If you are like us, you probably have a pretty well stocked pantry/freezer with the basics and spend all too much every week on groceries at the store. Now with the jumping cost of groceries it is becoming more important to be frugal. You know an apple (red delicious) now costs me more than a chocolate bar? Insane.
Anyway, maybe you already do it, if you do, leave me a comment, but the big opportunity here is making an mental inventory of your pantry items/freezer items and fridge items and write up a menu for the week. Put down anything you want on it. Now think of the mental inventory and try to see how much of it you can make with what you already have sitting at home. What is left is your shopping list. Add to it staples like milk and bread or cereal or whatever. You get the idea.
I used to throw away freezer burnt meat, expired food items in the pantry, etc. Now, I know generally what I have and plan my meals on what is in stock at home and buy as little as I can. When I started out doing this it seemed hard, now its pretty easy. Actually I think most of us could honestly eat for a month on what food we have just sitting at home as is. What if you had hardly any grocery bill for a month, then since you are sticking to your menu and only buying what you need, you save a ton. For us, we went from spending 150 a week to about 75 a week. That’s a 50% reduction, all in all about a 2000 dollar savings annually. Considering food prices have jumped about 10% or more on most things since I started this, its actually saving us more.
Then stick to sale items/generic brands, use coupons and so on and you can really bring it down. I used to waste so much money buying crap that I never ate.
Give it a try, what have you got to lose except some junk in the pantry. Good luck.