.

> Reasonably priced meat can still be found. I frequent the "used meat"
> bin at the local Kroger. Stuff going off the "best by" date on the next
> day is marked down 20 to 50 percent dependent upon the cut.

This is good but pickings are slim. I bought some beef shanks the
other day, roasted them, and made beef stock in the slow cooker. And a
rump roast to cook rare and slice/marinate into Italian beef.

> I had been buying bison meat from Kroger, packaged by Maverick Ranch in
> Colorado. A few months back it was cheaper than store brand chuck, at
> about $5.99 a lb.

If store brand chuck isn't less than $4 a pound there is something
wrong with America. No idea where to get bison by me though. Even lamb
is scarce nowadays. Lamb stew meat sells for the price of top sirloin
beef.

> Two weeks ago I found it for $7.99 and last week it
> was $9.99. I think that probably reflects the transportation cost what
> with diesel and gasoline going up a lot.

Every meat was considerably cheaper in February/March than today -- I
just cleaned out the stack of reading material on my side of the bed.

>
> I occasionally find seven-bone chuck steaks, four to five lb ones, on
> sale in bulk. I buy them cheap and then repackage in vacuum bags for
> later use. When some of our large family comes to visit we have a big
> pot roast with lots of veggies, home made bread, and some sort of
> dessert from fruit we've canned ourselves. Feed eight or ten people a
> good meal for a reasonable price.

I grind chuck roast into hamburger meat because I have no faith in
what they put in it.


> Of course we're both retired now so we have the leisure to shop wisely.
> A friend hops from store to store buying stuff listed in the weekly
> grocery flyers. He spends more on gasoline than I would do but seems
> happy with it. I shop the one store and know where everything is and go
> straight to whichever aisle my computerized list tells me to go.

There are four supermarkets in a half-mile strip by me, including
Trader Joe's and Whole P. (which carries the bread I like). I get the
sale flyers and circle the things I want. I cherry pick what I want.
Bing bing bing. My wife shops one of the farmers markets on Sunday.

One of our weekend destinations is close to an Asian store with dirt
cheap, medium to good quality produce. There we'll get a stir-fry
vegetable, bean sprouts (good for the liver) and a Vietnamese baguette
for sub sandwiches. The bread keeps well in the freezer if we're not
going to eat it right away. I used to get cheap chicken legs at a
different Asian supermarket, but my wife thought they smelled too
gamey. So I avoid the meat section.

> I don't
> shop Walmart, they change the blasted aisles every other week to
> encourage impulse shopping.

I checked out the closest Walmart supercenter but there was nothing
special there.