Myself, I was wondering how you keep you grocery expenses so low? Does the amount of participants keep your per person costs lower? We don't clip coupons, but our typical week of groceries consists of eggs, lots of fresh fruit and veg., some lunch meat and cheese for sandwiches, a pasta night, a farm raised salmon night, usually hamburger night, maybe a slow cooked brisket or pork roast, and sometimes eggs and bacon for dinner. The only way I know to lower costs is to eat more junk food. If you have any ideas we would be very appreciative.
This is a little long-winded, so please accept my apologies.
We shop MOSTLY at our local ACME. We don't drive to a lot of different stores to get their sale items. ACME usually will have the products that we eat on sale every 2-6 months. We also shop at BJ's wholesale 3-4 times a year.
We buy very little soda (about 6-8 twelve packs for the entire year), and a little juice (for the kiddos), although we only buy that on sale. We drink mostly water and/or milk. I drink close to 1 gallon every day during the week. And I also drink tea to change up drinking so much water.
Added: We look at the per unit price that ACME posts on their products (at least ours does). If it's an item that we'll use for some time, and the per unit price is smaller on the larger sized item, we'll buy that one even if the same smaller item is on sale but costs more per unit. A perfect example of this is ice cream, and also paper products. The larger items are often less expensive than the smaller size items.
We also receive some rewards from their coupon dispenser for money off of the products they sell. However, we try to buy mostly the items that are on sale. If they are something that we'll use for quite some time (paper products, cereal, or some meats), we'll purchase extra and store it in a cabinet (or freezer for the meats). So, if it's 2 for $5, we'll buy 4 of them (I just picked up some really good cantaloupe this morning). Or in the case of cereal, I'll pick it up when it's on sale for 4 for $10, or 5 for $10. As I mentioned, we're a large family (2 adults, 4 kids), so it's easier to buy a lot of these items and them not going bad.
Incidentally, we mostly eat turkey bacon. It's leaner and isn't as greasy as regular bacon. We do occasionally eat that, but it may be 3-4 time a year.
Like you, we also buy fresh fruit, vegetables with at least every meal (sometimes for lunch too). We eat Salmon at least 2 times a month, and we'll buy it fresh or farm raised (and frozen in the latter case). I need the Omega-3 to keep my good cholesterol up. I had a problem with both of my cholesterol measurements being too low. We also eat mostly chicken and/or turkey. This includes us having turkey burgers, and occasionally beef burgers. We also eat "rabbit food", you know salads. I add wheat germ to mine, and so does my wife and our youngest. It adds a little different taste and texture. We'll purchase shrimp and/or lobster (on rare occasion), when they are on sale. We usually get the shrimp with the skin on, since you can throw them into boiling water and it breaks the skin and deveins them almost instantly.
We jar our own tomatoes once a year (literally about 160-180 jars), but that helps to feed our family, and our in-laws for the entire year. They are 100% Italian (including my wife), so trust me I'm not a stranger to pasta (which we also buy on sale).
We do get other snacks though. Tubs of ice cream (it's a lot cheaper), cookies (Chips Ahoy are my favorite), chocolate (my biggest downfall), and yogurt.
Added: We eat ice cream about every 3-4 days. We have cookies about 2 times a week. I eat quite a bit of chocolate myself (about 8-10 pieces of chocolate every day).
I bring the left-overs to work for lunch. That works for now, but won't as the kids get older and start eating more because they'll be growing so quickly when they hit puberty.
