Frugal Foody, More Saving

With our little boy scheduled to arrive in January, we are looking for additional ways to save money and continue our financial improvement (it pays to keep track - our net worth grew by more than $6,000 in the last month! I never would have guessed if I didn't know).

Bob and I really, really, really love to eat. Seriously. We love food. And food, well, it loves to eat our money. Some months we may have even been known to spend as much as $3000 on our groceries and restaurants combined. Which is, frankly, absurd.

We have a commitment now about eating out (we mostly don't do it, except for special occasions), and have been attempting to spend less at the grocery store as well. Thought I would share a few Web sites and ideas I have come across in my efforts to find resources and support:

Finding Great Recipes: This seems to be an important element of staying inspired by home cooked meals for me. Recent Web sites I've found to make my mouth water include:

• What I'm Eating
• 101 Cookbooks - specifically this egg salad sandwich!
• One Frugal Foodie
• Happy Foody: Links to a post about frugal organic shopping. Love, love this woman's recipes and approach. She's in the process of roaming around the country with her husband and young daughter in an RV...
• And finally, a mouthwatering picture of strawberries on my friend Laurie's Blog

Big Batches of Food: When we're being smart, we do things like make Bob's rice & beans (recipe forthcoming) in massive quantities, then have them for lunches, avoiding the daily dilemma of either preparing lunch or eating out (I'm often running a little late out the door - preparing daily often fails for me). Several Web sites I've perused of late take this recommendation one step further and recommend a monthly or every other weekly big food prep day that ends with freezing some of the food. We'll have to try that.

Where We Shop: Most of what's out there on the Internets about frugality and food is geared toward coupon clipping and shopping at Costco. We're pretty strongly committed to fresh produce and food that is local and organic when possible. We don't frequent farmer's markets as much as we should, because they are a great way to do this cost-effectively. However, we have found that Wilson Farms in Lexington, MA, offers very inexpensive, high quality produce at a fraction of the price that major grocery stores do (including everything from Shaw's to Whole Checkbook, er, I mean Foods). The trick is not to get sucked into buying their pricier specialty items like amazing cheeses and baked goods and exotic mushrooms. The other main staple of our shopping trips is Trader Joe's. Love that even their frozen meals are actually just real meals, but frozen. High quality, minimal selection (for me a big plus since most grocery stores overwhelm the hell out of me), and very inexpensive.

We've done a few comparison shops from time to time. What we purchase on a weekly basis for between $100 and $200 tends to cost between $200 and $400 when we head to conventional grocery stores (again, mainstream or organic in focus).

I think maybe in the coming weeks and months, I'll blog some recipes we're trying and how we're doing with our commitment to reduce food expenses.