The DU Lounge

to go out quite a bit, but no more (or for those unusual occasions, such as birthdays and such, we'll go out to like Golden Corral. But the thing about GC, is that you can't take leftovers home afterwards. So we go only on special occasions, which aren't too many.

Another thing to save on meals, is to have plenty on hand already made, that is, make casseroles (one or two of them), and if they are readily available, it's easy to grab and eat, and not go out, and a good casserole or two around will last a while too.

I know you said that you keep lots of meals in the freezer, but that means that you'll have to remember what you have in the freezer, and install the discipline to constantly go through the freezer and get stuff out or it'll freezer burn. My Mom and Dad had a deep freezer and large refridge, but to give them credit, they lived pretty far away from the store, so hard to just jump in the car and run and get something. So that's one reason to have a freezer. However, when they passed, it took my sister quite a while to finally empty their freezer. Tons and tons of food, too much I'd say, my Mom believed in sales and she took advantage of it. Don't go crazy on sales, restrain yourself too, buy what you use and/or need.

We don't buy meat in quantity either. It's either ham (sliced) or other sliced meats, you can make sandwiches or the like, or use in recipes for flavoring. If you buy those large Chinese meals where 1/2 the can is the veggies, and the other half is the meat, then I always cut off the meat portion and use it in some other recipe. The veggie portion I'll use later, perhaps adding some other component to it to add to it.

Of course Aldi's is one of our favorite stops, but I've noticed that other competitors are getting to the point of matching Aldi's price points too, so don't rule out the others (like in my area, we have Schnuck's too, which are getting pretty competitive and plus, I trust them too (Schnuck's)).

Stay away from chips (potatoe), snacks, cookies, etc. You can make your own cookies if you want, it doesn't take that long to make.
Since there is only two of us, shopping is fairly easy, thank goodness. And, we do like veggies, so there is nothing like having veggies simmered w/ butter to eat, very easy and simple to fix. We used to go to the farmer's market, but found that the veggies and such were usually picked over after a bit, and thus, weren't that great. Plus, where do you go if you have bad veggies? You can't get a refund for the veggie farmers are gone already for the week (our farmer's market in STLMO is only open mainly on Sat.), so you're out of luck, and plus, the so-called bonus in going to a farmer's market wasn't as good as I have been led to believe. Schnuck's, I can go anytime, and get refunds on my 'bad' veggies, which doesn't happen very often, but for those several times, I got my money back. Savings!