but pay some attention to how long something is 'good' and how quickly you use it up. No matter how cheap never buy more fresh fruits and veggies then you would use, unless your willing and able to can or freeze them. There's no price low enough to make a bargain of food that you wast.

Speaking of which, keep an marker next to the fridge and date leftovers and open jars and bottles. They should be placed in a highly visible area and used ASAP.

Save pasta and veggie water in the freezer along with any clean veggie leavings (clean peels, cabbage cores, the tough outer layers of some onions, etc... Use these to make soup stock which you can freeze 2 cups of at a time for later use.)

Check the unit price and purchase accordingly.

...(measured in weeks of expenses) balanced against canned and shelf stable food in the pantry. I Used anything I could save out of 1 week's pay in 4 to buy stuff that saves long term. The other 3 weeks would be aimed at savings. For example if I'm fortunate enough to have expenses of $300/week, make $350/week and have 3 weeks ($900) saved, one week per month I'll spend $50 (above that week's regular groceries) on adding discounted items to my pantry until I have 3 weeks of food to match my 3 weeks of savings. The idea is to balance what I add to my pantry with my savings. If I have 2 years worth of pork and beans in my pantry but only 2 months worth of expense money saved, I'll have no heat or electricity and have an eviction notice but be able to eat cold beans that keep in the trunk of my car which has no gas.

One thing that makes me happy is to go through my shelves and inventory how many meals I can make and, as long as I'm working and saving, splitting my excess with my local food bank or shelter. There's a church near me that helped when I was out of work for 5 months and I'm trying to get a box of stuff together for them.

We freeze a chicken carcass after roasting in a freezer bag to make soup. We have a food processor that slices so I have bags of sliced carrots, celery and onions in the freeze.

The unit price is what counts. One place we save is on pet food in 18 - 25 pound bags. It can be as much as 40% cheaper.

Thanks

stock btw there is a great idea, after reducing stock, freeze it in an icecube tray, then store those icecubes in a ziplock

easy dosage

yeah frequently unit price hurts and then hurts from other end because we can't afford storage

i like the prep planning there (beans in trunk of car)
have you checked surplus army stoves or coke can stoves? if you heat water in a pot with a can inside (waterbathing the can) they won't burn the beans

also like you mentioned elsewhere, if it's something you eat and you see it for sale..splurge if possible and stock up

i use a whiteboard (one of the cheap magnetic ones) on freezer

2 cups or reduce and use icecube tray when it's really concentrated :-p

I used to back when the Sunday papers still offered decent ones and became something of a coupon queen at the time. Nowadays though it's all kid's stuff and unhealthy crap with waaay to many shampoo and cosmetics ones in there. Does anyone happen to know any good sites to get them now? I'd really love to be able to save even half of what I used to back in the "good old days" of couponing in the 90s/early 2000s. Got so good at it back then that I was feeding a total of 2 adults and 1 child very, very well (almost 1%er well) on about $150/month, tops.
As of now I'm having a hard time feeding just myself on that as even the price for cheap raw ingredients for cooking from scratch has skyrocketed. It's ridiculous, commodities prices are down (hell, the entire f'ing market is), coupons now just generally suck and the food banks where I'm at are a freaking JOKE (and I'm currently in one of the richest counties in Texas, um yeah), Angel Food has gone out of business and I just barely don't qualify for food stamps. Oh, and I'm NOT a beans and rice person because I GREW UP poor and ate too much of it as a kid. I do eat as cheaply as possible, but I draw the line at eating cheap stuff I don't like as it just goes to the dog. So, WTF are we supposed to do? Sit here and quietly starve so the 1%ers can have another jar of caviar or a few more lobsters at lunch? Well, screw that! There's gotta be a better way...
Currently my only saving grace is Aldi's and I just love them to pieces. Excellent quality, truly low prices AND the more I spend there the less I HAVE to spend at Wal-Mart which is the next cheapest place to shop here. I hear they pay decent wages, too
I welcome anyone's input on how the new coupon grocery game works. Maybe we could even start some sort of electronic coupon club in this group if anyone's interested. Cheers!

I remember in the '90s you could find 12 oz packages of pasta on special sale 3 for $1 now they seem like they worked a miracle when 1 lb is under $1. I guess that's not so bad when when I look at my old college and tuition of today having increased to 8 times what it was over 35 years.

I would love to coupon but it seems to demand a level of organization we don't have here. We try to use them and plan trips but it's irregular. Finding a store that doubles would be a big help.

I love Aldi and hit their organic stuff a lot like the canned tomato products. My wife has a recurrence of cancer so we're trying to avoid stuff with certain additives. I get to Trader Joe's sometimes but their prices are too high on most things. We have a chain of stores here called Produce Junction and their prices are quite good. My wife and I like cucumber salad and it's filling.

I'll post here if I find any tips on couponing.

it seems to me android smart phones are pretty common (or iphones even)
(i know i made it a priority for me (android))

so
https://blog.mint.com/consumer-iq/the-5-best-couponing-apps-to-use-in-your-everyday-life-0413/
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/682-best-coupon-apps.html
the ones i've tried

retailmenot (nice but annoyed me with offers everyday..personal issue of ..don't do that)
grocery smarts...really nice
coupon sherpa, seemed nice but i couldn't take full advantage when i tried it, since i only had 'phone internet'


not coupon but related
cardstar (carry all store member cards bealls/cvs/walgreens/library barcode etc) as in one app

i pinned a thread on low resource veg gardening (even to point of window-boxes/boxen (?))

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1284220