My grocery bill is steadily climbing and I am not sure what to do. I make too much for SNAP. Any tips or tricks? It’s just me in my household, so would buying in bulk be worth it?
Edit: I want to thank everyone for their responses. I have a lot to think about.
Only buy in bulk what you can and WILL eat before it spoils. Staring into a cupboard that’s empty except for a huge box of something that seemed like a deal but now makes you gag is … a life lesson.
Since it’s just you, buy cooking vegetables frozen in bags, so you can take out one serving and don’t have to hurry to eat up the broccoli wilting in the fridge. Unlike canned, frozen veg keep their nutrients. Which you do need. Being unhealthy isn’t frugal.
This is the Sam Vimes boots theory in action.
Not criticising you, and you’re not wrong. However, buying in bulk suggests a) having the money to do, and b) having somewhere to store the bulk items.
Good point about frozen veggies. It’s also easier to portion out what you need compared to the binary state of a can of food.
When it comes to prepping, cans should be reserved for calorie and nutrient dense ingredients that benefit from canning anyways, like canned meats, condensed milk, sardines and shellfish, or ingredients that primarily come in canned form like diced or pureed tomatoes. Like frozen food they’re canned at peak freshness compared to store bought produce which has to be picked early to ripen in transit.
The biggest risk right now is food prices are going up due to inflation (plus corporate greed and food cartels like the meat cartel), but will soon be going up due to a lack of fertillizer globally due to the strait of Hormuz. Next year is going to be worse by far. With a lack of oil you might get rolling blackouts so be careful to not get too much frozen food…
A deep freezer can help though. You can freeze bags of water inside the deep freeze and as long as you don’t open it during a blackout it can last for a day or two (depending on how much water you freeze in there) to keep your stuff from going bad.
do note that fresh vegetables can be cheaper than frozen, depending on the season and where you live